. . .
Looking back, forty years afterwards, on this episode, one
asked one's self painfully whet sort of a lesson a young man
should have drawn, for the purposes of his education, from this
world-famous teaching of a very great master. In the heat of
passion at the moment, one drew some harsh moral conclusions:
Were they incorrect? Posed bluntly as rules of conduct, they led
to the worst possible practices. As morals, one could detect no
shade of difference between Gladstone and Napoleon except to the
advantage of Napoleon. The private secretary saw none; he
accepted the teacher in that sense; he took his lesson of
political morality as learned, his notice to quit as duly served,
and supposed his education to be finished.
Every one thought so, and the whole City was in a turmoil. Any
intelligent education ought to end when it is complete. One would
then feel fewer hesitations and would handle a surer world. The
old-fashioned logical drama required unity and sense; the actual
drama is a pointless puzzle, without even an intrigue. When the
curtain fell on Gladstone's speech, any student had the right to
suppose the drama ended; none could have affirmed that it was
about to begin; that one's painful lesson was thrown away.
Even after forty years, most people would refuse to believe it;
they would still insist that Gladstone, Russell, and Palmerston
were true villains of melodrama.
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