Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 1.djvu/231

 "Oh,' he exclaimed, 'you are poisoned with the gas of the thing called Western civilisation, the damnable modern practice of ruling the wise by the foolish.'

"'May I inquire,' I said, 'if you propose in this year of grace, 1846, to substitute the will of the queen for the will of the nation?'

"'No,' he said, 'my present purpose is quite different. I hope to bring Lord Palmerston to justice. In his early and unfriended youth he was sold to Russia, and has never been able to escape from her grasp. As he grew more important he became a more useful and subservient agent. To betray England is the price of his daily bread. And he can never escape; no one thwarts the policy of Russia and lives. When a great person dies prematurely the newspapers announce "a visitation of Providence," but a wise man murmurs "a visitation of Russia."'

"'How has Mr. David Urquhart escaped the poisoner's cup or stiletto?' I inquired; 'he has been thwarting Russia to the best of his power?'

"'Yes,' he said, 'and if I succeed my time will come. I am not yet formidable enough, but whenever I am troublesome to Russia she will disembarrass herself of me.'

"'The remainder of your menaced life will be spent in Parliament, I suppose?'

"'Not at all; Parliament is an episode in a greater career. When I have taught England that pauperism and public debt have come with Cabinet Governments ruling by majorities and the thing they call liberty, I shall probably have done with that business. I cannot long neglect the forty millions of men who depend on me for inspiration and guidance.'

"'Forty millions!' I exclaimed. 'May an ill-informed Western inquire where they reside?'

"'They reside in the most interesting countries in the East of Europe. Who guides the Hungarian? Lajos Kossuth, you will say. Well, perhaps so; but after Kossuth they look to me, most of men. On whom do the Poles rely? It would be difficult to name any one who unites the confidence of so many of the two parties into which they are divided as myself. The Moslems? No one can compete