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and whither the life goos; in a word, we seize as it flies, and stograph, that eternally improvising drama called History, with other mon will one day try to write. In the olden times, the rare tintelligenees could not succeed; men saw but before them. Julius Caesar knew poorly what was hav pening in Persia and Armenia; and the internal affairs of India and Samothrace were nearly unknown to sovereign Home. Now, all the springs that move society do their work before our eyes; the world is of crystal. It is a glorious joy to listen to the derdened and measured sound of those wheels, and to share in those regular transformations, which were once taken for unexy et d and mysterious phenomena.

So we may leisurely contemplate that easily explicable miracle, the peopling and fertilizing of North America; its attraction to its If of the life and force of decaying Europe, and its disposition to destroy all foreign possessions in its neighborhool. Vast hive of laborers, storehouse, shop, farm, arsenal, manufactory, workshop, it fancies itself a democracy and is only a fabric. Its leisure hours have not yet arrived ; the giant does not yet know his strength. But what keeps off the solution of the problem is, that America extends its limits by the magnetism of exemple. Texas is hers: the old French of Canada incline to be hers; languishing New Scotland expects a new life, if, in her turn, she become a republic. So the terms of the problem are multiplied. of the seas, all is to come, all is hope, an dor, while on us the Past weighs heavily, and we fret ourselves amid the ashes.

The other side

Of the two new and threatening societies now being formed, one under the laws of the Czar, the other under the invocation of Washington, the more interesting, by its energy, traditions, Teutonic descent and free form, is North America.

CHAPTER IX.

THE FUTURE OF NORTH AMERICA AND OF THE UNITED

STATES.

SECTION I.

RESUMÉ.

We have exposed without indulgence, it may be with some severity, whatever is incomplete in the civilization of the United States; unsatisfactory or hollow in the arts, sketchy or rude in their social position, factitious or chimerical in their literary pretensions. We have reproduced them as in an inventory without accepting them blindly, without taking the responsibility of their own partial criticism, nor yet the severe appreciation of English travellers, more attentive to the faults or absurdities of their transatlantic brethren than is becoming among relatives. While the English analyzed so passionately, the Americans worked on; and what proves that they were endowed with life is that one by one the spots disappeared, the feebleness vanished and the bitter criticisms of English travellers became less applicable.

What then was the element of strength, which lived at the bottom of the American Institution ?

A moral and traditional element, which I have exhibited in the first chapter of this work, and of which I have now only to indicate the development.

SECTION II.

THE BEE-FORMATION OF AN AMERICAN VILLAGE.

He

Towards the borders of Arkansas or Illinois, in the profound and inexplored solitudes at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, you may see on some fine summer day, the arrival of a family whose entire furniture is contained in a wagon drawn by a small horse; sometimes the husband and wife form the association, sometimes one or two children serve to complete the republic. The father chooses the location. Here is a river, oaks, and turf; but what next? He has no tools, and to build his log house he needs time, workmen and money. has no arms but his own and his wife's, maybe those of Jonathan and Samuel, his sons, not yet grown. The old settlers, in the neighboring forest, who have long had their log houses, and who know the country, go to see the strangers, not merely to salute but to aid them. No preparation, no making ready, no tumult, no vain phrases. say little, but content themselves with the most simple things; they imitate the Bee; they work together for the profit of the new-comers. This real and active fraternity has borne great fruit. The oak falls, is dressed and rolled to its place; the house grows; a roof only is wanted, and fifty ready arms soon construct it. When the harvest comes in, the wheat must be threshed; again the comrades come, and a week's work is done in one day: what would have cost the solitary settler a month's

Time is precious. They

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toil is accomplished in the twinkling of an eye. The new settler returns what he has received; and when new ones come they receive the same services. You borrow your

neighbor's horse, and he your plough, everybody helps everybody else, and misery reaches no one.

These habitudes constitute the moral life, i. e. the essential and fundamental life of America. They begin, at first, in

a community of five or six log houses. The idea of God and of the Bible are present to all these men, Saxon or Scottish, German or Dutch, coarse men if you will, and for the most part Calvinists. Next, they must have a church; and, to build one of logs, a new Bee is formed. All the world, Quakers and Armenians, Methodists and Catholics, help. The clumsy wooden pulpit will be occupied by the nomadic preachers who may traverse the desert. It is not only a community, but a communion. The sympathetic law of Christ makes itself understood in that rudely-constructed edifice; meetings become frequent and regular; they pray together. Some souls have scruples; the Calvinistic leven is there, severe and analytic, full of dreamy doubts, nor docile to the yoke of thought. Is it then thus that men should pray to God? The dissidents, however, claim the right to their peculiar dogma, and a second church is built, forming a new community. The Quakers' chapel is burnt, and the Catholics lend them theirs; the Presbyterians do the same for the . Anabaptists.

If we search for the true constitutive elements of the Bee, which has just built an American village under our eyes, we will find three-the element Christian and Calvinist, adapted to association; full of charity for one's neighbor and of sympathy for his sufferings;-the Germanic element, patient, victorious, laborious, attached to the soil and to tradition ;and the element of enterprise and boldness, younger than the

other two of which it is born, and which it fecundates without destroying. Combine these three elements as you will, they will always preserve variety, liberty, and attachment to tradition leaving to Religion absolute independence; to politics. the liberty of federative groups; and in private and public manners, encouraging equality of relations, individual independence and voluntary association. The United States, at present, are but a development of these three principles.

Community is everywhere without injury to liberty. The work of the bee recommences in the phases of civil life; they meet to settle the manner of repairing the bridge, placing the ferry-boat, settling the school-fund, laying out the road, clearing the forest. As to the tax, that is soon settled; everybody knows that he needs the bridge and the ferry-boat, and so pays his part. Then new voluntary associations, or rather deliberative meetings to decide upon the position and support of a tribunal. At first all the heads of families take part, then the number of voters becomes too great, and a chamber of representatives is formed to take care of the little interests of the commonwealth. These interests multiply. The trappers steal the horses and cattle, the Indians fire the barns, and a militia is organized. Assurance against fire becomes indispensable. All this is done progressively, with order and by the same processalways the bee. There is no government, each being able to govern himself, none desiring the vain and mournful care of governing the others.

So grows an American village. Nothing resembles it in France or in Europe. There, mutual aid is not thought of; all wish to command, and never have they seen "the gathering of the bee." Read the Polyptique d'Irminion, naïve picture of the eighth century; there are nothing but graduated slaves, whose misery is soothed by Christianity. It matters little whether the peasants group about the château or the