The soft velveted hand which caressed was now stiffened into the steel gauntlet to smite.
Meanwhile the English government, employed since 1783 in looking across at us through the large end of its telescope, suddenly got its eye at the other extreme, and discovered the monstrous size of this country, the large population, and unmanifested pluck of the nine somehow seceded States, and, to her, the very obvious absence of any ties or mutual necessity between two such admirably designed single nations. This was the almost unanimous opinion, too, of the well-dressed classes; although some Bright Englishmen, and especially the hard toilers in the manufacturing districts,—although working in smoke,—saw more clearly the object and design as well as the final end of the commencing difficulty than those whose near-sightedness spread a film over all their American observations.
“The Hunited States ’ave too many people,” said Lord John.
“Haltogether, yes,” replied Lord Palmerston.
“Suppose that they should fight?” inquired Lord John.
“Well, two heads are better than one,” replied the facetious Palmerston.
“And so are two customers,” rejoined Lord John, wiping his nose with a cotton pocket-handkerchief.
And forthwith they issued a proclamation of neutrality in the name of the Queen, whose heart was no more in its sentiments than her hand in its composition. It was thought at the time by many people to be very smart; and so it was very smart, altogether too smart. It was a state fiction,—a fancy creation, looking in legal phrase as if all the English were bent on rushing into the prophesied something,—a buffalo-hunt, a Long Island race, or steamboat explosion;—for what the little flurry was about, or would be when the solemn state warning was given, no one knew,—unless they were violently restrained by the British government. It was the unnecessarily vehement declaration of the very disinterested old maid to the unsuspecting, quiet young man, quite innocent of such audacious thoughts as her fears excited and suggested: “Now, if you kiss me I shall resist. I shall. Don’t you try it. Now, there, don’t come towards me. Don’t make such a noise, for everybody will hear you. Hands off. Don’t try it. I shall scream. Quit now. Don’t disturb the neighborhood. Hands off, I tell you. I won’t have anything to do with it.” The warning was as piquant and promotive of the practice deprecated, as the landlord’s to the ostler, never to grease the teeth of traveller’s horses, for if he should they could not eat oats.
The strikers in Arkansas and North Carolina, in May, contrived somehow to get up delegates to meet those from the other Southern States at Richmond, the newly selected gathering-place of Confederated counsellors.
The insurrection commenced to grow. The warned boy began seriously to think of the audacity from which he was so solemnly conjured to desist.