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« MORE HONOURED IN THE BREACH." The lier...
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THE INDEPE NDENT STATES OF INDIA. Weee i...
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The Plague Of Rhetoric Nothing Can Be Mo...
life iii attending to the business of the S There would be an end of this if the councils of Parliament were serious : but thev are not , Ko questions are solved in them , no practical decisions are formed , no * on ^ iction is produced . In faot the speakers -do not take the right way to produce any -conviction . They never lay their minds together Bach man makes a detached speech , ta it Were in vacuum , exhausting his own views or viewlessness upon the subject . An intelligent and candid auditor comes away -with his mind wholly uninfluenced , and with
no impression but that of having neara a series of diluted newspaper articles , sometimes reaching to the length of reviews , badly delivered and with very little reference to each other . Any amount of irrelevancy and bad logic is tolerated , provided the speech is exciting and amusing . You may bruig m a motion on the question of peace and war and support it with a lampoon . Rhetorical evasion and trickery of every kind can be practised with impunity . The fallacious ieasoner cannot be brought to book , as he would be immediately if he were talking with half a dozen sensible men round a table .
" This lampoon is all very well , but how aoes it justify your motion ? " " You censure us for not saying whether we mean peace orwar : do you mean peace or war yourself i X nese questions which would instantly be put in conversation , cannot be put—at least an answer to them cannot be extorted—in the House of Commons . The whole thing serves as a grand parade of party arguments and sentiments , and an exposition of the views of individuals to the country or to Bunharo , which might just as well be made in the newspapers or in the Bunham Town Hall respectively . . Notoriously the only rhetoric that really tells is + i , » * nf the nartv leader and that ot the
whip One can imagine taciturn ability , if it should ever get into Parliament , sitting < for ever without adding to the tide of aim- i less loquacity by a maiden speech . And i yet oratorical success is the only road to a Parliamentary position . The nation , of course , is to blame much more than the members of the House , of Commons . The nation likes to have its oratorical cockpit . It likes to have the speeches reported for its own amusement , which is the crand incentive to babbling . It applauds the courage of invective—as if invective required courage—and it crowns a man as a great statesman when he has proved his power of lungs by filling , three or four yards in the columns of the morning papers . For this our statesmen waste in useless debate the cerebral energy which they ought to spend m maturing great measures . For this all questions are enveloped in a mist of partv rhetoric through which the real thing is seldom seen . For this the faculty that acts is set aside in favour of the tongue that talks . , ;
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ME t , IAT ) ER , [ No . 282 . Sa ^ b ^ ay ,
« More Honoured In The Breach." The Lier...
« MORE HONOURED IN THE BREACH . " The liero of our tale is a gentleman of family , and of high honour , for he ia a captain of militia ; he is of tho most interesting age in life , for he is thirty-two ; and , in short , he is exactly the man to he the hero ot a novel . Our hero , then , encountered at Clifton a young lady of great personal attractions , Bix years younger than himself , and possessing " considerable fortune . J ± o avowed his sentiments , and sentiments were avowed in return . The correspondence , more , happy but less classic than love letters which have been rendered immortal , proved to be very affectionate . The young lady received all that " John" vouchsafed with an . affectionate desire to make tho best of it expressed a heartfelt interest m his welfare , F - ' ' i 3 - I 3 3 3 i 3 3 - - >
and did not withhold endearing epithets . She was delighted with the first ring he gave her—his « dear ring ; " hoped that he would be careful how he canie out of hot robins ; " she called him " my dearest John « dearest Jack , " « dear old fellow ; and his Wdwriting was" dear . " She dreamed that he had an accident , and that she was Lthing in his M *>^™^ ^* ~~ --
to Corfu ; sue was -ma ovx- ~ , „___ , " his own dear pet . " And from time to time she sent him " lots of love and lots of Ssses » It was with this kind of charming crescendo that the correspondence moved The day for the wedding was fixed , the cards were pVinted , and presents were purchased and presented ; when , behold ! a day or two before , " John" receives a letter in the veritable handwriting of his " f ™ ^? n Agnes , " beginning " Dear Sir ! This . is what vre commonly call « a damper , " and if a man were indignant , outraged , shocked , driven to despair , we could not wonder or think ill of him for exhibiting some want of self-command . In similar cases men have proceeded to dire extremities : they have rushed into misanthropy ; women haveteen shot or stabbed ; empires have been betraved . John Holdeb was not proof against emotion , and as his chosen adviser says , when he received this letter he was so much agonised at this statement , that he felt it necessary for his own honour to bring an action at law
