those incomparable sonnets of which the Portuguese never heard. And the
task yet remains for some psychologist to tell us why, when we wish to
bestow the highest honor, coupled with familiar affection, we call the
individual by a given name.

Young men and maidens will understand my allusion; and I hope this book
will not suffer the dire fate of falling into the hands of any one who
has forgotten the days of his youth.

In addressing the one we truly revere, we drop all prefix and titles.
Soldiers marching under the banner of a beloved leader ever have for him
a name of their own. What honor and trust were once compressed into the
diminutive, "Little Corporal" or Kipling's "Bobs"; or, to come down to
something even more familiar to us, say, "Old Abe" and "Little Phil"!

The earth is a vast graveyard where untold millions of men lie buried,
but out of the myriads who pass into forgetfulness every decade, the race
holds a few names embalmed in undying amber.

Lovers of art, the round world over, carry in their minds one character,
so harmoniously developed on every side of his nature that we say twenty
centuries have never produced his equal. We call him "Leonardo"--the one
ideal man. Leonardo da Vinci was painter, poet, sculptor, architect,
mathematician, politician, musician, man of science, and courtier. His
disposition was so joyous, his manner so captivating, his form and
countenance so beautiful, that wherever he went all things were his. And
he was so well ballasted with brains, and so acute in judgment, that
flattery spoiled him not. His untiring industry and transcendent talent
brought him large sums of money, and he spent them like a king. So potent
was his personality that wherever he made his home there naturally grew