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Towards Democracy 49

been made), but unrest and hunger are eating through men’s souls ?

That a new need gone up is more than all precedent, and History shrivels before the will, even if it be only of one man; that the pilgrimage has begun, and men are leaving their long-loved homes by thousands—and the tenderest-hearted are the first to sever the old ties?

That centuries of suffering haye compressed thought and purpose into one—till they are harder than rock ; so that you shall remove mountains, but you shall not remove the word which has gone forth?

That expediency and logic expostulate in vain, and man has become wholly unreasonable, and is calm to drop utility into the bottomless pit; and the wise cover their lights, but the fools flash theirs and are whirled away—like fireflies In a thunderstorm ?

Do you suppose it means nothing when the godlike Hand comes forth—the awful hand, sacred with the kisses of the generations of men?

When the hand of Necessity comes forth from the cloud and covers dark the faces of them who have never known it, turning them back from their ruin—but stands in the clear sky, beckoning bright, like a pillar of fire for weary fugitives ?

When the awful vision moves across the sky, and the earth is electric under it—and the grass stands stiffly, and the blue thistle in the hedge is erect with meaning,

And men are amorous for the naked stinging touch of the world, and to wrestle limb to limb with the wind and the waves,