There is no man so great, no gift so brilliant, but let it be whispered that there is falseness in the life of the hero, and immediately his greatness is dwarfed, his eloquence becomes a trick, his authority is impaired.

Reading Robert Burns' poems, he seems wiser than all the scholars, wittier than all the humorists, more courtly than princes.

His genius blazes like a torch among the tapers.

But watching this son of genius and of liberty weave a net for his own feet, and fashion a snare for his own faculties, with wistful hearts we long, as one has said, "to hear the exulting and triumphant cry of the strong man coming to himself, I will arise." But he loved the barroom more than the library, and so fell on death at seven and thirty, and lost his right to rule as a king o'er men's hearts and lives.

Byron, too, and Goethe had gifts so resplendent that in kings' palaces they shine like diamonds amid the pebbles.