in the balance. But as my colleague has evidently given his whole mind to this subject, and has formed his conclusions, no doubt with great reluctance, it will not do to treat the matter lightly.
Seriously speaking, sir, if I should discuss the moral
aspect of my colleague's performance, I do not know
whether it would be easy to remain within the bounds
of parliamentary language. But being charitably disposed,
I look at it as a thing of pathological interest,
as a somewhat morbid hallucination, such as is frequently
produced by the tortures of disappointed affection, and
which, in its wild flights, loses all perception of reality
and all appreciation of probabilities. I forgive him,
sir; I forgive him, especially as I must do him the justice
to say that his distemper did not altogether overcome
the natural kindness of his heart, for I will not ascribe
it to prudent discretion that he carefully avoided making
any of those assertions in my presence. At the
commencement of the campaign I invited my colleague to a
public discussion; he declined for reasons undoubtedly
satisfactory to himself, and then went straightway to a
place where he knew I would not be to set afloat these
stories. And when afterward I met him at some place
in the interior of the State he carefully left out of his
speech all that related to my contemplated treason; and
then at the next place where I was not, he repeated the
same stories again. His extreme reticence may be most
satisfactorily explained on the theory that he thought
such charges pronounced in my face might be too harrowing
to my feelings.
But it was not against me alone; it was against the Germans generally that my colleague directed his batteries. After having represented them as a class of voting cattle who can be used by unscrupulous politicians for any
