He had set up a savings-bank, which broke. He had come over
from Ireland, to agitate for "repale" and "rint," and, like a wise man as
he was, had never gone back again. He had set up three or four papers in
his time, and entered into partnership with every leading democrat in turn;
but his papers failed, and he quarrelled with his partners, being addicted
to profane swearing and personalities. And now, at last, after Ulyssean
wanderings, he had found rest in the office of the _Weekly Warwhoop_, if
rest it could be called, that perennial hurricane of plotting, railing,
sneering, and bombast, in which he lived, never writing a line, on
principle, till he had worked himself up into a passion.
I will dwell no more on so distasteful a subject. Such leaders, let us
hope, belong only to the past--to the youthful self-will and licentiousness
of democracy; and as for reviling O'Flynn, or any other of his class, no
man has less right than myself, I fear, to cast stones at such as they.
I fell as low as almost any, beneath the besetting sins of my class; and
shall I take merit to myself, because God has shown me, a little earlier
perhaps than to them, somewhat more of the true duties and destinies of The
Many? Oh, that they could see the depths of my affection to them! Oh, that
they could see the shame and self-abasement with which, in rebuking their
sins, I confess my own! If they are apt to be flippant and bitter, so was
I.
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