The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-02-09
THE FIRST is ORIGINALITY
IN ITS TRUEST SENSE-NEARNESS
TO REALITY-NOT MERELY
UNCOMMONNESS.
While Last, but Not Least, He Places
the Beneficence of the Inspfr-
ing Motive.

Types OF Greatness. Teachers in the
public schools composed a large part
OF the audience, although there were
many from other walks of life. Pres
ident Tucker said:
Some time ago, as l was walking with a
friend, he put to me the abrupt question
Who's your great man of today? l confess
that the question came upon me SO abruptly
that ] took the privilege of answering it by
returning the question t. him, upon which he
| replied, II think that ! should say Pasteur. "
Now, the significance of the answer lay in
the fact that my friend altogether a
literary man with no leanings whatever to-
ward the natural sciences; but man of such
! cosmopolitan habit of mind that ne was able
at once to come to this conclusion.
This one illustration is enough to suggest
the fact that while greatness has its
invariable qualities, it's constants through
which it lays hold upon all ages, it has also
its variations, sufficient to produce types
through which it may be more directly iden-
titled with given age. great man may
be great enough to 1--WE nothing to his sur
roundlngs. Such phenomenon occasionally
appears. His own time may not recognize
him 1t may be difficult for after times to
place him among his contemporaries. To each
succeeding age he is a modern the COM
panton of all thinking men, or all heroic
souls.
But greatness for the most part can be
localized. Usually it Is wrought out openly
and plainly before the eyes of men. Without
explaining the process, We can see here and
there one Of our own number actually be-
coming great by taking I'D into himself the
material which Is common to us ALL but
which we cannot assimilate Or control. He
sees the things which lie unnoted, perhaps un-
discovered at our feet. He rules among
the forces which we feel, but which we can
| not master. He is supremacy almost divinely
benencent, under the conditions and before
the dlt1culties to which we succumb in a COM
! planning Or d1Spalring weakness. / think
| that that which enhances the greatness of a
| great man Is the fact that he is seen and
! felt to be great in the same circums tances
in which other men consciously fall short
| or abide in the commonplace.
If then greatness can, as a rule, be local
| lied, II great men do take on apprecabIe
growths and gradually separate themselves
from those with whom they have SO much
In common, it is well for us to look on and
watch the process whenever we have the op-
portunity: We cannot afford to ignore or
underestimate contemporary greatness. There
we see greatness in the making We see. of
course, the early crudity. the frequent mis-
take, it may be the temporary failure, but
we also see what we can see nowhere else
how men are born into the world
Let me then go on to speak of some mod
ern types OF greatness, to point out not by
name but by quality, who is the great man
If l can refer men back to qualittes-can
SNOW you now to estimate. There are three
QUALITIES, without which, though the proper
tlo1. may vary, no one can be great Let me-
name them, they are what I have called the
constants Of greatness. '--'
|. by common consent, the foremost quality of
greatness is originality. What DO we mean
by 1t? To differ from others does not ma ke
one original. That may be mere divergence
Oh opinion, falling out to the right hand
of the one from the many which can he
measured On straight line toward the truth.
me original mind is nearest the truth.
oIlgInaIlty is not remoteness from men, it
IS nearEesS to reality. 1t declares itself with
unm1stakable genuineness in the INVESTIGATOR
VINO FORCES his way through traditions and
theo1es into the presence of facts which
nave been waiting his coming; in the poet
VINO lived at the heart Of the common human-
!ty, and uncovers the glory Of that inner life:
IN the prophet whose conscience clarifies his
mental VISION, and gives him the adyanta pc
among men immersed in time of the avar
lasting certainties; in any master of men who
can divine motives, interpret events and or
SHAT virtue T of aGHoTfng to his Insight
his grand Impotence (which men 81 strain
alCer is not neWness, as they vainy talk il
Is Hin ohiy commences. 1t all depends on the
spring Oh things and working out from that.
IL is the GOODNESS and clearnelss and delicious
h hess OF the water fresh from the fountain
nead, opposed to the thick hot, unrefreshine
drainage froG other mems meadows
l should put without hestancy as the next
essenta! OF greatness, authority, the com
pen peliiing force the force which puts the orig
maj loea or purpose into the event Authorize
Is not expressed in mere assertiyeness and +
mas no certain equivalent in influence In
K a..9l does not always force R conclusion.
authority Is that power it is the only power
Whlcn deals with those hesitant and unwilJin o
FORCES which are SO often necessary to prog
ress. IT may show itself in the glorious
power o. resistance.
Some OF you, DOUBT net, recall the usa
which George Adam Smith makes of the great
ngure OF Isaiah, "A man shall be as an hid
ing place from the tempest as the sha5o11 -
a great rock in a weary land that os " %
rock set in the desert stays the drift ~ Sard
III -. Ihe seeas blown by the same wind catch
at us base and spring into verdure so a great
man may set his back against the drift Of
the commonplace, and stay its deadly sweeo
I'LL the new life of the age has time to take
root and new civilization springs up at his
tratlon OF authority. The authoritative man
is as clear-cut a figure when he comDejs a
halt in the dull, heavy deadening tramp Of
march to freedom.
l think that you will agree with me. though
you Will want considerable latitude in the ao-
! pncatlon OF the term, when l say that one
other essential quality Of greatness is benef-
lcence. We shall certainly agree that no mere
ly destructive person. whether in war in
politics or literature, can be termed great
Inc only question which we shall wish to
investigate before passing judgment on any
one of destructive method would be--was his
method necessary or legitimate? Was he the
rebel, tho skeptic, the iconoclast in the in
terest of freedom and truth. 1 will not fol-
low the temptation to illustrate at this point.
but content myself rather with reafirming
greatness. Give the term what range you
will, allow the widest Interpretation, be toll
Grant Of motives and methods but let us not
surrender this, more than any other ingre-
dent or factor of greatness; let us not make
greatness synonym of force not even in
the shape of intelectualsm. AS Emerson
says of the hero of the early part Of the CEN
fury, who tried the experiment. under the
most favorable conditions or divorcng in
tellectual power from conscience: 'He did
| all that in him lay to live and thrive without
mir 1Yfn ~
the eternal law of man and Of the world
which banked and ruined him; and the result
| in million of experiments will be the same
These, then, are the constants Of greatness
originality, authority, beneficence. What, now,
shall we say is the opportunity which our
times afford for the exercise of these qualities
we see it in the making being developed Under
originality or by authority, or through bene-
fcence?
In what direction and under what form
shall one now look for originality. O;3ar
ages have passed through our experience
namely, the sense Of intellectual confusion
consequent upon the sudden arrest of as
stunned principles and methods of thought
Ours Is not the first age to meet the stout
challenge Of doubt in the interest of the
greater truth. And the change, which we are
expression Of originality demands the great
certainties. IL is the child Of faith. not of
doubt, or even Of inquiry. 1t does not ques-
ton; 1t interprets. The immaterial fmpal-
pable fact which it sees. is just as much a
fact as that which reveals itself to the senses.
Poetry must always have its return. Like
the dove sent out from the ark It must re-
turn to that, II 1T cannot find the solid earth
from which to wing its flight. The venture
or poetry IN any age, its reach its daring
Is always poportionate to the certainty and
solidity OF the ground from which 1t starts
We have not lacked for great poets but they
have been mostly fnheritance-Tennvson
with his larger hope. Lowell with his passion
for public righteousness. Neither one Of these
nor all OF our time with the possible excen-