The Warden

CHAPTER XIV Mount Olympus

Wretched in spir­it, groan­ing un­der the feel­ing of in­sult, self-​con­demn­ing, and ill-​sat­is­fied in ev­ery way, Bold re­turned to his Lon­don lodg­ings. Ill as he had fared in his in­ter-​view with the archdea­con, he was not the less un­der the ne­ces­si­ty of car­ry­ing out his pledge to Eleanor; and he went about his un­gra­cious task with a heavy heart.

The at­tor­neys whom he had em­ployed in Lon­don re­ceived his in­struc­tions with sur­prise and ev­ident mis­giv­ing; how­ev­er, they could on­ly obey, and mut­ter some­thing of their sor­row that such heavy costs should on­ly fall up­on their own em­ploy­er –es­pe­cial­ly as noth­ing was want­ing but per­se­ver­ance to throw them on the op­po­site par­ty. Bold left the of­fice which he had lat­ter­ly so much fre­quent­ed, shak­ing the dust from off his feet; and be­fore he was down the stairs, an edict had al­ready gone forth for the prepa­ra­tion of the bill.

He next thought of the news­pa­pers. The case had been tak­en up by more than one; and he was well aware that the keynote had been sound­ed by The Jupiter. He had been very in­ti­mate with Tom Tow­ers, and had of­ten dis­cussed with him the af­fairs of the hos­pi­tal. Bold could not say that the ar­ti­cles in that pa­per had been writ­ten at his own in­sti­ga­tion. He did not even know, as a fact, that they had been writ­ten by his friend. Tom Tow­ers had nev­er said that such a view of the case, or such a side in the dis­pute, would be tak­en by the pa­per with which he was con­nect­ed. Very dis­creet in such mat­ters was Tom Tow­ers, and al­to­geth­er in­dis­posed to talk loose­ly of the con­cerns of that mighty en­gine of which it was his high priv­ilege to move in se­cret some por­tion. Nev­er­the­less Bold be­lieved that to him were ow­ing those dread­ful words which had caused such pan­ic at Barch­ester–and he con­ceived him­self bound to pre­vent their rep­eti­tion. With this view he be­took him­self from the at­tor­neys’ to that lab­ora­to­ry where, with amaz­ing chem­istry, Tom Tow­ers com­pound­ed thun­der­bolts for the de­struc­tion of all that is evil, and for the fur­ther­ance of all that is good, in this and oth­er hemi­spheres.

Who has not heard of Mount Olym­pus–that high abode of all the pow­ers of type, that favoured seat of the great god­dess Pi­ca, that won­drous habi­ta­tion of gods and dev­ils, from whence, with cease­less hum of steam and nev­er-​end­ing flow of Castal­ian ink, is­sue forth fifty thou­sand night­ly edicts for the gov­er­nance of a sub­ject na­tion?

Vel­vet and gild­ing do not make a throne, nor gold and jew­els a scep­tre. It is a throne be­cause the most ex­alt­ed one sits there–and a scep­tre be­cause the most mighty one wields it. So it is with Mount Olym­pus. Should a stranger make his way thith­er at dull noon­day, or dur­ing the sleepy hours of the silent af­ter­noon, he would find no ac­knowl­edged tem­ple of pow­er and beau­ty, no fit­ting fane for the great Thun­der­er, no proud fa­cades and pil­lared roofs to sup­port the dig­ni­ty of this great­est of earth­ly po­ten­tates. To the out­ward and unini­ti­at­ed eye, Mount Olym­pus is a some­what hum­ble spot, undis­tin­guished, un­adorned–nay, al­most mean. It stands alone, as it were, in a mighty city, close to the dens­est throng of men, but par­tak­ing nei­ther of the noise nor the crowd; a small se­clud­ed, drea­ry spot, ten­ant­ed, one would say, by quite un­am­bi­tious peo­ple at the eas­iest rents. ‘Is this Mount Olym­pus?’ asks the un­be­liev­ing stranger. ‘Is it from these small, dark, dingy build­ings that those in­fal­li­ble laws pro­ceed which cab­inets are called up­on to obey; by which bish­ops are to be guid­ed, lords and com­mons con­trolled, judges in­struct­ed in law, gen­er­als in strat­egy, ad­mi­rals in naval tac­tics, and or­ange-​wom­en in the man­age­ment of their bar­rows?’ ‘Yes, my friend–from these walls. From here is­sue the on­ly known in­fal­li­ble bulls for the guid­ance of British souls and bod­ies. This lit­tle court is the Vat­ican of Eng­land. Here reigns a pope, self-​nom­inat­ed, self-​con­se­crat­ed–ay, and much stranger too–self-​be­liev­ing!–a pope whom, if you can­not obey him, I would ad­vise you to dis­obey as silent­ly as pos­si­ble; a pope hith­er­to afraid of no Luther; a pope who man­ages his own in­qui­si­tion, who pun­ish­es un­be­liev­ers as no most skil­ful in­quisi­tor of Spain ev­er dreamt of do­ing–one who can ex­com­mu­ni­cate thor­ough­ly, fear­ful­ly, rad­ical­ly; put you be­yond the pale of men’s char­ity; make you odi­ous to your dear­est friends, and turn you in­to a mon­ster to be point­ed at by the fin­ger!’ Oh heav­ens! and this is Mount Olym­pus!

