of men who are minor copies of
Burns, I have a passionate wish to call on the Power that sways us all
and pray for pity and guidance. A most wise--should I say "wise"?--and
brilliant man had brought himself very low through drink, and was dying
solely through the effects of a debauch which had lasted for years with
scarcely an interval of pure sanity. He was beloved by all; he had a
most sweet nature; he was so shrewd and witty that it seemed impossible
for him to be wrong about anything. On his deathbed he talked with
lovely serenity, and he seemed rather like some thrice-noble disciple of
Socrates than like one who had cast away all that the world has worth
holding. He knew every folly that he had committed, and he knew its
exact proportions; he was consulted during his last days by young and
old, who recognized the well-nigh superhuman character of his wisdom;
and yet he had abundantly proved himself to be one of the most unwise
men living. How strange! How infinitely pathetic! Few men of clearer
vision ever came on this earth; but, with his flashing eyes open, he
walked into snare after snare, and the last of the devil's traps caught
him fatally. Even when he was too weak to stir, he said that, if he
could move, he would be sure to take the old path again. Well may the
warning devotees cry, "Have mercy upon us!" Well may they bow themselves
and wail for the weakness of man! Well may they cast themselves humbly
on the bosom of the Infinite Pity! For, of a truth, we are a feeble
folk, and, if we depended only on ourselves, it would be well that
George Eliot's ghastly thought of simultaneous universal suicide should
be put into practice speedily.

Hark to the appalling words of wisdom uttered by the good man whose name
I never miss mentioning because I wish all gentle souls to refresh
themselves with his ineffable sweetness and tender fun! "Could the youth
to whom the flavour of his first wine is delicious as the opening scenes
of life or the entering upon some newly-discovered paradise look upon my
desolation, and be made to understand what a dreary thing it is when a
man shall feel himself going down a precipice with open eyes and a
passive will--to see his destruction and have no power to stop it, and
yet to feel it all the way emanating from himself--to perceive all
goodness emptied out of him, and yet not be able to forget a time when
it was otherwise--to hear about the piteous spectacle of his own
self-ruin--coul