If his crimes and love could be weighed in a celestial balance, weight
being apportioned to the rarity and value of the love, which would
descend?

The points indicated in Conrad's character are not many, but they are
sufficient for its delineation, and it is a moral character. We must,
of course, get rid of the notion that the relative magnitude of the
virtues and vices according to the priest or society is authentic. A
reversion to the natural or divine scale has been almost the sole duty
preached to us by every prophet. If we could incorporate Conrad with
ourselves we should find that the greater part of what is worst in us
would be neutralised. The sins of which we are ashamed, the dirty,
despicable sins, Conrad could not have committed; and in these latter
days they are perhaps the most injurious.

We do not understand how moral it is to yield unreservedly to
enthusiasm, to the impression which great objects would fain make upon
us, and to embody that impression in worthy language. It is rare to
meet now even with young people who will abandon themselves to a heroic
emotion, or who, if they really feel it, do not try to belittle it in
expression. Byron's poetry, above most, tempts and almost compels
surrender to that which is beyond the commonplace self.

It is not true that "The Corsair" is insincere. He who hears a note of
insincerity in Conrad and Medora may have ears, but they must be those
of the translated Bottom who was proud of having "a reasonable good ear
in music." Byron's romance has been such a power exactly because men
felt that it was not fiction and that his was one of the strongest minds
of his day. He was incapable of toying with the creatures of the fancy