t strange world of thine. Were it not a doom, were it
not a frightful doom, that it should come to rule thee? ... Government
from without! Government of to-day, Government abroad as we see it in
every journal, in every letter that we open--how heavy, how heavy is the
ball and chain the nations wear! If we alone in this land go free, if
for four golden years we have moved with lightness, look to it lest a
gaoler come! Government! What is the ideal government? It is a man of
business, worthy and esteemed, administering his client's affairs with
thoroughness, economy, and honour. It is a wise judge, holding the
balances with a steadfast hand, sitting there clothed reverently, to
judge uprightly and to do no more. It is a skilled council, a picked
band, an honourable Legion, chosen of the multitude, to determine the
line of march for an advancing civilization; to make such laws as are
according to reason and necessity and to make none that are not, and to
provide for the keeping of the law that is made. The careful man of
affairs, the upright judge, the honest maker of honest laws must needs
present an account for maintenance and for that expenditure which shall
give offence neither to generosity nor to justice; and the account must
be paid, yea, and ungrudgingly! Let us pay, then, each man according to
his ability, the tax that is right and fitting; and let us, moreover,
give due honour to the vanguard of the people. It is there that the
great flag waves with all the blazonry of the race. But we want no
substituted banner, no private ensign, no conqueror's flapping eagles!
Government! Honour the instrument by which we rule ourselves; but
worship not a mechanical device, and call not a means an end! Admirable
means, but oh, the sorry end! Therefore we'll have no usurping
Praetorian, no juggling sophist, no bailiff extravagant and unjust, no
spendthrift squandering on idleness that which would pay just debts! A
ruler! There's no halo about a ruler's head. The people--the people are
the sacred thing, for they are the seed whence the future is to spring.
He who betrays his trust, which is to guard the seed,--what is that
man--Emperor or President, Louis or George, Pharaoh or Caesar--but a
traitor and a breaker of the Law? He may die by the axe, or he may die
in a purple robe of a surfeit, but he dies! The people live on, and his
memory pays. He has been a tyrant and a pygmy, and the ages hold him in
contempt.... War! There are r