Points of Friction
good income, and content because he is well placed; who is thick-headed because he lacks vision, and close-hearted because he is deaf to the moaning wind which is the cry of unhappy humanity asking justice from a world which has never known how to be just. Lecky, who had a neat hand at analysis, characterized the great conflicting parties in an axiom which pleased neither: "Stupidity in all its forms is Tory; folly in all its forms is Whig."
These things have been too often said to be quite worth the saying. Stupidity is not the prerogative of any one class or creed. It is Heaven's free gift to men of all kinds, and conditions, and civilizations. A practical man, said Disraeli, is one who perpetuates the blunders of his predecessor instead of striking out into blunders of his own. Temperamental conservatism is the dower (not to be coveted) of men in whom delight and doubt—I had almost said delight and
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