Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/52

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.

acquire world-wide fame as the Moses of a whole people? I suppose that an inquiry whether Brown was ever animated by a personal ambition for power or fame would be entirely fair, especially since, as ambitions go, a purpose to attain power or fame in this way would surely be a worthy one.

For that matter the question would seem to be easily answered. A man who is at once meditative, intense, and fond of reading as Brown was, and yet uneducated in the liberal sense, is made by his books. What books did Brown read! Dana found that he had many in his Adirondack cabin. His daughter has written: "My dear father's favorite books of a historical character were Rollin's Ancient History, Josephus, Plutarch's Lives, 'Napoleon and his Marshals,' and the Life of Oliver Cromwell. Of religious books, Baxter's 'Saint's Rest' (in speaking of which at one time he said he could not see how