[PB: Also in this chapter Michener describes Cardigan in some detail and follows up with a rant against him (and Tennyson, Dickens, Carlyle and others) from the mouth of his John Stuart Mill. See p.137 — 9. Excerpt here.]
They had reached Cavendish Square when Oliver made these final strong points, all of which Jason had to concede, and for some time they stood in the grassy area between their two houses while Oliver nailed down his persuasive reasoning: 'A few blacks were killed after having murdered the queen's representatives. That and nothing more. Tomorrow you must go with me to Tennyson and inform him that you're joining his crusade to save an innocent man.'
Bewildered, Jason crossed to his mansion where the gargantuan statues writhed in their marble agonies, and he sat in considerable confusion between them, knowing on the one hand that Governor Eyre had been morally responsible for a terrible chain of crimes, but knowing also that Oliver was right: Eyre had not ordered Hobbs and Ramsay to do the dreadful things they did, nor had he been present when they were carried out. 'No court will convict him,' he said to Mars and Venus. 'Our effort to punish him is doomed.'
This conclusion so distressed him that he left the mansion, whistled for a carriage, rode posthaste to the modest house where John Stuart Mill kept his headquarters during the battle for men's minds, and there blurted out his apprehensions: 'Eyre cannot be held technically responsible for something he did not order or personally supervise. I do fear our effort will be fruitless.'
The powerful intellect behaved as always when a problem was placed before it, pausing and evaluating relevant facts. Then the man with the placid face and endless brow asked quietly: 'Now, friend Jason, what experience inspired this defeating conclusion?' and he listened intently as Pembroke described his discussions with Carlyle, Tennyson, the Earl of Cardigan and his cousin Oliver Croome.
[139]
At the end of the long report Mill sat silent, his fingers forming a cathedral at his waist, and finally he said in a steady voice, never betraying scorn or anger as he delivered his scathing denunciations: 'Surely, Jason, you must know from what you've read and heard that Thomas Carlyle has a blemished mind which glories only in power and is incapable of pity, moral distinctions or the rights of the oppressed. No man who has written jocularly as he has about slavery and advocated our returning to it is a credible witness in dealing with Governor Eyre. To Carlyle, the man's grossest misbehavior becomes his badge of honor, solely because he acted in defense of what Carlyle calls "the sacred obligation to law and order." Whose law and order - his or humanity's?'
'But Tennyson was persuasive. You can't charge that immortal poet with playing the brute.'
'A hundred years from now, Jason, Tennyson will be uncovered for what he is, a doddering old fellow in bedroom slippers who played the sycophant to anyone higher on the social scale than himself. His immortal poetry, as you call it, will be laughed at by those who know what real poetry is, the cry of a human heart. My father recommended that poets be barred from society because they made untruth and irrelevance palatable, deceiving the public with their wit and lack of brains. Tennyson with his sugary confections best exemplifies what my father despised. Do not take him as your moral guide in this troubled year when so much is coming to decision.'
'The Earl of Cardigan said about the same as Tennyson - Eyre is to be commended, not condemned.'
Upon hearing this dubious hero cited as an authority of anything, Mill leaned back, turned his face upward, closed his eyes and reflected for some moments: 'How can I phrase this so as to do justice to the truth and to the present debate. I'll try.' Opening his eyes, he twisted his head so as to face Pembroke, and said quietly: 'Cardigan is an ass. And far from being a hero at Balaklava, he proved he was an ass, sacrificing his Light Brigade in his stupidity. And he is the perfect example of Carlyle's nonsense about heroes and hero worship. Heroes are usually counterfeit in their creation and preposterous in the adoration they receive, none more so than Cardigan.'
'But he did lead his men personally, none braver than he, Tennyson said so.'
'Jason, I shall give you Cardigan in a few sentences. Incredibly stupid in school. Was able to join a regiment only because he paid his way in. Bought the colonelcy, no military talent whatever. Ruled his officers like an insane tyrant, so wretched that most quit and one of his own men with spirit dueled the old fool in an effort to kill him. At Balaklava he and his equally stupid brother-in-law the Earl of Lucan got their orders from that classic incompetent Lord Raglan ... all mixed up, and disaster followed. The three should have been court-martialed and shot; instead, a silly poem makes the worst offender a hero. Jason, I pray you, do not look to a ninny like Cardigan for guidance.'