"There are some proposals and propositions in which a middle course is a great deal more insane than either extreme ..."

The English, however, along with their admirable virtues have one very impracticable delusion. They tend to think that an extreme course must be unreasonable, and that a middle course must be reasonable. This, of course, depends entirely on the nature of the proposal or proposition involved. There are some proposals and propositions in which a middle course is a great deal more insane than either extreme, but even in these we tend as a nation to adopt the moonstruck compromise. If anybody suggested, let us say, that Dr. Clifford should be boiled in oil we may be quite certain that 'The Times' or 'The Daily Telegraph' would write: 'Yielding to none in our Imperial sentiment, we cannot agree with those who propose to boil the Doctor in the extreme sense of the phrase. On the other hand, no one will suspect us of any sympathy with the visionaries who suggest the fantastic course of not boiling him at all. The English are a shrewd and practical people. They will not be seduced by either fanaticism to desert the sensible and medium course they have adopted, that of boiling Dr. Clifford's feet for twenty-five minutes. If the followers of that gentleman will not accept this fair and generous concession, they must be altogether unfit for the give-and-take of practical politics'. That is how the English really argue in a great many matters. But there have been from time to time men among us who have felt that this worship of compromise as compromise was not sensible in the least. They have felt that a position was not necessarily unreasonable merely because it was consistent and clear. They have felt that a position was not necessarily reasonable merely because it was neither fish, flesh, or herring. They held that if a sane man had views at all, it was a part of his sanity to see the views fully and to see far into them. In short, they regarded the thing called 'moderation' as one of the cloudiest manias of the asylum.

-August 1, 1903, Daily News