either 'wrangling with or accepting' the opinions that 'hurtled in the
air' about him.

But _was_ there no relation between his unspeculative habit of
mind and his honest, unwavering service of duty, whose voice he ever
obeyed as the ship the rudder? It would be difficult to name anyone
more unlike Lamb, in many aspects of character, than Dr. Johnson, for
whom he had (mistakenly) no warm regard; but they closely resemble one
another in their indifference to mere speculation about things--if
things they can be called--outside our human walk; in their hearty
love of honest earthly life, in their devotion to their friends, their
kindness to dependents, and in their obedience to duty. What caused
each of them the most pain was the recollection of a past unkindness.
The poignancy of Dr. Johnson's grief on one such recollection is
historical; and amongst Lamb's letters are to be found several in
which, with vast depths of feeling, he bitterly upbraids himself for
neglect of old friends.

Nothing so much tends to blur moral distinctions, and to obliterate
plain duties, as the free indulgence of speculative habits. We must
all know many a sorry scrub who has fairly talked himself into the
belief that nothing but his intellectual difficulties prevents him
from being another St. Francis. We think we could suggest a few score
of other obstacles.

Would it not be better for most people, if, instead of stuffing their
heads with controversy, they were to devote their scanty leisure to
reading books, such as, to name one only, Kaye's 'History of the Sepoy
War,' which are crammed full of activities and heroisms, and which
force upon the reader's mind the healthy conviction that, after all,