Cornelius O'Dowd Upon Men And Women And Other Things In General Part 9

To have done one-tenth of what Garibaldi has done, a man must necessarily have thrown aside scruples which he would never have probably transgressed in his ordinary life. He must have been often arbitrary, and sometimes almost cruel; and yet, ask his followers, and they will tell you that punishment scarcely existed in the force under his immediate command--that the most hardened offender would have quailed more under a few stern words of reproof from "the General" than from a sentence that sent him to a prison.

That, to effect his purpose, he would lay hands on what he needed, not recklessly or indifferently, but thoughtfully and doubtless regretfully, we all know. I can remember an instance of this kind, related to me by a British naval officer, who himself was an actor in the scene. "It was off La Plata," said my informant, "when Garibaldi was at war with Rosas, that the frigate I commanded was on that station, as well as a small gun-brig of the Sardinian navy, whose captain never hara.s.sed his men by exercises of gunnery, and, indeed, whose s.h.i.+p was as free from any 'beat to quarters,' or any sudden summons to prepare for boarders, as though she had been a floating chapel.

"Garibaldi came alongside me one day to say that he had learned the Sardinian had several tons of powder on board, with an ample supply of grape, sh.e.l.l, and canister, not to speak of twelve hundred stand of admirable arms. 'I want them all,' said he; 'my people are fighting with staves and knives, and we are totally out of ammunition. I want them, and he won't let me have them.'

"'He could scarcely do so,' said I, 'seeing that they belong to his Government, and are not in _his_ hands to bestow.'

"'For that reason I must go and take them,' said Garibaldi. 'I mean to board him this very night, and you'll see if we do not replenish our powder-flasks.'

"'In that case,' said I, 'I shall have to fire on you. It will be Piracy; nothing else.'

"'You'll not do so;' said he, smiling.

"'Yes, I promise you that I will. We are at peace and on good terms with Sardinia, and I cannot behave other than as a friend to her s.h.i.+ps of war.'

"'There's no help for it, then,' said Garibaldi, 'if you see the thing in that light:' and good-humouredly quitted the subject, and soon after took his leave."

"And were you," asked I of my informant, Captain S.----"were you perfectly easy after that conversation? I mean, were you fully satisfied that he would not attempt the matter in some other way?"

"Never more at ease in my life. I knew my man; and that, having left me under the conviction he had abandoned the exploit, nothing on earth would have tempted him to renew it in any shape."

It might be a matter of great doubt whether any greater intellectual ability would not have rather detracted from than increased Garibaldi's power as a popular leader. I myself feel a.s.sured that the simplicity, the trustfulness, the implicit reliance on the goodness of a cause as a reason for its success, are qualities which no mere mental superiority could replace in popular estimation. It is actually Love that is the sentiment the Italians have for him; and I have seen them, hard-featured, ay, and hard-natured men, moved to tears as the litter on which Garibaldi lay wounded was carried down to the place of embarkation.

Garibaldi has always been a thoughtful, silent, reflective man, not communicative to others, or in any way expansive; and from these qualities have come alike his successes and his failures. Of the conversations reported of him by writers I do not believe a syllable. He speaks very little; and, luckily for him, that little only with those on whose integrity he can rely not to repeat him.

Cavour, who knew men thoroughly, and studied them just as closely as he studied events, understood at once that Garibaldi was the man he wanted.

He needed one who should move the national heart--who, sprung from the people himself, and imbued with all the instincts of his cla.s.s, should yet not dissever the cause of liberty from the cause of monarchy. To attach Garibaldi to the throne was no hard task. The King, who led the van of his army, was an idol made for such wors.h.i.+p as Garibaldi's. The monarch who could carry a knapsack and a heavy rifle over the cliffs of Monte Rosa from sunrise to sunset, and take his meal of hard bread before he "turned in" at night in a shepherd's s.h.i.+eling, was a King after the bold buccaneer's own heart.

To what end inveigh against the luxuries of a court, its wasteful splendours, or its costly extravagance, with such an example? This strong-sinewed, big-boned, unpoetical King has been the hardest nut ever republicanism had to crack!

It might be possible to overrate the services Garibaldi has rendered to Italy--it would be totally impossible to exaggerate those he has rendered the Monarchy; and out of Garibaldi's devotion to Victor Emmanuel has sprung that hearty, honest, manly appreciation of the King which the Italians unquestionably display. A merely political head of the State, though he were gifted with the highest order of capacity, would have disappeared altogether from view in the sun-splendour of Garibaldi's exploits; not so the King Victor Emmanuel, who only shone the brighter in the reflected blaze of the hero who was so proud to serve him.

Yet for all that friends.h.i.+p, and all the acts that grew out of it, natural and spontaneous as they are, one great mind was needed to guide, direct, encourage, or restrain. It was Cavour who, behind the scenes, pulled all the wires; and these heroes--heroes they were too--were but his puppets.

Cavour died, and then came Aspromonte.

