THE WARDEN
CHAPTER XIV
Mount Olympus
Wretched in spirit, groaning under the feeling of insult,
self-condemning, and ill-satisfied in every way, Bold returned to
his London lodgings. Ill as he had fared in his inter-view with the
archdeacon, he was not the less under the necessity of carrying out
his pledge to Eleanor; and he went about his ungracious task with a
heavy heart.
The attorneys whom he had employed in London received his
instructions with surprise and evident misgiving; however, they
could only obey, and mutter something of their sorrow that such
heavy costs should only fall upon their own employer
—especially as nothing was wanting but perseverance to throw
them on the opposite party. Bold left the office which he had
latterly so much frequented, shaking the dust from off his feet;
and before he was down the stairs, an edict had already gone forth
for the preparation of the bill.
He next thought of the newspapers. The case had been taken up by
more than one; and he was well aware that the keynote had been
sounded by The Jupiter. He had been very intimate with Tom Towers,
and had often discussed with him the affairs of the hospital. Bold
could not say that the articles in that paper had been written at
his own instigation. He did not even know, as a fact, that they had
been written by his friend. Tom Towers had never said that such a
view of the case, or such a side in the dispute, would be taken by
the paper with which he was connected. Very discreet in such
matters was Tom Towers, and altogether indisposed to talk loosely
of the concerns of that mighty engine of which it was his high
privilege to move in secret some portion. Nevertheless Bold
believed that to him were owing those dreadful words which had
caused such panic at Barchester—and he conceived himself
bound to prevent their repetition. With this view he betook himself
from the attorneys’ to that laboratory where, with amazing
chemistry, Tom Towers compounded thunderbolts for the destruction
of all that is evil, and for the furtherance of all that is good,
in this and other hemispheres.
Who has not heard of Mount Olympus—that high abode of all
the powers of type, that favoured seat of the great goddess Pica,
that wondrous habitation of gods and devils, from whence, with
ceaseless hum of steam and never-ending flow of Castalian ink,
issue forth fifty thousand nightly edicts for the governance of a
subject nation?
Velvet and gilding do not make a throne, nor gold and jewels a
sceptre. It is a throne because the most exalted one sits
there—and a sceptre because the most mighty one wields it. So
it is with Mount Olympus. Should a stranger make his way thither at
dull noonday, or during the sleepy hours of the silent afternoon,
he would find no acknowledged temple of power and beauty, no
fitting fane for the great Thunderer, no proud facades and pillared
roofs to support the dignity of this greatest of earthly
potentates. To the outward and uninitiated eye, Mount Olympus is a
somewhat humble spot, undistinguished, unadorned—nay, almost
mean. It stands alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the
densest throng of men, but partaking neither of the noise nor the
crowd; a small secluded, dreary spot, tenanted, one would say, by
quite unambitious people at the easiest rents. ‘Is this Mount
Olympus?’ asks the unbelieving stranger. ‘Is it from
these small, dark, dingy buildings that those infallible laws
proceed which cabinets are called upon to obey; by which bishops
are to be guided, lords and commons controlled, judges instructed
in law, generals in strategy, admirals in naval tactics, and
orange-women in the management of their barrows?’ ‘Yes,
my friend—from these walls. From here issue the only known
infallible bulls for the guidance of British souls and bodies. This
little court is the Vatican of England. Here reigns a pope,
self-nominated, self-consecrated—ay, and much stranger
too—self-believing!—a pope whom, if you cannot obey
him, I would advise you to disobey as silently as possible; a pope
hitherto afraid of no Luther; a pope who manages his own
inquisition, who punishes unbelievers as no most skilful inquisitor
of Spain ever dreamt of doing—one who can excommunicate
thoroughly, fearfully, radically; put you beyond the pale of
men’s charity; make you odious to your dearest friends, and
turn you into a monster to be pointed at by the finger!’ Oh
heavens! and this is Mount Olympus!
It is a fact amazing to ordinary mortals that The Jupiter is
never wrong. With what endless care, with what unsparing labour, do
we not strive to get together for our great national council the
men most fitting to compose it. And how we fail! Parliament is
always wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how futile are their
meetings, how vain their council, how needless all their trouble!
