But that sort of thing is not saving the old native strain in the population.  It moves people, no doubt, but inadequately.  And here is a passage that is quite the quintessence of Americanism, of all its deep moral feeling and sentimental untruthfulness.  I wonder if any man but an American or a British nonconformist in a state of rhetorical excitement ever believed that Shakespeare wrote his plays or Michael Angelo painted in a mood of humanitarian exaltation, “for the good of all men.”

  “What shall we strive for? Money?

“Get a thousand millions.  Your day will come, and in due course the graveyard rat will gnaw as calmly at your bump of acquisitiveness as at the mean coat of the pauper.

  “Then shall we strive for power?

“The names of the first great kings of the world are forgotten, and the names of all those whose power we envy will drift to forgetfulness soon.  What does the most powerful man in the world amount to standing at the brink of Niagara, with his solar plexus trembling?  What is his power compared with the force of the wind or the energy of one small wave sweeping along the shore?

  “The power which man can build up within himself,
  for himself, is nothing.  Only the dull reasoning of gratified
  egotism can make it seem worth while.

  “Then what is worth while?  Let us look at some of
  the men who have come and gone, and whose lives inspire
  us.  Take a few at random: 

  “Columbus, Michael Angelo, Wilberforce, Shakespeare,
  Galileo, Fulton, Watt, Hargreaves—­these will do.

  “Let us ask ourselves this question:  ’Was there any
  one thing that distinguished all their lives,
  that united all these men, active in fields so different?’

  “Yes.  Every man among them, and every man whose
  life history is worth the telling, did something for the good
  of other men....

“Get money if you can.  Get power if you can; Then, if you want to be more than the ten thousand million unknown mingled in the dust beneath you, see what good you can do with your money and your power.

  “If you are one of the many millions who have not
  and can’t get money or power, see what good you can do
  without either: 

“You can help carry a load for an old man.  You can encourage and help a poor devil trying to reform.  You can set a good example to children.  You can stick to the men with whom you work, fighting honestly for their welfare.

“Time was when the ablest man would rather kill ten men than feed a thousand children.  That time has gone.  We do not care much about feeding the children, but we care less about killing the men.  To that extent we have improved already.

  “The day will come when we shall prefer helping our
  neighbour to robbing him—­legally—­of a million dollars.