Northern counties. But you will understand all about that.
Yours, ever faithfully,
BARRINGTON ERLE.
Of course Tankerville has been dirty. Browborough has spent a fortune
there. But I do not think that that need dishearten you. You will go
there with clean hands. It must be understood that there shall not be as
much as a glass of beer. I am told that the fellows won't vote for
Browborough unless he spends money, and I fancy he will be afraid to
do it heavily after all that has come and gone. If he does you'll have
him out on a petition. Let us have an answer as soon as possible.
He at once resolved that he would go over and see; but, before he
replied to Erle's letter, he walked half-a-dozen times the length of the
pier at Kingston meditating on his answer. He had no one belonging to
him. He had been deprived of his young bride, and left desolate. He
could ruin no one but himself. Where could there be a man in all the
world who had a more perfect right to play a trick with his own
prospects? If he threw up his place and spent all his money, who could
blame him? Nevertheless, he did tell himself that, when he should have
thrown up his place and spent all his money, there would remain to him
his own self to be disposed of in a manner that might be very awkward
to him. A man owes it to his country, to his friends, even to his
acquaintance, that he shall not be known to be going about wanting a
dinner, with never a coin in his pocket. It is very well for a man to
boast that he is lord of himself, and that having no ties he may do as he
pleases with that possession. But it is a possession of which,
unfortunately, he cannot rid himself when he finds that there is nothing
advantageous to be done with it. Doubtless there is a way of riddance.
There is the bare bodkin. Or a man may fall overboard between
Holyhead and Kingston in the dark, and may do it in such a cunning
fashion that his friends shall think that it was an accident. But against
these modes of riddance there is a canon set, which some men still fear
to disobey.
The thing that he was asked to do was perilous. Standing in his present
niche of vantage he was at least safe. And added to his safety there
were material comforts. He had more than enough for his wants. His
work was light: he lived among men and women with whom he was
popular. The very fact of his past parliamentary life had caused him to
be regarded as a man of some note among the notables of the Irish
capital. Lord Lieutenants were gracious to him, and the wives of judges
smiled upon him at their tables. He was encouraged to talk of those
wars of the gods at which he had been present, and was so treated as to
make him feel that he was somebody in the world of Dublin. Now he
was invited to give all this up; and for what?
He answered that question to himself with enthusiastic eloquence. The
reward offered to him was the thing which in all the world he liked best.
It was suggested to him that he should again have within his reach that
parliamentary renown which had once been the very breath of his
nostrils. We all know those arguments and quotations, antagonistic to
prudence, with which a man fortifies himself in rashness. "None but the
brave deserve the fair." "Where there's a will there's a way." "Nothing
venture nothing have." "The sword is to him who can use it." "Fortune
favours the bold!" But on the other side there is just as much to be said.
"A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." "Look before you leap."
"Thrust not out your hand further than you can draw it back again." All
which maxims of life Phineas Finn revolved within his own heart, if
not carefully, at least frequently, as he walked up and down the long
pier of Kingston Harbour.
But what matter such revolvings? A man placed as was our Phineas
always does that which most pleases him at the moment, being but poor
at argument if he cannot carry the weight to that side which best
satisfies his own feelings. Had not his success been very great when he
before made the attempt? Was he not well aware at every moment of
his life that, after having so thoroughly learned his lesson in London, he
was throwing away his hours amidst his present pursuits in Dublin?
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