Page:Traveler from Altruria, Howells, 1894.djvu/214

208 The Altrurian thought a moment. "With, us, there is so little ambition for distinction, as you understand it, that your question is hard to answer. But I should say, speaking largely, that it was some man who had been able for the time being, to give the greatest happiness to the greatest number—some artist, or poet, or inventor, or physician."

I was somewhat surprised to have the banker take this preposterous statement seriously, respectfully. "Well, that is quite conceivable with your system. What should you say," he demanded of the rest of us, generally, "was our ideal of greatness?"

No one replied at once, or at all, till the manufacturer said, "We will let you continue to run it."

"Well, it is a very curious inquiry, and I have thought it over a good deal. I should say that within a generation our ideal had changed twice. Before the war, and during all the time from the revolution onward, it was undoubtedly the great politician, the publicist, the statesman. As we grew older and began to have an intellectual life of our own, I think the literary fellows had a pretty good share of the honors that were going; that is, such a man as Longfellow was popularly considered a type of greatness. When