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and uncompromising coloring. He has sought out the stature of his own soul, and found it was not just the measure of any other man's. He has burst the straight jacket of cramping conventionality, that his vigorous faculties might have free play; he has walked out of the verdureless, even-trodden path (leading to nothing) which myriads of feet are trampling with unprogressive, treadmill motion; he has rent asunder what Aurora Leigh calls "the violent bands of social figments;" he has dared to think for himself, to judge for himself, to act for himself, and not by the arbitrary law some feebler spirit has established.

Convicted of these delinquencies, "Good Society" brands him with the terrible stigma of "eccentric," "odd," "mad." And how quickly her hand-maiden, Ridicule, points at him her scornful finger, greets him with her dread laugh, and pursues him with her caustic jests. Eccentricity is such a fair subject for merriment! such an offence to good taste! such a parlor monster! Let us have none of it in these mincing, kid-glove, dancing-shoe days.

They are not at all dull, then, those stereotyped transcripts of commonplace humanity whom we encounter at every turn of this same popular Vanity Fair? They are not at all wearisome, then, those men and women led by the tinkling of custom's bell-wether; those fashion-plate patterns of one another in dress; those etiquette-book copies