Page:The Galaxy, Volume 5.djvu/269

Rh life seems to be renewed. It is like hearing a sermon; not one of the dull, hackneyed, commonplace sort, without life or warmth, but such a sermon as is preached to us by great Nature in her lonely places, or by ancient religious art in her glorious shrines and sanctuaries, or by a man's own consciousness to himself, when thoughts of life and immortality fill the heart, and lift the soul above the fever and passion of this fretful and transitory scene.

or confidence, which is it that this marvellous American people is showing while changes the most fundamental, the most momentous in their very system of government, are openly planned and almost carried into effect at Washington? A revolution is in progress, and yet the people go about their daily business as if the subject were merely under discussion in some well-known debating society. Gold goes up a little, helped by a heavy boost from the Bulls, but that is all; there is much interest, of course, but no excitement, and, above all, no commotion. The like could not be attempted in the British Parliament or the French Chambers without turning London or Paris topsy-turvy. They have governing classes in Great Britain and in France, and the governed submit more or less quietly to their administration of the government. But we submit absolutely. We let the men who have made politics their trade, and who have bought, and wheedled, and intrigued themselves into Congress, not only administer our government, but at least attempt to subvert it, to change its very organic law, and at each new heave upon the lever, we rush, not to arms, but to bulletins, to see the price of gold. We see that this action is unconstitutional, we say that it is unconstitutional, the very leader in these measures declares in euphemistic phrase that the action is "outside the Constitution;" but we are supine, if not indifferent. We seem to say, "It is the politicians' business. If the boiler bursts, why we are only passengers." We are the governed, and we have a governing class, a class which makes governing its business, and to whose government we submit without a murmur, like other governed peoples. But our attitude of apathy or confidence suggests one reflection which is not cheering, which cannot increase our self-respect. We are thus quiet when the fundamental organization of our government is threatened. But when the question of a dollar more or less excise on whiskey, of a cent or two more or less the pound on cotton, or on iron, of who shall be the ins and who the outs in the Post Office, the Customs, or the Internal Revenue Offices, what thorough organization, what lively interest, what contribution of money, what rushing of committees to Washington, how the telegraphic wires thrill day and night with the agitating subject! There is more commotion over the appointment of one tax gatherer than over a Congressional resolution which overrides or sets aside the Constitution, in virtue of which only is our national existence. We seem to think less of our political birthright than of a mess of pottage.

, which casuists tell us is the only condition in which we are without sin, seems to be a state that we are all of us ashamed of, and which many people appear to regard as little less than criminal. If it were not so, why should we regard our bed-chambers as such penetralia of privacy; or deny with an intensity approaching irritation, when discovered drowsing, that we have been asleep? Did you, reader, ever see any one who confessed himself asleep outside of his own chamber, even though he had been totally unconscious for hours, and snoring like a porpoise? We all think sleep dis-