198 MY LIFE 



that charm of rural scenery which we possess would probably 

 have arisen. 



But with the conditions that actually existed we can hardly 

 wonder at the result. A nation formed by emigrants from 

 several of the most energetic and intellectual nations of the old 

 world, for the most part driven from their homes by religious 

 persecution or political oppression, including from the very 

 first all ranks and conditions of life — farmers and mechanics, 

 traders and manufacturers, students and teachers, rich and 

 poor — the very circumstances which drove them to emigrate 

 led to a natural selection of the most energetic, the most 

 independent, in many respects the best of their several nations. 

 Such a people, further tried and hardened by two centuries 

 of struggle against the forces of nature and a savage popula- 

 tion, and finally by a war of emancipation from the tyranny 

 of the mother country, would almost necessarily develop both 

 the virtues, the prejudices, and even the vices of the parent 

 stock in an exceptionally high degree. Hence, when the march 

 of invention and of science (to which they contributed their 

 share) gave them the steamship and the railroad ; when Cali- 

 fornia gave them gold and Nevada silver, with the prospect 

 of wealth to the lucky beyond the dreams of avarice ; when 

 the great prairies of the West gave them illimitable acres of 

 marvellously fertile soil ; — it is not surprising that these con- 

 ditions with such a people should have resulted in that mad 

 race for wealth in which they have beaten the record, and have 

 produced a greater number of multi-millionaires than all the 

 rest of the world combined, with the disastrous results already 

 briefly indicated. 



But this is only one side of the American character. Every- 

 where there are indications of a deep love of nature, a devotion 

 to science and to literature fully proportionate to that of the 

 older countries ; while in inventiveness and in the applications 

 of science to human needs they have long been in the first 

 rank. But what is more important, there is also rapidly 

 developing among them a full recognition of the failings of 

 our common social system, and a determination to remedy it. 

 As in Germany, in France, and in England, the socialists are 



