doubt whether it is worth while to court a verdict of so grave
possibilities, or to risk offending a judge--whose customary
geniality is merely the outcome of a fixed habit of inattention.
In doubt whether to speak or keep silence, he takes a middle
course, and while purporting to speak for himself, is careful to
lay stress only on the points whereon all are agreed, to enlarge
eloquently on the doubtfulness of things, and to give to words the
very least meaning that they will carry. Such a procedure, which
glides over essentials, and handles truisms or trivialities with a
fervour of conviction, has its functions in practice. It will win
for a politician the coveted and deserved repute of a "safe" man--
safe, even though the cause perish. Pleaders and advocates are
sometimes driven into it, because to use vigorous, clean, crisp
English in addressing an ordinary jury or committee is like
flourishing a sword in a drawing-room: it will lose the case.
Where the weakest are to be convinced speech must stoop: a full
consideration of the velleities and uncertainties, a little bombast
to elevate the feelings without committing the judgment, some vague
effusion of sentiment, an inapposite blandness, a meaningless
rodomontade--these are the by-ways to be travelled by the style
that is a willing slave to its audience. The like is true of those
documents--petitions, resolutions, congratulatory addresses, and so
forth--that are written to be signed by a multitude of names.
Public occasions of this kind, where all and sundry are to be
satisfied, have given rise to a new parliamentary dialect, which
has nothing of the freshness of individual emotion, is powerless to
deal with realities, and lacks all resonance, vitality, and nerve.
There is no cure for this, where the feelings and opinions of a
crowd are to be expressed. But where indecision is the ruling
passion of the individual, he may cease to write. Popularity was