The Crow's Nest Part 17

To be cured, a man must face and remember his past, open-eyed, and see his mistakes philosophically and understand better: understand what we all are, and what human nature is made of, and how it is distorted in youth by a rigid environment. The average moralist or parent won't tell us these things. But until we have learned them, a good many of us feel wicked, and can't put behind us the wretched mistakes of our youth. We don't know enough to regard our young struggles with sympathy. Our ignorance makes us believe we have blackened our souls. And the man who keeps silent and never tells, and hence never learns, goes through the world semi-subdued. Never gets what it owes him.

Was Grandfather Dilke such a case? I've no warrant for saying so. His conscience may have troubled him, possibly, for some quite different reason. He may have secretly hated some relative whom he should have loved. He may have done some small wrong and unfortunately not been found out. But whatever the reason was, he lived an odd, back-groundish life--for a man of his caliber. And his life didn't satisfy him. And this was his fault, not the world's.

The birth of a son, however, in a way gives a man a fresh chance. He decides to live a second and far better life through his son. Whenever a parent feels blue, or is not making good, he immediately declares that his hopes are in his little son anyhow. Then he has a sad, comfortable glow at his own self-effacement. Oh, these s.h.i.+rking fathers! They allow _themselves_ to give way to weariness, or be halted by fears; but expect a son, when _he_ comes to such moments, to find them quite jolly. He's to make up for the weakness of his father, and carry his own burdens, too!

I regret to say Grandfather Dilke sought relief in this way. Although young, strong, and gifted, he said when his own son was born that he then and there committed all his dreams of achievement to Baby. Baby was to go out in the world and do his papa honor.

The child was called Wentworth, and it grew up sound, healthy, and kind.

But when poor Mr. Dilke bet on Wentworth, he backed the wrong horse.

Wentworth didn't have anything in him of the statesman or scholar. He was idle at studies. No head for them. What he liked was athletics. He liked comrades.h.i.+p and enjoying life generally--in a nice way, however. A simple, conservative-minded and limited soul. During his early years in London he was princ.i.p.ally known to his friends for never missing a night at the opera. And he was devoted to shooting-parties.

Later on, he became still more trying, it would seem, to his parent.

Instead of remaining in his place as a plain disappointment, he began to be prominent; and, stupidly, in just the wrong field. He became a sort of parody of the man his father had hoped he would be. He hadn't the brains, for example, to do anything in the learned Athenaeum, but he founded The Gardeners' Chronicle and the Agricultural Gazette. He did well with them, too, which was irritating. He turned out to be a good man of business.

About this time a National Exhibition of some sort was held, and Wentworth was in on it. (It was an exhibition of "art manufacturers.") Then somebody got the idea of repeating it on a large scale and including foreign nations: in fact to make it the first of World's Fairs. So Wentworth and the others met the Prince Consort, to get Royalty's blessing.

The Prince Consort liked the plan immensely. He made it his hobby.

Numerous committees were appointed, in true simian style, and amid endless speeches and palaverings, the thing was arranged. Wentworth, except when on shooting-parties, worked hard for it.

This made a great noise; but I doubt if it impressed Mr. Dilke. It was at bottom cheap stuff which any advertiser or promoter could do. It sounded well; it made a man prominent, but it didn't take brains. What Mr. Dilke had hoped or intended for his son I don't know; perhaps nothing definite; but he certainly wanted something that counted. He wanted him to make a contribution to the needs of mankind. Some achievement in scholars.h.i.+p, or some hand in the steering of England.

Mr. Dilke was, potentially, anyhow, a big sort of man, like a nation's prime minister: a publicist, not a mere showman. And for years he had given all his thoughts to his son's career. His son had been the one he first thought of when he woke in the morning, and the last one that stayed in his mind when he got into bed. And he hadn't just mooned around about him, he had worked for his welfare, planned each step of his education, for instance, and pondered his plans.

And then the creature grows up to run The Gardeners' Chronicle, and work for World Fairs.

There were some small advantages. The creature was brought into relations with prominent men and kings throughout Europe, mostly figureheads, perhaps, but not all; and these relations were destined to be of use to the Dilkes later on. But it must have seemed awfully silly to Grandfather to see Wentworth being presented with medals, and honors, and gifts from foreign governments. And as though this weren't enough, Queen Victoria wished to make him a baronet! Mr. Dilke, being a radical, was opposed to his taking a t.i.tle; so Wentworth, who was fifty-one, declined it, like a dutiful child. But the Queen made a personal matter of it, so he had to accept. It seems that he and the Prince Consort had become quite good friends--both being pleasant, gentlemanly, and wooden (at least in some ways), and having in common an innocent love of World Fairs; and this had endeared Wentworth Dilke, more or less, to the Queen. So, after the Prince Consort died, and while she was feeling her grief, she pressed this small t.i.tle on Wentworth because the Prince liked him.

