CHAPTER XV.

ANARCHY AND ABSOLUTISM-THE CZAR AND

KOSSUTH.

If there ever was a time in which it was necessary to understand clearly the meaning of each expression, it is the present; such a vast abuse has been made of words, speech has been so misused for the worst ends and vilest purposes that the sense of uncultivated, discourse-stunned populations, has been bewildered and perverted, and they have been made to obey dictates, the meaning of which they did not even comprehend. "Progress,' "Liberty," "Equality," and a hundred others, are words that have turned to flame; and with the cry of "fraternity," thousands have butchered one another.

One of the most renowned of European statesmen related to me the following anecdote: Being one day in company with an English Secretary of State, the latter asked him what his opinion was of Jellacic.

"He is a prodigious rascal," was the reply, "a most consummate and dangerous rascal (the interrogator stared as he listened). A Jew, with all the defects of the race; if he is not hung already, he will inevitably be so one day!"

"That is your opinion of Jellacic ?" asked the astounded Englishman-" of the Ban ?"

"Of whom ?" retorted his interlocutor, with considerable anxiety; and upon the name of the Ban being repeated

"The Ban is a hero, and has saved the whole Austrian monarchy," said he. "I had understood Jellinek instead of Jellacic, and thought you wished to receive information upon the score of a man who, as I told you, is an undeniable rascal ;-Le tout est de s'entendre," continued the celebrated statesman, as he related the circumstance; " and if it had not been for a mere chance, Lord * * might have remained convinced I had said one thing, when I had said another."

Le tout est de s'entendre! it is indeed all.

With the word Revolution you may frighten out of their wits any given number of narrow-minded, shortwitted, grave politicians, hommes sérieux, as the French call them, who look upon government as a kind of treadmill, and go on tramp, tramp, and stump, stumping along, as though they were condemned by the hour to this monotonous work. They turn

and turn till they grow muzzy, and as with unskilled waltzers, the only resource against giddiness, would be a turn in the contrary sense; but upon this, they will not venture.

Now, Revolution in its true sense, is nothing more than this: A turn in the sense contrary to that in which you have hitherto been turning; and it ought always, to have any beneficial effects, to come from the superior and guiding power, which alone is capable of turning without overturning.

Our present reading of the word Revolution is an utterly false one; what we decorate with the name is the victory of anarchy, the endeavour to overthrow. This misapprehension of terms would not much signify, and it would be of small consequence whether Proudhon and Co. were delivered over to public execration and contempt under the name of Revolutionists, or under any other, if that false fright of the misinterpreted word Revolution did not lead to such grievous errors on the part of those whose province it is to govern and to guide.

The greatest Revolution (in its real sense) of our age is perhaps the Constitution of the 4th of March in Austria. Some of its details may lay it open to discussion, the manner adopted by such and such a particular ministry in executing these points of detail may be thought unadvised, blameable even-but the Constitution itself does not the less, on that account,

remain the greatest monument of re-volution in Europe, the most complete turn in the contrary sense that we have yet witnessed. Tell that to the Conservatives (good heavens! what is it they would preserve?) of France, and see how they will start at the idea of destroying for instance the recruiting system the very first of all necessities, perhapsand then see how their card-built strongholds are blown away, and how the spirit of anarchy builds up its throne on their imbecile terrors and on their obstinate refusal to understand what a re-Volution means (for that is the real way to spell the word).

Another word equally misunderstood is that of Absolutism. With this you may scare half Europe, for against the phantom this expression calls up, unite not only those whose object it is to mislead, but the immense mass of the misled, and the equally immense mass of those who ought to know better. I know no word in the vocabulary so powerful, or so prolific in its effects, as this word Absolutism. It has a perfectly magical action, and wherever it is pronounced, you would think you saw in its train all the grim shadows of every tyranny, past, present, and to come; the terrors of the Inquisition, the mysterious conseil des dix, the secret tribunal, all seem to congregate round it to render it worthy of abhor

rence.

And why? from a misapprehension of the term, which is so simple that one would really think,

if ever word might dispense with commentaries, it is

this one.

Absolutism is held to represent oppression in all its most hateful forms and shapes, whereas it simply means adherence to a fixed principle, the recognition of that which is, and which being absolute (therefore also infinite and eternal) cannot be changed or influenced by circumstance. Absolutism may be for good or evil, may spring from right or wrong (only that wrong being multiform and right uniform, if proceeding from the latter it soon loses its absolute character and ceases to be), and the French Anarchists or Revolutionists as they are called of '93 were some of them incontestible Absolutists; Saint Just, for instance, whose life was too short for him to fall into contradiction with himself, was as great an Absolutist as Joseph de Maistre, and in our times there are few men who approach nearer to Absolutism than Proudhon. Right is, therefore duty is; right is absolute, it is one, it is eternal and infinite, and the genuine Absolutist, as such, is bound to its service. Wrong being merely that which is not right (that is, essentially a negation), cannot of its nature be absolute, but those who, amongst its worshippers, obey certain intuitive and mis-directed tendencies towards Absolutism, give to the negation a place it cannot keep, they adore an idol instead of a god, and thus become, as I said before, Absolutists in

wrong.