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tain portliness of presence, gravity of manner, and slowness of speech, acquire in their own country much honor for social or political wisdom. He was quite up to the average rank of rustic oracles; nevertheless, our converse dragged heavily; it was "up hill all the way." There was a depressing formality about the whole arrangement; my interlocutor sat exactly opposite to me, putting one cut-and-dried question after another; never removing his eyes from my face, while I answered to the best of my power, save to glance at the silent audience, as though praying them to note such and such points carefully. I began to feel as I did in the schools long ago, when the _viva voce_ examiner was putting me through my facings; and was really glad when the one-sided dialogue ended. The queries were very simple for the most part, relating chiefly to the sympathies and intentions of Great Britain, with regard to the war. On the latter point I could, of course, give no information beyond vague surmises, practically worthless; as to the former, I thought myself justified in saying that the balance of public feeling, in the upper and agricultural classes especially, leant decidedly southward. But here, as elsewhere, I found it impossible to make Secessionists understand or allow the wisdom, justice, or generosity of the non-interference policy hitherto pursued by our Government. This is not the time or place to discuss an important question of statecraft, nor am I presumptuous enough to assert that different and more decisive measures would have had all the good effect that their advocates insist upon; but however justifiable England's conduct may have been according to theories of international law, I fear the practical result will be that she has secured the permanent enmity of one powerful people, and the discontented distrust of another. It is ill trusting even proverbs implicitly; that old one, about the safe middle course, will break down, like the rest, sometimes. My pertinacious querist stopped, I suppose, when he had got to the end of his list, and apparently spent the rest of the evening in a slow process of digestion; for he would break out, now and then, at the most irrelevant times, with a repetition of one of his former interrogations, which I had to answer again, briefly as I might. About sundown _le Bon Gualtier_ returned, sorely travel-worn himself, and with an utterly exhausted horse. He had ascertained that our companio
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