IX
WHEN I see men assume the seat of judges instead of leaving all judgment to the Supreme, I am filled with shame. Read the writings of the critics and you will find a good deal to laugh over. One would think that their acquaintance with the characters of a book was more intimate than that of the author himself. 'There is no consistency,' they declare in accents which compel conviction, 'in the delineation of this man's character; and as for the other man, he never could have acted thus.' And the readers say, 'How fine! This is criticism: this is analysis of character. How dare any one write rubbish and balderdash when the lash of such a critic hangs over him? See now how he has pulled that book to pieces!' I dare say the book has its faults: what earthly thing has not? But when I contemplate my own life, such assurance about others' lives fills me with infinite pity and humility. 'Alas for the human heart!' I say to myself. 'Is it a mere phrase that the soul of man is infinite? How can we ever forget that millions of births, and countless millions of experiences in each birth, may lie submerged under the surface of this limitless mind, and that the emergence of any one of them into our life may set at naught all our experience, all education, and all this unerring skill in the analysis of character? And how can we forget too that the heart of man is the seat of his eternal soul?'
119
