Page:Armatafragment00ersk.djvu/114

This page needs to be proofread.

( 104 )

¬talents was impossible; and how do you think they went to work to run them down? — In no other way than by reiterating day after day in all accessible channels of public information, that talents were not only useless, but at all times perfectly ridiculous, and mischievously inconsistent with the wholesome government of a great nation. —You may think, perhaps, I am imposing upon you, or that I am in jest, as you have frequently before imagined; but I most seriously assure you, that this was the only order of the day amongst their opponents for years together." I laughed heartily, and said " it re- minded me of the defence of a lunatic in Eng- land, before the commissioners who had impri- soned him: — He said that those who were at large were an insane majority, and shut up all the rest only because they had the sense to differ from them. — Now from the account you give me of Armata, at this period, your judges, I suppose, would have been imprisoned and the madman discharged." — " Perhaps they might," waid Morven ; " and indeed, since this new dis- covery, ¬