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Show NOT YET. Tolstoi thinks the United States has become prematurely old. He says: "Your Emersons, Garrisons and Whittiors are all gone. You produce pro-duce nothing but rich men. In the years before and after the Civil War the squl-life of your peo-plo peo-plo flowered and bore fruit. You are pitiful materialists ma-terialists now." The great Russian takes too gloomy a view. It is true there are no Emersons, but then an Emerson does not appear in every generation. Indeed thus far there has been, during all the rolling ages, only one Shakespeare and only one Emerson. As for Garrison the opportunity came to him as a thousand others in the stormy years preceding and during the war. There would now be a hundred Garrisons were there a cause to set their minds in action. It Is true there are a great many rich men and the struggle for money was never so intense as it is now; It Is true that the spectacle of great wealth so often presented breeds a good deal of discontent among one class of the poor, but, nevertheless, there never was so much study and investigation as is going on in the United States just now. For instance, since the close of the Civil War the two sciences of surgery and the treatment of disease have advanced more perhaps than they had before in a thousand years. Among the world's religious' teachers there has been quite as marked progress. The old creeds have been humanized, men no longer do good deeds because of the fear of future punishment, punish-ment, rather they perform them for the satisfaction satisfac-tion that comes of the performance. Again, a great many new stars have boon located by our modern astronomers. The new uses of electricity are not all material. ma-terial. The electric light Is the same as the sun throws off and since its invention heaven does not seem so far away. The phonograph can hardly hard-ly be called a mere material machine. Suppose it had been Invented fifty years sooner and Car- B lylo and Emerson could each have been supplied B with one, that each had spent m hour a day talk- B ing into them and then at tho ond of the month B had exchanged rollB with each other; could they B not have entertained audiences aB audiences were B neVer entertained before? When some mord Em- B ersons and Carlyles come to tbe world, is It not B reasonable to believe they will each have a B phonograph to perpetuate their voices as well us jB their thoughts? B In no age of the world were so many of tho B doors that hold the secrets of science being B opened as at present. Think of the finding 'of fl radium; think of the dreaded cancer germs pier- B ishing in their dark cells under the glory of tlfe fl new light. It is as at the beginning when "God fl saw tho light, that it was good." fl Our country Is too young to furnish themes for M great dramas; too much at work to givo tho calrii B needed to develop the rare arts of paintings and fl sculpture in their ancient perfection, but the ma- fl terial-minded rich men are giving their surplus fl millions to schools and out of them in duo time M will come inspired new poets, musicians, artists M in all tho fields of art for the ambition of our H land has not in the least abated. Becauso of M the absence of sono great Inspiring holy causo M that ambition is now often wasted on achieving M success is not the loftiest form; these are but M dull days of peace and genlin lacks opportuni- ties. But the mental fibre of the people is not H degenerating, as yet it has not begun to grow olds H Rather our thought is that it is gathering now" H forces and that, say fifty years hence, when com-; H fortable homes for tho people v'lll be the rule and H when the land Is filled with "things of beauty," H there will be some new songs sung, now pictures H painted, new poems written and now glories glv- on to literature which will enchant the world. ' H Then again, after a great exhaustive war, it is H natural for tho overstrained Intellects of men to H rest. What Tolstoi misses in our country is the, fire, the zeal, the lofty rhythm which is felt and H heard when a great nation is under a tremendous H strain and in the face of great danger. He does H not consider the natural reaction which comes' H when the strain Is suddenly relaxed and when H tho danger passes. He should read those won- H derful words of DeQuincey in his essay on "The H Philosophy of Human History." Hear him: H 'The battle of Actium was followed by the. H final conquest of Egypt. That conquest rounded H and integrated the glorious empire; it was now H circular as a shield, orbicular as the disk of a H planet; tho great Julian arch was now locked H into the cohesion of granite by Us last keystone.' H From that day forward, for three hundred years, H there was silence in tho world. Winds of hos- H tility might still rave at intervals, but it was on H tho outside of the mighty empire, it was at a H dream-like distance, and like the storm that beats; H against some monumental castle, and at the doors H and windows seems to call "they rather Increased" H and vivified the sense of security than at all dis- H trubed its luxuriant lull." H |