e guillotine and did little to further his
beautiful project! He was esteemed a harmless lunatic; yet,
notwithstanding the twelve millions of armed men who trample Europe, I
do not think that Clootz was quite a lunatic after all. Moreover, all
men know that right must prevail, and they know also that there is not a
human being on earth who does not believe by intuition that the gospel
of brotherhood is right, even as the life of its propounder was holy.
The way is weary toward the quarter where the rays of dawn will first
break over the shoulder of the earth. We walk on hoping, and, even if we
fall by the way, and all our hopes seem to be tardy of fruition, yet
others will hail the slow dawn of brotherhood when all now living are
dead and still.

_September, 1888._

_LITTLE WARS_.

Just at this present our troops are engaged in fighting various savage
tribes in various parts of the world, and the humorous journalist speaks
of the affairs as "little wars." There is something rather gruesome in
this airy flippancy proceeding from comfortable gentlemen who are in
nice studies at home. The Burmese force fights, marches, toils in an
atmosphere which would cause some of the airy critics to faint; the
Thibetan force must do as much climbing as would satisfy the average
Alpine performer; and all the soldiers carry their lives in their hands.
What is a little war? Is any war little to a man who loses his life in
it? I imagine that when a wounded fighter comes to face his last hour he
regards the particular war in which he is engaged as quite the most
momentous affair in the world so far as he is concerned. To me the whole
spectacle of the little wars is most grave, both as regards the nation
and as regards the individual Britons who must suffer and fall. Our
destiny is heavy upon us; we must "dree our weirde," for we have begun
walking on the road of conquest, and we must go forward or die. The man
who has the wolf by the ears cannot let go his hold; we cannot slacken
our grip on anything that once we have clutched. But it is terrible to
see how we are bleeding at the extremities. I cannot give the figures
detailing our losses in little wars during the past forty years, but
they are far worse than we incurred in the world-shaking fight of
Waterloo. Incessantly the drip, drip of national blood-shedding goes on,
and no end seems to be gained, save the grim consciousness that we must
suffer and never flinch. The graves o