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Gallegacia Online Directory 10
Page 09
This revolution, ushering in the liberal monarchy of William and Mary, restored to Rhode Island and Connecticut their old charter governments in full. New Hampshire, after a momentary union with Massachusetts again, became once more a royal province. As to Massachusetts itself, a large party of the citizens now either did not wish the old state of things renewed, or were too timid to agree in demanding back their charter as of right. Had they been bold and united, they might have succeeded in this without any opposition from the Crown. Instead, a new charter was conferred, creating Massachusetts also a royal province, yet with government more liberal than the other provinces of this order enjoyed. The governor was appointed by the Crown, and could convene, adjourn, or dissolve the Legislature. With the consent of his council he also created the judges, from whose highest sentence appeal could be taken to the Privy Council. The governor could veto legislation, and the king annul any law under three years old.
There is another figure of earlier date who seems to have had the same magnetic gift in an even more pre-eminent degree. There is a portrait by Lawrence of Lord Melbourne that certainly gives a hint, and more than a hint, of the extraordinary charm which enveloped him; the thick, wavy hair, the fine nose, the full, but firmly moulded, lips, are attractive enough. But the large, dark eyes under strongly marked eyebrows, which are at once pathetic, passionate, ironical, and mournful, evoke a singular emotion. Every gift that men hold to be advantageous was showered upon Melbourne. He was well born, wealthy, able; he was full of humour, quick to grasp a subject, an omnivorous reader and student, a famous sportsman. He won the devotion of both men and women. His marriage with the lovely and brilliant Lady Caroline Ponsonby, whose heart was broken and mind shattered by her hopeless passion for Byron, showed how he could win hearts. There is no figure of all that period of whom one would rather possess a personal memoir. Yet despite all his fame and political prestige, he was an unhappy, dissatisfied man, who tasted every experience and joy of life, and found that there was nothing in it.
Unconsciousness is no bar to livingness. Our conscious actions are a drop in the sea as compared with our unconscious ones. Could we know all the life that is in us by way of circulation, nutrition, breathing, waste and repair, we should learn what an infinitesimally small part consciousness plays in our present existence; yet our unconscious life is as truly life as our conscious life, and though it is unconscious to itself it emerges into an indirect and vicarious consciousness in our other and conscious self, which exists but in virtue of our unconscious self. So we have also a vicarious consciousness in others. The unconscious life of those that have gone before us has in great part moulded us into such men and women as we are, and our own unconscious lives will in like manner have a vicarious consciousness in others, though we be dead enough to it in ourselves.
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