e, from _Faust_, which opened the nineteenth
century, onward through _Les Miserables_ to _The Doll's House_ and
_Resurrection_, it was the same. As, in political action, Russia hardly
ceased to rebel, France freed herself three times, Ireland gave us the
line of rebels from Robert Emmet to Michael Davitt, and all rebellion
culminated in Garibaldi, so the most vital spirits in every literature
of Europe were rebels. Perhaps it is so in all the greatest periods of
word and deed. For examples, one could point rapidly to Euripides,
Dante, Rabelais, Milton, Swift, Rousseau--men who have few attributes in
common except greatness and rebellion. But, to limit ourselves to the
familiar period of the last three or four generations, the words,
thoughts, and actions most pregnant with dynamic energy have been marked
with one mark. Rebellion has been the expression of a century's
personality.

Of course, it is very lamentable. _Otium divos_--the rebel, like the
storm-swept sailor, cries to heaven for tranquillity. It is not the
hardened warrior, but only the elegant writer who, having never seen
bloodshed, clamours to shed blood. All rebels long for a peace in which
it would be possible to acquiesce, while they cultivated their minds and
their gardens, employing the shining hour upon industry and intellectual
pursuits. "I can say in the presence of God," cried Cromwell, in the
last of his speeches, "I can say in the presence of God, in comparison
with whom we are but poor creeping ants upon the earth,--I would have
been glad to have lived under my woodside, to have kept a flock of
sheep, rather than undertaken such a Government as this." Every rebel is
a Quietist at heart, seeking peace and ensuing it, willing to let the
stream of time glide past without his stir, dreading the onset of
indignation's claws, stopping his ears to the trumpet-call of action,
and always tempted to leave vengeance to Him who has promised to repay.
If reason alone were his guide, undisturbed by rage he would enjoy such
pleasure as he could clutch, or sit like a Fakir in blissful isolation,
contemplating the aspect of eternity under which the difference between
a mouse and a man becomes imperceptible. But the age has grown a skin
too sensitive for such happiness. "For myself," said Goethe, in a
passage I quote again later in this book, "For myself, I am happy
enough. Joy comes streaming in upon me from every side. Only, for
others, I am not happy." So it is