Henry Cruickshank, growing old in his eminence and less
secure, perhaps, in the increasing conflict of loud
voices, of his own grasp of the ultimate best, fearing
too, no doubt, the approach of that cynicism which, moral
or immoral, is the real hoar of age, wrote to young
Murchison while he was still examining the problems of
the United States with the half-heart of the alien, and
offered him a partnership. The terms were so simple and
advantageous as only to be explicable on the grounds I
have mentioned, though no phrase suggested them in the
brief formulas of the letter, in which one is tempted to
find the individual parallel of certain propositions of
a great government also growing old. The offer was
accepted, not without emotion, and there, too, it would
be good to trace the parallel, were we permitted; but
for that it is too soon, or perhaps it is too late. Here,
for Lorne and for his country, we lose the thread of
destiny. The shuttles fly, weaving the will of the nations,
with a skein for ever dipped again; and he goes forth to
his share in the task among those by whose hand and
direction the pattern and the colours will be made.
END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Imperialist, by Sara Jeannette Duncan
*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE IMPERIALIST ***
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