In voting for the elected candidate, I did it because
I knew of no better one, and because his opponent seemed to me worse.
I have only seen him one time out of four and then fleetingly, at odd
moment; I scarcely knew more of him than the color of his coat, the
tone of his voice, and the way he has of thumping his breast. All I
know of him is through his "platform," vague and declamatory, through
editorials, and through drawing-room, coffee-house, or street gossip.
His title to my confidence is of the flimsiest and shallowest kind;
there is nothing to substantiate to me his integrity or competency; he
has no diploma, and no one to endorse him as has a private tutor; he
has no guarantee from the society to which he belongs, like the
physician, the priest or the lawyer. With references as poor as these
I should hesitate to recruit him even as a domestic. And all the more
because the class from which I am obliged to take him is almost always
that of politicians, a suspicious class, especially in countries in
which universal suffrage prevails. This class is not recruited among
the most independent, the ablest, and the most honest, but among
voluble, scheming men, zealous charlatans, who for want of
perseverance, having failed in private careers, in situations where
one is watched too closely and too nicely weighed in the balance, have
selected roles in which the want of scrupulousness and discretion is a
force instead of a weakness; to their indelicacy and impudence the
doors of a public career stand wide open.
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