{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_2944/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_2944","id":"gutenberg_2944","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2944","summary":null,"tags":["American essays -- 19th century","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Harvard Classics"],"text":"ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES\n\nBy Ralph Waldo Emerson\n\n\nContents\n\n  I. HISTORY\n  II. SELF-RELIANCE\n  III. COMPENSATION\n  IV. SPIRITUAL LAWS\n  V. LOVE\n  VI. FRIENDSHIP\n  VII. PRUDENCE\n  VIII. HEROISM\n  IX. THE OVER-SOUL\n  X. CIRCLES\n  XI. INTELLECT\n  XII. ART\n\n\n   Next Volume\n\n\n\n\nI.\nHISTORY\n\n\nThere is no great and no small\nTo the Soul that maketh all:\nAnd where it cometh, all things are\nAnd it cometh everywhere.\n\n\nI am owner of the sphere,\nOf the seven stars and the solar year,\nOf C\u00e6sar\u2019s hand, and Plato\u2019s brain,\nOf Lord Christ\u2019s heart, and Shakspeare\u2019s strain.\n\n\n\n\nHISTORY\n\n\nThere is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet\nto the same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the\nright of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has\nthought, he may think; what a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any\ntime has befallen any man, he can understand. Who hath access to this\nuniversal mind is a party to all that is or can be done, for this is\nthe only and sovereign agent.\n\nOf the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is\nillustrated by the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing\nless than all his history. Without hurry, without rest, the human\nspirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty, every\nthought, every emotion, which belongs to it, in appropriate events. But\nthe thought is always prior to the fact; all the facts of history\npreexist in the mind as laws. Each law in turn is made by circumstances\npredominant, and the limits of nature give power to but one at a time.\nA man is the whole encyclopaedia of facts. The creation of a thousand\nforests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain,\nAmerica, lie folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp,\nkingdom, empire, republic, democracy, are merely the application of his\nmanifold spirit to the manifold world.\n\nThis human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphinx must\nsolve her own riddle. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all\nto be explained from individual experience. There is a relation between\nthe hours of our life and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe\nis drawn from the great repositories of nature, as the light on my book\nis yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant, as the poise\nof my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal\nforces, so the hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages\nexplained by the hours. Of the universal mind each individual man is\none more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact\nin his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men\nhave done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every\nrevolution was first a thought in one man\u2019s mind, and when the same\nthought occurs to another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform\nwas once a private opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion\nagain it will solve the problem of the age. The fact narrated must\ncorrespond to something in me to be credible or intelligible. We, as we\nread, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and king, martyr and\nexecutioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our secret\nexperience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. What befell Asdrubal or\nC\u00e6sar Borgia is as much an illustration of the mind\u2019s powers and\ndepravations as what has befallen us. Each new law and political\nmovement has meaning for you. Stand before each of its tablets and say,\n\u2018Under this mask did my Proteus nature hide itself.\u2019 This remedies the\ndefect of our too great nearness to ourselves. This throws our actions\ninto perspective; and as crabs, goats, scorpions, the balance and the\nwaterpot lose their meanness when hung as signs in the zodiac, so I can\nsee my own vices without heat in the distant persons of Solomon,\nAlcibiades, and Catiline.\n\nIt is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and\nthings. Human life, as containing this, is mysterious and inviolable,\nand we hedge it round with penalties and laws. All laws derive hence\ntheir ultimate reason; all express more or less distinctly some command\nof this supreme, illimitable essence. Property also holds of the soul,\ncovers great spiritual facts, and instinctively we at first hold to it\nwith swords and laws and wide and complex combinations. The obscure\nconsciousness of this fact is the light of all our day, the claim of\nclaims; the plea for education, for justice, for charity; the\nfoundation of friendship and love and of the heroism and grandeur which\nbelong to acts of self-reliance. It is remarkable that involuntarily we\nalways read as superior beings. Universal history, the poets, the\nromancers, do not in their stateliest pictures,\u2014in the sacerdotal, the\nimperial palaces, in the triumphs of will or of genius,\u2014anywhere lose\nour ear, anywhere make us feel that we intrude, that this is for better\nmen; but rather is it true that in their grandest strokes we feel most\nat home. All that Shakspeare says of the king, yonder slip of a boy\nthat reads in the corner feels to be true of himself. We sympathize in\nthe great moments of history, in the great discoveries, the great\nresistances, the great prosperities of men;\u2014because there law was\nenacted, the sea was searched, the land was found, or the blow was\nstruck, _for us_, as we ourselves in that place would have done or\napplauded.\n\nWe have the same interest in condition and character. We honor the rich\nbecause they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we\nfeel to be proper to man, proper to us. So all that is said of the wise\nman by Stoic or Oriental or modern essayist, describes to each reader\nhis own idea, describes his unattained but attainable self. All\nliterature writes the character of the wise man. Books, monuments,\npictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds the lineaments\nhe is forming. The silent and the eloquent praise him and accost him,\nand he is stimulated wherever he moves, as by personal allusions. A\ntrue aspirant therefore never needs look for allusions personal and\nlaudatory in discourse. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but,\nmore sweet, of that character he seeks, in every word that is said\nconcerning character, yea further in every fact and circumstance,\u2014in\nthe running river and the rustling corn. Praise is looked, homage\ntendered, love flows, from mute nature, from the mountains and the\nlights of the firmament.\n\nThese hints, dropped as it were from sleep and night, let us use in\nbroad day. The student is to read history actively and not passively;\nto esteem his own life the text, and books the commentary. Thus\ncompelled, the Muse of history will utter oracles, as never to those\nwho do not respect themselves. I have no expectation that any man will\nread history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age, by\nmen whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense than what he\nis doing to-day.\n\nThe world exists for the education of each man. There is no age or\nstate of society or mode of action in history to which there is not\nsomewhat corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful\nmanner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him. He should\nsee that he can live all history in his own person. He must sit solidly\nat home, and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but\nknow that he is greater than all the geography and all the government\nof the world; he must transfer the point of view from which history is\ncommonly read, from Rome and Athens and London, to himself, and not\ndeny his conviction that he is the court, and if England or Egypt have\nany thing to say to him he will try the case; if not, let them for ever\nbe silent. He must attain and maintain that lofty sight where facts\nyield their secret sense, and poetry and annals are alike. The instinct\nof the mind, the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make\nof the signal narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether\nthe solid angularity of facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences avail to\nkeep a fact a fact. Babylon, Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome\nare passing already into fiction. The Garden of Eden, the sun standing\nstill in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward to all nations. Who cares what\nthe fact was, when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven\nan immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go the same way.