Page:The Egyptian Difficulty and the First Step out of it.djvu/16

 effects of this act of supreme foolishness. It points straight enough to the original sin of the solution of 1879, perpetuated because it pleased the English to make a toy of their own out of the broken puppet of the dual control.

III.

A somewhat closer inspection of the intellect, temperament and character of the prince, whose nomination as Khedive was the fatal flaw in the attempted solution of the Egyptian problem in 1879, is here due to our readers, whom, however, we may reassure by stating that we have no intention of leading them in a dreary pilgrimage through all the events of his reign. Neither is it of our purpose to heap abuse upon the head of a man who has failed simply because he has not in him the stuff of which success is made. All our design is to show that the insuccess of Tewfik in the past is due to natural defects; that to the dead weight of these defects are now added the dislike and contempt of the Egyptian people, the distrust of the sovereign government, and the abhorrence of all that is influential in Islam.

Let it then be admitted that Tewfik was placed in a position of singular difficulty, and that there are many more who, in such a position, would have