Note D — INTRODUCTION

"Nature is the great spendthrift. She will burn up the world some day to attain what will probably seem to us a very inadequate end; and in order to have things stated at their worst, once for all, in English, she took a splendid genius and made him—an army schoolmaster; starved his intellect, starved his heart, starved his body. All the adversity of the world smote him; and that nothing should be wanting to her purpose Nature took care that the very sun should smite him also! Time will avenge him: he is among the immortals."—John Davidson, in the Speaker, June 17, 1899.