Angels Ministers

Angels & Ministers

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Angels & Ministers, by Laurence Housman This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.net
Title: Angels & Ministers
Author: Laurence Housman
Release Date: February 10, 2004 [EBook #11020]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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ANGELS AND MINISTERS
AND OTHER VICTORIAN PLAYS
by
LAURENCE HOUSMAN

Angels and Ministers AND Possession WERE FIRST

Introduction
The Victorian era has ceased to be a thing of yesterday; it has become history; and the fixed look of age, no longer contemporary in character, which now grades the period, grades also the once living material which went to its making.
With this period of history those who were once participants in its life can deal more intimately and with more verisimilitude than can those whose literary outlook comes later. We can write of it as no sequent generation will find possible; for we are bone of its bone and flesh of its flesh; and when we go, something goes with us which will require for its reconstruction, not the natural piety of a returned native, such as I claim to be, but the cold, calculating art of literary excursionists whose domicile is elsewhere.
Some while ago, before Mr. Strachey had made the name of Victoria to resound as triumphantly as it does now, a friend asked why I should trouble to resuscitate these Victorian remains. My answer is because I myself am Victorian, and because the Victorianism to which I belong is now passing so rapidly into history, henceforth to present to the world a colder aspect than that which endears it to my own mind.
The bloom upon the grape only fully appears when it is ripe for death. Then, at a touch, it passes, delicate and evanescent as the frailest blossoms of spring. Just at this moment the Victorian age has that bloom upon it--autumnal, not spring-like--which, in the nature of things, cannot last. That bloom I have tried to illumine before time wipes it away.
Under this rose-shaded lamp of history, domestically designed, I would have these old characters look young again, or not at least as though they belonged to another age. This wick which I have kindled is short, and will not last; but, so long as it does, it throws on them the commentary of a contemporary light. In another generation the bloom which it seeks to irradiate will be gone; nor will anyone then be able to present them to us as they really were.

Contents
PART ONE: ANGELS AND MINISTERS
I. THE QUEEN: GOD BLESS HER! (A Scene from Home-Life in the Highlands)
II. HIS FAVOURITE FLOWER (A Political Myth Explained)
III. THE COMFORTER (A Political Finale)
PART TWO
IV. POSSESSION (A Peep-Show in Paradise)
PART THREE: DETHRONEMENTS
V. THE KING-MAKER (Brighton--October, 1891)
VI. THE MAN OF BUSINESS (Highbury--August, 1913)
VII. THE INSTRUMENT (Washington--March, 1921)

Part One: Angels and Ministers
The Queen: God Bless Her!
Dramatis Personae
QUEEN VICTORIA LORD BEACONSFIELD MR. JOHN BROWN A FOOTMAN

The Queen: God Bless Her!
A Scene from Home-Life in the Highlands
_The august Lady is sitting in a garden-tent on the lawn of Balmoral Castle. Her parasol leans beside her. Writing-materials are on the table before her, and a small fan, for it is hot weather; also a dish of peaches. Sunlight suffuses the tent interior, softening the round contours of the face, and caressing pleasantly the small plump hand busy at letter-writing. The even flow of her penmanship is suddenly disturbed; picking up her parasol, she indulgently beats some unseen object, lying concealed against her skirts_.
QUEEN. No: don't scratch! Naughty! Naughty!
(_She then picks up a hand-bell, rings it, and continues her writing. Presently a fine figure of a man in Highland costume appears in the tent-door. He waits awhile, then speaks in the strong Doric of his native wilds_.)
MR. J. BROWN. Was your Majesty wanting anything, or were you ringing only for the fun?
(_To this brusque delivery her Majesty responds with a cosy smile, for the special function of Mr. John Brown is not to be a courtier; and, knowing what is expected of him, he lives up to it_.)
QUEEN. Bring another chair, Brown. And take Mop with you: he wants his walk.
MR. J.B. What kind of a chair are you wanting, Ma'am? Is it to put your feet on?
QUEEN. No, no. It is to put a visitor on. Choose a nice one with a lean-back.
MR. J.B. With a lean back? Ho! Ye mean one that you can lean back in. What talk folk will bring with them from up south, to be sure! Yes, I'll get it for ye, Ma'am. Come, Mop, be a braw little