If any other man than Garibaldi had taken the present moment to make a visit--an almost ostentatious visit--to Mazzini, it might be a grave question how far all the warm enthusiasm of this popular reception could be justified. Garibaldi is, however, the one man in Europe from whom no one expects anything but impulsive action. It is in the very unreflectiveness of his generosity that he is great. There has not been, I am a.s.sured, for many years back, any very close or intimate friends.h.i.+p between these two men; but it was quite enough that Mazzini was in trouble and difficulty, to rally to his side that brave-hearted comrade who never deserted his wounded. Nor is there in all Garibaldi's character anything finer or more exalted than the steadfast adherence he has ever shown to his early friends.h.i.+ps. No flatteries of the great--no blandishments of courts and courtiers--none of those seductive influences which are so apt to weave themselves into a man's nature when surrounded by continual homage and admiration--not any of these have corrupted that pure and simple heart; and there is not a presence so exalted, nor a scene of splendour so imposing, as could prevent Garibaldi from recognising with eager delight any the very humblest companion that ever shared hards.h.i.+p and danger beside him.

To have achieved his successes, a man must of necessity have rallied around him many besides enthusiasts of the cause; he must have recruited amongst men of broken fortunes--reckless, lawless fellows, who accepted the buccaneer's life as a means of wiping off old scores with that old world "that would have none of them." It was not amidst the orderly, the soberly-trained, and well-to-do that he could seek for followers. And what praise is too great for him who could so inspire this ma.s.s, heaving with pa.s.sion as it was, with his own n.o.ble sentiments, and make them feel that the work before them--a nation's regeneration--was a task too high and too holy to be accomplished by unclean hands? Can any eulogy exaggerate the services of a man who could so magnetise his fellow-men as to a.s.sociate them at once with his n.o.bility of soul, and elevate them to a standard little short of his own? That he _did_ do this we have the proof. Pillage was almost unknown amongst the Garibaldians; and these famished, ill-clad, shoeless men marched on from battle to battle with scarcely an instance of crime that called for the interference of military law.

Where is the General who could boast of doing as much? Where is the leader who could be bold enough to give such a pledge for his followers?

Is there an army in Europe--in the world--for whom as much could be said?

All honour, therefore, to the man--not whose example only, but whose very contact suggests high intent and n.o.ble action. All honour to him who brings to a great cause, not alone the dazzling splendour of heroism, but the more enduring brightness of a pure and unsullied integrity!

Such a man may be misled; he can never be corrupted.

A NEW INVESTMENT.

I am not so sure how far we ought to be grateful for it, but a.s.suredly the fact is so, that nothing has so much tended to show the world with what little wisdom it is governed than the Telegraph. It is not merely that cabinets are no longer the sole possessors of early intelligence, though this alone was once a very great privilege; and there is no over-estimating the power conferred by the exclusive possession of a piece of important news--a battle won or lost, the outbreak of a revolution, the overthrow of a throne--even for a few hours before it became the property of the public. The telegraph, however, is the great disenchanter. The misty uncertainty, the cloud-like indistinctness that used of old to envelop all ministerial action, converting Downing Street into a sort of Olympus, and making a small mythology out of Precis-writers, is all gone, all dispersed. Three or four cold hard lines, thin and terse as the wire that conveyed them, are sworn enemies to all style, and especially to all the evasive cajoleries of those dissolving views of events diplomacy loves to revel in. What becomes of the graceful drapery in which statesmen used to clothe the great facts of the world, when a simple despatch, "fifteen words, exclusive of the address," tells the whole story? and when we have read that "the insurgents are triumphant everywhere, the king left the capital at four o'clock, a provisional government was proclaimed this morning," and suchlike, what do we care for the sonorous periods in which official priestcraft chants the downfall of a dynasty?

The great stronghold of statecraft was, however, Speculation--I mean that half-prophetic view of events which we always conceded to those who looked over the world from a higher window than ourselves. What has become of this now? Who so bold as to predict what, while he is yet speaking, may be contradicted? who is there hardy enough to forecast what the events of the last half-hour may have falsified, and five minutes more will serve to publish to the whole world?

It may be amusing to read the comments of the speech or the leading article, but the "despatch" is the substance: and however clever the variations, the original melody remains unaltered. Let any one imagine to himself a five-act drama, preceded by a telegraphic intimation of all its incidents--how insupportable would the slow procession of events become after such a revelation! Up to this, Ministers performed a sort of Greek chorus, chanting in ambiguous phrase the woes that invaded those who differed from them, and the heart-corroding sorrows that sat below the "gangway." There has come an end to all this. All the dramatic devices of those days are gone, and we live in an age in which many men are their own priests, their lawyers, and their doctors, and where, certes, each man is his own prophet.

These reflections have been much impressed upon me by a ramble I took yesterday in company with one of the most agreeable of all our diplomatists--one of those men who seem to weld into their happy natures all the qualities which make good companions.h.i.+p, and blend with the polished manners of a courtier the dash of an Eton boy and the deep reflectiveness of a man of the world--a man to whom nothing comes wrong, and whom you would be puzzled to say whether he was more in his element at a cabinet council, or one of a shooting-party in the Highlands.

