318 National Life and Character 



tionality might have shaken his head and said that 

 all the great themes had been used up and all the 

 great ideas expressed; nevertheless, Dante, Cer- 

 vantes, Moliere, Schiller, Chaucer, and Scott, then 

 all lay in the future. 



Again, Mr. Pearson speaks of statecraft at the 

 present day as offering fewer prizes, and prizes of 

 less worth than formerly, and as giving no chance for 

 the development of men like Augustus Csesar, Rich- 

 elieu, or Chatham. It is difficult to perceive how 

 these men can be considered to belong to a different 

 class from Bismarck, who is yet alive ; nor do we see 

 why any English-speaking people should regard a 

 statesman like Chatham, or far greater than Chat- 

 ham, as an impossibility nowadays or in the future. 

 We Americans at least will with difficulty be per- 

 suaded that there has ever been a time when the 

 nobler prize of achievement, suffering, and success 

 was offered to any statesman than was offered both 

 to Washington and to Lincoln. So, when Mr. Pear- 

 son speaks of the warfare of civilized countries offer- 

 ing less chance to the individual than the warfare of 

 savage and barbarous times, and of its being far less 

 possible now than in old days for a man to make his 

 personal influence felt in warfare, we can only ex- 

 press our disagreement. No world-conqueror can 

 arise save in or next to highly civilized States. 

 There never has been a barbarian Alexander or 

 Csesar, Hannibal or Napoleon. Sitting Bull and 

 Rain-in-the-Face compare but ill with Von Moltke ; 

 and no Norse king of all the heroic viking age 



