Ahab did not like Micaiah, because he never prophesied good concerning him, but evil: probably he liked the sycophant son of Chenaanah better; yet might Ahab have escaped a bloody death, had he but stopt his ears to flattery, and opened them to faithful counsel.
There is a man in our own days whose words are not framed to tickle delicate ears; who, to my thinking, comes before the great ones of society much as the son of Imlah came before the throned kings of Judah and Israel; and who speaks truth as deep, with a power as prophet-like and as vital—a mien as dauntless and as daring. Is the satirist of "Vanity Fair" admired in high places? I can not tell; but I think if some of those amongst whom he hurls the Greek-fire of his sarcasm, and over whom he flashes the levin-brand of his denunciation, were to take his warnings in time—they or their seed might yet escape a fatal Ramoth-Gilead.
Why have I alluded to this man? I have alluded to him, reader, because I think I see in him an intellect profounder and more unique than his contemporaries have yet recognized; because I regard him as the first social regenerator of the day—as the very master of that working corps who would restore to rectitude the warped system of things.
FOOTNOTES:
[31] Preface to the second edition of "Jane Eyre." "Vanity Fair" and "Jane Eyre" were published contemporaneously—"Vanity Fair" (serially) in 1846-48, and "Jane Eyre" in 1847.
JAMES ANTHONY FROUDE
Born in 1818, died in 1894; educated at Oxford; Fellow of Exeter in 1842; associated with John Henry Newman in the high church movement; owing to change in his religious views, took up literature as a profession; came to the United States in 1872, where he lectured; visited Africa and Australia afterward; made Professor of Modern History at Oxford in 1892 as successor to Freeman; published his "History of England" in 1856-70, "Short Studies on Great Subjects" in 1867-77, "Cæsar" in 1879, "Reminiscences of Carlyle" in 1881 and "Life of Carlyle" in 1882 and following year.