that we feel the attraction of troublous times in history, and regard them as the most picturesque. The Great Rebellion and the French Revolution have furnished endless motives to dramatists, novelists and painters, because they suggest possibilities of striking contrasts, and afford available situations. The human interest is then most intense, and our sympathies are most easily awakened.
But though such times are the best for displaying individual character, it may be doubted if they are the best for displaying national life and national character. Indeed, they exaggerate differing tendencies which, in an ordinary way, work harmoniously together, and force them into violent opposition. It is true that the tendencies were there, that they rested upon certain ideas and made for certain ends. But, in the exigencies of a struggle, they assumed undue proportions and became one-sided through the apparent necessity of denying any right of existence to the ideas opposed to them. In short, national life depends on the blending of various elements, and the co-operation on a large scale of efforts which, regarded on a small scale, seem to be diametrically opposed. Periods of revolution destroy this process, and make the apparent opposition an absolute one for a time, so that the parallel between the individual and the nation fails in this point. A crisis in the life of the individual reveals his true character, because it compels him to gather together the various elements of which that character is composed and condense them into a decisive act. In the case of a nation the contrary occurs. The crisis dissolves the bonds which
