A GREAT PUBLIC CHARACTER. 77 



for the saving of labour, which we have been only too 

 ready to misapply in the domain of thought and the higher 

 kinds of invention. In those Olympic games where nations 

 contend for truly immortal wreaths, it may well be 

 questioned whether a mowing-machine would stand much 

 chance in the chariot-races whether a piano, though made 

 by a chevalier, could compete successfully for the prize of 

 music. 



We shall have to be content for a good while yet with 

 our provincialism, and must strive to make the best of it. 

 In it lies the germ of nationality, and that is, after all, the 

 prime condition of all thoroughbred greatness of character. 

 To this choicest fruit of a healthy life, well rooted in native 

 soil, and drawing prosperous juices thence, nationality gives 

 the keenest flavour. Mr. Lincoln was an original man, and 

 in so far a great man ; yet it was the Americanism of his 

 every thought, word, and act which not only made his 

 influence equally at home in East and West, but drew the 

 eyes of the outside world, and was the pedestal that lifted 

 him where he could be seen by them. Lincoln showed that 

 native force may transcend local boundaries, but the growth 

 of such nationality is hindered and hampered by our 

 division into so many half-independent communities, each 

 with its objects of county ambition, and its public men 

 great to the borders of their district. In this way our 

 standard of greatness is insensibly debased. To receive any 

 national appointment, a man must have gone through 

 precisely the worst training for it ; he must have so far 

 narrowed and belittled himself with State politics as to be 

 acceptable at home. In this way a man may become 

 chairman of the Committee on Foreign Affairs because he 

 knows how to pack a caucus in Catawarapus County, or be 

 sent ambassador to Barataria because he has drunk bad 

 whiskey with every voter in Wildcat City. Should \ve 

 ever attain to a conscious nationality, it will have the 

 advantage of lessening the number of our great men, and 

 widening our appreciation to the larger scale of the two or 

 three that are left if there should be so many. Meanwhile 



