Oh! The bliss to perceive myself understood and not reproved! To meet such emanations of mind! Ecstasy is a poor word! Once more she seemed to repeat—She would love me if I would let her.
Tell me, then—Have I not reason on my side? And, if I have, will she not listen? May she not be won? Shall I doubt of victory, fighting under the banners of truth? Alas!—Well well—
My own sensations, Oliver, are so acute, and I am so fearful lest they should lead me astray, that I could not forbear this detail—Let us change the theme.
Well, here we are, in France; and, wonderful to tell, France is not
England!
I imagine it is impossible to travel through a foreign country, without falling into certain reveries; and that each man will fashion his dreams in part from accident, and in part according to the manner in which he has been accustomed to ruminate. Thy most excellent father, Oliver, early turned my mind to the consideration of forms of government, and their effects upon the manners and morals of men. The subject, in his estimation, is the most noble that comes under our cognizance; and the more I think myself capable of examining, and the more I actually do examine, the more I am a convert to his opinion. How often has it been said of France, by various English philosophers, and by many of its own sages, What a happy country would this be, were it well governed! But, with equal truth, the same may be said of every country under heaven; England itself, Oliver, in spite of our partialities, not excepted.
How false, how futile, how absurd is the remark that a despotic government, under a perfect monarch, would be the state of highest felicity! First an impossible thing is asked; and next impossible consequences deduced. One tyrant generates a nation of tyrants. His own mistakes communicate themselves east, west, north, and south; and what appeared to be but a spark becomes a conflagration.
How inconsistent are the demands and complaints of ignorance! It wishes to tyrannize, yet exclaims against tyranny! It grasps at wealth, and pants after power; yet clamours aloud, against the powerful and the wealthy! It hourly starts out into all the insolence of pride; yet hates and endeavours to spurn at the proud!
Among the many who have a vague kind of suspicion that things might be better, are mingled a few, who seem very desirous they should remain as they are. These are the rich; who, having by extortion and rapine plundered the defenceless, and heaped up choice of viands and the fat of the land, some sufficient to feed ten, some twenty, some a hundred, some a thousand, and others whole armies, and being themselves each only able to eat for one, say to the hungry, who have no food—'Come! Dance for my sport, and I will give you bread. Lick the dust off my shoes, and you shall be indulged with a morsel of meat. Flatter me, and you shall wear my livery. Labour for me, and I will return you a tenth of your gain. Shed your blood in my behalf, and, while you are young and robust, I will allow you just as much as will keep life and soul together; when you are old, and worn out, you may rob, hang, rot, or starve.'
Would not any one imagine, Oliver, that this were poetry? Alas! It is mere, literal, matter of fact.
Yet let us not complain. Men begin to reason, and to think aloud; and these things cannot always endure.