What he
gave in this little book was a light sketch of his mental physiognomy,
from which, perhaps, his horoscope might be cast and his literary future
predicted.
Though a patrician by birth and training, he revealed a strong sympathy
with the toiling masses. But it was a democracy of the brain, I should
fancy, rather than of the heart. As I read the book, sixteen years ago,
its tendency puzzled me considerably, remembering, as I did, with the
greatest vividness, the fastidious and _distingue_ personality of the
author. I found it difficult to believe that he was in earnest. The book
seemed to me to betray the whimsical _sans-culottism_ of a man of
pleasure who, when the ball is at an end, sits down with his gloves on,
and philosophizes on the artificiality of civilization and the
wholesomeness of honest toil. An indigestion makes him a temporary
communist; but a bottle of seltzer presently reconciles him to his lot,
and restores the equilibrium of the universe. He loves the people at a
distance, can talk prettily about the sturdy son of the soil, who is the
core and marrow of the nation, etc.
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