Page:What Will He Do With It? - Routledge - Volume 1.djvu/404

 an intense magnifier—his proportions swell; they become gigantic. At that moment the public wanted some man; and the instant the hint was given, "Why not Guy Darrell?" Guy Darrell was seized upon as the man wanted. It was one of those times in our Parliamentary history when the public are out of temper with all parties; when recognized leaders have contrived to damage themselves; when a Cabinet is shaking, and the public neither care to destroy nor to keep it,—a time too, when the country seemed in some danger, and when, mere men of business held unequal to the emergency, whatever name suggested associations of vigour, eloquence, genius rose to a premium above its market price in times of tranquillity and tape. Without effort of his own, by the mere force of the undercurrent, Guy Darrell was thrown up from oblivion into note. He could not form a Cabinet, certainly not; but he might help to bring a Cabinet together, reconcile jarring elements, adjust disputed questions, take in such government some high place, influence its councils, and delight a public weary of the oratory of the day with the eloquence of a former race. For the public is ever a _laudator temporis acti_, and whatever the authors or the orators immediately before it, were those authors and orators Homers and Ciceros, would still shake a disparaging head, and talk of these degenerate days as Homer himself talked ages before Leonidas stood in the pass of Thermopylae, or Miltiades routed Asian armaments at Marathon. Guy Darrell belonged to a former race. The fathers of those young members rising now into fame had quoted to their sons his pithy sentences, his vivid images; and added, as Fox added when quoting Burke, "But you should have heard and seen the man!"

Heard and seen the man! But there he was again! come up as from a grave,—come up to the public just when such a man was wanted. Wanted how? wanted where? Oh, somehow and somewhere! There he is! make the most of him. The house in Carlton Gardens is prepared, the establishment mounted. Thither flock all the Viponts, nor they alone; all the chiefs of all parties, nor they alone; all the notabilities of our grand metropolis. Guy Darrell might be startled at his own position; but he comprehended its nature, and it did not discompose his nerves. He knew public life well enough to be aware how much the popular favour is the creature of an accident. By chance he had nicked the time;