And from
some vague confusion of thought, characteristic of the chaos of their
ideas, I was known there as "the red duke," or sometimes too as "the
Christian diplomat."
But nothing could weaken my conviction that the chaos is busy arranging
itself, at first blindly, with a cruel indifference to suffering,
driven by an inscrutable impulse - but by degrees with clearer
consciousness, more insight, more skill, in proportion as higher wisdom
gradually pairs itself with wider active power.
It was plain to me that if there ever was a time in human history in
which men were awaiting a hero, a Messiah, a redeemer, it is ours. No
opinion is more foolish than the one that in our age there would be no
room for a prophet. But he must not be a moralist preaching repentance,
not a speculative builder of systems, not a man of lamentations and
warnings, but a poet in very deed.
Riper than was the French revolution for the advent of an organizing
and suggestively powerful general and ruler like Napoleon, is our time
for the advent of the wise and high-minded administrator, who will make
use of the group-confederacy, the herd-spirit, so much stronger and
more consolidated to-day than ever before.
Pages:
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292