Of the Disadvantage of Greatness.

Why not aspire to greatness? Especially when young, why not decide to be CEO or President of Something or Congressman from Somewhere or Lord Mayor of London?

Why can't I sleep on silk sheets, eat salmon roe and wear diamonds the size of horse-dung? Why can't I have a trophy car, long and sleek and maybe a horse or dog bought from the very cover of the Horse and Dog Lovers Gazette?

Or a jet. "No, damn it, I don't want the King Air today. Get the Hawker ready."

At my age, rejecting greatness has a faint odor of sour grapes and laziness. But looking back, I feel blessed to have failed in all of my periodic spasms of ambition.

As always for me, GOAB leads the discussion on this issue (his essay is hidden under the title). By the way, for all of you Montaigne lovers, although the link provides a reference to a different translator, my favorite is one Donald M. Frame. This version of The Complete Essays will be available at the Brownsville Public Library just as soon as I return it.

GOAB immediately acknowledges that he is ill-suited for the pursuit of greatness: "To eschew greatness is a virtue, its seems to me, which I, who am only a gosling, could attain without great striving." Yes, the laziness factor. This then, in moderation, is virtue in itself. If a little Sloth can curb a great deal of Pride, Avarice and Lust, how can it be all bad?

He then gives the proper means of growth: "When I think of growing, it is in a lowly way, with a contsrained and cowardly growth, strictly for myself: in resolution, wisdom, health, beauty, and even riches."

And then to the jugular: "But that prestige, all that powerful authority, oppresses my imagination."

GOAB then goes forward with the many disadvantages of greatness: Your jokes are always funny and your advice is always wise. And the only skill you can develop is managing horses, because they, at least, will not let you win.

He shows that greatness in itself it to be avoided, and gives the reasons why.

Shakespeare also makes the point in Henry IV, Part 2. King Henry says:

How many thousand of my poorest subjects
Are at this hour asleep! O sleep, O gentle sleep,
Nature's soft nurse, how have I frighted thee,
That thou no more wilt weigh my eyelids down
And steep my senses in forgetfulness?

And then,

Canst thou, O partial sleep, give thy repose
To the wet sea-boy in an hour so rude,
And in the calmest and most stillest night,
With all appliances and means to boot,
Deny it to a king? Then happy low, lie down!
Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.

Even if we cannot accept wholesale the argument of GOAB and King Henry that greatness in itself is not worthwhile. Certainly, the easier argument is that life is just too short to bother.

Why isn't there more advantage to wealth and power in life? It is the problem with death. As G.K. Chesterton describes in one of his Father Brown stories:

"There is in the world a very aged rioter and demagogue who breaks into the most refined retreats with the dreadful information that all men are brothers, and wherever this leveller went on his pale horse it was Father Brown's trade to follow."