1 for damages . . , No gentleman refuses to receive an . ex planation from a lady . No man can fail to bo touched by a truth-telling account , especially when it comes from a woman who has put herself in his power . The exp lanation given by Miss Joslikg is one that ojt the face of / looks consistent . She told Mr . Homn that " when she accepted his offer she had only iust lost her parents , and that at the time she was grateful to any one who would offer her a home , but she could not unite herself to any one whom she could not k > ve and her affection for him was not sufficient to justify marriage . It was rather late to find this * output not so much too late as it would have been after marriage . Undoubtedly collateral circumstances may contribute to qualify any statement of the kind ; we rnay believe it or we may disbelieve it ; but still it must be received . Presuming that in this case the young lady spoke quite ingenuously , we should say , that in making tho explanation she did justice to the gentleman as well as to herself and that she showed a sound feeling of honour as well as sense . If it were true , we should say that no man who had a perception of what is duo to a woman when she throws herself upon his generosity , or to himself when the appeal is made , could ret use to accept such an avowal explicitly . . . Let us suppose that in some cases the avowal might be untrue—a pretext merely—still there are some occasions in which we are precluded from searching beyond a pretext ; and when a lady makes a statement respecting heraell alone , her feelings , and her wishes , any gen- , tleman is precluded from asking more . 1 here are favours which are not to * be given unless they be almost taken before they can be yielded ; but no man would wittingly snatch the kiss which was to ho really refused ; or , if he did make so unlucky a mistake , he would be glad to be let off with pardon , and to deserve it by the ingenuousness of his aubmission . . It is more than probable that there are many cases exactly like this courtship ot John and Aowbs : that tho gentleman is much " smitten , " and not indifferent to a considerable fortune , or perhaps not mdifferent to the attractions of the lady without a fortune ; that tho young lady is much pleased by being chosen , flattered by
the attentions , anxieties , and even troubles that have to be gone through in such cases ; that , nevertheless , she discovers the want of a real affection before actual union , yet has not the strength of mind to say so ; and then the pair become wedded . The mistake is discovered some years aftersomeuiu ff
| wards , more or fewer , xy ™ «»™» that a natural affection ^ engenderedL by the relation of the two ; but we believe that quite as often it happens that an intimacy which necessarily exists when unconsecrated by affection , has not unfrequently engendered a cold indifference , or something worse > than indifference—positive dislike or actual revulsion . A union such as that is an outrage to the individuals who suffer by it and a dis < rrace to the country under which it can be but we have reason to know , trom the evidence which comes forth in so many different forms , that manya John and Agseb are living in that state of fettered revulsion which is worse than divorce—worse thanl the Torture of Mezentitis ; for if a living body is not bound to a dead one , each to the other is a corpse incapable of returning affection and endowed only with a ghastly life to torture the feelings which it mocks .
The Indepe Ndent States Of India. Weee I...
THE INDEPE NDENT STATES OF INDIA . Weee it ever to happen that Persia shotild become a province , or even a tr . butary . of £ e Russian Empire , there can be no doubt that the security of our Indian possessions would be senousiv compromised . For , even if we _ eceedcd iw i
in repelling force by , a more F e -. ^ u ource of § ang <* ami disturbance would spring in ' n our owS dominions . The presence of a powerful enemy on the frontier would emboWen every petty prince to " exhalt his horn , and to ealiseW independence he now only nominal * enjoys . India would be in a constant state of fermentation , and the attention of the Government would be diverted from the works nov , in pro ^ ss for the improvement of b oth the people £ d ° the country , anfsolely directed to thepreservation of internal tranquillity . And this would prove a task of no ordinary difficulty , for it w quite possible for an Indian prince to conduct an > ntn ue under the very eves of the British authorities , and when surrounded on all sides by British territory . His only , or at least his principal , chance of detection lies in the treachery of his own people , who may be moved by malice or cupidity , to reveal his machinations . An instance of this occurred in the year 1839 'lhe Nawal , of Kurnool , in the Madras Presidency , had converted his fort into a complete foundry ami arsenal , and prepared the nucleus of a formidable outbreak witWt exciting the slightest suspicion on the part of the English magistrates on h . s frontiers Even after h & designs were betrayed to the Government , the commissioners who were sent to examine into the matter although readily admitted into the fort , failed to discover any proof , of uilt . The information received , however , was ot tob positive a nature to be thus set aside , and n regiment of native infantry , pesules some company of H . M . 39 th , were accordingly marched o the fortress . On this the Nawab took the , fiel . dxntix a thousand Pathans , but wns easily defeated an J himself made prisoner . A minute search being hen instituted , there was discovered a urge q unnlity of gunpowder , charcoal , saltpetre shot . shell y and guns-some of tho latter still unfinished . 11 w « y > G enerally reported that this prince hod been instigated by the Nizam ' s Government , but this point Ens not been clearly ascertained ; nor w > tu matter of any moment further than as an illustration of the very slight confidence thnt «¦ to be placed even in those states that are nil but u ect to our control . And it is impossible to me catimfttc the consequences that might ensue Ion a partial success nt the commencement . >\ ue " Jfcolruj , tho Dowan of Mooltan , tint entered ,. po hostilitfefl his whole forco did not ejcjj dg men , and these mostly adventurers Ironi othu districts . It wrts not long , however , he lore luwas joined by largo numbers ot turbulent » nw , many of whom had formerly served urn the Ameers of Scinde ; for Asiatics generall y uc fond pf warlike enterprise . The [ P ™ P ** oij u del- nfld commotion never fails to draw a icck . c .
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 18, 1855, page 12, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_18081855/page/12/
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