Page:Conventional Lies of our Civilization.djvu/196

182 our times, who have such a sense of fellowship with the people and with mankind at large, that it compels them to seek their happiness in working and sacrificing for the community. Even in such men their very nature renders them more sensible to rude and vulgar impressions than other men, as they are more ideal and susceptible. And do such ideal, sensitive natures expose themselves voluntarily to the mental and physical annoyances of a political campaign? Never! They can suffer and die for humanity but they can not pay empty compliments to a horde of dull voters. They can do what they consider to be their duty, without regard to reward or appreciation, but they can not sing their own praises before a crowd in extravagant phraseology. They withdraw into their study or into a small circle of congenial minds and avoid the rude turmoil of the market place, as a usual thing, with a timidity which others often mistake for superciliousness, but which is in reality, only their fear of contaminating their sacred ideal. Reformers and martyr spirits sometimes appear before the multitude but only to instruct it, to point out its faults, to tear it away from its cherished customs, not to flatter it, confirm it in its errors and repeat in honeyed terms what it loves to listen to. Hence they are more often stoned than crowned with flowers. Wycliffe and Knox, Huss and Luther, Arnold de Brescia and Savonarola have each exerted a powerful influence upon large numbers of people and aroused passionate devotion as well as bitter hatred. But I do not believe that they or a Rousseau, a Goethe, a Kant, or a Carlyle, would ever have been appointed to represent the people in the legislature in any country or city district, by their own powers alone, without the help of any supporting committee. These men would not stoop so far as to pay court to their constituents to inveigle their votes, and thus