Page:California Inter Pocula.djvu/394



3S2 AMONG-  THE  MINERS.

communities, with  happy  homes  and  virtuous  environ- ment.

Their reading  was  mostly  of  the  Enghsh  Reynolds type, and  the  French  Faublas'  Liaisons  dangereuses order, "where,"  as  Lamartine  says,  "vice  parodied virtue,  and  riotous  liberty,  love." Their books  were not always  as  full  of  charming  villainy  even  as  Rous- seau's Confessions.

Alexander the  Great,  manslayer,  was  a  small  man; Alexander Small,  miner,  was  a  great  man. Anyone with men  enough  could  conquer  any  nation  or  kill  any number ; it  requires  no  quality  of  greatness  to  do  this, and surely  no  one  but  a  fool  would  drink  himself  to death ;  but  I  do  not  know  that  any  great  man  pre- tends- to deny  that  he  is  a  fool. On the  other  hand, he who*  accomplishes  much  with  little ;  he  who  can deny himself,  rule  himself,  is  greater  than  he  who  can only rule  others. Alexander the  Great  had  ambition of which  no  medicine  on  earth  could  physic  him;  but force was  greater  than  ambition,  greater  than  all  glory and all  gods. Alexander the  Great,  dram-drinker, man-killer, and  gambler  in  ordinary  to  his  Satanic majesty, the  world  has  known  these  two  or  three thousand years;  Alexander  Small,  gold-digger  to  the gods, and  the  greater  of  the  two,  the  world  has  never known at  all.

Many great  men  have  been  underrated  during  their lives, many  small  men  have  been  overrated;  many small in  some  things  and  great  in  others  have  been rated small  or  great  in  everything. Ralston, as  the California bank's  president,  sitting  behind  other  men's millions,  was  great,  as  Croesus  was  great;  Ralston,  a week  later,  dead,  self-drowned,  out  of  all  his  troubles, was a  small  man  indeed.

Evil results  sometimes  flow  from  good  qualities ; some are  generous  because  they  are  weak,  and  some are weak  because  they  are  generous. The sweep- ing winds of  passion  palsy  the  heart,  jaundice  the  eye, and dry  of  its  freshness  all   the   gentler   qualiti