Mr. Carlyle wrote to yesterday's Times a very long homily
in favour of Prussia, King William, Count Bismarck, German piety, -and German force, and against the hysterical falsehoods of France and her pretensions to resent, when applied to herself, the policy of territorial confiscation which she has so ruthlessly applied to others. Mr. Carlyle thinks territorial confiscation a capital medicine for the sick soul of France, and likely to cure her ef her hysterics, her falsehoods, her vanity, and finally, per- haps, of her weakness. If not, the dose, he says, must be followed up by further doses of the same unpleasant kind. We all know that that is Mr. Carlyle's creed, and that he is -always disposed to think force "pious," and weakness, if not impious, at least contemptible ; but why does he not explain how he expects his medicine to work ? That defeat may be, and already has been, good for French vanity, we believe ; but how the subjugation of some of her provinces is to render France either more sober or more sincere, we are at a complete loss to say. It certainly never did this for Italy, or, as far as we know, for any other country. Nothing is more fevering and disturb- ing to a national mind than a sense of oppression and wrong. If all nations ought to be dealt by as they deal by others, there is nothing further to be said,—France ought to suffer. But does Mr. Carlyle seriously think that the Christian morality is an enormous blunder, and that we ought to begin reinforcing the law of retaliation as the first lesson of childhood ?
Previous page
