Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/261

THE DEMEANOUR OF ENGLAND. 217 What he said bore often so closely on the actual chap march of events, that his speech had the kind of L_ zest which attaches to the words of a commander or statesman when going to pass into action, and it sometimes gave to his hearers the small, yet not despised, pleasure of being by several hours in advance of the rest of the world. Although steeled against the notion of har- bouring any vain tenderness for people he had to see crushed under the wheels of his Juoger- naut car, he still — like many anotlier engaged in truculent duties — was of a good and kindly nature. He too often, as indeed we shall see, allowed the strength of the ' Times ' to become extreme violence, but this generally, unless I mistake, because he was strenuous, because he yearned to be forcible, and not because he felt spite. As understood in his days, the task he sustained was one necessarily involving aggres- sions well fitted to put a hard strain on any relations subsisting between the editor of the journal and the people assailed in its columns ; yet after having been busied during many a year in this boisterous sort of work, he was able to say with just pride that he had never become estranged from a friend, nor even indeed from a comrade.(^^) Deriving from nature large gifts, and by cir- cumstance clothed with vast means of acting upon the volitions of men, and sometimes even ruling events, Delane, as may well be supposed, did not show the real eagerness of his nature in the weak, bustling way of people reckoned for