as
restless as his feet. The color was in his face and his eyes were
blazing. There was a curious magnetism about him that Isabel had never
been sensible of before, although she had heard much of it in England.
It was as if his spirit were fully awake; at other times he appeared to
live with his cool critical brain only, while his inner self, with its
intense slow passions, slept. She wisely made no comment, and after
shoving the books violently about the table he went on:

"You may argue that if public men were elected directly by the people
and the President held office for one term of ten or fifteen years only,
that a long stride would be made towards the millennium. But it is
doubtful if even then, forty or fifty different tribes--for that is what
your State and territory lines effect--could be managed without
machinery, and machinery develops the lowest attributes in human nature.
I saw enough of that in the few rotten boroughs we have left in England,
but my imagination never worked towards the full and original
development in this country. We have other faults; the serenest optimist
would never deny them; but, faults or no faults, we crown civilization
to-day. The richest man in America has not the least idea what it means
to live like a gentleman in our sense. And there is no flaw in my
appreciation of your country. In many respects it is the most
marvellous the world has known--but--I sometimes wonder if the pioneer
blood in my veins is red enough to stand it. No matter what the most
successful reformers accomplish, there will be no high civilization here
in our time--no background. Unconsciously, or otherwise, I shall always
have the goal of England in my mind--and if that is the case, why am I
here? Isn't civilization the highest that man is capable of
accomplishing, the best that Earth has to offer any of us? What sense is
there in going back to the beginnings and plodding or fighting towards a
goal you were born to? It's more than once I've felt like Don Quixote.
The whole infernal country is a windmill--and a large percentage of its
inhabitants are windbags."

"Of course you have a streak of Don Quixote in you. All men of genius
have, I suppose. You felt that you had a mission--to pack a great deal
into a convenient phrase. You could do nothing in England but sit down
and sup with the elect. You would have choked very quickly. And if you
went back you would not stay. You would not only be bored, but you