But we must make allowance for these girds and gibes at Democracy, of which we have given a specimen. Khalid's irony bites so deep at times as to get at the very bone of truth. And here is the marrow of it. We translate the following prophecy with which he closes his Chapter "In Prison," and with it, too, we close ours. "But my faith in man," he swears, "is as strong as my faith in God. And as strong, too, perhaps, is my faith in the future world-ruling destiny of America. To these United States shall the Nations of the World turn one day for the best model of good Government; in these United States the well-springs of the higher aspirations of the soul shall quench the thirst of every race-traveller on the highway of emancipation; and from these United States the sun and moon of a great Faith and a great Art shall rise upon mankind. I believe this, billah! and I am willing to go on the witness stand to swear to it. Ay, in this New World, the higher Superman shall rise. And he shall not be of the tribe of Overmen of the present age, of the beautiful blond beast of Zarathustra, who would riddle mankind as they would riddle wheat or flour; nor of those political moralists who would reform the world as they would a parish. "From his transcendental height, the Superman of America shall ray forth in every direction the divine light, which shall mellow and purify the spirit of Nations and strengthen and sweeten the spirit of men, in this New World, I tell you, he shall be born, but he shall not be an American in the Democratic sense. He shall be nor of the Old World nor of the New; he shall be, my Brothers, of both. In him shall be reincarnated the Asiatic spirit of origination, of Poesy and Prophecy, and the European spirit of Art, and the American spirit of Invention. Ay, the Nation that leads the world to-day in material progress shall lead it, too, in the future, in the higher things of the mind and soul. And when you reach that height, O beloved America, you will be far from the majority-rule, and Iblis, and Juhannam. And you will then conquer those 'enormous mud Megatheriums' of which Carlyle makes loud mention." CHAPTER II SUBTRANSCENDENTAL Deficiencies in individuals, as in States, have their value and import. Indeed, that sublime impulse of perfectibility, always vivacious, always working under various forms and with one underlying purpose, would be futile without them, and fatuous. And what were life without this incessant striving of the spirit? What were life without its angles of difficulty and defeat, and its apices of triumph and power? A banality this, you will say. But need we not be reminded of these wholesome truths, when the striving after originality nowadays is productive of so much quackery? The impulse of perfectibility, we repeat, whether at work in a Studio, or in a Factory, or in a Prison Cell, is the most noble of all human impulses, the most divine.