INTRODUCTION
There are other manifestations of greatness than to relieve suffering or
to wreck an empire. Julius C<ae>sar and John Howard are not the only
heroes who have smiled upon the world. In the supreme adaptation of
means to an end there is a constant nobility, for neither ambition nor virtue
is the essential of a perfect action. How shall you contemplate with
indifference the career of an artist whom genius or good guidance has
compelled to exercise his peculiar skill, to indulge his finer aptitudes? A
masterly theft rises in its claim to respect high above the reprobation of the
moralist. The scoundrel, when once justice is quit of him, has a right to
be appraised by his actions, not by their effect; and he dies secure in the
knowledge that he is commonly more distinguished, if he be less loved,
than his virtuous contemporaries.