\n\u201cWhat is history,\u201d said Napoleon, \u201cbut a fable agreed upon?\u201d This life\nof ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, England, War,\nColonization, Church, Court and Commerce, as with so many flowers and\nwild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I\nbelieve in Eternity. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain and the\nIslands,\u2014the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, in\nmy own mind.\n\nWe are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our\nprivate experience and verifying them here. All history becomes\nsubjective; in other words there is properly no history, only\nbiography. Every mind must know the whole lesson for itself,\u2014must go\nover the whole ground. What it does not see, what it does not live, it\nwill not know. What the former age has epitomized into a formula or\nrule for manipular convenience, it will lose all the good of verifying\nfor itself, by means of the wall of that rule. Somewhere, sometime, it\nwill demand and find compensation for that loss, by doing the work\nitself. Ferguson discovered many things in astronomy which had long\nbeen known. The better for him.\n\nHistory must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts\nindicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see\nthe necessary reason of every fact,\u2014see how it could and must be. So\nstand before every public and private work; before an oration of Burke,\nbefore a victory of Napoleon, before a martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, of\nSidney, of Marmaduke Robinson; before a French Reign of Terror, and a\nSalem hanging of witches; before a fanatic Revival and the Animal\nMagnetism in Paris, or in Providence. We assume that we under like\ninfluence should be alike affected, and should achieve the like; and we\naim to master intellectually the steps and reach the same height or the\nsame degradation that our fellow, our proxy has done.\n\nAll inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the\nexcavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,\u2014is the\ndesire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There or Then,\nand introduce in its place the Here and the Now. Belzoni digs and\nmeasures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes, until he can see the\nend of the difference between the monstrous work and himself. When he\nhas satisfied himself, in general and in detail, that it was made by\nsuch a person as he, so armed and so motived, and to ends to which he\nhimself should also have worked, the problem is solved; his thought\nlives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs,\npasses through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to the\nmind, or are now.\n\nA Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us and not done by us.\nSurely it was by man, but we find it not in our man. But we apply\nourselves to the history of its production. We put ourselves into the\nplace and state of the builder. We remember the forest-dwellers, the\nfirst temples, the adherence to the first type, and the decoration of\nit as the wealth of the nation increased; the value which is given to\nwood by carving led to the carving over the whole mountain of stone of\na cathedral. When we have gone through this process, and added thereto\nthe Catholic Church, its cross, its music, its processions, its Saints\u2019\ndays and image-worship, we have as it were been the man that made the\nminster; we have seen how it could and must be. We have the sufficient\nreason.\n\nThe difference between men is in their principle of association. Some\nmen classify objects by color and size and other accidents of\nappearance; others by intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause\nand effect. The progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of\ncauses, which neglects surface differences. To the poet, to the\nphilosopher, to the saint, all things are friendly and sacred, all\nevents profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For the eye is\nfastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical\nsubstance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity\nof cause, the variety of appearance.\n\nUpborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft and\nfluid as a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants, and\nmagnify a few forms? Why should we make account of time, or of\nmagnitude, or of figure? The soul knows them not, and genius, obeying\nits law, knows how to play with them as a young child plays with\ngraybeards and in churches. Genius studies the causal thought, and far\nback in the womb of things sees the rays parting from one orb, that\ndiverge, ere they fall, by infinite diameters. Genius watches the monad\nthrough all his masks as he performs the metempsychosis of nature.\nGenius detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the\ngrub, through the egg, the constant individual; through countless\nindividuals the fixed species; through many species the genus; through\nall genera the steadfast type; through all the kingdoms of organized\nlife the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud which is always and\nnever the same. She casts the same thought into troops of forms, as a\npoet makes twenty fables with one moral. Through the bruteness and\ntoughness of matter, a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will.\nThe adamant streams into soft but precise form before it, and whilst I\nlook at it its outline and texture are changed again. Nothing is so\nfleeting as form; yet never does it quite deny itself. In man we still\ntrace the remains or hints of all that we esteem badges of servitude in\nthe lower races; yet in him they enhance his nobleness and grace; as\nIo, in \u00c6schylus, transformed to a cow, offends the imagination; but how\nchanged when as Isis in Egypt she meets Osiris-Jove, a beautiful woman\nwith nothing of the metamorphosis left but the lunar horns as the\nsplendid ornament of her brows!\n\nThe identity of history is equally intrinsic, the diversity equally\nobvious. There is, at the surface, infinite variety of things; at the\ncentre there is simplicity of cause. How many are the acts of one man\nin which we recognize the same character! Observe the sources of our\ninformation in respect to the Greek genius. We have the _civil history_\nof that people, as Herodotus, Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch have\ngiven it; a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were\nand what they did. We have the same national mind expressed for us\nagain in their _literature_, in epic and lyric poems, drama, and\nphilosophy; a very complete form. Then we have it once more in their\n_architecture_, a beauty as of temperance itself, limited to the\nstraight line and the square,\u2014a builded geometry. Then we have it once\nagain in _sculpture_, the \u201ctongue on the balance of expression,\u201d a\nmultitude of forms in the utmost freedom of action and never\ntransgressing the ideal serenity; like votaries performing some\nreligious dance before the gods, and, though in convulsive pain or\nmortal combat, never daring to break the figure and decorum of their\ndance. Thus of the genius of one remarkable people we have a fourfold\nrepresentation: and to the senses what more unlike than an ode of\nPindar, a marble centaur, the peristyle of the Parthenon, and the last\nactions of Phocion?\n\nEvery one must have observed faces and forms which, without any\nresembling feature, make a like impression on the beholder. A\nparticular picture or copy of verses, if it do not awaken the same\ntrain of images, will yet superinduce the same sentiment as some wild\nmountain walk, although the resemblance is nowise obvious to the\nsenses, but is occult and out of the reach of the understanding. Nature\nis an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws. She hums\nthe old well-known air through innumerable variations.\n\nNature is full of a sublime family likeness throughout her works, and\ndelights in startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected\nquarters. I have seen the head of an old sachem of the forest which at\nonce reminded the eye of a bald mountain summit, and the furrows of the\nbrow suggested the strata of the rock. There are men whose manners have\nthe same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the\nfriezes of the Parthenon and the remains of the earliest Greek art. And\nthere are compositions of the same strain to be found in the books of\nall ages. What is Guido\u2019s Rospigliosi Aurora but a morning thought, as\nthe horses in it are only a morning cloud? If any one will but take\npains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally inclined\nin certain moods of mind, and those to which he is averse, he will see\nhow deep is the chain of affinity.