We have taken our heroes from the past.
That is natural.

It requires an atmosphere of distance to render clear in outline the lives of the great and good.

It may be that some prophets are held at just value by those with whom they live; it is almost never that great prophets are seen at their full stature, by the common apprehension, in the time of which they are a part.

This makes us offer as stimulant to the ethical imagination, and sometimes as definite incitements to imitation, men and women whose social surroundings were quite other than those we are now striving to secure.

How seldom is the teacher able to make the distinctions in social judgment required for full understanding of the character without spoiling the personal influence of the hero extolled.