" By _ineffectual_
we presume he means that it has never succeeded in exiling evil from
this lower world. We are proud to be ranked among the band of those
who at least, in the ever-memorable words of Scripture, have "done what
they could" for this purpose. To this band belong all good men of all
countries, and France has contributed no small contingent of those whose
purpose was noble, whose lives were healthy, and whose minds, even in
their lightest moods, pure. We are better pleased to act as sutler or
pursuivant of this band, whose strife the _Courrier_ thinks so
_impuissante_, than to reap the rewards of efficiency on the other
side. There is not too much of this salt, in proportion to the whole
mass that needs to be salted, nor are "occasional accesses of virtuous
misanthropy" the worst of maladies in a world that affords such abundant
occasion for it.
In fine, we disclaim all prejudice against the French nation. We feel
assured that all, or almost all, impartial minds will acquiese in what
we say as to the tone of lax morality, in reference to marriage, so
common in their literature. We do not like it, in joke or in earnest;
neither are we of those to whom vice "loses most of its deformity by
losing all its grossness.
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