A power, therefore, never makes concessions which it does not
afterwards seek to retract. This struggle between two powers is the
basis on which stands the balance of government, whose elasticity so
mistakenly alarmed the patriarch of Austrian diplomacy, for comparing
comedy with comedy the least perilous and the most advantageous
administration is found in the seesaw system of the English and of the
French politics. These two countries have said to the people, 'You are
free;' and the people have been satisfied; they enter the government
like the zeros which give value to the unit. But if the people wish to
take an active part in the government, immediately they are treated,
like Sancho Panza, on that occasion when the squire, having become
sovereign over an island on terra firma, made an attempt at dinner to
eat the viands set before him.
"Now we ought to parody this admirable scene in the management of our
homes. Thus, my wife has a perfect right to go out, provided she tell
me where she is going, how she is going, what is the business she is
engaged in when she is out and at what hour she will return. Instead
of demanding this information with the brutality of the police, who
will doubtless some day become perfect, I take pains to speak to her
in the most gracious terms.
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