TO FIGHT OR NOT TO FIGHT? THAT IS THE QUESTION.
OUR curiosity has been not merely on tip-toe, but positively upon stilts for some months past, watching the no result of the hostile correspondence between the Great Bear and the little Turkey-cock. The whole affair has been almost as absurd as an "affair of honour;" and if the parties concerned had been individuals instead of nations, the business would have long ago been brought to a conclusion, by being overwhelmed with a storm of ridicule. If any other notes than diplomatic notes had passed on this occasion, there would have been no end to the quizzing that the proceeding would have elicited. If Russia had been Brown and Turkey had been Jones, if France had been Smith and England had been Robinson, if Austria had been Snooks and Prussia had been Tomkins, how ludicrous would have been the "note" as drawn up by Snooks, with the concurrence of Smith and Robinson, but amended by Jones, and dissented from by Brown, on a point of personal dignity! If Robinson and Smith were required to give their good offices, by deciding whether the note should be read in a Brownian or in a Jonesian sense, and if Snooks were suspected of secretly siding with Brown, while Tomkins was supposed to be shuffling out of an alliance with Smith and Robinson from a secret fear of Jones, the whole world would go off, avec explosion, into a fit of merriment at the trumpery pretensions of the parties involved, and the utter insignificance of their quarrel.
Such, however, is the true complexion to which the thing must come, if divested of the exaggerated dimensions which are given to it by the interests that are unfortunately jeopardised. The quarrel would be but a very common-place quarrel, after all, if it were not for the unfortunate fact that John Bull's nose has somehow or other got poked into the affair, and that he will probably have to pay through the nose for the awkward position he occupies.
DID YOU EVER?
Did you ever know a strike which did not hit the workman harder than the master?
Did you ever know a hotel-keeper, whose "wax" lights would bear the test of a tallow-chandler?
Did you ever know a Continental tourist who, if he unfortunately happened to speak English, didn't everywhere discover he was charged at least double for it?
Did you ever find a "professional" win a game of billiards of you without assigning your defeat entirely to his "flukes?"