There are several forms of temperament.

The kind that mostly issues in biography is the practical temperament.

Poets have the shortest memoirs, and the most uninteresting.

The politician, the philanthropist, the general, make the best, the most graphic Lives.
The fact remains, however, that the question, "What has he done ?" though a specious, is an unsatisfactory test of greatness.
But there is a temperament called the Reflective, which works slowly, and with little apparent result.

The very gift of expression is a practical gift: with the gift of expression the reflective man becomes a writer, a poet, an artist; without it, he is unknown.
The reflective temperament, existing without any particular gift of expression, wants an exponent in these times.