In short, we may speak of America in two senses--either meaning the America that actually meets us at the street corners and in the newspapers, or the ideal America--America as it ought to be. They are not the same thing; and, at present, there seems to be a good deal more of the former than of the latter. And yet, there is a connection between them; the latter has made the former possible. We sometimes see a great crowd drawn together by proclamation, for some noble purpose--to decide upon a righteous war, or to pass a just decree. But the people on the outskirts of the crowd, finding themselves unable to hear the orators, and their time hanging idle on their hands, take to throwing stones, knocking off hats, or, perhaps, picking pockets. They may have come to the meeting with as patriotic or virtuous intentions as the promoters themselves; nay, under more favorable circumstances, they might themselves have become promoters. Virtue and patriotism are not private property; at certain times any one may possess them. And, on the other hand, we have seen examples enough, of late, of persons of the highest respectability and trust turning out, all at once, to be very sorry scoundrels. A man changes according to the person with whom he converses; and though the outlook is rather sordid to-day, we have not forgotten that during the Civil War the air seemed full of heroism. So that these two Americas--the real and the ideal--far apart though they may be in one sense, may, in another sense, be as near together as our right hand to our left. In a greater or less degree, they exist side by side in each one of us. But civil wars do not come every day; nor can we wish them to, even to show us once more that we are worthy of our destiny. We must find some less expensive and quieter method of reminding ourselves of that. And of such methods, none, perhaps, is better than to review the lives of Americans who were truly great; to ask what their country meant to them; what they wished her to become; what virtues and what vices they detected in her. Passion may be generous, but passion cannot last; and when it is over, we are cold and indifferent again. But reason and example reach us when we are calm and passive; and what they inculcate is more likely to abide. At least, it will be only evil passion that can cast it out.