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Mon 5 Aug, 2013 04:51 am
One or two Cobdenite members of the British Parliament engaged in the useful task of proving that the cost of living in Vienna was on an exorbitant scale, flitted with restrained importance through a land whose fatness they had come to spy out; every fancied over-charge in their bills was welcome as providing another nail in the coffin of their fiscal opponents. It is the glory of democracies that they may be misled but never driven. Here and there, like brave deeds in a dust-patterned world, flashed and glittered the sumptuous uniforms of representatives of the Austrian military caste. Also in evidence, at discreet intervals, were stray units of the Semetic tribe that nineteen centuries of European neglect had been unable to mislay.
could someone please paraphrase the bold part for me? Thanks.
@McTag,
McTag, thanks, but I still don't understand the first one. Does it mean they (representing dictatorship) was misled , rather than driven by democracy?
@lizfeehily,
Quote: It is the glory of democracies that they may be misled but never driven.
A kingdom or a dictatorship is "driven" by the aims, whims, desires of one person.
The "glory of democracies" or their shining advantage, is that the people chose their leadership, and hence to some extent the direction in which they are led.
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