The sweetness of his character, breathed through his writings, was felt
even by strangers; but its heroic aspect was unguessed even by many of his
friends. Let them now consider it, and ask if the annals of self-sacrifice
can show anything in human action and endurance more lovely than its self-
devotion exhibits! It was not merely that he saw through the ensanguined
cloud of misfortune which had fallen upon his family, the unstained
excellence of his sister, whose madness had caused it; that he was ready
to take her to his own home with reverential affection, and cherish her
through life; that he gave up, for her sake, all meaner and more selfish
love, and all the hopes which youth blends with the passion which disturbs
and ennobles it; not even that he did all this cheerfully, and without
pluming himself upon his brotherly nobleness as a virtue, or seeking to
repay himself (as some uneasy martyrs do) by small instalments of long
repining,--but that he carried the spirit of the hour in which he first
knew and took his course, to his last. So far from thinking that his
sacrifice of youth and love to his sister gave him a license to follow his
own caprice at the expense of her feelings, even in the lightest matters,
he always wrote and spoke of her as his wiser self, his generous
benefactress, of whose protecting care he was scarcely worthy.
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