be trying to be democratic.  The ninth century, the time of the Norse invasions, was not saintly in the sense of being filled with saints; it was filled with pirates and petty tyrants, and the first feudal anarchy.  But sanctity was the only ideal those barbarians had, when they had any at all.  And democracy is the only ideal the industrial millions have, when they have any at all.  Sanctity was the light of the Dark Ages, or if you will the dream of the Dark Ages.  And democracy is the dream of the dark age of industrialism; if it be very much of a dream.  It is this which prophets promise to achieve, and politicians pretend to achieve, and poets sometimes desire to achieve, and sometimes only desire to desire.  In a word, an equal citizenship is quite the reverse of the reality in the modern world; but it is still the ideal in the modern world.  At any rate it has no other ideal.  If the figure that has alighted on the column in the Place de la Bastille be indeed the spirit of liberty, it must see a million growths in a modern city to make it wish to fly back again into heaven.  But our secular society would not know what goddess to put on the pillar in its place.

As I looked at that sculptured goddess on that classical column, my mind went back another historic stage, and I asked myself where this classic and republican ideal came from, and the answer was equally clear.  The place from which it had come was the place to which I was going; Rome.  And it was not until I had reached Rome that I adequately realised the next great reality that simplified the whole story, and even this particular part of the story.  I know nothing more abruptly arresting than that sudden steepness, as of streets scaling the sky, where stands, now cased in tile and brick and stone, that small rock that rose and overshadowed the whole earth; the Capitol.  Here in the grey dawn of our history sat the strong Republic that set her foot upon the necks of kings; and it was from here assuredly that the spirit of the Republic flew like an eagle to alight on that far-off pillar in the country of the Gauls.  For it ought to be remembered (and it is too often forgotten) that if Paris inherited what may be called the authority of Rome, it is equally true that Rome anticipated all that is sometimes called the anarchy of Paris.  The expansion of the Roman Empire was accompanied by a sort of permanent Roman Revolution, fully as furious as the French Revolution.  So long as the Roman system was really strong, it was full of riots and mobs and democratic divisions; and any number of Bastilles fell as the temple of the victories rose.  But though I had but a hurried glance at such things, there were among them some that further aided the solution of the problem.  I saw the larger achievements of the later Romans; and the lesson that was still lacking was plainly there.  I saw the Coliseum, a monument of that love of looking on at athletic sports, which is noted as a sign of decadence