When It Pays to Be Little.
One thing was made evident by the war between Japan and Russia, namely, that bigness is not always to be desired.
In a modern battle matters are precisely reversed from the ancient conditions, when a towering Agamemnon or a gigantic Samson could sweep an army before him. Now, he would simply make an easy target.
To-day, he is the most fortunate soldier that offers the smallest mark for hostile bullets, that can pack himself away behind the littlest tree-trunk or back of the slightest rise of ground. Your hulks of bone and flesh are not only slower to march and maneuver, but they are faster to fall under fire.
The average Russian presents to the foe a surface from a third to a half greater than the surface presented by the average Jap. It is a mathematical certainty, therefore, that, other things being equal, the two armies will suffer under fire in just those proportions.
Yes, and in the immaterial world the same principle holds, in the world of fears and frets, of joys and sorrows. "The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" find the famous man, the man of power and wealth and influence, an easy mark to hit. You and I escape much of the attack through our very insignificance.
As for me, "give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me." I would not be a dwarf, and certainly not a giant. And whatever I am, I would wrap around me the impenetrable armor of contentment.