FullReads

“Well,” answered my aunt, “I must explain my inconsistency in this particular by comparing it to another. I am, as you know, a piece of that old-fashioned thing called a Jacobite; but I am so in sentiment and feeling only, for a more loyal subject never joined in prayers for the health and wealth of George the Fourth, whom God long preserve! But I dare say that kind-hearted sovereign would not deem that an old woman did him much injury if she leaned back in her arm-chair, just in such a twilight as this, and thought of the high-mettled men whose sense of duty called them to arms against his grandfather; and how, in a cause which they deemed that of their rightful prince and country,

‘They fought till their hand to the broadsword was glued,
They fought against fortune with hearts unsubdued.’

Do not come at such a moment, when my head is full of plaids, pibrochs, and claymores, and ask my reason to admit what, I am afraid, it cannot deny–I mean, that the public advantage peremptorily demanded that these things should cease to exist. I cannot, indeed, refuse to allow the justice of your reasoning; but yet, being convinced against my will, you will gain little by your motion. You might as well read to an infatuated lover the catalogue of his mistress’s imperfections; for when he has been compelled to listen to the summary, you will only get for answer that ‘he lo’es her a’ the better.'”

I was not sorry to have changed the gloomy train of Aunt Margaret’s thoughts, and replied in the same tone, “Well, I can’t help being persuaded that our good King is the more sure of Mrs. Bothwell’s loyal affection, that he has the Stewart right of birth as well as the Act of Succession in his favour.”

“Perhaps my attachment, were its source of consequence, might be found warmer for the union of the rights you mention,” said Aunt Margaret; “but, upon my word, it would be as sincere if the King’s right were founded only on the will of the nation, as declared at the Revolution. I am none of your JURE DIVINO folks.”

“And a Jacobite notwithstanding.”

“And a Jacobite notwithstanding–or rather, I will give you leave to call me one of the party which, in Queen Anne’s time, were called, WHIMSICALS, because they were sometimes operated upon by feelings, sometimes by principle. After all, it is very hard that you will not allow an old woman to be as inconsistent in her political sentiments as mankind in general show themselves in all the various courses of life; since you cannot point out one of them in which the passions and prejudices of those who pursue it are not perpetually carrying us away from the path which our reason points out.”

“True, aunt; but you are a wilful wanderer, who should be forced back into the right path.”

“Spare me, I entreat you,” replied Aunt Margaret. “You remember the Gaelic song, though I dare say I mispronounce the words–

‘Hatil mohatil, na dowski mi.’
(I am asleep, do not waken me.)

I tell you, kinsman, that the sort of waking dreams which my imagination spins out, in what your favourite Wordsworth calls ‘moods of my own mind,’ are worth all the rest of my more active days. Then, instead of looking forwards, as I did in youth, and forming for myself fairy palaces, upon the verge of the grave I turn my eyes backward upon the days and manners of my better time; and the sad, yet soothing recollections come so close and interesting, that I almost think it sacrilege to be wiser or more rational or less prejudiced than those to whom I looked up in my younger years.”

“I think I now understand what you mean,” I answered, “and can comprehend why you should occasionally prefer the twilight of illusion to the steady light of reason.”