114 LITERARY VALXJES 



graces by some members of his cabinet. Indeed, 

 the predominant quality of the two men was their 

 immense commonness. Washington and Jeiferson 

 came much nearer the aristocratic ideal. Lincoln 

 and Grant both had greatness of the first order, but 

 their type was democratic and not aristocratic. The 

 aristocratic ideal of excellence embraces other quali- 

 ties ; there is more pride, more exclusiveness in it ; 

 it holds more by traditions and special privileges. 

 Lincoln had less distinction than Sumner or Chase, 

 Grant less than Sherman or Lee, but each had an 

 excellence the others had not. The choice, the re- 

 fined, the cultured, belong to one class of excel- 

 lencies : the qualities of Lincoln and Grant belong 

 to another and more fundamental kind. Arnold 

 himself had distinction, — he had urbanity, lucid- 

 ity, proportion, and many other classic virtues, — 

 but he had not breadth, sympathy, heartiness, com- 

 monness. The quality of distinction, an air of 

 something choice, high-bred, superfine, will doubt- 

 less count for less and less in a country like ours. 

 In literature and in character we are looking for 

 other values, for the true, the vital, the characteris- 

 tic. There is nothing in life or character more win- 

 some than commonness wedded to great excellence ; 

 the ordinary crowned with the extraordinary, as in 

 Lincoln the man, Socrates the philosopher. Burns 

 or Wordsworth the poet. Distinction wins admi- 

 ration, commonness wins love. The note of equal- 

 ity, the democratic note, is much more pronounced 

 in Browning than in Tennyson, in Shelley than in 



