How
eloquent this little house within this shrine is of the vigor of
democracy! There is nowhere in the land any home so remote, so humble,
that it may not contain the power of mind and heart and conscience to
which nations yield and history submits its processes. Nature pays no
tribute to aristocracy, subscribes to no creed of caste, renders fealty
to no monarch or master of any name or kind. Genius is no snob. It does
not run after titles or seek by preference the high circles of society.
It affects humble company as well as great. It pays no special tribute
to universities or learned societies or conventional standards of
greatness, but serenely chooses its own comrades, its own haunts, its
own cradle even, and its own life of adventure and of training. Here is
proof of it. This little hut was the cradle of one of the great sons of
men, a man of singular, delightful, vital genius who presently emerged
upon the great stage of the nation's history, gaunt, shy, ungainly, but
dominant and majestic, a natural ruler of men, himself inevitably the
central figure of the great plot. No man can explain this, but every man
can see how it demonstrates the vigor of democracy, where every door is
open, in every hamlet and countryside, in city and wilderness alike,
for the ruler to emerge when he will and claim his leadership in the
free life.
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