Death is more tragic even than death by starvation.

Having a nose is more comic even than having a Norman nose.
This is the first principle of democracy: that the essential things in men are the things they hold in common, not the things they hold separately.

And the second principle is merely this: that the political instinct or desire is one of these things which they hold in common.
Falling in love is more poetical than dropping into poetry.

The democratic contention is that government (helping to rule the tribe) is a thing like falling in love, and not a thing like dropping into poetry.
It is not something analogous to playing the church organ, painting on vellum, discovering the North Pole (that insidious habit), looping the loop, being Astronomer Royal, and so on.

For these things we do not wish a man to do at all unless he does them well.