Page:Once a Week, Series 1, Volume II Dec 1859 to June 1860.pdf/197

 184 Money is the clothing of a gentleman: he may wear it well or ill. Some, you will mark, carry great quantities of it gracefully: some, with a stinted supply, present a decent appearance: very few, I imagine, will bear inspection, who are absolutely stripped of it. All, save the shameless, are toiling to escape that trial. My gentleman, treading the white highway across the solitary heaths, that swell far and wide to the moon, is, by the postillion, who has seen him, pronounced no sham. Nor do I think the opinion of any man worthless, who has had the postillion’s authority for speaking. But it is, I am told, a finer test to embellish much gentleman-apparel, than to walk with dignity totally unadorned. This simply tries the soundness of our faculties; that tempts them in erratic directions. It is the difference between active and passive excellence.

As there is hardly any situation, however, so interesting to reflect upon as that of a man without a penny in his pocket, and a gizzard full of pride, we will leave Mr. Evan Harrington to what fresh adventures may befall him, walking towards the funeral plumes of the firs, under the soft midsummer flush, westward, where his father lies.

gentleman who had spent his early life in those pleasant regions which lie immediately around the Primate’s residence in Lambeth, and at the Surrey end of Westminster Bridge, was asked who, in his opinion, was the most powerful man in the world? He replied, without a moment’s hesitation, “Mr. Norton, the Lambeth Beak.” From his own point of view, the boy was perfectly in the right. The worthy magistrate named was the Nemesis of his little world—omnipresent—omniscient—omnipotent.

I am inclined, however, to think that had this smutty young neophyte of civilisation enjoyed wider opportunities of observation; could he have enlarged the sphere of his mental vision so as to take in the territory and population comprised within the limits of the British empire—Scotland and Ireland excepted—he would have reconsidered his cruder and earlier decision. It may be that he would finally have agreed with me that, powerful and dreadful as Mr. Norton undoubtedly is, if we wish to arrive at a notion of incarnate omnipotence—always within the limits named— is the man.

What can —God bless her!—do to me, or for me, either of good or harm? I am not a courtier, nor in the way of preferment. What do I care for Lord Chancellor Campbell? I feel humbly, but deeply and unfeignedly, grateful to the All-wise Disposer of events that I have not, nor am I likely to have, one shilling in the world over which the gentlemen of the Chancery Bar can wrangle, and charge me eighteenpence for talking about it. The fifteen judges of the land—with the exception of those two sly Puisnes who, from time to time, clutch hold of awful Sir Cresswell’s mantle, and shine for an hour or two by borrowed light—are to me but as fifteen cabbages—or, let me rather say, regard being had to their head-dress—fifteen goodly cauliflowers. I am not a murderer, nor a burglar, nor a joint-stock-bank director, nor a family solicitor. As they pass me by in full assize majesty with their attendant javelin-men, I can put my hands in my pockets and hum, under their very parchment noses—

But, even as I say the word, my mind misgives me: not, as I before stated, that I care one button about their Nisi Prius trumpery—but, Flora dear! even as I pronounce thy beloved name, and my mind goes pleasantly lounging amongst pink bonnets of the sweetest kind—