Francis Horner, speaking of the advantages to himself of direct personal intercourse with high-minded, intelligent men, said, "Icannot hesitate to decide that I have derived more intellectual improvement from them than from all the books I have turned over."Lord Shelburne (afterwards Marquis of Lansdowne), when a young man, paid a visit to the venerable Malesherbes, and was so much impressed by it, that he said, - "I have travelled much, but I have never been so influenced by personal contact with any man; and if Iever accomplish any good in the course of my life, I am certain that the recollection of M. de Malesherbes will animate my soul."So Fowell Buxton was always ready to acknowledge the powerful influence exercised upon the formation of his character in early life by the example of the Gurney family: "It has given a colour to my life," he used to say. Speaking of his success at the Dublin University, he confessed, "I can ascribe it to nothing but my Earlham visits." It was from the Gurneys he "caught the infection"of self-improvement.
Contact with the good never fails to impart good, and we carry away with us some of the blessing, as travellers' garments retain the odour of the flowers and shrubs through which they have passed.
Those who knew the late John Sterling intimately, have spoken of the beneficial influence which he exercised on all with whom he came into personal contact. Many owed to him their first awakening to a higher being; from him they learnt what they were, and what they ought to be. Mr. Trench says of him:- "It was impossible to come in contact with his noble nature without feeling one's self in some measure ENNOBLED and LIFTED UP, as I ever felt when I left him, into a higher region of objects and aims than that in which one is tempted habitually to dwell." It is thus that the noble character always acts; we become insensibly elevated by him, and cannot help feeling as he does and acquiring the habit of looking at things in the same light. Such is the magical action and reaction of minds upon each other.
Artists, also, feel themselves elevated by contact with artists greater than themselves. Thus Haydn's genius was first fired by Handel. Hearing him play, Haydn's ardour for musical composition was at once excited, and but for this circumstance, he himself believed that he would never have written the 'Creation.' Speaking of Handel, he said, "When he chooses, he strikes like the thunderbolt;" and at another time, "There is not a note of him but draws blood." Scarlatti was another of Handel's ardent admirers, following him all over Italy; afterwards, when speaking of the great master, he would cross himself in token of admiration. True artists never fail generously to recognise each other's greatness.
Thus Beethoven's admiration for Cherubini was regal: and he ardently hailed the genius of Schubert: "Truly," said he, "in Schubert dwells a divine fire." When Northcote was a mere youth he had such an admiration for Reynolds that, when the great painter was once attending a public meeting down in Devonshire, the boy pushed through the crowd, and got so near Reynolds as to touch the skirt of his coat, "which I did," says Northcote, "with great satisfaction to my mind," - a true touch of youthful enthusiasm in its admiration of genius.
The example of the brave is an inspiration to the timid, their presence thrilling through every fibre. Hence the miracles of valour so often performed by ordinary men under the leadership of the heroic. The very recollection of the deeds of the valiant stirs men's blood like the sound of a trumpet. Ziska bequeathed his skin to be used as a drum to inspire the valour of the Bohemians. When Scanderbeg, prince of Epirus, was dead, the Turks wished to possess his bones, that each might wear a piece next his heart, hoping thus to secure some portion of the courage he had displayed while living, and which they had so often experienced in battle. When the gallant Douglas, bearing the heart of Bruce to the Holy Land, saw one of his knights surrounded and sorely pressed by the Saracens, he took from his neck the silver case containing the hero's bequest, and throwing it amidst the thickest press of his foes, cried, "Pass first in fight, as thou wert wont to do, and Douglas will follow thee, or die;" and so saying, he rushed forward to the place where it fell, and was there slain.
