There is one particular form of priggishness, in this matter of criticism of others, which is apt to beset literary people, and more especially at a time when it seems to be considered by many writers that the first duty of a critic—­they would probably call him an artist for the sake of the associations—­is to get rid of all sense of right and wrong.  I was reading the other day a sensible and appreciative review of Mr. Lucas’s new biography of Charles Lamb.  The reviewer quoted with cordial praise Mr. Lucas’s remark—­referring, of course, to the gin-and-water, which casts, I fear, in my own narrow view, something of a sordid shadow over Lamb’s otherwise innocent life—­“A man must be very secure in his own righteousness who would pass condemnatory judgment upon Charles 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, which do not condescend to give what are called personal details, but confine themselves to matters of undoubted importance.  When I have finished reading such books I feel as if I had been reading The Statesman’s Year-book, or The Annual Register.  I have no mental picture of the hero; he is merely like one of those bronze statues, in frockcoat and trousers, that decorate our London squares.