Friends in Council

Friends in Council (1st series)

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Title: Friends in Council (First Series)
Author: Sir Arthur Helps
Release Date: February, 2005 [EBook #7438] [This file was first
posted on April 30, 2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK, FRIENDS
IN COUNCIL (FIRST SERIES) ***

This etext was produced by Les Bowler, St. Ives, Dorset.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL (First Series) BY SIR ARTHUR HELPS.

INTRODUCTION BY HENRY MORLEY.

Arthur Helps was born at Streatham on the 10th of July, 1813. He went
at the age of sixteen to Eton, thence to Trinity College, Cambridge.
Having graduated B.A. in 1835, he became private secretary to the Hon.
T. Spring Rice, who was Chancellor of the Exchequer in Lord
Melbourne's Cabinet, formed in April, 1835. This was his position at
the beginning of the present reign in June, 1837.
In 1839--in which year he graduated M.A.--Arthur Helps was
transferred to the service of Lord Morpeth, who was Irish Secretary in
the same ministry. Lord Melbourne's Ministry was succeeded by that of
Sir Robert Peel in September, 1841, and Helps then was appointed a
Commissioner of French, Danish, and Spanish Claims. In 1841 he
published "Essays Written in the Intervals of Business." Their quiet
thoughtfulness was in accord with the spirit that had given value to his
services as private secretary to two ministers of State. In 1844 that little
book was followed by another on "The Claims of Labour," dealing with
the relations of employers to employed. There was the same scholarly
simplicity and grace of style, the same interest in things worth serious
attention. "We say," he wrote, towards the close, "that Kings are God's
Vicegerents upon Earth; but almost every human being has, at one time
or other of his life, a portion of the happiness of those around him in his
power, which might make him tremble, if he did but see it in all its
fulness." To this book Arthur Helps added an essay "On the Means of
Improving the Health and Increasing the Comfort of the Labouring
Classes."
His next book was this First Series of "Friends in Council," published

in 1847, and followed by other series in later years. There were many
other writings of his, less popular than they would have been if the
same abilities had been controlled by less good taste. His "History of
the Conquest of the New World" in 1848, and of "The Spanish
Conquest of America," in four volumes, from 1855 to 1861, preceded
his obtaining from his University, in 1864, the honorary degree of
D.C.L. In June, 1860, Arthur Helps was made Clerk of the Privy
Council, and held that office of high trust until his death on the 7th of
March, 1875. He had become Sir Arthur in 1872. H. M.

FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.

CHAPTER I.

None but those who, like myself, have once lived in intellectual society,
and then have been deprived of it for years, can appreciate the delight
of finding it again. Not that I have any right to complain, if I were fated
to live as a recluse for ever. I can add little, or nothing, to the pleasure
of any company; I like to listen rather than to talk; and when anything
apposite does occur to me, it is generally the day after the conversation
has taken place. I do not, however, love good talk the less for these
defects of mine; and I console myself with thinking that I sustain the
part of a judicious listener, not always an easy one.
Great, then, was my delight at hearing last year that my old pupil,
Milverton, had taken a house which had long been vacant in our
neighbourhood. To add to my pleasure, his college friend, Ellesmere,
the great lawyer, also an old pupil