Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/265

Rh We thought that heaven had descended to us, and that liberty, equality and fraternity were ours. We could not see what should again alienate us from one another, or how one brother could again oppress another. With a free field and no favor, we believed we should prosper on together, and there would be peace and plenty for all. We had the republic, again, after so many ages now, and the republic, as we knew it in our dim annals, was brotherhood and universal happiness. All but a very few who prophesied evil of our lawless freedom, were wrapped in a delirium of hope. Men's minds and men's hands were suddenly released to an activity unheard of before. Invention followed invention; our rivers and seas became the warp of commerce where the steamsped shuttles carried the woof of enterprise to and fro with tireless celerity. Machines to save labor multiplied themselves as if they had been procreative forces; and wares of every sort were produced with incredible swiftness and cheapness. Money seemed to flow from the ground; vast fortunes 'rose like an exhalation,' as your Milton says.

"At first we did not know that they were the breath of the nethermost pits of hell, and that the