Page:A note on Charlotte Brontë (IA note00swinoncharlottebrich).pdf/80

 competitors of his country and his day in the conterminous provinces of laughter and of tears—this incompetence or obduracy of temper is anything but a source of self-complacent satisfaction when I remember that foremost among these was the illustrious man of lion-hearted genius who but thirteen years since was still our greatest countryman surviving from an age of godlike giants and gods as yet but half divine; the Roman who best knew Greece, the Englishman who best loved England; the friend of Pericles and of Chatham, the associate of Sophocles and of Shakespeare; the heroic poet who retained at the age of Nestor whatever qualities were noblest in the nature of Achilles—all the lightnings of his mortal wrath, and all the tenderness of his immortal tears.