edrums in that awful silence!

Our song is ours--England and America, the 'cello, and the bright
violins!

And no one shall sing it for us.

And no one shall keep us from singing it.

The skyscrapers are singing, "I will, I will!" to God, and Manchester
and London and Port Sunlight are singing, "I will, I will!" to God. I
have heard even Westminister Abbey and York--those beautiful old
fellows--altering, "I will, I will!" to God!

And I have seen, as I was going by, Trinity Church at the head of Wall
Street repenting her sins and holding noonday prayer meetings for
millionaires.

Our genius is a moral genius, the genius of each man for fulfilling
himself. Our religion is the finding of a way to do it beautifully.

Let Russian men be an army if they like--death and obedience. Let German
men keep on with their faithful, plodding, moral machines if they want
to, and let all French men be artists, go tra-la-laing up and down the
Time to the beautiful--furnishing nudes, clothes, and academies to a
world.

But we--England and America--will stand up on this planet in the way we
like to stand on a planet and sing, "I will, I will!" to God.

If we cannot do better, we will sing, "I won't, I won't!" to God. Our
wills and our won'ts are our genius among the sons of men. They are what
we are for. With England and America I will and I won't are an art form,
our means of expressing ourselves, our way of invention and creation,
of begetting an age, of begetting a nation upon a world.

We do not know (like great men and children) who we are at first. We
begin saying vaguely--will--will!

Then i will!

Then I will!

Then WE WILL!

THE BEGINNING.

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS, GARDEN CITY, N.Y.

End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Crowds, by Gerald Stanley Lee

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