Bread and Stones.

But what is Fame, anyway? It is not notoriety, which is a gas balloon which rises swiftly and explodes in the rarefied realms of just judgment. Fame is found where notoriety is not sought —notoriety is sought where Fame is not found.

Many of the famous dead would be amazed to learn that they were famous. In life they simply did what they did— simply. For genius and simplicity, greatness and modesty, high thinking and lowly living, seem to be twin twiners on the tree of knowledge. Fame, as fame, has seldom promoted personal prosperity. It is always incidental and often accidental. It usually comes when the one it concerns most is most unconcerned about it. For, what is a sunset to the blind? What is a song to the deaf? What is fame to the dead? In truth, Fame and the Phoenix both arise from ashes.

And justly so; for the really great usually anticipate Time, so that only those living after they are dead are qualified to assess their lives.

Was Shakespeare accepted as a genius by his generation or did the elevated elements of the Elizabethan era regard him more or less as a mad mummer? Did William Blake, the artist-poet, have to die to “live?” Was Aristotle appreciated by his age or was he harried for “high-hatting” the hoi polloi? The answer is written on the pavements of Progress.