It has proved that in spite of all our
covetousness, all our luxury, all our frivolity, we are not cynics yet,
nor likely, thanks be to Almighty God, to become cynics; that however
encrusted and cankered with the cares and riches of this world, and
bringing, alas, very little fruit to perfection, the old British oak is
sound at the root--still human, still humane.
But there is, I believe, another and an almost deeper reason for the
strong emotion which has possessed these men; one most intimately bound
up with our national life, national unity, national history; one which
they can hardly express to themselves; one which some of them are half
ashamed to express, because they cannot render a reason for it; but which
is still there, deeply rooted in their souls; one of those old hereditary
instincts by which the histories of whole nations, whole races, are
guided, often half-unconsciously, and almost in spite of themselves; and
that is Loyalty, pure and simple Loyalty--the attachment to some royal
race, whom they conceived to be set over them by God.
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