Page:The World's Famous Orations Volume 5.djvu/228

 THE WORLD'S FAMOUS ORATIONS

outbursts of grief, but it is impossible to find instances where death has caused so universal, so sincere, so heartfelt an expression of sorrow. In the presence of these many evidences of grief which come not only from her own dominions, but from all parts of the globe; in the presence of so many tokens of admiration, where it is not possible to find a single discordant note ; in the presence of the immeasurable void caused by the death of Queen Victoria, it is not too much to say that the grave has just closed upon one of the great characters of history.

What is greatness? We are accustomed to call great those exceptional beings upon whom heaven has bestowed some of its choicest gifts, which astonish and dazzle the world by the splendor of faculties, phenomenally developed, even when these faculties are much marred by defects and weaknesses which make them nuga- tory of the good.

But this is not, in my estimation at least, the highest conception of greatness. The equipoise of a well-balanced mind, the equilibrium of fac- ulties well and evenly ordered, the luminous in- sight of a calm judgment, are gifts which are as rarely found in one human being as the pos- session of the more dazzling tho less solid quali- ties. And when these high qualities are found in a ruler of men, combined with purity of soul, kindness of heart, generosity of disposition, ele- vation of purpose, and devotion to duty, this is what seems to me to be the highest conception of 194

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