ity '; he reads Demosthenes, partly with a view to Greek law;
dips into Plato and Aristotle, and is intensely interested by Cicero's
'De Natura Deorum.' He declares, as I have said, that he cared little
for literature in itself; and it is no doubt true that he was generally
more interested in the information to be got from books than in the mode
of conveying it. This, however, increases his appetite for congenial
works. He admires Gibbon enthusiastically; he has read the 'Decline and
Fall' four or five times, and is always wishing to read it again. He can
imagine no happier lot than to be able to devote oneself to the
completion of such a book. He found it hard, indeed, to think of a novel
or a poem as anything but a trifling though fascinating amusement. He
makes an unfavourable criticism upon a novel written by a friend, but
adds that it is 'not really unfavourable.' 'A great novel,' he explains,
'a really lasting work of art, requires the whole time and strength of
the writer, ... and X. is too much of a man to go in for that.' After
quoting Milton's 'Lycidas' and 'Christmas Hymn,' which he always greatly
admired, he adds that he is 'thankful that he is not a poet. To see all
important things through a magnifying glass of strange brilliant
colours, and to have all manner of tunes continually playing in one's
head, and I suppose in one's heart too, would make one very wretched.' A
good commonplace intellect satisfied with the homely food of law and
'greedily fond of pastry in the form of novels and the like, is--well,
it is at all events, thoroughly self-satisfied, which I suppose no real
poet or artist ever was.' Besides, genius generally implies sensitive
nerves, and is unfavourable to a good circulation and a thorough
digestion. These remarks are of course partly playful, but they
represent a real feeling. A similar vein of reflection appears to have
suggested a comment upon Las Casas' account of Napoleon at St. Helena.
It is 'mortifying' to think that Napoleon was only his own age when sent
to St. Helena. 'It is a base feeling, I suppose, but I cannot help
feeling that to have had such gifts and played such a part in life would
be a blessing and a delight greater than any other I can think of. I
suppose the ardent wish to be stronger than other people, and to have
one's own will as against them, is the deepest and most general of human
desires. If it were a wish which fulfilled itself, how very strong and
how very t