It was foolish to take Mr. Russell at his own
valuation, to elevate a clever Irish reporter of the London "Times" into
a representative of England; but it was still more foolish, in attacking
him, to mistake violence for force, and sensible people will be apt to
think that there must have been some truth in criticisms which were
resented with such unreasoning clamor. It is only too easy to force the
growth of those national antipathies which ripen the seeds of danger
and calamity to mankind; for there are few minds that are not capacious
enough for a prejudice, and it has sometimes seemed as if, in our hasty
resentment of the littlenesses of Englishmen, we were in danger of
forgetting the greatness of England. A nation risks nothing in being
underrated; the real peril is in underrating and misunderstanding a
rival who may at any moment become an antagonist,--who will almost
certainly become such, if we do our best to help him in it. Especially
in judging the qualities of a people, we should be careful to take our
measure by the highest, and not the lowest, types it has shown itself
capable of producing. In moments of alarm, danger, or suffering, a
nation is apt to relapse into that intellectual and moral condition of
Mob from which it has slowly struggled upward; and this is especially
true in an age of newspapers, where Cleon finds his way to every
breakfast-table.
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