Page:The collected works of Theodore Parker volume 7.djvu/238

284 office is much greater than tho man, then the officer's centre of gravity is further removed from his person. This is sought for by the ablest and best educated men in the land. But there is a largo class of educated persons who do not aspire to it from lack of ability, for in our form of government it commonly takes some saliency of character to win the high places of office and use respectably this mode of power, while it demands no great or lofty talents to accumulate the largest fortune in America. It is true the whirlwind of an election, by the pressure of votes, may now and then take a very heavy body up to a great height. Yet it does not keep him from growing giddy and ridiculous while there, and after a few years lets him fall again into complete insignificance, whence no Hercules can ever lift him up. A corrupt administration may do the same, but with the same result. This consideration keeps many educated men from the political arena; others are unwilling to endure the unsavoury atmosphere of politics, and take part in a scramble so vulgar; but still a large portion of the educated, and scholarly talent of the nation goes to that work. The power of the pen is wholly personal. It is the appropriate instrument of the scholar, but it is least of all desired and sought for; The rich man sends his sons to trade; to make too much of inheritance yet more by fresh acquisitions of superfluity. He does not send them to literature, art, or science. You find the scholar slipping in to other modes of action, not the merchants and politicians migrating into this. He longs to act by the gravity of his money or station, not draw merely by his head. The office carries the day before the pen; the purse takes precedence of both. Educated men do not so much seek places that demand great powers, as those which bring much gold. Self-denial for money or office is common, for scholarship rare and unpopular. To act by money not mind, is the ill-concealed ambition of many a well-bred man; the desire of this colours his day-dream, which is less of wisdom and more of wealth, or of political station; rate politician, and some "tall admiral" of a politician consents to be cut down and turned into a mere sloop of trade. The representative in Congress, becomes a presi-