With what pride do we regard our chief ministers, the great
servants of state, the oligarchs of the nation on whose wisdom we
lean, to whom we look for guidance in our difficulties! But what
are they to the writers of The Jupiter? They hold council together
and with anxious thought painfully elaborate their country’s
good; but when all is done, The Jupiter declares that all is
naught. Why should we look to Lord John Russell—why should we
regard Palmerston and Gladstone, when Tom Towers without a struggle
can put us right? Look at our generals, what faults they make; at
our admirals, how inactive they are. What money, honesty, and
science can do, is done; and yet how badly are our troops brought
together, fed, conveyed, clothed, armed, and managed. The most
excellent of our good men do their best to man our ships, with the
assistance of all possible external appliances; but in vain. All,
all is wrong—alas! alas! Tom Towers, and he alone, knows all
about it. Why, oh why, ye earthly ministers, why have ye not
followed more closely this heaven-sent messenger that is among
us?
Were it not well for us in our ignorance that we confided all
things to The Jupiter? Would it not be wise in us to abandon
useless talking, idle thinking, and profitless labour? Away with
majorities in the House of Commons, with verdicts from judicial
bench given after much delay, with doubtful laws, and the fallible
attempts of humanity! Does not The Jupiter, coming forth daily with
fifty thousand impressions full of unerring decision on every
mortal subject, set all matters sufficiently at rest? Is not Tom
Towers here, able to guide us and willing?
Yes indeed, able and willing to guide all men in all things, so
long as he is obeyed as autocrat should be obeyed—with
undoubting submission: only let not ungrateful ministers seek other
colleagues than those whom Tom Towers may approve; let church and
state, law and physic, commerce and agriculture, the arts of war,
and the arts of peace, all listen and obey, and all will be made
perfect. Has not Tom Towers an all-seeing eye? From the diggings of
Australia to those of California, right round the habitable globe,
does he not know, watch, and chronicle the doings of everyone? From
a bishopric in New Zealand to an unfortunate director of a
North-west passage, is he not the only fit judge of capability?
From the sewers of London to the Central Railway of India—
from the palaces of St Petersburg to the cabins of Connaught,
nothing can escape him. Britons have but to read, to obey, and be
blessed. None but the fools doubt the wisdom of The Jupiter; none
but the mad dispute its facts.
No established religion has ever been without its unbelievers,
even in the country where it is the most firmly fixed; no creed has
been without scoffers; no church has so prospered as to free itself
entirely from dissent. There are those who doubt The Jupiter! They
live and breathe the upper air, walking here unscathed, though
scorned—men, born of British mothers and nursed on English
milk, who scruple not to say that Mount Olympus has its price, that
Tom Towers can be bought for gold!
Such is Mount Olympus, the mouthpiece of all the wisdom of this
great country. It may probably be said that no place in this 19th
century is more worthy of notice. No treasury mandate armed with
the signatures of all the government has half the power of one of
those broad sheets, which fly forth from hence so abundantly, armed
with no signature at all.
Some great man, some mighty peer—we’ll say a noble
duke —retires to rest feared and honoured by all his
countrymen— fearless himself; if not a good man, at any rate
a mighty man —too mighty to care much what men may say about
his want of virtue. He rises in the morning degraded, mean, and
miserable; an object of men’s scorn, anxious only to retire
as quickly as may be to some German obscurity, some unseen Italian
privacy, or indeed, anywhere out of sight. What has made this awful
change? what has so afflicted him? An article has appeared in The
Jupiter; some fifty lines of a narrow column have destroyed all his
grace’s equanimity, and banished him for ever from the world.
No man knows who wrote the bitter words; the clubs talk confusedly
of the matter, whispering to each other this and that name; while
Tom Towers walks quietly along Pall Mall, with his coat buttoned
close against the east wind, as though he were a mortal man, and
not a god dispensing thunderbolts from Mount Olympus.
It was not to Mount Olympus that our friend Bold betook himself.
