As I have said, Nature keeps these sovereignties in her own hands, and
however pertly our sermons and disciplines would divide some share of
credit, and teach that the laws fashion the citizen, she goes her own
gait and puts the wisest in the wrong. She makes very light of gospels
and prophets, as one who has a great many more to produce and no excess
of time to spare on any one. There is a class of men, individuals of
which appear at long intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and
virtue that they have been unanimously saluted as divine, and who seem
to be an accumulation of that power we consider. Divine persons are
character born, or, to borrow a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory
organized. They are usually received with ill-will, because they are new
and because they set a bound to the exaggeration that has been made
of the personality of the last divine person. Nature never rhymes her
children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man we fancy a
resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his
character and fortune; a result which he is sure to disappoint. None
will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice,
but only in his own high unprecedented way. Character wants room; must
not be crowded on by persons nor be judged from glimpses got in the
press of affairs or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great
building. It may not, probably does not, form relations rapidly; and we
should not require rash explanation, either on the popular ethics, or on
our own, of its action.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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