Sulking is no more admirable in those of great reputation than it is in the nursery. Thackeray declared that, in his opinion, "love is a higher intellectual exercise than hate." And looked at as an exercise of mental power courage must always be greater than the most highly intellectualized form of fear or despair.
I cannot take with perfect seriousness Matthew Arnold's oft-quoted lines:—
"Achilles ponders in his tent,
The kings of modern thought are dumb.
Silent they are, though not content,
And wait to see the future come.
They have the grief men had of yore,
But they contend and cry no more."
If that is ever the attitude of the best minds, it is only a momentary one of which they are quickly ashamed. Achilles sulked in his tent when he was pondering not a big problem, but a small grievance. The kings of modern thought who are described seem like kings out of a job. We are inclined to turn from them to the intellectual monarchs de facto. They are the ones who take up the hard job which the representatives of the old régime give up as hopeless. For when the king has abdicated and contends no more—Long live the King!
The real thinkers of any age do not remain long in a blue funk. They always find something important to think about. They always point out something worth doing. They cannot passively wait to see the future come. They are too busy making it.
Matthew Arnold struck a truer note in Rugby Chapel. The true leaders of mankind can never be mere intellectualists. There must be a union of intellectual and moral energy like that which he recognized in his father. To the fainting, dispirited race,—
"Ye like angels appear,
Radiant with ardour divine,
Beacons of hope, ye appear!
Languor is not in your heart,
Weakness is not in your word,
Weariness not on your brow;
Ye alight in our van: at your voice
Panic, despair, flee away."
When those whom we have looked upon as our intellectual leaders grow disheartened, we must remember that a lost leader does not necessarily mean a lost cause. When those whom we had called the kings of modern thought are dumb, we can find new leadership. "Change kings with us," replied an Irish officer after the panic of the Boyne; "change kings with us, and we will fight you again."