Francis of
Assisi differed from the ordinary Benedictine monk of the thirteenth
century." [Footnote: Croly, "Promise of American Life," p. 90.] He was
not, like Jackson, simply a large, forceful version of the plain American
trans-Alleghany citizen; he made no clamorous, boastful show of strength,
powerful as he was physically and intellectually. He shared genuinely,
with no consciousness of his own distinction, the "good-fellowship of his
neighbors, their strength of will, their excellent faith, and above all
their innocence." But he made himself, by discipline of his own,
"intellectually candid, concentrated, and disinterested and morally
humane, magnanimous and humble." This is not the picture of a
conventional, generic democrat; and this is not, we are assured by the
earlier writers, the picture of the westerner of that period. Indeed, Mr.
Croly insists that while these Lincolnian qualities are precisely the
qualities which Americans, in order to become better democrats, should add
to their strength, homogeneity, and innocence, they are just the qualities
(high intelligence, humanity, magnanimity, and humility) which Americans
are "prevented by their individualistic practice and tradition from
attaining or properly valuing.
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