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 of oratory, felicity of diction, or nimbleness of mind. They are the vocal results of the beatings of his great heart.