THE LACK OF GREAT MEN.
WITH the century genius appears to be dying out. That is perhaps too brusque a sentence, requiring some qualifications, but it conveys what is substantially the truth. There is nothing more marked as one looks round Europe than the absence of dominant personalities in any department of life. There is scarcely a man in politics in any country whose departure would be missed for six months. Lord Salisbury and the German Emperor are the most notable exceptions, and neither of them com- pletely invalidates the rule. Lord Salisbury would be a really great man if he wished things a little more strongly, and the German Emperor if he did not dissipate his force in the vain pursuit of eminence in all things ; but being what they are, the historian of the future will hardly class them in the front rank of mankind. He may, for their histories are not over ; but we can judge only by what has been finished, and it leaves Lord Salisbury a most considerable, rather than a strictly "great," states- man, and William II. a striking but doubtful figure, made abnormally, visible by his seat upon a lofty throne. With those two possible exceptions, the political leaders of the world belong at best to the second rank. 'In this country the highest figures after Lord Salisbury are Mr. Balfour and Mr. Chamberlain.; and while Mr. Balfour, with all his powers, has as yet initiated nothing, Mr. Chamberlain, with all his force, has still to secure a great success. In the Liberal party there is not even a chief, or a man who is indispensable. There is in the country no first-class orator, there is no administrator so great as to• be universally recognised, no soldier who has wen a pitched battle against a white foe — Lord Kitchener may be great in the historian's sense, but he has yet to ibe fully proved—no man in any profession as to whose primacy in that profession there is no dispute. There sre able men, trustworthy men, successful men, by the score, but the last of the men who are recognised by foes as head and shoulders above the crowd died with Mr. Gladstone. In France there is a dead-level, and the level is not high. The Republic has opened all careers to the competent, but the competent do not advance to fill them. The parties, the Army, the factions, the whole people, long for a great leader; but if such a was exists he is still in the background, and might as well not be. The regime of the " plain men " has been inaugurated, no one is excluded—the President was a tanner, and the Premier an usher in a school—but the guide whom an enfranchised people should have thrown tip has not been found. There has not been a man in French politics since Gambetta died whom his country- men recognised as a genius,—that is, as a man possessed of the gift which experience is needless. It is the same in literature, in the arts, even in oratory, for though there are men in the Chambers with marvellous powers of expression, there is no one who can make of persuasion an executive force. In the other two Latin countries men in politics are scarcely N'en eminent, those who oppose being as third-rate as those who rule. Spain is being ruined by sheer want of brain- Power, and though there is plenty of ability among promi- nent men in Italy, to none have been given the abilities ,which command the adhesion of a people. In Italy we bear nothing of a great litterateur, of a supreme artist, or of what has appeared there so often, the man of science whose ,very name marks an epoch in discovery. Iu Germany the binperor seems, with his endless strain after greatness, to absorb all the vitality of the nation. Great men do not or, at least, do not become visible, under his shadow. There no Minister who cannot be parted with, no leader "uPposition who is formidable, no soldier who is essential to the Army, no citizen who towers in sight of all men above the crowd. There is only the Emperor, with his abounding energy, made half useless because applied to too many things. We ought not, perhaps, to quote Austria, for it has been the singular fate of Austria to flourish without men at once great and successful ; but though she has an able Sovereign, he is not exactly a great man, while she has no Metternich to represent ter; no Archduke Charles to fight for her, and no Mk to reconcile her jarring races. She drifts along und0 second-rate men, it may be towards a haven of rest, it may be towards the abyss ; but there is no one; be it in the Government, or in the Opposition, or out- side both, to whom her many nations look as a pilot who can show them the way. In Russia the Sovereign; who is all in all, is most assiduous in business, is thoroughly well meaning, and is probably one of those men before whose minds great, if shadowy, ideas occa- sionally float ; but no one not his subject would reckon him among the great. He has in Muravieff an accom- plished diplomatist, in De Witte a successful financier, in the Grand Duke Vladimir a strong, and, it is said, sagacious, general councillor ; but there is no one whom he would select as Chancellor, no one whom EuropiY esteems great, no one whom the group around the thron4 would name as a reserve of force for Russia. In the sots' music excepted, Russia has scarcely succeeded ; and in literature her lights have gone out. There is, in fact, in Europe at this moment, with the two Exceptions we have named, no great personality ; and it would be vain to BE ex him in America, where the democracy is deliberately trying to live without guidance, and has failed even in the stress of wartime to throw up an administrator.
The sterility, in fact, is general, and it only remains to suggest its cause. It is certainly not want of opportunity, for there never was a time when careers were so free, when the nations were so hungering for guidance and light, or when there was such readiness to welcome, applaud, and reward striking ability of any kind. The claim of birth has almost disappeared, the use of wealth to the aspirant is no greater than it always was, and the general power of appreciating mental gifts has very decidedly increased. Nor is the lack of greatness due to any unreadiness to accept leadership. The nations are becoming democratic, and democracies as a rule thirst for leading, and for the man who will give them a decisive signal. The Kings are always looking out for ability, and the first idea of any Government when a man appears taller than the mass is to receive him into the system, if possible on their side, but at all events to receive him. Parnell, could he have accepted office, would have been a Cabinet Minister. Ministers in France are frequently men from the lower ranks of the bourgeoisie ; the Prussian Minister of Finance is, if we are not mistaken, a man of low birth, and the last Foreign Minister of Russia was cer- tainly by origin a foreigner, and, according to popular rumour, by family a Jew. No one, in fact, would be ex- cluded who could seriously serve the State, while in art and literature origin is forgotten and poverty ignored. The cause, of course, may be accidental, there being a moment between ebb and flood when even the tide has no force ; but we should be inclined ourselves rather to connect it with that spasm of weakness and fear, produced originally by the excessive prevalence of uncertainty, which has developed the marked feature of the close of the cen- tury,—general pessimism. There is a kind of languid despair among the Latin races, and of hesitation as to ideals among the Teutonic races, out of which greatness does not come. Even the strong doubt whether a period of decadence has not set in, and accept intolerable pheno- mena coolly as evidences that some sort of a process of decay is going on. The fact, too, that all careers are open, that we have got to the bottom, and that there is no new couche sociale left to force itself upwards and giv.e affairs and thoughts a new freshness, has its influence, and what influence it has is all in the same direction. We do not think the vacancy will last long, for we do not believe that any ideal has yet been attained, and while a motive for effort remains, a nation cannot be " played out" ; but the pause may continue for some time, and while it endures art will remain stationary, literature will be thin and spasmodic, and public affairs will display that tendency towards disaster which, if Europe be taken as a whole, marks them now. The world can, get along without great men, but it does not get along well.
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