One of Our Conquerors - World eBook Library

One of Our Conquerors
balcony giving view of a gallows-tree. But we will try that:
on our side, to back a native pugnacity, is morality, humanity,
fraternity—nature’s rights, aha! and who withstands them?
on his, a troop of mercenaries!
And that lands me in Red Republicanism, a hop and a
skip from Socialism! said Mr. Radnor, and chuckled ironically
at the natural declivity he had come to. Still, there was
an idea in it ….
A short run or attempt at running after the idea, ended in
pain to his head near the spot where the haunting word punctilio
caught at any excuse for clamouring.
Yet we cannot relinquish an idea that was ours; we are vowed
to the pursuit of it. Mr. Radnor lighted on the tracks, by
dint of a thought flung at his partner Mr. Inchling’s dread of
the Jews. Inchling dreaded Scotchmen as well, and Americans,
and Armenians, and Greeks: latterly Germans hardly
less; but his dread of absorption in Jewry, signifying subjection,
had often precipitated a deplorable shrug, in which
Victor Radnor now perceived the skirts of his idea, even to a
fancy that something of the idea must have struck Inchling
when he shrugged: the idea being … he had lost it again.
Definition seemed to be an extirpation enemy of this idea,
or she was by nature shy. She was very feminine; coming
when she willed and flying when wanted. Not until nigh
upon the close of his history did she return, full-statured
and embraceable, to Victor Radnor.
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