improvements. The day when this is said and believed marks the end of a
nation's life. Is it possible that, after all, our old protestant
spirit, with its rationality, its austerity, its steady political
energy, has been struck with something of the mortal fatigue that seizes
catholic societies after their fits of revolution?

We need not forget either the atrocities or the imbecilities which mark
the course of modern politics on the Continent. I am as keenly alive as
any one to the levity of France, and the [Greek: hubris] of Germany. It
may be true that the ordinary Frenchman is in some respects the victim
of as poor an egoism as that of the ordinary Englishman; and that the
American has no advantage over us in certain kinds of magnanimous
sentiment. What is important is the mind and attitude, not of the
ordinary man, but of those who should be extraordinary. The decisive
sign of the elevation of a nation's life is to be sought among those who
lead or ought to lead. The test of the health of a people is to be found
in the utterances of those who are its spokesmen, and in the action of
those whom it accepts or chooses to be its chiefs. We have to look to
the magnitude of the issues and the height of the interests which engage
its foremost spirits. What are the best men in a country striving for?
And is the struggle pursued intrepidly and with a sense of its size and
amplitude, or with creeping foot and blinking eye? The answer to these
questions is the answer to the other question, whether the best men in
the country are small or great. It is a commonplace that the manner of
doing things is often as important as the things done. And it has been
pointed out more than once that England's most creditable national
action constantly shows itself so poor and mean in expression that the
rest of Europe can discern nothing in it but craft and sinister
interest. Our public opinion is often rich in wisdom, but we lack the
courage of our wisdom. We execute noble achievements, and then are best