Page:A Modern Symposium - Dickinson - 1913.djvu/157

 beauty and thought it may not flower? The Plutocracy of the West may yet be transformed into an Aristocracy; and Europe re-discover from America the secret of its past greatness. Such, at least, appears to me to be the best hope of the world; and to the realization of that hope I would have all men of culture all the world over unite their efforts. For the kingdom of this earth, like that of heaven, is taken by violence. We must work not with, but against tendencies, if we would realize anything great; and the men who are fit to rule must have the courage to assume power, if ever there is to be once more a civilization. Therefore it is that I, the last of an old aristocracy, look across the Atlantic for the first of the new. And beyond socialism, beyond anarchy, across that weltering sea, I strain my eyes to see, pearl-grey against the dawn, the new and stately citadel of Power. For Power is the centre of crystallization for all good; given that, you have morals, art, religion; without it, you have nothing but appetites and passions. Power then is the condition of life, even of the life of the mass, in any sense in which it is worth having. And in the interest of Democracy itself every