When we
remember the advantages which poor Russell enjoyed for acquiring
information, his neglect of matters of importance seems amazing--until
we find, in scores of petty personal matters and silly egotisms, a key
to the whole. He is a small-souled man, utterly incapable of mastering
the great principles involved in this war,--a man petrified in English
conceit, and at the end of his art when, like a twopenny reporter, he
has made a smart little sneer at something or somebody. He writes on
America as Sala wrote on Russia, in the same petty, frivolous vein, with
the same cockney smartness; but fails to be funny, whereas Sala
frequently succeeds. He came here to write for England, not the truth,
but something which his readers _expected_. His object was to supply a
demand, and he did it. He learned nothing, and returned as ignorant, so
far as really _understanding_ the problems he purposed to study, as he
came. Those who can penetrate the depths of such pitiful characters
cannot fail to feel true sorrow that men should exist to whom all life,
all duty, every opportunity to tell great truths and to do good, should
simply appear as opportunities to turn out a _piece de manufacture_, and
earn salaries. Mr. Russell could have done a great work in these
letters--he leaves the impression on our minds that in _his_ opinion his
boots and his breakfast were to him matters of much more importance than
the future of all North America.
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