Towards democracy

Towards Democracy 41

Any more than the earth can go beyond and fly out of space. It is impossible; it is unthinkable.

Far around and beydnd whateyer is exceptional and illustrious in human life stretches that which is average and unperceived ;

All distinctions, all attainments, all signal beauty, skill, wit, and whatever a man can exhibit in himself, swim and are lost in that great ocean.

The subtle learning of the leamed, the beauty of the exceptionally beautiful, the wit of the witty, the fine manners and customs of the courtly—all these things proceed immediately out of the common and undistinguished people and those who stand in direct contact with Nature, and return into them again.

The course of all is the same; they are tossed up thinner and thinner, into mere spray at last—like a wave from the breast of the Ocean—and fall back again.

You try to set yourself apart from the vulgar. It is in vain. In that instant vulgarity attaches itself to you.

If it did not, you would cease to exist.

XXIX

Gold is not finer than lead, nor lead than gold (every atom of each has its own life movement intelligence, and ridicules epithets) ;

The stars are not more human to the soul than is the deep background of Night behind them. And what would

the shoal of merry leaping children playing there in the sun