But why had he nothing to
say? His excuse is timidity and want of readiness. We may reasonably
assume that the cause lay deeper. With his mental vigour he would soon
have overcome such obstacles if he had really wished and tried to
overcome them. The fact is that he never tried because he never
wished. It is a singular thing to say of such a man, but nevertheless
true, that he had no taste or capacity whatever for politics. He lived
at one of the most exciting periods of our history; he assisted at
debates in which constitutional and imperial questions of the highest
moment were discussed by masters of eloquence and state policy, and he
hardly appears to have been aware of the fact. It was not that he
despised politics as Walpole affected to do, or that he regarded party
struggles as "barbarous and absurd faction," as Hume did; still less
did he pass by them with the supercilious indifference of a mystic
whose eyes are fixed on the individual spirit of man as the one spring
of good and evil. He never rose to the level of the ordinary citizen
or even partisan, who takes an exaggerated view perhaps of the
importance of the politics of the day, but who at any rate thereby
shows a sense of social solidarity and the claims of civic communion.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120