If a country be unfit for
representative government,--and it may be that there are
still peoples unable to use properly that greatest of
all blessings,--the question as to what state policy may
be best for them is a different question. But if we do
have representation, let the representative assembly be
like the people, whatever else may be its virtues,--and
whatever else its vices.
Another great authority has told us that our House of
Commons should be the mirror of the people. I say, not
its mirror, but its miniature. And let the artist be
careful to put in every line of the expression of that
ever-moving face. To do this is a great work, and the
artist must know his trade well. In America the work has
been done with so coarse a hand that nothing is shown
in the picture but the broad, plain, unspeaking outline
of the face. As you look from the represented to the
representation you cannot but acknowledge the likeness;
--but there is in that portrait more of the body than of
the mind. The true portrait should represent more than
the body. With us, hitherto, there have been snatches
of the countenance of the nation which have been
inimitable,--a turn of the eye here and a curl of the lip
there, which have seemed to denote a power almost divine.
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