TOM BROWN'S
I could only drive this into the heads of you rising Parliamentary lords and young swells who "have your ways made for you," as the saying is—you who frequent palaver-houses and West-end clubs, waiting always ready to strap yourselves onto the back of poor, dear old John as soon as the present used-up lot (your fathers and uncles), who sit there on the great Parliamentary-majorities' pack-saddle and make believe they're guiding him with their red-tape bridle, tumble or have to be lifted off!
I don't think much of you yet—I wish I could; though you do go talking and lecturing up and down the country to crowded audiences, and are busy with all sorts of philanthropic intellectualism and circulating libraries and museums, and Heaven only knows what besides, and try to make us think, through newspaper reports, that you are, even as we, of the working classes. But, bless your hearts, we "ain't so green," though lots of us of all sorts toady you enough certainly, and try to make you think so.
I'll tell you what to do now: instead of all this trumpeting and fuss, which is only the old Parliamentary-majority dodge over again, just you go each of you (you've plenty of time for it, if you'll only give up t'other line) and quietly make three or four friends, real friends, among us. You'll find a little trouble in getting at the right sort, because such birds don't come lightly to your lure—but found they may be. Take, say, two out of the professions—lawyer, parson, doctor—which you will; one out of trade, and three or four out of the working classes—tailors, engineers, carpenters, engravers—there's plenty of choice. Let them be men of your own ages, mind, and ask them to your homes; introduce them to your wives and sisters, and get introduced to theirs; give them good dinners, and talk to them about what is really at the bottom of your heart, and box, and run, and row with them, when you have a chance. Do all this honestly as man to man, and by the time you come to ride old John you'll be able to do something more than sit on his back, and may feel his mouth with some stronger bridle than a red-tape one.
[ 42 ]
