Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol. 8.djvu/295

COMMENCED EXPEDITION TO KERTCH. 263 CHAP. X. V. But now, and even with suddenness, there TheSub- . . 'ii i marine began to interpose in the war that new and cable, dangerous magic which has hugely augmented the already great powers of mischief conferred on an absolute ruler by carrying for him his orders with a speed so transcendent of space that, al- though perhaps the commanders to whom he is dictating action be men parted from him by dis- tance extending over thousands of miles, he still may dare to look for obedience commencing from almost the hour in which — perhaps smoking the while — he lazily utters his orders to some Palace servitor, or himself writes down a direction to one of the telegraph clerks. Where no electricity penetrates, a distant com- mander is able to tell his rulers at home that the clever instructions they send him are based upon a layer of facts which has long ago ranged with the past; but of course no such shield can be used where the magic ' conductors ' are working ; so that, if there be the ripest experience, the amplest knowledge and wisdom, at one end of the cable, and at the other, mere folly, mere ignorance propped up by conceit and authority, it is the experience, the knowledge, the wisdom — now un- shielded by Distance and Time — that may have in the clash to give way ; for wholesome jeers of the kind that after cruel disasters laughed down the old ' Aulic Council,' have been hardly as yet