The Reformers are no doubt the true ancestors of the next generation; the
Conservative belongs to a decaying family, and has not learned that
he who seeks to save his “life” shall lose it.
Both are sick, but the one is already convalescent. His disease is not organic
but acute, and he looks forward to coming springs with hope. He is not sick of
any incurable disorder, of plague or consumption; but of tradition and
conformity and infidelity; but the other is still taking his bitters and
quack medicines patiently, and will grow worse yet. The heads of conservatives
have a puny and deficient look, a certain callowness and concavity, as if they
were prematurely exposed on one or both sides, or were made to lie or pack
together, as when several nuts are formed under the same burr where only one
should have been. We wonder to see such a head wear a whole hat. Such as these
naturally herd together for mutual protection. They say We and
Our, as if they had never been assured of an individual existence.
Our Indian policy; our coast defenses, our national
character. They are what are called public men, fashionable men, ambitious
men, chaplains of the army or navy; men of property, standing and
respectability, for the most part, and in all cases created by society.
Sometimes even they are embarked in “Great Causes” which have
been stranded on the shores of society in a previous age, carrying them
through with a kind of reflected and traditionary nobleness, certainly
disinterestedness. The Conservative has many virtues which the Reformer has
not — ofttimes a singular and unexpected liberality and courtesy, a
decided practicalness and reverence for facts, and with a little less
irritability, or more indifference would be the more tolerable companion. He
is the steward of society, and in this office at least is faithful and
generous. He is a dutiful son but a tyrannical father, and does not foresee
that unimaginable epoch when the rising generation will have attained to a
level with the risen. Rather he is himself a son all his days, and never
arrives at such maturity as to be informed that he and such as he are now
mankind and the latest generation, the occupants and proprietors of the
globe, but he still feels it to be his chief duty to preserve the law and
order and institutions which he finds existing.
It is remarkable how well men train. The teamster rolls out of his cradle
into a Tom-and-Jerry — and goes at once to look after his team —
to fodder and water his horses, without standing agape at his position. What
is the destiny of a man, compared with the shipping interests? What does he
care for — his creator? doesn’t he drive for Squire Make-a-Stir?
The ladies of the land with equal bravery are weavers of toilet cushions and
tidies not to betray too green an interest in their fates. Men now take snuff
into their noses, but if they had been so advised in season, they would have
put it into their ears and eyes.