\n\nA painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort\nbecoming a tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form\nmerely,\u2014but, by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter\nenters into his nature and can then draw him at will in every attitude.\nSo Roos \u201centered into the inmost nature of a sheep.\u201d I knew a\ndraughtsman employed in a public survey who found that he could not\nsketch the rocks until their geological structure was first explained\nto him. In a certain state of thought is the common origin of very\ndiverse works. It is the spirit and not the fact that is identical. By\na deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful acquisition of\nmany manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening other\nsouls to a given activity.\n\nIt has been said that \u201ccommon souls pay with what they do, nobler souls\nwith that which they are.\u201d And why? Because a profound nature awakens\nin us by its actions and words, by its very looks and manners, the same\npower and beauty that a gallery of sculpture or of pictures addresses.\n\nCivil and natural history, the history of art and of literature, must\nbe explained from individual history, or must remain words. There is\nnothing but is related to us, nothing that does not interest\nus,\u2014kingdom, college, tree, horse, or iron shoe,\u2014the roots of all\nthings are in man. Santa Croce and the Dome of St. Peter\u2019s are lame\ncopies after a divine model. Strasburg Cathedral is a material\ncounterpart of the soul of Erwin of Steinbach. The true poem is the\npoet\u2019s mind; the true ship is the ship-builder. In the man, could we\nlay him open, we should see the reason for the last flourish and\ntendril of his work; as every spine and tint in the sea-shell preexists\nin the secreting organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry and of\nchivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your\nname with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add.\n\nThe trivial experience of every day is always verifying some old\nprediction to us and converting into things the words and signs which\nwe had heard and seen without heed. A lady with whom I was riding in\nthe forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait, as\nif the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer\nhad passed onward; a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance\nof the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of human feet. The man\nwho has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight, has\nbeen present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the\nworld. I remember one summer day in the fields my companion pointed out\nto me a broad cloud, which might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to\nthe horizon, quite accurately in the form of a cherub as painted over\nchurches,\u2014a round block in the centre, which it was easy to animate\nwith eyes and mouth, supported on either side by wide-stretched\nsymmetrical wings. What appears once in the atmosphere may appear\noften, and it was undoubtedly the archetype of that familiar ornament.\nI have seen in the sky a chain of summer lightning which at once showed\nto me that the Greeks drew from nature when they painted the\nthunderbolt in the hand of Jove. I have seen a snow-drift along the\nsides of the stone wall which obviously gave the idea of the common\narchitectural scroll to abut a tower.\n\nBy surrounding ourselves with the original circumstances we invent anew\nthe orders and the ornaments of architecture, as we see how each people\nmerely decorated its primitive abodes. The Doric temple preserves the\nsemblance of the wooden cabin in which the Dorian dwelt. The Chinese\npagoda is plainly a Tartar tent. The Indian and Egyptian temples still\nbetray the mounds and subterranean houses of their forefathers. \u201cThe\ncustom of making houses and tombs in the living rock,\u201d says Heeren in\nhis Researches on the Ethiopians, \u201cdetermined very naturally the\nprincipal character of the Nubian Egyptian architecture to the colossal\nform which it assumed. In these caverns, already prepared by nature,\nthe eye was accustomed to dwell on huge shapes and masses, so that when\nart came to the assistance of nature it could not move on a small scale\nwithout degrading itself. What would statues of the usual size, or neat\nporches and wings have been, associated with those gigantic halls\nbefore which only Colossi could sit as watchmen or lean on the pillars\nof the interior?\u201d\n\nThe Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest\ntrees, with all their boughs, to a festal or solemn arcade; as the\nbands about the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that tied\nthem. No one can walk in a road cut through pine woods, without being\nstruck with the architectural appearance of the grove, especially in\nwinter, when the barrenness of all other trees shows the low arch of\nthe Saxons. In the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily\nthe origin of the stained glass window, with which the Gothic\ncathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through\nthe bare and crossing branches of the forest. Nor can any lover of\nnature enter the old piles of Oxford and the English cathedrals,\nwithout feeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the builder,\nand that his chisel, his saw and plane still reproduced its ferns, its\nspikes of flowers, its locust, elm, oak, pine, fir and spruce.\n\nThe Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable\ndemand of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an\neternal flower, with the lightness and delicate finish as well as the\naerial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty.\n\nIn like manner all public facts are to be individualized, all private\nfacts are to be generalized. Then at once History becomes fluid and\ntrue, and Biography deep and sublime. As the Persian imitated in the\nslender shafts and capitals of his architecture the stem and flower of\nthe lotus and palm, so the Persian court in its magnificent era never\ngave over the nomadism of its barbarous tribes, but travelled from\nEcbatana, where the spring was spent, to Susa in summer and to Babylon\nfor the winter.\n\nIn the early history of Asia and Africa, Nomadism and Agriculture are\nthe two antagonist facts. The geography of Asia and of Africa\nnecessitated a nomadic life. But the nomads were the terror of all\nthose whom the soil or the advantages of a market had induced to build\ntowns. Agriculture therefore was a religious injunction, because of the\nperils of the state from nomadism. And in these late and civil\ncountries of England and America these propensities still fight out the\nold battle, in the nation and in the individual. The nomads of Africa\nwere constrained to wander, by the attacks of the gad-fly, which drives\nthe cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy\nseason and to drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions. The\nnomads of Asia follow the pasturage from month to month. In America and\nEurope the nomadism is of trade and curiosity; a progress, certainly,\nfrom the gad-fly of Astaboras to the Anglo and Italo-mania of Boston\nBay. Sacred cities, to which a periodical religious pilgrimage was\nenjoined, or stringent laws and customs, tending to invigorate the\nnational bond, were the check on the old rovers; and the cumulative\nvalues of long residence are the restraints on the itineracy of the\npresent day. The antagonism of the two tendencies is not less active in\nindividuals, as the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to\npredominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty\nof rapid domestication, lives in his wagon and roams through all\nlatitudes as easily as a Calmuc. At sea, or in the forest, or in the\nsnow, he sleeps as warm, dines with as good appetite, and associates as\nhappily as beside his own chimneys. Or perhaps his facility is deeper\nseated, in the increased range of his faculties of observation, which\nyield him points of interest wherever fresh objects meet his eyes. The\npastoral nations were needy and hungry to desperation; and this\nintellectual nomadism, in its excess, bankrupts the mind through the\ndissipation of power on a miscellany of objects. The home-keeping wit,\non the other hand, is that continence or content which finds all the\nelements of life in its own soil; and which has its own perils of\nmonotony and deterioration, if not stimulated by foreign infusions.