The family party, with the addition of Lord Darlingford, Sir James Lindsey, and his brother, were assembled round the luncheon-table at Lady Arden's.

Henry Lindsey had been amazingly piqued that morning by Louisa's reception of Sir James. The little baronet was now seated next to her, and making, if possible, a greater fool of himself than usual; while, in consequence of the lesson she had received, she was yielding him her attention with marked complacency. Henry sat opposite, and trembled with a mingling of agitation and indignation. He thought he could already foresee that he was to be deliberately immolated to avarice; yet, so thoroughly was he the slave of Louisa's beauty and his own passion, that no worthlessness on her part could have set him free. He felt, that were she already the wife of his brother, her image might drive him mad, but that he could not banish it from his imagination.

The hardship of Henry Lindsey's case as a younger brother was conspicuous, and displayed in a striking manner the evils consequent upon sacrificing justice to pride.

From a boy he had felt much on this subject; but being of a generous, warm-hearted, liberal nature, he did not long brood over his own individual wrongs; his mind, however, following the impulse thus received, though in the first instance from a selfish feeling, gave itself to the contemplation and discussion of natural rights generally, till it became enamoured of abstract justice, and learned to apply its searching test to every subject, especially the all absorbing topic of the day—Political Economy; while, with his characteristic enthusiasm, despising the sophisms of expediency, he embraced, without perhaps sufficient caution, theories which soon caused him to be considered by his friends a reformer, by his enemies almost a revolutionist, and by himself the warm advocate of the rights, not of younger brothers only, but of those whom he emphatically termed the step-children of the laws—The People.

Such were at all times his opinions, while the irritable state of his mind, at the moment of which we are speaking, added asperity to his manner of expressing himself, and caused him, in answer to some jesting remark of Alfred's on the old topic of younger brothers, to give vent to his feelings in a long, and almost angry political discussion. He objected, he said, to the law of primogeniture on the ground of its being a wretched system of monopoly, which placed in the hands of a simple individual what, if divided, would suffice to restore thousands of his degraded and oppressed fellow-creatures to the rank of humanity. The times were gone by when communities, formed for the general weal, would wilfully sacrifice prosperity to pride, and not only parcel out the whole land to, comparatively speaking, a few families, but the succession to those lands being limited to the elder branches, allow all place, preferment, and emolument, to be confined to the younger sons of the same families, because the land had given them influence; and the mass of the people to be thus reduced to do the work of the ass and the mule, and because they cannot also eat their food, the grass and the thistle, be often in danger of starvation.

The old feudal system itself was better than this: the ancient baron was at least bound to feed not only his relations but his vassals, and he did so in his own hall, at his own table. While, now-a-days, a man, as soon as his father's funeral is over, turns his brothers and sisters out of doors, to exist as they may, on a pitiful portion, the principal of which is in general infinitely less than one year's income of the property, on the scale of which they have been accustomed to live in their father's time; while the new master permits his servants to collect their wages by showing the empty baronial hall to strangers at so much per head, by which creditable means he is himself enabled to reserve all his rents to stake at hazard in London, or at rouge et noir in Paris. When parliament is sitting, he must of course attend, to vote against any infringement on his monopoly, which the enlightened spirit of the times may chance to propose. Thanks, however, to the Reform Bill, the holders of the monopolies are no longer our sole law-givers; we have now some chance of justice one time or another.

"Besides," he added, "to return to the ancient baron, he was not only bound to feed his retainers, but in time of war to provide the government with a certain number of them, fitly clothed and armed; which was virtually bearing the burdens of the state. The baron was, in point of fact, but the trustee to a certain property, which property was to feed a certain number of the population, and to contribute its due proportion to the defence of the community. Instead of this, when the feudal system becomes dangerous to government the barons are forbidden to arm, and exonerated from feeding their retainers; yet, the trust-property left in their hands for pocket-money, while their late followers are not only turned out on the wide world to starve, but the taxes necessary to maintain the army which the barons are forbid to provide, are levied on the bare palms of the hands of the thus turned out and starving vassals; and not satisfied with this injustice, those who thus keep possession of the trust-lands, have arrived at literally billeting their younger sons on those said vassals, thus turned out and starving."

"Explain! explain!" cried Lord Darlingford, "How can you make that out?"

"Are not," replied Henry, "the salaries and pensions of all the posts and sinecures they hold paid by means of taxes, a great proportion of which are levied on industry? Is this as it should be? If the pride of the great demand that their properties shall be inherited by their elder sons, and the offspring of that pride—if false necessity, require that places and sinecures be provided for their younger sons, should not the rich co-operate in raising a fund for the payment of the salaries of such, and not grind their thousands by pittances from the real necessities of the poor?"

"What then is your panacea for so many crying ills?" asked Lord Darlingford, "Do you call on us to render up our trusts and proclaim an Agrarian law?"

