FREE BOOKS

Author's List




PREV.   NEXT  
|<   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436  
437   438   439   440   441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   453   454   455   456   457   458   459   460   461   >>   >|  
ing home, but Mr. G. seemed not to care. He found both the churches at St. Jean and at Fuentarabia very noteworthy, though the latter very popish, but both, he felt, "had a certain association with grandeur." _Sunday, Dec. 27._--After some quarter of an hour of travellers' topics, we plunged into one of the most interesting talks we have yet had. _Apropos_ of I do not know what, Mr. G. said that he had not advised his son to enter public life. "No doubt there are some men to whom station, wealth, and family traditions make it a duty. But I have never advised any individual, as to whom I have been consulted, to enter the H. of C." _J. M._--But isn't that rather to encourage self-indulgence? Nobody who cares for ease or mental composure would seek public life? _Mr. G._--Ah, I don't know that. Surely politics open up a great field for the natural man. Self-seeking, pride, domination, power--all these passions are gratified in politics. _J. M._--You cannot be sure of achievement in politics, whether personal or public? _Mr. G._--No; to use Bacon's pregnant phrase, they are too immersed in matter. Then as new matter, that is, new details and particulars, come into view, men change their judgment. _J. M._--You have spoken just now of somebody as a thorough good tory. You know the saying that nobody is worth much who has not been a bit of a radical in his youth, and a bit of a tory in his fuller age. _Mr. G._ (laughing)--Ah, I'm afraid that hits me rather hard. But for myself, I think I can truly put up all the change that has come into my politics into a sentence; I (M168) was brought up to distrust and dislike liberty, I learned to believe in it. That is the key to all my changes. _J. M._--According to my observation, the change in my own generation is different. They have ceased either to trust or to distrust liberty, and have come to the mind that it matters little either way. Men are disenchanted. They have got what they wanted in the days of their youth, yet what of it, they ask? France has thrown off the Empire, but the statesmen of the republic are not a great breed. Italy has gained her unity, yet unity has not been followed by thrift, wisdom, or large increase of public virtue or happiness. America has purged herself of slavery, yet life in America is material, prosaic,--so say some of her own rarest sons. Don't think that I say all these things. But I know able and high-minded men who suffer from this
PREV.   NEXT  
|<   412   413   414   415   416   417   418   419   420   421   422   423   424   425   426   427   428   429   430   431   432   433   434   435   436  
437   438   439   440   441   442   443   444   445   446   447   448   449   450   451   452   453   454   455   456   457   458   459   460   461   >>   >|  



Top keywords:

public

 

politics

 

change

 
advised
 
distrust
 

matter

 
America
 

liberty

 

learned

 

dislike


brought
 

fuller

 

laughing

 

radical

 

afraid

 
sentence
 

happiness

 

virtue

 

purged

 
slavery

increase

 
thrift
 

wisdom

 

material

 

prosaic

 

minded

 

suffer

 
things
 

rarest

 

gained


matters

 

ceased

 

According

 

observation

 

generation

 

disenchanted

 

Empire

 

statesmen

 

republic

 

thrown


France

 

wanted

 

passions

 

interesting

 

Apropos

 

plunged

 
travellers
 

topics

 

traditions

 

family