Publicity is true fame. Let us go into action with a
newspaper correspondent riding at our elbow, or sitting in the
cabin of the ship, has been our practice. He has told us that the
race should be for honour, not for 'honours,' that we should 'give
away our medal,' and that courage and humility, mercy and
strength, should march hand in hand together. For many a year we
have had no room for him in our councils. Our armies knew him not;
and it was only in semi-savage lands and in the service of remote
empires he could find scope for his genius. Now our councils will
be shamed in his service, and our armies will find no footing in
our efforts to reach him. We have said that the Providence of God
was only a calculation of chances; now for eleven months the
amazing spectacle will be presented to the world of this solitary
soldier standing at bay, within thirty days' travel of the centre
of Empire, while the most powerful kingdom on the earth--the
nation whose wealth is as the sands of the sea, whose boast is
that the sun never sets upon its dominions--is unable to reach
him--saving _he_ does not want--but is unable to reach him even
with one message of regret for past forgetfulness.
"No; there is something more in all this than mistake of
Executive, or strife of party, or error of Cabinet, or fault of
men can explain.
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