America suffers from a general plethora.
Jonathan himself sometimes has his regrets at finding himself drawn into such a frantic race, but declares that it is out of his power to hang back. If it were given to man to live twice on this planet, I should understand his living his first term à l'Américaine, so as to be able to enjoy quietly, in his second existence, the fruits of his toil in the first. Seeing that only one sojourn here is permitted us, I think the French are right in their study to make it a long and happy one.
If the French could arrive at a steady form of government and live in security, they would be the most enviably happy people on earth.
It is often charged against Americans that they are given to bragging. May not men who have done marvels be permitted a certain amount of self-glorification?
It is said, too, that their eccentricity constantly leads them into folly and licence. Is it not better to have the liberty to err than to be obliged to run straight in leash? If they occasionally vote like children, like children they will learn. It is by voting that people learn to vote.
Is there any country of Europe in which morals are better regulated, work better paid, or education widerspread? Is there a country in Europe where you can find such natural riches, and such energy to employ them; so many people with a consciousness of their own intellectual and moral force; so many free schools where the child of the millionaire and the child of the poor man study side by side; so many free libraries where the boy in rags may enter and read the history of his country, and be fired with the exploits of its heroes? Can you name a country with so many learned societies, so many newspapers, so many charitable institutions, or so much widespread comfort?
M. Renan, one day wishing to turn himself into a prophet of ill omen, predicted that, if France continued Republican, she would become a second America.
May nothing worse befall her!