And we find ourselves
answering: his peculiar excellence could have come of no other order of
society. We ask ourselves anxiously if democracy has the unerring instinct
to find such men to embody its wishes, or did it take him only for a
talented rail-splitter--an average man? But we have no certain answer to
this anxious questioning. What gives most hope in new confusions and
problems, unknown to his day, however, is that the more clearly his
disinterestedness and forbearance and magnanimity and humility are
revealed, the wider and deeper is the feeling of admiration and love for
his character, which perhaps assures us, after all, better than anything
else, of the soundness and nobility of the ideals of democracy.
They carried this man at death over into the valley of his birth, into the
land of the men of the western waters that was Nouvelle France, and there
buried him among his neighbors, of whom he learned his spirit of
democracy, in the midst of scenes where he had mastered its language, in
the very ground that had taught him his parables, by the side of the
stream that gave him sight of his supreme mission.
Pages:
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430