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Bribery, indulgences, robbery, venality of justice, were universal in the courts of judicature of the country; morals degenerated, and the new sects availed themselves of this all-pervading licentiousness to propagate their opinions.
Only his own elegant languor had prevented the universal recognition of this and his triumph over the envy of professionals and the venality of critics. It was a concert night in Tompkins Square, and Hilda, off from her work for an hour, came alone through the crowds to meet him. She made no effort to control the delight in her eyes and in her voice. She loved him; he loved her.
An artist, an educated person, is an artilleryman who knows how to handle the weapon, and whom he tries to corrupt, if he cannot win him. The merchant is convinced that logic is the art of proving at will the true and the false; he was the inventor of political venality, traffic in consciences, prostitution of talents, corruption of the press.
The other great lords, highborn and highly titled as they were and served at their banquets by hosts of lackeys on their knees Nottinghams, Northamptons, Suffolks were, after all, ciphers or at best, mere pensioners of Spain. For all the venality of Europe was not confined to the Continent.
They abused their fortune, without considering their past, or their future, condition; and their rapine and venality could be equalled only by the extravagance of their dissipations.
Although it is always dangerous to hold a view which others do not share, I must boldly say that in my opinion, in the present state of affairs and in any that one can foresee, it is better to suffer venality and hereditary offices to continue than to change, from top to bottom, your majesty's judicial establishment.
In the opinion of the great majority of the people, the sovereign remedy consists in suppressing venality, in doing away with the hereditary principle in judicial offices, and in giving their positions gratuitously to men of such well-known probity and capacity that not even envy itself can contest their merit.
To be sure, there were objections to these arguments, but we thought we had answered them tersely and convincingly; if some one complained of the ignorance of voters, we answered, "Educate them." If another complained of their venality, we replied, "Disfranchise them or put them in jail."
And what a play! Surely, not to consider it too curiously, a play which struck, however sportively, the key-note of the coming Revolution; a play which, for the first time, displayed society literally in a state of bouleversement; a play in which the greed of the courtier, the venality of the judge, the empty glitter of the crown, were openly held up to scorn; a play in which all the wit, audacity, and success are on the side of the canaille; a play in which a lady's-maid is the heroine, and a valet canes his master, and a great nobleman is tricked, outwitted, and covered with ridicule!
Its effectiveness may be judged by the fact that the Arabs, weary of Turkish venality, as open and shameless as anywhere in the world, began in increasing numbers to bring their difficulties to our tribunal.
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