It
should never be pronounced but in the ear of a doctor, or a police
magistrate. Your man with a grievance is everywhere voted a bore. If
he goes to the Colonial Office with one, that stout gentleman at the
door, the porter, who has the keys of that realm of knowledge and
bliss, and knows as much and has as many airs as his master, soon
receives an order not to admit him.
"'Worn out with fatigue and disappointment, the unfortunate suitor
finds at last his original grievance merged in the greater one, that
he can obtain no hearing and no redress, and he returns to his own
province, like Franklin, or the Australian delegate, with thoughts of
deep revenge, and visions of a glorious revolution that shall set his
countrymen free from foreign dominion. He goes a humble suppliant, he
returns an implacable rebel. The restless Pole, who would rather play
the part of a freebooting officer than an honest farmer, and who
prefers even begging to labour, wanders over Europe and America,
uttering execrations against all monarchs in general, and his own in
particular, and, when you shake your head at his oft-told tale of
fictitious patriotism, as he replaces his stereotyped memorial in his
pocket, exhibits the handle of a stiletto, with a savage smile of
unmistakeable scoundrelism.'
"'Poles loom large,' sais I, 'in the fogs of London, but they dwindle
into poor sticks with us.
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