nly scorn and contumely, that ruined his health and broke his
heart, withholding the wreath until, as he said pathetically, his only
"pleasure was in memory, his ambition in heaven," and he knew not what
to do with his laurel leaves save "lay them wistfully upon his mother's
grave." In every age the critics that have refused honor to its
worthies, living, have heaped gifts high upon the graves of its dead.

That generation and individual must be far from perfect that is
characterized by the presence of harshness and the absence of
gentleness. With a great blare of trumpets our century has been
praised for its ingenuity, its wealth and comforts, its instruments,
refinement and culture. But history tells of no man who has carried
his genius up to such supreme excellence that society has forgotten his
vice or forgiven the faults that marred his rare gifts. What genius
had De Quincey! Marvelous the myriad-minded Coleridge! The
opium-habit, however, was a vice that eclipsed their fame and robbed
them of half their rightful influence. Voltaire's style was so
faultlessly perfect that if the sentences lying across his page had
been strings of pearls they could have been no more beautiful. But
Voltaire's excesses make a black mark across the white page before each
reader's mind. Rousseau's writings are so melodious that, long after
laying aside the book the ear would be filled with the sound of
delicious music were it not that the reader seems ever to hear the moan
of the four children whose unnatural father, without even giving them a
name, placed them in the foundling-asylum.

Early Carlyle wooed and won one of the most brilliant girls of his day,
whose signal talent shone in the crowded drawing-rooms of London like a
sapphire blazing among pebbles. Yet her husband lacked gentleness.
Slowly harshness crept into Carlyle's voice. Soon the wife gave up her
favorite authors to read the husband's notes; then she gave up all
reading to relieve him of details; at last her very being was placed on
the altar of sacrifice--fuel to feed the flame of his fame and genius.
Long before the end came she was submerged and almost forgotten. One
day two distinguished foreign authors called upon Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle.
For an hour the philosopher poured forth vehement tirade against the
commercial spirit, while the good wife never once opened her lips. At
last the author ceased talking, and there was silence for a time.
Suddenly Carly