"But, after all, our life is serious, and no one among us is quite happy,
in the general esteem, unless he has dedicated himself, in some special
way, to the general good. Our ideal is not rights, but duties."
"Mazzini!" whispered the professor.
"The greatest distinction which any one can enjoy with us is to have found
out some new and signal way of serving the community; and then it is not
good form for him to seek recognition. The doing any fine thing is the
purest pleasure it can give; applause flatters, but it hurts, too, and our
benefactors, as we call them, have learned to shun it.
"We are still far from thinking our civilization perfect; but we are sure
that our civic ideals are perfect. What we have already accomplished is to
have given a whole continent perpetual peace; to have founded an economy
in which there is no possibility of want; to have killed out political and
social ambition; to have disused money and eliminated chance; to have
realized the brotherhood of the race, and to have outlived the fear of
death."
The Altrurian suddenly stopped with these words and sat down. He had
spoken a long time, and with a fulness which my report gives little notion
of; but, though most of his cultivated listeners were weary, and a good
many ladies had left their seats and gone back to the hotel, not one of
the natives, or the work-people of any sort, had stirred; now they
remained a moment motionless and silent before they rose from all parts of
the field and shouted: "Go on! Don't stop! Tell us all about it!"
I saw Reuben Camp climb the shoulders of a big fellow near where the
Altrurian had stood; he waved the crowd to silence with out-spread arms.
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