It is in the season of youth, while the character is forming, that the impulse to admire is the greatest. As we advance in life, we crystallize into habit; and "NIL ADMIRARI" too often becomes our motto. It is well to encourage the admiration of great characters while the nature is plastic and open to impressions; for if the good are not admired--as young men will have their heroes of some sort--most probably the great bad may be taken by them for models. Hence it always rejoiced Dr. Arnold to hear his pupils expressing admiration of great deeds, or full of enthusiasm for persons or even scenery. "I believe," said he, "that "NILADMIRARI" is the devil's favourite text; and he could not choose a better to introduce his pupils into the more esoteric parts of his doctrine. And, therefore, I have always looked upon a man infected with the disorder of anti-romance as one who has lost the finest part of his nature, and his best protection against everything low and foolish." (9)It was a fine trait in the character of Prince Albert that he was always so ready to express generous admiration of the good deeds of others. "He had the greatest delight," says the ablest delineator of his character, "in anybody else saying a fine saying, or doing a great deed. He would rejoice over it, and talk about it for days; and whether it was a thing nobly said or done by a little child, or by a veteran statesman, it gave him equal pleasure. He delighted in humanity doing well on any occasion and in any manner." (10)"No quality," said Dr. Johnson, "will get a man more friends than a sincere admiration of the qualities of others. It indicates generosity of nature, frankness, cordiality, and cheerful recognition of merit." It was to the sincere--it might almost be said the reverential--admiration of Johnson by Boswell, that we owe one of the best biographies ever written. One is disposed to think that there must have been some genuine good qualities in Boswell to have been attracted by such a man as Johnson, and to have kept faithful to his worship in spite of rebuffs and snubbings innumerable. Macaulay speaks of Boswell as an altogether contemptible person--as a coxcomb and a bore--weak, vain, pushing, curious, garrulous; and without wit, humour, or eloquence. But Carlyle is doubtless more just in his characterisation of the biographer, in whom--vain and foolish though he was in many respects--he sees a man penetrated by the old reverent feeling of discipleship, full of love and admiration for true wisdom and excellence. Without such qualities, Carlyle insists, the 'Life of Johnson' never could have been written.
"Boswell wrote a good book," he says, "because he had a heart and an eye to discern wisdom, and an utterance to render it forth;because of his free insight, his lively talent, and, above all, of his love and childlike openmindedness."Most young men of generous mind have their heroes, especially if they be book-readers. Thus Allan Cunningham, when a mason's apprentice in Nithsdale, walked all the way to Edinburgh for the sole purpose of seeing Sir Walter Scott as he passed along the street. We unconsciously admire the enthusiasm of the lad, and respect the impulse which impelled him to make the journey. It is related of Sir Joshua Reynolds, that when a boy of ten, he thrust his hand through intervening rows of people to touch Pope, as if there were a sort of virtue in the contact. At a much later period, the painter Haydon was proud to see and to touch Reynolds when on a visit to his native place. Rogers the poet used to tell of his ardent desire, when a boy, to see Dr. Johnson; but when his hand was on the knocker of the house in Bolt Court, his courage failed him, and he turned away. So the late Isaac Disraeli, when a youth, called at Bolt Court for the same purpose; and though be HAD the courage to knock, to his dismay he was informed by the servant that the great lexicographer had breathed his last only a few hours before.
On the contrary, small and ungenerous minds cannot admire heartily. To their own great misfortune, they cannot recognise, much less reverence, great men and great things. The mean nature admires meanly. The toad's highest idea of beauty is his toadess.
The small snob's highest idea of manhood is the great snob. The slave-dealer values a man according to his muscles. When a Guinea trader was told by Sir Godfrey Kneller, in the presence of Pope, that he saw before him two of the greatest men in the world, he replied: "I don't know how great you may be, but I don't like your looks. I have often bought a man much better than both of you together, all bones and muscles, for ten guineas!"Although Rochefoucauld, in one of his maxims, says that there is something that is not altogether disagreeable to us in the misfortunes of even our best friends, it is only the small and essentially mean nature that finds pleasure in the disappointment, and annoyance at the success of others. There are, unhappily, for themselves, persons so constituted that they have not the heart to be generous. The most disagreeable of all people are those who "sit in the seat of the scorner." Persons of this sort often come to regard the success of others, even in a good work, as a kind of personal offence. They cannot bear to hear another praised, especially if he belong to their own art, or calling, or profession. They will pardon a man's failures, but cannot forgive his doing a thing better than they can do. And where they have themselves failed, they are found to be the most merciless of detractors. The sour critic thinks of his rival: