and strong of heart." Yet in the
afterglow of later years, the Nation read a character sketch of him
which included this: "He is so polite and so soft spoken that he is
continually disappointing the people whom he meets. They find him
lacking in the fire-eating traits they like to expect of all marines,
and they find it difficult to believe that such a mild-mannered man
could really have led and won the bloody fight." When another officer
spoke warmly of Vandegrift's coolness under fire, his "grace under
pressure," to quote Hemingway's phrase, he replied: "I shouldn't be
given any credit. I'm built that way."

The point is beautifully taken. Too often the man with great inner
strength holds in contempt those less well endowed by nature than
himself.

While there are no perfect men, there are those who become relatively
perfect leaders of men because something in their makeup brings out in
strength the highest virtues of all who follow them. That is the way
of human nature. Minor shortcomings do not impair the working loyalty,
or growth, of the follower who has found someone whose strengths he
deems worth emulating. On the other hand, to recognize merit, you must
yourself have it. _The act of recognizing the worthwhile traits in
another person is both the test and the making of character._ The man
who scorns all others, and thinks no one else worth following, parades
his own inferiority before the world. He puts his own character into
bankruptcy just as surely as does that other sad camp follower of whom
Thomas Carlyle wrote: "To recognize false merit, and crown it as true,
because a long tail runs after it, is the saddest operation under the
sun."

Sherman, Logan, Rawlins and the many others hitched their wagons to
Grant's star because they saw in him a man who had a way with other
men, and who commanded them not less by personal courage than by
patient work in their interest. Had Grant spent time brooding over his
civilian failures, he would have been stuck with a disorderly camp and
would never have gotten out of Illinois.

The nobility of the private life and influence of Gen. Robert E. Lee
and the grandeur of his military character are known to every American
school boy. His peerless gifts as a battle leader have won the tribute
of celebrated soldiers and historians throughout the English-speaking
world. Likewise, the deep religiosity of his great lieutenant,
Stonewall Jackson, the latter's fiery zeal and the a