"They have got it
down cold," he must say to himself, and confirm himself in his
unfaith by reflecting that it is very cold.
XIX
The best observer of England that ever was, he whose book about
the English makes all other comment seem idle and superfluous
palaver, that Ralph Waldo Emerson whom we always find ahead of us
when we look back for him, was once, as he relates in a closing
chapter of English Traits, brought to bay by certain great
English friends of his, who challenged him to say whether there
really were any Americans with an American idea, and a theory of
our future. "Thus challenged, I bethought myself neither of
Congress, neither of President nor of Cabinet Ministers, nor of
such as would make of America another Europe.... I opened the
dogma of no-government and non-resistance, and anticipated the
objections and the fun, and procured a kind of hearing for it. I
said, It is true that I have never yet seen in any country a man
of sufficient valor to stand for this truth, and yet ... 'tis
certain, as God liveth, the gun that does not need another gun,
the law of love and justice alone, can effect a clean
revolution.
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