“You must equip him with your opinions,” said Oldmeadow, and his voice was a good match for hers in benevolence. “I know that you have so many well-formed ones.”
“Oh, no; never that,” said Adrienne. “That’s how country vegetables are grown; first in frames and then in plots; all guided and controlled. He must find his own opinions; quite for himself; quite freely of influence. That is the rock upon which Democracy is founded. Nothing is more arresting to development than living by other people’s opinions.”
“But we must get our opinions from somebody and somewhere. The danger of democracy is that we don’t grow them at all; merely catch them, like influenza, from a mob. Not that I disbelieve in democracy.”
“Don’t you, Mr. Oldmeadow?” She turned her little fan and smiled on him. “You believe in liberty, equality, fraternity? That surprises me.”
“Democracy isn’t incompatible with recognizing that other people are wiser than oneself and letting them guide us; quite the contrary. Why surprised? Have I seemed so autocratic?”
“It would surprise me very much to learn that you believed in equality, to start with that alone”; Adrienne smiled on.
“Well, I own that I don’t believe in people who have no capacity for opinions being impowered to act as if they had. That’s the fallacy that’s playing the mischief with us, all over the world.”
“They never will have opinions worth having unless they are given the liberty to look for them. You don’t believe in liberty, either, when you say that.”
“No; not for everybody. Some of our brothers are too young and others too stupid to be trusted with it.”
“They’ll take it for themselves if you don’t trust them with it,” said Adrienne, and he was again aware that though she might be absurd she, at all events, was not stupid. “All that we can do in life is to trust, and help, and open doors. Only experience teaches. People must follow their own lights.”