Conservative's Consolations
old. Nothing was left but the human heart with its imperishable and inalienable qualities; and while it beats within the human breast, the world must still be moulded by its passions. "When Cain wished to slay his brother," murmured a cynic, watching the great guns trundled to the blaze, "he was at no loss for a weapon."
If belief in the perfectibility of man—and not of man only, but of governments—is the inspiration of liberalism, of radicalism, of the spirit that calls clamorously for change, and that has requisitioned the words reform and progression, sympathy with man and with his work, with the beautiful and imperfect things he has made of the chequered centuries, is the keynote of conservatism. The temperamental conservative is a type vulnerable to ridicule, yet not more innately ridiculous than his neighbours. He has been carelessly defined as a man who is cautious because he has a
71
