Our souls must be on fire when we wear
solemnity, if we would not press upon his shrewdest nerve. Finite and
infinite flash from one to the other with him, lending him a two-edged
thought that peeps out of his peacefullest lines by fits, like the
lantern of the fire-watcher at windows, going the rounds at night. The
comportment and performances of men in society are to him, by the vivid
comparison with their mortality, more grotesque than respectable. But ask
yourself, Is he always to be relied on for justness? He will fly straight
as the emissary eagle back to Jove at the true Hero. He will also make as
determined a swift descent upon the man of his wilful choice, whom we
cannot distinguish as a true one. This vast power of his, built up of the
feelings and the intellect in union, is often wanting in proportion and
in discretion. Humourists touching upon History or Society are given to
be capricious. They are, as in the case of Sterne, given to be
sentimental; for with them the feelings are primary, as with singers.
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