ay; for lesser natures, as a rule, do not
like supreme responsibility; they enjoy what is to ordinary people
the greatest luxury in the world, namely, the being sympathetically
commandeered, and duly valued. Inspiration and leadership are not common
gifts, and there are abundance of capable people who cannot strike out
a novel line of their own, but can do excellent work if they can be
inspired and led. I was once for a short time brought into close contact
with a man of this kind; it was impossible to put down on paper or to
explain to those who did not know him what his claim to greatness was. I
remember being asked by an incredulous outsider where his greatness
lay, and I could not name a single conspicuous quality that my hero
possessed. But he dominated his circle for all that, and many of them
were men of far greater intellectual force than himself. He had his
own way; if he asked one to do a particular thing, one felt proud to
be entrusted with it, and amply rewarded by a word of approval. It
was possible to take a different view from the view which he took of a
matter or a situation, but it was impossible to express one's dissent
in his presence. A few halting, fumbling words of his were more weighty
than many a facile and voluble oration. Personally I often mistrusted
his judgment, but I followed him with an eager delight. With such men
as these, posterity is often at a loss to know why they impressed their
contemporaries, or why they continue to be spoken of with reverence and
enthusiasm. The secret is that it is a kind of moral and magnetic
force, and the lamentable part of it is that such men, if they are not
enlightened and wise, may do more harm than good, because they tend to
stereotype what ought to be changed and renewed.

That is one way of greatness; a sort of big, blunt force that overwhelms
and uplifts, like a great sea-roller, yielding at a hundred small
points, yet crowding onwards in soft volume and ponderous weight.

Two interesting examples of this impressive and indescribable greatness
seem to have been Arthur Hallam and the late Mr. W. E. Henley. In the
case of Arthur Hallam, the eulogies which his friends pronounced upon
him seem couched in terms of an intemperate extravagance. The fact that
the most splendid panegyrics upon him were uttered by men of high
genius is not in itself more conclusive than if such panegyrics had been
conceived by men of lesser quality, because the greater that a m