hey still arrest the attention, and exercise an influence
upon character, though their thoughts be conveyed in languages unspoken
by them and in their time unknown. Theodore Parker has said that a
single man like Socrates was worth more to a country than many such
states as South Carolina; that if that state went out of the world
to-day, she would not have done so much for the world as Socrates. [1017]

Great workers and great thinkers are the true makers of history, which
is but continuous humanity influenced by men of character--by great
leaders, kings, priests, philosophers, statesmen, and patriots--the
true aristocracy of man. Indeed, Mr. Carlyle has broadly stated that
Universal History is, at bottom, but the history of Great Men. They
certainly mark and designate the epochs of national life. Their
influence is active, as well as reactive. Though their mind is, in a
measure; the product of their age, the public mind is also, to a
great extent, their creation. Their individual action identifies the
cause--the institution. They think great thoughts, cast them abroad,
and the thoughts make events. Thus the early Reformers initiated the
Reformation, and with it the liberation of modern thought. Emerson has
said that every institution is to be regarded as but the lengthened
shadow of some great man: as Islamism of Mahomet, Puritanism of Calvin,
Jesuitism of Loyola, Quakerism of Fox, Methodism of Wesley, Abolitionism
of Clarkson.

Great men stamp their mind upon their age and nation--as Luther did upon
modern Germany, and Knox upon Scotland. [1018] And if there be one man
more than another that stamped his mind on modern Italy, it was Dante.
During the long centuries of Italian degradation his burning words were
as a watchfire and a beacon to all true men. He was the herald of his
nation's liberty--braving persecution, exile, and death, for the love
of it. He was always the most national of the Italian poets, the most
loved, the most read. From the time of his death all educated Italians
had his best passages by heart; and the sentiments they enshrined
inspired their lives, and eventually influenced the history of their
nation. "The Italians," wrote Byron in 1821, "talk Dante, write Dante,
and think and dream Dante, at this moment, to an excess which would be
ridiculous, but that he deserves their admiration." [1019]

A succession of variously gifted men in different ages--extending from
Alfred to Albert--has in like m