Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/304



names, which I have told you of before, and lately in the presence of the Resident, something which I call for shortness’ sake halfness, and against which I often warned you in a friendly way. Halfness leads to nothing. Half is no good. Half true is true. For full payment, for a full rank, after a distinct oath,  duty must be done. If courage is sometimes necessary to fulfil that duty, one must possess that courage. For myself, I should not have the courage to lack that courage. For apart from the discontentedness with one’s-self, which is a consequence of neglect of duty or lukewarmness, the seeking for easier byeways, the desire always and everywhere to escape collisions, to settle, produces indeed more care, more danger than is to be met with in a straight policy.

“During the course of a very important affair, which is now under the consideration of the Government, and in which you ought to be concerned in an official way, I left you tacitly, as it were, neutral, and alluded laughingly from time to time to the circumstance. When, for instance, I lately received your report about the causes of poverty and starvation among the population, and replied thereto:—‘All this may be the truth; it is not the whole truth, nor the cardinal truth; the principal or main cause lies deeper’—you freely assented to this, and I made no use of my right to exact that you should make known that cardinal truth. For this in-