said, "as you're a philosopher--tell me what
difference the faults of good men make in our estimate of them?"

"In our real estimate," said Owen, "I fancy we often adopt, half
unconsciously, the maxim, that `the king can do no wrong'--that the true
hero is all heroic."

"Yes," said Kennedy; "but when some one calls your attention to the fact
of their failings, and _makes_ you look at them--what then?"

"Why, in nine cases out of ten the faults are grossly exaggerated and
misrepresented, and I should try to prove that such is the fact; and for
the rest,--why, no man is perfect."

"You shirk the question, though," said Lillyston; "for you have to make
very tremendous allowance indeed for some of the very best of men."

As, for instance?

"As, for instance, king David."

"Oh, don't take Scripture instances," said Suton, an excellent fellow
whom they all liked, though he took very different views of things from
their own.

"Why not, in heaven's name?" said Kennedy; "if they suit, they are good
because so thoroughly familiar."

"Yes, but somehow one judges them differently."

"I daresay you do,--in fact I know you do; but you've no business to. I
maintain that even according to Moses, king David deserved a felon's
death. Murder and adultery were crimes every bit as heinous then as
they are now. Yet David, this most _human_ of heroes, was the man after
God's own heart. Solve me the problem."

"Practically," said Lillyston; "I believe one follows a genuine instinct
in _determining not_ to look at the spots, however wide or dark they
are, upon the sun."

"And in accepting theoretically old Strabo's grand dictum, _ouch oion
agathon genesthai poieeteen mee pzotezon geneethenta anoza agathon_.
Eh?"

"As Coleridge was so fond of doing," said Julian.

"Ay, he needed the theory," said Suton.

"Hush!" said Julian, "I can't stand any such Philadelphus hints about
Coleridge. By the bye, Owen, you might have quoted a still more apt
illustration from Seneca, who criticises Livy for saying `Vir ingenii
magni magis quam boni' with the remark, `Non potest illud separari; aut
_et_ bonum erit aut _nec_ magnum.'"

Mr Admer, who was one of the circle, chuckled inwardly at the
discussion. "I was once," he said, "at a party where a lady sang one of
Byron's Hebrew melodies. At the close of it a young clergyman sighed
deeply, and with an air of intense self-satisfaction, observed, `Ah! I
was wondering where poor Byron i