It
imported that I have very little confidence in the people who
govern us--please to observe "people" there will be with a small
"p,"--but that I have great confidence in the People whom they
govern; please to observe "people" there with a large "P." This
was shortly and elliptically stated, and was with no evil
intention, I am absolutely sure, in some quarters inversely
explained. Perhaps as the inventor of a certain extravagant
fiction, but one which I do see rather frequently quoted as if
there were grains of truth at the bottom of it--a fiction called
the "Circumlocution Office,"--and perhaps also as the writer of an
idle book or two, whose public opinions are not obscurely stated--
perhaps in these respects I do not sufficiently bear in mind
Hamlet's caution to speak by the card lest equivocation should undo
me.
Now I complain of nobody; but simply in order that there may be no
mistake as to what I did mean, and as to what I do mean, I will re-
state my meaning, and I will do so in the words of a great thinker,
a great writer, and a great scholar, {19} whose death,
unfortunately for mankind, cut short his "History of Civilization
in England:"--"They may talk as they will about reforms which
Government has introduced and improvements to be expected from
legislation, but whoever will take a wider and more commanding view
of human affairs, will soon discover that such hopes are
chimerical.
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