Throughout the autumn the Duke had been an unhappy man.While the absolute work of the Session had lasted he had found something to console him; but now, though he was surrounded by private secretaries, and though dispatch boxes went and came twice a day, though there were dozens of letters as to which he had to give some instruction,--yet, there was in truth nothing for him to do.It seemed to him that all the real work of Government had been filched from him by his colleagues, and that he was stuck up in pretended authority,--a kind of wooden Prime Minister, from whom no real ministration was demanded.His first real fear had been that he was himself unfit;--but now he was uneasy, fearing that others thought him to be unfit.There was Mr Monk with his budget, and Lord Drummond with his three or four dozen half-rebellious colonies, and Sir Orlando Drought with the House to lead and a ship to build, and Phineas Finn with his scheme of municipal Home Rule for Ireland, and Lord Ramsden with a codified Statute Book,--all full of work, all with something special to be done.But for him,--he had to arrange who should attend the Queen, what ribbons should be given away, and what middle-aged young man should move the address.He sighed as he thought of those happy days in which he used to fear that his mind and body would both give way under the pressure of decimal coinage.
But Phineas Finn had read the Duke's character right in saying that he was neither gregarious nor communicative, and therefore but little fitted to rule Englishmen.He had thought that it was so himself, and now from day to day he was becoming more assured of his own deficiency.He could not throw himself into cordial relations with the Sir Orlando Droughts, or even the Mr Monks.
But, though he had never wished to be put into his present high office, now that he was there he dreaded the sense of failure which would follow his descent from it.It is this feeling rather than genuine ambition, rather than the love of power or patronage or pay, which induces men to cling to place.The absence of real work, and the quantity of mock work, both alike made the life wearisome to him; but he could not endure the idea that it should be written in history that he had allowed himself to be made a faineant Prime Minister, and than had failed even in that.History would forget what he had done as a working Minister in recording the feebleness of the Ministry which would bear his name.
The one man with whom he could talk freely, and from whom he could take advice, was now with him, here at his Castle.He was shy at first even with the Duke of St Bungay, but that shyness he could generally overcome, after a few words.But though he was always sure of his old friend's sympathy and of his friend's wisdom, yet he doubted his old friend's capacity to understand himself.The young Duke felt the old Duke to be thicker-skinned than himself and therefore unable to appreciate the thorns which so sorely worried his own flesh.'They talk to me about a policy,' said the host.They were closeted at this time in the Prime Minister's own sanctum, and there yet remained an hour before they need dress for dinner.
'Who talks about a policy?'
'Sir Orlando Drought especially.' For the Duke of Omnium had never forgotten the arrogance of that advice given in the park.
'Sir Orlando is of course entitled to speak, though I do not know that he is likely to say anything very well worth of hearing.
What is his special policy?'
'If he had any, of course, I would hear him.It is not that he wants any special thing to be done, but he thinks that I should get up some special thing in order that Parliament may be satisfied.'
'If you wanted to create a majority that might be true.Just listen to him and have done with it.'
'I cannot go on in that way.I cannot submit to what amounts to complaint from the gentlemen who are acting with me.Nor would they submit long to my silence.I am beginning to feel that Ihave been wrong.'
'I don't think you have been wrong at all.'
'A man is wrong if he attempts to carry a weight too great for his strength.'
'A certain nervous sensitiveness, from which you should free yourself as from a disease, is your only source of weakness.
Think about your business as a shoemaker thinks of his.Do your best, and then let your customers judge for themselves.Caveat emptor.A man should never endeavour to price himself, but should accept the price which others put on him,--only being careful that he should learn what that price is.Your policy should be to keep your government together by a strong majority.
After all, the making of new laws is too often but an unfortunate necessity laid on us by the impatience of the people.Alengthened period of quiet and therefore good government with a minimum of new laws would be the greatest benefit the country could receive.When I recommended you to comply with the Queen's behest I did so because I thought you might inaugurate such a period more certainly than any other one man.' This old Duke was quite content with the state of things such as he described.He had been a Cabinet Minister for more than half his life.He liked being a Cabinet Minister.He thought it well for the country generally that his party should be in power,--and if not his party in its entirety, then as much of his party as might be possible.He did not expect to be written of as Pitt or a Somers, but he thought that memoirs would speak of him as a useful nobleman,--and he was contented.He was not only not ambitious himself, but the effervescence and general turbulence of ambition in other men was distasteful to him, and the power of submitting to defeat without either shame or sorrow had become perfect with him by long practice.He would have made his brother Duke such as he was himself,--had not his brother Duke been so lamentably thin-skinned.
'I suppose we must try it for another Session?' said the Duke of Omnium with a lachrymose voice.