n, be it never
so noble, can last but a short time; but a work of genius is a living
influence, beneficial and ennobling throughout the ages. All that can
remain of actions is a memory, and that becomes weak and disfigured by
time--a matter of indifference to us, until at last it is extinguished
altogether; unless, indeed, history takes it up, and presents it,
fossilized, to posterity. Works are immortal in themselves, and once
committed to writing, may live for ever. Of Alexander the Great we
have but the name and the record; but Plato and Aristotle, Homer and
Horace are alive, and as directly at work to-day as they were in their
own lifetime. The _Vedas_, and their _Upanishads_, are still with us:
but of all contemporaneous actions not a trace has come down to us.[1]

[Footnote 1: Accordingly it is a poor compliment, though sometimes
a fashionable one, to try to pay honor to a work by calling it an
action. For a work is something essentially higher in its nature.
An action is always something based on motive, and, therefore,
fragmentary and fleeting--a part, in fact, of that Will which is the
universal and original element in the constitution of the world. But
a great and beautiful work has a permanent character, as being of
universal significance, and sprung from the Intellect, which rises,
like a perfume, above the faults and follies of the world of Will.

The fame of a great action has this advantage, that it generally
starts with a loud explosion; so loud, indeed, as to be heard all over
Europe: whereas the fame of a great work is slow and gradual in its
beginnings; the noise it makes is at first slight, but it goes on
growing greater, until at last, after a hundred years perhaps, it
attains its full force; but then it remains, because the works
remain, for thousands of years. But in the other case, when the first
explosion is over, the noise it makes grows less and less, and is
heard by fewer and fewer persons; until it ends by the action having
only a shadowy existence in the pages of history.]

Another disadvantage under which actions labor is that they depend
upon chance for the possibility of coming into existence; and hence,
the fame they win does not flow entirely from their intrinsic value,
but also from the circumstances which happened to lend them importance
and lustre. Again, the fame of actions, if, as in war, they are purely
personal, depends upon the testimony of fewer witnesses; and these
are not