constantly shows itself so poor and mean in expression that the
rest of Europe can discern nothing in it but craft and sinister
interest. Our public opinion is often rich in wisdom, but we lack the
courage of our wisdom. We execute noble achievements, and then are best
pleased to find shabby reasons for them.

There is a certain quality attaching alike to thought and expression and
action, for which we may borrow the name of grandeur. It has been
noticed, for instance, that Bacon strikes and impresses us, not merely
by the substantial merit of what he achieved, but still more by a
certain greatness of scheme and conception. This quality is not a mere
idle decoration. It is not a theatrical artifice of mask or buskin, to
impose upon us unreal impressions of height and dignity. The added
greatness is real. Height of aim and nobility of expression are true
forces. They grow to be an obligation upon us. A lofty sense of personal
worth is one of the surest elements of greatness. That the lion should
love to masquerade in the ass's skin is not modesty and reserve, but
imbecility and degradation. And that England should wrap herself in the
robe of small causes and mean reasons is the more deplorable, because
there is no nation in the world the substantial elements of whose power
are so majestic and imperial as our own. Our language is the most widely
spoken of all tongues, its literature is second to none in variety and
power. Our people, whether English or American, have long ago superseded
the barbarous device of dictator and Caesar by the manly arts of
self-government. We understand that peace and industry are the two most
indispensable conditions of modern civilisation, and we draw the lines
of our policy in accordance with such a conviction. We have had imposed
upon us by the unlucky prowess of our ancestors the task of ruling a
vast number of millions of alien dependents. We undertake it with a
disinterestedness, and execute it with a skill of administration, to
which history supplies no parallel, and which, even if time should show
that the conditions of the problem were insoluble, will still remain
for ever admirable. All these are elements of true pre-eminence. They
are calculated to inspire us with the loftiest consciousness of national
life. They ought to clothe our voice with authority, to nerve our action
by generous resolution, and to fill our counsels with weightiness and
power.

Within the last forty years Eng