ollowing him through life, beginning
from childhood, at college, when he would plant himself in front of
school tyrants, asking to share the punishments inflicted on his friend
Peel, and always taking the part of his weak or oppressed companions;
then, during his first youth, when an accumulation of unmerited griefs
and injustice cast over him a shade of misanthropy, so contrary to his
nature; and, lastly, up to the moment when that noble indignation burst
forth which he experienced in Greece, and which hastened his end.[115]

This is the truth. Nevertheless, if, in early youth, he did sometimes go
beyond the limits of what may be fairly conceded to extreme
sensibility,--to a certain hypochondriacal tendency of race, and more
especially of his intellectual life; if he really was sometimes wearied,
fatigued, discouraged, inclined to irritation, and to view things
darkly, can it, therefore, be said that he weakly gave way to a morbid
disposition? By no means. He always wished to sift his conscience
thoroughly,--never ceased analyzing causes and symptoms, proclaiming his
state morbid, and blaming himself beyond measure, far beyond what
justice warranted, for a single word that had escaped his lips under the
pressure of intense suffering. And even in the few moments of impatience
occasioned by his last illness, he said, "Do not take the language of a
sick man for his real sentiments." Lastly, he never gave over struggling
against himself; seeking to acquire dominion over his faculties and
passions intellectually by hard study, and materially by the strictest
regime. What could he do more? it may be said. But if it be true that he
had been irritable in his youth, that would only show how much he
achieved; for he must have conquered himself immensely, since at Venice,
Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa, and in Greece, he certainly displayed no traces of
temper, and all those causes which usually excite irritation and anger
in others had quite ceased to produce any in him.

"A mild philosophy," says the Countess G----, "every day more and more
took possession of his soul. Adversity and the companionship of great
thoughts strengthened him so much, that he was able to cast off the yoke
of even ordinary passions, only retaining those among the number which
impel to good.[116]

"I have seen him sometimes at Ravenna, Pisa, Genoa, when receiving news
of some stupid, savage attack, from those who, in violating justice,
also did him considerable