My Autobiography

Which in many cases were really of no consequence compared with what they said and did. Surely every man has his faults and his little and often ridiculous weaknesses, and these weaknesses belong quite as much to a man's character as his strength; nay, with the suppression of the former the latter would often become almost unintelligible. I like the biographies of such friends of mine as Dean Stanley, Charles Kingsley, and Baron Bunsen. But even these are deficient in those shadows which would but help to bring out all the more clearly the bright points in their character. We should remember the words of Dr. Wendell Holmes: "We all want to draw perfect ideals, and all the coin that comes from Nature's mint is more or less clipped, filed, 'sweated', or bruised, and bent and worn, even if it was pure metal when stamped, which is more than we can claim, I suppose, for anything human". True, very true; and what would the departed himself say to such biographies as are now but too common–most flat.