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as one of the most extraordinary persons of the age.—E. V. Lucas's Life of Charles Lamb, Vol. II, p. 125. |
One inevitable consequence of his inability to compare critically his own work with accepted standards was the accusation of vanity; a fault indeed, belonging peculiarly to childhood, and quite deserving the epithet childish. Thus he speaks of his own work as though it were all he meant it to be; and, seeing that it was in his own day almost wholly unappreciated, he found it necessary to explain its merits to the public. Indeed, he unblushingly compares it with Raphael's. But a man like this, "as incapable," Crabb Robinson assures us, "of envy as he was of discontent," was hardly a vessel for vulgar vanity. He was so deeply possessed by the truth of his work's purpose that he could not throw himself outside it to see how others would misunderstand his ardour.
It is as if (to use Goethe's figure), having seen from within the cathedral of his own soul great glories shining through its rich-hued windows, he had then gone without, and found the stupid public staring at the
