第61章 CHAPTER THE TWENTY-THIRD(3)

Finch. "I take the liberty of saying, ma'am, that a more senseless dress doesn't exist, than the dress that is put, in this country, on infants of tender years. What are the three main functions which that child--that charming child of yours-performs? He sucks; he sleeps; and he grows. At the present moment, he isn't sucking, he isn't sleeping--he is growing with all his might. Under those interesting circumstances, what does he want to do? To move his limbs freely in every direction. You let him swing his arms to his heart's content--and you deny him freedom to kick his legs. You clothe him in a dress three times as long as himself. He tries to throw his legs up in the air as he throws his arms, and he can't do it. There is his senseless long dress entangling itself in his toes, and making an effort of what Nature intended to be a luxury. Can anything be more absurd? What are mothers about? Why don't they think for themselves? Take my advice--short petticoats, Mrs. Finch. Liberty, glorious liberty, for my young friend's legs! Room, heaps of room, for that infant martyr's toes!"

Mrs. Finch listened helplessly--lifted the baby's long petticoats, and looked at them--stared piteously at Nugent Dubourg--opened her lips to speak--and, thinking better of it, turned her watery eyes on her husband, appealing to _him_ to take the matter up. Mr. Finch made another attempt to assert his dignity--a ponderously satirical attempt, this time.

"In offering your advice to my wife, Mr. Nugent," said the rector, "you must permit me to remark that it would have had more practical force if it had been the advice of a married man. I beg to remind you----"

"You beg to remind me that it is the advice of a bachelor? Oh, come! that really won't do at this time of day. Doctor Johnson settled that argument at once and for ever, a century since. 'Sir!' (he said to somebody of your way of thinking) 'you may scold your carpenter, when he has made a bad table, though you can't make a table yourself.' I say to you--'Mr.

Finch, you may point out a defect in a baby's petticoats, though you haven't got a baby yourself!' Doesn't that satisfy you? All right! Take another illustration. Look at your room here. I can see in the twinkling of an eye, that it's badly lit. You have only got one window--you ought to have two. Is it necessary to be a practical builder to discover that?

Absurd! Are you satisfied now? No! Take another illustration. What's this printed paper, here, on the chimney-piece? Assessed Taxes. Ha! Assessed Taxes will do. You're not in the House of Commons; you're not Chancellor of the Exchequer--but haven't you an opinion of your own about taxation, in spite of that? Must you and I be in Parliament before we can presume to see that the feeble old British Constitution is at its last gasp----?"

"And the vigorous young Republic drawing its first breath of life!" I burst in; introducing the Pratolungo programme (as my way is) at every available opportunity.

Nugent Dubourg instantly wheeled round in my direction; and set me right on my subject, just as he had set the rector right on reading _Hamlet,_ and Mrs. Finch right on clothing babies.

"Not a bit of it!" he pronounced positively. "The 'young Republic' is the ricketty child of the political family. Give him up, ma'am. You will never make a man of him."

I tried to assert myself as the rector had tried before me--with precisely the same result. I appealed indignantly to the authority of my illustrious husband.

"Doctor Pratolungo--" I began.

"Was an honest man," interposed Nugent Dubourg. "I am an advanced Liberal myself--I respect him. But he was quite wrong. All sincere republicans make the same mistake. They believe in the existence of public spirit in Europe. Amiable delusion! Public spirit is dead in Europe. Public spirit is the generous emotion of young nations, of new peoples. In selfish old Europe, private interest has taken its place. When your husband preached the republic, on what ground did he put it? On the ground that the republic was going to elevate the nation. Pooh! Ask me to accept the republic, on the ground that I elevate Myself--and, supposing you can prove it, I will listen to you. If you are ever to set republican institutions going, in the Old World--_there_ is the only motive power that will do it!"

I was indignant at such sentiments. "My glorious husband--" I began again.