Kennedy dared not admit any one into his confidence, but the last evening, before they went down, he turned the conversation, as he sat at tea in Owen's room, to the topic of character, and the faults of great men, and the aberrations of the good. "Tell me, Owen," he said, "as you're a philosopher--tell me what difference the faults of good men make in our estimate of them?" "In our real estimate," said Owen, "I fancy we often adopt, half unconsciously, the maxim, that `the king can do no wrong'--that the true hero is all heroic." "Yes," said Kennedy; "but when some one calls your attention to the fact of their failings, and _makes_ you look at them--what then?" "Why, in nine cases out of ten the faults are grossly exaggerated and misrepresented, and I should try to prove that such is the fact; and for the rest,--why, no man is perfect." "You shirk the question, though," said Lillyston; "for you have to make very tremendous allowance indeed for some of the very best of men." As, for instance? "As, for instance, king David." "Oh, don't take Scripture instances," said Suton, an excellent fellow whom they all liked, though he took very different views of things from their own. "Why not, in heaven's name?" said Kennedy; "if they suit, they are good because so thoroughly familiar." "Yes, but somehow one judges them differently." "I daresay you do,--in fact I know you do; but you've no business to. I maintain that even according to Moses, king David deserved a felon's death. Murder and adultery were crimes every bit as heinous then as they are now. Yet David, this most _human_ of heroes, was the man after God's own heart. Solve me the problem." "Practically," said Lillyston; "I believe one follows a genuine instinct in _determining not_ to look at the spots, however wide or dark they are, upon the sun." "And in accepting theoretically old Strabo's grand dictum, _ouch oion agathon genesthai poieeteen mee pzotezon geneethenta anoza agathon_. Eh?" "As Coleridge was so fond of doing," said Julian. "Ay, he needed the theory," said Suton. "Hush!" said Julian, "I can't stand any such Philadelphus hints about Coleridge. By the bye, Owen, you might have quoted a still more apt illustration from Seneca, who criticises Livy for saying `Vir ingenii magni magis quam boni' with the remark, `Non potest illud separari; aut _et_ bonum erit aut _nec_ magnum.'" Mr Admer, who was one of the circle, chuckled inwardly at the discussion. "I was once," he said, "at a party where a lady sang one of Byron's Hebrew melodies. At the close of it a young clergyman sighed deeply, and with an air of intense self-satisfaction, observed, `Ah! I was wondering where poor Byron is now!' What should you have all said to that?" "Detesting Byron's personal character, I should have said that the very wonder was a piece of idle and meddling presumption," said Owen. "And I should have answered that the Judge will do right," said Suton reverently.