Mr. C. Yes, a very great man. Why are you surprised?
Ar. I don’t know, but I should have expected a great man to have looked very differently.
Mr. C. It matters little how a man looks, if he can perform great things. That person, without any advantages of education, has become, by the force of his own genius, the first engineer of the age. He is doing things that were never done or even thought of in this country before. He pierces hills, makes bridges over valleys, and aqueducts across navigable rivers, and, in short, is likely to change the whole face of the country, and to introduce improvements the value of which cannot be calculated. When at a loss how to bring about any of his designs, he does not go to other people for assistance, but he consults the wonderful faculties of his own mind, and finds a way to overcome his difficulties. He looks like a rustic it is true, but he has a soul of the first order, such as is not granted to one out of millions of the human race.
Ar. But are all men of extraordinary abilities properly great men?
Mr. C. The word has been variously used; but I would call every one a great man who does great things by means of his own powers. Great abilities are often employed about trifles, or indolently wasted without any considerable exertion at all. To make a great man, the object pursued should be large and important, and vigour and perseverance should be employed in the pursuit.
Ar. All the great men I remember to have read about were kings, or generals, or prime ministers, or in some high station or other.
Mr. C. It is natural they should stand foremost in the list of great men, because the sphere in which they act is an extensive one, and what they do has a powerful influence over numbers of mankind. Yet those that invent useful arts, or discover important truths which may promote the comfort and happiness of unborn generations in the most distant parts of the world, act a still more important part; and their claim to merit is generally more undoubted than that of the former, because what they do is more certainly their own.
In order to estimate the real share a man in a high station has had in the great events which have been attributed to him, strip him in your imagination of all the external advantages of rank and power, and see what a figure he would have made without them; or fancy a common man put in his place, and judge whether affairs would have gone on in the same track. Augustus Cesar, and Louis XIV. of France, have both been called great princes; but deprive them of their crown, and they will both dwindle into obscure and trivial characters. But no change of circumstances could reduce Alfred the Great to the level of a common man. The two former could sink into their graves, and yield their power to a successor, and scarcely be missed; but Alfred’s death changed the fate of his kingdom. Thus with Epaminondas fell all the glory and greatness of the Theban state. He first raised it to consequence, and it could not survive him.
Ar. Was not Czar Peter a great man?
Mr. C. I am not sure he deserves that title. Being a despotic prince, at the head of a vast empire, he could put into execution whatever plans he was led to adopt, and these plans in general were grand and beneficial to his country. But the means he used were such as the master of the lives and fortunes of millions could easily employ, and there was more of brutal force than of skill and judgment in the manner in which he pursued his designs. Still he was an extraordinary man; and the resolution of leaving his throne, in order to acquire in foreign countries the knowledge necessary to rescue his own from barbarism, was a feature of greatness. A truly great prince, however, would have employed himself better than in learning to build boats at Saardam.