“Mean” there does not mean selfish or stingy, but the man between two extremes, the mean, average, ordinary man.
The mean man and the great man are both bowing--what are they bowing to? Something beneath them; they have lost the sense of their dignity, and they have forgotten that they are kings, and now they are bowing down to things that they ought to control. (J. H. Jowett, M. A.)
