Page:Max Havelaar; or, the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company (IA dli.granth.77827).pdf/309

 Regent, and how much easier it is to take away the bread of the European functionary than to punish a Native chief, he had a special reason to believe that exactly at this moment other than the ordinary principles would predominate in the decision of such an affair.

It is true that he would have done his duty as faithfully even without this opinion; with more pleasure if he had deemed the danger for himself and his household greater than ever. We have already said how difficulty enticed him, how he thirsted for sacrifice; but he thought that the charm of a self-sacrifice did not exist here, and he feared that when at last he should have to commence a more serious struggle against injustice, he should come short of the chivalrous pleasure of having commenced this struggle as the weakest party.

Yes, was what he. He thought that at the head of the Government was a Governor-General who would be his ally, and it was another peculiarity of his character, that this opinion restrained him from severe measures, and would do so longer than anything else, because it prevented his attacking injustice at a moment that he thought justice stronger than ever.

I have already said, in my attempt to describe his character, that with all his sharpness he was ingenuous (naïf).

I will endeavour to explain how Havelaar arrived at this opinion.

Few European readers can form an exact idea of the