recall old buried feuds, or to
insinuate any _personal_ blame whatsoever (my business being not with
this or that man, but with a system and its principles); this man, by a
step well-meant but injudicious, and liable to a very obvious
misinterpretation, as though taken in a view of self-interest, had
entangled himself in a quarrel. That quarrel would have been settled
amicably, or, if not amicably, at least without bloodshed, had it not
been for an unlucky accident combined with a very unwise advice. One
morning, after the main dispute had been pretty well adjusted, he was
standing at the fireside after breakfast, talking over the affair so far
as it had already travelled, when it suddenly and most unhappily came
into his head to put this general question--'Pray, does it strike you
that people will be apt, on a review of this whole dispute, to think
that there has been too much talking and too little doing?' His evil
genius so ordered it, that the man to whom he put this question, was one
who, having no military character to rest on, could not (or thought he
could not) recommend those pacific counsels which a truly brave man is
ever ready to suggest--I put the most friendly construction upon his
conduct--and his answer was this--'Why, if you insist upon my giving a
faithful reply, if you _will_ require me to be sincere (though I really
wish you would not), in that case my duty is to tell you, that the world
_has_ been too free in its remarks--that it has, with its usual
injustice, been sneering at literary men and _paper pellets_, as the
ammunition in which they trade; in short, my dear friend, the world has
presumed to say that not you only, but that both parties, have shown a
little of'----'Yes; I know what you are going to say,' interrupted the
other, 'of the _white feather_. Is it not so?'--'Exactly; you have hit
the mark--that is what they say. But how unjust it is; for, says I, but
yesterday, to Mr. L. M., who was going on making himself merry with the
affair in a way that was perfectly scandalous--"Sir," says I,'----but
this _says I_ never reached the ears of the unhappy man: he had heard
enough; and, as a secondary dispute was still going on that had grown
out of the first, he seized the very first opening which offered itself
for provoking the issue of a quarrel. The other party was not backward
or slack in answering the appeal; and thus, in one morning, the prospect
was overcast--peace was no longer possible; an