He had before now wandered round that lonely spot, thinking how
grand a thing it was to write articles for The Jupiter; considering
within himself whether by any stretch of the powers within him he
could ever come to such distinction; wondering how Tom Towers would
take any little humble offering of his talents; calculating that
Tom Towers himself must have once had a beginning, have once
doubted as to his own success. Towers could not have been born a
writer in The Jupiter. With such ideas, half ambitious and half
awe-struck, had Bold regarded the silent-looking workshop of the
gods; but he had never yet by word or sign attempted to influence
the slightest word of his unerring friend. On such a course was he
now intent; and not without much inward palpitation did he betake
himself to the quiet abode of wisdom, where Tom Towers was to be
found o’ mornings inhaling ambrosia and sipping nectar in the
shape of toast and tea.
Not far removed from Mount Olympus, but somewhat nearer to the
blessed regions of the West, is the most favoured abode of Themis.
Washed by the rich tide which now passes from the towers of Caesar
to Barry’s halls of eloquence; and again back, with new
offerings of a city’s tribute, from the palaces of peers to
the mart of merchants, stand those quiet walls which Law has
delighted to honour by its presence. What a world within a world is
the Temple! how quiet are its ‘entangled walks,’ as
someone lately has called them, and yet how close to the densest
concourse of humanity! how gravely respectable its sober alleys,
though removed but by a single step from the profanity of the
Strand and the low iniquity of Fleet Street! Old St Dunstan, with
its bell-smiting bludgeoners, has been removed; the ancient shops
with their faces full of pleasant history are passing away one by
one; the bar itself is to go—its doom has been pronounced by
The Jupiter; rumour tells us of some huge building that is to
appear in these latitudes dedicated to law, subversive of the
courts of Westminster, and antagonistic to the Rolls and
Lincoln’s Inn; but nothing yet threatens the silent beauty of
the Temple: it is the mediaeval court of the metropolis.
Here, on the choicest spot of this choice ground, stands a lofty
row of chambers, looking obliquely upon the sullied Thames; before
the windows, the lawn of the Temple Gardens stretches with that dim
yet delicious verdure so refreshing to the eyes of Londoners. If
doomed to live within the thickest of London smoke you would surely
say that that would be your chosen spot. Yes, you, you whom I now
address, my dear, middle-aged bachelor friend, can nowhere be so
well domiciled as here. No one here will ask whether you are out or
at home; alone or with friends; here no Sabbatarian will
investigate your Sundays, no censorious landlady will scrutinise
your empty bottle, no valetudinarian neighbour will complain of
late hours. If you love books, to what place are books so suitable?
The whole spot is redolent of typography. Would you worship the
Paphian goddess, the groves of Cyprus are not more taciturn than
those of the Temple. Wit and wine are always here, and always
together; the revels of the Temple are as those of polished Greece,
where the wildest worshipper of Bacchus never forgot the dignity of
the god whom he adored. Where can retirement be so complete as
here? where can you be so sure of all the pleasures of society?
It was here that Tom Towers lived, and cultivated with eminent
success the tenth Muse who now governs the periodical press. But
let it not be supposed that his chambers were such, or so
comfortless, as are frequently the gaunt abodes of legal aspirants.
Four chairs, a half-filled deal book-case with hangings of dingy
green baize, an old office table covered with dusty papers, which
are not moved once in six months, and an older Pembroke brother
with rickety legs, for all daily uses; a despatcher for the
preparation of lobsters and coffee, and an apparatus for the
cooking of toast and mutton chops; such utensils and luxuries as
these did not suffice for the well-being of Tom Towers. He indulged
in four rooms on the first floor, each of which was furnished, if
not with the splendour, with probably more than the comfort of
Stafford House. Every addition that science and art have lately
made to the luxuries of modern life was to be found there. The room
in which he usually sat was surrounded by book-shelves carefully
filled; nor was there a volume there which was not entitled to its
place in such a collection, both by its intrinsic worth and
exterior splendour: a pretty portable set of steps in one corner of
the room showed that those even on the higher shelves were intended
for use. The chamber contained but two works of art—the one,
an admirable bust of Sir Robert Peel, by Power, declared the
individual politics of our friend; and the other, a singularly long
figure of a female devotee, by Millais, told equally plainly the
school of art to which he was addicted. This picture was not hung,
as pictures usually are, against the wall; there was no inch of
wall vacant for such a purpose: it had a stand or desk erected for
its own accommodation; and there on her pedestal, framed and
glazed, stood the devotional lady looking intently at a lily as no
lady ever looked before.
