第64章

'So much for myself. And let me, as I go, say a parting word to him with whom in politics I have been for many years more in accord than with any other leading man. As nothing but age or infirmity would to my own mind have justified me in retiring, so do I think that you, who can plead neither age nor infirmity, will find yourself at last to want self-justification, if you permit yourself to be driven from the task either by pride or indifference.

'I should express my feelings better if were I to say by pride and diffidence. I look to our friendship, to the authority given me by my age, and to the thorough goodness of your heart for pardon in thus accusing you. That little men should have ventured to ill-use you, has hurt your pride. That these little men should have been able to do so has created your diffidence. Put you to a piece of work that a man may do, you have less false pride as to the way in which you may do it than any man I have known; and, let the way be open to you, as little diffidence as any. But in this political mill of ours in England, a man cannot always find the way open to do things. It does not often happen that an English statesman can go in and make a great score off his own bat. But not the less is he bound to play the game and to go to the wicket when he finds that his time has come.

'There are, I think, two things for you to consider in this matter, and two only. The first is your capacity, and the other is your duty. A man may have found by experience that he is unfitted for public life. You and I have known men in regard to whom we have thoroughly wished that such experience had been reached. But this is a matter in which a man who doubts himself is bound to take the evidence of those around him. The whole party is most anxious for your co-operation. If this be so,--and I make you the assurance from most conclusive evidence,--you are bound to accept the common consent of your political friends on that matter. You perhaps think that a certain period of your life you failed. They all agree with me that you did not fail. It is a matter on which you should be bound by our opinion rather than by your own.

'As to that matter of duty, I shall have less difficulty in carrying you with me. Though this renewed task may be personally disagreeable to you, even though your tastes should lead you to some other life,--which I think is not the case,--still if your country wants you, you should serve your country. It is a work as to which such a one as you has no option. Of most of those who choose public life,--it may be said that were they not there, there would be others as serviceable. But when a man such as you, has shown himself to be necessary, as long as health and age permit, he cannot recede without breach of manifest duty. The work to be done is so important, the numbers to be benefited are so great, that he cannot be justified in even remembering that he has a self.

'As I have said before, I trust that my own age and your goodness will induce you to pardon this great interference. But whether pardoned or not I shall always be 'Your most affectionate friend, 'ST BUNGAY.'

The Duke,--our Duke,--on reading this letter was by no means pleased by its contents. He could ill bear to be reminded either of his pride or of his diffidence. And yet the accusations which others made against him were as nothing to those which he charged himself. He would do this till at last he was forced to defend himself against himself by asking himself whether he could be other than as God had made him. It is the last and poorest makeshift of a defence to which a man can be brought in his own court! Was it his fault that he was so thin-skinned that all things hurt him? When some coarse man said to him that which ought not to have been said, was it his fault that at every word a penknife had stabbed him? Other men had borne these buffets without shrinking, and had shown themselves thereby to be more useful, much more efficacious; but he could no more imitate them than he could procure for himself the skin of a rhinoceros, or the tusk of an elephant. And this shrinking was what man called pride,--was the pride of which his old friend wrote! 'Have I ever been haughty, unless in my own defence?' he asked himself, remembering certain passages of humility in his life,--and certain passages of haughtiness also.

And the Duke told him also that he was diffident. Of course he was diffident. Was it not one and the same thing? The very pride of which he was accused was no more than a shrinking which comes from the want of trust in oneself. He was a shy man. All his friends and all his enemies knew that;--it was thus that he still discoursed with himself;--a shy, self-conscious, timid, shrinking, thin-skinned man! Of course he was diffident. Then why urge him on to tasks for which he was by nature unfitted?

And yet there was much in his old friend's letter which moved him.

There were certain words which he kept on repeating to himself.

'He cannot be justified in even remembering that he has a self'.