that end must submit ourselves
to the European standard of intellectual weights and measures. That we
have made the hitherto biggest gun might excite apprehension (were there
a dearth of iron), but can never exact respect. That our pianos and
patent reapers have won medals does but confirm us in our mechanic and
material measure of merit. We must contribute something more than mere
contrivances for the saving of labor, which we have been only too ready
to misapply in the domain of thought and the higher kinds of invention.
In those Olympic games where nations contend for truly immortal wreaths,
it may well be questioned whether a mowing-machine would stand much
chance in the chariot-races,--whether a piano, though made by a
chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize of music.

We shall have to be content for a good while yet with our provincialism,
and must strive to make the best of it. In it lies the germ of
nationality, and that is, after all, the prime condition of all
thorough-bred greatness of character. To this choicest fruit of a
healthy life, well rooted in native soil, and drawing prosperous prices
thence, nationality gives the keenest flavor. Mr. Lincoln was an
original man, and in so far a great man; yet it was the Americanism of
his every thought, word, and act which not only made his influence
equally at home in East and West, but drew the eyes of the outside
world, and was the pedestal that lifted him where he could be seen by
them. Lincoln showed that native force may transcend local boundaries,
but the growth of such nationality is hindered and hampered by our
division into so many half-independent communities, each with its
objects of county ambition, and its public men great to the borders of
their district. In this way our standard of greatness is insensibly
debased. To receive any national appointment, a man must have gone
through precisely the worst training for it; he must have so far
narrowed and belittled himself with State politics as to be acceptable
at home. In this way a man may become chairman of the Committee on
Foreign Affairs, because he knows how to pack a caucus in Catawampus
County, or sent ambassador to Barataria, because he has drunk bad
whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should we ever attain to a
conscious nationality, it will have the advantage of lessening the
number of our great men, and widening our appreciation to the larger
scale of the two or three that are