would be useless. Nothing is in fact more false than the way in which
popular opinions are often belittled and made light of. The opinion
of the world, however reached, becomes in the course of years or
centuries the nearest approach we can make to final judgment on
human things. Don Quixote may be dumb to one man, and the sonnets of
Shakespeare may leave another cold and weary. But the fault is in
the reader. There is no doubt of the greatness of Cervantes or
Shakespeare, for they have stood the test of time, and the voices of
generations of men, from which there is no appeal, have declared them
to be great. The lyrics that all the world loves and repeats, the
poetry which is often called hackneyed, is on the whole the best
poetry. The pictures and statues that have drawn crowds of admiring
gazers for centuries are the best. The things that are "caviare to the
general" often undoubtedly have much merit, but they lack quite as
often the warm, generous, and immortal vitality which appeals alike to
rich and poor, to the ignorant and to the learned.

So it is with men. When years after his death the world agrees to call
a man great, the verdict must be accepted. The historian may whiten or
blacken, the critic may weigh and dissect, the form of the judgment
may be altered, but the central fact remains, and with the man, whom
the world in its vague way has pronounced great, history must reckon
one way or the other, whether for good or ill.

When we come to such a man as Washington, the case is still stronger.
Men seem to have agreed that here was greatness which no one could
question, and character which no one could fail to respect. Around
other leaders of men, even around the greatest of them, sharp
controversies have arisen, and they have their partisans dead as they
had them living. Washington had enemies who assailed him, and friends