es
become a rope of steel. A federation contrived by politicians would
snap at the first strain." Australian Federation, which Froude did
not live to see, was no contrivance of politicians, but the result
of spontaneous opinion generated in Australia, and ratified as a
matter of course by Parliament at home.

--
* P. 393.
--

The West Indian Islands had an especial fascination for Froude on
account of the great naval exploits of Rodney, Hood, and other
British sailors. 'Kingsley's At Last had revived his interest in
them; and though Kingsley had long been dead, his memory was fresh
among all who knew him. The diary which Froude kept during this
journey has been preserved, and I am enabled to make a few extracts
from it. On the last day of 1886, while he was crossing the Bay of
Biscay, he meditated upon the subject which occupied Cicero at an
earlier period of his life. "Last day of the year. One more gone of
the few which can now remain to me. Old age is not what I looked
for. It is much pleasanter. Physically, except that I cannot run, or
jump, or dance, I do not feel much difference, and I don't want to
do those things. Spirits are better. Life itself has less worries
with it, and seems prettier and truer to me now that I can look at
it objectively, without hopes and anxieties on my own account. I
have nothing to expect in this world in the way of good. It has
given me all that it will or can. I am less liable to illusions. One
knows by experience that nothing is so good or so bad as one has
fancied, and that what is to be will be mainly what has been. So
many of one's friends are dead! Yes, but one will soon die too. Each
friend gone is the cutting a link which would have made death
painful. It loses its terror as it draws nearer, especially when one
thinks what it would be if one were not allowed to die." Tennyson
has expressed in Tithonus the idea at which Froude glances, and from
which he averts his gaze. Carlyle's senility was not enviable, and
even that sturdy veteran Stratford Canning* told Gladstone that
longevity was "not a blessing." Like Cephalus at the opening of
Plato's Republic, Froude found that he could see more clearly when
the mists of sentiment were dispersed.

While at sea Froude pursued his favourite musings on the
worthlessness of all orators, from Demosthenes and Cicero to Burke
and Fox, from Burke and Fox to Gladstone and Bright. The world was
conveniently divided into talking men and ac