It all
lay outside the facts of life, far beyond the actual
horizon, like the affairs of a distant relation from whom
one has nothing to hope, not even personal contact, and
of whose wealth and greatness one does not boast much,
because of the irony involved. Information upon all these
matters was duly put before Elgin every morning in the
telegrams of the Toronto papers; the information came,
until the other day, over cables to New York and was
disseminated by American news agencies. It was, therefore,
not devoid of bias; but if this was perceived it was by
no means thought a matter for protesting measures,
especially as they would be bound to involve expense.
The injury was too vague, too remote, to be more than
sturdily discounted by a mental attitude. Belief in
England was in the blood, it would not yield to the
temporary distortion of facts in the newspapers--at all
events, it would not yield with a rush. Whether there
was any chance of insidious sapping was precisely what
the country was too indifferent to discover. Indifferent,
apathetic, self-centred--until whenever, down the wind,
across the Atlantic, came the faint far music of the call
to arms. Then the old dog of war that has his kennel in
every man rose and shook himself, and presently there
would be a baying! The sense of kinship, lying too deep
for the touch of ordinary circumstance, quickened to
that; and in a moment "we" were fighting, "we" had lost
or won.
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