"No; those whose motives are honest dare not go such lengths. This would be to resolve society into its mere elements, to open the flood-gates of anarchy, and awake the savage spirit of wanton plunder. Many large landed properties too have been purchased with the wages of industry; so that besides the horrible convulsions attendant upon the dissolution of the social system, there would be no such thing as drawing the line; to avoid, therefore, worse evils, I would allow the 'frightful disparities,' as an able writer of the day terms them, to exist till industry, unchecked, unladen, could work out for itself a gradual emancipation from the bondage of want. But I would not add to evils I dare not too suddenly remedy! I would not require the children of Israel to make bricks without straw! I would not lay the burdens of the state on shoulders already weighed down by nature's demand for daily bread. I would exempt from the whole weight of taxation the labourer, whether of brain or limb; he has no stake in the stability of the state; he can carry his head or his hand wherever he goes. He who keeps back the hire of the labourer is denounced in holy writ: I would not be worse than such, and rob the labourer of his hire. I would, therefore, repeal every tax direct and indirect, which now exists, and substitute for all a graduated property-tax, on independent property only, trifling in amount, say one per cent., where the property was small; and doubling, trebling, nay, quadrupling, if necessary, as it rises. What, if a man with thirty thousand per annum, pay twenty thousand, can he not live on ten? or if the man with two hundred thousand per annum, pay one hundred and fifty thousand, can he not live on fifty? This, some people are not ashamed to answer me would be robbing the rich; while they talk as loudly as vaguely of the sacredness of property and vested rights. But I would answer such, that starvation in the midst of plenty, on the plea of the sacredness of justice, is a practical blasphemy! What, therefore, relief from taxation did not effect for the absolutely destitute, I would complete by an amended system of poor-laws;—such assessments, however, to be levied on independent property only."

"Poor-laws are bad things," interrupted Sir James, who having finished his luncheon, was now lolling on a sofa, "they make the common people so lazy."

"As long as industry is not taxed in support of idleness," answered Henry, "the lazy rich man is entitled to no commiseration for being compelled to assist his brother, the lazy poor man! Poor-laws," he added, turning to Lord Darlingford, "as far at least as food goes, I consider the most sacred of vested rights. God said, 'Behold, I have given you every herb bearing seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed, to you it shall be for meat.'"

"But you allow," said his lordship, "that many of the great landed properties you would tax thus heavily are purchased with the produce of the owner's own exertions; state your reasons for giving immunity to present industry and not to past?"

"Because," replied Henry, "when once a man has realized property he has acquired a stake in the country, a stake in the stability of the government; his property requires protection, whether from the foreign enemy or the home depredator; and, therefore, he should pay for such protection. If a man desires a wall round his garden, who pays for building the wall? The man who owns the garden! If a man wishes to insure his premises against fire, who pays the insurance? The man whose premises are guaranteed. Would either of these persons dream of calling a parish meeting to demand of their neighbours as a right, that they should subscribe towards the expense so incurred; nay, that every pauper subsisting on some shilling or two per week, should be compelled to pay two-pence for his penny loaf until the sum was made up; yet, such is the spirit of every tax, direct or indirect, levied on any thing but independent property. The machinery of government is the garden-wall of the landed interest, the insurance office of the fund-holder. Any tax, therefore, levied on those who have neither land nor money is a crying injustice, except, indeed," he added with bitter irony, "we admit of a small pole-tax to keep down burking. It is, no doubt, the houseless, nameless, friendless wretch, who has no one to ask what is become of him; the poor creature, who has nothing to be protected but the limbs and sinews he was born with, who runs the greatest risk of contributing these to the promotion of science."

"But," observed Lord Darlingford, "it is not the very destitute who pay taxes."

"I beg your pardon," said Henry, "indirect ones they do. If the beggar in the street succeeds in exciting the compassion of the passenger, and receives one penny, ere he can appease his hunger with a mouthful of bread, do not the corn laws, by doubling the price of the loaf, exact from him one half of the penny so obtained? And is not his mite, thus cast into the treasury, like that of the poor widow in the Gospel, taken from his want; and, therefore, more than all they (the rich) did cast in of their abundance?"

"Oh, it is all but too true!" said Lady Arden, feelingly. "I do think your scheme of taxation would be but justice. Willoughby would certainly have a great deal to pay; but he can surely afford it better than poor creatures who have nothing but what they earn, or what they beg. I see the subject now in quite a new light. I have always been in the habit of thinking people poor who had but one or two thousands a-year; and I never took the trouble of considering that there was any difference between hundreds a-year and nothing."

"How would you apportion this property-tax of yours?" asked Lord Darlingford; "and how ensure its being sufficient for the exigencies of the state?"

