her face
and sat dumb and weeping in the dust. Over the wolds of their desolation
hyenas prowled, snuffing the noisome air as for a living prey; ghouls
and vampyres shrieked in hellish chorus, as they tore up forgotten
graves; and all manner of hateful and obscure things crawled familiarly
in and out of palaces and holy places, as if they were the ghosts of the
former inhabitants; and, high above them all, in the bloody light of the
setting sun, wheeled kites and choughs and solitary vultures; owls and
dismal bats flitting, ever and anon, athwart the shadows of their grim
processions.

No matter that this vision was in reality but the symbolism of
imagination and poetry, that Europe was not dead, but alive with the
struggling vitalities of good and evil, and all those contending forces
out of which American freedom was born--the vision itself was not the
less true, either as feeling or insight; for Europe was now literally
cut adrift from America, and the hopes and aspirations of the young
republic were entirely different from hers, and removed altogether from
the plane of her orbit and action.

The liberalists and thinkers of the age expected great things from a
people thus fortunately conditioned and circumstanced. For the first
time in modern history a genuine democratic government was inaugurated
and fairly put upon its trial. The horizon of thought was now to be
pushed back far beyond the old frontiers into the very regions of the
infinite; and a universal liberty was to prevail throughout the length
and breadth of the land. No more dead formalities, nor slavish
submissions, but new and fuller life, self-reliance, self-development,
and the freest individuality. Gladly the people accepted the
propositions and principles of their national existence. Not a doubt
anywhere of the result; no faltering, no looking back; but brave hearts,
everywhere, and bold fronts, and conquering souls. Before them, through
the mists of the starry twilight, loomed the mountain peaks and shadowy
seas of the unventured and unknown future; and thitherward they pressed
with undaunted steps, and with a haughty and sublime defiance of
obstructions and dangers; fearing God, doing their best, and leaving the
issue in His hands.

We know now, after nearly a hundred years of trial, what that issue in
the main is, and whitherward it still tends. During that little
breathing time, which, compared with the life of other nations, is but a
gasp in