Group by group
we saw it piercing this hedge, that woodland, now occupying a nearer and
a nearer roll of land. It was the greatest thing imaginable: this
enormous sweep of men, the dead silence of the air, and the
comparatively slight contrast of the ceaseless pattering rifle fire and
the slight intermittent accompaniment of the advancing batteries; until
the sun set and all this human business slackened. Then for the first
time one heard bugles, which were a command to cease the game.
I would not have missed that day nor lose the memories of it for
anything in the world.
The Decline of a State
The decline of a State is not equivalent to a mortal sickness therein.
States are organisms subject to diseases and to decay as are the
organisms of men's bodies; but they are not subject to a rhythmic rise
and fall as is the body of a man. A State in its decline is never a
State doomed or a State dying. States perish slowly or by violence, but
never without remedy and rarely without violence.
The decline of a State differs with the texture of it. A democratic
State will decline from a lowering of its potential, that is of its
ever-ready energy to act in a crisis, to correct and to control its
servants in common times, to watch them narrowly and suspect them at all
times. A despotic State will decline when the despot is not in point of
fact the true depository of despotic power, but some other acting in his
name, of whom the people know little and cannot judge; or when the
despot, though fully in view and recognized, lacks will; or when (which
is rare) he is so inhuman as to miss the general sense of his subjects.
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