The Prime Minister | Page 4

in their time. No
doubt we all entertain great respect for those who by their own energies
have raised themselves in the world; and when we hear that the son of a
washerwoman has become Lord Chancellor or Archbishop of
Canterbury we do, theoretically and abstractedly, feel a higher
reverence for such self-made magnate than for one who has been as it
were born into forensic or ecclesiastical purple. But not the less must
the offspring of the washerwoman have had very much trouble on the
subject of his birth, unless he has been, when young as well as when
old, a very great man indeed. After the goal has been absolutely
reached, and the honour and the titles and the wealth actually won, a
man may talk with some humour, even with some affection, of the
maternal tub;--but while the struggle is going on, with the conviction
strong upon the struggler that he cannot be altogether successful unless
he be esteemed a gentleman, not to be ashamed, not to conceal the old
family circumstances, not at any rate to be silent, is difficult. And the
difficulty is certainly not less if fortunate circumstances rather than
hard work and intrinsic merit have raised above his natural place an

aspirant to high social position. Can it be expected that such a one
when dining with a duchess shall speak of his father's small shop, or
bring into the light of day his grandfather's cobbler's awl? And yet it is
so difficult to be altogether silent! It may not be necessary for any of us
to be always talking of our own parentage. We may be generally
reticent as to our uncles and aunts, and may drop even our brothers and
sisters in our ordinary conversation. But if a man never mentions his
belongings among those with whom he lives, he becomes mysterious,
and almost open to suspicion. It begins to be known that nobody knows
anything of such a man, and even friends become afraid. It is certainly
convenient to be able to allude, if it be but once in a year, to some
blood relation.
Ferdinand Lopez, who in other respects had much in his circumstances
on which to congratulate himself, suffered trouble in his mind
respecting his ancestors such as I have endeavoured to describe. He did
not know very much himself, but what little he did know he kept
altogether to himself. He had no father or mother, no uncle, aunt,
brother or sister, no cousin even whom he could mention in a cursory
way to his dearest friend. He suffered no doubt;--but with Spartan
consistency he so hid his trouble from the world that no one knew that
he suffered. Those with whom he lived, and who speculated often and
wondered much as to who he was never dreamed that the silent man's
reticence was a burden to himself. At no special conjuncture of his life,
at no period which could be marked with the finger of the observer, did
he glaringly abstain from any statement which at the moment might be
natural. He never hesitated, blushed, or palpably laboured at
concealment; but the fact remained that though a great many men and
not a few women knew Ferdinand Lopez very well, none of them knew
whence he had come, or what was his family.
He was a man, however, naturally reticent, who never alluded to his
own affairs unless in pursuit of some object the way to which was clear
before his eyes. Silence therefore on a matter which is common in the
mouths of most men was less difficult to him than to another, and the
result less embarrassing. Dear old Jones, who tells his friends at the
club of every pound that he loses or wins at the races, who boasts of

Mary's favours and mourns over Lucy's coldness almost in public, who
issues bulletins on the state of his purse, his stomach, his stable, and his
debts, could not with any amount of care keep from us the fact that his
father was an attorney's clerk, and made his first money by discounting
small bills. Everybody knows it, and Jones, who like popularity,
grieves at the unfortunate publicity. But Jones is relieved from a burden
which would have broken his poor shoulders, and which even
Ferdinand Lopez, who is a strong man, often finds it hard to bear
without wincing.
It was admitted on all sides that Ferdinand Lopez was a 'gentleman'.
Johnson says that any other derivation of this difficult word than that
which causes it to signify 'a man of ancestry' is whimsical. There are
many who, in defining the term for their own use, still adhere to
Johnson's dictum;--but they adhere to it with certain unexpressed
allowances for possible exceptions. The chances