tent to which this law may be applied can
easily be understood. To a gentleman the law itself is an instinct.
Personal rights are frequently violated by praise as well as by censure,
and sometimes applause is not in any degree less offensive than
denunciation, though commonly men will forgive even the most unskilful
and injudicious commendation. In both ways the writers of this country
are apt to err.

While we agree with the most fastidious, in asserting that inviolability
of one's individualism, not by himself submitted for public observation,
we contend for the right and duty of the utmost freedom in the
dissection of what is thus submitted. Public speech, public action,
public character, are adventures upon the sea of the world's opinion,
and they must brave its winds or be sunk or wrecked by them,--the
person, so far as he is not involved, meanwhile safely watching from the
shore for results.

In the most careful applications of this principle, it is inevitable
that wrong is done sometimes; but when the wrong is not personal, it is
for the most part susceptible of remedy. The author may challenge
investigation of his book, the artist of his picture, the officer of his
administration. If there has been unfair severity of criticism, they are
likely to gain by it in the end, for every critic must justify upon
challenge.

There is a distinction in the cases of the dead. The world in an
especial manner becomes the heir of a life which is abandoned by its
master. This has been held by the wise in all ages and all states of
society. The justice of the distinction is very apparent: An invasion of
the individualism of the living destroys, or to a greater or less extent
affects, the freedom, and so the right and wrong, of his conduct, while
the secrets of the dead are to the living only as logic.

There are very few men who are not more willing to praise than to blame.
The better portion of men prefer to hear the praises even of strangers.
Therefore censors are held to stricter account than eulogists. But a
natural love of justice is continually at war with feelings of personal
kindness. It is impossible to see insolent and vulgar pretension in
noisy triumph, while real and unobtrusive merit is neglected. When we
see a creature strutting in laurels that have been won by another, human
nature--much as it has been abused--prompts us to grasp them from
undeserving brows and place them where they will have a natural grace.