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Under the ashen tints of early day, fog-banks of men descended the slopes. From the top I saw nearly the whole regiment rolling into the deeps. As once of an evening in the days gone by, I had a perception of the multitude's immensity and the threat of its might, that might which surpasses all and is impelled by invisible mandates.
And when I perceived the change that was made in the multitude, I tried to divide their opinions before the armed men should return from my house; so I granted them that I had been as wicked as they supposed me to be; but still I entreated them to let me first inform them for what use I had kept that money which arose from the plunder, and, that they might then kill me if they pleased: and upon the multitude's ordering me to speak, the armed men came upon me, and when they saw me, they ran to kill me; but when the multitude bade them hold their hands, they complied, and expected that as soon as I should own to them that I kept the money for the king, it would be looked on as a confession of my treason, and they should then be allowed to kill me.
But it may well be an error to think that he who gives voice to the multitude's sorrow must himself always be victim to great personal despair.
"The truth is revolutionary," gasps the nocturnal voice; "get you gone, you men of truth, you who cast disorder among ignorance, you who strew words and sow the wind; you contrivers, begone! You bring in the reign of men! But the multitude hates you and mocks you!" He laughs, as if he heard the multitude's laughter.
They throb with all the popular impulses; they laugh when the multitude laughs and weep when it weeps; and they have the gift which is really rare not common of calling the multitude's attention to their books in which is displayed, as in a consoling mirror, the sweet, rosy, empty features of banality.
His eyes were wide open to some of the evil intellectual effects of democracy. The individual is too apt to wear the time-worn yoke of the multitude's opinions. No multiplying of contemptible units can produce an admirable mass. "If I see nothing to admire in a unit, shall I admire a million units?" The habit of submitting to majority rule cultivates individual subserviency.
And the people the lofty balcony round In a throng exulting were filling; While loudly were blending the trumpets' glad sound, The multitude's voices so thrilling; For the monarchless period, with horror rife, Has ended now, after long baneful strife, And the earth had a lord to possess her.
Bacon warns us that the multitude, "or the wisest for the multitude's sake", is in reality "ready to give passage rather to that which is popular and superficial than to that which is substantial and profound; for the truth is that time seemeth to be of the nature of a river or stream, which carrieth down to us that which is light and blown up, and sinketh and drowneth that which is weighty and solid".
How many bars and pitfalls are in the way of those who would climb highly, even if they wish to climb honestly and holily! If they stand as the mark for a multitude's praise, they have also to encounter a multitude's blame the rabble will hoot an eagle; and the higher he soars, the louder will they mock yet what would they not give for his wings!
"If you prize that," was the reply, "reserve your thanks for him who made your safety my duty." Hark to the trump and the drum, And the mournful sound of the barbarous horn, And the flap of the banners that flit as they're borne, And the neigh of the steeds, and the multitude's hum, And the clash, and the shout, "They come, they come!" Rodolph was received with open arms by the Saxons.
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