And it will sadden
_some_ of my friends to remember that it was the king who was the Liberal
and the queen who was the Tory. There were not two people, I think, in
that most practical crisis who stood in precisely the same attitude
towards the situation. And that is why, between them, they saved Europe.
It is when you really perceive the unity of mankind that you really
perceive its variety. It is not a flippancy, it is a very sacred truth,
to say that when men really understand that they are brothers they
instantly begin to fight.
The Revival of Reality
Now these things are repeating themselves with an enormous reality in the
Irish Revolution. You will not be able to make a Party System out of the
matter. Everybody is in revolt; therefore everybody is telling the truth.
The Nationalists will go on caring most for the nation, as Danton and
the defenders of the frontier went on caring most for the nation. The
priests will go on caring most for religion, as Robespierre went on caring
most for religion. The Socialists will go on caring most for the cure of
physical suffering, as Marat went on caring most for it. It is out of
these real differences that real things can be made, such as the modern
French democracy. For by such tenacity everyone sees at last that there
is something in the other person's position.
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