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26 INTRODUCTOEY ESSAY.

den.ce of a mind actively and wholesomely employed in
the offices of friendship, in literature, art, in the
'quidquid agunt homines' regarded with good humour-
ed amusement, and in the minute study of Nature¹.
In a correspondence so full and varied we are jus-
tified in declaring that the whole character of the
man stands revealed to us. Here at any rate ^fhe
speaks out' very plainly. And we shall find here
private affections, deep but limited, and wonderfully
little even of an invalid's despondency; we shall find
indeed local antipathies and prejudices, but to at-
tribute Weltschmerz to him, or even any latent un-
easiness pointing that way, is the merest anachronism.
Let us repeat once more Mr Lowell's golden phrase
"Responsibility for the Universe had not yet been
invented." We are speaking now of England and
Englishmen, and the most emphatic utterances which
I can recollect of Gray's breathe the buoyant and
•cheerful public spirit of his age; he reminds Horace
Walpole that ^f desperare de Republic^ is a deadly sin
in polities'; and again, after quoting Gresset's

Le eri dun peuple heureux est la seule Eloquence
Qui scait parler des rois,

he adds ' which is very true, and should have

¹ It may seem strange to associate Gray with Goethe; yet
it is certain that Gray and Goethe are demonstrative instances
that the scientific exploration of Nature is compatible with
a love of Hature on the imaginative side.



	26 INTRODUCTOEY ESSAY. den.ce of a mind actively and wholesomely employed in the offices of friendship, in literature, art, in the 'quidquid agunt homines' regarded with good humour- ed amusement, and in the minute study of Nature¹. In a correspondence so full and varied we are jus- tified in declaring that the whole character of the man stands revealed to us. Here at any rate ^fhe speaks out' very plainly. And we shall find here private affections, deep but limited, and wonderfully little even of an invalid's despondency; we shall find indeed local antipathies and prejudices, but to at- tribute Weltschmerz to him, or even any latent un- easiness pointing that way, is the merest anachronism. Let us repeat once more Mr Lowell's golden phrase "Responsibility for the Universe had not yet been invented." We are speaking now of England and Englishmen, and the most emphatic utterances which I can recollect of Gray's breathe the buoyant and •cheerful public spirit of his age; he reminds Horace Walpole that ^f desperare de Republic^ is a deadly sin in polities'; and again, after quoting Gresset's Le eri dun peuple heureux est la seule Eloquence Qui scait parler des rois, he adds ' which is very true, and should have ¹ It may seem strange to associate Gray with Goethe; yet it is certain that Gray and Goethe are demonstrative instances that the scientific exploration of Nature is compatible with a love of Hature on the imaginative side.