I cannot lead away from those familiar days without speaking of other
companionships which that valley furnished beyond those intimated--
companionships which did not interfere with the rough frontier fellowships
that made democracy possible. For it was in these same fields that Horace
literally sat by the plough and sang of farm and city. It was there that
Livy told his old-world stories by lamplight or at the noon-hour. It was
there that Pythagoras explained his ancient theorem.
I cannot insist that these companionships and intimacies were typical, but
they were sufficiently numerous to disturb any generalizations as to the
sacrifices which that democracy demanded for the sake of "social
conditions" and economic regularity.
The advancing frontier soon spent itself in the arid desert. The pioneer
came to ride in an automobile. The people began to jostle one another in
following their common aspirations, where once there was freedom for the
energy, even the unscrupulous energy, of all.
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