28 ECONOMIC ESSAYS IN HONOR OF JOHN BATES CLARK
Y. E.: “Be not perturbed, Mr. Malthus; your main service is
so great that the minor matters will not be remembered against
you, even if not wholly in your favour. I said you might be
measured by the results of your work; I add, with juvenile
audacity, that a man’s greatness may also be measured by the
mistakes he has lived down. Forgive both blame and praise. In
the work of every economist, even in the great Adam and
Ricardo, there is a part that is obsolete. The weight is too heavy
to be lifted unless by two or three together. We youths, whether
precocious or only studious, render willing obeisance to those
who, like yourself, have lifted more than their share of the
weight. You will be glad to hear from me that we have still such
leaders as you, not only in the British Isles but Over the Seas.”
Like Achilles in the Odyssey, the Shade retired to his meadow
of asphodel with the long strides of a man not altogether dis-
satisfied.
pL
it's TC
tr I,