Editorial note — Chapter V · ACROSS THE WATERS[48]

The time is not one for individual optimism, and the old hopefully self-reliant spirit of the West must be content to lose its personal quality in the larger and vaguer, though not less certain, tendencies of modern life. Bearing upon a theme kindred to the above, James Bryce, author of “The American Commonwealth,” recently found occasion to write:

“National ideals to-day tend toward a large and strong state, with vast external possessions, with a huge army and navy, with an extending trade, and great consequent wealth; and the ideal of education is less toward ‘unprofitable culture’ and more toward subjects that enable men to raise themselves in the world. People now talk more about capital and labor. Formerly there seemed rather more faith in the power of reason, rather more hope of progress to be secured by political change. Altogether there seemed rather more of a sanguine spirit formerly. Mankind must never cease to cherish and follow the dream of that golden age, which at one time they believed to lie in the past, but which for some centuries had been supposed to glimmer in the future. They must never forget that hope. But the golden age seemed nearer in 1850 than it does now.”