Phineas Finn | Page 8

turned away in disgust. Such language was to him
simply disgusting. It fell upon his ears as false maudlin sentiment falls
on the ears of the ordinary honest man of the world. Barrington Erle
was a man ordinarily honest. He would not have been untrue to his
mother's brother, William Mildmay, the great Whig Minister of the day,
for any earthly consideration. He was ready to work with wages or
without wages. He was really zealous in the cause, not asking very
much for himself. He had some undefined belief that it was much better
for the country that Mr. Mildmay should be in power than that Lord de
Terrier should be there. He was convinced that Liberal politics were
good for Englishmen, and that Liberal politics and the Mildmay party
were one and the same thing. It would be unfair to Barrington Erle to
deny to him some praise for patriotism. But he hated the very name of
independence in Parliament, and when he was told of any man, that that
man intended to look to measures and not to men, he regarded that man
as being both unstable as water and dishonest as the wind. No good
could possibly come from such a one, and much evil might and
probably would come. Such a politician was a Greek to Barrington Erle,
from whose hands he feared to accept even the gift of a vote.
Parliamentary hermits were distasteful to him, and dwellers in political
caves were regarded by him with aversion as being either knavish or
impractical. With a good Conservative opponent he could shake hands
almost as readily as with a good Whig ally; but the man who was
neither flesh nor fowl was odious to him. According to his theory of
parliamentary government, the House of Commons should be divided
by a marked line, and every member should be required to stand on one
side of it or on the other. "If not with me, at any rate be against me," he
would have said to every representative of the people in the name of the
great leader whom he followed. He thought that debates were good,
because of the people outside,--because they served to create that
public opinion which was hereafter to be used in creating some future
House of Commons; but he did not think it possible that any vote
should be given on a great question, either this way or that, as the result
of a debate; and he was certainly assured in his own opinion that any
such changing of votes would be dangerous, revolutionary, and almost
unparliamentary. A member's vote,--except on some small crotchety
open question thrown out for the amusement of crotchety

members,--was due to the leader of that member's party. Such was Mr.
Erle's idea of the English system of Parliament, and, lending
semi-official assistance as he did frequently to the introduction of
candidates into the House, he was naturally anxious that his candidates
should be candidates after his own heart. When, therefore, Phineas Finn
talked of measures and not men, Barrington Erle turned away in open
disgust. But he remembered the youth and extreme rawness of the lad,
and he remembered also the careers of other men.
Barrington Erle was forty, and experience had taught him something.
After a few seconds, he brought himself to think mildly of the young
man's vanity,--as of the vanity of a plunging colt who resents the liberty
even of a touch. "By the end of the first session the thong will be
cracked over his head, as he patiently assists in pulling the coach up hill,
without producing from him even a flick of his tail," said Barrington
Erle to an old parliamentary friend.
"If he were to come out after all on the wrong side," said the
parliamentary friend.
Erle admitted that such a trick as that would be unpleasant, but he
thought that old Lord Tulia was hardly equal to so clever a stratagem.
Phineas went to Ireland, and walked over the course at Loughshane. He
called upon Lord Tulla, and heard that venerable nobleman talk a great
deal of nonsense. To tell the truth of Phineas, I must confess that he
wished to talk the nonsense himself; but the Earl would not hear him,
and put him down very quickly. "We won't discuss politics, if you
please, Mr. Finn; because, as I have already said, I am throwing aside
all political considerations." Phineas, therefore, was not allowed to
express his views on the government of the country in the Earl's
sitting-room at Castlemorris. There was, however, a good time coming;
and so, for the present, he allowed the Earl to ramble on about the sins
of his brother George, and the want of all proper pedigree on the part of