One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

George Meredith
whose muscles shall haul him up to the light he will prove
worthy of, when that divinity has shown him his uncleanness.
And when Strength is not exercising, you are sure to
see Satirists jump on his back. Dozens, foreign and domestic,
are on the back of Old England; a tribute to our quality
if at the same time an irritating scourge. The domestic are in
excess; and let us own that their view of the potentate, as an
apathetic beast of power, who will neither show the power
nor woo the graces; pretending all the while to be eminently
above the beast, and posturing in an inefficient mimicry of
the civilized, excites to satire. Colney Durance had his excuses.
He could point to the chief creative minds of the country
for generations, as beginning their survey genially, ending
venomously, because of an exasperating unreason and
scum in the bubble of the scenes, called social, around them.
Viola under his chin, he gazed along the crowded hall, which
was to him a rich national pudding of the sycophants, the
hypocrites, the burlies, the idiots; dregs of the depths and froth
of the surface; bowing to one, that they may scorn another;
instituting a Charity, for their poorer fawning fellows to relieve
their purses and assist them in tricking the world and
their Maker: and so forth, a tiresome tirade: and as it was not
on his lips, but in the stomach of the painful creature, let him
grind that hurdy-gurdy for himself. His friend Victor set it
stirring: Victor had here what he aimed at!
How Success derides Ambition! And for this he imperilled
the happiness of the worthy woman he loved! Exposed her
to our fen-fogs and foul snakes—of whom one or more might
be in the assembly now: all because of his insane itch to be
the bobbing cork on the wave of the minute! Colney’s rapid
interjections condensed upon the habitual shrug at human
folly, just when Victor, fronting the glassy stare of Colonel
Corfe, tapped to start his orchestra through the lively first
bars of the overture to Zampa.
We soon perceive that the post Mr. Radnor fills he thoroughly
fills, whatever it may be. Zampa takes horse from the
opening. We have no amateur conductor riding ahead: violins,
‘cellos, piano, wind-stops: Peridon, Catkin, Pempton,
Yatt, Cormyn, Colney, Mrs. Cormyn, Dudley Sowerby: they
are spirited on, patted, subdued, muted, raised, rushed anew,
away, held in hand, in both hands. Not earnestness worn as
a cloak, but issuing, we see; not simply a leader of musicians,
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