"

[Footnote 290: It was, in its essence, the "high seriousness
of absolute sincerity" that Arnold, after Aristotle, makes
the central attribute of poetic thought. In commenting upon a
speech delivered at Germiston on March 15th, 1905, the
Johannesburg _Star_ wrote on the day following: "Did ever a
High Commissioner for South Africa speak in this wise before?
But beneath the light words and unstudied diction there is
the weight and sureness of the 'inevitable' thought. A man
who has pursued a single task for eight years with
unremitting effort and unswerving devotion can afford to put
his mind into his words. And in all that Lord Milner says
there is an absolute sincerity, born of high integrity of
purpose and an assurance of knowledge, that compels
conviction. Or, rather, should we say, that makes the need of
conviction as unnecessary as a lamp in daylight."]

"It is hard, it is ludicrous," he continued, "that some of the
busiest men in the world should be obliged to occupy their time,
and that so many of my friends and well wishers should be put to
inconvenience--and on a day, too, when it would be so nice to be
in the country--merely in order to prove to persons with an
ingrained habit of self-delusion that the British Government will
not give up its agents in the face of the enemy, or that the
people of this country will not allow themselves to be bored into
abandoning what they have spent millions of treasure and so many
precious lives to obtain. All I can say is, that if it was
necessary (I apologise for it: I am sorry to be the centre of a
commotion from which no man could be constitutionally more averse
than myself), I can only thank you heartily for the kindness and
the cordiality with which the thing has been done. I feel indeed
that the praises which have been bestowed, the honours which
have been heaped on me, are beyond my deserts. But the simplest
thing to do under these circumstances is to try to deserve them
in the future. In any case I am under endless obligations. It is
difficult to say these things in the face of the persons
principally concerned, but I feel bound to take this opportunity,
especially in view of the remarks which have been made in certain
quar