He also was to have the honour
conferred upon him that day, and it was considerate on his part to convoy
me along, as I knew few people at Cambridge, the result of absence from
England.
'As to public affairs, I suspect that he and I held widely different
views, at all events on some subjects. Like everybody else, I recognised
in him a commanding figure, but I am bound to say that his greatness
seemed to me to lie in carrying out ideas, after they had been suggested
by others, rather than in working them out himself.'
Sir George meant that Mr. Gladstone's genius as a statesman, was
constructive more than creative, the fashioner of progress. For himself,
a solitary idea sufficed to keep his heart warm, even in the colds of
age--the federation of the English-speaking people. In one of the last
letters he received from David Livingstone, there was the request, 'Write
me often, because you cheer me up.' It was always possible to cheer Sir
George up on federation; that set him aglow.
There were few to listen when he first preached the federal idea; he
cried in the wilderness, but he did not cease to cry. He waited long for
the echoes to come back, and they did come, with interest, too, when
negotiations for an Anglo-American treaty of arbitration went afoot.
Pages:
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216