the less our nature. And
if we look deeper into the matter there are many reasons why we should
not be ashamed of it. The soul of man, and as we necessarily believe
of beings greater than man, has many parts beside its moral part. It
has an intellectual part, an artistic part, even a religious part, in
which mere morals have no share. In Shakespeare or Goethe, even in
Newton or Archimedes, there is much which will not be cut down to the
shape of the commandments. They have thoughts, feelings,
hopes--immortal thoughts and hopes--which have influenced the life of
men, and the souls of men, ever since their age, but which the 'whole
duty of man', the ethical compendium, does not recognize. Nothing is
more unpleasant than a virtuous person with a mean mind. A highly
developed moral nature joined to an undeveloped intellectual nature,
an undeveloped artistic nature, and a very limited religious nature,
is of necessity repulsive. It represents a bit of human nature--a good
bit, of course, but a bit only--in disproportionate, unnatural, and
revolting prominence; and, therefore, unless an artist use delicate
care, we are offended. The dismal act of a squalid man needed many
condiments to make it pleasant, and therefore Mr. Tennyson was right
to mix them subtly and to use them freely.

A mere act of self-denial can indeed scarcely be pleasant upon paper.
An heroic struggle with an external adversary, even though it end in a
defeat, may easily be made attractive. Human nature likes to see
itself look grand, and it looks grand when it is making a brave
struggle with foreign foes. But it does not look grand when it is
divided against itself. An excellent person striving with temptation
is a very admirable being in reality, but he is not a pleasant being
in description. We hope he will win and overcome his temptation, but
we feel that he would be a more interesting being, a higher being, if
he had not felt that temptation so much. The poet must make the
struggle great in order to make the self-denial virtuous, and if the
struggle be too great, we are apt to feel some mixture of contempt.
The internal metaphysics of a divided nature are but an inferior
subject for art, and if they are to be made attractive, much else must
be combined with them. If the excellence of _Hamlet_ had depended on
the ethical qualities of Hamlet, it would not have been the
masterpiece of our literature. He acts virtuously of course, and kills
the people he