In habits of intellectual nicety, in manners, and in social inclination Lowell was an aristocrat; yet in spite of these tendencies, and quite evidently in spite of them, he was in principle a stanch democrat, and when put to the test that sort of democrat is the most reliable. The conflict is interestingly apparent throughout his writings. The address on "Democracy" of 1888 need not be gravely cited as proof of Lowell's belief in government by the people; it is only the final iteration of what he had all his life been saying. Yet after his usual leisurely introduction he approached his subject with the smile of half apology which had become a habit to him: "I shall address myself to a single point only in the long list of offences of which we are more or less gravely accused, because that really includes all the rest." It crops out in the Thoreau essay, apropos of Emerson: "If it was ever questionable whether democracy could develop a gentleman, the problem has been affirmatively solved at last"; and in the Lincoln essay: "Mr. Lincoln has also been reproached with Americanism by some not unfriendly British critics; but, with all deference, we cannot say that we like him any the worse for it." In the ode on Agassiz he heaved a sigh of relief that the great naturalist was willing to put up with New England conditions; and even in the Harvard "Commemoration Ode" he broke out suddenly with: Who now shall sneer? Who dare again to say we trace Our lines to a plebeian race? The point is not in the least that Lowell did not believe in democracy; every deprecating remark of this sort was prefatory to a fresh defense of it. The point is that, as with a quarrel, it takes two to make a condescension and that Lowell did his part. It is difficult to imagine the young foreigner of "German-silver aristocracy" condescending with success to Lincoln or Emerson or to Mark Twain or Whitman.