The curious state of society in which we exist, and the complex causes and effects which it comprises--the fictitious, the factitious, the unreal, the unnatural relations which it establishes between man and man--are always producing unexpected results and events which no one can rightly account for, because no one can trace all the fine lines which connect one piece of the complicated machinery with another. It must have often struck every thinker who gathers up the passing events, and marks the impression which they produce upon the world at large, that matters, often of great moment, will excite little or no attention--will be slurred over in newspapers, pass without comment in society, be hardly heard of beyond the narrowest possible circle round the point at which they take place--while mere trifles will set Rumour's thousand tongues a-going, men and women will interest themselves with eager anxiety about things that do not affect them in the least, and half the world will be on fire as to whether a feather was blown to the right or the left. The basest political scheme that ever was practised for depriving a queen of hope, happiness, and power, and a great country of its independence, will excite far less attention and curiosity than the disappointment of one priest's ambition and the compensation of another priest's unmerited persecution.
When first my attention was directed to this subject, I said, "A cannon fired in an open country cannot by any chance produce such terrible results as a spark in a powder-mill. It is not the event itself that is important, but the things with which it is connected that make it so." But I soon became convinced that this explanation, though specious, was not true--at least, that there was something more; that whenever anything made a great noise, it must connect itself by some of the many hooks and pulleys of society with some of the loud tongues in high places. By high places I do not mean elevated stations, but positions in which men can make themselves heard: some newspaper scribe--one of the things in parliament assembled--a popular preacher--a mob-orator--is either interested in the matter directly or indirectly, immediately or remotely, or else has nothing else to do and wants a hobby, and the whole affair is made the talk of the town.