A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 263 



table artist that he was. But how impossible to us ! 

 how impossible to any English speaking people by 

 their own action and choice ; not because we are un- 

 worthy such a man, but because an entirely new 

 order of things has arrived, and arrived in due course 

 of time, through the political and social evolution of 

 man. The old world has passed away ; the age of 

 the hero, of the strong leader, is gone. The people 

 have arrived, and sit in judgment upon all who would 

 rule or lead them. Science has arrived, everything 

 is upon trial ; private judgment is supreme. Our 

 only hope in this country, at least in the sphere of 

 governments, is in the collective wisdom of the peo- 

 ple ; and, as extremes so often meet, perhaps this, if 

 thoroughly realized, is as complete and artistic a plan 

 as the others. " The collective folly " of the people, 

 Carlyle would say, and perhaps during his whole life 

 he never for a moment saw it otherwise ; never saw 

 that the wisdom of the majority could be other than 

 the no-wisdom of blind masses of unguided men. He 

 seemed to forget, or else not to know, that universal 

 suffrage, as exemplified in America, was really a sort- 

 ing and sifting process, a search for the wise, the truly 

 representative man ; that the vast masses were not 

 asked who should rule over them, but were asked 

 which of two candidates they preferred, in selecting 

 which candidates what oi wisdom and leadership 

 there was available had had their due weight ; in 

 short, that democracy alone makes way for and offers 

 a clear road to natural leadership. Under the pres- 



