s insignificant in comparison;
and hence it is that the man of action always holds in slight esteem the
man of thought, and especially the expresser of feeling and emotion, the
poet and the humorist. It is only when we look back over the ages, when
civilizations have passed or changed, over the rivalries of States, the
ambitions and enmities of men, the shining deeds and the base deeds that
make up history, that we are enabled to see what remains, what is
permanent. Perhaps the chief result left to the world out of a period of
heroic exertion, of passion and struggle and accumulation, is a sheaf of
poems, or the record by a man of letters of some admirable character.
Spain filled a large place in the world in the sixteenth century, and its
influence upon history is by no means spent yet; but we have inherited
out of that period nothing, I dare say, that is of more value than the
romance of Don Quixote. It is true that the best heritage of generation
from generation is the character of great men; but we always owe its
transmission to the poet and the writer. Without Plato there would be no
Socrates. There is no influence comparable in human life to the
personality of a powerful man, so long as he is present to his
generation, or lives in the memory of those who felt his influence. But
after time has passed, will the world, will human life, that is
essentially the same in all changing conditions, be more affected by what
Bismarck did or by what Goethe said?

We may without impropriety take for an illustration of the comparative
value of literature to human needs the career of a man now living. In the
opinion of many, Mr. Gladstone is the greatest Englishman of this age.
What would be the position of the British empire, what would be the
tendency of English politics and society without him, is a matter for
speculation. He has not played such a role for England and its neighbors
as Bismarck has played for Germany and the Continent, but he has been one
of the most powerful influences in molding English action. He is the
foremost teacher. Rarely in history has a nation depended more upon a
single man, at times, than the English upon Gladstone, upon his will, his
ability, and especially his character. In certain recent crises the
thought of losing him produced something like a panic in the English
mind, justifying in regard to him, the hyperbole of Choate upon the death
of Webster, that the sailor on the distant sea would feel