And
surely for any one that has a thing to call a soul he shines
out tenfold more nobly in the failure of that frantic effort
to do right, than if he had turned on his heel with Worldly
Wiseman, married a congenial spouse, and lived orderly and
died reputably an old man. It is his chief title that he
refrained from "the wrong that amendeth wrong." But the
common, trashy mind of our generation is still aghast, like
the Jews of old, at any word of an unsuccessful virtue. Job
has been written and read; the tower of Siloam fell nineteen
hundred years ago; yet we have still to desire a little
Christianity, or, failing that, a little even of that rude,
old, Norse nobility of soul, which saw virtue and vice alike
go unrewarded, and was yet not shaken in its faith.
WALT WHITMAN. - This is a case of a second difficulty which
lies continually before the writer of critical studies: that
he has to mediate between the author whom he loves and the
public who are certainly indifferent and frequently averse.
Many articles had been written on this notable man. One
after another had leaned, in my eyes, either to praise or
blame unduly. In the last case, they helped to blindfold our
fastidious public to an inspiring writer; in the other, by an
excess of unadulterated praise, they moved the more candid to
revolt. I was here on the horns of a dilemma; and between
these horns I squeezed myself with perhaps some loss to the
substance of the paper.
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