It arose from the fact
that in his time there remained a sort of memory of the Roman Empire,
which some would have re-established as a Holy Roman Empire.
Christendom was still almost one commonwealth; and it seemed to Richard
quite natural to go from one edge of it that happened to be called
England to the opposite edge of it that happened to be called Palestine.
We may think him right or wrong in the particular quarrel,
we may think him innocent or unscrupulous in his incidental methods;
but there is next to no doubt whatever that he did regard
himself not merely as conquering but as re-conquering a realm.
He was not like a man attacking total strangers on a hitherto
undiscovered island. He was not opening up a new country,
or giving his name to a new continent, and he could boast none
of those ideals of imperial innovation which inspire the more
enlightened pioneers, who exterminate tribes or extinguish
republics for the sake of a gold-mine or an oil-field. Some day,
if our modern educational system is further expanded and enforced,
the whole of the past of Palestine may be entirely forgotten;
and a traveller in happier days may have all the fresher sentiments
of one stepping on a new and nameless soil.
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