But the threads are all
taken up in the end; and ideals which were forgotten and absent from
the voices of men will be found, when recurred to, to have grown to a
rarer and more spiritual beauty in their quiet abode in the heart. The
seeds which were sown at the beginning of a race bear their flowers and
fruits towards its close, and already antique names begin to stir us
again with their power, and the antique ideals to reincarnate in us and
renew their dominion over us.
They may not be recognized at first as a re-emergence of ancient moods.
The democratic economics of the ancient clans have vanished almost out
of memory, but the mood in which they were established reappears in
those who would create a communal or co-operative life in the nation
into which those ancient clans long since have melted. The instinct in
the clans to waive aside the weak and to seek for an aristocratic and
powerful character in their leaders reappears in the rising generation,
who turn from the utterer of platitudes to men of real intellect and
strong will. The object of democratic organization is to bring out the
aristocratic character in leadership, the vivid original personalities
who act and think from their own will and their own centres, who bring
down fire from the heaven of their spirits and quicken and vivify the
mass, and make democracies also to be great and fearless and free.
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