THE NATION'S CRISIS. 633 



A contemporary artist has happily cought the " idea " of the Indian 

 maiden — so mysterious, 60 near to ISTature, so remote from ourselves. 

 Chateaubriand has embalmed in Atala the sentiment of the primitive 

 forest; Longfellow, in Hiawatha, has distilled the romance of Indian 

 life; and in Ranolf and Amohia Domett has transported to the Hot 

 Lakes the loves of Juan and Haidee. A legion of novelists, from 

 Saint-Pierre to Pierre Loti and Louis Becke, has described one side 

 or other of the relationship. Governments and manners have been 

 revolutionized by the contact. From travelers' tales, embellished at 

 the start and further idealized by his own imagination, Rousseau 

 drew " those oracles which set the world in flame." It is not unchris- 

 tian to hope that the overlordship of the whole earth now first arro- 

 gated by the whites, with the high beneficent trusteeship in favor of 

 its indigenes which that involves, will react on the sensibilities of 

 the overlord and issue in a humaner evolution. Is it anti-Darwinism 

 to expect that the mad rivalry and savage warfare of every man 

 against his fellows — with its hecatombs of wrecked lives and broken 

 hearts deadlier far than that elder warfare of spear and tomahawk — 

 will at length give place to a co-operation that will be more zealous 

 for the riffhts of others than solicitous for its own? 



THE I^ATIO^'S CRISIS. 



By a. 'S. EONNE. 



ITHI]!^K that, whatever difficulties they may have to surmount, 

 and whatever tribulations they may have to pass through, the 

 Americans may reasonably look forward to a time when they will 

 have produced a civilization grander than any the world has known." 

 These were some of the parting words with which Herbert Spen- 

 cer bade this country farewell after his short visit in 1882; they form 

 the concluding sentences in that memorable interview which he 

 granted a representative of our press a few days before his departure. 

 It must still be fresh in the memories of Mr. Sj)encer's many 

 friends on this side of the Atlantic that in this interview he freely 

 discussed the numerous signs of an immense development of material 

 civilization which everywhere confronted him here, without con- 

 cealing the fact, however, that while the wealth and magnificence of 

 our large cities had been a source of astonishment to him, these 

 very evidences of a wonderful commercial activity and development 

 of arts had constantly reminded him of the Italian republics of the 

 middle ages, where the people under circumstances and conditions 

 similar to ours were gradually losing their freedom. 



