246 A SUNDAY IN CHEYNE ROW. 



torrent swept swiftly and noisily in this one direction. 

 It is the tragedy in Burns's life that attracts him ; the 

 morose heroism in Johnson's, the copious manliness 

 in Scott's, the lordly and regal quality in Goethe. 

 Emerson praised Plato to him ; but the endless dia- 

 lectical hair-splitting of the Greek philosopher 

 " how does all this concern me at all ? " he said. 

 But when he discovered that Plato hated the Athe- 

 nian democracy most cordially and poured out his 

 scorn upon it, he thought much better of him. His- 

 tory swiftly resolves itself into biography to him ; 

 the tide in the affairs of men ebbed and flowed in 

 obedience to the few potent wills. We do not find 

 him exploiting or elucidating ideas and principles, 

 but moral qualities, always on the scent, on the 

 search of the heroic. 



He raises aloft the standard of the individual will, 

 the supremacy of man over events. He sees the 

 reign of law ; none see it clearer. " Eternal Law is 

 silently present everywhere and everywhen. By Law 

 the Planets gyrate in their orbits ; by some approach 

 to Law the street-cabs ply in their thoroughfares." 

 But law is still personal will with him, the will of 

 God. He can see nothing but individuality, but con- 

 scious will and force in the universe. He believed 

 in a personal God. He had an inward ground of 

 assurance of it, in his own intense personality and 

 vivid apprehension of personal force and genius. He 

 seems to have believed in a personal devil. At least 

 he abuses " Auld Nickie-Ben " as one would hardly 



