The altar fire by A.C. Benson

I do not want, even in my thoughts, to put the contemplative life above the practical life. Highest of all I would put a combination of the two -- a man of high and clear ideals, in a position where he was able to give them shape -- a great constructive statesman, a great educator, a great man of business, who was also keenly alive to social problems, a great philanthropist. Next to these I would put great thinkers, moralists, poets -- all who inspire. Then I would put the absolutely effective instruments of great designs -- legislators, lawyers, teachers, priests, doctors, writers -- men without originality, but with a firm conception of civic and human duty.

And then I would put all those who, in a small sphere, exercise a direct, quiet, simple influence -- and then come the large mass of mankind; people who work faithfully, from instinct and necessity, but without any particular design or desire, except to live honestly, honourably, and respectably, with no urgent sense of the duty of serving others, taking life as it comes, practical individualists, in fact. No higher than these, but certainly no lower, I should put quiet, contemplative, reflective people, who are theoretical individualists. They are not very effective people generally, and they have a certain poetical quality; they cannot originate, but they can appreciate. I look upon all these individualists, whether practical or theoretical, as the average mass of humanity, the common soldiers, so to speak, as distinguished from the officers. Life is for them a discipline, and their raison d'etre is that of the learner, as opposed to that of the teacher.