Page:Blackwood's Magazine volume 137.djvu/733

1885.] never so clearly alive to the inevitable call to hark back on the Turk, how is our Premier ever to accept the decree of fate, – how is he ever to school his wayward and irrepressible tongue, so that he may take the good which the gods provide? How can he, after all his bitter sayings and doings, even in the direst need receive help from the foully maligned Turk? How can he have the face to do it? He has backed up Russia against the Turk. He has exhorted Europe to drive out the Turk bag and baggage. How can he ever accept aid from a Power which has been the subject of his bitter invective, of Ids most rabid denunciation? Surely, even if Britain should be driven to strike hands with the Turk, Mr Gladstone must efface himself and get out of the way, in order that his followers, in making the new alliance, may not be confounded by recollection of his injurious language! No; this mode of arguing has no force whatever in regard to Mr Gladstone. He has the face to say or do anything at all which may for the moment sort with his own interest. If it will temporarily stave off disgrace and loss of place from himself to foregather with the Turk, all his professions and invectives notwithstanding, he will certainly take the Mussulman to his bosom as affectionately as if it were Bradlaugh himself. No inconsistency, no eating of his own words, has ever been beyond his achievement where his own interest was to be served; and we may rest satisfied that nothing of the kind ever will be allowed to interfere with the gratification of his desires. Of course, reconciliation with the Turk will not be pleasant. Mr Gladstone has to submit to an adverse fortune, which even his practised spirit will probably find very galling. But retribution seems to have set in upon him just now. He has been sowing the wind for five years, and he has got at last a great whirlwind harvest. His sin has found him out. It is Kismet.

The meaning of the vast breach made by the Ottoman Turks into Europe will not be comprehended in this age. It is one of the great mysteries of history. They had a mission, no doubt, and the object of it will be accomplished. They are so placed in the world that the suppression of them is a very hard problem, and that in spite of their weakness and misgovernment they must at certain seasons be of some account among the nations. Wise statesmen will not fret over the consideration whether this is quite agreeable to them, – whether it is just what they would have chosen. They will recognise the Turkish Empire as a patent, if a difficult, fact, and endeavour to make the best of things as they find them.

A FORGOTTEN HOUSEHOLD WORD.
How curiously "the silver streak" has vanished from among our household words! The time was – it is hardly fifteen years ago – when this expression was understood to convey in little a whole chapter of circumstances, all strongly favourable to the security, the peace, and the continuous prosperity of these islands. "Happy England!" was the apostrophe forced from admiring minds who had had the privilege of contemplating the innumerable blessings which the streak was to insure to us. What has become of this