"Nobody would, of course," returned Hal; "but when you are, you've got to make the best of it. You think of all the great men you've ever read about, and wonder how they'd have borne it; and that helps you."
Dick was so much struck by this way of looking at a misfortune, that for several minutes he was silent; and Hal's crutches went on tapping out their melancholy tale upon the road; step by step, step by step, patiently—the only way to rise superior to a misfortune of that kind.
"Who is the greatest man you ever read about?" asked Dick presently.
Hal assumed a thoughtful air. "That's rather hard to say," answered he; "because some are great for one thing, some for another. It's like that with plants, too, you know. There's corn, and there are potatoes; and we couldn't very well do without either. I shouldn't like to do without apples, nor green peas—we always have them sooner than other people; (forced, you know;) and I'll ask grandfather to send you some. Then again," he ran on, before Dick had time to thank him for this promise, "there are flowers—more beautiful than useful, as we count use. It's just like that with men, I think."
Dick could not jump quite the length of this argument. He suggested Robinson Crusoe.
But Hal's estimate of greatness differed from Dick's. "Crusoe was pretty well in some things, considering how he began," said he. "He was shifty, but he wasn't all round; besides, he was an awful coward, and he swore. And then, he's only in a book. Now Socrates—only he was a heathen—he died bravely when they made him choose between the dagger and the poison cup. And Napoleon—he made himself a king out of a common soldier, and he must have been a great man, or people wouldn't have given in to him; but then he did it all for the sake of power, and he wasn't good.
"A man's motives go for a great deal, you know. Then there were the martyrs; I like them. They had their bodies broken on the wheel because they wouldn't tell lies. I often think of that, because it was something like having my leg stretched, only thousand times worse. There was Shakespeare too. He wrote very fine plays. That was more like being a flower, I should say; and I don't know that he was particularly good, or that he did anything else worth doing. And there was Sir Isaac Newton, who discovered why apples fall done instead of up. He was very learned, of course. But I like men such as Wilberforce and Clarkson, who did so much to abolish slavery; or Moffat, the missionary; or Howard, who went into a lot of gaols, and made a fuss about having them kept cleaner, and the prisoners better treated. In my opinion," added Hal, "they were some of the greatest men that ever lived—except Jesus Christ."
Dick had not read about any of these heroes. He said that he should like to.
"Of course," continued Hal; "none of them come near Jesus Christ. You don't expect that. There was Buddha. A missionary once told me about him; and I've read since. He was a prince in India; and he gave up everything to try and find out how to make people happier, because one day when he went outside the palace, he discovered that everybody wasn't so well off as himself, and that people had to be ill and die. But he didn't end up the same as Jesus Christ," Hal concluded. "And then it's such an immense while ago that I don't think it's very easy to be sure whether it's all true."
Hal was fond of books, and had an original way of talking about what he read.