, as in the fable, the mild shining of the sun
shall accomplish what the fierce blustering of the tempest has in vain
essayed. Above all, it is ever to be kept in mind, that not by material
but by mental power, are men and their actions governed. How noiseless is
thought! No rolling of drums, no tramp of squadrons or immeasurable tumult
of baggage-wagons, attends its movements; in what obscure and sequestered
places may the head be meditating which is one day to be crowned with more
than imperial authority; for kings and emperors will be among its
ministering servants; it will rule not over, but _in_ all heads, and with
these, its solitary combinations of ideas, as with magic formulas, bend
the world to its will! The time may come, when Napoleon himself will be
better known for his laws than for his battles; and the victory of
Waterloo prove less momentous than the opening of the first mechanic's
institute.

Brother Ringletule, the missionary, inquired of Ram-Dass, a Hindoo
man-god, who had set up for godhead lately, what he meant to do then with
the sins of mankind? To which Ram-Dass at once answers, he had _fire
enough in his belly_ to burn up all the sins in the world. Ram-Dass was
right so far, and had a spice of sense in him; for surely it is the test
of every divine man this same, and without it he is not divine or great;
that he _have_ fire in him to burn up somewhat of the sins of the world,
of the miseries and errors of the world: why else is he there! Far be it
from us to say that a great man must needs with benevolence prepense,
become a 'friend of humanity;' nay, that such professional self-conscious
friends are not the fatalest kind of persons to be met with in our day.
All greatness is unconscious or it is little and naught. And yet a great
man without _such_ fire in him, burning dim or developed as a divine
behest in his heart of hearts, never resting till it be fulfilled, were a
solecism in nature. A great man is ever, as the transcendentalists speak,
possessed with an _idea_. Napoleon, himself not the superfinest of great
men, and balanced sufficiently with prudence and egoisms, had
nevertheless, as is clear enough, an idea to start with; the idea that
democracy was the cause of man, the right and infinite cause. Nay, to the
very last, he had a kind of idea, that, namely, of 'the tools to him that
can handle them;' really one of the best ideas yet promulgated on that
matter, or rather the one true centra