made a few remarks about the carpenter’s son and rabbi of humanity, whose birthday they fancied they were celebrating to-day. Whether he had actually lived, Settembrini said, was uncertain; yet his time had given birth to an idea, which had continued its triumphant course even up to to-day: the idea of the dignity of the human spirit, the idea of equality—in a word, they were celebrating the birth of individualistic democracy, and to it he would empty the glass they gave him.
