at another, for the works of Carlyle, and the controversy excited by the reckless Froude; but the truth—as it appears to me, or at any rate, the part of a truth—was not borne in upon me until I came to know and to regard, with dread, the possibility that I might be included in their number, which I should not like, unless it were as a mere brother in humanity, somewhat estranged in spirit though we should be.
XXXIX
The disadvantages of being classed as a reformer
are not, I am sure, sufficiently appreciated; if they
were the peace of the world would not be troubled
as constantly as it is by those who would make mankind
over on a model of which they present themselves
as the unattractive example. One of those
advantages is that each reformer thinks that all the
other reformers are in honor committed to his reform;
he writes them letters asking for expressions
of sympathy and support, and, generally, when he
finds that each of the others has some darling reform
of his own which he is determined to try on an
unwilling public, he is at once denounced as a traitor
to the whole scheme of reform in the universe. Another
disadvantage is that reformers never are reelected,
and I might set forth others, were it my
intention to embark on that interesting subject.
I am moved to these observations, however, by the recollection of an experience, exasperating at the
