, let it be
pardoned as little more than a fair counterbalance to that peculiar
veneration with which the work of the older master, associated as it has
ever been in our ears with the expression of whatever is great or
perfect, must be usually regarded by the reader. I do not say that this
veneration is wrong, nor that we should be less attentive to the
repeated words of time: but let us not forget, that if honor be for the
dead, gratitude can only be for the living. He who has once stood beside
the grave, to look back upon the companionship which has been forever
closed, feeling how impotent _there_ are the wild love, or the keen
sorrow, to give one instant's pleasure to the pulseless heart, or atone
in the lowest measure to the departed spirit for the hour of unkindness,
will scarcely for the future incur that debt to the heart, which can
only be discharged to the dust. But the lesson which men receive as
individuals, they do not learn as nations. Again and again they have
seen their noblest descend into the grave, and have thought it enough to
garland the tombstone when they had not crowned the brow, and to pay the
honor to the ashes, which they had denied to the spirit. Let it not
displease them that they are bidden, amidst the tumult and the dazzle of
their busy life, to listen for the few voices, and watch for the few
lamps, which God has toned and lighted to charm and to guide them, that
they may not learn their sweetness by their silence, nor their light by
their decay.

FOOTNOTES

[1] The opinion of a majority is right only when it is more probable
with each individual that he should be right than that he should be
wrong, as in the case of a jury. Where it is more probable, with
respect to each individual, that he should be wrong than right, the
opinion of the minority is the true one. Thus it is in art.

[2] There are, however, a thousand modifying circumstances which
render this process sometimes unnecessary,--sometimes rapid and
certain--sometimes impossible. It is unnecessary in rhetoric and the
drama, because the multitude is the only proper judge of those arts
whose end is to move the multitude (though more is necessary to a
fine play than is essentially dramatic, and it is only of the
dramatic part that the multitude are cognizant). It is unnecessary,
when, united with the higher qualities of a work, there are appeals
to universal passion, to all t