That men, each in the same likeness, clad alike, speaking the same tongue, living in the same neighbourhood, should be ready to treat each other as blocks of timber to be kicked, pushed, shoved, and thrust about, was inexplicable to her.
The first view of an excited public meeting is very puzzling and disappointing to a mind accustomed to study and to hold opinions without rancour.
Felise felt hurt at the spectacle. It was not right. There was not the least necessity for this roughness—no cause whatever. It seemed to lower humanity.
“This is mildness itself, as yet,” said Mr. Goring, replying to her. “I remember scenes at elections thirty years ago which made one’s blood curdle. The brutality used to be rather encouraged. The more brutal you could be the better you were esteemed. Now you see why the ballot is such an advance; people can honestly express their views without this personal violence.”
“Is it quite safe for Martial?” asked Felise, anxious about him; the roar of the surging crowd seemed to threaten him most, because it was of him she thought.
“Not the least danger at present.”
“I wish he would leave the platform,” said Felise. “I do not like it; these people seem as if they would crush anyone who displeased them.”
Ostensibly the meeting had been called for two objects: first, for the formation of a Society for the Encouragement of Art Culture in the Homes of the Poor; secondly, for the presentation of a testimonial to Cornleigh Cornleigh, Esq., on the completion of his twenty-fifth year of Parliamentary service. In reality it was the commencement of a series of operations designed to raise up and unite the supporters of Cornleigh Cornleigh, and the cause he represented.
It had long been felt in the select circle that worked the party thereabouts that something must be done. A certain amount of apathy had manifested itself even among the farmers; they did not exactly say so, but they seemed to lay the losses and in some cases the ruin that had overtaken them at the door of the landowners, and to the Toryism they represented. Enthusiasm was absent; there was a coldness among the sturdiest of them. A race remarkable for loyalty even to a bad cause or to a bad man, they stood somewhat aloof.
Speeches had been made by some of them of an advanced character, not at all of a resigned and praise-the-authorities-that-be description. Something must be done to stir them up, to get them together and talk to them. Much is sometimes accomplished by getting people together and talking to them.
Besides encouraging their own ranks, there was still harder work to be carried out among the small voters, who had much increased in the neighbourhood of the town; there was the terrible Ballot Act to be countermined; and lastly, there was the enfranchisement of the agricultural labourer looming within “measurable distance.”
Mrs. Cornleigh Cornleigh was in high spirits at the success of her political management. A hint had been dropped, that owing to diminished income, the Squire thought of retiring from the representation at the next election, and this, too, on the eve of his baronetcy. The fourteen other magnates were much discomposed at this; there was no one among themselves with Cornleigh’s prestige to take his place, and they did not want a stranger sent down by the London clubs; they naturally wished to keep the thing a close preserve. Accordingly purses were opened more freely than could have been expected, and a guarantee fund was formed; besides which an additional amount was subscribed for immediate political or politico-social work.
“We want to get into the houses of the working-classes and of the labourers,” said Letitia. “We want to lift up their ideas, to raise their aspirations. Let us begin with Art.”
The proposed Society for the Encouragement of Art Culture in the Homes of the Poor was to furnish the labourer’s cottage with an approved selection of prints and engravings from the works of the great masters, together with watercolours executed by members of the organization. The latter idea proved a great bait, and attracted all the amateurs in the town; every lady who dabbled in paint looked forward to seeing her picture hung at an exhibition that was presently to be held in the house of Cornleigh Cornleigh.
Of all the odd movements that have been started in the last few years, this for ornamenting the cottage with works of art is the most grotesque. To suppose that any man is likely to be the better because a picture is graciously hung on his walls above the heads of squalling children, and over the table scarcely supplied with bread, is indeed a monstrous perversion of common sense.
Unless he be a slave-man out of whom poverty has ground all independence, he is much more likely to curse it, to tear it down and trample it under foot, and to abominate the name of Art as synonymous with insult ever afterwards.
Insult it is of the cruellest and harshest kind. The wretched beings require food, and you give them a picture.
Felise gave old Abner Brown half-a-crown to purchase himself a beefsteak and a quart of good ale; that is to say, to buy himself fresh blood to circulate in those old and withered limbs.
Good beef and beer are what the poor want, and you would find it difficult to supply too much of it.
But somehow or other your modern philanthropist cannot endure the idea of beef and beer.
He organizes societies to teach the poor how to cook (ye gods, how to cook! with nothing in the frying-pan
