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228 LETTERS.
one of a very different description, which ought to afford
the soul that food which is denied to it in the Finnish na-
tional poem “ Kalevala.” It is Lord Brougham’s “ Emi-
nent Statesmen.” I wonder whether it is a deficiency in
me that I find these delineations below my expectation ?
I longed to see characters, distinguished men, and I see
before me only — orators. Lord Brougham appears to me
to be so preoccupied by the speeches of his statesmen, and
their talents in that line, that he almost overlooks their
actions as moral people; or, at any rate, looks upon that
character as a secondary consideration, alluding to it only
in passing. Lord North is the personage amongst them
which I imagine that I know and see; not from Lord
Brougham’s biography, but from his daughter’s, Lady
Lindsay, because she seizes just upon those moments in
which the’ character stands out naturally and completely. |
In order to be able to know man, one must see him in the
hours of success and of adversity; one must see him love ;
see his angry passions roused ; see him suffer, and see him
—die. I longed to have seen in Lord Brougham’s work
man stand forth out of the moral elementary life (out of
which the majority of mankind scarcely ever steps forth),
and reveal himself in a form energetic in good or in evil,
in life and in. death. But I did not find there what I
looked for. Lord Brougham’s moral feeling, so it seems
to me, is of English nature: pure, and noble, and strong.
But I miss “la scentilla celesta” in his expressions either
of blanie or of praise ; I miss vigor in spirit and in words.
Well, there you have quite unexpectedly got a whole
criticism. ‘Tell me, my dearest Frances, whether it is just
or unjust.
Arsra, 1942.
My dear, sweet Frances! I went through your letter
from beginning to end, only stumbling over, or stopping
at, a few words, of which some still figure as stones and
stumps on my road; but they do not now impede me;
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