But “men of the world,” as they are emphatically distinguished, imagine that a man so lifeless in “the world” must be one of the dead in it, and, with mistaken wit, would inscribe over the sepulchre of his library, “Here lies the body of our friend.”  If the man of letters have voluntarily quitted their “world,” at least he has passed into another, where he enjoys a sense of existence through a long succession of ages, and where Time, who destroys all things for others, for him only preserves and discovers.  This world is best described by one who has lingered among its inspirations.  “We are wafted into other times and strange lands, connecting us by a sad but exalting relationship with the great events and great minds which have passed away.  Our studies at once cherish and control the imagination, by leading it over an unbounded range of the noblest scenes in the overawing company of departed wisdom and genius."[A]

[Footnote A:  “Quarterly Review,” No. xxxiii. p. 145.]

Living more with books than with men, which is often becoming better acquainted with man himself, though not always with men, the man of letters is more tolerant of opinions than opinionists are among themselves.  Nor are his views of human affairs contracted to the day, like those who, in the heat and hurry of a too active life, prefer expedients to principles; men who deem themselves politicians because they are not moralists; to whom the centuries behind have conveyed no results, and who cannot see how the present time is always full of the future.  “Everything,” says the lively Burnet, “must be brought to the nature of tinder or gunpowder, ready for a spark to set it on fire,” before they discover it.  The man of letters indeed is accused of a cold indifference to the interests which divide society; he is rarely observed as the head or the “rump of a party;” he views at a distance their temporary passions —­those mighty beginnings, of which he knows the miserable terminations.

Antiquity presents the character of a perfect man of letters in ATTICUS, who retreated from a political to a literary life.  Had his letters accompanied those of Cicero, they would have illustrated the ideal character of his class.  But the sage ATTICUS rejected a popular celebrity for a passion not less powerful, yielding up his whole soul to study.  CICERO, with all his devotion to literature, was at the same time agitated by another kind of glory, and the most perfect author in Rome imagined that he was enlarging his honours by the intrigues of the consulship.  He has distinctly marked the character of the man of letters in the person of his friend ATTICUS, for which he has expressed his respect, although he could not content himself with its imitation.  “I know,” says this man of genius and ambition, “I know the greatness and ingenuousness of your soul, nor have I found any difference between us, but in a different choice of life; a certain sort of ambition has led me earnestly to seek after honours,