savages in Prusso-Portuguese East Bunyipland are as happy and hygienic as
the fortunate savages in Franco-British West Bunyipland? IV. Did the
lost Latin Charter said to have been exacted from Henry III reserve the
right of the Crown to create peers? V. What do you think of what America
thinks of what Mr. Roosevelt thinks of what Sir Eldon Gorst thinks of the
state of the Nile? VI. Detect some difference between the two persons in
frock-coats placed before you at this election."

Now, it never was supposed in any natural theory of self-government that
the ordinary man in my neighbourhood need answer fantastic questions like
these. He is a citizen of South Bucks, not an editor of 'Notes and
Queries'. He would be, I seriously believe, the best judge of whether
farmsteads or factory chimneys should adorn his own sky-line, of whether
stupid squires or clever usurers should govern his own village. But these
are precisely the things which the oligarchs will not allow him to touch
with his finger. Instead, they allow him an Imperial destiny and divine
mission to alter, under their guidance, all the things that he knows
nothing about. The name of self-government is noisy everywhere: the Thing
is throttled.

The wind sang and split the sky like thunder all the night through; in
scraps of sleep it filled my dreams with the divine discordances of
martyrdom and revolt; I heard the horn of Roland and the drums of Napoleon
and all the tongues of terror with which the Thing has gone forth: the
spirit of our race alive. But when I came down in the morning only a
branch or two was broken off the tree in my garden; and none of the great
country houses in the neighbourhood were blown down, as would have
happened if the Thing had really been abroad.