It is a fact amaz­ing to or­di­nary mor­tals that The Jupiter is nev­er wrong. With what end­less care, with what un­spar­ing labour, do we not strive to get to­geth­er for our great na­tion­al coun­cil the men most fit­ting to com­pose it. And how we fail! Par­lia­ment is al­ways wrong: look at The Jupiter, and see how fu­tile are their meet­ings, how vain their coun­cil, how need­less all their trou­ble! With what pride do we re­gard our chief min­is­ters, the great ser­vants of state, the oli­garchs of the na­tion on whose wis­dom we lean, to whom we look for guid­ance in our dif­fi­cul­ties! But what are they to the writ­ers of The Jupiter? They hold coun­cil to­geth­er and with anx­ious thought painful­ly elab­orate their coun­try’s good; but when all is done, The Jupiter de­clares that all is naught. Why should we look to Lord John Rus­sell–why should we re­gard Palmer­ston and Glad­stone, when Tom Tow­ers with­out a strug­gle can put us right? Look at our gen­er­als, what faults they make; at our ad­mi­rals, how in­ac­tive they are. What mon­ey, hon­esty, and sci­ence can do, is done; and yet how bad­ly are our troops brought to­geth­er, fed, con­veyed, clothed, armed, and man­aged. The most ex­cel­lent of our good men do their best to man our ships, with the as­sis­tance of all pos­si­ble ex­ter­nal ap­pli­ances; but in vain. All, all is wrong–alas! alas! Tom Tow­ers, and he alone, knows all about it. Why, oh why, ye earth­ly min­is­ters, why have ye not fol­lowed more close­ly this heav­en-​sent mes­sen­ger that is among us?

Were it not well for us in our ig­no­rance that we con­fid­ed all things to The Jupiter? Would it not be wise in us to aban­don use­less talk­ing, idle think­ing, and prof­it­less labour? Away with ma­jori­ties in the House of Com­mons, with ver­dicts from ju­di­cial bench giv­en af­ter much de­lay, with doubt­ful laws, and the fal­li­ble at­tempts of hu­man­ity! Does not The Jupiter, com­ing forth dai­ly with fifty thou­sand im­pres­sions full of unerring de­ci­sion on ev­ery mor­tal sub­ject, set all mat­ters suf­fi­cient­ly at rest? Is not Tom Tow­ers here, able to guide us and will­ing?

Yes in­deed, able and will­ing to guide all men in all things, so long as he is obeyed as au­to­crat should be obeyed–with un­doubt­ing sub­mis­sion: on­ly let not un­grate­ful min­is­ters seek oth­er col­leagues than those whom Tom Tow­ers may ap­prove; let church and state, law and physic, com­merce and agri­cul­ture, the arts of war, and the arts of peace, all lis­ten and obey, and all will be made per­fect. Has not Tom Tow­ers an all-​see­ing eye? From the dig­gings of Aus­tralia to those of Cal­ifor­nia, right round the hab­it­able globe, does he not know, watch, and chron­icle the do­ings of ev­ery­one? From a bish­opric in New Zealand to an un­for­tu­nate di­rec­tor of a North-​west pas­sage, is he not the on­ly fit judge of ca­pa­bil­ity? From the sew­ers of Lon­don to the Cen­tral Rail­way of In­dia– from the palaces of St Pe­ters­burg to the cab­ins of Con­naught, noth­ing can es­cape him. Britons have but to read, to obey, and be blessed. None but the fools doubt the wis­dom of The Jupiter; none but the mad dis­pute its facts.

