4.
Muscle and pluck for ever!
What invigorates life invigorates death,
And the dead advance as much as the living advance,
And the future is no more uncertain than the present,
And the roughness of the earth and of man encloses as
much as the _delicatesse_ of the earth and of man,
And nothing endures but personal qualities.
What do you think endures?
Do you think the great city endures?
Or a teeming manufacturing state? or a prepared constitution? or the best-
built steamships?
Or hotels of granite and iron? or any _chefs-d'oeuvre_ of engineering,
forts, armaments?
Away! These are not to be cherished for themselves;
They fill their hour, the dancers dance, the musicians play
for them;
The show passes, all does well enough of course,
All does very well till one flash of defiance.
The great city is that which has the greatest man or woman;
If it be a few ragged huts, it is still the greatest city in the
whole world.
5.
The place where the great city stands is not the place of
stretched wharves, docks, manufactures, deposits of produce,
Nor the place of ceaseless salutes of new-comers, or the
anchor-lifters of the departing,
Nor the place of the tallest and costliest buildings, or shops
selling goods from the rest of the earth,
Nor the place of the best libraries and schools--nor the place where money
is plentiest,
Nor the place of the most numerous population.
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