‘To judge adequately of this point, we must, further, take into account a certain strong jealousy which he entertained of his own honesty of mind. He was naturally, or on principle, a downright speaker, avoiding those words of course and of compliment, which often, it may be feared, serve to keep up a false peace at the expense of true Christian charity. His words, therefore (playfulness and occasional irony apart), may in general be taken more literally than those of most men. It is easy to see that this would make his criticisms, whether literary or moral, sound more pointed and unsparing than those in which a writer of less frankness would indulge himself. And this introduces another point, not unlikely to be animadverted on as blameable, in the present selection. Many, recoiling from his sentences, so direct, fearless, and pungent, concerning all sorts of men and things, will be fain to account them speeches uttered at random, more for present point and effect, than to declare the speaker’s real opinion; and, so judging, will of course disapprove of the collecting and publishing such sayings, especially on high and solemn subjects, as at best incautious, and perhaps irreverent. But they who judge thus must be met by a denial of the fact. The expressions in question were not uttered at random: he was not in the habit of speaking at random on such matters. This is remarkably evinced by the fact that to various friends, at various times, conversing or writing on the same subjects, he was constantly employing the same illustrations and arguments, very often the same words: as they found by comparison afterwards, and still go on to find. Now maxims and reasonings of which this may be truly affirmed, whatever else may be alleged against them, cannot fairly be thrown by as mere chance sayings. Right or wrong, they were deliberate opinions, and cannot be left out of consideration, in a complete estimate of a writer’s character and principles. The off-hand unpremeditated way in which they seemed to dart out of him, like sparks from a luminous body, proved only a mind entirely possessed with the subject; glowing, as it were, through and through.