ABSTRACT
What a man might have and what he has are very different things. What good are his best friends, he gets so little of their best? His own fault—of course it is; but which of us would be greatly to be pitied except for the results of our own faults? And the nature fullest of faults is often the loftiest in possibilities, and more passionately to be loved and admired than the more even one. Only in this, as in all else, the final question is one of direction. If the man is going up from great to greater, or from low to higher, one rightly loves him, and honours him, but if he goes backwards one can only pity him.
