This, however true, is not absolutely so; nothing is absolutely true of man.

It is certain that a debauched man will dissipate his talent, that a drunkard will waste it in libations; while, on the other hand, no man can give himself talent by wholesome living: nevertheless, it is all but proved that Virgil, the painter of love, never loved a Dido, and that Rousseau, the model citizen, had enough pride to had furnished forth an aristocracy.

On the other hand Raphael and Michael Angelo do present the glorious conjunction of genius with the lines of character.

Talent in men is therefore, in all moral points, very much what beauty is in women,--simply a promise.

Let us, therefore, doubly admire the man in whom both heart and character equal the perfection of his genius.
When Ernest discovered within his poet an ambitious egoist, the worst species of egoist (for there are some amiable forms of the vice), he felt a delicacy in leaving him.