Yet when the aristocratic character appeared,
however imperfect, how it was adored! Ireland gave to Parnell--an
aristocratic character--the love which springs from the deeps of its
being, a love which it gave to none other in our time.
With our great neighbors what are our national characteristics were
reversed. They are an individualistic race. This individualism has
expressed itself in history and society in a thousand ways. Being
individualistic in economics, they were naturally democratic in
politics. They have a genius for choosing forcible average men as
leaders. They mistrust genius in high places, Intensely individualistic
themselves, they feared the aristocratic character in politics. They
desired rather that general principles should be asserted to encircle
and keep safe their own national eccentricity. They have gradually
infected us with something of their ways, and as they were not truly our
ways we never made a success of them. It is best for us to fall back on
what is natural with us, what is innate in character, what was visible
among us in the earliest times, and what, I still believe, persists
among us--a respect for the aristocratic intellect, for freedom of
thought, ideals, poetry, and imagination, as the qualities to be looked
for in leaders, and a bias for democracy in our economic life.
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