ronte. He spoke of Tennyson
as "the light and joy of my poor life." In 1868 he saw Sir W. Scott's
portrait in London, and wrote: "Sir Walter Scott, shrewd yet wistful,
boyish yet dry, looking as if he would ask and answer questions of the
fairies--him I saw through a mist of weeping. He is my lost childhood,
he is my first great friend. I long for him, and hate the death that
parts us."

In literature, the first claim on his regard was that a writer should
have looked on life with a high-hearted, generous gaze, should have
cared intensely for humanity, should have hoped, loved, suffered, not
in selfish isolation, but with eager affection. Thus he was not only a
philosophical historian, nor a mere technical critic; he was for ever
dominated by an intense personal fervour. He cared little for the manner
of saying a thing, so long as the heart spoke out frankly and freely;
he strove to discern the energy of the soul in all men; he could forgive
everything except meanness, cowardice, egotism and conceit; there was no
fault of a generous and impulsive nature that he could not condone.

Thus he was for many boys a deeply inspiring teacher; he had the art
of awakening enthusiasm, of investing all he touched with a mysterious
charm, the charm of wide and accurate knowledge illuminated by feeling
and emotion. He rebuked ignorance in a way which communicated the desire
to know. There are many men alive who trace the fruit and flower of
their intellectual life to his generous and free-handed sowing. But
in spite of the fact that the work of a teacher of boys was intensely
congenial to him, that he loved generous boyhood, and tender souls, and
awakening minds with all his heart, he was not wholly in the right place
as an instructor of youth. With all his sympathy for what was weak and
immature, he was yet impatient of dullness, of stupidity, of caution;
much that he said was too mature, too exalted for the cramped and
limited minds of boyhood. He was sensitive to the charm of eager,
high-spirited, and affectionate natures, but he had also the equable,
just, paternal interest in boys which is an essential quality in a wise
schoolmaster. Yet he was apt to make favourites; and though he demanded
of his chosen pupils and friends a high intellectual zeal, though he
was merciless to all sloppiness and lack of interest, yet he forfeited
a wider influence by his reputation for partiality, and by an obvious
susceptibility to grace of manne