harmony in
himself. We see why Haydon failed as an artist when we read his life.
No one can dip into the "Excursion" without discovering that Wordsworth
was devoid of humour, and that he cared more for the narrow Cumberland
vale than he did for the big world. The flavour of opium can be
detected in the "Ancient Mariner" and "Christabel." A man's word or
deed takes us back to himself, as the sunbeam takes us back to the sun.
It is the sternest philosophy, but on the whole the truest, that, in
the wide arena of the world, failure and success are not accidents as
we so frequently suppose, but the strictest justice. If you do your
fair day's work, you are certain to get your fair day's wage--in praise
or pudding, whichever happens to suit your taste. You may have seen at
country fairs a machine by which the rustics test their strength of
arm. A country fellow strikes vigorously a buffer, which recoils, and
the amount of the recoil--dependent, of course, on the force with which
it is struck--is represented by a series of notches or marks. The
world is such a buffer. A man strikes it with all his might; his mark
may be 40,000 pounds, a peerage, and Westminster Abbey, a name in
literature or art; but in every case his mark is nicely determined by
the force or the art with which the buffer is struck. Into the world a
man brings his personality, and his biography is simply a catalogue of
its results.

There are some men who have no individuality, just as there are some
men who have no face. These are to be described by generals, not by
particulars. They are thin, vapid, inconclusive. They are important
solely on account of their numbers. For them the census enumerator
labours; they form majorities; they crowd voting booths; they make the
money; they do the ordinary work of the world. They are valuable when
well officered. They are plastic matter to be shaped by a workman's
hand; and are built with as bricks are built with. In the aggregate,
they form public opinion; but then, in every age, public opinion is the
disseminated thoughts of some half a dozen men, who are in all
probability sleeping quietly in their graves. They retain dead men's
ideas, just as the atmosphere retains the light and heat of the set
sun. They are not light--they are twilight. To know how to deal with
such men--to know how to use them--is the problem which ambitious force
is called upon to solve. Personality, individuality, force of
c