Alice, or the Mysteries — Book 03

								

the pretensions of others, and aroused envy by mortifying self-love--he
created but little jealousy even amongst the rivals before whom he
obtained precedence.  For some time, therefore, he went smoothly on,
continuing to rise in the estimation of his party, and commanding a
certain respect from the neutral public, by acknowledged and eminent
talents in the details of business; for his quickness of penetration, and
a logical habit of mind, enabled him to grapple with and generalize the
minutiae of official labour or of legislative enactments with a masterly
success.  But as the road became clearer to his steps, his ambition
became more evident and daring.  Naturally dictatorial and presumptuous,
his early suppleness to superiors was now exchanged for a self-willed
pertinacity, which often displeased the more haughty leaders of his
party, and often wounded the more vain.  His pretensions were scanned
with eyes more jealous and less tolerant than at first.  Proud
aristocrats began to recollect that a mushroom peerage was supported but
by a scanty fortune; the men of more dazzling genius began to sneer at
the red-tape minister as a mere official manager of details; he lost much
of the personal popularity which had been one secret of his power.  But
what principally injured him in the eyes of his party and the public were
certain ambiguous and obscure circumstances connected with a short period
when himself and his associates were thrown out of office.  At this time,
it was noticeable that the journals of the Government that succeeded were
peculiarly polite to Lord Vargrave, while they covered all his coadjutors
with obloquy: and it was more than suspected that secret negotiations
between himself and the new ministry were going on, when suddenly the
latter broke up, and Lord Vargrave's proper party were reinstated.  The
vague suspicions that attached to Vargrave were somewhat strengthened in
the opinion of the public by the fact that he was at first left out of
the restored administration; and when subsequently, after a speech which
showed that he could be mischievous if not propitiated, he was
readmitted, it was precisely to the same office he had held before,--an
office which did not admit him into the Cabinet.  Lumley, burning with
resentment, longed to decline the offer; but, alas! he was poor, and,
what was worse, in debt; "his poverty, but not his will, consented."  He
was reinstated; but though prodigiously improved as a debater, he felt
that he had not advanced as a public man.  His ambition inflamed by his
discontent, he had, since his return to office, strained every nerve to
strengthen his position.  He met the sarcasms on his poverty by greatly
increasing his expenditure, and by advertising everywhere his engagement
to an heiress whose fortune, great as it was, he easily contrived to
magnify.  As his old house in Great George Street--well fitted for the
bustling commoner--was no longer suited to the official and fashionable