This may be said not only of our own land, but of the whole of the civilised world, which feels the weight of industrial despondency, and I dwell on these thoughts without rancour toward my fellows, for no one can foretell the purpose of evolution. Fortunate are those who can accept the circumstances of life with grave thoughtfulness rather than consternation; and that is a rich teaching, learned, so far as I am concerned, in the world’s wilderness, where life is sweet and realities naked. To those whose lot it is to look on, how empty seems the frantic blame of parliament that succeeds parliament in the government of countries, and how like the howlings of wolves who have lost the trail to more successful competitors who have gone ahead. For parliaments, when all is said and done, strive to make the best of the material in their hands; and that material is largely concerned with complex humanity, which no human power shall ever completely content. Wherefore it is the clamourings of the wolves that is, as an empty noise, to be condemned as wholly unworthy of any peace-loving community that would prosper. It is they who are out to prey, and, dissatisfied, unscrupulous, hungry for spoil, they care neither for honour nor what they wreck to gain their gluttonous ends. But if my wanderings far afield have taught me anything, it is that we each of us have in our own keeping a very precious possession that either brightens or slurs our environment. I refer to individual character, which is, after all, since units make the mass, the source that shall always decide the nature and ideals of society. Hence, be circumstances what they may, the individual character has it in its power to be a significant force in the universe; _so long as it is strong, and of sterling worthiness_. Wherefore, may it not be that the restlessness and dissatisfaction of modern life is in a minority of characters that are weak and lacking in manliness, and from that source are forthcoming the extremists whose insane attacks on all things as they exist destroy the confidence and tranquillity upon which all true progress flourishes? There is no denying that there is a mean spirit abroad at the present time, a bad patch of inferior material, as it were; but I cannot believe it is anything more serious than that. And therein lies my faith that the simple meaning of civilisation shall one day be recovered, so that men may turn to their dictionaries again, and comprehend when they read that to civilise is: “To reclaim from barbarism; to instruct in arts and refinements.” My chief concern, however, in approaching this subject is to enter on some strange outside impressions of our country, come by in a curious way, in the hope that they may help to show that dissatisfaction with one’s lot is not always justified, and that it is usually possible to find others in circumstances worse than one’s own.