culty or practice of
analysis or of argument. But to proceed from this to a general denial of
'philosophy' to him--that is to say, to allow him a merely superficial
knowledge of human nature--is an utter mistake. I have quoted elsewhere,
but the book from which the quotation is made is so rare that I may well
quote here again, some remarkable words on this subject from M. Milsand,
Mr. Browning's friend, and the recipient of the Dedication of the
reprint of _Sordello_.[50] It is certain that this praise might be
supported with a large anthology of passages in the novels and even the
poems--passages indicating an anthropological science as intimate as it
is unpretentiously expressed. To some good folk in our days, who think
that nothing can be profound which is naturally and simply spoken, and
who demand that a human philosopher shall speak gibberish and wear his
boots on his brows, the fact may be strange, but it is a fact. And it
may be added that even if chapter and verse could not thus be produced,
a sufficient proof, the most sufficient possible, could be otherwise
provided. Scott, by the confession of all competent judges, save a very
few, has created almost more men and women, undoubtedly real and
lifelike, than any other prose novelist. Now you cannot create a man or
a woman without knowing whereof a man and a woman are made, though the
converse proposition is unfortunately by no means so universally
predicable. He was content, as a rule, to put this great science of his
into practice rather than to expound it in theory, to demonstrate it
rather than to lecture on it, but that is all.

In the second place, we are not to look to him for any great intensity
of delineation of passion, especially in the sense to which that word is
more commonly confined. He has nowhere left us (as some other men of
letters have) any hint that he abstained from doing this because the
passion would have been so tremendous that it was on the whole best for
mankind that they should not be exposed to it. The qualities of humour
and of taste which were always present with Scott would have prevented
this. But I should doubt whether he felt any temptation to unbosom
himself, or any need to do so. The slight hints given at the time of the
combined action of his misfortunes and the agitation arising from his
renewed communications with Lady Jane Stuart, are almost all the
indications that we have on the subject, and they are too slight to
found