In reading the stories of many persons whom the English nation is
invited to honor, I am generally struck with the predominance of the
personal element. The key-note seems generally some resolve taken in
early youth connected with their own temporal advancement. This one
will be Lord Mayor; this other Prime Minister; a third determines to
own a fine estate near the place of his birth, a fourth to become
head of the business in which he started as an errand-boy. They did
indeed achieve their ends, were faithful to the idea they had set
before themselves as boys; but I doubt if we can put them anywhere
but in the lower school of idealists. For the predominant motive
being self-assertion, their idealism seems never to have got past the
personal stage, which at best is but a poor business as compared with
the true thing.