His thought was for the future of this
country. You cannot get into any chamber in his mind which is below this
chamber of patriotism. He loves the valor of Alexander and the grace of
the Oxford athlete; but he loves them not for themselves. He has a use
for them. They are grist to his mill and powder to his gun. His
admiration of them he subordinates to his main purpose,--they are his
blackboard and diagrams. His patriotism is the backbone of his
significance. He came to his countrymen at a time when they lacked, not
thoughts, but manliness. The needs of his own particular public are
always before him.
"It is odd that our people should have, not water on the brain, but
a little gas there. A shrewd foreigner said of the Americans that
'whatever they say has a little the air of a speech.'"
"I shall not need to go into an enumeration of our national defects
and vices which require this Order of Censors in the State.... The
timidity of our public opinion is our disease, or, shall I say, the
publicness of opinion, the absence of private opinion.
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