Instead
of all this, we have the homespun fates of Cephas and Prudence repeated
in an infinite series of peaceable sameness, and finding space enough for
record in the family Bible; we have the noise of axe and hammer and saw,
an apotheosis of dogged work, where, reversing the fairy-tale, nothing is
left to luck, and, if there be any poetry, it is something that cannot be
helped,--the waste of the water over the dam. Extrinsically, it is
prosaic and plebeian; intrinsically, it is poetic and noble; for it is,
perhaps, the most perfect incarnation of an idea the world has ever seen.
That idea was not to found a democracy, nor to charter the city of New
Jerusalem by an act of the General Court, as gentlemen seem to think
whose notions of history and human nature rise like an exhalation from
the good things at a Pilgrim Society dinner. Not in the least. They had
no faith in the Divine institution of a system which gives Teague,
because he can dig, as much influence as Ralph, because he can think, nor
in personal at the expense of general freedom. Their view of human rights
was not so limited that it could not take in human relations and duties
also. They would have been likely to answer the claim, "I am as good as
anybody," by a quiet "Yes, for some things, but not for others; as good,
doubtless, in your place, where all things are good.
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