Here we feel, and feel with relief, that we can give a clear verdict. The rest matters little. The path of the statesman rarely skirts the heights, it is rough, rugged, sometimes squalid, as are most of the roads of life. We are apt to make idols, to ignore shadows, and to fancy that we see stars; not too apt, for it is an illuminating worship. But, that being so, let not those who have to scrutinise therefore condemn. All careers have their blots. The best and happiest are those in which the blemishes are obscured by high achievement. That was supremely the case with Pitt. His upward ascent was much like other ascents, neither better nor worse. But when he reached the summit, and acted in full light and freedom, his triumph was so complete that none deem it worth while to scan his previous record. None should care now, were it not a healthy propensity to seek to know as much as possible of the lives of great men. It is preposterous to depict Pitt as an angel of light. But yet, judged by the standard of his day, the only proper standard to apply, and indeed by the standard of any day, he must be held even in his darkest hours not to have compromised his historical future.

Whatever his failings may have been, his countrymen have refused, and rightly refused, to take heed of them. They have refused to see anything but the supreme orator, the triumphant Minister of 1757-1761, the champion of liberty in later years at home and in the West. With Pitt, as with Nelson, his country will not count flaws. What do they matter? How are they visible in the sunlight of achievement? A country must cherish and guard its heroes.

We have climbed with him in his path to power. We have seen him petulant, factious, hungry, bitter. And yet all the time we have felt that there was always something in him different in quality from his fellow-politicians when they aired the same qualities, that there was an imprisoned spirit within him struggling for freedom and scope. At last it bursts its trammels, he tosses patronage and intrigue to the old political Shylocks, and inspires the policy of the world. Vanity of vanities! Twenty years after his epoch of glory, three years after his death, Britain has reached the lowest point in her history. But still she is the richer for his life. He bequeaths a tradition, he bequeaths a son; and when men think of duty and achievement they look to one or the other. It will be an ill day for their country when either is forgotten.

INDEX

LONDON: STRANGEWAYS, PRINTERS.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Camelford.