Page:The invasion of the Crimea Vol 7.djvu/277

THE DEMEANOUJi OF ENGLAND. 233 that, by the law of their singular calling, as then chap understood, they were doomed to the task of !_ giving full voice to the people in its hour of passion ; and that — having been calm, sober, steadfast two or three days before — they must now prepare to turn frantic. Signs show that they hesitated ; and one likes to be able to sur- mise that, on the part of the gifted men who so lately had raised the great journal to wbat I marked as its zenith, there was reluctance to begin the descent. But — if ever indeed it existed — this praiseworthy faltering ceased on the 23d of December, and then there was wit- nessed a change, no less decided and sudden, than that which in barrack-yard drill responds to the word of command. It was vain, on behalf of the country, to ask for so precious a sacrifice as that of a little reti- cence ; vain even on behalf of our army to wliisper a ' hush ! ' and make sign that Eussia stood listening; for the vow of the daily journal- ist reverses the vow of the Trappist, so that, whilst the one must never speak, the other — except on a Sunday — must never, never be silent — nay, must keep himself always, always, always in the act of forcible utterance. And again, there was this hmnting thought: It now seemed only too certain that an army engaged day and night with a powerful enemy, an army invaded by sickness, yet exposed on bleak downs to aU the rigours of winter — -an army neither able to advance nor retreat, yet, if stationary, barely able to live — was already in