THE FANATIC. 113 



resume his eternal war and strife with Omnipotence. He who is true to a friend or 

 a noble principle — who never swerves when the hour is darkest, but out of trouble 

 and impending disaster gathers new hope and energy, inspired as it were to fresh 

 acts of devotion and valor, gains universal plaudits. No man would deliberately 

 prefer wealth or fame to the joy and peace of constant, long-enduring friends, 

 for the one may take to itself the wings of the morning and fly away, and the 

 other is that which a breath has made and a breath can destroy, but a true friend 

 draws nearer to you as your eyes are blinded by the blasts of misfortune, and his 

 constancy and cheer increase with the depth of your need or sorrow. And this 

 same element of persistence adds intensity and horror to enmity. 



The man in whose bosom there is no sunshine, but who dwells with relent- 

 less broodings over his revenge, and follows without a shadow of tiring his bitter 

 resolve, fills us with nameless terror. The man who never forgives an injury^ 

 how he is dreaded ! Out of this tenacity of purpose all the world's heroic deeds 

 have sprung, and the want of it has brought to nothing magnificent conceptions 

 and boundless hopes. 



Historians debate about the integrity and the aim of that impressive man 

 whose history tells that of his age, Cromwell, but none disparage the resolute 

 purpose with which he drilled undisciplined plowmen until they were able at 

 Marston Moor to shatter the brilliant squadrons of Rupert, and which at last 

 placed the farmer of Huntingdon on the throne of England and made his voice a 

 terror in the secret council chambers of royalty from Madrid to Moscow. When 

 the poet tells us: 



" Some men are born great, some achieve greatness, 

 And some have greatness thrust upon them," 



he must mean to describe mere station, position, or rank, and not nobility of 

 soul, inherent greatness, for that alone is achieved, never inherited or received 

 as a guerdon or reward. ■ It has never been found disassociated from invincible 

 purpose. Whether we search the tumultuous and stormy field of action or in- 

 spect the sequestered vale of life, wherever we see a man to whose accomplish- 

 ments our souls pay the homage due greatness, v/e there behold one whose nature 

 contained the fibre of unrelenting purpose. 



What mountains are laid low, what valleys are raised, what crooked places 

 are made straight to make a highway for the feet of the man of inflexible will ? 

 Of Caesar it was said by Cicero: "Quod vult, valde vult," what he willed, he 

 greatly willed. Whoever wills greatly stirs the world's destiny, but whether for 

 good or ill depends finally on the ideal he follows, the motive that impels him. 

 This it is that illumines and tranforms genius and resolution into immortal action. 

 The more exalted the inspiration the more visionary the man often appears to 

 his compeers. 



It may be true, as Emerson says: "Nature never sends a great man into 

 the planet without confiding the secret to another soul," for there is a kinship 



VIII— 8 



