notwithstanding the fatigues of the morning, the evening was passed with great gaiety at the castle. the gentlemen all vowed that, far from being inconvenienced by their mishaps, they felt, on the whole, rather better for them. mr. guy flouncey, indeed, did not seem quite so limber and flexible as usual; and the young guardsman, who had previously discoursed in an almost alarming style of the perils and feats of the kildare country, had subsided into a remarkable reserve. the provincials were delighted with sidonia’s riding, and even the leicestershire gentlemen admitted that he was a ‘customer.’
lord monmouth beckoned to coningsby to sit by him on the sofa, and spoke of his approaching university life. he gave his grandson a great deal of good advice: told him to avoid drinking, especially if he ever chanced to play cards, which he hoped he never would; urged the expediency of never borrowing money, and of confining his loans to small sums, and then only to friends of whom he wished to get rid; most particularly impressed on him never to permit his feelings to be engaged by any woman; nobody, he assured coningsby, despised that weakness more than women themselves. indeed, feeling of any kind did not suit the present age: it was not bon ton; and in some degree always made a man ridiculous. coningsby was always to have before him the possible catastrophe of becoming ridiculous. it was the test of conduct, lord monmouth said; a fear of becoming ridiculous is the best guide in life, and will save a man from all sorts of scrapes. for the rest, coningsby was to appear at cambridge as became lord monmouth’s favourite grandson. his grandfather had opened an account for him with drummonds’, on whom he was to draw for his considerable allowance; and if by any chance he found himself in a scrape, no matter of what kind, he was to be sure to write to his grandfather, who would certainly get him out of it.
‘your departure is sudden,’ said the princess lucretia, in a low deep tone to sidonia, who was sitting by her side and screened from general observation by the waltzers who whirled by.
‘departures should be sudden.’
‘i do not like departures,’ said the princess.
‘nor did the queen of sheba when she quitted solomon. you know what she did?’
‘tell me.’
‘she wept very much, and let one of the king’s birds fly into the garden. “you are freed from your cage,” she said; “but i am going back to mine.”’
‘but you never weep?’ said the princess.
‘never.’
‘and are always free?’
‘so are men in the desert.’
‘but your life is not a desert?’
‘it at least resembles the desert in one respect: it is useless.’
‘the only useless life is woman’s.’
‘yet there have been heroines,’ said sidonia.
‘the queen of sheba,’ said the princess, smiling.
‘a favourite of mine,’ said sidonia.
‘and why was she a favourite of yours?’ rather eagerly inquired lucretia.
‘because she thought deeply, talked finely, and moved gracefully.’
‘and yet might be a very unfeeling dame at the same time,’ said the princess.
‘i never thought of that,’ said sidonia.
‘the heart, apparently, does not reckon in your philosophy.’
‘what we call the heart,’ said sidonia, ‘is a nervous sensation, like shyness, which gradually disappears in society. it is fervent in the nursery, strong in the domestic circle, tumultuous at school. the affections are the children of ignorance; when the horizon of our experience expands, and models multiply, love and admiration imperceptibly vanish.’
‘i fear the horizon of your experience has very greatly expanded. with your opinions, what charm can there be in life?’
‘the sense of existence.’
‘so sidonia is off to-morrow, monmouth,’ said lord eskdale.
‘hah!’ said the marquess. ‘i must get him to breakfast with me before he goes.’
the party broke up. coningsby, who had heard lord eskdale announce sidonia’s departure, lingered to express his regret, and say farewell.
‘i cannot sleep,’ said sidonia, ‘and i never smoke in europe. if you are not stiff with your wounds, come to my rooms.’
this invitation was willingly accepted.
‘i am going to cambridge in a week,’ said coningsby. i was almost in hopes you might have remained as long.’
‘i also; but my letters of this morning demand me. if it had not been for our chase, i should have quitted immediately. the minister cannot pay the interest on the national debt; not an unprecedented circumstance, and has applied to us. i never permit any business of state to be transacted without my personal interposition; and so i must go up to town immediately.’
‘suppose you don’t pay it,’ said coningsby, smiling.
