"You have a prejudice against me, because your father was an imperialist, and you think I deserted the emperor. I have never kept fealty to any one longer than he has been obedient to common sense. But if you judge all my actions by this rule, you will find that I have been eminently consistent." (P. 408.)
The cause of his success was generally found in his strict adherence to the maxim that
"The thoughts of the greatest number of intelligent persons in any time or country are sure, with a few more or less fluctuations, to become in the end the public opinion of their age or community." (P. 442.)
He profited by this experience and knowledge; he understood men; he consulted public opinion, and followed it.
For these revelations and for these reasons, every line in the volume of Sir Henry Lytton Bulwer attracts attention and invites scrutiny. Sir Henry's style, turn of thought, opinions, even his words, must be weighed and studied, not only to gather the import of their meaning, but the exact shade of meaning. In this critical examination, it will be discovered Sir Henry adheres to no fixed method or standard of composition. Sometimes he is easy, smooth, and flowing as Joseph Addison; again he is terse as Dean Swift; sometimes he is turgid and rambling as a plenipotentiary who has particular instructions to communicate nothing in very verbose sentences long drawn out, wherein he is neither choice in his language nor correct in the common rules of grammar. Now, diplomacy admits of all these varieties of writing, and Sir Henry tries them all. No pent-up uniformity contracts the powers of his rhetoric or vocabulary. In one paragraph he exercises the precision of an algebraic formula; in another he wanders astray in the collocation of phrases with unguarded looseness. For him to write in his vernacular idiom must be something of an effort, although he can write well when on his good behavior; but it is evident he thinks in French. His ideas, thoughts, and some of his opinions and principles have consequently a Gallic tinge, and read like a translation; while others, if more cosmopolitan, are limited to the tone pervading the diplomatic circle; and diplomatists have among themselves a professional cant or set of political dogmas, which in a class less polished and select would be mistaken for a species of slang.