BOSTON TO WASHINGTON 121 



sa s his slaves are not fit for freedom ; the tyrant, that subjects 

 aro not fit to govern themselves. The fitness for self-govern- 

 ment is inherent in human nature. Many savage tribes, many 

 barbarian peoples are really better governed to-day than the 

 majority of the self-styled civilized nations. America deserves 

 the gratitude of all upholders of liberty by founding her own 

 freedom on the principle of immutable right to self-govern- 

 ment — that Governments derive their just powers only from 

 the consent of the governed. To-day, however, America has 

 taken leave of this high ideal, and has become, like ourselves, 

 a tyrant, ruling the Filipinos against their will, as we have 

 so long ruled the Irish. 



Among the visitors to Washington was the Rev. J. A. 

 Allen, of Kingston, Canada (the father of our Grant Allen), 

 who, with his wife and two daughters, were living in apart- 

 ments nearly opposite my hotel. I soon became intimate with 

 this amiable and very intellectual family, and spent many pleas- 

 ant evenings with them ; while Mr. Allen sometimes went for 

 walks with me and took me over the Patent Museum, where 

 there is a most wonderful exhibition of models of all the 

 successful and unsuccessful inventions that have been patented 

 in the States. From him I first learnt that his son was a poet, 

 and he gave me a copy of his marvellous poem entitled ' In 

 Magdalen Tower," written when he was an undergraduate, 

 describing with wonderful ingenuity and picturesqueness the 

 appearance of the city on a moonlight October night, but going 

 on to discuss the deepest problems of philosophy and their 

 attempted solutions. Take as a sample these two verses on 

 law in the universe : — 



" We yearn for brotherhood with lake and mountain ; 



Our conscious soul seeks conscious sympathy, 

 Nymphs in the coppice, Naiads in the fountain, 



Gods in the craggy heights and roaring sea. 

 We find but soulless sequences of matter, 



Fact linked to fact by adamantine rods. 

 Eternal bonds of former sense and latter, 



Blind laws for living Gods. 