Our modern artists, whom we style Pre–Raphaelites, have
delighted to go back, not only to the finish and peculiar manner,
but also to the subjects of the early painters. It is impossible to
give them too much praise for the elaborate perseverance with which
they have equalled the minute perfections of the masters from whom
they take their inspiration: nothing probably can exceed the
painting of some of these latter-day pictures. It is, however,
singular into what faults they fall as regards their subjects: they
are not quite content to take the old stock groups—a
Sebastian with his arrows, a Lucia with her eyes in a dish, a
Lorenzo with a gridiron, or the Virgin with two children. But they
are anything but happy in their change. As a rule, no figure should
be drawn in a position which it is impossible to suppose any figure
should maintain. The patient endurance of St Sebastian, the wild
ecstasy of St John in the Wilderness, the maternal love of the
Virgin, are feelings naturally portrayed by a fixed posture; but
the lady with the stiff back and bent neck, who looks at her
flower, and is still looking from hour to hour, gives us an idea of
pain without grace, and abstraction without a cause.
It was easy, from his rooms, to see that Tom Towers was a
Sybarite, though by no means an idle one. He was lingering over his
last cup of tea, surrounded by an ocean of newspapers, through
which he had been swimming, when John Bold’s card was brought
in by his tiger. This tiger never knew that his master was at home,
though he often knew that he was not, and thus Tom Towers was never
invaded but by his own consent. On this occasion, after twisting
the card twice in his fingers, he signified to his attendant imp
that he was visible; and the inner door was unbolted, and our
friend announced. I have before said that he of The Jupiter and
John Bold were intimate. There was no very great difference in
their ages, for Towers was still considerably under forty; and when
Bold had been attending the London hospitals, Towers, who was not
then the great man that he had since become, had been much with
him. Then they had often discussed together the objects of their
ambition and future prospects; then Tom Towers was struggling hard
to maintain himself, as a briefless barrister, by shorthand
reporting for any of the papers that would engage him; then he had
not dared to dream of writing leaders for The Jupiter, or
canvassing the conduct of Cabinet ministers. Things had altered
since that time: the briefless barrister was still briefless, but
he now despised briefs: could he have been sure of a judge’s
seat, he would hardly have left his present career. It is true he
wore no ermine, bore no outward marks of a world’s respect;
but with what a load of inward importance was he charged! It is
true his name appeared in no large capitals; on no wall was chalked
up ‘Tom Towers for ever’—‘Freedom of the
Press and Tom Towers’; but what member of Parliament had half
his power? It is true that in far-off provinces men did not talk
daily of Tom Towers but they read The Jupiter, and acknowledged
that without The Jupiter life was not worth having. This kind of
hidden but still conscious glory suited the nature of the man. He
loved to sit silent in a corner of his club and listen to the loud
chattering of politicians, and to think how they all were in his
power—how he could smite the loudest of them, were it worth
his while to raise his pen for such a purpose. He loved to watch
the great men of whom he daily wrote, and flatter himself that he
was greater than any of them. Each of them was responsible to his
country, each of them must answer if inquired into, each of them
must endure abuse with good humour, and insolence without anger.
But to whom was he, Tom Towers, responsible? No one could insult
him; no one could inquire into him. He could speak out withering
words, and no one could answer him: ministers courted him, though
perhaps they knew not his name; bishops feared him; judges doubted
their own verdicts unless he confirmed them; and generals, in their
councils of war, did not consider more deeply what the enemy would
do, than what The Jupiter would say. Tom Towers never boasted of
The Jupiter; he scarcely ever named the paper even to the most
intimate of his friends; he did not even wish to be spoken of as
connected with it; but he did not the less value his privileges, or
think the less of his own importance. It is probable that Tom
Towers considered himself the most powerful man in Europe; and so
he walked on from day to day, studiously striving to look a man,
but knowing within his breast that he was a god.