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SOUTHEY'S LETTERS
85
gaps. He gets rather hard measure. Some modern readers seem to like in an author precisely the qualities which they would despise in the man. Southey, as a gentleman to the core, was incapable of the wayward egotism and bitter personality which Hazlitt cherished and even turned to account in his works. Posterity is too apt to prefer the man who will unveil his feelings, even when they are in themselves ignoble; and Southey's 'stoicism,' honourable as it was, has perhaps alienated rather than attracted sympathy.