\n\nEvery thing the individual sees without him corresponds to his states\nof mind, and every thing is in turn intelligible to him, as his onward\nthinking leads him into the truth to which that fact or series belongs.\n\nThe primeval world,\u2014the Fore-World, as the Germans say,\u2014I can dive to\nit in myself as well as grope for it with researching fingers in\ncatacombs, libraries, and the broken reliefs and torsos of ruined\nvillas.\n\nWhat is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history,\nletters, art, and poetry, in all its periods from the Heroic or Homeric\nage down to the domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or\nfive centuries later? What but this, that every man passes personally\nthrough a Grecian period. The Grecian state is the era of the bodily\nnature, the perfection of the senses,\u2014of the spiritual nature unfolded\nin strict unity with the body. In it existed those human forms which\nsupplied the sculptor with his models of Hercules, Ph\u0153bus, and Jove;\nnot like the forms abounding in the streets of modern cities, wherein\nthe face is a confused blur of features, but composed of incorrupt,\nsharply defined and symmetrical features, whose eye-sockets are so\nformed that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint and take\nfurtive glances on this side and on that, but they must turn the whole\nhead. The manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence\nexhibited is for personal qualities; courage, address, self-command,\njustice, strength, swiftness, a loud voice, a broad chest. Luxury and\nelegance are not known. A sparse population and want make every man his\nown valet, cook, butcher and soldier, and the habit of supplying his\nown needs educates the body to wonderful performances. Such are the\nAgamemnon and Diomed of Homer, and not far different is the picture\nXenophon gives of himself and his compatriots in the Retreat of the Ten\nThousand. \u201cAfter the army had crossed the river Teleboas in Armenia,\nthere fell much snow, and the troops lay miserably on the ground\ncovered with it. But Xenophon arose naked, and taking an axe, began to\nsplit wood; whereupon others rose and did the like.\u201d Throughout his\narmy exists a boundless liberty of speech. They quarrel for plunder,\nthey wrangle with the generals on each new order, and Xenophon is as\nsharp-tongued as any and sharper-tongued than most, and so gives as\ngood as he gets. Who does not see that this is a gang of great boys,\nwith such a code of honor and such lax discipline as great boys have?\n\nThe costly charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all the old\nliterature, is that the persons speak simply,\u2014speak as persons who have\ngreat good sense without knowing it, before yet the reflective habit\nhas become the predominant habit of the mind. Our admiration of the\nantique is not admiration of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks\nare not reflective, but perfect in their senses and in their health,\nwith the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with\nthe simplicity and grace of children. They made vases, tragedies, and\nstatues, such as healthy senses should,\u2014that is, in good taste. Such\nthings have continued to be made in all ages, and are now, wherever a\nhealthy physique exists; but, as a class, from their superior\norganization, they have surpassed all. They combine the energy of\nmanhood with the engaging unconsciousness of childhood. The attraction\nof these manners is that they belong to man, and are known to every man\nin virtue of his being once a child; besides that there are always\nindividuals who retain these characteristics. A person of childlike\ngenius and inborn energy is still a Greek, and revives our love of the\nMuse of Hellas. I admire the love of nature in the Philoctetes. In\nreading those fine apostrophes to sleep, to the stars, rocks, mountains\nand waves, I feel time passing away as an ebbing sea. I feel the\neternity of man, the identity of his thought. The Greek had it seems\nthe same fellow-beings as I. The sun and moon, water and fire, met his\nheart precisely as they meet mine. Then the vaunted distinction between\nGreek and English, between Classic and Romantic schools, seems\nsuperficial and pedantic. When a thought of Plato becomes a thought to\nme,\u2014when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires mine, time is no\nmore. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our two souls\nare tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why\nshould I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian\nyears?\n\nThe student interprets the age of chivalry by his own age of chivalry,\nand the days of maritime adventure and circumnavigation by quite\nparallel miniature experiences of his own. To the sacred history of the\nworld he has the same key. When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps\nof antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy, a prayer\nof his youth, he then pierces to the truth through all the confusion of\ntradition and the caricature of institutions.\n\nRare, extravagant spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us\nnew facts in nature. I see that men of God have from time to time\nwalked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul\nof the commonest hearer. Hence evidently the tripod, the priest, the\npriestess inspired by the divine afflatus.\n\nJesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite him\nto history, or reconcile him with themselves. As they come to revere\ntheir intuitions and aspire to live holily, their own piety explains\nevery fact, every word.\n\nHow easily these old worships of Moses, of Zoroaster, of Menu, of\nSocrates, domesticate themselves in the mind. I cannot find any\nantiquity in them. They are mine as much as theirs.\n\nI have seen the first monks and anchorets, without crossing seas or\ncenturies. More than once some individual has appeared to me with such\nnegligence of labor and such commanding contemplation, a haughty\nbeneficiary begging in the name of God, as made good to the nineteenth\ncentury Simeon the Stylite, the Thebais, and the first Capuchins.\n\nThe priestcraft of the East and West, of the Magian, Brahmin, Druid,\nand Inca, is expounded in the individual\u2019s private life. The cramping\ninfluence of a hard formalist on a young child, in repressing his\nspirits and courage, paralyzing the understanding, and that without\nproducing indignation, but only fear and obedience, and even much\nsympathy with the tyranny,\u2014is a familiar fact, explained to the child\nwhen he becomes a man, only by seeing that the oppressor of his youth\nis himself a child tyrannized over by those names and words and forms\nof whose influence he was merely the organ to the youth. The fact\nteaches him how Belus was worshipped and how the Pyramids were built,\nbetter than the discovery by Champollion of the names of all the\nworkmen and the cost of every tile. He finds Assyria and the Mounds of\nCholula at his door, and himself has laid the courses.\n\nAgain, in that protest which each considerate person makes against the\nsuperstition of his times, he repeats step for step the part of old\nreformers, and in the search after truth finds, like them, new perils\nto virtue. He learns again what moral vigor is needed to supply the\ngirdle of a superstition. A great licentiousness treads on the heels of\na reformation. How many times in the history of the world has the\nLuther of the day had to lament the decay of piety in his own\nhousehold! \u201cDoctor,\u201d said his wife to Martin Luther, one day, \u201chow is\nit that whilst subject to papacy we prayed so often and with such\nfervor, whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom?\u201d\n\nThe advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in\nliterature,\u2014in all fable as well as in all history. He finds that the\npoet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations,\nbut that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and\ntrue for all. His own secret biography he finds in lines wonderfully\nintelligible to him, dotted down before he was born. One after another\nhe comes up in his private adventures with every fable of \u00c6sop, of\nHomer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer, of Scott, and verifies them\nwith his own head and hands.\n\nThe beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper creations of the\nimagination and not of the fancy, are universal verities. What a range\nof meanings and what perpetual pertinence has the story of Prometheus!