LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.
AN EPISTLE FROM "DEMOS." fTo THE EDITOR. OF THE " SPECTATOD."1
Ma. SCECTA.TOR,—Will you, as among our best and best-beloved instructors, tell me who I am and what I think ? The question seems an odd one ; but the answer does not seem easy. I believe myself to be, Sir, as my signature will tell you, The People,— that is, I will describe myself as the average British householder, living out of range of the Clubs and the Printing-offices, and the funny little oligarchy which they compose; quietly disposed in household fashion ; fond of my own fireside, and with small attraction to the "smoke, and wealth, and noise" of London. It would be a nice place if it washed, but it doesn't. Let me add that I takes deep and growing interest in all public questions, and find that my belief in party-methods dwindles in inverse proportion. As for my dislike of the abominable language which the modern senators delight in, all I can say is that were Billingsgate one of my new electoral districts, not half-a-hundred Billingsgates would be able to return the candidates from both sides who would have a claim. I am sorry to see that Mr. Edward Clarke, whom I respected, has so conspicuously enrolled himself among the number.
But now, Sir, to my text. I am appealed to, cajoled, flattered, insulted,—all by turns, and nothing long. The proper thing is to call me King Demos ; to say that I have. it all my own way ; that I insist upon all sorts of things for which I don't care a button ; and that I don't care a button for many things which I very much want. Well, if I am King Demos, it strikes me that I am morganatically wedded to a lady who has it very much her own way, and that her name is Mrs. Grundy. She tells me what servants to have and what to turn off, and often appoints them without asking me at all. When, for instance, she selected one and the same very ancient and fishlike nobleman, first for my Foreign Steward under one majordomo, and then for my Colonial Steward under another, whose whole system of management was (or was going to be) the reverse, did she consult me ? Scarcely ; for I do not hesitate to say that I did not want him at a gift either time. But if a big lord says that he wants me to pay him a round sum in wages, first on one side and then on another, Mrs. Grundy says that I must do so, whether I like it or not. As with my household, so with my outdoor establishment. With rare exceptions she picks them for me at the clubs, and sends down to my various estates (which are not mine) an unlimited supply of Q.C.'s on promotion, or stock-jobbers of various proclivities (L. or C., according to taste—it doesn't matter). They pay premiums in the hope of taking them out in wages or in social position some day, and I have to take them, on the historic principle of Mr. Hobson. Once at St. Stephen's they are content; and occasionally pay airy visits to the estates in question, make little star-orations to the tenantry, and go back comfortably convinced that they know all about what I am thinking. Then one day, as happened five years ago, Mrs. Grundy and. her friends find that after all they knew nothing of my mind, whole households are changed and turned out of door, and another Chief Steward is installed to carry on my business in another way altogether. That, Sir, is where I am too strong for Mrs. Grundy.
But Mrs. Grundy soon has her turn again. No sooner are my arrangements practically complete for a term of years, than through her clubs and dailies she is at it again, telling me that I have changed my mind, and know what a fool I have made of myself, that I feel I am being robbed by a set of knaves, that I shrink as my honour is being trailed through the mud, and that all my great depths are stirred. It happens to my great depths once a week at least ; but you would be astonished, Sir, to know how little my depths feel every little cat's-paw which ruffles Mrs. Grundy's ponds, and how calm I am in the possession of my own honour. But shall I give you. an idea of what I do think, as far as any one may know himself, about these miserable Eastern complications P For one thing at a time. I think that I gravely regret that Mrs. Grundy should have been too strong for Mr. Gladstone ; and reciprocating his true attachment to me, I feel a keen sense of sorrowful disappointment at the difference
between Midlothian principles and Soudan practice. My goodsense is too sound to be puzzled by distinctions long; and these melancholy savage-hunts are all alike in the end. "Afghan-Disraeli-Cavagnari," " Arab-Gladstone-Gordon," first and second editions of "The Native, the Premier, and the Burnt Sacrifice." It is these wretched foray-wars of Mrs. Grundy, Sir, which have made me what I really am ; and Mr. Bryce truly calls me too much of a Gallio on questions of foreign policy, and too unwilling to be stirred even by real catastrophes, though why Mrs. Grundy should hold Mr. Gladstone responsible for Gordon, while she never blamed Lord Beaconsfield for Cavagnari, my sense of justice fails to see. I am not going to turn him out till I see a better, anyhow, because of a majority of fifty-four, as we all know it was. The forty gentlemen who made it look like fourteen are no friends of mine, but may serve King Brian Boru for aught I know, and would have changed sides for a pot of dynamite. I have read ever since that the vote was a fearful rebuke administered by me; whereas the lists look as if it were chiefly administered by Forster and Goschen (the Crabtree and Mrs. Candour of the School for Improvement), and by three gentlemen of the name of Fitzwilliam. It is distressing, no doubt; but a Government may recover it. They have survived the loss of Marriott, which they should not have done. The rebuke of so severe an integrity should have been a sentence of death, though it was. not. But if, Sir, you want to look at a rebuke from another point of view, consider the immediate erasure of Mr. Goschen from the tablets of the Edinburgh electors. I do not like to lose good servants ; soif he will take my advice he will frankly come forward on the side of wisdom and himself as that Representative of Minorities we hear so much of, and I will do my best for him.
Meantime, I wish Mrs. Grundy would look at that vote as an indicative which may become an imperative some day, if she will go on thinking that she knows all about everything in spite of my snubbing her perpetually. A violent dissolution of our connection is to be deprecated by all sober men, and I am really both very sober and very patient. As for the Eastern question, I wish the Sultan would stop it ; and if he cannot, I wish him a good euthanasia, or a dysthanasia, as far as that goes. But surely the solution of Egypt is proverb.old,—take it, or let it alone. I do not think much of Prince Bismarck myself,. naturally, and have not the smallest intention of letting him bully me oat of Gladstone. But his opinions and his many charms of manner seem to be much thought of by Mrs. Grundy just now; and allow me to point out that in thishe agrees with me. And now, Mr. Spectator, in spite of your social charm and perfect chibbableness, and consequently close associations with Mrs. Grundy, I really think that you know moreabout these same thoughts of mine than most of my instructors. May, therefore, these hints be of some value to you, and may my confidence be as much a profit, as it is to me a pleasure.—
Your obedient monarch, DEMOS.
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