The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1914-05-25
THE HUMBLE ORIGIN OF GREAT
MEN

Continued from Fifth Page
dwells in poor Scotch peasant s
hut. The mountains of obscurity
ignorance and poverty were hurled
abroad with HIS gigantic strength,
his own hands fashioning the tools
with which he worked. He was
born poor and born to remain poor;
all his life he fought a hand to hand
fight with poverty from the deepest
ohscurity; without help, without in
struction, and without a model; with
only his spark of natures fire. he
fought his way in the heart of hui
mainly. Some may question his
right to be called great on the
grounds that he did little, but Is it
little to voice the emotions-the
ideals-of the common man? Is it
little to have gained the name of the
poet of the unlettered human heart?
A brave mausoleum shines over his
dust, and more than one splendid
monument has been reared to his
fame, but far nobler is the admira-
ton which lies enshrined in all our
hearts.
The true poet, the man who brings
us face to face with the great ideals,
who increases our sense of indlv-
ual responsibility, who seeks to raise
the level of our achievements, who
gives us nobler loves and nobler
cares, is the most precious gift that
can be bestowed upon a generation
Shakespeare, compelled by power
ty to leave school at the age of four
teen, received his education at the
hands of nature; his real teachers
were the men, the women, and the
natural influences which surrounded
him. From stage hand he rose to
an actor; from an actor to one of
the greatest writer's the world has
ever seen. He is the genius OF Eng
lish literature; he is the one person
ality IN modern history known to us;
ne h wise without emphasis or as
sertion; he is strong as nature is
strong.
This man of men was the lumin-
GUS chief OF band of poets whose
subject was man. BY the voice of
the whole civilized world, priceless
Shakespeare's name is the first in all
literature, imagination, fancy and
knowledge of men, and he stands
unapproached and seemingly unap-
proachable.
The world moves SO fast and new
phases of art succeed each other
with such surprising rapidity in the
present day. that to many the name
of Jean Francois Millet has a remote
and antiquated sound. A peasant by
birth and education, he has already
taken his place among the classics,
and he stands supreme among the
first painters of humanity who gave
expression to modern ideas in no.
BILE and enduring form, and whose
works will live when the passing
fashions and momentary fancies of
the immortals is sure; his pictures
of seed and harvest of morning and
evening will rank with the great
art of all times-with the frieZe of
the Parthenon and the frescoes of
Michael Angelo. He belongs to the
Great company of Grief" who have
stamped their thoughts on the hearts
of this generation; who learned in
suffering what they thought in song,
and who, out of seeming failures of
short and sorrowful lives, have rear
ed the fabric that will live for all
times
It is upon military foundation that
the fame of one of the most widely
known men of modern times must
rest Napoleon Bonaparte-a strang-
er to royalty by birth, and scholar
by charity-began his miraculous
career with no friend but his sword.
In some respects his career was the
most extraordinary. his destiny most
wonderful of any recorded in the an
mails of mankind. Other rulers may
WELD a power as extensive and even
more absolute, but they cannot, like
Napoleon, boast of having risen from
an absolutely private station to the
highest pinnacle of greatness. That
Napoleon possessed greatness of &C
ton we need not prove, for no one
will be hardy enough to deny it. His
story is that of a man who raised
himself from obscurity to a throne;
a man who changed the face of the