Pray for me; I will complain no more at
present. General Washington gained the freedom of America--
chiefly by this respectable quality I talk of; nor can a history
of Frederick be written, in Chelsea in the year 1855, except as
_against_ hope, and by planting yourself upon it in an extremely
dogged manner.
We are all wool-gathering here, with wide eyes and astonished
minds, at a singular rate, since you heard last from me!
"Balaklava," I can perceive, is likely to be a substantive in the
English language henceforth: it in truth expresses compendiously
what an earnest mind will experience everywhere in English life;
if his soul rise at all above cotton and scrip, a man has to
pronounce it all a _Balaklava_ these many years. A Balaklava now
_yielding,_ under the pressure of rains and unexpected transit of
heavy wagons; champing itself down into mere mud-gulfs,--towards
the bottomless Pool, if some flooring be not found. To me it is
not intrinsically a new phenomenon, only an extremely hideous
one. _Altum Silentium,_ what else can I reply to it at present?
The Turk War, undertaken under pressure of the mere mobility,
seemed to me an enterprise worthy of Bedlam from the first; and
this method of carrying it on, _without_ any general, or with a
mere sash and cocked-hat for one, is of the same block of stuff.
Pages:
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315