No es­tab­lished re­li­gion has ev­er been with­out its un­be­liev­ers, even in the coun­try where it is the most firm­ly fixed; no creed has been with­out scoffers; no church has so pros­pered as to free it­self en­tire­ly from dis­sent. There are those who doubt The Jupiter! They live and breathe the up­per air, walk­ing here un­scathed, though scorned–men, born of British moth­ers and nursed on En­glish milk, who scru­ple not to say that Mount Olym­pus has its price, that Tom Tow­ers can be bought for gold!

Such is Mount Olym­pus, the mouth­piece of all the wis­dom of this great coun­try. It may prob­ably be said that no place in this 19th cen­tu­ry is more wor­thy of no­tice. No trea­sury man­date armed with the sig­na­tures of all the gov­ern­ment has half the pow­er of one of those broad sheets, which fly forth from hence so abun­dant­ly, armed with no sig­na­ture at all.

Some great man, some mighty peer–we’ll say a no­ble duke –re­tires to rest feared and hon­oured by all his coun­try­men– fear­less him­self; if not a good man, at any rate a mighty man –too mighty to care much what men may say about his want of virtue. He ris­es in the morn­ing de­grad­ed, mean, and mis­er­able; an ob­ject of men’s scorn, anx­ious on­ly to re­tire as quick­ly as may be to some Ger­man ob­scu­ri­ty, some un­seen Ital­ian pri­va­cy, or in­deed, any­where out of sight. What has made this aw­ful change? what has so af­flict­ed him? An ar­ti­cle has ap­peared in The Jupiter; some fifty lines of a nar­row col­umn have de­stroyed all his grace’s equa­nim­ity, and ban­ished him for ev­er from the world. No man knows who wrote the bit­ter words; the clubs talk con­fus­ed­ly of the mat­ter, whis­per­ing to each oth­er this and that name; while Tom Tow­ers walks qui­et­ly along Pall Mall, with his coat but­toned close against the east wind, as though he were a mor­tal man, and not a god dis­pens­ing thun­der­bolts from Mount Olym­pus.

It was not to Mount Olym­pus that our friend Bold be­took him­self. He had be­fore now wan­dered round that lone­ly spot, think­ing how grand a thing it was to write ar­ti­cles for The Jupiter; con­sid­er­ing with­in him­self whether by any stretch of the pow­ers with­in him he could ev­er come to such dis­tinc­tion; won­der­ing how Tom Tow­ers would take any lit­tle hum­ble of­fer­ing of his tal­ents; cal­cu­lat­ing that Tom Tow­ers him­self must have once had a be­gin­ning, have once doubt­ed as to his own suc­cess. Tow­ers could not have been born a writ­er in The Jupiter. With such ideas, half am­bi­tious and half awe-​struck, had Bold re­gard­ed the silent-​look­ing work­shop of the gods; but he had nev­er yet by word or sign at­tempt­ed to in­flu­ence the slight­est word of his unerring friend. On such a course was he now in­tent; and not with­out much in­ward pal­pi­ta­tion did he be­take him­self to the qui­et abode of wis­dom, where Tom Tow­ers was to be found o’ morn­ings in­hal­ing am­brosia and sip­ping nec­tar in the shape of toast and tea.

Not far re­moved from Mount Olym­pus, but some­what near­er to the blessed re­gions of the West, is the most favoured abode of Themis. Washed by the rich tide which now pass­es from the tow­ers of Cae­sar to Bar­ry’s halls of elo­quence; and again back, with new of­fer­ings of a city’s trib­ute, from the palaces of peers to the mart of mer­chants, stand those qui­et walls which Law has de­light­ed to hon­our by its pres­ence. What a world with­in a world is the Tem­ple! how qui­et are its ‘en­tan­gled walks,’ as some­one late­ly has called them, and yet how close to the dens­est con­course of hu­man­ity! how grave­ly re­spectable its sober al­leys, though re­moved but by a sin­gle step from the pro­fan­ity of the Strand and the low in­iq­ui­ty of Fleet Street! Old St Dun­stan, with its bell-​smit­ing blud­geon­ers, has been re­moved; the an­cient shops with their faces full of pleas­ant his­to­ry are pass­ing away one by one; the bar it­self is to go–its doom has been pro­nounced by The Jupiter; ru­mour tells us of some huge build­ing that is to ap­pear in these lat­itudes ded­icat­ed to law, sub­ver­sive of the courts of West­min­ster, and an­tag­onis­tic to the Rolls and Lin­coln’s Inn; but noth­ing yet threat­ens the silent beau­ty of the Tem­ple: it is the me­di­ae­val court of the metropo­lis.

