ough I heartily love John, Peter, Thomas,
and so forth." The philanthropist will often idealise man in the
abstract and hate his neighbour at the back door, but that was not
Swift's way. He has been called an inverted hypocrite, as one who makes
himself out worse than he is. I should rather call him an inverted
idealist, for, with high hopes and generous expectations, he entered
into the world, and lacerated by rage at the cruelty, foulness, and
lunacy he there discovered, he poured out his denunciations upon the
crawling forms of life whose filthy minds were well housed in their
apelike and corrupting flesh--a bag of loathsome carrion, animated by
various lusts.

"Noli aemulari," sang the cheerful Psalmist; "Fret not thyself because
of evildoers." How easy for most of us it is to follow that comfortable
counsel! How little strain it puts upon our popularity or our courage!
And how amusing it is to watch the course of human affairs with tolerant
acquiescence! Yes, but, says Swift, "amusement is the happiness of those
who cannot think," and may we not say that acquiescence is the cowardice
of those who dare not feel? There will always be some, at least, in the
world whom savage indignation, like Swift's, will continually torment.
It will eat their flesh and exhaust their spirits. They would gladly be
rid of it, for, indeed, it stifles their existence, depriving them alike
of pleasure, friends, and the objects of ambition--isolating them in the
end as Swift was isolated. If only the causes of their indignation might
cease, how gladly they would welcome the interludes of quiet! But hardly
is one surmounted than another overtops them like a wave, nor have the
stern victims of indignation the smallest hope of deliverance from their
suffering, until they lie, as Swift has now lain for so many years,
where cruel rage can tear the heart no more--"Ubi saeva indignatio
ulterius cor lacerare nequit."

VII

THE CHIEF OF REBELS

"It is time that I ceased to fill the world," said the dying Victor
Hugo, and we recognise the truth of the saying, though with a smile. For
each generation must find its own way, nor would it be a consolation to
have even the greatest of ancient prophets living still. But yet there
breathes from the living a more intimate influence, for which an
immortality of fame cannot compensate. When men like Tolstoy die, the
world is colder as well as more empty. They have passed outside the
common danger