“Justum et tenacem;” trumpets here, and the sharp rattle of kettledrums, whizzing of rockets, screeching of tuneless strings, here and there a true word sneaking in as contraband, under cover of so much drumming and so much trumpeting! Style? . . . He had style! He had too much soul to drown his thoughts in, “I have the honour to be,” and the “Right Honourable,” and the “respectfully giving in considerations,” that was the luxury of the small world in which he moved. When he wrote, something impressed you in the reading of it, which made you understand that there were clouds accompanying this thunderstorm, and that you did not hear the rattling of tin thunderstorm as in a theatre. When he struck fire from ideas, the heat of his fire was felt by all but born clerks, or Governor-Generals, or the writer of that most disgusting report about “tranquil tranquillity.”
And what was the use of it to him? . . . If I want to be heard, and, above all, understood—must I then write otherwise than he? But how, then?
Do you see, reader! I look for an answer to this “how,” and therefore my book is such a medley: it is a pattern-card, make your choice; afterwards I will give you yellow or blue or red, as you please.
Havelaar had already so often observed the Governor’s malady in so many sufferers, and often in anima vili, for there are analogical Residents’, Controllers’, Clerks’ maladies, that are in proportion to the first as the measles
