drawn together by proclamation, for some noble purpose--to decide upon a
righteous war, or to pass a just decree. But the people on the outskirts
of the crowd, finding themselves unable to hear the orators, and their
time hanging idle on their hands, take to throwing stones, knocking off
hats, or, perhaps, picking pockets. They may have come to the meeting with
as patriotic or virtuous intentions as the promoters themselves; nay,
under more favorable circumstances, they might themselves have become
promoters. Virtue and patriotism are not private property; at certain
times any one may possess them. And, on the other hand, we have seen
examples enough, of late, of persons of the highest respectability and
trust turning out, all at once, to be very sorry scoundrels. A man changes
according to the person with whom he converses; and though the outlook is
rather sordid to-day, we have not forgotten that during the Civil War the
air seemed full of heroism. So that these two Americas--the real and the
ideal--far apart though they may be in one sense, may, in another sense,
be as near together as our right hand to our left. In a greater or less
degree, they exist side by side in each one of us. But civil wars do not
come every day; nor can we wish them to, even to show us once more that we
are worthy of our destiny. We must find some less expensive and quieter
method of reminding ourselves of that. And of such methods, none, perhaps,
is better than to review the lives of Americans who were truly great; to
ask what their country meant to them; what they wished her to become; what
virtues and what vices they detected in her. Passion may be generous, but
passion cannot last; and when it is over, we are cold and indifferent
again. But reason and example reach us when we are calm and passive; and
what they inculcate is more likely to abide. At least, it will be only
evil passion that can cast it out.

I have said that many a true American is doubtless born, and lives,
abroad; but that does not prevent Emerson from having been born here. So