. A statesman, a radical, a republican; and a
strong solid man.

There is one thing that strikes you about some of these leaders, in
England: the number of advantages they have when they're boys, growing
up. It gives them a tremendous head-start. Charles Dilke began meeting
great men when he was a mere child: the Duke of Wellington, Thackeray,
Dickens,--I could name a long list. And he had the close companionship
of a grandfather, a man of distinction, who treated him as an equal, and
devoted himself to his grandson's development.

A fortunate boy.

Think of other small boys, who show signs of fine brains and strong
characters. Are they ever introduced to Thackeray or treated as equals?
No, they're taught to respect their dull fathers and their fathers'
ideas. They are taught not to have any separate ideas of their own. Or
at best they run wild with no wise elder friend, like Charles Dilke's.

Here is one of his grandfather's letters. Shows the tone of their
friendship. The boy has just won an English Essay Prize, and "they say
that parts of my essay were vulgar," he writes. "My special interest,"
his grandfather answers, "is aroused by the charge of occasional
vulgarity. If it be true, it is not improbable that the writer caught
the infection from his grandfather. With one half the world, in its
judgment of literature and life, vulgarity is the opposite of gentility,
and gentility is merely negative, and implies the absence of all
character, and, in language, of all idiom, all bone and muscle.... You
may find in Shakespeare household words and phrases from every condition
and walk in life--as much coarseness as you please to look for--anything
and everything except gentility and vulgarity. Occasional vulgarity is,
therefore, a question on which I refuse to take the opinion of any man
not well known to me."

Good for Grandfather! Eh? He was a pretty interesting old boy. He might
have been a great man himself, if he could have brought himself up. But
Great-grandfather had been in the government's service in England, some
position in the Navy Department, or the Admiralty, as they call it. And
when his son grew up, he got him a place in the Admiralty too. He meant
well, but Grandfather might have done better without.

It gave him a berth, and a chance to lie back and look on. And while
that helped to ripen his wisdom, it sapped his initiative.

He had a fine mind; clear, impartial. Strong radical views. He had
char