[N]owhere in the world was there a higher idealism than that which possessed the American people... America in this war represented the conscience an… - James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce

Having condemned the policy of severity which had been adopted with the object of bringing the [Boer] war to a conclusion, he said that it might be doubted whether anything short of the restoration of the independence of the two Republics—subject of course to a measure of British control—would have the effect of inducing the Boers to lay down their arms. The passion for independence was strong; it had been the cherished ideal of those people ever since they quitted Cape Colony and won the country for themselves. Our demand for unconditional surrender was a fatal blunder.

Liberalism was a plant which did not thrive in stagnant waters, and the waters of London, to their shame be it spoken, were stagnant. Where there was a want of active zeal all the worse and baser instincts which had power in politics told against the Liberal party. The money power was against the Liberal party, and so was the liquor power.

[T]he learned had been at work in exploring the fields of history and philology. The origins of the several families of mankind were investigated and their affinities set forth. The old annals were edited and republished, the old poems popularised. The ancient exploits of the race were held up to admiration, and each people was supplied by historians and poets with fuel to feed the flame of national pride. It was all natural, and in one sense it was laudable. Men's souls are raised by the recollection of great deeds done by their forefathers. But the study of the past has its dangers when it makes men transfer past claims and past hatreds to the present. A sage friend remarked to me lately while we were discussing the complications of South-eastern Europe: "How much better if we could get rid of history altogether!" The learned men and the literary men, often themselves intoxicated by their own enthusiasms, never put their books to a worse use than when they filled each people with a conceit of its own super-eminent gifts and merits.