One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
still retain their tender parts, but cry unheard when there is
no cynic near. Mr. Barmby laid-on solemnly.
Professional devoutness is deemed more righteous on such
occasions than poetic fire. It robes us in the cloak of the
place, as at a funeral. Generally, Mr. Barmby found, and justly,
that it is in superior estimation among his countrymen of all
classes. They are shown by example how to look, think, speak;
what to do. Poets are disturbing; they cannot be comfortably
imitated, they are unsafe, not certainly the metal, unless
you have Laureates, entitled to speak by their pay and
decorations; and these are but one at a time-and a quotation
may remind us of a parody, to convulse the sacred dome!
Established plain prose officials do better for our English.
The audience moved round with heads of undertakers.
Victor called to recollection Fenellan’s ‘Rev. Glendoveer’
while Mr. Barmby pursued his discourse, uninterrupted by
tripping wags. And those who have schemes, as well as those
who are startled by the criticism in laughter to discover that
they have cause for shunning it, rejoice when wits are absent.
Mr. Sowerby and Nesta interchanged a comment on
Mr. Barmby’s remarks: The Fate of Princes! The Paths of
Glory! St. Louis was a very distant Roman Catholic monarch;
and the young gentleman of Evangelical education could
admire him as a Crusader. St. Louis was for Nesta a figure in
the rich hues of royal Saintship softened to homeliness by
tears. She doated on a royalty crowned with the Saint’s halo,
that swam down to us to lift us through holy human showers.
She listened to Mr. Barmby, hearing few sentences, lending
his eloquence all she felt: he rolled forth notes of a minster
organ, accordant with the devotional service she was holding
mutely. Mademoiselle upon St. Louis: ‘Worthy to be
named King of Kings!’ swept her to a fount of thoughts,
where the thoughts are not yet shaped, are yet in the breast
of the mother emotions. Louise de Seilles had prepared her
to be strangely and deeply moved. The girl had a heart of
many strings, of high pitch, open to be musical to simplest
wandering airs or to the gales. This crypt of the recumbent
sculptured figures and the coloured series of acts in the passage
of the crowned Saint thrilled her as with sight of flame
on an altar-piece of History. But this King in the lines of the
Crucifixion leading, gave her a lesson of life, not a message
from death. With such a King, there would be union of the
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