(1298)
GREAT MEN SHOULD BE PROVIDED FOR
We can not secure the great man’s arrival, but when he has come we can show that we know him and appreciate him, as the bees know and appreciate the one who is, of all others, most valuable to the hive. When “Dexter,” the famous race-horse owned by Robert Bonner, was found drawing a clay-cart, and the signs of speed in him were unmistakable, what a world of excitement there was! No harness was too fine, no stable too good for him. He had valets to attend his most delicate wants—watchers by night and by day. I do not say there was the slightest unappropriateness in this. I merely ask if the man of wonderful possibilities is not of as much account and deserving of as much care as the wonderful horse. The great man, or man of genius, will forego yachts and palaces and the muniments of wealth, tho he could enjoy them. What he needs at once is that sure provision which shall give him subsistence and leave him free from worldly toil and worry, as a prerequisite to prosecuting his work.—Joel Benton, Lippincott’s.
(1299)
GREAT MEN’S BEGINNINGS
The parents of Isaac Barrow, the celebrated English divine, conceived so mean an opinion of his temper and parts when he was a boy at the Charterhouse School, that his father used to say, if it pleased God to take from him any of his children, he hoped it might be Isaac, the least promising. Adam Clarke’s father was equally uncomplimentary to his own flesh and blood when he proclaimed his son to be “a grievous dunce.” Poe, at West Point, was a laughing-stock to his schoolmates. Sheridan’s mother presented him to a new tutor as “an incorrigible dunce.” Byron, at Harrow, was in no wise distinguished above his fellows. Napoleon and Wellington in their schooldays were distinguished only for dulness.—Lippincott’s Magazine.
(1300)
Great, The, and Little Contrasted—See [Sins, Accumulated].
Greater, The, Controlling the Lesser—See [Master-mind, The].
GREATNESS