wn past, and direct affairs in
accordance with it. On the very day of this writing there appears in
an American journal a slashing contrast between the action of Lord
Salisbury in the Cretan business and the spirited letter of Mr.
Gladstone upon the failure of the Concert. As a matter of fact,
however, both those British statesmen, while belonging to parties
traditionally opposed, are imbued above all with the ideas of the
middle of the century, and, governed by them, consider the disturbance
of quiet the greatest of all evils. It is difficult to believe that if
Mr. Gladstone were now in his prime, and in power, any object would
possess in his eyes an importance at all comparable to that of keeping
the peace. He would feel for the Greeks, doubtless, as Lord Salisbury
doubtless does; but he would maintain the Concert as long as he
believed that alone would avoid war. When men in sympathy with the
ideas now arising among Englishmen come on the stage, we shall see a
change--not before.

The same spirit has dominated in our own country ever since the civil
war--a far more real "revolution" in its consequences than the
struggle of the thirteen colonies against Great Britain, which in our
national speech has received the name--forced our people, both North
and South, to withdraw their eyes from external problems, and to
concentrate heart and mind with passionate fervor upon an internal
strife, in which one party was animated by the inspiring hope of
independence, while before the other was exalted the noble ideal of
union. That war, however, was directed, on the civil side, by men who
belonged to a generation even then passing away. The influence of
their own youth reverted with the return of peace, and was to be seen
in the ejection--by threat of force--of the third Napoleon from
Mexico, in the acquisition of Alaska, and in the negotiations for the
purchase of the Danish islands and of Samana Bay. Whatever may have
been the wisdom of these latter attempts,--and the writer, while
sympathizing with the spirit that suggested them, questions it from a
military, or rather naval, stand-point,--they are particularly
interesting as indicating the survival in elderly men of the
traditions accepted in their youth, but foreign to the generation then
rapidly coming into power, which rejected and frustrated them.

The latter in turn is now disappearing, and its successors, coming and
to come, are crowding into its places. Is there any