they are also in front of her
thoughts. And truly her thoughts need good captain's leading now, if
ever! Do you know what, by this beautiful division of labour (her brave
men fighting, and her cowards thinking), she has come at last to think?
Here is a bit of paper in my hand,[6] a good one too, and an honest one;
quite representative of the best common public thought of England at
this moment; and it is holding forth in one of its leaders upon our
'social welfare,'--upon our 'vivid life'--upon the 'political supremacy
of Great Britain.' And what do you think all these are owing to? To what
our English sires have done for us, and taught us, age after age? No:
not to that. To our honesty of heart, or coolness of head, or steadiness
of will? No: not to these. To our thinkers, or our statesmen, or our
poets, or our captains, or our martyrs, or the patient labour of our
poor? No: not to these; or at least not to these in any chief measure.
Nay, says the journal, 'more than any agency, it is the cheapness and
abundance of our coal which have made us what we are.' If it be so, then
'ashes to ashes' be our epitaph! and the sooner the better. I tell you,
gentlemen of England, if ever you would have your country breathe the
pure breath of heaven again, and receive again a soul into her body,
instead of rotting into a carcase, blown up in the belly with carbonic
acid (and great _that_ way), you must think, and feel, for your England,
as well as fight for her: you must teach her that all the true greatness
she ever had, or ever can have, she won while her fields were green and
her faces ruddy;--that greatness is still possible for Englishmen, even
though the ground be not hollow under their feet, nor the sky black over
their heads;--and that, when the day comes for their country to lay her
honours in the dust, her crest will not rise from it more loftily
because it is dust of coal. Gentlemen, I tell you, solemnly, that the
day is coming when the soldiers of England must be her tutors and the
captains of her army, captains also of her mind.

And now, remember, you soldier youths, who are thus in all ways the hope
of your country; or must be, if she have any hope: remember that your
fitness for all future trust depends upon what you are now. No good
soldier in his old age was ever careless or indolent in his youth. Many
a giddy and thoughtless boy has become a good bishop, or a good lawyer,
or a good merchant; but no such an one eve