INTRODUCTION
advice about the German novels he was to translate. But it was equally of course that a hundred-and-one nonentities should ask him for every variety of assistance, and that none should ever be sent away unsatisfied. He gave money, and gave it very freely and very wisely, but his generosity was shown in a thousand ways that troubled him much more than mere almsgiving.[1] Friends and acquaintances unanimously turned to him when they were in need, and their testimony in his favour is overwhelming. Like Carlyle (April 29, 1825), they knew by repeated experience his readiness to oblige, and made no scruple of applying to him in any and every emergency. "I am a man," he once told Bagehot, "to whom a great number of persons entertain the very strongest objection." We can well believe that this was true, for he had his weaknesses, his crotchets, and his prejudices like other people. He could be prosy and dull and self-assertive. His society manners were not always above reproach; for instance, even as a young man he frequently fell asleep in company when he did not find it amusing, or when there was music which he could not appreciate. His views on politics, too, were very pronounced, and he was unable to brook contradiction on certain matters both political and literary. Above all, he had character, personality, mind; and such a man was unlikely, considering the number of his acquaintances and the variety of his pursuits, to pass through life without making enemies. But he had a genius for friendship, and social gifts which have outlasted him. Not only do his Diary and the other jottings-down of his leisure moments revivify the men whom he knew and loved. They create for him new friends in his readers, who owe to him what is almost a
- ↑ You are the benevolent friend of all, adding to the value of every good office by the judgement which directs it."—Flaxman to H. C. R. Feb. 11, 1819.
"It is difficult to have less claim than myself to your services, but we have a sort of instinct that tells on whom we may venture to rely when we stand in need of a kind office."—Miss H. M. Williams {minor authoress') to H. C. R. Mch. 25, 1819.
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