The idea once started, there were plenty who improved upon it. The Corporation at their meetings incidentally alluded to the matter, and it was delicately suggested that Sternhold would crown his memory with ineffable glory if he devised his vast estate to the city. Such a bequest in a few years would make the place absolutely free from taxation. The rents would meet poor’s-rates, gas-rates, water-rates, sanitary-rates, and all. One gentleman read an elaborate series of statistics, proving that the income from the property, when once the building leases fell in, would not only free the city from local, but almost, if not quite, from imperial taxation. There were many instances in history of kings, as rewards for great services, issuing an order that certain towns should be exempt from the payment of taxes for a series of years. Sternhold had it thus in his power to display really regal munificence.
Other gentlemen of more radical leanings cried “Shame!” on the mere fact of one man being permitted to attain such powers. It was absurd for one man to possess such gigantic wealth, and for several hundred thousand to live from hand to mouth. The people should share it, not as a gift, but as a right; it should be seized for the benefit of the community.
The Corporation people were much too knowing to talk like this. They went to work in a clever way. First, they contrived various great banquets, to which Sternhold was invited, and at which he was put in the seat of honour and lauded to the skies. Next, they formed a committee and erected a statue in a prominent place to the founder of Stirmingham, and unveiled it with immense ceremony. Certain funds had been previously set apart for the building of a public library; this being completed about that time, was named the Sternhold Institute. An open space or “park,” which the Corporation had been obliged to provide for the seething multitudes who were so closely crowded together, was called the Sternhold Public Park. Yet Sternhold never subscribed a farthing to either of these.
Nothing was left undone to turn his head. His portrait, life-size, painted in oil, was hung up in the Council-hall; medals were struck to commemorate his birthday. The Corporation were not alone in their endeavours; other disinterested parties were hard at work. Most energetic of all were the religious people. Chapel projectors, preachers, church extension societies, missionary associations, flew at his throat. His letter-box was flooded; his door was forever resounding with knocking and ringing. The sound of the true clerical nasal twang was never silent in his anteroom. The hospitals came down on him flat in one lump, more particularly those establishments which publicly boast that they never solicit assistance, and are supported by voluntary contributions caused by prayer.
The dodge is to publish the fact as loudly as possible. To proclaim that the institution urgently wants a few thousands is not begging. A list of all the charities that recommended themselves to his notice would fill three chapters: then the patentees—the literary people who were prepared to write memoirs, biographies, etc.—would have to be omitted.
Now here is a singular paradox. If a poor wretched mortal, barely clothed in rags, his shoes off his feet, starring with hunger, houseless, homeless, who hath not where to lay his head, asks you for a copper, it means seven days’ imprisonment as a rogue. If all the clergymen and ministers, the secretaries, and so forth, come in crowds begging for hundreds and thousands, it is meritorious, and is applauded.
Now this is worthy of study as a phenomenon of society. But these were not all. Sternhold had another class of applicants, whom we will not call ladies, or even women, but females (what a hateful word female is), who approached him pretty much as the Shah was approached by every post while in London and Paris.
He was deluged with photographs of females. Not disreputable characters either—not of Drury Lane or Haymarket distinction, but of that class who use the columns of the newspapers to advertise their matrimonial propensities. Tall, short, dark, light, stout, thin, they poured in upon him by hundreds; all ready, willing, and waiting.
Most were “thoroughly domesticated and musical;” some were penetrated with the serious responsibilities of the position of a wife; others were filled with hopes of the life to come (having failed in this).
Some men would have enjoyed all this; some would have smiled; others would have flung the lot into the wastebasket. Sternhold was too methodical and too much imbued with business habits to take anything as a good joke. He read every letter, looked at every photograph, numbered and docketed them, and carefully put them away.
Other efforts were made to get at him. He had parasites—men who hung on him—lickspittles. To a certain extent he yielded to the titillation of incessant laudation; and, if he did not encourage, did not repel them. They never ceased to fan his now predominant vanity. They argued that the Corporation and all the rest were influenced by selfish motives (which was true). They begged him not to forget what was due to himself—not to annihilate and obliterate himself. It was true he was aged; but aged men—especially men who had led temperate lives like himself—frequently had children. In plain words, they one and all persuaded him to marry; and they one and all had a petticoated friend who would just suit him.
Sternhold seemed very impassive and immoveable; but the fact was that all this had stirred him deeply. He began to seriously contemplate marriage. He brooded over the idea. He was not a sentimental man; he had not even a spark of what is called human nature in the sense of desiring to see merry children playing around him. But he looked upon himself as a mighty monarch; and as
