"
But that sort of thing is not saving the old native strain in the
population. It moves people, no doubt, but inadequately. And here is a
passage that is quite the quintessence of Americanism, of all its deep
moral feeling and sentimental untruthfulness. I wonder if any man but
an American or a British nonconformist in a state of rhetorical
excitement ever believed that Shakespeare wrote his plays or Michael
Angelo painted in a mood of humanitarian exaltation, "_for the good of
all men_."
"What _shall_ we strive for? _Money_?
"Get a thousand millions. Your day will come, and
in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at
your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the
pauper.
"Then shall we strive for _power_?
"The names of the first great kings of the world are
forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy
will drift to forgetfulness soon. What does the most powerful
man in the world amount to standing at the brink of
Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling? What is his
power compared with the force of the wind or the energy
of one small wave sweeping along the shore?
"The power which man can build up within himself,
for himself, is nothing. Only the dull reasoning of gratified
egotism can make it seem worth while.
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