Dr. Johnson used to say, that a concern for public affairs never took away any man’s appetite for dinner. He was certainly wrong, for poor Mr. Milverton has been in the most depressed state lately; and I think his dinners have been seriously affected by the impending war in Europe.

When next we met, it happened to be a wet day; and we agreed that we would have our reading in the library. All about the library were strewed maps of the probable seat of war, showing what had been Mr. Milverton’s recent objects of study. Just after we had met, Mr. Milverton rushed into the house, and begged us all to come into the garden to see something. We all came at once. He seldom notices natural phenomena: or, if he does notice them, he does not talk about them, which made us come more readily. He brought us in a minute or two to a spot where there was a pitched battle going on between an army of red and an army of black ants. What surprised me was this: I had always understood from books on natural history, that the red ants were much stronger than the black ants, but in this case the little black fellows fought admirably; and, while we remained, I could not foresee on which side the victory would be.

We re-entered the house, and went into the library, where the ladies joined us.

_Ellesmere._ There is one advantage of a wet day--namely, that we do not have our meetings in that stupid summer-house. There one sits up, very uncomfortably, on a hard board, leaning against some out-jutting piece of rustic abomination, which is meant to be very picturesque, and which certainly does possess that element of the picturesque which consists in ruin and decay. The whole thing partakes of the nature of a pic-nic; and pic-nics are my abhorrence. A meal is too serious a thing to be treated in that light manner.

_Lady Ellesmere._ What a hard, sensual man you are!

_Ellesmere._ Oh yes! women like these foolish things, it gives them an opportunity for fuss and bustle; and, after all, they are sure to forget the salt, or the vinegar, or something or other which is an essential element to human happiness during dinner-time.

_Mauleverer._ I am quite of Sir John’s opinion. No sensible man, after he has attained the age of twenty-two--if he is not in love--cares about pic-nics.

_Ellesmere._ You look very miserable, Milverton. I know what is worrying you. What is the good of fretting about these turbulent and foolish people? If they will go to war, they must; and I suppose it is necessary, for some good end or other, that they should do so.

_Milverton._ I cannot get over it. War horrifies me. On all sides, loss, destruction, waste, turmoil, cruelty, sickness, horses slain, olive-trees cut down, bridges blown up, roads obliterated.

_Ellesmere._ Don’t go on. We know all that. It needs no ghost to tell us that.

_Milverton._ Yes: but there is something you do not know. There is not only the active mischief of war, but all the preparation for war, which is perhaps the greater evil, in the long run, of the two. Did it ever enter into your mind to consider what an unproductive creature a soldier is, and what an immense difference it makes to the welfare of the human race, whether you have all these stalwart men employed in producing, or in merely consuming and destroying?

_Ellesmere._ Yes: now you talk like a sound political economist and sensible man.

_Milverton._ Then, you know, it does thoroughly dishearten one to find that Christianity during all these years, has been able to do so little towards the prevention of war. Nobody seems to see the beauty of renunciation. Nobody seems to see the merit of being content to be second or third instead of first in the great game of life. But I am unjust: private persons do sometimes see this beauty and this merit. I do believe that the first impulses of jealousy, of revenge, and of injustice, are constantly restrained by Christianity in the breasts of private individuals; but in nations, never. Honour! glory! rights! claims! balance of power! these are the words which still dominate nations. Statesmen are like lawyers, who often give their clients advice which is harsh and self-seeking, telling them never to give up their rights and their claims--advice which, if the case were their own, they would not give themselves--being more generous, as they think it right to be, for themselves, than for their clients.

_Ellesmere._ Yes: we lawyers are very good people: it is our clients who make us wicked, whenever we are wicked; which is very rarely.

_Mauleverer._ Man is meant to be miserable, and he always will be.

_Ellesmere._ I do not see that. Paley’s argument is better than yours; but people who are fond of fishing are always wiser than other men. As Paley justly says, “Teeth were made to eat with, and not to ache.” If we injudiciously contrive to make our teeth ache, it is our own fault; and the same thing applies to all our conduct. I have just as good a right to say that men were meant to be happy, as that men were meant to be miserable, Mr. Mauleverer. But do not let us interrupt Milverton: he will not be endurable until he has had his full moan over the present state of European affairs; which, however, are enough to make anybody moan.

_Milverton._ There is one point connected with this matter that I often blame myself for not having spoken about. It is the use that we Britishers make of our capital. How we send it out to the most distant regions, often to be used against ourselves, and indeed against the dearest and best interests of mankind. I think that upon this subject--to speak without arrogance--I am really an authority. I am the last surviving commissioner of foreign claims,--that means, of the claims of British subjects against foreign nations for injuries done in the wars that were closed by Waterloo. It may appear strange to you that I should ever have held such an office, for I am not yet, I trust, a very aged individual; but there were several commissions before I was appointed, and the commissioners died out, leaving us, the last set, to wind up the affairs. I had, of course, to look into all the old papers; and I found that there was no form of confiscation which had not been adopted with regard to British property. For instance, a foreign merchant owed a British merchant money: in his books it was a book-debt. The Government of the country said, “Pay us that debt which, according to your books, you owe the Englishman, and we will give you a receipt, so that you cannot be molested for the debt in any of our courts.”

