No doubt Mr. Matthew Arnold is correct in his apprehensions of the
dangers we may fear from a Dublin House of Commons. The declarations and
novel or ultra theories might almost be written down beforehand. I
should, for my part, anticipate a greater danger in the familiar attitude
of the English metropolitan Press and public toward an experiment they
dislike and incline to dread:--the cynical comments, the quotations
between inverted commas, the commiserating shrug, cold irony, raw banter,
growl of menace, sharp snap, rounds of laughter. Frenchmen of the Young
Republic, not presently appreciated as offensive, have had some of these
careless trifles translated for them, and have been stung. We favoured
Germany with them now and then, before Germany became the first power in
Europe. Before America had displayed herself as greatest among the giants
that do not go to pieces, she had, as Americans forgivingly remember,
without mentioning, a series of flicks of the whip. It is well to learn
manners without having them imposed on us.
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