“He was certainly a great man,” was the safe and quiet answer. The elder did not make any immediate reply to this enunciation of opinion on the part of his young companion. The other therefore supposed, and very naturally, that the answer which he had given was not altogether satisfactory. He proceeded, therefore, but still cautiously:—“He was a man of great ambition; and he was also a disappointed man.” All this seemed but the echo of everybody’s opinion, let their view of the man’s character otherwise be what it may. The elder stranger then spoke again:
“I do not think he was a great man. The word great is an epithet too comprehensive to be applicable to a disappointed man. To be a great man, it is necessary that there should be in the mind those powers and that forethought which will guard against frustration and disappointment. Greatness is not in place and in name, it is purely in the mind. I will grant you that Napoleon Bonaparte had great military powers—great legislative powers—great discernment of human character; but he was not great over himself: he wanted power to guide his power. And let a man have all other powers and all other talent, if he have not the power of power and the talent of talent, he may be a distinguished, he may be a notorious man, he may produce grand effects; but he will not be a great man. True greatness is calm; for it feels and guides its own power.”
The young man listened to this, and to more than this; for the elder one was more voluble than we have represented him. He perhaps loved paradox; many persons do; and some love to listen to paradox, if it be agreeably uttered, and be not too obviously a determined contradiction of the common feelings and opinions of mankind. The young man then replied:
“But Napoleon produced great changes in men’s minds, and great effects on the frame of civil society, and he has left many monuments of his wisdom.”
“True,” replied the elder one: “Napoleon, as you call him, has done much in the world, and perhaps more than any other individual in whose ambitious steps he seems to have trodden. But he was raised up by a wise Providence to teach humanity that it may grasp at what is beyond its power. Alexander was a lesson merely to warriors; Cæsar to men of intrigue and aspiring talent; Bonaparte to men of consummate talent of almost every description; and if the world be not pestered with a hero till there shall rise a man of greater talents than Napoleon Bonaparte, it may rest in peace for many centuries.”
“I never took that view of the subject,” replied the young man. “There is however something in what you say. Still I cannot but think that Napoleon was a great man.”
“According to your opinions of greatness, no doubt he was. But I have told you my ideas of greatness, and according to those he was not. Greatness requires consistency and uniformity; and it is not in a man of disappointed ambition that we look for those characters. It seems to be the ordinance of heaven, that all its blessings should not centre in one individual among created beings. Where it bestows wit, it does not always grant wisdom to direct it; where it gives power, it does not always bestow discretion to use that power, of whatever quality it may be, according to the best possible principles. True greatness implies wisdom, and wisdom in man makes the most of and does the best with its means. Now I have at this moment a letter in my pocket from England, bringing me an account of a good, and, I think, great man. But he was nothing more than the humble rector of a small parish in the country. He was by no means a man of great genius; nor was he a man of great eloquence; but he was a man of great moral power. I will venture to affirm that, whatever were the moral capabilities of the parish over which he presided as pastor, he would call them forth to the utmost. It is owing to that man that I am now living, and comparatively happy. It is owing to me, perhaps,”——
Here the voice of the speaker was interrupted by the swelling of his bosom, and he passed his hand convulsively on his forehead and gave way to an agony of tears and sobs, which it would have been painful to witness in a younger person, but which was quite distressing to see in one of such appearance and at such an age; for he seemed full fifty years of age, and had the appearance of a man of good understanding and gentlemanly manners. The young man took him by the hand and faintly uttered a few words of consolation, that he might a little abate a sorrow which he could not wholly stay.
When the violence of the emotion had a little subsided, and the sufferer had regained the power of speech, he first asked pardon for his weakness, and apologised for having given way to his feelings. “For,” continued he, “I have lost a benefactor just at a moment when I was flattering myself that I should be able to thank him for his kindness, and to gratify him by letting him know that his kindness had not been in vain, and that his friendly admonitions had not all been lost. I will not so far encroach upon your patience as to tell you my history; but I cannot forbear from indulging in the pleasure which I mention—the conduct of this most excellent man towards me and my family.”
“I shall have great pleasure, sir,” replied the young man, “in listening to any particulars with which you may be pleased to favour me. The history of the human mind is always interesting and always instructive.”