\nBeside its primary value as the first chapter of the history of Europe,\n(the mythology thinly veiling authentic facts, the invention of the\nmechanic arts and the migration of colonies,) it gives the history of\nreligion, with some closeness to the faith of later ages. Prometheus is\nthe Jesus of the old mythology. He is the friend of man; stands between\nthe unjust \u201cjustice\u201d of the Eternal Father and the race of mortals, and\nreadily suffers all things on their account. But where it departs from\nthe Calvinistic Christianity and exhibits him as the defier of Jove, it\nrepresents a state of mind which readily appears wherever the doctrine\nof Theism is taught in a crude, objective form, and which seems the\nself-defence of man against this untruth, namely a discontent with the\nbelieved fact that a God exists, and a feeling that the obligation of\nreverence is onerous. It would steal if it could the fire of the\nCreator, and live apart from him and independent of him. The Prometheus\nVinctus is the romance of skepticism. Not less true to all time are the\ndetails of that stately apologue. Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus,\nsaid the poets. When the gods come among men, they are not known. Jesus\nwas not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. Antaeus was suffocated by\nthe gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his mother earth his\nstrength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his weakness\nboth his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation\nwith nature. The power of music, the power of poetry, to unfix and as\nit were clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of Orpheus.\nThe philosophical perception of identity through endless mutations of\nform makes him know the Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept\nyesterday, who slept last night like a corpse, and this morning stood\nand ran? And what see I on any side but the transmigrations of Proteus?\nI can symbolize my thought by using the name of any creature, of any\nfact, because every creature is man agent or patient. Tantalus is but a\nname for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the\nwaters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within sight of\nthe soul. The transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were; but\nmen and women are only half human. Every animal of the barn-yard, the\nfield and the forest, of the earth and of the waters that are under the\nearth, has contrived to get a footing and to leave the print of its\nfeatures and form in some one or other of these upright, heaven-facing\nspeakers. Ah! brother, stop the ebb of thy soul,\u2014ebbing downward into\nthe forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid. As near\nand proper to us is also that old fable of the Sphinx, who was said to\nsit in the road-side and put riddles to every passenger. If the man\ncould not answer, she swallowed him alive. If he could solve the\nriddle, the Sphinx was slain. What is our life but an endless flight of\nwinged facts or events? In splendid variety these changes come, all\nputting questions to the human spirit. Those men who cannot answer by a\nsuperior wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve them. Facts\nencumber them, tyrannize over them, and make the men of routine, the\nmen of _sense_, in whom a literal obedience to facts has extinguished\nevery spark of that light by which man is truly man. But if the man is\ntrue to his better instincts or sentiments, and refuses the dominion of\nfacts, as one that comes of a higher race; remains fast by the soul and\nsees the principle, then the facts fall aptly and supple into their\nplaces; they know their master, and the meanest of them glorifies him.\n\nSee in Goethe\u2019s Helena the same desire that every word should be a\nthing. These figures, he would say, these Chirons, Griffins, Phorkyas,\nHelen and Leda, are somewhat, and do exert a specific influence on the\nmind. So far then are they eternal entities, as real to-day as in the\nfirst Olympiad. Much revolving them he writes out freely his humor, and\ngives them body to his own imagination. And although that poem be as\nvague and fantastic as a dream, yet is it much more attractive than the\nmore regular dramatic pieces of the same author, for the reason that it\noperates a wonderful relief to the mind from the routine of customary\nimages,\u2014awakens the reader\u2019s invention and fancy by the wild freedom of\nthe design, and by the unceasing succession of brisk shocks of\nsurprise.\n\nThe universal nature, too strong for the petty nature of the bard, sits\non his neck and writes through his hand; so that when he seems to vent\na mere caprice and wild romance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence\nPlato said that \u201cpoets utter great and wise things which they do not\nthemselves understand.\u201d All the fictions of the Middle Age explain\nthemselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave\nearnest the mind of that period toiled to achieve. Magic and all that\nis ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science. The\nshoes of swiftness, the sword of sharpness, the power of subduing the\nelements, of using the secret virtues of minerals, of understanding the\nvoices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right\ndirection. The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of perpetual\nyouth, and the like, are alike the endeavour of the human spirit \u201cto\nbend the shows of things to the desires of the mind.\u201d\n\nIn Perceforest and Amadis de Gaul a garland and a rose bloom on the\nhead of her who is faithful, and fade on the brow of the inconstant. In\nthe story of the Boy and the Mantle even a mature reader may be\nsurprised with a glow of virtuous pleasure at the triumph of the gentle\nVenelas; and indeed all the postulates of elfin annals,\u2014that the\nfairies do not like to be named; that their gifts are capricious and\nnot to be trusted; that who seeks a treasure must not speak; and the\nlike,\u2014I find true in Concord, however they might be in Cornwall or\nBretagne.\n\nIs it otherwise in the newest romance? I read the Bride of Lammermoor.\nSir William Ashton is a mask for a vulgar temptation, Ravenswood Castle\na fine name for proud poverty, and the foreign mission of state only a\nBunyan disguise for honest industry. We may all shoot a wild bull that\nwould toss the good and beautiful, by fighting down the unjust and\nsensual. Lucy Ashton is another name for fidelity, which is always\nbeautiful and always liable to calamity in this world.\n\nBut along with the civil and metaphysical history of man, another\nhistory goes daily forward,\u2014that of the external world,\u2014in which he is\nnot less strictly implicated. He is the compend of time; he is also the\ncorrelative of nature. His power consists in the multitude of his\naffinities, in the fact that his life is intertwined with the whole\nchain of organic and inorganic being. In old Rome the public roads\nbeginning at the Forum proceeded north, south, east, west, to the\ncentre of every province of the empire, making each market-town of\nPersia, Spain and Britain pervious to the soldiers of the capital: so\nout of the human heart go as it were highways to the heart of every\nobject in nature, to reduce it under the dominion of man. A man is a\nbundle of relations, a knot of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the\nworld. His faculties refer to natures out of him and predict the world\nhe is to inhabit, as the fins of the fish foreshow that water exists,\nor the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose air. He cannot live\nwithout a world. Put Napoleon in an island prison, let his faculties\nfind no men to act on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, and he\nwould beat the air, and appear stupid. Transport him to large\ncountries, dense population, complex interests and antagonist power,\nand you shall see that the man Napoleon, bounded that is by such a\nprofile and outline, is not the virtual Napoleon. This is but Talbot\u2019s\nshadow;\u2014\n\n\u201cHis substance is not here.\nFor what you see is but the smallest part\nAnd least proportion of humanity;\nBut were the whole frame here,\nIt is of such a spacious, lofty pitch,\nYour roof were not sufficient to contain it.\u201d\n\u2014Henry VI.