aid, and what Knox meant,
I must say one's tragic feeling is rather disappointed. They are not
so coarse, these speeches; they seem to me about as fine as the
circumstances would permit! Knox was not there to do the courtier; he
came on another errand. Whoever, reading these colloquies of his with
the Queen, thinks they are vulgar insolences of a plebeian priest to a
delicate high lady, mistakes the purport and essence of them
altogether. It was unfortunately not possible to be polite with the
Queen of Scotland, unless one proved untrue to the Nation and Cause of
Scotland. A man who did not wish to see the land of his birth made a
hunting-field for intriguing ambitious Guises, and the Cause of God
trampled underfoot of Falsehoods, Formulas and the Devil's Cause, had
no method of making himself agreeable! "Better that women weep," said
Morton, "than that bearded men be forced to weep." Knox was the
constitutional opposition-party in Scotland: the Nobles of the
country, called by their station to take that post, were not found in
it; Knox had to go or no one. The hapless Queen;--but the still more
hapless Country, if _she_ were made happy! Mary herself was not
without sharpness enough, among her other qualities: "Who are you,"
said she once, "that presume to school the nobles and sovereign of
this realm?"--"Madam, a subject born within the same," answered he.
Reasonably answered! If the 'subject' have truth to speak, it is not
the 'subject's' footing that will fail him here.--

We blame Knox for his intolerance. Well, surely it is good that each
of us be as tolerant as possible. Yet, at bottom, after all the talk
there is and has been about it, what is tolerance? Tolerance has to
tolerate the _un_essential; and to see well what that is. Tolerance
has to be noble, measured, just in its very wrath, when it can
tolerate no longer. But, on the whole, we are not altogether here to
tolerate! We are here to resist, to control and vanquish withal. We do
not 'tolerate' Falsehoods, Thieveries, Iniquities, when they fasten on
us; we say to them, Thou art false, thou art not tolerable! We are
here to extinguish Falsehoods, and put an end to them, in some wise
way! I will not quarrel so much with the way; the doing of the thing
is our great concern. In this sense Knox was, full surely, intolerant.

A man sent to row in French Galleys, and suchlike, for teaching the
Truth in his own land, cannot always be in the mildest humour! I am