A PUBLIC-SPIRITED Citizen who had failed miserably in trying to secure a National political convention for his city suffered acutely from dejection.
"When you can't do what you wish," said the Public-spirited Citizen, "it is worth while to do what you can."
It is easy enough to condemn the Cretans for their laziness; but when one recalls the large, prosperous, and presumably
public-spirited communities which during the last few years have deliberately thrown themselves into the hands of the A.
The speech was about
public-spirited citizens who, to the neglect of their own interests, came to assist the ends of justice, and fellow-creatures in misfortune.
But it is as little to be doubted, that there is always a large proportion of the body, which consists of independent and
public-spirited men, who have an influential weight in the councils of the nation.
"I know about you," she said to Levin; "that you're not a
public-spirited citizen, and I have defended you to the best of my ability."
"Yet suppose that this change had come to pass, and that all of us were
public-spirited citizens; in spite of our comfortable lives among trivialities, should we not be in a fair way to become the most wearied, wearisome, and unfortunate race of philistines under the sun?
Public-spirited citizens wrote to the papers, declaiming against the maintenance of such a danger to the community, and demanding that the United States government build a national leprosarium on some remote island or isolated mountain peak.
Man performs actions because they are good for him, and when they are good for other people as well they are thought virtuous: if he finds pleasure in giving alms he is charitable; if he finds pleasure in helping others he is benevolent; if he finds pleasure in working for society he is
public-spirited; but it is for your private pleasure that you give twopence to a beggar as much as it is for my private pleasure that I drink another whiskey and soda.
What we really want is an Incorporated Society of Thieves, with some
public-spirited old forger to run it for us on business lines."
We say: "I desire to be kind to my friends, honourable in business, philanthropic towards the poor,
public-spirited in politics." So long as we refuse to allow ourselves, even in the watches of the night, to avow any contrary desires, we may be bullies at home, shady in the City, skinflints in paying wages and profiteers in dealing with the public; yet, if only conscious motives are to count in moral valuation, we shall remain model characters.
Public-spirited citizens took down their rifles and went out after him.