explanation of their fate is not, I think, hard to give. They have, I
think, really great merits. They contain more real thought than most
books of the kind; they are often very forcibly expressed; and they
unmistakably reflect very genuine and very strong convictions.
Unluckily, they maintain just the kind of views which the congregation
most easily gathered round such a pulpit is very much inclined to regard
with suspicion or with actual dislike.

An essay, for example, upon 'doing good' is in fact a recast of the
paper which decided his choice of a profession. It is intended to show
that philanthropists of the Exeter Hall variety are apt to claim a
monopoly of 'doing good' which does not belong to them, and are inclined
to be conceited in consequence. The ordinary pursuits are equally
necessary and useful. The stockbroker and the publican are doing good in
the sense of being 'useful' as much as the most zealous 'clergyman or
sister of mercy.' Medicine does good, but the butcher and the baker are
still more necessary than the doctor. We could get on without schools or
hospitals, but not without the loom and the plough. The philanthropist,
therefore, must not despise the man who does a duty even more essential
than those generally called benevolent, though making less demand on the
'kindly and gentle parts of our nature.' A man should choose his post
according to his character. It is not a duty to have warm feelings,
though it may be a misfortune not to have them; and a 'cold, stern man'
who should try to warm up his feelings would either be cruelly mortified
or become an intolerable hypocrite. It is a gross injustice to such a
man, who does his duty in the station fittest to his powers, when he is
called by implication selfish and indifferent to the public good. 'The
injustice, however, is one which does little harm to those who suffer
under it, for they are a thick-skinned and long-enduring generation,
whose comfort is not much affected one way or the other by the opinion
of others.'

This, like Fitzjames's other bits of self-portraiture, is not to be
accepted too literally. So taken, it confounds, I think, coldness and
harshness with a very different quality, a want of quick and versatile
sympathy, and 'thickness of skin' with the pride which would not admit,
even to itself, any tendency to over-sensibility. But it represents more
or less the tone which came naturally to him, and explains the want of
corresponding