Here, on the choic­est spot of this choice ground, stands a lofty row of cham­bers, look­ing oblique­ly up­on the sul­lied Thames; be­fore the win­dows, the lawn of the Tem­ple Gar­dens stretch­es with that dim yet de­li­cious ver­dure so re­fresh­ing to the eyes of Lon­don­ers. If doomed to live with­in the thick­est of Lon­don smoke you would sure­ly say that that would be your cho­sen spot. Yes, you, you whom I now ad­dress, my dear, mid­dle-​aged bach­elor friend, can nowhere be so well domi­ciled as here. No one here will ask whether you are out or at home; alone or with friends; here no Sab­batar­ian will in­ves­ti­gate your Sun­days, no cen­so­ri­ous land­la­dy will scru­ti­nise your emp­ty bot­tle, no vale­tu­di­nar­ian neigh­bour will com­plain of late hours. If you love books, to what place are books so suit­able? The whole spot is redo­lent of ty­pog­ra­phy. Would you wor­ship the Pa­phi­an god­dess, the groves of Cyprus are not more tac­iturn than those of the Tem­ple. Wit and wine are al­ways here, and al­ways to­geth­er; the rev­els of the Tem­ple are as those of pol­ished Greece, where the wildest wor­ship­per of Bac­chus nev­er for­got the dig­ni­ty of the god whom he adored. Where can re­tire­ment be so com­plete as here? where can you be so sure of all the plea­sures of so­ci­ety?

It was here that Tom Tow­ers lived, and cul­ti­vat­ed with em­inent suc­cess the tenth Muse who now gov­erns the pe­ri­od­ical press. But let it not be sup­posed that his cham­bers were such, or so com­fort­less, as are fre­quent­ly the gaunt abodes of le­gal as­pi­rants. Four chairs, a half-​filled deal book-​case with hang­ings of dingy green baize, an old of­fice ta­ble cov­ered with dusty pa­pers, which are not moved once in six months, and an old­er Pem­broke broth­er with rick­ety legs, for all dai­ly us­es; a despatch­er for the prepa­ra­tion of lob­sters and cof­fee, and an ap­pa­ra­tus for the cook­ing of toast and mut­ton chops; such uten­sils and lux­uries as these did not suf­fice for the well-​be­ing of Tom Tow­ers. He in­dulged in four rooms on the first floor, each of which was fur­nished, if not with the splen­dour, with prob­ably more than the com­fort of Stafford House. Ev­ery ad­di­tion that sci­ence and art have late­ly made to the lux­uries of mod­ern life was to be found there. The room in which he usu­al­ly sat was sur­round­ed by book-​shelves care­ful­ly filled; nor was there a vol­ume there which was not en­ti­tled to its place in such a col­lec­tion, both by its in­trin­sic worth and ex­te­ri­or splen­dour: a pret­ty portable set of steps in one cor­ner of the room showed that those even on the high­er shelves were in­tend­ed for use. The cham­ber con­tained but two works of art–the one, an ad­mirable bust of Sir Robert Peel, by Pow­er, de­clared the in­di­vid­ual pol­itics of our friend; and the oth­er, a sin­gu­lar­ly long fig­ure of a fe­male devo­tee, by Mil­lais, told equal­ly plain­ly the school of art to which he was ad­dict­ed. This pic­ture was not hung, as pic­tures usu­al­ly are, against the wall; there was no inch of wall va­cant for such a pur­pose: it had a stand or desk erect­ed for its own ac­com­mo­da­tion; and there on her pedestal, framed and glazed, stood the de­vo­tion­al la­dy look­ing in­tent­ly at a lily as no la­dy ev­er looked be­fore.

