Reform bill was very bad. Encroachment on the estates of the bishops was
bad. Emancipation of Roman Catholics was the worst of all. Abolition of
corn-laws, church-rates, and oaths and tests were all bad. The meddling
with the Universities has been grievous. The treatment of the Irish Church
has been Satanic. The overhauling of schools is most injurious to English
education. Education bills and Irish land bills were all bad. Every step
taken has been bad. And yet to them old England is of all countries in the
world the best to live in, and is not at all the less comfortable because
of the changes that have been made. These people are ready to grumble at
every boon conferred on them, and yet to enjoy every boon. They know, too,
their privileges, and, after a fashion, understand their position. It is
picturesque, and it pleases them. To have been always in the right and yet
always on the losing side; always being ruined, always under persecution
from a wild spirit of republican-demagogism, and yet never to lose
anything, not even position or public esteem, is pleasant enough. A huge,
living, daily increasing grievance that does one no palpable harm is the
happiest possession that a man can have. There is a large body of such men
in England, and, personally, they are the very salt of the nation. He who
said that all Conservatives are stupid did not know them. Stupid
Conservatives there may be--and there certainly are very stupid Radicals.
The well-educated, widely-read Conservative, who is well assured that all
good things are gradually being brought to an end by the voice of the
people, is generally the pleasantest man to be met. But he is a Buddhist,
possessing a religious creed which is altogether dark and mysterious to
the outer world. Those who watch the ways of the advanced Buddhist hardly
know whether the man does believe himself in his hidden god, but men
perceive that he is respectable, self-satisfied, and a man of note. It is
of course from the society of such that Conservative candidates are to be
sought; but, alas, it is hard to indoctrinate young minds with the old
belief since new theories of life have become so rife!