Page:Counter-currents, Agnes Repplier, 1916.djvu/278

Counter-Currents in eugenism and old-age pensions, and the manufacturer in the revision of taxes. It was refreshing when an author unexpectedly demanded the extinction of inherited capital. Authorship seldom concerns itself with anything so inconceivably remote.

The quality of miscellaneousness is least serviceable when we leave the world of affairs, and seek admission into the world of ideals. There must be an interpretation of Americanism which will express for all of us a patriotism at once practical and emotional, an understanding of our place in the world, and of the work we are best fitted to do in it, a sentiment which we can hold—as we hold nothing else—in common, and which will be forever remote from personal solicitude and resentment. Those of us whose memories stretch back over half a century recall too plainly a certain uneasiness which for years pervaded American politics and American letters, which made 262