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Like a panorama suddenly opened up before me is the charmed stretch of country that has time and again created such a stir in the political and military circles of England and Russia, the famous "gate to India" about which the two greatest empires of the world have sometimes almost come to blows.
Whatever may happen in the institutions of these parts, you are too powerful to see your own institutions affected by it. And oh! do not rely too fondly upon your power. It is great, assuredly. You have not to fear any single power on earth. But look to history. Mighty empires have vanished. Let not the enemies of freedom grow too strong.
But we cannot understand the background that lies behind the history of Canada without knowing why such men as Christopher Columbus and Vasco da Gama and the Cabots began the work of discovery. First, we have to realize the peculiar relations between Europe, ancient and mediaeval, and the great empires of Eastern Asia. The two civilizations had never been in direct contact.
They both desired peace, so that their empires might expand and consolidate. Above all, France was weary of war; and by peace the average Frenchman meant, not respite from Continental strifes that yielded a surfeit of barren glories, but peace with England.
He will find the marks of something more than an imposture. To be the religious head of many empires, to guide the daily life of one-third of the human race, may perhaps justify the title of a messenger of God. Like many of the Christian monks, Mohammed retired to the solitude of the desert, and, devoting himself to meditation, fasting, and prayer, became the victim of cerebral disorder.
Lord John Russell, as late as 1847, discovered that it had been 'too much the custom to consult the convenience of Great Britain by getting rid of persons of evil habits, and to take that view alone. In planting provinces which might become empires, they 'should endeavour to make them, not seats of malefactors and convicts, but communities which may set examples of virtue and happiness.
Crowns, thrones, scepters, titles, privileges belong to the past; they are doomed. The people already rule the world. Emperors, kings and presidents exist, not by the grace of God, but by the consent of the people, to whom they give account of their stewardship. Empires are the dungheaps out of which democracies grow. "The historian writes of the common people.
All he knew for certain was that the shy woman-look had crept back for a moment into her eyes; and after that the fate of empires was as nothing to the import of her smile. Did she feel, as he felt, the mystic bond between them, the appeal of his young man's strength; or was that smile a mask, a provocative weapon, to veil her own thoughts while she read through his like a book?
It is true, this manifestation forms so tragic a vision, that if we had only to behold it as a spectacle, we might well desire that the misty obscurity should descend on it again, to shroud it from sight; while we should be left to indulge and elate our imaginations by dwelling on the pomps and splendors of the terrestrial scene, the mighty empires, the heroes, the victories, the triumphs; the refinements and enjoyments of the most highly cultivated of the race; the brilliant performances of genius, and the astonishing reach of science.
The Allied governments have accepted the bases of peace which I outlined to the Congress on the eighth of January last, as the Central Empires also have, and very reasonably desire my personal counsel in their interpretation and application, and it is highly desirable that I should give it in order that the sincere desire of our Government to contribute without selfish purpose of any kind to settlements that will be of common benefit to all the nations concerned may be made fully manifest.
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