We had heard through telegrams and short paragraphs in the French papers of the sinking of the _Victoria_ before the _Spectator_ of 1st July came to us here, in these far-away highlands of Auvergne; but yours was the first trustworthy account in any detail which reached us. I am sure that others must have felt as thankful to you as I did, for your word was worthy the occasion, and told as it should be told, one of the stories which ennoble a nation, and remain a [Greek phrase] for all time. The lonely figure on the bridge is truly, as you say, a subject for a great pictorial artist, and belongs “rather to the poet than the journalist”; and one trusts that Sir George Tryon’s may stand out hereafter in worthy verse as one of “the few clarion names” in our annals. But it was surely the noble steadfastness of all, from admiral to stoker, which has once more given us all “that leap of heart whereby a people rise” to a keener consciousness of the meaning of national life. I think one feels it even more out here amongst strangers than one would have felt it at home, and can give God thanks that the old ideal has come out again in the sinking of the _Victoria_ as it did in that of the _Birkenhead_ forty years ago, when the ship’s boats took off all the women and children, and the big ship went down at last “still under steadfast men.” Those are, as you know, the words of Sir Francis Doyle, who gave voice to the mixed anguish and triumph of the nation in worthy verse. I heard the great story from the lips of one of the simplest of men, Colonel Wright, who as a subaltern had formed the men up on the deck of the _Birkenhead_ under Colonel Seton, and stood at his place on the right of the line when she broke in two. He was entangled for some moments in the sinking wreck, but managed to free himself, and, being a famous swimmer, rose to the surface, and struck out for the shore amongst a number of the men. It must have been one of the most trying half hours that men ever went through; for, as they swam and cheered one another, now and again a comrade would suddenly disappear, and they knew that one of the huge sharks they had seen from the deck, passing backwards and forwards under the doomed ship, was amongst them. When they had all but reached the shore the man who swam by Wright’s side was taken. When I heard the tale he was Assistant-Inspector of Volunteers under Colonel M’Murdo, and going faithfully through his daily work. Strange to say, neither Horse Guards nor War Office had taken any note of that unique deck-parade and swim for life, and Ensign Wright had risen slowly to be Major and Sub-Inspector of Volunteers. Stranger still, he seemed to think it all right, and there was no trace of resentment or jealousy in his plain statement of the facts--which, indeed, I had to draw out by cross-questioning on our march from the Regent’s Park to our headquarters in Bloomsbury. I was so moved by the story that I wrote it all to Mr.