I. USES OF GREAT MEN.


It is natural to believe in great men. If the companions of our
childhood should turn out to be heroes, and their condition regal, it
would not surprise us. All mythology opens with demigods, and the
circumstance is high and poetic; that is, their genius is paramount.
In the legends of the Gautama, the first men ate the earth, and found
it deliciously sweet.

Nature seems to exist for the excellent. The world is upheld by the
veracity of good men: they make the earth wholesome. They who lived
with them found life glad and nutritious. Life is sweet and tolerable
only in our belief in such society; and actually, or ideally, we manage
to live with superiors. We call our children and our lands by their
names. Their names are wrought into the verbs of language, their works
and effigies are in our houses, and every circumstance of the day
recalls an anecdote of them.

The search after the great is the dream of youth, and the most serious
occupation of manhood. We travel into foreign parts to find his
works,--if possible, to get a glimpse of him. But we are put off with
fortune instead. You say, the English are practical; the Germans are
hospitable; in Valencia, the climate is delicious; and in the hills
of Sacramento there is gold for the gathering. Yes, but I do not travel
to find comfortable, rich, and hospitable people, or clear sky, or
ingots that cost too much. But if there were any magnet that would
point to the countries and houses where are the persons who are
intrinsically rich and powerful, I would sell all, and buy it, and put