VII His Sy^npathy 201 



and have kept to it ever since. And often as I read 

 it now I regret he is not here to see it and the 

 general public opinion standing in for the policy 

 he loved, — the supremacy of England in the world, 

 a supremacy clearly hers by divine right, — for in his 

 eyes England was the incarnation of fearlessness, 

 justice, and honour. If by chance any mere tem- 

 porary Englishman dealt with the world on other 

 lines than those that are both sportsmanlike and 

 gentlemanly, George Kingsley had no mercy on him 

 whatsoever, and in unmitigated language consigned 

 that individual to perdition. Foreigners, as people 

 not able to know better, were not dealt with so 

 harshly. 



But again, I pray you, do not think George 

 Kingsley was mainly a dreamer with a volcanic 

 temper ; for in his many-sided nature there were 

 other characteristics — an infinite gentleness with 

 weak things, a vigorous hatred for those who inflicted 

 suffering unnecessarily on man or beast, that came 

 from a sympathy which made him feel the extent 

 of that suffering. This may seem a strange claim 

 to make for a man who was so keen a sportsman, 

 but it is an essential part of the true sportsman. 

 There is as fundamental a difference between a true 

 sportsman and a man who loves inflicting death 

 or suffering from sheer love of cruelty, as there 

 is between either of these and the nervous lady who 

 shrieks at an earwig and takes to the table top 

 when mouse or beetle claims the floor. 



