Lamb's only weakness." I do not myself think this a sound
criticism. We ought not to abstain from condemning the weakness, we
must abstain from condemning Charles Lamb. His beautiful virtues,
his tenderness, his extraordinary sweetness and purity of nature,
far outweigh this weakness. But what are we to do? Are we to
ignore, to condone, to praise the habit? Are we to think the better
of Charles Lamb and love him more because he tippled? Would he not
have been more lovable without it?

And the fact that one may be conscious of similar faults and moral
weaknesses, ought not to make one more, but less, indulgent to such
a fault when we see it in a beautiful nature. The fault in question
is no more in itself adorable, than it is in another man who does
not possess Lamb's genius.

We have a perfect right--nay, we do well--to condemn in others
faults which we frankly condemn in ourselves. It does not help on
the world if we go about everywhere slobbering with forgiveness and
affection; it is the most mawkish sentimentality to love people in
such a way that we condone grave faults in them; and to condone a
fault because a man is great, when we condemn it if he is not
great, is only a species of snobbishness. It is right to
compassionate sinners, to find excuse for the faults of every one
but ourselves; but we ought not to love so foolishly and
irrationally, that we cannot even bring ourselves to wish our
hero's faults away.

I confess to feeling the most minute and detailed interest in the
smallest matters connected with other people's lives and
idiosyncrasies. I cannot bear biographies of the dignified order,