innate submissiveness," speaks up George Eliot, "of the goose, so beautifully corresponding to the strength of the gander.")
Another evidence of bewildering perversity is equally
apposite to the present moment of history. The Austrian
Lieutenant Jenna is discoursing on the Italians and the
habit of the captured of spending their enforced solitude
in writing Memoirs:[1]
"My father said—the stout old Colonel—'Prisons seem to
make these Italians take an interest in themselves.' 'Oh!'
says my mother, 'why can't they be at peace with us?'
'That's exactly the question,' says my father, 'we're always
putting to them.' And so I say. Why can't they let us smoke
our cigars in peace?"
But England does not lag behind in the matter of the
application of the intellect to practical questions. The
country squires are excited over the approach of the open
game season; moreover,—[2]
"The entire land (signifying all but all of those who occupy
the situation of thinkers in it) may be said to have been exhaling
the same thought in connection with September. Our England
holds possession of a considerable portion of the globe, and it
keeps the world in awe to see her bestowing so considerable a
portion of intelligence upon her recreations. To prosecute
them with her whole heart is an ingenious exhibition of her
power."
It is naturally the fate of the active to suffer from Philistine
misapprehension, particularly when the activity is
racial:[3]