"I say, O'Dowd," cried he, after a pause of some time in our conversation, "has it never struck you that those tall poles and wires are destined to be the end of both your trade and mine, and that within a very few years neither of our occupations will have a representative left? Take my word for it," said he, more solemnly, "in less than ten years from the present date a penny-a-liner will be as rare as a posthorse, and a post-shay not more a curiosity than a minister-plenipotentiary."

"Do you really think so?"

"I am certain of it. People nowadays won't travel eight miles an hour, or be satisfied to hear of events ten days after they've happened. Life is too short for all this now, and, as we can't lengthen our days, we must shorten our incidents. We are all more or less like that gentleman Mathews used to tell us of at Boulogne, who said to the waiter, 'Let me have some-thing expensive; I am only here for an hour.' Have you ever thought seriously on the matter?"

"Never," said I.

"You ought, then," said he. "I tell you again, we are all in the same category with flint locks and wooden s.h.i.+ps--we belong to the past. Don't you know it? Don't you feel it?"

"I don't like to feel it," said I, peevishly.

"Nonsense!" cried he, laughing. "Self-deception does nothing in the matter, say what one will. A modern diplomatist is only a 'smooth-Bore.'

What 'our own correspondent' represents, I leave to your own modesty."

"It will be a bad day for us when the world comes to that knowledge,"

said I, gloomily.

"Of course it will, but there's no help for it. Old novels go to the trunkmakers; second-hand uniforms make the splendour of dignity-b.a.l.l.s in the colonies: who is to say that there may not be a limbo for us also?

At all events, I have a scheme for our transition state--a plan I have long revolved in my mind--and there's certainly something in it.

"First of all realise it, as the Yankees say, that neither a government nor a public will want either of us. When the wires have told that the Grand-Duke Strong-grog-enofif was a.s.sa.s.sinated last night, or that Prince Damisseisen has divorced his wife and married a milliner, Downing Street and Printing-house Square will agree that all the moral reflections the events inspire can be written just as well in Piccadilly as from a palace on the Neva, or a den on the Danube. Gladstone will be the better pleased, and take another farthing off 'divi-divi,' or some other commodity in general use and of universal appreciation. Don't you agree to that?"

"I don't know."

"You don't know," drawled he out, in mimicry of my tone: "are you so conceited about your paltry craft that you fancy the world cares for the manner of it, or that there is really any excellence in the cookery?

Not a bit of it, man. We are bores both of us; and what's worse--far worse--we are bygones. Can't you see that when a man buys a canister of prepared beef-tea, he never asks any one to pour on the boiling water--he brews his broth for himself? This is what people do with the telegrams. They don't want you or me to come in with the kettle: besides, all tastes are not alike; one man may like his Bombardment of Charleston weaker; another might prefer his Polish Ma.s.sacre more highly flavoured. This is purely a personal matter. How can you suit the capricious likings of the million, and of the million--for that's the worst of it--the million that don't want you? What a practical rebuke, besides, to prosy talkers and the whole long-winded race, the sharp, short tap of the telegraph! Who would listen to a narrative of Federal finance when he has read 'Gold at 204--Chase rigged the market'? Who asks for strategical reasons in presence of 'Almighty whipping--lost eighty thousand--Fourth Michigan skedaddled '?

"How graphic will description become--how laconic all comment! You will no more listen to one of the old circ.u.mlocutionary conversers than you would travel by the waggon, or make a voyage in a collier.

"How, I would ask, could the business of life go on in an age active as ours if all coinage was in copper, and vast transactions in money should be all conducted in the base metal? Imagine the great Kings of Finance counting over the debts of whole nations in penny-pieces, and you have at once a picture of what, until a few years ago, was our intellectual condition. How n.o.bly Demosthenic our table-talk will be!--how grandly abrupt and forensic!

"There is nothing, however, over which I rejoice more than in the utter extinction of the anecdote-mongers--the insufferable monsters who related Joe Millers as personal experiences, or gave you their own versions of something in the morning papers. Thank heaven they are done for!

"Last of all, the unhappy man who used to be sneered at for his silence in company, will now be on a par with his fellows. The most bashful will be able to blurt out, 'Poles ma.s.sacred,' 'Famine in Ireland,' 'Feast at the Mansion House,' 'Collision at Croydon,' 'Bank discount eleven.'

"Who will dare to propagate scandal, when all amplification is denied him? How much adulteration will the liquor bear which is measured by drop? Nor will the least of our benefits be the long, reflective pauses--those brilliant 'flashes of silence' which will supersede the noise, turmoil, and confusion of what we used to call conversation. No, no, Corneli mi. The game is up. 'Our own Correspondent' is a piece that has run its course, and there's nothing to do but take a farewell benefit and quit the boards."

"If I could fall back on my pension like you, I'd perhaps take the matter easier," said I, gruffly.