Instantly
Napoleon III appeared as the ally of Russell and Gladstone with a
proposition which had no sense except as a bribe to Palmerston to
replace America, from pole to pole, in her old dependence on
Europe, and to replace England in her old sovereignty of the
seas, if Palmerston would support France in Mexico. The young
student of diplomacy, knowing Palmerston, must have taken for
granted that Palmerston inspired this motion and would support
it; knowing Russell and his Whig antecedents, he would conceive
that Russell must oppose it; knowing Gladstone and his lofty
principles, he would not doubt that Gladstone violently denounced
the scheme. If education was worth a straw, this was the only
arrangement of persons that a trained student would imagine
possible, and it was the arrangement actually assumed by nine men
out of ten, as history. In truth, each valuation was false.
Palmerston never showed favor to the scheme and gave it only "a
feeble and half-hearted support." Russell gave way without
resolutely fighting out "his battle." The only resolute,
vehement, conscientious champion of Russell, Napoleon, and
Jefferson Davis was Gladstone.
Other people could afford to laugh at a young man's blunders,
but to him the best part of life was thrown away if he learned
such a lesson wrong. Henry James had not yet taught the world to
read a volume for the pleasure of seeing the lights of his
burning-glass turned on alternate sides of the same figure.
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