Well, then I will pursue the subject further. Is it not lamentable that, with the fields of England not half tilled, with the poor people of England not half housed, with every branch of industry that England possesses requiring capital, we should ever send our money out to be invested in Congo Fives or Timbuctoo Seven per Cents., or whatever other tempting but foolish investment is offered to us by some distant country or colony? I believe I should have fulfilled my part in the world, if I had only persuaded my fellow-countrymen never to invest in anything which they cannot go and see, and respecting which their own laws do not give them a remedy, if any wrong is done them. I know it is of no use attempting by any legislative measures to prevent the efflux of capital. It is only to be done by persuasion; but, really, if men would only look to their own interests, they would be very shy of foreign investments. Now, I would ask the question, has any man ever invested, twenty or thirty years ago, in land on British soil, and has not that investment increased at least forty per cent. in value? However, I have said my say upon this subject, and you may believe me, or not; but I am quite sure that the increased interest never balances the increased danger which is to be found in making foreign investments.

_Sir Arthur._ To return to the main question of war: you cannot say, Milverton, that we have not gained a great deal of wisdom upon this point--that we are not wiser than other nations as regards it--for we have come to the conclusion that extension of territory is nearly always bought at too high a price.

_Ellesmere._ This has arisen from our insular position. You must not give us any great credit for being wiser than any other nation.

_Milverton._ There you are unjust. I would not exactly say that we are wiser than other nations; but I do honestly think that we are more conscientious. There is no doubt that we are a very warlike nation, and that the great bulk of every people delight in war: but we have come to the conclusion that it is a very dangerous thing for our future welfare--I mean not temporal, but eternal welfare--to indulge in any war that is not a war of defence or a war of protection to some oppressed people. I think that the religious movement which commenced in the latter part of the last century and the beginning of this--of which Wilberforce may be chosen as a representative--had a great effect upon the minds of the British people. It cancelled slavery; it improved our criminal code; it made all men, even statesmen, obliged to refer their conduct to the highest religious principles; and, you may depend upon it, it has proved a great check upon our naturally warlike instincts. This is what I think foreign nations do not understand, when they contemplate our sedulous observance of neutrality. They think it is shopkeeping which restrains us, whereas it is a fear of violating the highest moral and religious principles. I may be mistaken; but I sincerely believe what I say.

Only let some foreign nation attack us, and see what Berserkers we should become. I do not believe that the fighting element has gone out of us, but only that we are terribly afraid of fighting, except upon some thoroughly righteous cause--some cause which we believe would be approved of in heaven, as well as upon earth.

_Sir Arthur._ I am entirely in accordance with Mr. Milverton.

_Mauleverer._ I am not. Did you ever know the bulk of any nation ruled by any great, or humane, or religious principle?

_Ellesmere._ I think you all go too far in your respective theories. I think that, partly from a view of their interests, partly perhaps from religious principles, partly perhaps from their just contempt of the frivolous causes which often provoke war, the British people have come to a conclusion against it; but I am not inclined to give all the weight that Milverton does to Wilberforce, and the Wilberforcians of the last generation.

_Milverton._ At any rate, Ellesmere, you perceive the great change that has taken place in the minds of the British people about war.

_Ellesmere._ Well, there is a great change in the French people; and to whom is this due?

_Sir Arthur._ The French people have received great lessons in political wisdom. Count Daru, I believe, told them that he had made calculations, by which it appeared that the height of men in France had been lowered one inch and a half, or two inches, by the wars of the First Napoleon. You see how this happens; the taller men are perpetually chosen for war, and are carried off to be slaughtered before they have produced any progeny.

_Ellesmere._ And do you think that the arguments to be derived from such facts as these have any weight against “national glory, national honour, and rectification of frontiers?”

_Milverton._ I do. Besides, the French are the most industrious people in Europe, and they love to see the fruits of their industry. I may be sanguine, but I believe that the French are rapidly entering upon the same platform as ourselves; and that, if our statesmen manage well, we might yet have them nearly always on our side for the maintenance of the peace of Europe.

_Ellesmere._ Well, we have had enough of foreign politics: let us go to the men who, untold years ago, dwelt upon the Swiss lakes. I will bet anything Milverton makes them talk, and think as if they were profound political economists of the present day; and if Realmah does not talk to these fishy men much as Milverton would talk to us, my name is not John Ellesmere.

_Milverton._ I can only tell you what I know to have occurred. I may use modern terms, and sometimes modern modes of thought in speaking of the lake-men; but what I know is, that I shall give a most true account of the thoughts and doings of the great Realmah.

Hereupon the reading commenced, and was as follows:--

The Story of Realmah.