They are wiser than the barking dogs.
Cromwell and Bismarck are great names; but the harrying of Ireland did
not settle it, and to Germanize a Posen and call it peace will find echo
only in the German tongue. Posen is the error of a master-mind too much
given to hammer at obstacles. He has, however, the hammer. Can it be
imagined in English hands? The braver exemplar for grappling with
monstrous political tasks is Cavour, and he would not have hinted at the
iron method or the bayonet for a pacification. Cavour challenged debate;
he had faith in the active intellect, and that is the thing to be prayed
for by statesmen who would register permanent successes. The Irish, it is
true, do not conduct an argument coolly. Mr. Parnell and his eighty-five
have not met the Conservative leader and his following in the Commons
with the gravity of platonic disputants. But they have a logical
position, equivalent to the best of arguments. They are representatives,
they would say, of a country admittedly ill-governed by us; and they have
accepted the Bill of the defeated Minister as final.
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