Political Fortunes.

THE irony of political fortunes it seems to me is that it is often the Machiavellian who, with excess craft and unqualified lust for power, by attempting to win success by pleasing all ears will please none and be defeated. It seems to me that it is those who evince a natural love for their nation, which emanates as it were like the perfume of a flower, unintended and unnoticed to those accustomed to its prevailing presence, who win without effort or strain the larger measure of popularity and success. Such a thing is comparable to the true love of family. The mother does not require that she should have a reason for her love, for her love is identical with her being, it is the breath she breathes. So it is with patriots (if that word be justly defined and not caricatured) whereas, it seems to me, those who have to provide reasons or arguments for their urge to power, as for example in those motivated by a supranational cause, it is almost as though they say to the electorate, 'this is my favourite son, for he has the correct angles in his jawline, and this my favourite daughter for I approve of her dimples'.

   Love is not to be identified on this account with blindness nor irrationality, but true love of country as in familial love never falters in its desire to maintain in health and happiness its favoured object. As far as I am concerned this impulse (which in a national context I think is to be directed principally at a country's historic culture) should supersede all others in importance. A politician may be a socialist or conservative, as far as I can gather these positions primarily form around economic attitudes, altogether devoid of more substantial philosophy, but neither a socialist nor a conservative policy enacted should ever be intended to harm the nation's character into which it is instilled, like medicine into a bloodstream. It really is a worry that this world may soon be so constructed as to be unidentifiable by region or people. For love is a love of differences; this the paradox of tolerance, that by complete intermixture we lose our differences, and no man can honour any race without honouring first its independence. It is not by total intermixture that total harmony in the world will one day be established, as there is no harmony in playing every note on an instrument at once, but it is by interaction, one note pleasing another in melodious accord with the drapery of distributed silences, pauses enhancing cadences and sounds colouring pauses as inks marble into water, that the most startling beauty is accomplished.