s counter to them: though one question
put by Nevil was not easily answerable. He wished to know whether the
English people would be so anxious to be at it if their man stood on the
opposite shore and talked of trying conclusions on their green fields.
And he suggested that they had become so ready for war because of their
having grown rather ashamed of themselves, and for the special reason
that they could have it at a distance.

'The rascal's liver's out of order,' Everard said.

Coming to the sentence: 'Who speaks out in this crisis? There is one,
and I am with him'; Mr. Romfrey's compassionate sentiments veered round
to irate amazement. For the person alluded to was indeed the infamous
miauling cotton-spinner. Nevil admired him. He said so bluntly. He
pointed to that traitorous George-Foxite as the one heroical Englishman
of his day, declaring that he felt bound in honour to make known his
admiration for the man; and he hoped his uncle would excuse him. 'If
we differ, I am sorry, sir; but I should be a coward to withhold what
I think of him when he has all England against him, and he is in the
right, as England will discover. I maintain he speaks wisely--I don't
mind saying, like a prophet; and he speaks on behalf of the poor as well
as of the country. He appears to me the only public man who looks to the
state of the poor--I mean, their interests. They pay for war, and if we
are to have peace at home and strength for a really national war, the
only war we can ever call necessary, the poor must be contented. He sees
that. I shall not run the risk of angering you by writing to defend him,
unless I hear of his being shamefully mishandled, and the bearer of an
old name can be of service to him. I cannot say less, and will say no
more.'

Everard apostrophized his absent nephew: 'You jackass!'

I am reminded by Mr. Romfrey's profound disappointment in the youth,
that it will be repeatedly shared by many others: and I am bound to
forewarn readers of this history that there is no plot in it. The hero
is chargeable with the official disqualification of constantly offending
prejudices, never seeking to please; and all the while it is upon him
the narrative hangs. To be a public favourite is his last thought.
Beauchampism, as one confronting him calls it, may be said to stand for
nearly everything which is the obverse of Byronism, and rarely woos your
sympathy, shuns the statuesque pathetic, or any kind of posturing.
For