"On a graduated scale, as I have already said," replied Henry, "from justice to individuals: let those who have the largest property to ensure, pay, as at all other insurance offices, the most; but, as to details and calculations, I leave those to Mr. Hume, or some of the multiplication table people; I only advocate the principle. Indeed, one of the great recommendations of this plan is, that the principle once established, the work is done: when those who tie up the burdens have to carry them, they may be trusted to find scales of sufficient nicety in which to weigh them: we need, in that case, no longer call for estimates, or petition against sinecures; nay, we may give the very voting of the subsidies to the Lords themselves!—many of whom, I make no doubt, would forthwith become immortalised by the economical or 'twopenny halfpenny' ingenuity, developed in the devising of future budgets. 'Twopence halfpenny,' I would have the noble lords to know, though no object to them, is a sum which many of their destitute fellow-creatures would, at this moment, receive with joy of heart! Then, remember, in further recommendation of this scheme, the millions a-year of unprofitable expense that would be saved to the nation, by having but one instead of innumerable taxes to levy."

"I don't think," said Sir James, looking as if he had made a discovery, "that the people with large fortunes will like this law of yours, Henry."

"Many people, too," replied Henry, contemptuously, "don't like paying their Christmas bills."

Alfred, who had been looking over a morning paper near a window, and from time to time lending a share of his attention to the disputants, now joined them.

"We cannot, I think," he said, "blame any particular government, or set of men, for the ills of which you complain. The fault is in human nature; and the remedy, if there be one, is only to be found in laying step by step the wisest general restrictions we can on individual selfishness. The advance of civilization has already placed a salutary check on plunder by force; it remains for the march of intellect to discover one for plunder by stratagem. But we must be cautious; in desiring the higher steps of the ladder of wisdom and virtue, we must not undervalue those we have attained, and in our headlong haste, stumble; and, like our neighbours of the continent, fall back on the frightful abyss of anarchy that lays below! 'Tis well to rise in excellence; I hate the cant of dreading all chance: but, to keep to the simile of the ladder, let us take care that the lifting foot be firmly placed on the step above, ere the standing one be removed from the step below."

"Is there not some danger," said Lord Darlingford, "of a property-tax sending capital out of the kingdom?"

"It must be very easy," replied Henry, "for the inventors of all sorts of protecting duties to devise a means of meeting that difficulty, by some ingeniously arranged tax on the exportation of property, whether income or capital, with a tremendously deterring fine on any attempt at imposition; and minor exactments, to hunt evasion through all its windings. There might, also," he added, "be an alien tax, to prevent the foreign artizan from sharing the immunity from taxation, purchased by our own rich for our own poor."

"Is there not some danger," said Lady Arden, "that the deteriorated incomes of the great, by obliging them to lessen their establishments and expenditure, would throw many people out of employment, and so increase the numbers of the poor?"

"I should think not," answered Henry; "recollect there would be the same property in the kingdom, only in more general and more equal circulation. The servants dismissed, and the luxuries foregone by the few, would in all probability be more than compensated by the increased establishments and more numerous comforts of the many, though each only in a small degree. The standard of splendour might be lowered, but that of comfort would be raised. The change, too, is likely to be in favour of home productions: the overflow of inordinate wealth, the too much of the few, is frequently squandered on luxuries obtained from abroad; while the fertilizing sufficiency, the enough of the many, would probably be expended on comforts produced at home.

"I do not, however," he added, "mean to assume the character of a prophet, or even to argue the point of future consequences; I take higher ground, and end every such discussion with the same appeal to duty:

"Let each generation do what is clearly justice in their own day, and leave the future to the All-wise Disposer of events.

"If there were, indeed, a theory through the mazes of which moral rectitude knew no path, we might be excusable in taking calculation for our guide; but when our road lies before us, indicated by duty's steadily pointing finger, we are not entitled to balance ere we proceed, even though it should be where four frequented highways meet."

Mrs. Dorothea, the sisters, and Sir James, had got tired of politics, and wandered into the garden. Henry, perceiving that Sir James was still in attendance on Louisa, became impatient, broke off the conversation abruptly, and following them, joined her, saying, "Lord Darlingford is too prudent a politician for me. I hate prudence and calculation, and worldly mindedness," he added, with impetuosity, and a provoked and mortified tone of voice, which Louisa was at no loss to comprehend. "The present artificial state of society," he proceeded, "has banished into the poet's dream every thing worth living for!—there alone all things deserving the ambition of an intellectual being now hold their unreal existence! Beauty has become a snare—feeling a folly, or a curse!—love a farce, and lovely woman, nature's most cunning workmanship, a toy, a trinket, which the rich man may draw out his purse and purchase!!!—heart and all!" he subjoined, in an under and somewhat softened voice, for Louisa had looked round, and their eyes had met for a moment. "Is it so?" he continued; "or are the beautiful looking deceptions now made to suit the market for which they are intended, without hearts?"