se powers will be not
only highly developed; they will be rightly proportioned and duly
subordinated. He will be a well-balanced man. But how few complete
men we now see.

We see the strong will without the clear intellect to guide it; the
gush of feeling either directed toward low ends or evaporating in
sentiment; the clear head with the cold heart. The high development
of one mental power seems to draw away all strength and vitality
from the rest. How rarely do we find the strong will guided by the
keen intellect toward the highest aims clearly discerned. Memory and
imagination must always play their part in the joy set before us.
But in addition to all these, the white heat of feeling, of which
man alone is capable, is necessary for his grandest efforts. Such a
being would be a man born to be a king. And there will be a race of
such men. And we must play the man that they may be raised upon our
buried shoulders. And they will tower above us, as the seers of old
in Judea, Athens, India, and Rome towered above their indolent,
luxurious, blind, and material contemporaries. And with all their
accelerated development, infinite possibilities will still stretch
beyond the reach of their imagination. For "men follow duty, never
overtake."

But all our analyses are unsatisfactory. In the history of any great
people there is a period when they seem to rise above themselves.
They have the strength of giants, and accomplish things before and
since impossible. We sometimes ascribe these results to the
exuberant vitality of the race at this time; and their life is large
and grand. Such was England under Elizabeth. Think of her soldiers
and explorers, her statesmen and poets. There were giants in those
days. What a healthy, hearty enjoyment they showed in all their
work, and with what ease was the impossible accomplished. The
greater the hardships to be borne or odds to be faced, the greater
the joy in overcoming them. They sailed out to give battle to the
superior power of Spain, not at the command, but by the permission,
of their queen; often without even this.

And what a vigor and vitality there is in the literature of this
period. Life is worth living, and studying, and describing. They see
the world directly as it is; not some distorted picture of it, seen
by an unhealthy mind and drawn by a feeble hand. The world is ever
new and fresh to them because they see it through young, clear eyes.

Were they giants or are we dw