And, indeed, Caesar would at that time have been the last that any
Roman would have selected as the master of the world. He was young. He
was small. He seemed almost frail. He was an unspeakable egotist. He
was fastidious in his dress. I have read that he even used perfumes.
And how could the common eye discern, through all of these externals
of frippery, the lion heart, the eagle vision, and the mind of
conquest and empire?
There is a very great danger in the examples just cited. These men
were geniuses, and they are not to be imitated except as their methods
may be applicable to the common man. This paper is for common men--for
people like ourselves. There _are_ geniuses; but their high-wrought
lives, tornado activity, and methods of lightning are not for us. All
the world's real leaders, whether in the fields of thought or action,
whether in the council-chamber of the statesman, on the battle-field
of the warrior, in the study of the writer, or in the laboratory of
the scientist--all have been men of genius. No mediocre man ever was a
great leader in the historic sense.
With our habit of looking at to-day as though it were eternity, we
consider men "leaders," and use the adjectives "great," "splendid,"
etc.
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