uppets of
circumstance; all too apt to follow the fashion; all too apt, like so
many minnows, to take our colour from the ground on which we lie, in
hopes, like them, of comfortable concealment, lest the new tyrant deity,
called public opinion, should spy us out, and, like Nebuchadnezzar of
old, cast us into a burning fiery furnace--which public opinion can make
very hot--for daring to worship any god or man save the will of the
temporary majority.

Yes, it is difficult to be anything but poor, mean, insufficient,
imperfect people, as like each other as so many sheep; and, like so many
sheep, having no will or character of our own, but rushing altogether
blindly over the same gap, in foolish fear of the same dog, who, after
all, dare not bite us; and so it always was and always will be.

For the third time I say,--

"Unless above himself he can
Exalt himself, how poor a thing is man."

But, nevertheless, any man or woman who will, in any age and under any
circumstances, can live the heroic life and exercise heroic influences.

If any ask proof of this, I shall ask them, in return, to read two
novels; novels, indeed, but, in their method and their moral, partaking
of that heroic and ideal element, which will make them live, I trust,
long after thousands of mere novels have returned to their native dust. I
mean Miss Muloch's 'John Halifax, Gentleman,' and Mr. Thackeray's
'Esmond,' two books which no man or woman ought to read without being the
nobler for them.

'John Halifax, Gentleman,' is simply the history of a poor young clerk,
who rises to be a wealthy mill-owner in the manufacturing districts, in
the early part of this century. But he contrives to be an heroic and
ideal clerk, and an heroic and ideal mill-owner; and that without doing
anything which the world would call heroic or ideal, or in anywise
stepping out of his sphere, minding simply his own business, and doing
the duty which lies nearest him. And how? By getting into his head from
youth the strangest notion, that in whatever station or business he may
be, he can always be what he considers a gentleman; and that if he only
behaves like a gentleman, all must go right at last. A beautiful book.
As I said before, somewhat of an heroic and ideal book. A book which did
me good when first I read it; which ought to do any young man good who
will read it, and then try to be, like John Halifax, a gentleman, whether
in the shop, the counting-hou