in store for their little ones. I am not one of those who believe blindly that all new movements are good ones. The world has seen many that seemed great, happily defeat their own ends, leaving the generations to come a legacy of knowledge that they seem, often enough, to ignore. I believe that the struggle will be fierce, but the world, in order to attend to the enormously important businesses of increasing, eating and sleeping, requires in the long run certain conventions and conformities, and to preserve these has a way of weakening the ground under the feet of the shouting and bloodthirsty reformer—even, alas! of the true spiritual leader. The world has dedicated itself, I think, to the great law of average—such an eternal warring of good and bad would seem to bring that about naturally—and compromise would be the inevitable end of every struggle.
"You, and all those I love, will either be participators in or spectators of that struggle. Not so Stephen and myself. We are privileged by old age to ignore it if we can. Age has a right to forget the evils that it can do nothing to lessen.
"I still read my paper, but I get no pleasure from it. Who does? One sees that the Empire for which one would cheerfully die, is accused of making mistakes in every quarter of the globe.