and generosity to political action, and to prevent men from entirely
sinking into the slough of egotism and routine. Salt is not meat,
but we need the salt to preserve meat from corruption. Lamartine and
Victor Hugo may not be profound statesmen; but they have at least
this one indispensable quality of statesmanship; they look beyond the
hour, and beyond the circle, they care more for the nation than for
"measures;" they have high aspirations and wide sympathies. Lamartine
in power committed many errors, but he also did great things, moved
thereto by his "Imagination." He abolished capital punishment; and he
freed the slaves; had the whole Provisional Government been formed of
such men it would have been well for it and for France.

We are as distinctly aware of the unfitness of a poet for politics, as
any of those can be who rail at Hugo and Lamartine. Images, we know,
are not convictions; aspirations will not do the work; grand speeches
will not solve the problems. The poet is a "phrasemaker"; true; but
show us the man in these days who is more than a phrasemaker! Where is
he who has positive ideas beyond the small circle of his speciality?
In rejecting the guidance of the Poet to whom shall we apply? To
the Priest? He mumbles the litany of an ancient time which falls on
unbelieving ears. To the Lawyer? He is a metaphysician with precedents
for data. To the Litterateur? He is a phrasemaker by profession. To
the Politician? He cannot rise above the conception of a "bill." One
and all are copious in phrases, empty of positive ideas as drums.
The initial laws of social science are still to be discovered and
accepted, yet we sneer at phrasemakers! Carlyle, who never sweeps out
of the circle of sentiment--whose eloquence is always indignation--who
thinks with his heart, has no words too scornful for phrasemakers and
poets; forgetting that he, and we, and they, are _all_ little more
than phrasemakers waiting for a doctrine!