did not detect, at that time, that that was its source. And I
didn't detect it afterward in Melbourne, when I came on the stage for the
first time, and the same question was dropped down upon me from the dizzy
height of the gallery. It is always difficult to answer a sudden inquiry
like that, when you have come unprepared and don't know what it means.
I will remark here--if it is not an indecorum--that the welcome which an
American lecturer gets from a British colonial audience is a thing which
will move him to his deepest deeps, and veil his sight and break his
voice. And from Winnipeg to Africa, experience will teach him nothing;
he will never learn to expect it, it will catch him as a surprise each
time. The war-cloud hanging black over England and America made no
trouble for me. I was a prospective prisoner of war, but at dinners,
suppers, on the platform, and elsewhere, there was never anything to
remind me of it. This was hospitality of the right metal, and would have
been prominently lacking in some countries, in the circumstances.

And speaking of the war-flurry, it seemed to me to bring to light the
unexpected, in a detail or two. It seemed to relegate the war-talk to
the politicians on both sides of the water; whereas whenever a
prospective war between two nations had been in the air theretofore, the
public had done most of the talking and the bitterest. The attitude of
the newspapers was new also. I speak of those of Australasia and India,
for I had access to those only. They treated the subject argumentatively
and with dignity, not with spite and anger. That was a new spirit, too,
and not learned of the French and German press, either before Sedan or
since. I heard many public speeches, and they reflected the moderation
of the journals. The outlook is that the English-speaking race will
dominate the earth a hundred years from now, if its sections do not get
to fighting each other. It would be a pity to spoil that prospect by
baffling and retarding wars when arbitration would settle their
differences so much better and also so much more definitely.

No, as I have suggested, novelties are rare in the great capitals of
modern times. Even the wool exchange in Melbourne could not be told from
the familiar stock exchange of other countries. Wool brokers are just
like stockbrokers; they all bounce from their seats and put up their
hands and yell in unison--no stranger can tell what--and the presiden