Not only the elaborated story of Normanby, but the
whimsical selection of his heads prove this taste. He draws with
evident pleasure the portrait of a man, who never said anything
right, and never did anything wrong. But in the character of
Pericles, he has found full play for beauty and greatness of
behavior, where the circumstances are in harmony with the man. These
portraits, though mere sketches, must be valued as attempts in the
very highest kind of narrative, which not only has very few examples
to exhibit of any success, but very few competitors in the attempt.
The word Character is in all mouths; it is a force which we all feel;
yet who has analyzed it? What is the nature of that subtle, and
majestic principle which attaches us to a few persons, not so much by
personal as by the most spiritual ties? What is the quality of the
persons who, without being public men, or literary men, or rich men,
or active men, or (in the popular sense) religious men, have a
certain salutary omnipresence in all our life's history, almost
giving their own quality to the atmosphere and the landscape? A
moral force, yet wholly unmindful of creed and catechism,
intellectual, but scornful of books, it works directly and without
means, and though it may be resisted at any time, yet resistance to
it is a suicide.
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