Our mod­ern artists, whom we style Pre-​Raphaelites, have de­light­ed to go back, not on­ly to the fin­ish and pe­cu­liar man­ner, but al­so to the sub­jects of the ear­ly painters. It is im­pos­si­ble to give them too much praise for the elab­orate per­se­ver­ance with which they have equalled the minute per­fec­tions of the mas­ters from whom they take their in­spi­ra­tion: noth­ing prob­ably can ex­ceed the paint­ing of some of these lat­ter-​day pic­tures. It is, how­ev­er, sin­gu­lar in­to what faults they fall as re­gards their sub­jects: they are not quite con­tent to take the old stock groups–a Se­bas­tian with his ar­rows, a Lu­cia with her eyes in a dish, a Loren­zo with a grid­iron, or the Vir­gin with two chil­dren. But they are any­thing but hap­py in their change. As a rule, no fig­ure should be drawn in a po­si­tion which it is im­pos­si­ble to sup­pose any fig­ure should main­tain. The pa­tient en­durance of St Se­bas­tian, the wild ec­sta­sy of St John in the Wilder­ness, the ma­ter­nal love of the Vir­gin, are feel­ings nat­ural­ly por­trayed by a fixed pos­ture; but the la­dy with the stiff back and bent neck, who looks at her flow­er, and is still look­ing from hour to hour, gives us an idea of pain with­out grace, and ab­strac­tion with­out a cause.

It was easy, from his rooms, to see that Tom Tow­ers was a Sybarite, though by no means an idle one. He was lin­ger­ing over his last cup of tea, sur­round­ed by an ocean of news­pa­pers, through which he had been swim­ming, when John Bold’s card was brought in by his tiger. This tiger nev­er knew that his mas­ter was at home, though he of­ten knew that he was not, and thus Tom Tow­ers was nev­er in­vad­ed but by his own con­sent. On this oc­ca­sion, af­ter twist­ing the card twice in his fin­gers, he sig­ni­fied to his at­ten­dant imp that he was vis­ible; and the in­ner door was un­bolt­ed, and our friend an­nounced. I have be­fore said that he of The Jupiter and John Bold were in­ti­mate. There was no very great dif­fer­ence in their ages, for Tow­ers was still con­sid­er­ably un­der forty; and when Bold had been at­tend­ing the Lon­don hos­pi­tals, Tow­ers, who was not then the great man that he had since be­come, had been much with him. Then they had of­ten dis­cussed to­geth­er the ob­jects of their am­bi­tion and fu­ture prospects; then Tom Tow­ers was strug­gling hard to main­tain him­self, as a brief­less bar­ris­ter, by short­hand re­port­ing for any of the pa­pers that would en­gage him; then he had not dared to dream of writ­ing lead­ers for The Jupiter, or can­vass­ing the con­duct of Cab­inet min­is­ters. Things had al­tered since that time: the brief­less bar­ris­ter was still brief­less, but he now de­spised briefs: could he have been sure of a judge’s seat, he would hard­ly have left his present ca­reer. It is true he wore no er­mine, bore no out­ward marks of a world’s re­spect; but with what a load of in­ward im­por­tance was he charged! It is true his name ap­peared in no large cap­itals; on no wall was chalked up ‘Tom Tow­ers for ev­er’–'Free­dom of the Press and Tom Tow­ers’; but what mem­ber of Par­lia­ment had half his pow­er? It is true that in far-​off provinces men did not talk dai­ly of Tom Tow­ers but they read The Jupiter, and ac­knowl­edged that with­out The Jupiter life was not worth hav­ing. This kind of hid­den but still con­scious glo­ry suit­ed the na­ture of the man. He loved to sit silent in a cor­ner of his club and lis­ten to the loud chat­ter­ing of politi­cians, and to think how they all were in his pow­er–how he could smite the loud­est of them, were it worth his while to raise his pen for such a pur­pose. He loved to watch the great men of whom he dai­ly wrote, and flat­ter him­self that he was greater than any of them. Each of them was re­spon­si­ble to his coun­try, each of them must an­swer if in­quired in­to, each of them must en­dure abuse with good hu­mour, and in­so­lence with­out anger. But to whom was he, Tom Tow­ers, re­spon­si­ble? No one could in­sult him; no one could in­quire in­to him. He could speak out with­er­ing words, and no one could an­swer him: min­is­ters court­ed him, though per­haps they knew not his name; bish­ops feared him; judges doubt­ed their own ver­dicts un­less he con­firmed them; and gen­er­als, in their coun­cils of war, did not con­sid­er more deeply what the en­emy would do, than what The Jupiter would say. Tom Tow­ers nev­er boast­ed of The Jupiter; he scarce­ly ev­er named the pa­per even to the most in­ti­mate of his friends; he did not even wish to be spo­ken of as con­nect­ed with it; but he did not the less val­ue his priv­ileges, or think the less of his own im­por­tance. It is prob­able that Tom Tow­ers con­sid­ered him­self the most pow­er­ful man in Eu­rope; and so he walked on from day to day, stu­dious­ly striv­ing to look a man, but know­ing with­in his breast that he was a god.