"
"You see," said the good old man, "the opinion of respectable practical
men, who know the world, exactly coincides with mine. I did not like to
tell you that I could not help in the publication of your MSS. in their
present state; but I am sure, from the modesty and gentleness which I have
remarked in you, your readiness to listen to reason, and your pleasing
freedom from all violence or coarseness in expressing your opinions, that
you will not object to so exceedingly reasonable a request, which, after
all, is only for your good. Ah! young man," he went on, in a more feeling
tone than I had yet heard from him, "if you were once embroiled in that
political world, of which you know so little, you would soon be crying like
David, 'Oh that I had wings like a dove, then would I flee away and be
at rest!' Do you fancy that you can alter a fallen world? What it is, it
always has been, and will be to the end. Every age has its political and
social nostrums, my dear young man, and fancies them infallible; and
the next generation arises to curse them as failures in practice, and
superstitious in theory, and try some new nostrum of its own.
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