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[68] 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.