Standish O'Grady; selected essays and passages

1 66 STANDISH o'gEADY
to bear rule, if they but would. The opportunity is gone.
The water is past. The mill will never grind again with
past water. Their power, in conjunction with the like
doomed class in England, they have surrendered to a hungry,
greedy, and anarchic canaille, and I think their property
is not long for this world as the times go. Property
follows power, and I think King Lear discovered, as
others yet will, that parchment rights were nugatory when
he surrendered his sceptre.
To what other strong class, section, or interest can one
now appeal, urging any high claim on behalf of this people ?
The politicians plainly are the new quasi-sovereign power.
These unpleasant personages, who, too, are mere bubbles,
blown up by the popular breath, stand as Goneril and
Regan to the foolish dethroned king, who loved hunting
and roystering too well, and his royal cares and responsi-
bilities too little. And the politicians, though a seeming
power, are really no more than an exhalation and steam
of the unloosed democracy, of these mining and counter-
mining interests, mad with mutual anger and suspicion
madly pursuing the main chance. There is no capacity
for ruling in them. Rule implies, as one essential element,
force—the power and the will to chastise. I would like
to see one of these politicians, in whose nostrils the
popular favour is as the breath of life—is, in fact, the
breath of life—for a day oppose the wishes of the majority,
or even try, or dream of trying, to bridle the people to his
will. They live by the people and on the people, and
at every point the democracy will hurl them aside the
moment they cease to fulfil the essential function of their
—