Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 129.djvu/341

Rh existed in 1847, while Mr. Darwin's "Origin of Species," which not only formed a new point of departure in biology, but has extended its influence into so many other fields of research, belongs to a far later date.

The tone of society is infinitely more intelligent and liberal. Many opinions which thirty years ago were looked shyly on have become so much a matter of course that people forget what even they themselves used to think about them. So fast are things changing before our eyes that when the new generation in its turn can look back over a generation they will, I dare say, be able to note even greater revolutions in men's way of looking at their environment, though they will hardly see, I should think, purely political perturbations in Europe on so large a scale as we have done.

Before I conclude I would just mention that if anybody wants a commentary upon much that I have been saying, he cannot do better than read the summaries recently reprinted by the Times, and that portion of the life of Lord Palmerston which has lately been published by Mr. Evelyn Ashley. That gentleman was very closely connected with Lord Palmerston, and takes a rather more favourable view of him than the coming generation is likely to do. Still it is an excellent book, very sensible in its judgments, and full of authentic documents from end to end.

It was unfortunate for the fame of Lord Palmerston that he did not die immediately after the Crimean War, and had so been spared the criticism which he will undoubtedly receive for his conduct in 1864, when he so nearly involved England in a contest which would have done much to neutralize many of the benefits which Europe derived from the overthrow of the policy of Nicholas.

But justice will require men to remember that it is not fair to expect a statesman to be more than the man of his century. Of the very greatest kind of man it has been truly said, "If the century in which he lives is not his, a great many others will be;" but the statesman must be essentially the child of time and place. If he is not limited by the exigencies of time and place, and strictly limited, he may be a far greater thing than any statesman, but a statesman he cannot be. In Lord Palmerston's youth Germany and German were hardly known to Englishmen, and no man to whom Germany and German were a sealed book could have seen his way clearly through the difficulties which surrounded politicians during the Dano-German contest, which will hereafter be remembered as a turning-point in the history of English foreign policy. Would that I were able to say that a younger generation of statesmen than that to which Lord Palmerston belonged has that full understanding of and sympathy with Germany which are essential to a right understanding of the Europe in which we are living.

Let the coming generation — such of it as may devote itself to politics, take care that no narrowness of this kind can be brought against it. Let it be English first of all, and last of all; but be European — not to say cosmopolitan — into the bargain. Above all things let it get betimes such a grasp of the great literatures of the modern world, as may enable it, when it comes to deal with the politics of the modern world, to find its bearings where others grope as pitiably as the generation to which I belong saw many English politicians do in 1864, in 1866, and in 1870. Author:Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff.

 

 From Blackwood's Magazine.

 

arrived at "The Beeches" only a few minutes before dinner-time. Everybody had retired to dress, and the blaze of lights and array of extra waiters bustling about betokened a party, while the presence of the gentlemanly-looking person in the hall proclaimed that Mr. Hanckes was among the guests; but Mr. Peevor came out to greet him, receiving the apologies which Yorke made for his unceremonious departure in quite an apologetic manner. "Pray do not mention it, colonel; business is business, of course, and must be attended to; I am a business man myself, you know. I have to go to town myself to-morrow; treating you quite unceremoniously, you see. But I am so glad that you have been able to return in time for dinner, as we have a few friends whom I should like to introduce to you. So sorry there was no carriage to meet you at the station: if we could have guessed you were coming by that train, I should have made a point of sending one. Those flies are so cold and drafty."

On descending to the blue drawing-room, Yorke found a large party assembled, including Mr. Hanckes, who had come down by the previous train, and he