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I am willing to leave the reader with the impression that the people of Ohio are that sort of idealists who have the courage of their dreams. By this courage they have made the best of them come true, and it is well for them in their mainly matter-of-fact and practical character that they show themselves at times enthusiasts and even fanatics.
They secured a small percentage of idealists and pseudo-intellectuals, and taught them a so-called internationalism which under the name of brotherhood was nothing but a raid on private property, a scheme of pillage and arson.
What happened on this occasion is what ordinarily happens with well-intentioned idealists who happen also to be amateur statesmen. Trying to regulate practical politics, the Holy Alliance was deflected from its original purpose because its chief author, Alexander I, came under the influence of Metternich and was frightened by revolutionary movements in Italy and within his own dominions.
His sympathies were not allowed to mislead him; he knew human nature too well to believe in a Noah's ark full of idealists. All this time he was lecturing for his support, giving courses of lectures in Boston and other cities, and before the country lyceums in and out of New England.
What becomes of the thousands of young idealists who each year set forth on the quest for the highest beauty and truth? Why do they tire so soon of the quest and sink into the ranks of the spiritually unemployed. The answer is that many persons who set out to be idealists end by becoming doctrinaires. They identify the highest beauty and truth with their own theories.
Their foreign policy was, in the same way, inspired by a firm attachment to their past and a firmer belief in their future. The London Conference was not long in realizing, when faced by such men as Lebeau, Van de Weyer and De Mérode, that they had not merely to deal with vague idealists or eloquent demagogues. It is not enough to say that Belgium was well represented.
The fact that the race has survived thus far is an evidence that its instinct for self-preservation is a strong one. It has a wonderful gift for recovering after the doctors have given it up. The saving clause is a great help to those idealists who are inclined to look unwelcome facts in the face.
There are those who become enthused by the noble aims of life, by the superiority and service that come in the work of teacher, priest, physician, scientist, philosopher and philanthropist, and those that seek superiority and power in wealth, station and influence. Those who, will fellowship and those who will power is a short way of putting it, the idealists and the practical is another.
In these early days, "Matt" often figures in the family letters as the worldling of the group the dear one who is making way in surroundings quite unknown to the Fox How circle, where, under the shadow of the mountains, the sisters, idealists all of them, looking out a little austerely, for all their tenderness, on the human scene, are watching with a certain anxiety lest Matt should be "spoiled."
I am not surprised that Gobenheim and Monsieur de La Briere, who are interested in the solution of social problems should think so; but you, whose life has been the most useless poetry of the century, useless because the blood you shed all over Europe, and the horrible sufferings exacted by your colossus, did not prevent France from losing ten departments acquired under the Revolution, how can you give in to such excessively pig-tail notions, as the idealists say?
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