, stimulated
by opportunity and brandy, made a thrust at him by alluding to old ladies'
wills, he maintained perfect sang froid, and knew quite well that the majority
of substantial men then present were perfectly contented with the fact that
»Wakem was Wakem;« that is to say, a man who always knew the stepping-stones
that would carry him through very muddy bits of practice. A man who had made a
large fortune, had a handsome house among the trees at Tofton, and decidedly the
finest stock of port-wine in the neighbourhood of St Ogg's, was likely to feel
himself on a level with public opinion. And I am not sure that even honest Mr.
Tulliver himself, with his general view of law as a cockpit, might not, under
opposite circumstances, have seen a fine appropriateness in the truth that
»Wakem was Wakem;« since I have understood from persons versed in history, that
mankind is not disposed to look narrowly into the conduct of great victors when
their victory is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no obstruction to
Wakem; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the lawyer had defeated several
times - a hot-tempered fellow, who would always give you a handle against him.
Wakem's conscience was not uneasy because he had used a few tricks against the
miller: why should he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff - that pitiable, furious
bull entangled in the meshes of a net?
    Still, among the various excesses to which human nature is subject,
moralists have never numbered that of being too fond of the people who openly
revile us. The successful Yellow candidate for the borough of Old Topping,
perhaps, feels no pursuant meditative hatred toward the Blue editor who consoles
his subscribers with vituperative rhetoric against Yellow men who sell their
country, and are the demons of private life; but he might not be sorry, if law
and opportunity favoured, to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his
favourite colour. Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and then, as they
take a diversion, when it comes easily in their way, and is no hindrance to
business; and such small unimpassioned revenges have an enormous effect in life,
running through all degrees of pleasant infliction, blocking the fit men out of
places, and blackening characters in unpremeditated talk. Still more, to see
people who have been only insignificantly offensive to us, reduced in life and
humiliated without any special efforts of ours, is apt to have a soothing,
flattering influence: Providence, or some other prince of this world
