range of European armaments, and by the determination to resist the encroachment of western ambitions.
It seems, then, that the destiny of England is changing before our eyes. A while ago we appeared to aspire to be the Mrs. Caudle, or, at any rate, the Madame de Staël, of Europe. Our candidature was for the respectable post of finishing governess to Christendom. But, after 1870, as our pupils grew big and restive at our lecturing, we gave notice and retired. With the twentieth century we have come back in a rather different role, having read in the gospel according to Bismarck that "we shall not avoid the dangers that lie in the bosom of the future by amiability."
We did not emerge from the isolation of the past because Europe, in the generation following 1870, organised itself into two opposing combinations of immense strength. On the contrary, the formation of such antagonistic bodies would of itself only furnish us with another reason for remaining aloof, in composed contemplation of the balance of power. The real reason, therefore, for our advance into the current of European life was the painful knowledge, gradually borne in upon us, that there was, from our point of view, an essential unreality in these antagonisms of the Triple and Dual Alliances, which might easily terminate at any moment to our prejudice, and that, accordingly, it was impossible, without incurring the gravest
