direction.  Moreover, the tradition of the hero of the mine and the sea lives in the miners’ and fishermen’s villages, adorned with a poetical halo.  But what are the traditions of a motley London crowd?  The only tradition they might have in common ought to be created by literature, but a literature which would correspond to the village epics hardly exists.  The clergy are so anxious to prove that all that comes from human nature is sin, and that all good in man has a supernatural origin, that they mostly ignore the facts which cannot be produced as an example of higher inspiration or grace, coming from above.  And as to the lay-writers, their attention is chiefly directed towards one sort of heroism, the heroism which promotes the idea of the State.  Therefore, they admire the Roman hero, or the soldier in the battle, while they pass by the fisherman’s heroism, hardly paying attention to it.  The poet and the painter might, of course, be taken by the beauty of the human heart in itself; but both seldom know the life of the poorer classes, and while they can sing or paint the Roman or the military hero in conventional surroundings, they can neither sing nor paint impressively the hero who acts in those modest surroundings which they ignore.  If they venture to do so, they produce a mere piece of rhetoric.(14)

The countless societies, clubs, and alliances, for the enjoyment of life, for study and research, for education, and so on, which have lately grown up in such numbers that it would require many years to simply tabulate them, are another manifestation of the same everworking tendency for association and mutual support.  Some of them, like the broods of young birds of different species which come together in the autumn, are entirely given to share in common the joys of life.  Every village in this country, in Switzerland, Germany, and so on, has its cricket, football, tennis, nine-pins, pigeon, musical or singing clubs.  Other societies are much more numerous, and some of them, like the Cyclists’ Alliance, have suddenly taken a formidable development.  Although the members of this alliance have nothing in common but the love of cycling, there is already among them a sort of freemasonry for mutual help, especially in the remote nooks and corners which are not flooded by cyclists; they look upon the “C.A.C.”—­the Cyclists’ Alliance Club—­in a village as a sort of home; and at the yearly Cyclists’ Camp many a standing friendship has been established.  The Kegelbruder, the Brothers of the Nine Pins, in Germany, are a similar association; so also the Gymnasts’ Societies (300,000 members in Germany), the informal brotherhood of paddlers in France, the yacht clubs, and so on.  Such associations certainly do not alter the economical stratification of society, but, especially in the small towns, they contribute to smooth social distinctions, and as they all tend to join in large national and international federations, they certainly aid the growth of personal friendly intercourse between all sorts of men scattered in different parts of the globe.