Excerpt from Self-Consciousness of Noted Persons

Among mankind there are none so high and none so low as to be utterly insensible to fame, or to the approbation of their fellow-men. Indeed, all men rather covet both. Not always as their due for brain-work, but as a just reward for some personal merit. The passion with some becomes conspicuous, possibly offensive, while with others it is so veiled with modesty or with art as to remain a secret even to nearest friends. Most men desire no more than fair credit for the specialty wherein they have practically excelled, well knowing that groundless praise has no adhering quality except as well-grounded satire. Few men ever excel all the world in more than one faculty. A would-be universal genius is like a boy on stilts, soon humbled in the dust.

Archimedes relied for credit upon his knowledge of mechanical forces, and not upon any skill as a metaphysician. Cicero had to be content with eloquence and knowledge of philosophy, rather than with the martial glory of the soldier. John Jacob Astor, if he had little taste and genius for poetry, found delight in the scramble of business, nor could he have expected much renown as a man of science, but he could not have been ignorant of his mercantile distinction as a man of enterprise.

The almost universal passion of the human race to do something worthy of remembrance is not only serviceable, but laudable, and yet the world forbids, even to the most exalted merit, the privilege of self-applause, or of blowing ones own trumpet.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully, any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.