The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. VI | Page 6

events which have
lately come to pass, so far from turning me, have tended to confirm
beyond the power of alteration, even by your eloquence and authority. I
find, my dear Lord, that you think some persons, who are not satisfied
with the securities of a Jacobin peace, to be persons of intemperate
minds. I may be, and I fear I am, with you in that description; but pray,
my Lord, recollect that very few of the causes which make men
intemperate can operate upon me. Sanguine hopes, vehement desires,
inordinate ambition, implacable animosity, party attachments, or party
interests,--all these with me have no existence. For myself, or for a
family, (alas! I have none,) I have nothing to hope or to fear in this
world. I am attached, by principle, inclination, and gratitude, to the
king, and to the present ministry.
Perhaps you may think that my animosity to opposition is the cause of
my dissent, on seeing the politics of Mr. Fox (which, while I was in the
world, I combated by every instrument which God had put into my
hands, and in every situation in which I had taken part) so completely,
if I at all understand you, adopted in your Lordship's book: but it was
with pain I broke with that great man forever in that cause; and I assure
you, it is not without pain that I differ with your Lordship on the same
principles. But it is of no concern. I am far below the region of those
great and tempestuous passions. I feel nothing of the intemperance of
mind. It is rather sorrow and dejection than anger.
Once more my best thanks for your very polite attention; and do me the
favor to believe me, with the most perfect sentiments of respect and
regard,
My dear Lord,
Your Lordship's most obedient and humble servant,
EDMUND BURKE.

BEACONSFIELD, Oct. 30th, 1795.
Friday Evening.

LETTER IV.
TO THE EARL FITZWILLIAM.
My dear Lord,--I am not sure that the best way of discussing any
subject, except those that concern the abstracted sciences, is not
somewhat in the way of dialogue. To this mode, however, there are two
objections: the first, that it happens, as in the puppet-show, one man
speaks for all the personages. An unnatural uniformity of tone is in a
manner unavoidable. The other and more serious objection is, that, as
the author (if not an absolute skeptic) must have some opinion of his
own to enforce, he will be continually tempted to enervate the
arguments he puts into the mouth of his adversary, or to place them in a
point of view most commodious for their refutation. There is, however,
a sort of dialogue not quite so liable to these objections, because it
approaches more nearly to truth and Nature: it is called
CONTROVERSY. Here the parties speak for themselves. If the writer
who attacks another's notions does not deal fairly with his adversary,
the diligent reader has it always in his power, by resorting to the work
examined, to do justice to the original author and to himself. For this
reason you will not blame me, if, in my discussion of the merits of a
Regicide Peace, I do not choose to trust to my own statements, but to
bring forward along with them the arguments of the advocates for that
measure. If I choose puny adversaries, writers of no estimation or
authority, then you will justly blame me. I might as well bring in at
once a fictitious speaker, and thus fall into all the inconveniences of an
imaginary dialogue. This I shall avoid; and I shall take no notice of any
author who my friends in town do not tell me is in estimation with
those whose opinions he supports.
A piece has been sent to me, called "Some Remarks on the Apparent
Circumstances of the War in the Fourth Week of October, 1795," with
a French motto: "_Que faire encore une fois dans une telle nuit?
Attendre le jour_." The very title seemed to me striking and peculiar,
and to announce something uncommon. In the time I have lived to, I

always seem to walk on enchanted ground. Everything is new, and,
according to the fashionable phrase, revolutionary. In former days
authors valued themselves upon the maturity and fulness of their
deliberations. Accordingly, they predicted (perhaps with more
arrogance than reason) an eternal duration to their works. The quite
contrary is our present fashion. Writers value themselves now on the
instability of their opinions and the transitory life of their productions.
On this kind of credit the modern institutors open their schools. They
write for youth, and it is sufficient, if the instruction "lasts as long as a
present love, or as the painted silks and cottons of the season."