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When I was expecting to hear of thy stupidities and blunders, friend Sancho, I have received intelligence of thy displays of good sense, for which I give special thanks to heaven that can raise the poor from the dunghill and of fools to make wise men.
This, as might have been expected in a great and sovereign state, produced a host of blunders, and amongst them the Sicilian expedition; though this failed not so much through a miscalculation of the power of those against whom it was sent, as through a fault in the senders in not taking the best measures afterwards to assist those who had gone out, but choosing rather to occupy themselves with private cabals for the leadership of the commons, by which they not only paralysed operations in the field, but also first introduced civil discord at home.
Their words alone were redolent of idealism, their deeds were too often marred by pettifogging compromises or childish blunders constructive phrases and destructive acts. Not only had they no settled method of working, they lacked even a common proximate aim.
It is true that the miserable imbecility of all who should have led the hostile parties, the irresolution and the quiet-loving temper of Moreau, the base timidity of Bernadotte, in fact, the total defect of heroic minds amongst the French of that day, neutralized the defects and more than compensated the blunders of Napoleon.
It may be thought that the Japanese would at least have learnt from their experience in 1895 not to attempt to interfere with the dress or personal habits of the people. Nothing among all their blunders during the earlier period was more disastrous to them than the regulations compelling the men to cut off their topknots.
It is he who has deceived us, he whose crimes and blunders have landed us in the horrible muddle where we are." Maurice, who preferred to say nothing on the subject, could not help smiling, while Jean, embarrassed by the political turn the conversation had taken and fearful lest he might make some ill-timed remark, simply replied: "They say he is a brave man, though."
Nor was this the worst; the tendency of human nature not being very directly to charity, the harshest constructions were sometimes blended with the most absurd blunders, in his mind, and I have known him to be often guilty of assertions, that had no better foundation than these conjectures, which might have subjected him to severe legal penalties.
Did the song of a lark come back to her, a lark flyin' up through the sweet mornin' sky over the doorway of a home, a lark watched by young eyes, two pairs of 'em, that made the seein' a blessedness? Did a baby's first sweet blunders of speech, and happy laughter come back to her, as she sot there a drawin' out with her wrinkled hands them miserable sounds from the groanin' instrument?
And the worst was that in each of the blunders she had recognised errors of judgment which she herself had blamed, but which her brother had obstinately insisted on perpetrating under the unacknowledged influence of Abbe Paparelli, that humble and insignificant train-bearer, in whom she detected a baneful and powerful adviser who destroyed her own vigilant and devoted influence.
It is evident, however, that the peculiarities of the latter, and his guileless simplicity, made him a butt for the broad waggery of some of his associates; while others more polished, though equally perfidious, are on the watch to give currency to his bulls and blunders. The Stratford jubilee, in honor of Shakespeare, where Boswell had made a fool of himself, was still in every one's mind.
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