\n\nColumbus needs a planet to shape his course upon. Newton and Laplace\nneed myriads of age and thick-strewn celestial areas. One may say a\ngravitating solar system is already prophesied in the nature of\nNewton\u2019s mind. Not less does the brain of Davy or of Gay-Lussac, from\nchildhood exploring the affinities and repulsions of particles,\nanticipate the laws of organization. Does not the eye of the human\nembryo predict the light? the ear of Handel predict the witchcraft of\nharmonic sound? Do not the constructive fingers of Watt, Fulton,\nWhittemore, Arkwright, predict the fusible, hard, and temperable\ntexture of metals, the properties of stone, water, and wood? Do not the\nlovely attributes of the maiden child predict the refinements and\ndecorations of civil society? Here also we are reminded of the action\nof man on man. A mind might ponder its thought for ages and not gain so\nmuch self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day. Who\nknows himself before he has been thrilled with indignation at an\noutrage, or has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared the throb of\nthousands in a national exultation or alarm? No man can antedate his\nexperience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock,\nany more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see\nto-morrow for the first time.\n\nI will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of\nthis correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of these two\nfacts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its\ncorrelative, history is to be read and written.\n\nThus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures\nfor each pupil. He too shall pass through the whole cycle of\nexperience. He shall collect into a focus the rays of nature. History\nno longer shall be a dull book. It shall walk incarnate in every just\nand wise man. You shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue\nof the volumes you have read. You shall make me feel what periods you\nhave lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He shall walk, as the\npoets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all over with\nwonderful events and experiences;\u2014his own form and features by their\nexalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest. I shall find in him\nthe Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold, the Apples of\nKnowledge, the Argonautic Expedition, the calling of Abraham, the\nbuilding of the Temple, the Advent of Christ, Dark Ages, the Revival of\nLetters, the Reformation, the discovery of new lands, the opening of\nnew sciences and new regions in man. He shall be the priest of Pan, and\nbring with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning stars,\nand all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth.\n\nIs there somewhat overweening in this claim? Then I reject all I have\nwritten, for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not?\nBut it is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one\nfact without seeming to belie some other. I hold our actual knowledge\nvery cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, see the lizard on the fence, the\nfungus under foot, the lichen on the log. What do I know\nsympathetically, morally, of either of these worlds of life? As old as\nthe Caucasian man,\u2014perhaps older,\u2014these creatures have kept their\ncounsel beside him, and there is no record of any word or sign that has\npassed from one to the other. What connection do the books show between\nthe fifty or sixty chemical elements and the historical eras? Nay, what\ndoes history yet record of the metaphysical annals of man? What light\ndoes it shed on those mysteries which we hide under the names Death and\nImmortality? Yet every history should be written in a wisdom which\ndivined the range of our affinities and looked at facts as symbols. I\nam ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called History is.\nHow many times we must say Rome, and Paris, and Constantinople! What\ndoes Rome know of rat and lizard? What are Olympiads and Consulates to\nthese neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food or experience or\nsuccor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, for the Kanaka in his\ncanoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter?\n\nBroader and deeper we must write our annals,\u2014from an ethical\nreformation, from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative\nconscience,\u2014if we would trulier express our central and wide-related\nnature, instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to\nwhich we have too long lent our eyes. Already that day exists for us,\nshines in on us at unawares, but the path of science and of letters is\nnot the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the child and\nunschooled farmer\u2019s boy stand nearer to the light by which nature is to\nbe read, than the dissector or the antiquary.\n\n\n\n\nII.\nSELF-RELIANCE\n\n\n\u201cNe te qu\u00e6siveris extra.\u201d\n\n\u201cMan is his own star; and the soul that can\nRender an honest and a perfect man,\nCommands all light, all influence, all fate;\nNothing to him falls early or too late.\nOur acts our angels are, or good or ill,\nOur fatal shadows that walk by us still.\u201d\n\n_Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher\u2019s Honest Man\u2019s Fortune._\n\n\nCast the bantling on the rocks,\nSuckle him with the she-wolf\u2019s teat,\nWintered with the hawk and fox.\nPower and speed be hands and feet.\n\n\n\n\nSELF-RELIANCE\n\n\nI read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which\nwere original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition\nin such lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they\ninstil is of more value than any thought they may contain. To believe\nyour own thought, to believe that what is true for you in your private\nheart is true for all men,\u2014that is genius. Speak your latent\nconviction, and it shall be the universal sense; for the inmost in due\ntime becomes the outmost, and our first thought is rendered back to us\nby the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar as the voice of the mind\nis to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato and Milton is\nthat they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not what men,\nbut what _they_ thought. A man should learn to detect and watch that\ngleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the\nlustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without\nnotice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we\nrecognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a\ncertain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting\nlesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous\nimpression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry\nof voices is on the other side. Else to-morrow a stranger will say with\nmasterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the\ntime, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from\nanother.\n\nThere is a time in every man\u2019s education when he arrives at the\nconviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he\nmust take himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the\nwide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to\nhim but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given\nto him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and\nnone but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until\nhe has tried. Not for nothing one face, one character, one fact, makes\nmuch impression on him, and another none. This sculpture in the memory\nis not without preestablished harmony. The eye was placed where one ray\nshould fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. We but half\nexpress ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us\nrepresents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good\nissues, so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work\nmade manifest by cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his\nheart into his work and done his best; but what he has said or done\notherwise shall give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not\ndeliver. In the attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no\ninvention, no hope.\n\nTrust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the\nplace the divine providence has found for you, the society of your\ncontemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done\nso, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,\nbetraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated\nat their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their\nbeing. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same\ntranscendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a protected\ncorner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, redeemers\nand benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos and\nthe Dark.