It would be difficult to describe Mr. Hewson's feelings, but his wife's first impulse was to hasten to liberate the prisoner. With a few incoherent words of explanation, she led him into the presence of his master, who, looking at him sorrowfully but kindly, said,
"William, you have erred deeply, but not so deeply as I supposed. Your father has told me every thing. I forgive him freely, and you also."
The young man covered his face with his hands, and wept tears more bitter and abundant than he had ever shed since the day when he followed his mother to the grave. He could say little, but he knelt on the ground, and clasping the kind hand of her who had supplied to him that mother's place, he murmured,
"Will you tell him I would rather die than sin again?"
Old Gahan died two years afterward, truly penitent, invoking blessings on his son and on his benefactors; and the young man's conduct, now no longer under evil influence, was so steady and so upright, that his adopted parents felt that their pious work was rewarded, and that, in William Gahan, they had indeed a son.
[From Fraser's Magazine.]
DIPLOMACY—LORD CHESTERFIELD.
The qualifications required for the diplomatic career, we need hardly say, are many and various. To a perfect knowledge of history and the law of nations should be united a knowledge of the privileges and duties of diplomatic agents, an acquaintance with the conduct and management of negotiations, the physical and moral statistics, the political, military, and social history of the powers with which the embasssador's nation comes into most frequent intercommunication. To this varied knowledge, it is needless to state, the negotiator should join moderation, dexterity, temper, and tact. An embassador should be a man of learning and a man of the world; a man of books and a man of men, a man of the drawing-room and a man of the counting-house; a preux chevalieur, and a man of labor and of business. He should possess quick faculties, active powers of observation, and that which military men call the coup d'œil. He should be of urbane, pleasant, and affable manners; of cheerful temper, of good humor, and of good sense. He should know when and where to yield, to retreat, or to advance; when to press his suit strongly, or when merely gently to insinuate it indirectly, and, as it were, by inuendo. He should know how to unbend and how to uphold his dignity, or rather the dignity of his sovereign; for it his business, in whatever quarter of the world he may be placed, to maintain the rights and dignities of his sovereign with vigor and effect. It is the union of these diverse, and yet not repugnant qualities, that gives to an embassador prestige, ascendency, and power over the minds of others, that acquires for him that reputation of wisdom, straightforwardness, and sagacity, which is the rarest and most valuable gift of a statesman. One part of the science of diplomacy may be, by even a dull man, mastered without any wonderful difficulties. It is that positive, fundamental, and juridical portion of the study which may be found in books, in treatises; in the history of treaties and of wars; in treatises on international law; in memoirs, letters, and negotiations of embassadors; in historical and statistical works concerning the states of Europe, the balance of power, and the science of politics generally.
But the abstract, hypothetical, and variable portions of the craft—or, if you will, of the science—depending on ten thousand varying and variable circumstances—depending on persons, passions, fancies, whims; caprices royal, national, parliamentary, and personal, is above theory, and beyond the reach of books; and can only be learned by experience, by practice, and by the most perfect and intuitive tact. The traditional political maxims, the character of the loading sovereigns, statesmen, and public men in any given court, as well as the conduct of negotiations, may be acquired by study, by observation, by a residence as secretary, as attaché; but who, unless a man of real genius for his art—who, unless a man of real ability and talent, shall seize on, fix, and turn to his purpose, the ever-mobile, the ever-varying phases of courts, of camps, of councils, of senators, of parliaments, and of public bodies? No doubt there are certain great cardinal and leading principles with which the mind of every aspirant should be stored. But the mere knowledge of principles, and of the history of the science can never alone make a great embassador, any more than the reading of treatises on the art of war can make a great commander.