Greatness is
spontaneous; simplicity, trust in some one clear instinct, are
essential to it; but the spontaneous variation must be in the
direction of some possible sort of order; it must exclude and leave
behind what is incapable of being moralised. How, then, should there
be any great heroes, saints, artists, philosophers, or legislators in
an age when nobody trusts himself, or feels any confidence in reason,
in an age when the word _dogmatic_ is a term of reproach? Greatness
has character and severity, it is deep and sane, it is distinct and
perfect. For this reason there is none of it to-day.
There is indeed another kind of greatness, or rather largeness of
mind, which consists in being a synthesis of humanity in its current
phases, even if without prophetic emphasis or direction: the breadth
of a Goethe, rather than the fineness of a Shelley or a Leopardi. But
such largeness of mind, not to be vulgar, must be impartial,
comprehensive, Olympian; it would not be greatness if its miscellany
were not dominated by a clear genius and if before the confusion of
things the poet or philosopher were not himself delighted, exalted,
and by no means confused. Nor does this presume omniscience on his
part. It is not necessary to fathom the ground or the structure of
everything in order to know what to make of it.
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