 a day, and never see the world but on a
Sunday. Nature has, no doubt for some wise purpose, placed in their hearts this
love of literary labor and seclusion. Otherwise, who would feed the undying lamp
of thought? But for such men as these, a blast of wind through the chinks and
crannies of this old world, or the flapping of a conqueror's banner, would blow
it out forever. The light of the soul is easily extinguished. And whenever I
reflect upon these things, I become aware of the great importance, in a nation's
history, of the individual fame of scholars and literary men. I fear that it is
far greater than the world is willing to acknowledge, or, perhaps I should say,
than the world has thought of acknowledging. Blot out from England's history the
names of Chaucer, Shakespeare, Spenser, and Milton only, and how much of her
glory would you blot out with them! Take from Italy such names as Dante,
Petrarch, Boccaccio, Michel Angelo, and Raphael, and how much would be wanting
to the completeness of her glory! How would the history of Spain look, if the
leaves were torn out on which are written the names of Cervantes, Lope de Vega,
and Calderon? What would be the fame of Portugal, without her Camoens; of
France, without her Racine, and Rabelais, and Voltaire; or of Germany, without
her Martin Luther, her Goethe, and her Schiller? Nay, what were the nations of
old, without their philosophers, poets, and historians? Tell me, do not these
men, in all ages and in all places, emblazon with bright colors the armorial
bearings of their country? Yes, and far more than this; for in all ages and in
all places they give humanity assurance of its greatness, and say, Call not this
time or people wholly barbarous; for thus much, even then and there, could the
human mind achieve! But the boisterous world has hardly thought of acknowledging
all this. Therein it has shown itself somewhat ungrateful. Else, whence the
great reproach, the general scorn, the loud derision, with which, to take a
familiar example, the monks of the Middle Ages are regarded? That they slept
their lives away is most untrue. For in an age when books were few, - so few, so
precious, that they were often chained to their oaken shelves with iron chains,
like galley-slaves to their benches, - these men, with their laborious hands,
copied upon parchment all the
