s. This alone draws out "the great
resources" of Nature, and at, last taxes her beyond her resources; for
man naturally dies out of her. When we want culture more than potatoes,
and illumination more than sugar-plums, then the great resources of a
world are taxed and drawn out, and the result, or staple production, is,
not slaves, nor operatives, but men,--those rare fruits called heroes,
saints, poets, philosophers, and redeemers.

In short, as a snow-drift is formed where there is a lull in the wind,
so, one would say, where there is a lull of truth, an institution
springs up. But the truth blows right on over it, nevertheless, and at
length blows it down.

What is called politics is comparatively something so superficial and
inhuman, that, practically, I have never fairly recognized that it
concerns me at all. The newspapers, I perceive, devote some of their
columns specially to politics or government without charge; and this,
one would say, is all that saves it; but, as I love literature, and to
some extent, the truth also, I never read those columns at any rate. I
do not wish to blunt my sense of right so much. I have not got to answer
for having read a single President's Message. A strange age of the world
this, when empires, kingdoms, and republics come a-begging to a private
man's door, and utter their complaints at his elbow! I cannot take up a
newspaper but I find that some wretched government or other, hard
pushed, and on its last legs, is interceding with me, the reader, to
vote for it,--mere importunate than an Italian beggar; and if I have a
mind to look at its certificate, made, perchance, by some benevolent
merchant's clerk, or the skipper that brought it over, for it cannot
speak a word of English itself, I shall probably read of the eruption
of some Vesuvius, or the overflowing of some Po, true or forged, which
brought it into this condition. I do not hesitate, in such a case, to
suggest work, or the almshouse; or why not keep its castle in silence,
as I do commonly? The poor President, what with preserving his
popularity and doing his duty, is completely bewildered. The newspapers
are the ruling power. Any other government is reduced to a few marines
at Fort Independence. If a man neglects to read the Daily Times,
Government will go down on its knees to him, for this is the only
treason in these days.

Those things which now most engage the attention of men, as politics and
the daily routine, are,