[Ill.u.s.tration: He had medals from potentates.]

Wentworth was now a powerfully connected person and a vastly more important man in the public eye than Grandfather was. But he and his father lived in the same house; and, although Mr. Dilke didn't say much, he had his own scale of values; and, measured by any such scale, Wentworth was a great disappointment. Their daily relations were kindly, considering this; but Wentworth knew well, all the time, he was deemed an inferior. When he was out and about, in the public eye, he may have felt like a lord, but when he came home nights he had to check his pride at the door.

Meantime he had married and had two sons; and Charles, the elder, was bright. So Mr. Dilke, the incorrigible, began life all over again. He hadn't been satisfied with his own life, and far less with Wentworth's, but he planned a third career for himself in this promising grandson. He didn't merely take an interest in the child, or just make him his hobby.

He centered his whole mind upon him. He made it his business in life to develop that infant--in order that through him he might at last reach the front row.

And this time he won. It looked doubtful at first; Charles was nervous and frail, and hence backward. His mind was too excitable and his health too poor to send him to school. That's a handicap in England; school a.s.sociations and training count much. However, the boy easily mastered his studies at home, and he often met eminent men who came around to the house, and he made some experiments in literature--in fact, wrote a novel. And when sixteen, he met a beautiful girl, Emilia Strong, whom he wors.h.i.+ped. And he traveled, and talked with his grandfather; and so he grew up.

At eighteen his health grew much better: in fact, grew robust. He immediately entered Cambridge, and there he began a new life. This was a splendid thing for him, in a number of ways. For instance, one of the first things he did was to go in for athletics. He had a flat, narrow chest, sloping shoulders; but the rowing men trained him; and he worked until he became a good oar, and could row on a crew.

He had lived almost entirely with grown-ups before going to college, and was much more mature and well-informed than the fellows he met there.

But some parts of his nature had never had a chance to come out; his sense of fun, for example. He now began having good times with boys of his own age. He worked so hard at his rowing that he finally stroked the first crew. And "n.o.body could make more noise at a boating supper," one of his friends said. He even got into a sc.r.a.pe and was deprived of a scholars.h.i.+p he had won.

All these new ways of Charles--except the sc.r.a.pe, possibly--must have seemed right and normal, and even, perhaps, rea.s.suring to his father, Sir Wentworth. But Sir Wentworth became alarmed lest they shouldn't please Mr. Dilke. He feared Mr. Dilke was going to be disappointed all over again, by a student who found university life too full of pleasure.

The unfortunate baronet, therefore, wrote Charles for heaven's sake to be studious.

He need not have worried. Charles became a wonder at studies. And it wasn't just brilliance--it was long, steady hours, plus brains and concentration, that did it. One thing that helped him do so much was that he never wasted time--he used every spare minute for something. He "would even get in ten minutes of work between river and Hall." He not only became a prize scholar and oarsman, but won walking races; he joined the Volunteers and became a crack rifle shot, and went in for debating.

His votes and speeches in the debates show the trend of his mind, which was balanced yet radical, like his grandfather's, and always progressive. The American Civil War, which was then being fought, was debated; and the undergraduates voted for the Confederate side, three to one. This was the general feeling in England. But Charles was for the North. Again, when Lord Palmerston was helping to start the Greek monarchy, Charles spoke in favor of a Greek republic, in a college debate.

He wrote long letters to his grandfather regularly about studies and politics, and sent him able a.n.a.lyses and criticisms of articles in the Athenaeum. The old man at first had been rather silent because of the athletics; but as Charles' mind developed, and as he continued winning prizes in studies, Mr. Dilke grew happier and happier. They were forever corresponding, and were on the most affectionate terms.

Then, one day, a telegram came for Charles, and he hurried home.

Wentworth was on the lawn, crying. "He lives only to see you," he said.

"I went upstairs," Charles wrote afterward, "and sat down by the sofa on which lay the Grand, looking haggard, but still a n.o.ble wreck. I took his hand, and he began to talk of trivial matters.... He seemed to be testing his strength, for at last he said: 'I shall be able to talk to-morrow; I may last some weeks; but were it not for the pang that all of you would feel, I should prefer that it should end at once. I have had a good time of it.'"

The next day they had their last talk. Mr. Dilke made his boy a present he had planned for his birthday, and entrusted him with the disposition of his papers and ma.n.u.scripts. And he told him, "I have nothing more to say but that you have fulfilled--my every hope--beyond all measure--and--I am deeply--grateful."

