in the narrative of his exploits. The
authority of the name of Schiller is too great for his books. This
inequality of the reputation to the works or the anecdotes is not
accounted for by saying that the reverberation is longer than the
thunder-clap, but somewhat resided in these men which begot an
expectation that outran all their performance. The largest part of their
power was latent. This is that which we call Character,--a reserved
force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is
conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a Familiar or Genius,
by whose impulses the man is guided but whose counsels he cannot impart;
which is company for him, so that such men are often solitary, or
if they chance to be social, do not need society but can entertain
themselves very well alone. The purest literary talent appears at one
time great, at another time small, but character is of a stellar and
undiminishable greatness. What others effect by talent or by eloquence,
this man accomplishes by some magnetism. "Half his strength he put not
forth." His victories are by demonstration of superiority, and not by
crossing of bayonets. He conquers because his arrival alters the face of
affairs. "O Iole! how did you know that Hercules was a god?" "Because,"
answered Iole, "I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I
beheld Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least
guide his horses in the chariot-race; but Hercules did not wait for a
contest; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever
thing he did." Man, ordinarily a pendant to events, only half attached,
and that awkwardly, to the world he lives in, in these examples appears
to share the life of things, and to be an expression of the same laws
which control the tides and the sun, numbers and quantities.

But to use a more modest illustration and nearer home, I observe that in
our political elections, where this element, if it appears at all,
can only occur in its coarsest form, we sufficiently understand
its incomparable rate. The people know that they need in their
representative much more than talent, namely the power to make his
talent trusted. They cannot come at their ends by sending to Congress a
learned, acute, and fluent speaker, if he be not one who, before he was
appointed by the people to represent them, was appointed by Almighty God
to stand for a fact,--invincibly persuaded of that fact in himself,--so
th