If this is conceit, I am sorry. But it's the gods in me that matter. And in other men.
As for me, I am so glad to salute the brave, reckless gods in another man. So glad to meet a man who will abide by his very self.
Ideas! Ideals! All this paper between us. What a weariness.
If only people would meet in their very selves, without wanting to put some idea over one another, or some ideal.
Damn all ideas and all ideals. Damn all the false stress, and the pins.
I am I. Here am I. Where are you?
Ah, there you are! Now, damn the consequences, we have met.
That's my idea of democracy, if you can call it an idea.
[V. FENIMORE COOPER'S LEATHERSTOCKING NOVELS]
In his Leatherstocking books, Fenimore is off on another track. He is no longer concerned with social white Americans that buzz with pins through them, buzz loudly against every mortal thing except the pin itself. The pin of the Great Ideal.