unglers--helpless,
inefficient persons, 'unfit alike for good or ill,' who try one thing,
and fail because they are not strong enough, and another, because they
have not energy enough, and a third, because they have no
talent--inconsistent, unstable, and therefore never to excel, what shall
we say of them? what use is there in them? what hope is there of them?
what can we wish for them? [Greek: to mepot' einai pant' ariston]. It
were better for them they had never been born. To be able to do what a
man tries to do, that is the first requisite; and given that, we may
hope all things for him. 'Hell is paved with good intentions,'the
proverb says; and the enormous proportion of bad successes in this life
lie between the desire and the execution. Give us a man who is able to
do what he settles that he desires to do, and we have the one thing
indispensable. If he can succeed doing ill, much more he can succeed
doing well. Show him better, and, at any rate, there is a chance that he
will do better.

We are not concerned here with Benvenuto or with Ulysses further than to
show, through the position which we all consent to give them, that there
is much unreality in our common moral talk, against which we must be on
our guard. And if we fling off an old friend, and take to affecting a
hatred of him which we do not feel, we have scarcely gained by the
exchange, even though originally our friendship may have been misplaced.

Capability no one will deny to Reineke. That is the very _differentia_
of him. An 'animal capable' would be his sufficient definition. Here is
another very genuinely valuable feature about him--his wonderful
singleness of character. Lying, treacherous, cunning scoundrel as he is,
there is a wholesome absence of humbug about him. Cheating all the
world, he never cheats himself; and while he is a hypocrite, he is
always a conscious hypocrite--a form of character, however paradoxical
it may seem, a great deal more accessible to good influences than the
other of the unconscious sort. Ask Reineke for the principles of his
life, and if it suited his purpose to tell you, he could do so with the
greatest exactness. There would be no discrepancy between the profession
and the practice. He is most truly single-minded, and therefore stable
in his ways, and therefore, as the world goes, and in the world's sense,
successful. Whether really successful is a question we do not care here
to enter on; but only to say this--tha