traditions are not ours. A past, not brief, but not memorable, has
denied us these. But a tradition we have henceforward which is all our
own and wholly single in its kind. We persuade ourselves that in far-off
years those who bear our name will say that, in the memory of a great
disaster overcome, no mean heirloom has been left them. They will not be
ashamed of a generation which, in an hour of extreme peril, did not
despair of the commonwealth, but dared to trust their faith in a further
destiny, and saved for those who should come after them a cause which
must else have perished in the dark. _Stet fortuna domus_. And stand it
will if there is assurance in augury. For the fairy legend has a truth
in fact, and the luck of a house, grasped daringly and held fast in an
act of venturous hardihood, will not break or be lost again until the
sons forget to guard it.

Here and there, at any rate, among the posterity which will sometime fill
our ranks, there will not be wanting generous and gifted spirits,
_illustres animae nostrumque in nomen iturae_, who will rejoice in making
good the forecast that the venture was not made in vain. They will
possess more worthily the good which an elder race foresaw and laboured
not all unworthily to preserve. To their safe keeping we commend as
under a seal, the legacy of hopes which are better left unspoken now.




APPENDIX.


HOW WE LEFT BORTH.