Dilemmas of Pride. Mrs. Loudon
she is a daughter of the elder branch; for no family can have more than one elder son, while many may have half a dozen daughters, no one of whom ought, in common prudence, to marry a younger brother!!"
"Nay," said Alfred, "is not this sufficient to show how absurdly society is constituted? What is to become, then, of five out of every six daughters, and all the younger sons in the world? What is to become of my hapless self, for instance?"
"We must hope, my dear, that you may be fortunate, and meet with an heiress."
"But consider, ma'am, how few heiresses there are. Parliament ought to make a new batch every session. It would, however, be of no use to me if they did," he added, despondingly, "for heiresses, of course, consider themselves entitled to marry, not only elder sons, but noblemen. I have often thought what is to become of me, if I should ever have the misfortune to fall in love."
"You did, I think, fall half in love one evening in town," said Jane.
"And, by-the-by," observed Lady Arden, "Lady Caroline Montague is an heiress."
Alfred coloured, and rising, sauntered towards a window as he replied, "And, therefore, very unlikely to be allowed to cast away a thought on an unfor——" Here he broke off, and after gazing for a time from the window, exclaimed, "That was certainly she—I had but a momentary view, but I am quite sure it was she I saw pluck a rose in that next garden, and run into the house again. Can they be living in the adjoining villa to us?"
The grass gardens or little lawns of these twin villas were separated only by wire palings, along which sweet briar and flowering shrubs were trained.
CHAPTER XII.
The family party, with the addition of Lord Darlingford, Sir James Lindsey, and his brother, were assembled round the luncheon-table at Lady Arden's.
Henry Lindsey had been amazingly piqued that morning by Louisa's reception of Sir James. The little baronet was now seated next to her, and making, if possible, a greater fool of himself than usual; while, in consequence of the lesson she had received, she was yielding him her attention with marked complacency. Henry sat opposite, and trembled with a mingling of agitation and indignation. He thought he could already foresee that he was to be deliberately immolated to avarice; yet, so thoroughly was he the slave of Louisa's beauty and his own passion, that no worthlessness on her part could have set him free. He felt, that were she already the wife of his brother, her image might drive him mad, but that he could not banish it from his imagination.
The hardship of Henry Lindsey's case as a younger brother was conspicuous, and displayed in a striking manner the evils consequent upon sacrificing justice to pride.
From a boy he had felt much on this subject; but being of a generous, warm-hearted, liberal nature, he did not long brood over his own individual wrongs; his mind, however, following the impulse thus received, though in the first instance from a selfish feeling, gave itself to the contemplation and discussion of natural rights generally, till it became enamoured of abstract justice, and learned to apply its searching test to every subject, especially the all absorbing topic of the day—Political Economy; while, with his characteristic enthusiasm, despising the sophisms of expediency, he embraced, without perhaps sufficient caution, theories which soon caused him to be considered by his friends a reformer, by his enemies almost a revolutionist, and by himself the warm advocate of the rights, not of younger brothers only, but of those whom he emphatically termed the step-children of the laws—The People.
Such were at all times his opinions, while the irritable state of his mind, at the moment of which we are speaking, added asperity to his manner of expressing himself, and caused him, in answer to some jesting remark of Alfred's on the old topic of younger brothers, to give vent to his feelings in a long, and almost angry political discussion. He objected, he said, to the law of primogeniture on the ground of its being a wretched system of monopoly, which placed in the hands of a simple individual what, if divided, would suffice to restore thousands of his degraded and oppressed fellow-creatures to the rank of humanity. The times were gone by when communities, formed for the general weal, would wilfully sacrifice prosperity to pride, and not only parcel out the whole land to, comparatively speaking, a few families, but the succession to those lands being limited to the elder branches, allow all place, preferment, and emolument, to be confined to the younger sons of the same families, because the land had given them influence; and the mass of the people to be thus reduced to do the work of the ass and the mule, and because they cannot also eat their food, the grass and the thistle, be often in danger of starvation.
The old feudal system itself was better than this: the ancient baron was at least bound to feed not only his relations but his vassals, and he did so in his own hall, at his own table. While, now-a-days, a man, as soon as his father's funeral is over, turns his brothers and sisters out of doors, to exist as they may, on a pitiful portion, the principal of which is in general infinitely less than one year's income of the property, on the scale of which they have been accustomed to live in their father's time; while the new master permits his servants to collect their wages by showing the empty baronial hall to strangers at so much per head, by which creditable means he is himself enabled to reserve all his rents to stake at hazard in London, or at rouge et noir in Paris. When parliament is sitting, he must of course attend, to vote against any infringement on his monopoly, which the enlightened spirit of the times may chance to propose. Thanks, however, to the Reform Bill, the holders of the monopolies are no longer our sole law-givers; we have now some chance of justice one time or another.
"Besides," he added, "to return to the ancient baron, he was not only bound to feed his retainers, but in time of war to provide the government with a certain number of them, fitly clothed and armed; which was virtually bearing the burdens of the state. The baron was, in point of fact, but the trustee to a certain property, which property was to feed a certain number of the population, and to contribute its due proportion to the defence of the community. Instead of this, when the feudal system becomes dangerous to government the barons are forbidden to arm, and exonerated from feeding their retainers; yet, the trust-property left in their hands for pocket-money, while their late followers are not only turned out on the wide world to starve, but the taxes necessary to maintain the army which the barons are forbid to provide, are levied on the bare palms of the hands of the thus turned out and starving vassals; and not satisfied with this injustice, those who thus keep possession of the trust-lands, have arrived at literally billeting their younger sons on those said vassals, thus turned out and starving."
"Explain! explain!" cried Lord Darlingford, "How can you make that out?"
"Are not," replied Henry, "the salaries and pensions of all the posts and sinecures they hold paid by means of taxes, a great proportion of which are levied on industry? Is this as it should be? If the pride of the great demand that their properties shall be inherited by their elder sons, and the offspring of that pride—if false necessity, require that places and sinecures be provided for their younger sons, should not the rich co-operate in raising a fund for the payment of the salaries of such, and not grind their thousands by pittances from the real necessities of the poor?"
"What then is your panacea for so many crying ills?" asked Lord Darlingford, "Do you call on us to render up our trusts and proclaim an Agrarian law?"
"No; those whose motives are honest dare not go such lengths. This would be to resolve society into its mere elements, to open the flood-gates of anarchy, and awake the savage spirit of wanton plunder. Many large landed properties too have been purchased with the wages of industry; so that besides the horrible convulsions attendant upon the dissolution of the social system, there would be no such thing as drawing the line; to avoid, therefore, worse evils, I would allow the 'frightful disparities,' as an able writer of the day terms them, to exist till industry, unchecked, unladen, could work out for itself a gradual emancipation from the bondage of want. But I would not add to evils I dare not too suddenly remedy! I would not require the children of Israel to make bricks without straw! I would not lay the