294 National Life and Character 



The heroism of Naseby and Worcester and Minden 

 hid from him the heroism of Balaklava and Inker- 

 mann, of Lucknow and Delhi. He could appreciate 

 at their worth the campaigns of the Seven Years' 

 War, and yet could hardly understand those waged 

 between the armies of the Potomac and of North- 

 ern Virginia. He was fairly inspired by the fury 

 and agony and terror of the struggle at Kunners- 

 dorf, and yet could not appreciate the immensely 

 greater importance of the death-wrestle that reeled 

 round Gettysburg. His eyes were so dazzled by the 

 great dramas of the past that he could not see the 

 even greater drama of the present. It is but the 

 bare truth to say that never have the rewards been 

 greater, never has there been more chance for doing 

 work of great and lasting value, than this last half 

 of the nineteenth century has offered alike to states- 

 man and soldier, to explorer and commonwealth- 

 builder, to the captain of industry, to the man of let- 

 ters, and to the man of science. Never has life been 

 more interesting to each to take part in. Never has 

 there been a greater output of good work done both 

 by the few and by the many. 



Nevertheless, signs do not fail that we are on the 

 eve of great changes, and that in the next century 

 we shall see the conditions of our lives, national and 

 individual, modified after a sweeping and radical 

 fashion. Many of the forces that make for national 

 greatness and for individual happiness in the nine- 

 teenth century will be absent entirely, or will act 

 with greatly diminished strength, in the twentieth. 



