date

[129b-630] 19 March 1817 Plan
[129b-630]

19 March 1817

Plan Cat

3 o

Introd

§.10. Bribery & Terrorism

10

Text

As to the universal Seductionist, his demand – the number of points, to be compassed ere it can be satisfied – is as comprehensive as this his name. It is a maximum. Boundless not only in kind and place but time, services in every imaginable shape are comprized in it: and be it ever so ample, the supply afforded by his popinjay are but too adequate to it. As to the private seductionist where ease is here in question, in every particular but the number of the hands at which it may happen to the service to be required, his demand is a minimum: at each hand one service above required – a vote: services but one, and that a momentary one.

{In regard to hazard, however, the same exemption is possessed in both situations. Whatsoever may be the quantum of seductive force possessed and efficiently exercised by the particular seductionist in the exercise thus given to terrific seduction, no sort of hazard is he in his seduction exposed to any more than the universal seductionist in the exercise given to his seductive power in its alluring shape. (a)}

Note (a)

(a) Cocagne is the name of a sort of object which in France was, on gala occasions wont to be held out by authority to the concupiscence of the multitude. It was composed of a various mass of eatables piled up in the form of a pyramid. At a signal given, the multitude were let in to scramble for its contents. In one particular the cocagne institution differs from the C – r General’s popinjay: in the one case, nothing is done for what is got: in the other case every thing: many a thing long before any thing is got, and by many a man by whom nothing is ever got by it.

End of the Note.
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