your former productions than could be said by the most unfriendly
critic; and the dreadful thought occurs, that if you yourself to-day
think so badly of what you wrote ten years since, it is probable
enough that on this day ten years hence (if you live to see it)
you may think as badly of what you are writing to-day. Let us hope
not. Let us trust that at length a standard of taste and judgment
is reached from which we shall not ever materially swing away. Yet
the pendulum will never be quite arrested as to your estimate of
yourself. Now and then you will think yourself a block-head: by and
bye you will think yourself very clever; and your judgment will
oscillate between these opposite poles of belief. Sometimes you
will think that your house is remarkably comfortable, sometimes
that it is unendurably uncomfortable; sometimes you will think that
your place in life is a very dignified and important one, sometimes
that it is a very poor and insignificant one; sometimes you will
think that some misfortune or disappointment which has befallen you
is a very crushing one; sometimes you will think that it is better
as it is. Ah, my brother, it is a poor, weak, wayward thing, the
human heart!

You know, of course, how the pendulum of public opinion swings
backwards and forwards. The truth lies somewhere about the middle
of the arc it describes, in most cases. You know how the popularity
of political men oscillates, from A, the point of greatest popularity,
to B, the point of no popularity at all. Think of Lord Brougham.
Once the pendulum swung far to the right: he was the most popular
man in Britain. Then, for many years, the pendulum swung far to
the left, into the cold regions of unpopularity, loss of influence,
and opposition benches. And now, in his last days, the pendulum
has come over to the right again. So with lesser men. When the