ciple of personal freedom, has been superseded by a
socialistic democracy under which personal freedom suffers frequent
curtailments, and liberty is severely abridged by the mandates of trade
unions, the prohibitions of urban potentates, and the usurpations of
medicine men.

Under these cramping and crippling deprivations we have lost the
collective sense of greatness as a race that infused every participator in
the splendid pageant of such an event as the Impeachment of Warren
Hastings. One has but to imagine an impeachment to-day with the
dominant personages in it chosen from the strike leaders and labour
delegates of the proletariat, assisted by promoted railway porters and
ennobled grocers, to perceive what a distance, and down what a
declivity we have travelled since those days when it was impossible for
any great public function to take place without its becoming naturally
and without conscious effort the occasion for a manifestation of the
pomp, circumstance, and splendour inseparable from the solemn acts
of a great people performed by their greatest men.

But I am one, Antony, who look forward with steadfast hope and belief
to a reaction from our present vulgarity, and to a reascension of
England to a greater dignity, honour, and nobleness both in its public
and private life than is observable to-day.

Your loving old
G.P.

27

MY DEAR ANTONY,

I have not in my letters to you travelled beyond our own islands in
search of great English prose, but I propose now to make one
divergence from this rule and quote a very great and deservedly
far-famed speech, uttered on a memorable occasion, of Abraham
Lincoln, President of the United States.

At the present time, I think, the name of Lincoln lies closer to the
hearts of the American people than that of any other, not even
excepting Washington and Hamilton. The latter, though they
established American independence, remained in a personal sense
English gentlemen till their death. Lincoln was born in the backwoods in
rude poverty, received no education but what he acquired by his own
unaided efforts, and lived and died a man of the people, the ideal type
of native-born American.

He rose from the lowest to the highest position in the State, borne
upwards by the simple nobility of his character, by the stainless purity
of his actions, and the splendid motive of all his endeavours. His
speeches and writings derive their power and distinction from no tricks