Page:Max Havelaar Or The Coffee Sales of the Netherlands Trading Company Siebenhaar.djvu/327

 ment in it striving after effect  the style is bad  the writer is inexperienced  no talent  no method ”

Right, right, all right! But !

For:

For the remainder, the louder the disapproval of my book, the better I shall like it, for so much the greater will be the chance. And that is what I

But you, whom I disturb in your “pressures” of occupations, or in your peaceful “retirement,” you Ministers and Governor-Generals, do not depend too greatly on the inexperience of my pen. It might gain practice, and with a little exertion it might perhaps attain to an efficiency which in the end would cause the truth to be believed even by the People! Then I should ask that People for a place in its Representation, were it only for the purpose of protesting against certificates of integrity that Indian Specialists mutually present to each other, perhaps to suggest the extraordinary idea that they themselves attach value to that quality

In order to protest against the endless expeditions and acts of heroism against poor miserable creatures who have first been forced to rebellion by maltreatment.

In order to protest against the shameful cowardice of circulars that besmirch the honour of the Nation by invoking for the  of.

It is true, those rebels were starved skeletons, and those pirates are able-bodied men!

And if that place were refused me if people persisted in  believing me

Then I should translate my book into the few languages that I know and into the many languages that I can still learn, so that I might ask from Europe what I had in vain sought in the Netherlands.

And in all the Capitals songs would be sung with refrains like