happen within a few hours or days,[1] and are trusted and valued accordingly, it seems justifiable to say that in a certain broad and vague way the tendency of the times may be and constantly is appreciated, so that we are landed in the apparent paradox of knowing better what is remote than what is so near that it may seem to be within every one's ken. Accordingly political prophecies are for the most part little regarded. The statesman of a modern parliament is not working for results fifty years hence, but for the day's need; and would be apt to distrust himself if he attempted anything more. Perhaps there are cases when we see that a more calculating policy would have been the wiser. If England had granted Catholic Emancipation fifty years before she did; if the American Congress had bought up and expatriated the slaves while they were still a mere handful; if France had followed Talleyrand's policy, and confined herself to such acquisitions as awakened no violent resentments;[2] if Russian administrations under Nicholas I. had been determinately liberal, instead of absolutist, each particular country would have gained, and the civilised world would have been the better for rancours and miseries averted. It is idle, however, to discuss 'what might have been; and almost equally so to discuss what might be under conditions never likely to be realised. The distant future of a country is so unimportant by the side of its immediate needs to the men in possession, that even if they were reasonably certain that a particular evil
- ↑ For an instance of Talleyrand's sagacity in this line see his directions to the Duke of Orleans, which placed that prince on the throne.—Bulwer's Historic Characters, pp. 221, 222.
- ↑ Memoirs of Talleyrand, vol. ii. part vii. pp. 97-100. Madame de Rémusat in her Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 399, quotes Talleyrand as saying: "To keep the Czar shut up at home by creating the natural barrier which Poland offers, ought to have been the Emperor's design."
