242 LIFE OF SIR JOHN LUBBOCK oh. 



a very spacious one, but had it not the limitations 

 noted above, had the eulogy quoted been equally 

 just as generous, it could hardly be possible that 

 this character sketch were of a very human being, 

 as Lord Avebury most essentially was : it would 

 rather suggest the superhuman in its range and 

 its attainment. 



I do not know whether any reader of the above 

 will be disposed to reply with the objection — 

 " How can you speak of a man as indifferent to 

 the charms of art and of music, etc., when he has 

 touched on these so well and shown such just 

 recognition of their value in his Pleasures of 

 Life ? How can you speak of the indifference to 

 literature of one who has given us so delightful 

 a book (translated, too, into so many languages) 

 as the Pleasures of Literature ? " The answer 

 would be that it is perfectly true that he had this 

 adequately full appreciation of all that these 

 pleasures of art and music might mean to 

 humanity, probably as full an appreciation as it 

 is possible for a man to have to whom they did 

 not make their emotional appeal ; but that this 

 admission is not in any way inconsistent with the 

 assertion that to him they did not make any such 

 appeal. It is possible for one man to have no 

 ear for music, or for another to feel himself quite 

 unattracted by field sports, and yet both the 

 first and the second can hardly fail to realise that 

 there is a large section of mankind to which music, 

 another to which field sports count for very much, 

 and for whom they have even to be rated among 

 the chief enjoyments of life. In such a manner 

 was it possible for Sir John to estimate very ade- 



