I do not despair of success. I think I
shall make converts. The mob is really very fickle and sometimes
cheers the truth.
None, at all events, will deny that England stands to-day otherwise
than she stood a hundred and thirty-two years ago, when George was
born. To-day we are living a decadent life. All the while that we are
prating of progress, we are really so deteriorate! There is nothing
but feebleness in us. Our youths, who spend their days in trying to
build up their constitutions by sport or athletics and their evenings
in undermining them with poisonous and dyed drinks; our daughters, who
are ever searching for some new quack remedy for new imaginary megrim,
what strength is there in them? We have our societies for the
prevention of this and the promotion of that and the propagation of
the other, because there are no individuals among us. Our sexes are
already nearly assimilate. Women are becoming nearly as rare as
ladies, and it is only at the music-halls that we are privileged to
see strong men. We are born into a poor, weak age. We are not strong
enough to be wicked, and the Nonconformist Conscience makes cowards of
us all.
But this was not so in the days when George was walking by his tutor's
side in the gardens of Kew or of Windsor.
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