oing. So it is with the great
men the world over. If you know a really great man, a neighbor of
yours, you can go right up to him and say, "How are you, Jim, good
morning, Sam." Of course you can, for they are always so simple.

When I wrote the life of General Garfield, one of his neighbors took
me to his back door, and shouted, "Jim, Jim, Jim!" and very soon "Jim"
came to the door and General Garfield let me in--one of the grandest
men of our century. The great men of the world are ever so. I was down
in Virginia and went up to an educational institution and was directed
to a man who was setting out a tree. I approached him and said, "Do
you think it would be possible for me to see General Robert B. Lee,
the President of the University?" He said, "Sir, I am General Lee."
Of course, when you meet such a man, so noble a man as that, you will
find him a simple, plain man. Greatness is always just so modest and
great inventions are simple.

I asked a class in school once who were the great inventors, and a
little girl popped up and said, "Columbus." Well, now, she was not so
far wrong. Columbus bought a farm and he carried on that farm just as
I carried on my father's farm. He took a hoe and went out and sat down
on a rock. But Columbus, as he sat upon that shore and looked out upon
the ocean, noticed that the ships, as they sailed away, sank deeper
into the sea the farther they went. And since that time some other
"Spanish ships" have sunk into the sea. But as Columbus noticed that
the tops of the masts dropped down out of sight, he said: "That is the
way it is with this hoe handle; if you go around this hoe handle, the
farther off you go the farther down you go. I can sail around to the
East Indies." How plain it all was. How simple the mind--majestic
like the simplicity of a mountain in its greatness. Who are the great
inventors? They are ever the simple, plain, everyday people who see
the need and set about to supply it.

I was once lecturing in North Carolina, and the cashier of the bank
sat directly behind a lady who wore a very large hat. I said to that
audience, "Your wealth is too near to you; you are looking right over
it." He whispered to his friend, "Well, then, my wealth is in that
hat." A little later, as he wrote me, I said, "Wherever there is a
human need there is a greater fortune than a mine can furnish." He
caught my thought, and he drew up his plan for a better hat pin than
was in the hat before him