"
Goethe well observes that man "exists for culture; not for what he can
accomplish, but for what can be accomplished in him." [6]
As regards fame we must not confuse name and essence. To be remembered is
not necessarily to be famous. There is infamy as well as fame; and
unhappily almost as many are remembered for the one as for the other, and
not a few for the mixture of both.
Who would not rather be forgotten, than recollected as Ahab or Jezebel,
Nero or Commodus, Messalina or Heliogabalus, King John or Richard III.?
"To be nameless in worthy deeds exceeds an infamous history. The
Canaanitish woman lives more happily without a name than Herodias with
one; and who would not rather have been the good thief than Pilate?" [7]
Kings and Generals are often remembered as much for their deaths as for
their lives, for their misfortunes as for their successes. The Hero of
Thermopylae was Leonidas, not Xerxes. Alexander's Empire fell to pieces at
his death. Napoleon was a great genius, though no Hero.
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