\n\nWhat pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and\nbehavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel\nmind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed\nthe strength and means opposed to our purpose, these have not. Their\nmind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we look in\ntheir faces we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms to nobody; all\nconform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the\nadults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and puberty\nand manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it\nenviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand\nby itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak\nto you and me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear\nand emphatic. It seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries.\nBashful or bold then, he will know how to make us seniors very\nunnecessary.\n\nThe nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as\nmuch as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy\nattitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the\nplayhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out from his corner on\nsuch people and facts as pass by, he tries and sentences them on their\nmerits, in the swift, summary way of boys, as good, bad, interesting,\nsilly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself never about\nconsequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine\nverdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as\nit were clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once\nacted or spoken with _\u00e9clat_ he is a committed person, watched by the\nsympathy or the hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter\ninto his account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass\nagain into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges and, having\nobserved, observe again from the same unaffected, unbiased, unbribable,\nunaffrighted innocence,\u2014must always be formidable. He would utter\nopinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to be not private but\nnecessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men and put them in\nfear.\n\nThese are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and\ninaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in\nconspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is\na joint-stock company, in which the members agree, for the better\nsecuring of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and\nculture of the eater. The virtue in most request is conformity.\nSelf-reliance is its aversion. It loves not realities and creators, but\nnames and customs.\n\nWhoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather\nimmortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must\nexplore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity\nof your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the\nsuffrage of the world. I remember an answer which when quite young I\nwas prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me\nwith the dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, \u201cWhat have I\nto do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live wholly from within?\u201d\nmy friend suggested,\u2014\u201cBut these impulses may be from below, not from\nabove.\u201d I replied, \u201cThey do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the\nDevil\u2019s child, I will live then from the Devil.\u201d No law can be sacred\nto me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily\ntransferable to that or this; the only right is what is after my\nconstitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry\nhimself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were\ntitular and ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we\ncapitulate to badges and names, to large societies and dead\ninstitutions. Every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways\nme more than is right. I ought to go upright and vital, and speak the\nrude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat of\nphilanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful\ncause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes,\nwhy should I not say to him, \u2018Go love thy infant; love thy\nwood-chopper; be good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never\nvarnish your hard, uncharitable ambition with this incredible\ntenderness for black folk a thousand miles off. Thy love afar is spite\nat home.\u2019 Rough and graceless would be such greeting, but truth is\nhandsomer than the affectation of love. Your goodness must have some\nedge to it,\u2014else it is none. The doctrine of hatred must be preached,\nas the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when that pules and\nwhines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius\ncalls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, _Whim_. I hope\nit is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in\nexplanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude\ncompany. Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my\nobligation to put all poor men in good situations. Are they _my_ poor?\nI tell thee thou foolish philanthropist that I grudge the dollar, the\ndime, the cent, I give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom I\ndo not belong. There is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual\naffinity I am bought and sold; for them I will go to prison if need be;\nbut your miscellaneous popular charities; the education at college of\nfools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now\nstand; alms to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief Societies;\u2014though I\nconfess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the dollar, it is a\nwicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to withhold.\n\nVirtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the\nrule. There is the man _and_ his virtues. Men do what is called a good\naction, as some piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a\nfine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are\ndone as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world,\u2014as\ninvalids and the insane pay a high board. Their virtues are penances. I\ndo not wish to expiate, but to live. My life is for itself and not for\na spectacle. I much prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it\nbe genuine and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady. I\nwish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and bleeding. I ask\nprimary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal from the\nman to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference\nwhether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I\ncannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few\nand mean as my gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own\nassurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony.\n\nWhat I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This\nrule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for\nthe whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder\nbecause you will always find those who think they know what is your\nduty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the\nworld\u2019s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the\ngreat man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect\nsweetness the independence of solitude.\n\nThe objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is\nthat it scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the\nimpression of your character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute\nto a dead Bible-society, vote with a great party either for the\ngovernment or against it, spread your table like base\nhousekeepers,\u2014under all these screens I have difficulty to detect the\nprecise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn from your\nproper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, and\nyou shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a\nblindman\u2019s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I\nanticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and\ntopic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not\nknow beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous\nword? Do I not know that with all this ostentation of examining the\ngrounds of the institution he will do no such thing? Do I not know that\nhe is pledged to himself not to look but at one side, the permitted\nside, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is a retained\nattorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation.\nWell, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief,\nand attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion.