Page 751 - ULYSSES

Ulysses

have more than once observed that birds of a feather laugh
together.
But with what fitness, let it be asked of the noble lord,
his patron, has this alien, whom the concession of a

gracious prince has admitted to civic rights, constituted
himself the lord paramount of our internal polity? Where
is now that gratitude which loyalty should have
counselled? During the recent war whenever the enemy
had a temporary advantage with his granados did this
traitor to his kind not seize that moment to discharge his
piece against the empire of which he is a tenant at will
while he trembled for the security of his four per cents?
Has he forgotten this as he forgets all benefits received? Or
is it that from being a deluder of others he has become at
last his own dupe as he is, if report belie him not, his own
and his only enjoyer? Far be it from candour to violate the
bedchamber of a respectable lady, the daughter of a gallant
major, or to cast the most distant reflections upon her
virtue but if he challenges attention there (as it was indeed
highly his interest not to have done) then be it so.
Unhappy woman, she has been too long and too
persistently denied her legitimate prerogative to listen to
his objurgations with any other feeling than the derision of
the desperate. He says this, a censor of morals, a very

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