

A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 255 



expect, in ordinary times at least, is that the ma- 

 chinery of universal suffrage will yield us a fair sam- 

 ple of the leading public man, a man who fairly 

 represents the average ability and average honesty 

 of the better class of the citizens. In extraordinary 

 times, in times of national peril, when there is a real 

 strain upon the State, and the instinct of self-pres- 

 ervation comes into play, then fate itself brings for., 

 ward the ablest men. The great crisis makes or dis- 

 covers the great man, discovers Cromwell, Frederick, 

 Washington, Lincoln. Carlyle leaves out of his count 

 entirely the competitive principle that operates every- 

 where in nature, in your field and garden as well 

 as in political States and amid teeming populations, 

 natural selection, the survival of the fittest. Un- 

 der artificial conditions the operation of this law is 

 more or less checked ; but amid the struggles and 

 parturition throes of a people, artificial conditions 

 disappear, and we touch real ground at last. What 

 a sorting and sifting process went on in our army 

 during the secession war, till the real captains, the 

 real leaders were found ; not Fredericks, or Welling- 

 tons, perhaps, but the best the land afforded. 



The object of popular government is no more to 

 find and elevate the hero, the man of special and 

 exceptional endowment, into power, than the object 

 of agriculture is to take the prizes at the agricultural 

 fairs. It is one of the things to be hoped for and 

 aspired to, but not one of the indispensables. The 

 success of free government is attained when it has 



