So far as good taste means “good form,” and so far as good form is established by social and conventional usages of the fashionable world, the poet of democracy has little to do with it. But so far as it is based upon the inherent fitness of things and the health and development of the best there is in a man, so far is he bound to enlist himself in its service. In a world where everybody is educated and reads books, much poor literature will circulate; but will not the good, the best, circulate also? Will there not be the few good judges, the saving remnant? Is there not as much good taste and right reason now in England or France as during more rigidly monarchical times? The ideal democracy is not the triumph of barbarism or the riot of vulgarity, but it is the triumph of right reason and natural equality and inequality. Some things are better than others, better from the point of view of the whole of life. These better things we must cling to and make much of in a democracy, as in an aristocracy. We must aspire to the best that is known and thought in the world. This best a privileged class seeks to appropriate to itself; a democracy seeks to share it with all. All are not capable of receiving it, but all may try. They will be better able to-morrow if they have the chance to-day. We must not ignore the vulgarity, the bad taste incident to democratic conditions. If we do, we never get rid of them. Political equality brings to the foreground many unhandsome human traits, the loud, the mediocre, the insolent, etc. All the more must we fix attention upon the true, the noble, the heroic, the disinterested. The rule of temperance, of good taste, of right reason, antedates any and every social condition. Democracy cannot abrogate fundamental principles. The essential conditions of life are not changed, but arbitrary, accidental conditions are modified. One still needs food and raiment and shelter and transportation; he is still subject to the old hindrances and discouragements within himself.