A RIFT IN THE CLOUDS XIX POLITIC REPENTANCE XX A TELEPHONE CALL XXI THE UNEXPECTED HAPPENS XXII GONE XXIII

" CHAPTER XIX POLITIC REPENTANCE

Like Theodosius, he was tall, and majestic in manners; gracious, affable, and accessible, like Julius; prudent, cautious, reticent, like Fabius; insensible to the allurements of pleasure, and incredibly active and bold, like Hannibal, Charlemagne, and Napoleon; a politic man, disposed to ally himself with the rising party.

He was one of the most politic sovereigns that ever lived,like Henry IV. of France, forecasting the future, as well as balancing the present.

She was too politic, too ambitious, too discreet, to make that immense mistake.

I wonder how a woman so kind-hearted, so intelligent, and so politic as Madame de Maintenon doubtless was, could have encouraged the King to a measure which undermined his popularity, which cut the sinews of natural strength, and raised up implacable enemies in every Protestant country.

He was politic, not being in a position to dispense with the services of the ablest military general of his realm.

And when securely seated on her throne, Anne began to avow opinions which she had once found it politic to conceal.

They were not then so much as incorporated; they formed no community; were not regarded as a body politic; and being really nothing but a number of low dependent tradesmen, living, without any particular civil tie, in neighbourhood together, they were incapable of being represented in the states of the kingdom.

He defames a good title as well as most of our modern noblemen; those wens of greatness, the body politic's most peccant humours blistered into lords.

It is taken for the pulse of the body politic, and the empiric divines of the assembly, those spiritual dragooners, thumb it accordingly.

The greatest wonder is at Fairfax, how he comes to be a babe of grace, certainly it is not in his personal, but (as the State-sophies distinguish) in his politic capacity; degenerate ab extra by the zeal of the house he sat in, as chickens are hatched at Grand Cairo by the adoption of an oven.

His business is only to be seen, and he performs it with admirable industry, placing himself always in the best light, looking wonderfully politic, and cautious whom he mixes withal.

""And as handsome too," the politic cronies would add.

Kingdoms, provinces, and politic bodies are likewise sensible and subject to this disease, as [470]Boterus in his politics hath proved at large.

And what shall we except that have such multitudes of Achans, church robbers, simoniacal patrons, &c., how can they hope to flourish, that neglect divine duties, that live most part like Epicures? Other common grievances are generally noxious to a body politic; alteration of laws and customs, breaking privileges, general oppressions, seditions, &c., observed by Aristotle, Bodin, Boterus, Junius, Arniscus, &

Where they be generally riotous and contentious, where there be many discords, many laws, many lawsuits, many lawyers and many physicians, it is a manifest sign of a distempered, melancholy state, as [500]Plato long since maintained: for where such kind of men swarm, they will make more work for themselves, and that body politic diseased, which was otherwise sound.

I could repeat many such particular grievances, which must disturb a body politic.

Yet amongst many roses, some thistles grow, some bad weeds and enormities, which much disturb the peace of this body politic, eclipse the honour and glory of it, fit to be rooted out, and with all speed to be reformed.

The [3650]Chinese observe the same customs, no man amongst them noble by birth; out of their philosophers and doctors they choose magistrates: their politic nobles are taken from such as be moraliter nobiles virtuous noble; nobilitas ut olim ab officio, non a natura, as in Israel of old, and their office was to defend and govern their country in war and peace, not to hawk, hunt, eat, drink, game alone, as too many do.

How much more politic, as well as ingenuous, it had been to have acknowledged the difficulty of this text.

[Footnote 5: The question whether it is ever politic for a playwright to keep a secret from his audience is discussed elsewhere.

[Footnote 11: "Perhaps it was from that same politic drift that the devil whipt St. Jerome in a lenten dream for reading Cicero; or else it was a fantasm bred by the fever which had then seized him.

If slavery, however, is a blemish, a blot, an eating cancer in the body politic, it is not our fault if, by holding it up, others should see in the mirror of truth its deformity, and shrink back from the view.

It is obvious that it is fruitless to anticipate fair dealing from a people professing such doctrines; and the result has shown, that, in transactions with Mormons, even under oath, no one who does not acknowledge a standard of religious belief similar to their own can count upon justice any farther than they may think it politic to accord it.