The American eagle in the better and more glorious sense--in the sense in which he typifies freedom and height and flight--is a totem of which neither philosopher nor peasant need be ashamed. The eagle's wing is more than pinion; it is thought. The eagle's eye is more than fierce disdain; it is a flash of ineffable light. His glance is more than terror; it is an arrow shot into the darkness. His breast is more than pressure and force; it is defiance of wind and battle-rack. His spirit is more than destruction; it is supremacy over chaotic elements and the triumph of the emancipated spirit. His scream is more than the shriek of carnal victory and rage of destroying strength; it is the cry of liberty and the shout of progress to all peoples in the valleys of the world. Give man the spirit of the eagle. Give him height and flight and freedom. Give us who are Americans the splendid arena of the plains and the open vault of heaven. Give us the mountain, the beetling crag, the precipice, the gnarled oak, the lightning, and the cloud. Give us the warfare of the lawless elements, the world-blaze of the magnificent sun, the starlight of the profound and unspeakable night. Give us the transport of the unchained seasons, the snow-blast and the sun-flash, the tenderness of the dawn, the sorrow of the evening, the rainspout of the bursting nimbus, and the mellow light of autumn. Give us the splendid apocalypse of October and the infinite air-bath of the perfumed June. Give us all the aspirations of the man-soul standing in the midst of this splendor and mutation, standing high and opening the eagle-wing to cloudland and the sky, soaring and circling unfettered, viewing all lakes and hills from the aerial curves of freedom, alighting at will on the chosen summit, undisturbed by fear and untroubled by the torments of power! Vive La France. A strange fact is the apathy of the American nation towards France and the French people. There is every reason to expect a different sentiment on this side of the sea. France was ever our friend; since the colonial days we have never warred with her. The French were our allies when the days were dark and the winds of our destiny were loosed on the deep. We had been assailed by an unnatural mother. That strong mother had wronged us, treated us as aliens, erased us from her book, turned loose mercenary armies upon us, killed our patriot fathers.