“Well, sir, and if I had?”
“In that case I should have thought you a very ill-bred man.”
See what it is to have a literary Foreign Secretary; see how he goes back to our great writers, not alone for his style, but his statesmanship. We have been insulted, mocked, and sneered at; our national honour derided, our national strength defied; but we are told it is all right: our policy is a “masterly inactivity,” and the Funds are at ninety-one and one-eighth!
The ‘Times.’ too, is of the same cheery and encouraging spirit, and philosophically looks on the misfortunes of our friends pretty much as friends’ misfortunes are usually regarded in life—occasions for a tender pity, and a hopeful trust in Providence. Let them—the writer speaks of the Allied armies—let them go on in the career of rapine and cruelty; let them ravage the Duchies and dismember Denmark; but a time will come when the terrible example of unlawful aggression shall be retorted upon themselves, and the sorrows of Schleswig be expiated on the soil of the Fatherland.
“They are going to hang Larry,” cried the wife of a condemned felon to the lawyer, who had hurried into court, having totally forgotten he had ever engaged to defend the prisoner.
“Let them hang him, and I’ll make it the dearest hanging ever they hanged.”
These may be words of comfort in Downing Street. I wonder what the Danes think of them?
A NEW HANSARD.
There is an annual publication called the ‘Wreck Register,’ which probably few of us have ever seen, if even heard of. Its object is to record all the wrecks which have occurred during the preceding year, accompanying the narrative by such remarks or observations as may contribute to explain each catastrophe, or offer likelihood of prevention in future. It is, though thoroughly divested of any sensational character, one of the dreariest volumes one can take up. Disaster follows disaster so fast, that at length the reader begins to imagine that shipwreck is the all but invariable event of a voyage, and that they who cross the ocean in safety are the lucky mortals of humanity.