Page:Leaves from my Chinese Scrapbook - Balfour, 1887.djvu/13



eminent writer of the present century has hazarded the conjecture that in the unwritten history of the globe might be found the names of many great and distinguished men of whom the world knows nothing; that in bygone ages and in distant lands there have been Ciceros and Caesars, Hannibals and Homers,—may we suggest, in all seriousness, Beaconsfields and Bismarcks?—whose fame has never reached the shores of Europe, and whose memories have perished with their lives. Strange to say, we have heard this striking notion characterised as shallow. The criticism seems ungracious: profound it may not be, but there can be no question of its truth, nor of the fact that it is very little realised or thought of. That there are great countries in the world, with long and eventful histories, of which not one man in ten thousand knows the smallest trifle, is a statement

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