Thirdly, the aberrations of genius are often unduly magnified. The spots in a star are invisible--those in a sun are marked by every telescope. No man is a hero to his _valet de chambre_. And the reason often is, the valet is an observant but malicious and near-sighted fool. He sees the spots without seeing their small proportion to the magnitude of the orb. Nay, he creates spots if he can not see them. The servants of Mrs. Siddons, while she was giving her famous private readings from Milton and Shakspeare, thought their mistress mad, and used to say, "There's the old lady making as much noise as ever." Many and microscopic are the eyes which follow the steps of genius; and, too often, while they mark the mistakes, they are blind to the motives; to the palliations, to the resistance, and to the remorse. The world first idolizes genius--rates it even beyond its true worth--calls it perfect--remembers its divine derivation, but forgets that it must shine on us through earthly vessels, and then avenges on the earthly vessels the disappointment of its own exaggerated expectations. Hence each careless look, or word, or action of the hapless son of publicity, is noted, and, if possible, misinterpreted; his occasional high spirits are traced to physical excitement; his occasional stupidity voted a sin; his rapture and the reaction from it are both called in to witness against him: nay, an entire class of creatures arises, whose instinct it is to discover, and whose trade it is to tell his faults as a writer, and his failings as a man. It is under such a broad and searching glare, like that of a stage, that many men of warm temperament, strong passions, and sensitive feelings, have been obliged to play their part. And can we wonder that--sometimes sickened at the excessive and unnatural heat, sometimes dazzled by the overbearing and insolent light, and often disgusted at the falsehood of their position, and the cruelty or incompetence of their self-constituted judges--they have played it ludicrously or woefully ill? But again, till of late, the moral nature, and moral culture of genius, were things ignored by general opinion, by critics, and even by men of genius themselves. Milton and a few others were thought lucky and strange exceptions to the general rule. The general rule was understood to be that the gifted were MOST apt to go astray--that the very light that was in them was darkness--that aberration, in a word, was the law of their goings. One of their own number said that "The light that led astray, Was light from heaven."