So he died.

Charles went back to Cambridge and finished his course with the greatest distinction. He then began contributing to the Athenaeum, and planning to write books. "A History of Radicalism," for example. "The Effects Upon Radicalism of Increased Facility of Communication." "Development of the Principle of Love of Country Into That of Love of Man." In politics he took the Irish Catholic side of the Irish Question; he wrote strongly in favor of removing the political disabilities of women, and he criticized the severity of white men toward natives in the tropics.

He also had a row with his father. Sir Wentworth was vexed because Charles didn't wish to come to his shooting-parties.

When he was twenty-two, Charles made a tour of the world, and recorded his observations in a remarkable book. It was a solid, serious volume, yet written in a vein of high spirits. It dealt with Canada, the United States--East, South, and West--New Zealand, Australia, Ceylon and India; it was a study of what Anglo-Saxons were doing in these great civilizations. Charles mailed his MSS. to England, and Sir Wentworth took it upon himself to correct the proofs, in order to hurry the book through the press. The result was a crop of blunders. But still, it was an enormous success. It ran through three editions rapidly, and brought Charles the friends.h.i.+p of some great men.

Meantime in his twenty-fifth year he was elected to Parliament--at the very election at which Sir Wentworth lost his seat, by the way. Charles advocated laws ('way back in the Sixties) to prohibit child labor, to recognize trades unions, and stop the buying of commissions in the army.

He advised English workmen not to join the regular political parties, but to start a Labor Party of their own and gain influence that way. He also upset his father a good deal by urging amendments to the game laws.

His first speech in Parliament was on some dry, technical subject, but he showed himself so well-informed, so full of detailed knowledge and foreign comparisons, that he was immediately put on a committee and began to make his way in the House.

It's interesting to look back and see how able men get their start.

In his twenty-eighth year this able man got into frightful hot water. He said publicly that a miserable moral and political tone resulted from the nation's retaining a lot of sinecure offices--Hereditary Grand Falconer, and all that sort of thing. He pointed out that the Duke of Edinburgh had been given a naval command without much naval training, and he advocated promotion by merit instead of by claims due to birth.

He allowed himself to criticize some large grants of money to the monarchy. His remarks indicated that theoretically he preferred a republic. For this he was denounced by the papers, and socially shunned. He was accused of disloyalty and treason, with the greatest heat, everywhere. His name was a byword. The Prince of Wales happened about this time to get very ill, and this added still further to the anger men felt at Charles Dilke.

He didn't back down. He went out and made speeches to workmen, repeating his anti-King criticisms. There was rioting by Tory roughs--iron bars thrown--men injured and killed. Crowds collected who swore that Dilke should not get away alive from the hall. He waited till the excitement was hottest, then came out the main door alone, stood quietly looking at them, lit a cigar, and walked off.

He did, however, gradually calm down the nation in one way, by showing them that, though he objected to monarchical errors, he didn't wish to upset the monarchy while it suited the people. He thought it absurd, but it would be still more absurd to upset it--that is to say, while those governed wanted it. This att.i.tude, and time (several years of it) slowly stilled the excitement. The net result was to make this man a notable and recognized power.

His power kept growing. His influence was great in the House. His views were strong, but reasoned and sane, and his industry endless. He was now forty-two. Gladstone, with whom he tilted at first, picked him as his successor. It looked as though this great progressive would be premier of England.

Then, in a night, the Fates crushed him. Returning home from a dinner in his honor, he found a letter there, waiting.

It said that the wife of a member of Parliament had confessed to her husband that she had been unfaithful to him with Charles Dilke soon after her marriage.

This, of course, meant a scandal. And a scandal meant he couldn't be premier. He couldn't even sit in the cabinet. His career was destroyed.

Sir Charles (as he now was) had been married, but his wife had soon died. After ten years as a widower, he had become engaged to Emilia Strong--you remember?--the same Emilia whom he had wors.h.i.+ped when he was sixteen. (She had been married, too, in the meantime, but she now was a widow.) His princ.i.p.al concern with this blow was not to let it hurt her.

He sent her the news, told her he was innocent, and added, "I feel this may kill you--and it will kill me, either if it kills you or if you don't believe me."

She stood by him, married him. They had nineteen years of each other. He was sixty-one when she died in his arms. He lived to be sixty-eight.

He never could clear his name of the scandal, though he took it to court. They failed to show he was guilty, but he couldn't _prove_ that he wasn't. So he never was premier, and he never again sat in the cabinet.

His friends said his whole career showed that the scandal was false.

They stood by him strongly. But the People, whom he would have served with such courage, did not.