a certain amount of friction is probable, that I would avoid all premature striving for alliance, an artificial and possibly even an irritating method of reaching the desired end.  Instead, I would dwell continually upon those undeniable points of resemblance in natural characteristics, and in surrounding conditions, which testify to common origin and predict a common destiny.  Cast the seed of this thought into the ground, and it will spring and grow up, you know not how,—­first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear.  Then you may put in your sickle and reap the harvest of political result, which as yet is obviously immature.  How quietly and unmarked, like the slow processes of nature, such feelings may be wrought into the very being of nations, was evidenced by the sudden and rapid rising of the North at the outbreak of our civil war, when the flag was fired upon at Fort Sumter.  Then was shown how deeply had sunk into the popular heart the devotion to the Union and the flag, fostered by long dwelling upon the ideas, by innumerable Fourth of July orations, often doubtless vainglorious, sometimes perhaps grotesque, but whose living force and overwhelming results were vividly apparent, as the fire leaped from hearthstone to hearthstone throughout the Northern States.  Equally in the South was apparent how tenacious and compelling was the grip which the constant insistence upon the predominant claim of the State upon individual loyalty had struck into the hearts of her sons.  What paper bonds, treaties, or alliances could have availed then to hold together people whose ideals had drifted so far apart, whose interests, as each at that time saw them, had become so opposed?

Although I am convinced firmly that it would be to the interest of Great Britain and the United States, and for the benefit of the world, that the two nations should act together cordially on the seas, I am equally sure that the result not only must be hoped but also quietly waited for, while the conditions upon which such cordiality depends are being realized by men.  All are familiar with the idea conveyed by the words “forcing process.”  There are things that cannot be forced, processes which cannot be hurried, growths which are strong and noble in proportion as they imbibe slowly the beneficent influence of the sun and air in which they are bathed.  How far the forcing process can be attempted by an extravagant imagination, and what the inevitable recoil of the mind you seek to take by storm, is amusingly shown by Mr. Carnegie’s “Look Ahead,” and by the demur thereto of so ardent a champion of Anglo-American alliance—­on terms which appear to me to be rational though premature—­as Sir George Clarke.  A country with a past as glorious and laborious as that of Great Britain, unprepared as yet, as a whole, to take a single step forward toward reunion, is confronted suddenly—­as though the temptation must be irresistible—­with a picture of ultimate results which I will not undertake