Plainly a dupe and traitor in one.  Let a man be as great a fool as he likes, so that he does not set a bad example.  Fools need only be civil, and in consideration thereof they may aim at being the basis of monarchies.  The narrowness of Clancharlie’s mind was incomprehensible.  His eyes were still dazzled by the phantasmagoria of the revolution.  He had allowed himself to be taken in by the republic—­yes; and cast out.  He was an affront to his country.  The attitude he assumed was downright felony.  Absence was an insult.  He held aloof from the public joy as from the plague.  In his voluntary banishment he found some indescribable refuge from the national rejoicing.  He treated loyalty as a contagion; over the widespread gladness at the revival of the monarchy, denounced by him as a lazaretto, he was the black flag.  What! could he look thus askance at order reconstituted, a nation exalted, and a religion restored?  Over such serenity why cast his shadow?  Take umbrage at England’s contentment!  Must he be the one blot in the clear blue sky!  Be as a threat!  Protest against a nation’s will! refuse his Yes to the universal consent!  It would be disgusting, if it were not the part of a fool.  Clancharlie could not have taken into account the fact that it did not matter if one had taken the wrong turn with Cromwell, as long as one found one’s way back into the right path with Monk.

Take Monk’s case.  He commands the republican army.  Charles II., having been informed of his honesty, writes to him.  Monk, who combines virtue with tact, dissimulates at first, then suddenly at the head of his troops dissolves the rebel parliament, and re-establishes the king on the throne.  Monk is created Duke of Albemarle, has the honour of having saved society, becomes very rich, sheds a glory over his own time, is created Knight of the Garter, and has the prospect of being buried in Westminster Abbey.  Such glory is the reward of British fidelity!

Lord Clancharlie could never rise to a sense of duty thus carried out.  He had the infatuation and obstinacy of an exile.  He contented himself with hollow phrases.  He was tongue-tied by pride.  The words conscience and dignity are but words, after all.  One must penetrate to the depths.  These depths Lord Clancharlie had not reached.  His “eye was single,” and before committing an act he wished to observe it so closely as to be able to judge it by more senses than one.  Hence arose absurd disgust to the facts examined.  No man can be a statesman who gives way to such overstrained delicacy.  Excess of conscientiousness degenerates into infirmity.  Scruple is one-handed when a sceptre is to be seized, and a eunuch when fortune is to be wedded.  Distrust scruples; they drag you too far.  Unreasonable fidelity is like a ladder leading into a cavern—­one step down, another, then another, and there you are in the dark.  The clever reascend; fools remain in it.  Conscience must not be allowed to practise such austerity.  If it be, it will fall until, from transition to transition, it at length reaches the deep gloom of political prudery.  Then one is lost.  Thus it was with Lord Clancharlie.