There can be no dispute, I am sure, as to the value of some of the
results he achieved in that other path. He did indeed create anew for us
the type of good-citizenship, well-nigh effaced in a sordid and selfish
time, and of an honest politician and a pure-minded journalist. He never
really forsook literature, and the world of actual interests and
experiences afforded him outlooks and perspectives, without which
aesthetic endeavor is self-limited and purblind. He was a great man of
letters, he was a great orator, he was a great political journalist, he
was a great citizen, he was a great philanthropist. But that last word
with its conventional application scarcely describes the brave and gentle
friend of men that he was. He was one that helped others by all that he
did, and said, and was, and the circle of his use was as wide as his
fame. There are other great men, plenty of them, common great men, whom
we know as names and powers, and whom we willingly let the ages have when
they die, for, living or dead, they are alike remote from us.
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