. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern. athe most galling of yokes isthe tyranny of your next-door neighbor, the obligation of thinking as he thinks. He had a keen, almost reck-less wit and delicious buoyant humor, whose utterances never pall byrepetition; few authors so abound in tenaciously quotable phrasesand passages of humorous intellectuality. What is rarely found inconnection with much humor, he had a sensitive dreaminess ofnature, strongly poetic in feeling, whence resulted a large apprecia-tion of the subtler classes of poetry; of which he was an acute andsympath
. Library of the world's best literature, ancient and modern. athe most galling of yokes isthe tyranny of your next-door neighbor, the obligation of thinking as he thinks. He had a keen, almost reck-less wit and delicious buoyant humor, whose utterances never pall byrepetition; few authors so abound in tenaciously quotable phrasesand passages of humorous intellectuality. What is rarely found inconnection with much humor, he had a sensitive dreaminess ofnature, strongly poetic in feeling, whence resulted a large apprecia-tion of the subtler classes of poetry; of which he was an acute andsympathizing critic. As part of this temperament, he had a strongbent toward mysticism,—in one essay he says flatly that <( mysticismis true, — which gave him a rare insight into the religious natureand some obscure problems of religious history; though he was toocool, scientific, and humorous to be a great theologian., Above all, he had that instinct of selective art, in felicity of wordsand salience of ideas, which elevates writing into literature; which. Walter Bagehot 1204 WALTER BAGEHOT long after a thought has merged its being and use in those of widerscope, keeps it in separate remembrance and retains for its creatorhis due of credit through the artistic charm of the shape he gave it. The result of a mixture of traits popularly thought incompat-ible, and usually so in reality, — a great relish for the driest businessfacts and a creative literary gift, — was absolutely unique. Bagehotexplains the general sterility of literature as a guide to life by thefact that <(so few people who can write know anything;* and begana reform in his own person, by applying all his highest faculties—the best not only of his thought but of his imagination and his liter-ary skill — to the theme of his daily work, banking and business affairsand political economy. There have been many men of letters whowere excellent business men and hard bargainers, sometimes indeedmerchants or ban
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