James Parton, The life of Horace Greeley

[435] Saxon man that lives. He escaped the schools, and so passed through childhood uncorrupt, “his own man,” not formed upon a pattern. He was not trained up—he grew up. Like a tree, he was left to seek the nourishment he needed and could appropriate. His breeding was unspeakably fortunate. It helped him much, hindered him little; and the result was, a man, not perfect indeed, very imperfect, as all men are, but a man, natural, peculiar, original, interesting; a man dear to other men, a man to whom other men are dear.

Of the countless gifts which God bestows upon man, the rarest, the divinest, is an ability to take supreme interest in human welfare. This has been called Genius; but what is here meant is more than genius; it includes genius; it is the parent and inspirer of genius; it is above genius. If any pious soul will accurately ascertain what it is in the character of the Man Christ Jesus, the contemplation of which fills his heart with rapture and his eyes with tears, that pious soul will know what is here intended by the expression “supreme interest in human welfare.” The concurrent instinct of mankind, in all ages, in every clime, proclaims, that this, whatever it be named, is the divinest quality known to human nature. It is that which man supremely honors; and well he may. Most of us, alarmed at the dangers that beset our lives, distracted with cares, blinded with desire to secure our own safety, are absorbed in schemes of personal advantage. A few men go apart, ascend a height, survey the scene with serene, unselfish eye, and make discoveries which those in the heat of the struggle could never arrive at. But for such, the race of men would long ago have extirpated itself in its mad, blind strife. But for such, it would never have been discovered that what is not good for the whole swarm is not good for a single bee, that no individual can be safe in welfare, while any other individual is not.

Genius? No. That is not the word. Dr. Arnold was not a man of genius. Carlyle is not a man of genius. But Great Britain owes more to them than to all the men of genius that have lived since Cromwell's time. Such men differ from the poets and authors of their day, precisely in the same way, though not, perhaps, in the same degree, as the Apostles differed from Cicero, Seneca, and Virgil. Between the Clays and Websters of this country and Horace