critic who declined to read their poetry on the plea that it was "all dirges." But men can be mourners, too, and—
In all the endless road you tread
There 's nothing but the night,
is too often the burden of their verse, the unsolicited assurance with which they cheer us on our way. We do not believe them, of course, except in moments of dejection; but these are just the moments in which we would like to hear something different. When our share of gayety is running pitifully low, and the sparks of joy are dying on life's hearth, we have no courage to laugh down the voices of those who, "wilfully living in sadness, speak but the truths thereof."
Hazlitt, who was none too happy, but who strove manfully for happiness, used to say that he felt a deeper obligation to Northcote than to any of his other friends who had done him far greater service, because Northcote's conversation was invariably gay and agreeable. "I never ate nor drank with him; but I have lived on his words with undiminished relish ever since I can remember; and when I leave him, I come
