ate men according to the
wrong things which they have done, or abstained from doing, we in fact
follow the example of Nobel, the king of the beasts: we give them their
places among us according to the service-ableness and capability which
they display. We might mention not a few eminent public servants, whom
the world delights to honour--ministers, statesmen, lawyers, men of
science, artists, poets, soldiers, who, if they were tried by the
negative test, would show but a poor figure; yet their value is too real
to be dispensed with; and we tolerate unquestionable wrong to secure the
services of eminent ability. The world really does this, and it always
has really done it from the beginning of the human history; and it is
only indolence or cowardice which has left our ethical teaching halting
so far behind the universal and necessary practice. Even questionable
prima donnas, in virtue of their sweet voices, have their praises hymned
in drawing-room and newspaper, and applause rolls over them, and gold
and bouquets shower on them from lips and hands which, except for those
said voices, would treat them to a ruder reward. In real fact, we take
our places in this world, not according to what we are not, but
according to what we are. His Holiness Pope Clement, when his
audience-room rang with furious outcries for justice on Benvenuto
Cellini, who, as far as half-a-dozen murders could form a title, was as
fair a candidate for the gallows as ever swung from that unlucky wood,
replied, 'All this is very well, gentlemen: these murders are bad
things, we know that. But where am I to get another Benvenuto if you
hang this one for me?'

Or, to take an acknowledged hero, one of the old Greek sort, the theme
of the song of the greatest of human poets, whom it is less easy to
refuse to admire than even our friend Reineke. Take Ulysses. It cannot
be said that he kept his hands from taking what was not his, or his
tongue from speaking what was not true; and if Frau Ermelyn had to
complain (as indeed there was too much reason for her complaining) of
certain infirmities in her good husband Reineke, Penelope, too, might
have urged a thing or two, if she had known as much about the matter as
we know, which the modern moralist would find it hard to excuse.

After all is said, the capable man is the man to be admired. The man who
tries and fails, what is the use of him? We are in this world to do
something--not to fail in doing it. Of your b