But is it right, then, to judge of action by the quantity of thought
implied in it, any more than it would be to condemn a life of
contemplation for being inactive? Or has not everything a source and
principle of its own, to which we should refer it, and not to the
principles of other things? He who succeeds in any pursuit in which
others fail may be presumed to have qualities of some sort or other
which they are without. If he has not brilliant wit, he may have solid
sense; if he has not subtlety of understanding, he may have energy
and firmness of purpose; if he has only a few advantages, he may have
modesty and prudence to make the most of what he possesses. Propriety is
one great matter in the conduct of life; which, though, like a graceful
carriage of the body, it is neither definable nor striking at first
sight, is the result of finely balanced feelings, and lends a secret
strength and charm to the whole character.

Quicquid agit, quoquo vestigia vertit,
Componit furtim, subsequiturque decor.

There are more ways than one in which the various faculties of the
mind may unfold themselves. Neither words nor ideas reducible to words
constitute the utmost limit of human capacity. Man is not a merely
talking nor a merely reasoning animal. Let us then take him as he is,
instead of 'curtailing him of nature's fair proportions' to suit our
previous notions. Doubtless, there are great characters both in active
and contemplative life. There have been heroes as well as sages,
legislators and founders of religion, historians and able statesmen
and generals, inventors of useful arts and instruments and explorers of
undiscovered countries, as well as writers and readers of books. It
will not do to set all these aside under any fastidious or pedantic
distinction. Comparisons are odious, because they are impertinent, and
lead only to the discovery of defects by making one thing the standard
of another which has no relation to it. If, as some one proposed, we
were to institute an inquiry, 'Which was the greatest man, Milton or
Cromwell, Buonaparte or Rubens?' we should have all the authors and
artists on one side, and all the military men and the whole diplomatic
body on the other, who would set to work with all their might to pull
in pieces the idol of the other party, and the longer the dispute
continued, the more would each grow dissatisfied with his favourite,
though determined to allow no merit to any one else. The min