“How can your humanity conscientiously hold and wield the power of imperial despotism?”
_Emperor._--“The one-man power in the light and dignity of a _principle_, appeals to reason and fascinates the soul. It is the true theory of human government. I am God’s vicegerent, as king and priest, for the well-being and good order of my people.”
_Prime Minister._--“This system derives its type from the One-God control of the universe. It has divinity from above, it has patriarchal sanction here below. It can bear comparison with its opposite extreme in absolutism--a pure democracy, the mere many-power, unrestrained, unregulated and uninstructed. What is more irresponsible, more selfishly callous, more heedlessly unstable, and more grinding than the vulgar tyranny of a bare popular majority? Extremes meet and have a singular affinity; it is the secret of the growing friendship between Russia and the United States.”
_American._--“Ha! Our American people are not a mass democracy. The United States are republics federated under a Constitution--a system which excludes both your extremes.”
_Immortal._--“There is a golden mean for all finite governments. Uncontrolled power is only for the Infinite.”
_Emperor._--“Is even political self-government a _right_?”
_American._--“Surely mankind is entitled to it and should possess it.”
_Immortal._--“No! Self-government is the eventual prize of intelligence and virtue. The ignorant or vicious are incapable of it. In the meantime, it is the _privilege_ of the human race to secure it by attempered wisdom, and to guard it against the passions and ignorance of the many, the few, or the one. Goodness in the use of power, more than the form of government, is the great desideratum. Seek most to elevate the mind and heart of man!”
_American_ to _Emperor_.--“Sire! it is then your best mission to _do well your part_!”
Farewells are spoken. The _voyageurs_ are again a-wing. They reach the Arctic along the vast Siberian coast. There the cold is most intense, and of the frozen regions it is the wildest and grandest. A shimmering light seems to permeate it ever, even in its darkest periods. The ice presents plains, abysses, mountains. Everywhere are the débris of long-frozen animals. Over its dry waste of congealed waters, the fierce blasts, as if by frictional action on its rugged surfaces, ever generate electrical phenomena. In midwinter and darkness, scintillating flashes gleam along them in the nether air. Such was their vision.