We admire the man for his gifts, and we accept what he says for the
manner in which it is uttered. He may contradict to-day what he asserted
yesterday. No matter. He can persuade others wherever he is persuaded
himself. And such is the nature of him that he can convince himself of
anything which it is his interest to believe. These are the persons who
are now regarded as our wisest. It was not always so. It is not so now
with nations who are in a sound state of health. The Americans, when
they choose a President or a Secretary of State or any functionary from
whom they require wise action, do not select these famous speech-makers.
Such periods do not last, for the condition which they bring about
becomes always intolerable. I do not believe in the degeneracy of our
race. I believe the present generation of Englishmen to be capable of
all that their fathers were and possibly of more; but we are just now in
a moulting state, and are sick while the process is going on. Or to take
another metaphor. The bow of Ulysses is unstrung. The worms have not
eaten into the horn or the moths injured the string, but the owner of
the house is away and the suitors of Penelope Britannia consume her
substance, rivals one of another, each caring only for himself, but with
a common heart in evil. They cannot string the bow. Only the true lord
and master can string it, and in due time he comes, and the cord is
stretched once more upon the notch, singing to the touch of the finger
with the sharp note of the swallow; and the arrows fly to their mark in
the breasts of the pretenders, while Pallas Athene looks on approving
from her coign of vantage.

Random meditations of this kind were sent flying through me by the
newspaper articles on Tennyson and Mr. Gladstone. The air cleared, and
my mind also, as we ran beyond the smoke. The fields were covered deep
with snow; a white vapour clung along the ground, the winter sky shining
through it soft and blue. The ponds and canals were hard frozen, and men
were skating and boys were sliding, and all was brilliant and beautiful.
The ladies of the forest, the birch trees beside the line about
Farnborough, were hung with jewels of ice, and glittered like a fretwork
of purple and silver. It was like escaping out of a nightmare into happy
healthy England once more. In the carriage with me were several
gentlemen; officers going out to join their regiments; planters who had
been at home on business; young sport