and bright in the foreground. Behind them, and dimmer, we see Plato, Socrates, Homer, and a few score of philosophers, poets, artists and soldiers. Behind these, stretching far back and extending on both sides, in a light that grows increasingly feeble, we dimly discern the outlines of a very few hundred men and women who were great. The fact that certain men stand out clearly is owing to the things they did: the things they did were because of the things they had the opportunity to do, and the way in which they availed themselves of opportunity. Sometimes opportunity came to them: sometimes they grasped opportunity as she was passing by them. To utilize opportunity successfully, some degree of skill was needed; and in order to possess this skill, some degree of ability and character was required. The net result in every case was the product of the opportunity multiplied by the skill with which it was employed. The greatest results were obtained when the greatest opportunity was utilized with the greatest skill. Opportunities are of many kinds, and come in various guises. The opportunity most commonly presented to men, and most commonly ignored, is the opportunity to live a useful life, and do the most one can to make life better for those in one's own circle, and thereby to secure the best reward there is, the affectionate esteem of friends. In rarer cases, opportunity comes to gain material success in money, power or fame: in other cases, opportunity lets us do some work of lasting value, by means of some invention, discovery or principle expounded: sometimes opportunity permits a man to be the head of a great movement, or great nation, and guide that movement, or that nation, to better things: and sometimes opportunity permits a man to do something so startling, so picturesque and so sudden, that his name is instantly projected against the background of the commonplace in lines of vivid light. Of such a kind was the opportunity that came to Dewey. An obscure commodore in a second rate navy on April 30, he was the most conspicuous man in the world on May 1. Going into Manila Bay at midnight on April 30; opposing his little unarmored ships to the gun-fire of Corregidor, Caballo and El Fraile; approaching Manila City five hours later and engaging the 9.2-inch guns mounted on her ramparts; and then darting toward Cavite and destroying the Spanish fleet anchored there: he seized opportunity with so masterful a grasp, that he wrung from her all she had, and leaped upon the plateau of undying fame. The circumstances attending the battle, the distance of its place of happening from home, the suddenness of its occurrence, the briefness of its duration, the picturesqueness of its surroundings, the completeness of its victory, the obviousness of its importance, and the fact that not one life was lost on Dewey's side, combined to give it a distinctiveness that no other event of any kind had ever possessed on so large a scale. No battle fought on land could possibly stand out so sharply, because no battle of comparable magnitude could have been fought on land so quickly, and decided so unalterably. No naval battle, ancient or modern, possessed in equal degree its dramatic characteristics though the battles of Trafalgar and the Nile approximated them. No manager ever staged any play more theatrically than the battle of Manila was staged; no words of man ever caused a thrill so intense, so amazed, and so widespread, as Dewey's brief announcement from Manila. After the naval battle, and until the capture of the city, a pause of three months and a half ensued. During this period, Dewey kept Manila under his guns and brought to bear the combination of diplomatic shrewdness and aggressive forcefulness which induced Aguinaldo and his army to assist the landing of the American troops, and ensured the holding by the United States of the Philippine Islands, unembarrassed by the interference of any foreign power. Throughout the weary year that dragged itself along between the naval battle and Dewey's departure |