This is as though the audience in a
theatre were to admire a fine scene and then rush upon the stage to
look at the scaffolding that supports it. There are in our day enough
instances of these critical investigators, and they prove the truth of
the saying that mankind is interested, not in the _form_ of a work,
that is, in its manner of treatment, but in its actual matter. All it
cares for is the theme. To read a philosopher's biography, instead of
studying his thoughts, is like neglecting a picture and attending only
to the style of its frame, debating whether it is carved well or ill,
and how much it cost to gild it.
This is all very well. However, there is another class of
persons whose interest is also directed to material and personal
considerations, but they go much further and carry it to a point where
it becomes absolutely futile. Because a great man has opened up to
them the treasures of his inmost being, and, by a supreme effort
of his faculties, produced works which not only redound to their
elevation and enlightenment, but will also benefit their posterity to
the tenth and twentieth generation; because he has presented mankind
with a matchless gift, these varlets think themselves justified in
sitting in judgment upon his personal morality, and trying if they
cannot discover here or there some spot in him which will soothe the
pain they feel at the sight of so great a mind, compared with the
overwhelming feeling of their own nothingness.
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