‘if i followed my own impulse, i would remain here,’ said sidonia. ‘can anything be more absurd than that a nation should apply to an individual to maintain its credit, and, with its credit, its existence as an empire, and its comfort as a people; and that individual one to whom its laws deny the proudest rights of citizenship, the privilege of sitting in its senate and of holding land? for though i have been rash enough to buy several estates, my own opinion is, that, by the existing law of england, an englishman of hebrew faith cannot possess the soil.’
‘but surely it would be easy to repeal a law so illiberal—’
‘oh! as for illiberality, i have no objection to it if it be an element of power. eschew political sentimentalism. what i contend is, that if you permit men to accumulate property, and they use that permission to a great extent, power is inseparable from that property, and it is in the last degree impolitic to make it the interest of any powerful class to oppose the institutions under which they live. the jews, for example, independently of the capital qualities for citizenship which they possess in their industry, temperance, and energy and vivacity of mind, are a race essentially monarchical, deeply religious, and shrinking themselves from converts as from a calamity, are ever anxious to see the religious systems of the countries in which they live flourish; yet, since your society has become agitated in england, and powerful combinations menace your institutions, you find the once loyal hebrew invariably arrayed in the same ranks as the leveller, and the latitudinarian, and prepared to support the policy which may even endanger his life and property, rather than tamely continue under a system which seeks to degrade him. the tories lose an important election at a critical moment; ‘tis the jews come forward to vote against them. the church is alarmed at the scheme of a latitudinarian university, and learns with relief that funds are not forthcoming for its establishment; a jew immediately advances and endows it. yet the jews, coningsby, are essentially tories. toryism, indeed, is but copied from the mighty prototype which has fashioned europe. and every generation they must become more powerful and more dangerous to the society which is hostile to them. do you think that the quiet humdrum persecution of a decorous representative of an english university can crush those who have successively baffled the pharaohs, nebuchadnezzar, rome, and the feudal ages? the fact is, you cannot destroy a pure race of the caucasian organisation. it is a physiological fact; a simple law of nature, which has baffled egyptian and assyrian kings, roman emperors, and christian inquisitors. no penal laws, no physical tortures, can effect that a superior race should be absorbed in an inferior, or be destroyed by it. the mixed persecuting races disappear; the pure persecuted race remains. and at this moment, in spite of centuries, of tens of centuries, of degradation, the jewish mind exercises a vast influence on the affairs of europe. i speak not of their laws, which you still obey; of their literature, with which your minds are saturated; but of the living hebrew intellect.
‘you never observe a great intellectual movement in europe in which the jews do not greatly participate. the first jesuits were jews; that mysterious russian diplomacy which so alarms western europe is organised and principally carried on by jews; that mighty revolution which is at this moment preparing in germany, and which will be, in fact, a second and greater reformation, and of which so little is as yet known in england, is entirely developing under the auspices of jews, who almost monopolise the professorial chairs of germany. neander, the founder of spiritual christianity, and who is regius professor of divinity in the university of berlin, is a jew. benary, equally famous, and in the same university, is a jew. wehl, the arabic professor of heidelberg, is a jew. years ago, when i was in palestine, i met a german student who was accumulating materials for the history of christianity, and studying the genius of the place; a modest and learned man. it was wehl; then unknown, since become the first arabic scholar of the day, and the author of the life of mahomet. but for the german professors of this race, their name is legion. i think there are more than ten at berlin alone.
‘i told you just now that i was going up to town tomorrow, because i always made it a rule to interpose when affairs of state were on the carpet. otherwise, i never interfere. i hear of peace and war in newspapers, but i am never alarmed, except when i am informed that the sovereigns want treasure; then i know that monarchs are serious.
‘a few years back we were applied, to by russia. now, there has been no friendship between the court of st. petersburg and my family. it has dutch connections, which have generally supplied it; and our representations in favour of the polish hebrews, a numerous race, but the most suffering and degraded of all the tribes, have not been very agreeable to the czar. however, circumstances drew to an approximation between the romanoffs and the sidonias. i resolved to go myself to st. petersburg. i had, on my arrival, an interview with the russian minister of finance, count cancrin; i beheld the son of a lithuanian jew. the loan was connected with the affairs of spain; i resolved on repairing to spain from russia. i travelled without intermission. i had an audience immediately on my arrival with the spanish minister, senor mendizabel; i beheld one like myself, the son of a nuevo christiano, a jew of arragon. in consequence of what transpired at madrid, i went straight to paris to consult the president of the french council; i beheld the son of a french jew, a hero, an imperial marshal, and very properly so, for who should be military heroes if not those who worship the lord of hosts?’
