than yield--in case the country should need such men, and you should
know them, be pleased to send lists of the misguided persons to the
principal police stations, where means may some day be found to utilize
their wretched powers, and give their deplorable energies a right
direction. Suppose, Tom, that you and your friends are pitted against an
immense invader--suppose you are bent on holding the ground, and dying
there, if need be--suppose it is life, freedom, honor, home, you are
fighting for, and there is a death--dealing sword or rifle in your hand,
with which you are going to resist some tremendous enemy who challenges
your championship on your native shore? Then, Sir Thomas, resist him to
the death, and it is all right: kill him, and heaven bless you. Drive
him into the sea, and there destroy, smash, and drown him; and let
us sing Laudamus. In these national cases, you see, we override the
indisputable first laws of morals. Loving your neighbor is very well,
but suppose your neighbor comes over from Calais and Boulogne to rob you
of your laws, your liberties, your newspapers, your parliament (all of
which SOME dear neighbors of ours have given up in the most self-denying
manner): suppose any neighbor were to cross the water and propose this
kind of thing to us? Should we not be justified in humbly trying to
pitch him into the water? If it were the King of Belgium himself we must
do so. I mean that fighting, of course, is wrong; but that there are
occasions when, &c.--I suppose I mean that that one-handed fight of
Sayers is one of the most spirit-stirring little stories ever told and,
with every love and respect for Morality--my spirit says to her,
"Do, for goodness' sake, my dear madam, keep your true, and pure, and
womanly, and gentle remarks for another day. Have the great kindness to
stand a LEETLE aside, and just let us see one or two more rounds between
the men. That little man with the one hand powerless on his breast
facing yonder giant for hours, and felling him, too, every now and then!
It is the little 'Java' and the 'Constitution' over again."