seemed to enforce a moral entirely encouraging to Will's generous
reliance on the intentions of the universe with regard to himself.
He held that reliance to be a mark of genius; and certainly it is no
mark to the contrary; genius consisting neither in self-conceit nor
in humility, but in a power to make or do, not anything in general,
but something in particular. Let him start for the Continent, then,
without our pronouncing on his future. Among all forms of mistake,
prophecy is the most gratuitous.

But at present this caution against a too hasty judgment interests
me more in relation to Mr. Casaubon than to his young cousin.
If to Dorothea Mr. Casaubon had been the mere occasion which had set
alight the fine inflammable material of her youthful illusions,
does it follow that he was fairly represented in the minds of those
less impassioned personages who have hitherto delivered their
judgments concerning him? I protest against any absolute conclusion,
any prejudice derived from Mrs. Cadwallader's contempt for a neighboring
clergyman's alleged greatness of soul, or Sir James Chettam's poor
opinion of his rival's legs,--from Mr. Brooke's failure to elicit
a companion's ideas, or from Celia's criticism of a middle-aged
scholar's personal appearance. I am not sure that the greatest man
of his age, if ever that solitary superlative existed, could escape
these unfavorable reflections of himself in various small mirrors;
and even Milton, looking for his portrait in a spoon, must submit
to have the facial angle of a bumpkin. Moreover, if Mr. Casaubon,
speaking for himself, has rather a chilling rhetoric, it is not
therefore certain that there is no good work or fine feeling in him.
Did not an immortal physicist and interpreter of hieroglyphs write
detestable verses? Has the theory of the solar system been advanced
by graceful manners and conversational tact? Suppose we turn