saintly and superhuman, not subject to the morality of ordinary
mortals. He has been bedaubed with pathos. Nevertheless it is
possible still to recognise in him one of the most engaging
personalities that ever lived. What is the secret of this
charm? He had many characteristics that belong to the most
tiresome natures; he even had the qualities of the man as to
whom one wonders whether partial insanity may not be his best
excuse--inconstancy expressing itself in hysterical revulsions
of feeling, complete lack of balance, proneness to act
recklessly to the hurt of others. Yet he was loved and
respected by contemporaries of tastes very different from his
own, who were good judges and intolerant of bores--by Byron,
who was apt to care little for any one, least of all for poets,
except himself; by Peacock, who poured laughter on all
enthusiasms; and by Hogg, who, though slightly eccentric, was a
Tory eccentric. The fact is that, with all his defects, he had
two qualities which, combined, are so attractive that there is
scarcely anything they will not redeem-- perfect sincerity
without a thought of self, and vivid emotional force. All his
faults as well as his virtues were, moreover, derived from a
certain strong feeling, coloured in a peculiar way which will
be explained in what follows--a sort of ardour of universal
benevolence. One of his letters ends with these words:
"Affectionate love to and from all. This ought to be not only
the vale of a letter, but a superscription over the gate of
life"--words which, expressing not merely Shelley's opinion of
what ought to be, but what he actually felt, reveal the
ultimate reason why he is still loved, and the reason, too, why
he has so often been idealised. For this universal benevolence
is a thing which appeals to men almost with the force of