The weekly democratic statesman. [volume] (Austin, Tex.) 1871-1883, 1878-02-14
THE GREAT ONES OF HUMAN
a ITY.

4
ITY.
Set the cerebral structure of q clear
and strong intelligence upon the modi-
fed breathing system of gorilla; add
to this the stomach of q lion and ex-
tend the structure into the loins of q
bull, and you have the superb thinker,
the indomitable worker, the invinci-
bic combatant, the passionate deyotee
Of woman; maa armed edp-0-pie, fer
tile in all resources; Organizing and
victorious in all the fields of life. Such
creatures are produced in extreme mo-
ments,. by means of an immense con-
eentration of intellectual and physical
forces EFFa --.-
These are the men who shape or di-
rect the course of events. In them
there is stored a vivid and resplendeht
element, akin to that with which the
Eternal Parent sows the spaces with
suns. Such men move with the solar
spark in them, and dive in the ideal as
their home. They may be broken or
ganically; they may dip into the mad
ness of the world till their fair orb
shows but one point of illumination
upon field of shadow but they touch
and fire. The man who is thus
touched with the solar fire holds God,
as holding from HIM the elixir of
creaiIveness. It is no respecter of per-
sons, places, dignlties or limitations.
1t is the tire-dew that falls on the just
and the unjust; but if it touches man
it cllngs to him. The man may use
his fate or abuse his fate, but he can
not evaie his fate.
Such a man was Charlemagne, and
Norman William, and such was Oliver
Cromwell-the mightiest prince that
ever sat on an English throne. We
had one such in America-Daniel Web
ster--always greater in what he was
than in what he said or did; for the
opportunity did not serve. There, toe,
was another Edwin Stanton = but
consumed by an insidious disease and
exhausted by labors before he had
reached the intellectual meridian.
France produced, for her supreme
agony, Mirabeau, Danton and Bona
parte; one to initiate revolution, one to
solidify it, and one to complete the
cycle, leading it~to victory and SO to
betrayal and death. Germany, in the
beginning of the epoch, furnished one
chef d'euore, Goethe, an Apollo graft
ed on the sstyr. She brought
forth another at the epoch's close,
Bismarck, organizing battles in his
brain; Vesuvian heart, fiery, fear
less, laborious, earth-shaking as
volcano. Britain, IN throes of travail,
recently brought forth one; the pro-
phet among heroes, and the hero
among prophets; greater than democ-
racy, since, by sheer vlgor and integri-
ty, he pierced and revealed democracy:
Thomas Carlyle, wisest and saddest of
this greup of Titanic men; John the
Baptist risen from the dead, crying in
the wilderness, "Repent ye, for unless
ye repent and reform, to all civilized
men the kingdom of bell is at hand"
So, herslding the new epoch, more
than century ago, the Northland gave
the world Swedenborg, toiling with
mathematics at his enginery and with
science in the mines, till his brain crys-
talized in angles and prisms and grew
luminous from the core Bacon redi-
Uicus, begetting new philosophy, and
extending the conquests of an induc-
tive reason to the ideal and spiritual
world. There is as much relative differ
ence between the lower and higher
grades of men, as between the lower
and higher species of animals. This
creature is an animal, rodent; that
creature is also an animal, but an ele-
phant. So there are rodentine men
and elephantine men; at one end of the
scale the Digger Indian, at the other
Plato or Shakespeare. e
The brutal types of man are myri-
form. Sordid, vicious, or superstitious,
we see them in these ghostly phantasms
of men, who stink at early dawn from
the doors Of bagnios, Or indulge in
pious execrations from the platforms of
cenventicles; in these wide mouthed,
shambling trsmps, by whom civiliza'
ton is preparing to sink and perish in
the horde; in these devotees of opium,
alcohol, and hasheesh and absinthe
in these murderers of time by sensuous
pleasure; in these stupefyers of the
brain by sentimental reverie. God pity
theml His last and kindest pity were
swift extinction. And it must come.
But Mother Nature cherishes her great
ones, and seems to rest and be salts
fed with one such in an age. They
are the children of the chosen line.
In them epochs concentrate themselves
old states of humanity perish in them,
and new times are born. Thus evolu-
ton never dies, the race finds no ar
rest Of march, and the day-spring from
on high still visits his earthly people.