XIII, he exposes himself necessarily to an accusation of superficiality. But in these days we all have to deal with great questions, of which a full discussion would take half a lifetime. We have to judge them with such poor knowledge as we have, that we may pass on, and act, and do our duty in life and accomplish something. Humanity is too broad to be all brought under the lens of a single microscope. Humanity has grown too strong to be treated like a little child. In this day of many Cæsars all over the world, what imaginable political disaster shall tell us living men just what and just how much is to be rendered to each of these Cæsars? least of all, shall tell us such a thing here in our own country, where the power of Cæsar is delegated to a whole nation equally?

American Catholics are good Catholics; they are devout, energetic, ready to make great sacrifices for their faith. The very same words can be spoken, with the same truth, of Americans of other denominations. But beside that, beside our faith, we are all Americans alike, and any idea of political dictatorship is not only repugnant and distasteful to us, but it is so very different from all our other ideas that it cannot under any possibility take root in our thoughts, derive nourishment from our minds, nor flourish side by side with any of our convictions.

Leo XIII, as I say, is a great leader. He has been followed politically. But he is a leader on a higher plane than that of political dissension. He leads a great organization of Christian men and women spreading all over the world. He is at the head of a great body of human thought. He is the leader of a numerous conservative army, which will play a part in the coming struggle between anarchy and order. He himself will not be there to lead in the day of decisive battle, but he will leave a strong position for a successor to defend, and great weapons for him to wield, for he has done more to simplify, and therefore to strengthen, the position of the Catholic Church in the last twenty years than a dozen Popes have done in the last two centuries.

Such men fight the campaigns of the future over and over in their thoughts, while all the world is at peace around them. And when the time comes at last, though they themselves be gone, the roads they planned are broad and straight for the

march of other feet, the sword they forged lies ready for another hand, the spirit they called up still lives to lead, and they themselves, in their graves, in their well-earned rest, have their share in those victories that humanize mankind.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS

JAMES RUSSELL LOWELL

Address by George William Curtis (born in Providence, R. I., February 24, 1824; died on Staten Island, N. Y., August 31, 1892), delivered before the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences in Association Hall, Brooklyn, N. Y., February 22, 1892. It is customary at the Institute to have an address each year on Washington's Birthday upon some eminent American. It had been expected that the speaker in 1892 would be Mr. Lowell, but his death occurred during the previous summer. As Mr. Lowell was born on February 22 (1819) it was decided to observe a double anniversary, and Mr. Curtis was invited to make the address, with Mr. Lowell for its subject. It was given before a large audience which included many persons of note. Mr. Curtis himself died in the same year in which this tribute to his friend and fellow scholar was paid. Other speeches by Mr. Curtis are printed in Volumes I and XI.

THE birthday of Washington not only recalls a great historic figure, but it reminds us of the quality of great citizenship. His career is at once an inspiration and rebuke. Whatever is lofty, fair and patriotic in public conduct instinctively we call by his name; whatever is base, selfish and unworthy is shamed by the luster of his life. Like the flaming sword turning every way that guarded the gate of Paradise, Washington's example is the beacon shining at the opening of our annals and lighting the path of our national life. But the service that makes great citizenship is as various as genius and temperament.

Washington's conduct of the war was not more valuable to the country than his organization of the government, and it was not his special talent but his character that made both of those services possible. In public affairs the glamour of arms is always dazzling. It is the laurels of Miltiades, not

those of Homer, or Phidias, or Demosthenes, which disturb and inspire the young Themistocles. But while military glory stirs the popular heart it is the traditions of national grandeur, the force of noble character, immortal works of literature and art, which nourish the sentiment that makes men patriots and heroes. The eloquence of Demosthenes aroused decadent Greece at last to strike for independence. The song of Körner fired the resistless charge of Lützow's cavalry. A pamphlet of our Revolution revived the flickering flame of colonial patriotism. The speech, the song, the written word, are deeds no less than the clash of arms at Chæronea and Yorktown and Gettysburg.

It is not only Washington the soldier and the statesman, but Washington the citizen, whom we chiefly remember. Americans are accused of making an excellent and patriotic Virginia gentleman a mythological hero and demigod. But what mythological hero or demigod is a figure so fair? We say nothing of him to-day that was not said. by those who saw and knew him, and in phrases more glowing than ours, and the concentrated light of a hundred years discloses nothing to mar the nobility of the incomparable

man.

It was while the personal recollections and impressions of him were still fresh, while, as Lowell said, "Boston was not yet a city and Cambridge was still a country village," that Lowell was born in Cambridge seventy-three years ago today. His birth on Washington's birthday seems to be a happy coincidence, because each is so admirable an illustration of the two forces whose union has made America. Massachussetts and Virginia, although of very different origin and character, were the two colonial leaders. In Virginia politics, as in the aristocratic salons of Paris on the eve of the French Revolution, there was always a theoretical democracy; but the spirit of the State was essentially aristocratic and conservative. Virginia was the Cavalier of the Colonies, Massachusetts was the Puritan. And when John Adams, New England personified, said in the Continental Congress that Washington ought to be General, the Puritan and the Cavalier clasped hands. The union of Massachusetts and Virginia for that emergency

foretold the final union of the States, after a mighty travail of difference, indeed, and long years of strife.

The higher spirit of conservatism, its reverence for antiquity, its susceptibility to the romance of tradition, its instinct for continuity and development, and its antipathy to violent rupture; the grace and charm and courtesy of established social order; in a word, the feminine element in national life, however far from actual embodiment in Virginia or in any colony, was to blend with the masculine force and creative energy of the Puritan spirit and produce all that we mean by America. This was the consummation which the Continental Congress did not see, but which was none the less forecast when John Adams summoned Washington to the chief Revolutionary command. It is the vision which still inspires the life and crowns the hope of every generous American, and it has had no truer interpreter and poet than Lowell. Well was he born on the anniversary of Washington's birth, for no American was ever more, loyal to the lofty spirit, the grandeur of purpose, the patriotic integrity, none ever felt more deeply the scorn of ignoble and canting Americanism, which invest the name of Washington with imperishable glory.

The house in which Lowell was born has long been known as Elmwood, a stately house embowered in lofty trees, still full, in their season, of singing birds. It is one of the fine old mansions of which a few yet linger in the neighborhood of Boston, and it still retains its dignity of aspect, but a dignity somewhat impaired by the encroaching advance of the city and of the architectural taste of a later day. The house has its traditions, for it was built before the Revolution by the last loyal Lieutenant-Governor of Massachussetts, whose stout allegiance to the British Crown was never shaken, and who left New England with regret when New England, also not without filial regret, left the British Empire. It is a legend of Elmwood that Washington was once its guest, and after the Revolution it was owned by Elbridge Gerry, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, who occupied it when he was Vice-President.

V Not far away from Elmwood, Lowell's lifelong home, is the house which is doubly renowned as the headquarters of