o purpose that
our political augurs divine from the flight of our eagles that
to-morrow shall be ours, and flatter us with an all-hail hereafter.
Things do really gain in greatness by being acted on a great and
cosmopolitan stage, because there is inspiration in the thronged
audience, and the nearer match that puts men on their mettle. Webster
was more largely endowed by nature than Fox, and Fisher Ames not much
below Burke as a talker; but what a difference in the intellectual
training, in the literary culture and associations, in the whole social
outfit, of the men who were their antagonists and companions! It should
seem that, if it be collision with other minds and with events that
strikes or draws the fire from a man, then the quality of those might
have something to do with the quality of the fire,--whether it shall be
culinary or electric. We have never known the varied stimulus, the
inexorable criticism, the many-sided opportunity of a great metropolis,
the inspiring reinforcement of an undivided national consciousness. In
everything but trade we have missed the invigoration of foreign rivalry.
We may prove that we are this and that and the other,--our
Fourth-of-July orators have proved it time and again,--the census has
proved it; but the Muses are women, and have no great fancy for
statistics, though easily silenced by them. We are great, we are rich,
we are all kinds of good things; but did it never occur to you that
somehow we are not interesting, except as a phenomenon? It may safely be
affirmed that for one cultivated man in this country who studies
American, there are fifty who study European history, ancient or modern.

Till within a year or two we have been as distant and obscure to the
eyes of Europe as Ecuador to our own. Every day brings us nearer,
enables us to see the Old World more clearly, and by inevitable
comparison to judge ourselves with some closer approach to our real
value. This has its advantage so long as our culture is, as for a long
time it must be, European; for we shall be little better than apes and
parrots till we are forced to measure our muscle with the trained and
practised champions of that elder civilization. We have at length
established our claim to the noblesse of the sword, the first step still
of every nation that would make its entry into the best society of
history. To maintain ourselves there, we must achieve an equality in the
more exclusive circle of culture, and to