This trade of
mastery, after all, is the property of a very few minds; and no
precaution of the prudent, no forethought of the wary, nor any
expedient of charters, constitutions, or restrictions, will prevent
the few from placing their feet on the neck of the many. We may
revive the fable of King Log and King Stork, as often, and in as
many forms as we will; it will ever be the fable of King Log and
King Stork. We are no admirers of political aristocracies, as a
thousand paragraphs from our pen will prove; and, as for monarchs,
we have long thought they best enact their parts, when most
responsible to opinion; but we cannot deceive ourselves on the
subject of the atrocities that are daily committed by those who are
ever ready to assume the places of both, making their fellow-
creatures in masses their dupes, and using those that they affect to
serve.
Ben Boden was now a sort of "gouvernement provisoire" among the
wondering savages who surrounded him. He had got them to believe in
necromancy--a very considerable step toward the exercise of despotic
power. It is true, he hardly knew, himself, what was to be done
next; but he saw quite distinctly that he was in a dilemma, and must
manage to get out of it by some means or other.
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