nce of his
countrymen for his honesty, his wisdom, his sincerity, his faith in God
and man, and the nobly humane simplicity of his character. And I
remember another whom popular respect enveloped as with a halo, the least
vulgar of men, the most austerely genial, and the most independent of
opinion. Wherever he went he never met a stranger, but everywhere
neighbors and friends proud of him as their ornament and decoration.
Institutions which could bear and breed such men as Lincoln and Emerson
had surely some energy for good. No, amid all the fruitless turmoil and
miscarriage of the world, if there be one thing steadfast and of
favorable omen, one thing to make optimism distrust its own obscure
distrust, it is the rooted instinct in men to admire what is better and
more beautiful than themselves. The touchstone of political and social
institutions is their ability to supply them with worthy objects of this
sentiment, which is the very tap-root of civilization and progress.
There would seem to be no readier way of feeding it with the elements of
growth and vigor than such an organization of society as will enable men
to respect themselves, and so to justify them in respecting others.

Such a result is quite possible under other conditions than those of an
avowedly democratical Constitution. For I take it that the real essence
of democracy was fairly enough defined by the First Napoleon when he said
that the French Revolution meant "la carriere ouverte aux talents"--a
clear pathway for merit of whatever kind. I should be inclined to
paraphrase this by calling democracy that form of society, no matter what
its political classification, in which every man had a chance and knew
that he had it. If a man can climb, and feels himself encouraged to
climb, from a coalpit to the highest position for which he is fitted, he
can well afford to be indifferent what name is given to the government
under which he lives. The Bailli of Mirabeau, uncle of the more famous
tribune of that name, wrote in 1771: "The English are, in my opinion, a
hundred times more agitated and more unfortunate than the very Algerines
themselves, because they do not know and will not know till the
destruction of their over-swollen power, which I believe very near,
whether they are monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy, and wish to play
the part of all three."

England has not been obliging enough to fulfil the Bailli's prophecy, and
perhaps it was this ve