Milverton. No, I mean both: both will and courage. Courage is the
body to will.

Ellesmere. I believe you are right in that; but do not omit will.
It amused me to see how you brought in one of your old notions--that
this age is not contemptible. You scribbling people are generally
on the other side.

Milverton. You malign us. If I must give any account for my
personal predilection for modern times, it consists perhaps in this,
that we may now speak our mind. What Tennyson says of his own land,

"The land where, girt with friend or foe,
A man may say the thing he will,"--

may be said, in some measure, of the age in which we live. This is
an inexpressible comfort. This doubles life. These things surely
may be said in favour of the present age, not with a view to puff it
up, but so far to encourage ourselves, as we may by seeing that the
world does not go on for nothing, that all the misery, blood, and
toil that have been spent, were not poured out in vain. Could we
have our ancestors again before us, would they not rejoice at seeing
what they had purchased for us: would they think it any compliment
to them to extol their times at the expense of the present, and so
to intimate that their efforts had led to nothing?

Ellesmere. "I doubt," as Lord Eldon would have said; no, upon
second thoughts, I do not doubt. I feel assured that a good many of
these said ancestors you are calling up would be much discomforted