Page:Studies of a Biographer 3.djvu/260

 is much to be said for strong government and thoroughgoing convictions. But when the belief springs from intellectual timidity, and suggests underlying scepticism, the result is unpleasant. Froude seems to believe in fanaticism, though he does not really share the fanatic's belief.

He ought (using the word in the artistic sense) to have been a refined and sensitive critic, shuddering at the brutalities of the great human tragedy, where the truest and purest causes can only work by turning to account savage and stupid passions. That might be unpleasantly pessimistic and sceptical; but then his pessimism and scepticism shows through the superficial enthusiasm. Take your hero as simply the embodiment of great cosmic or providential forces, and you may have some sympathy for his antagonists as for the victims of a pestilence or an earthquake. But Froude at once recognises the ugly side, and feels bound to condone the offence. The tyranny and persecution are not regarded even as a painful and hideous necessity under the perverse conditions of life, but as somehow justifiable in themselves. He has to defend cruelty, and to still the hatred by which it was prompted.

That, I take it, partly explains his attitude to