‘and is soult a hebrew?’
‘yes, and others of the french marshals, and the most famous; massena, for example; his real name was manasseh: but to my anecdote. the consequence of our consultations was, that some northern power should be applied to in a friendly and mediative capacity. we fixed on prussia; and the president of the council made an application to the prussian minister, who attended a few days after our conference. count arnim entered the cabinet, and i beheld a prussian jew. so you see, my dear coningsby, that the world is governed by very different personages from what is imagined by those who are not behind the scenes.’
‘you startle, and deeply interest me.’
‘you must study physiology, my dear child. pure races of caucasus may be persecuted, but they cannot be despised, except by the brutal ignorance of some mongrel breed, that brandishes fagots and howls extermination, but is itself exterminated without persecution, by that irresistible law of nature which is fatal to curs.’
‘but i come also from caucasus,’ said coningsby.
‘verily; and thank your creator for such a destiny: and your race is sufficiently pure. you come from the shores of the northern sea, land of the blue eye, and the golden hair, and the frank brow: ‘tis a famous breed, with whom we arabs have contended long; from whom we have suffered much: but these goths, and saxons, and normans were doubtless great men.’
‘but so favoured by nature, why has not your race produced great poets, great orators, great writers?’
‘favoured by nature and by nature’s god, we produced the lyre of david; we gave you isaiah and ezekiel; they are our olynthians, our philippics. favoured by nature we still remain: but in exact proportion as we have been favoured by nature we have been persecuted by man. after a thousand struggles; after acts of heroic courage that rome has never equalled; deeds of divine patriotism that athens, and sparta, and carthage have never excelled; we have endured fifteen hundred years of supernatural slavery, during which, every device that can degrade or destroy man has been the destiny that we have sustained and baffled. the hebrew child has entered adolescence only to learn that he was the pariah of that ungrateful europe that owes to him the best part of its laws, a fine portion of its literature, all its religion. great poets require a public; we have been content with the immortal melodies that we sung more than two thousand years ago by the waters of babylon and wept. they record our triumphs; they solace our affliction. great orators are the creatures of popular assemblies; we were permitted only by stealth to meet even in our temples. and as for great writers, the catalogue is not blank. what are all the schoolmen, aquinas himself, to maimonides? and as for modern philosophy, all springs from spinoza.
‘but the passionate and creative genius, that is the nearest link to divinity, and which no human tyranny can destroy, though it can divert it; that should have stirred the hearts of nations by its inspired sympathy, or governed senates by its burning eloquence; has found a medium for its expression, to which, in spite of your prejudices and your evil passions, you have been obliged to bow. the ear, the voice, the fancy teeming with combinations, the imagination fervent with picture and emotion, that came from caucasus, and which we have preserved unpolluted, have endowed us with almost the exclusive privilege of music; that science of harmonious sounds, which the ancients recognised as most divine, and deified in the person of their most beautiful creation. i speak not of the past; though, were i to enter into the history of the lords of melody, you would find it the annals of hebrew genius. but at this moment even, musical europe is ours. there is not a company of singers, not an orchestra in a single capital, that is not crowded with our children under the feigned names which they adopt to conciliate the dark aversion which your posterity will some day disclaim with shame and disgust. almost every great composer, skilled musician, almost every voice that ravishes you with its transporting strains, springs from our tribes. the catalogue is too vast to enumerate; too illustrious to dwell for a moment on secondary names, however eminent. enough for us that the three great creative minds to whose exquisite inventions all nations at this moment yield, rossini, meyerbeer, mendelssohn, are of hebrew race; and little do your men of fashion, your muscadins of paris, and your dandies of london, as they thrill into raptures at the notes of a pasta or a grisi, little do they suspect that they are offering their homage to “the sweet singers of israel!”’
