The progress of popular institutions has favored
self-respect, and broken down that terror of the great, which once
imposed awe and hesitation on the talent of the masses of society. A
wider epistolary intercourse ministers to the ends of sentiment and
reflection than ever existed before; the practice of writing diaries
is becoming almost general; and every day witnesses new attempts to
throw into verse the experiences of private life.
What better omen of true progress can we ask than an increasing
intellectual and moral interest of men in each other? What can be
better for the republic than that the Capitol, the White House, and
the Court House are becoming of less importance than the farm-house
and the book-closet? If we are losing our interest in public men,
and finding that their spell lay in number and size only, and
acquiring instead a taste for the depths of thought and emotion as
they may be sounded in the soul of the citizen or the countryman,
does it not replace man for the state, and character for official
power? Men should be treated with solemnity; and when they come to
chant their private griefs and doubts and joys, they have a new scale
by which to compute magnitude and relation.
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