That man is great, and he alone,
Who serves a greatness not his own,
For neither praise nor pelf:
Content to know and be unknown:
Whole in himself.
_A Great Man_. LORD LYTTON (_Owen Meredith_).
He fought a thousand glorious wars,
And more than half the world was his,
And somewhere, now, in yonder stars,
Can tell, mayhap, what greatness is.
_The Chronicle of the Drum_. W.M. THACKERAY.
Nothing can cover his high fame but heaven;
No pyramids set off his memories,
But the eternal substance of his greatness,--
To which I leave him.
_The False One, Act ii. Sc. 1_. BEAUMONT AND FLETCHER.
Greatness on goodness loves to slide, not stand,
And leaves, for fortune's ice, vertue's firm land.
_Turkish History. Under a portrait of Mustapha I_. R. KNOLLES.
Such souls,
Whose sudden visitations daze the world,
Vanish like lightning, but they leave behind
A voice that in the distance far away
Wakens the slumbering ages.
_Philip Van Artevelde, Pt. I. Act i. Sc. 7_. SIR H. TAYLOR.