education, theology, the influence of Egypt on Homer,
the effect of English legislation on King O’Brien,
contributing something noteworthy to all the discussions
of the day. But I am not aware that he has ever
produced a single page of literature. Whatever
space he has filled in his own country, whatever and
however enduring the impression he has made upon English
life and society, does it seem likely that the sum
total of his immense activity in so many fields, after
the passage of so many years, will be worth to the
world as much as the simple story of Rab and his Friends?
Already in America I doubt if it is. The illustration
might have more weight with some minds if I contrasted
the work of this great man—as to its answering
to a deep want in human nature—with a novel
like ‘Henry Esmond’ or a poem like ‘In
Memoriam’; but I think it is sufficient to rest
it upon so slight a performance as the sketch by Dr.
John Brown, of Edinburgh. For the truth is that
a little page of literature, nothing more than a sheet
of paper with a poem written on it, may have that
vitality, that enduring quality, that adaptation to
life, that make it of more consequence to all who
inherit it than every material achievement of the
age that produced it. It was nothing but a sheet
of paper with a poem on it, carried to the door of
his London patron, for which the poet received a guinea,
and perhaps a seat at the foot of my lord’s
table. What was that scrap compared to my lord’s
business, his great establishment, his equipages in
the Park, his position in society, his weight in the
House of Lords, his influence in Europe? And
yet that scrap of paper has gone the world over; it
has been sung in the camp, wept over in the lonely
cottage; it has gone with the marching regiments,
with the explorers—with mankind, in short,
on its way down the ages, brightening, consoling,
elevating life; and my lord, who regarded as scarcely
above a menial the poet to whom he tossed the guinea—my
lord, with all his pageantry and power, has utterly
gone and left no witness.
“Equality”
By Charles Dudley Warner
In accordance with the advice of Diogenes of Apollonia
in the beginning of his treatise on Natural Philosophy—“It
appears to me to be well for every one who commences
any sort of philosophical treatise to lay down some
undeniable principle to start with”—we
offer this:
All
men are created unequal.
It would be a most interesting study to trace the
growth in the world of the doctrine of “equality.”
That is not the purpose of this essay, any further
than is necessary for definition. We use the term
in its popular sense, in the meaning, somewhat vague,
it is true, which it has had since the middle of the
eighteenth century. In the popular apprehension
it is apt to be confounded with uniformity; and this
not without reason, since in many applications of
the theory the tendency is to produce likeness or
uniformity. Nature, with equal laws, tends always
to diversity; and doubtless the just notion of equality
in human affairs consists with unlikeness. Our
purpose is to note some of the tendencies of the dogma
as it is at present understood by a considerable portion
of mankind.