itable, to conform
to the times, and to resume their seats in the House of Lords. To do so,
it sufficed that they should take the oath of allegiance to the king.
When these facts were considered--the glorious reign, the excellent
king, august princes given back by divine mercy to the people's love;
when it was remembered that persons of such consideration as Monk, and,
later on, Jeffreys, had rallied round the throne; that they had been
properly rewarded for their loyalty and zeal by the most splendid
appointments and the most lucrative offices; that Lord Clancharlie could
not be ignorant of this, and that it only depended on himself to be
seated by their side, glorious in his honours; that England had, thanks
to her king, risen again to the summit of prosperity; that London was
all banquets and carousals; that everybody was rich and enthusiastic,
that the court was gallant, gay, and magnificent;--if by chance, far
from these splendours, in some melancholy, indescribable half-light,
like nightfall, that old man, clad in the same garb as the common
people, was observed pale, absent-minded, bent towards the grave,
standing on the shore of the lake, scarce heeding the storm and the
winter, walking as though at random, his eye fixed, his white hair
tossed by the wind of the shadow, silent, pensive, solitary, who could
forbear to smile?

It was the sketch of a madman.

Thinking of Lord Clancharlie, of what he might have been and what he
was, a smile was indulgent; some laughed out aloud, others could not
restrain their anger. It is easy to understand that men of sense were
much shocked by the insolence implied by his isolation.

One extenuating circumstance: Lord Clancharlie had never had any brains.
Every one agreed on that point.

II.

It is disagreeable to see one's fellows practise obstinacy. Imitations
of Regulus are not popular, and public opinion holds them in some
derision. Stubborn people are like reproaches, and we have a right to
laugh at them.

Besides, to sum up, are these perversities, these rugged notches,
virtues? Is there not in these excessive advertisements of
self-abnegation and of honour a good deal of ostentation? It is all
parade more than anything else. Why such exaggeration of solitude and
exile? to carry nothing to extremes is the wise man's maxim. Be in
opposition if you choose, blame if you will, but decently, and crying
out all the while "Long live the King." The true virtue is co