n, amidst general applause, the
battles of freedom long since lost or won.

But in the thick of present life it is different. The air is obscured by
murky doubt, and unaccustomed shapes stand along the path,
indistinguishable under the light malign. Uncertain hope scarcely
glimmers, nor can the termination of the struggle be divined.
Tranquillity, giving time for thought, and the security that leaves the
judgment clear, have both gone, and may never return. The ears are
haunted with the laughter of vulgarity, and the judicious discouragement
of prudence. Is there not as much to be said for taking one line as
another? If there is talk of conflict, were it not better to leave the
issue in the discriminating hands of One whose judgment is indisputable?
Yet in the very midst of hesitations, mockery, and good advice, the next
step must be taken, the decision must be swift, the choice is brief but
eternal. There is no clear evidence of heroism around. The lighters do
not differ much from the grotesque, the foolish, and the braggart ruck
of men. No wonder that culture smiles and passes aloof upon its pellucid
and elevating course. Culture smiles; the valet de chambre lurking in
most hearts sniffs at the name of hero; hideous applause comes from
securely sheltered crowds who hound victims to the combat, bloodthirsty
as spectators at a bull-fight. In the sweat and twilight and crudity of
the actual event, when so much is merely ludicrous and discomforting,
and all is enveloped in the element of fear, it is rare to perceive a
glory shining, or to distinguish greatness amid the mud of contumely and
commonplace.

Take the story of Italy's revival--the "Resurrection," as Italians call
it. In the summer of 1911, Italy was celebrating her jubilee of national
rebellion, and English writers who spend their years, day by day or week
by week, sneering at freedom, betraying nationality, and demanding
vengeance on rebels, burst into ecstatic rhapsodies about that glorious
but distant uprising. They raised the old war-cry of liberty over
battle-fields long silent; they extolled to heaven the renown of the
rebellious dead; their very periods glowed with Garibaldian red, white,
and green; and rising to Byronic exaltation they concluded their
nationalist effusions by adjuring freedom's weather-beaten flag:

"Yet, Freedom! yet thy banner, torn, but flying,
Streams like the thunder-storm against the wind!"

So they cried, echoing the voic