me one of such; I stood
Among them, but not of them; in a shroud
Of thoughts which were not their thoughts, and still could,
Had I not filed my mind which thus itself subdued.

"I have not loved the world, nor the world me--
But let us part fair foes; I do believe,
Though I have found them not, that there may be
Words which are things--hopes which will not deceive,
And virtues which are merciful nor weave
Snares for the failing: I would also deem
O'er others' griefs that some sincerely grieve;
That two, or one, are almost what they seem--
That goodness is no name, and happiness no dream."

Sweet verse embalms the spirit of sour misanthropy: but woe betide the
ignoble prose-writer who should thus dare to compare notes with the
world, or tax it roundly with imposture.

If I had sufficient provocation to rail at the public, as Ben Jonson
did at the audience in the Prologues to his plays, I think I should do
it in good set terms, nearly as follows. There is not a more mean,
stupid, dastardly, pitiful, selfish, spiteful, envious, ungrateful
animal than the Public. It is the greatest of cowards, for it is
afraid of itself. From its unwieldy, overgrown dimensions, it dreads
the least opposition to it, and shakes like isinglass at the touch of
a finger. It starts at its own shadow, like the man in the Hartz
mountains, and trembles at the mention of its own name. It has a
lion's mouth, the heart of a hare, with ears erect and sleepless eyes.
It stands "listening its fears." It is so in awe of its own opinion,
that it never dares to form any, but catches up the first idle rumour,
lest it should be behind-hand in its judgment, and echoes it till it
is deafened with the sound of its own voice. The idea of what the
public will think prevents the public from ever thinking at all, and
acts as a spell on the exercise of private judgment, so that in short
the public ear is at the mercy of the first impudent pretender who
chooses to fill it with noisy assertions, or false surmises, or secret
whispers. What is said by one is heard by all; the supposition that a
thing is known to all the world makes all the world believe it, and
the hollow repetition of a vague report drowns the "still, small
voice" of reason. We may believe or know that what is said is not
true: but we know or fancy that others believe it--we dare not
contradict or are too indolent to dispute with them, and therefore