The world will class men "in its coarse blacks and whites." Some mark
Shelley with charcoal, others with chalk,--the former considering him
a reprobate, the latter admiring him as a high-souled lover of human
happiness and human liberty. But he was something of both
together,--and would have been nothing without that worst part of him.
He ran perversely counter to the lessons of his teachers, and acted in
defiance of the regular opinions and habits of the world. He was too
out-spoken, like all genius; whereas the world inculcates the high
practical wisdom of a shut mouth and a secretive mind. Fontenelle,
speaking according to the philosophy of the crowd, says, "A wise man,
with his fist full of truths, would open only his little finger."
Shelley opened his whole hand, in a fearless, unhappy manner; and was
accordingly punished for ideas which multitudes entertain in a quiet
way, saying nothing, and living in the odor of respectable opinion.
With a mind that recoiled from anything like falsehood and injustice,
he wanted prudence. And as, in the belief of the matter-of-fact
Romans, no divinity is absent, if _Prudentia_ be present, so it still
seems that everything is wanting to a man, if he wants that.
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