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STUDIES OF A BIOGRAPHER

and he should never let a vivid impression guide him till he has reduced it to tangible statements of loss and gain. He must deal in sober black and white, and be on his guard against the brilliant shifting colours which are apt to generate illusions as to the real proportions of the objects of vision. Young, indeed, was a sound economist, and that, no doubt, is what Miss Betham-Edwards means, in so far as he was a thorough Free-Trader. The 'whole system of monopoly,' he declares, 'is rotten to the core, and the true principle and vital spring and animating soul of commerce is Liberty!' That, however sound may be the doctrine, is the utterance of an enthusiast, not of a sober, logical reasoner. He was animated by the spirit of the contemporary philosophy. The great object of his idolatry was Rousseau. In his French travels he visits the tomb of that 'immortal' and 'splendid genius' whose 'magic' is teaching French mothers to nurse their children, and French nobles to love a country life. He denounces the 'vile spirit of bigotry ' which hunted Rousseau during his life as though he had been a mad dog. At Chambery he turns even from his economical speculation to something still more interesting, the house of the 'deliciously amiable'