"We are more in danger of breaking out with national vanity," said he. "They are singing anthems, choruses, pæans of praise to us across the water. All the nations of Europe are welcoming our triumph, as the daughters of Judea went out with cymbals and harps to greet the giant killing David. Just listen to this."
Here he unfolded the Evening Post of the day, took off his eye-glasses, put on his spectacles, and read extracts from European editorials written on the occasion of the fall of Richmond and surrender of Lee.
"They are more flattering than Fourth of July orations," said Colburne. "I feel as though I ought to go straight down to the sea-shore and make a bow across the Atlantic. It is enough to make a spread peacock-tail sprout upon every loyal American. I am not sure but that the next generation will be furnished with the article, as being absolutely necessary to express our consciousness of admiration. On the Darwinian theory, you know; circumstances breed species."
"The Europeans seem to have more enthusiastic views of us than we do of ourselves," observed Lillie. "I never thought of our being such a grand nation as Monsieur Laboulaye paints us. You never did, papa."
"I never had occasion to till now," said the Doctor. "As long as we were bedraggled in slavery there was not much room for honest, intelligent pride of country. It is different now. These Europeans judge us aright; we have done a stupendous thing. They are outside of the struggle, and can survey its proportions with the eyes with which our descendants will see it. I think I can discover a little of its grandeur. It is the fifth act in the grand drama of human liberty. First, the Christian revelation. Second, the Protestant reformation. Third, the war of American Independence. Fourth, the French revolution. Fifth, the struggle for the freedom of all men, without distinction of race and color; this Democratic struggle which confirms the masses in an equality with the few. We have taught a greater lesson than all of us think or understand. Once again we have reminded the world of Democracy, the futility of oligarchies, the outlawry of Cæsarism."
"In the long run the right conquers," moralized Colburne.
"Yes, as that pure and wise martyr to the cause of freedom, President Lincoln, said four years ago, right makes might. A just system of labor has produced power, and an unjust system has produced weakness. The North, living by free industry, has twenty millions of people, and wealth inexhaustible. The South, living by slavery, has twelve millions, one half of whom are paupers and secret enemies. The right always conquers because it always becomes the strongest. In that sense 'the hand of God' is identical with 'the heaviest battalions.' Another thing which strikes me is the intensity of character which our people have developed. We are no longer a mere collection of thirty millions of bores, as Carlyle called us. There never was greater vigor or range. Look at Booth, the new Judas Iscariot. Look at Blackburn, who packed up yellow fever rags with the hope of poisoning a continent. What a sweep, what a gamut, from these satanic wretches to Abraham Lincoln! a purer, wiser and greater than Socrates, whom he reminds one of by his plain sense and homely humor. In these days—the days of Lincoln, Grant and Sherman—faith in the imagination—faith in the supernatural origin of humanity—becomes possible. We see men who are demoniacal and men who are divine. I can now go back to my childhood, and read Plutarch as I then read him, believing that wondrous men have lived because I see that they do live. I can now understand the Paradise Lost, for I have beheld Heaven fighting with Hell."
"The national debt will be awful," observes Lillie, after the brief pause which naturally follows the Doctor's Cynicism. "Three thousand millions! What will my share be?"
"We will pay it off," says the Doctor, "in a series of operatic entertainments, at a hundred thousand dollars the dress seats—back seats fifty thousand."
"The southern character will be improved by the struggle," observed Colburne, after another silence. "They will be sweetened by adversity, as their persimmons are by frost. Besides, it is such a calming thing to have one's fight out! It draws off the bad blood. But what are we to do about punishing the masses? I go for punishing only the leaders."