the
romance of Don Quixote. It is true that the best heritage of generation
from generation is the character of great men; but we always owe its
transmission to the poet and the writer. Without Plato there would be no
Socrates. There is no influence comparable in human life to the
personality of a powerful man, so long as he is present to his
generation, or lives in the memory of those who felt his influence. But
after time has passed, will the world, will human life, that is
essentially the same in all changing conditions, be more affected by what
Bismarck did or by what Goethe said?

We may without impropriety take for an illustration of the comparative
value of literature to human needs the career of a man now living. In the
opinion of many, Mr. Gladstone is the greatest Englishman of this age.
What would be the position of the British empire, what would be the
tendency of English politics and society without him, is a matter for
speculation. He has not played such a role for England and its neighbors
as Bismarck has played for Germany and the Continent, but he has been one
of the most powerful influences in molding English action. He is the
foremost teacher. Rarely in history has a nation depended more upon a
single man, at times, than the English upon Gladstone, upon his will, his
ability, and especially his character. In certain recent crises the
thought of losing him produced something like a panic in the English
mind, justifying in regard to him, the hyperbole of Choate upon the death
of Webster, that the sailor on the distant sea would feel less safe--as
if a protecting providence had been withdrawn from the world. His mastery
of finance and of economic problems, his skill in debate, his marvelous
achievements in oratory, have extorted the admiration of his enemies.
There is scarcely a province in government, letters, art, or research in
which the mind can win triumphs that he has not invaded and displayed his
power in; scarcely a question in politics, reform, letters, religion,
archaeology, sociology, which he has not discussed with ability. He is a
scholar, critic, parliamentarian, orator, voluminous writer. He seems
equally at home in every field of human activity--a man of prodigious
capacity and enormous acquirements. He can take up, with a turn of the
hand, and always with vigor, the cause of the Greeks, Papal power,
education, theology, the influence of Egypt on Homer, the effect of
English legislation