I have done so; and as my slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those passages and halls which require the hallowing breath of centuries to give them the glory in British eyes which they shall one day possess, I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to have won that right of way, though but for a session,--not to have passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps,--is to die and not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved.

For as my slow steps have led me up that more than royal staircase, to those hallowed passages and halls, I have told myself, in anger and in grief, that to die and not to have won that right of way - not to have passed by the narrow entrance through those lamps - is not to have done that which it most becomes an Englishman to have achieved.
