Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/187

Rh [1851] is insignificant in comparison with that of the efforts by which it was carried out, and with the importance of its practical results.

"To have seen from afar its effects on the improvement, the wealth, and the happiness of the people—to have seized the fit moment, when, by the right use of the influence of an exalted station, it was possible to overcome the deeply-rooted prejudices of the upper classes—to remove the still more formidable, because latent, impediments of party—generously to have undertaken great responsibility, and with indefatigable labour to have endeavoured to make the best out of the only materials at hand,—these are endowments of no ordinary kind.

"To move in any rank of society an exception to its general rules, is a very difficult, and if accompanied by the consciousness of the situation, a very painful position to a reflecting mind.

"Whatever may be the cause—whether exalted rank, unbounded wealth, surpassing beauty or unrivalled wit, the renown of daring deeds, the magic of a world-wide fame—to all within those narrow limits the dangers and the penalties are great. Each exists an isolated spirit; each unconsciously imprisoned within its crystal globe perceives the colours of all external objects modified by those tints imparted to them by its own surrounding sphere. No change of view can teach it to rectify this partial judgment; throughout its earthward course the same undying rainbow attends to the last its parent drop.

"Barely indeed can some deep-searching mind, after long comparison, perceive the real colours of those translucent shells which encompass kindred spirits; and thus at length enable him to achromatise the medium which surrounds his