ON HUMAN NATURE AND ITS CAPACITIES FOR VIRTUE. 113 



and unhappy, for in the admission of the fact would lie 

 his own condemnation the implicit confession that there 

 was nothing of analogous nature in himself; that he him- 

 self was neither generous, nor true, nor brave ; that he 

 himself was of those of whom our poet speaks, who shut 

 love out, and "who in turn shall be shut out from Love, 

 and on her threshold lie howling in outer darkness." 



For to the noble and generous and true natures, men 

 naturally turn whatever there is of the like in themselves, 

 ashamed to confess or show an utter penury of the higher 

 human graces in the presence of those richly endowed 

 with them, and who freely and without calculation of cost 

 manifest them in action. To the true and good, men show 

 their best and truest sides as they did to Brutus. Their 

 " better self " comes forward, the baser recedes ; one of 

 the reassuring things which prove, should we feel ever 

 inclined to doubt, the reality and efficacy of truth and 

 goodness. Nor is there a deeper knowledge of human 

 nature anywhere shown, a finer insight into the deepest 

 springs of noble character in their rarer and subtler move- 

 ments anywhere displayed, a more touching tribute to the 

 reality and potency of virtue anywhere paid, than where 

 Brutus the same Brutus who, according to Plutarch, 

 once asked, in a despairing moment, whether virtue were 

 other than a name is made by Shakespeare to utter 

 on the final day at Philippi, and at the supreme hour 

 when men's hearts speak the deepest tr"uth and feeling 

 that is in them, the great and proud and satisfied acknow- 

 ledgment 



Country men, 



My heart doth joy that yet, in all my life, 

 I found no man but he was true to me. 



To resume, then : a few have sanctified the many for 

 us; a few superior specimens of humanity, the general 



