|A division of mankind into two classes.| The writer of this Introduction has often, in his imagination, divided men into two great classes, which seem to him separated by a wide gulf of thought and feeling. The one class is, if it may be so expressed, on the side of humanity: the other is opposed or indifferent to it. This essential difference of character is not necessarily the effect or the concomitant of virtue or of vice, of hopefulness or despondency, of a love of justice or a proneness to injustice; and it has still less to do with any of the intellectual qualities. But it depends upon the presence or the absence of a large and loving nature, where the lovingness takes heed of all humanity. The Prince was pre-eminently one of the first class. He wished for success to all honest human endeavour. No love of criticism, no fondness for paradox, no desire to exalt his own opinion, made him waver in his yearning for the |The Prince’s sympathy for work.| good of humanity. This caused his intense sympathy with all human work, from that of the artisan to that of the statesman. We have in this age used the word “philanthropy” till we are tired of it, till it has |The Prince a philan-thropist.| become a mawkish word with us; but still there is something very beautiful corresponding to that word, and that was what the Prince possessed. We all recognize in our respective spheres the distinction I have drawn above between these two classes. We all know, for instance, when any public or private disaster happens, who will really grieve over it and endeavour to retrieve it; and who will make it a subject for vain comment, pretended lamentation, or boasting censure. And a nation, like a man, would |The Prince helpful in times of trouble.| have come to the Prince when in real trouble, and have found in him one whose sole thought would have been, “what can now be done for the best?” For he was, as I said before, pre-eminently on the side of humanity, and all that touched other men, touched him, too, very nearly.
|His aversion to flattery.| The Prince had a horror of flattery. I use the word “horror” advisedly. Dr. Johnson somewhere says that flattery shows, at any rate, a desire to please, and may, therefore, be estimated as worth something on that account. But the Prince could not view it in that light. He shuddered at it: he tried to get away from it as soon as he could. It was simply nauseous to him.
|His aversion to vice.| He had the same feeling with regard to vice generally. Its presence depressed him, grieved him, horrified him. His tolerance allowed him to make excuses for the vices of individual men; but the evil itself he hated.
|Low motives odious to him.| What, however, was especially repugnant to the Prince was lowness. He could not bear men to be actuated by low motives. A remarkably unselfish man himself, he scarcely understood selfishness in others; and, when he recognized it, he felt an abhorrence for it. The conditions that the Prince drew up for the prize that is given by Her Majesty at Wellington College are very characteristic of him. This prize is not to be awarded to the most bookish boy, to the least faulty boy, to the boy who should be most precise, diligent, and prudent; but to the noblest boy, to the boy who should afford most promise of becoming a large-hearted, high-motived man.
|The Prince’s religious feelings.| The Prince was a deeply religious man, yet was entirely free from the faintest tinge of bigotry or sectarianism. His strong faith in the great truths of religion coexisted with a breadth of tolerance for other men struggling in their various ways to attain those truths. His views of Religion did not lead him to separate himself from other men; and in these high matters he rather sought to find unity in diversity, than to magnify small differences. Thus he endeavoured to associate himself with all earnest seekers after religious truth.
|Some men acquire knowledge without loving it.| It must have occurred to every observer of mankind to notice that there are persons who acquire knowledge without loving it. They have read all the noblest works in literature without being profoundly touched by any of them. They may be excellent classical scholars, and yet they do not seem to love their Horace or their Virgil. Their minds are not penetrated with a sense of the beauty of these authors. They do not see that an idea has been expressed once and for ever, in the choicest language, by these masters of expression: whereas, some humble student perceives all this; and Virgil, Horace, and Ovid belong to him. The same thing occurs in science; the same in law; the same in medicine. You see men who know all about their art, or their science, but who do not seem to love it. They are not led up to all nature by it. It is with them a business, rather than a science or an art. Such was not the case with the Prince. He was singularly impressed with the intellectual beauty of knowledge; for, as he once remarked to Her who most sympathised with him, “To me, a long, closely-connected train of reasoning is like a beautiful strain of music. You can hardly imagine my delight in it.” But this was not all with him. He was one of those rare seekers after truth who carry their affections into their acquisitions of knowledge. He loved knowledge on account of what it could do for mankind; and no man of our time sympathized more intimately with that splendid outburst of Bacon, where the great Chancellor exclaims,—