ur second-rateness; I do not imagine that the Elizabethan
writers were much concerned with thinking whether they were great or
not; they were much more occupied in having a splendid time, and in
saying as eagerly as they could all the delightful thoughts which came
crowding to the utterance, than in pondering whether they were worthy
of admiration. In the annals of the Renaissance one gets almost weary of
the records of brilliant persons, like Leo Battista Alberti and Leonardo
da Vinci, who were architects, sculptors, painters, musicians, athletes,
and writers all in one; who could make crowds weep by twanging a lute,
ride the most vicious horses, take standing jumps over the heads of tall
men, and who were, moreover, so impressionable that books were to them
as jewels and flowers, and who "grew faint at the sight of sunsets and
stately persons." Such as these, we may depend upon it, had little time
to give to considering their own effect upon posterity. When the sun
rules the day, there is no question about his supremacy; it is when we
are concerned with scanning the sky for lesser lights to rule the night
that we are wasting time. To go about searching for somebody to inspire
one testifies, no doubt, to a certain lack of fire and initiative. But,
on the other hand, there have been many great men whose greatness their
contemporaries did not recognise. We tend at the present time to honour
achievements when they have begun to grow a little mouldy; we seldom
accord ungrudging admiration to a prophet when he is at his best.
Moreover, in an age like the present, when the general average of
accomplishment is remarkably high, it is more difficult to detect
greatness. It is easier to see big trees when they stand out over a
copse than when they are lost in the depths of the forest.

Now there are two modes and methods of being great; one is by largeness,
the other by intensity. A great man can be cast in a big, magnanimous
mould, without any very special accomplishments or abilities; it may
be very difficult to praise any of his faculties very highly, but he
is there. Such men are the natural leaders of mankind; they effect
what they effect not by any subtlety or ingenuity. They see in a wide,
general way what they want, they gather friends and followers and
helpers round them, and put the right man on at the right piece of work.
They perform what they perform by a kind of voluminous force, which
carries other personalities aw