\nThis conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a\nfew lies, but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite\ntrue. Their two is not the real two, their four not the real four; so\nthat every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to\nset them right. Meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the\nprison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. We come to wear one cut\nof face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine\nexpression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does\nnot fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean \u201cthe\nfoolish face of praise,\u201d the forced smile which we put on in company\nwhere we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not\ninterest us. The muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved by a low\nusurping wilfulness, grow tight about the outline of the face with the\nmost disagreeable sensation.\n\nFor nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And\ntherefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers\nlook askance on him in the public street or in the friend\u2019s parlor. If\nthis aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own\nhe might well go home with a sad countenance; but the sour faces of the\nmultitude, like their sweet faces, have no deep cause, but are put on\nand off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs. Yet is the\ndiscontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and\nthe college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to\nbrook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and\nprudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But\nwhen to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added,\nwhen the ignorant and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent\nbrute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and\nmow, it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike\nas a trifle of no concernment.\n\nThe other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a\nreverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no\nother data for computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath\nto disappoint them.\n\nBut why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about\nthis corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have\nstated in this or that public place? Suppose you should contradict\nyourself; what then? It seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on\nyour memory alone, scarcely even in acts of pure memory, but to bring\nthe past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present, and live ever in\na new day. In your metaphysics you have denied personality to the\nDeity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield to them\nheart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color.\nLeave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and\nflee.\n\nA foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by\nlittle statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great\nsoul has simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his\nshadow on the wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and\nto-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it\ncontradict every thing you said to-day.\u2014\u2018Ah, so you shall be sure to be\nmisunderstood.\u2019\u2014Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was\nmisunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and\nGalileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took\nflesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.\n\nI suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will\nare rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes\nand Himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it\nmatter how you gauge and try him. A character is like an acrostic or\nAlexandrian stanza;\u2014read it forward, backward, or across, it still\nspells the same thing. In this pleasing contrite wood-life which God\nallows me, let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect\nor retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be found symmetrical,\nthough I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of pines and\nresound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should\ninterweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web\nalso. We pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men\nimagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt\nactions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.\n\nThere will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be\neach honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions\nwill be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost\nsight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One\ntendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line\nof a hundred tacks. See the line from a sufficient distance, and it\nstraightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action will\nexplain itself and will explain your other genuine actions. Your\nconformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already done\nsingly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I can\nbe firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so\nmuch right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now.\nAlways scorn appearances and you always may. The force of character is\ncumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their health into\nthis. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field,\nwhich so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a train of great\ndays and victories behind. They shed an united light on the advancing\nactor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels. That is it\nwhich throws thunder into Chatham\u2019s voice, and dignity into\nWashington\u2019s port, and America into Adams\u2019s eye. Honor is venerable to\nus because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We worship\nit to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage\nbecause it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is\nself-dependent, self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate\npedigree, even if shown in a young person.\n\nI hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and\nconsistency. Let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward.\nInstead of the gong for dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan\nfife. Let us never bow and apologize more. A great man is coming to eat\nat my house. I do not wish to please him; I wish that he should wish to\nplease me. I will stand here for humanity, and though I would make it\nkind, I would make it true. Let us affront and reprimand the smooth\nmediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and hurl in the face\nof custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot of all\nhistory, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working\nwherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or\nplace, but is the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He\nmeasures you and all men and all events. Ordinarily, every body in\nsociety reminds us of somewhat else, or of some other person.\nCharacter, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it takes place of the\nwhole creation. The man must be so much that he must make all\ncircumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an\nage; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish\nhis design;\u2014and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of\nclients. A man C\u00e6sar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman\nEmpire. Christ is born, and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his\ngenius that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man. An\ninstitution is the lengthened shadow of one man; as, Monachism, of the\nHermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; Quakerism, of Fox;\nMethodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton called\n\u201cthe height of Rome\u201d; and all history resolves itself very easily into\nthe biography of a few stout and earnest persons.\n\nLet a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him\nnot peep or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy,\na bastard, or an interloper in the world which exists for him. But the\nman in the street, finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the\nforce which built a tower or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when\nhe looks on these. To him a palace, a statue, or a costly book have an\nalien and forbidding air, much like a gay equipage, and seem to say\nlike that, \u2018Who are you, Sir?\u2019 Yet they all are his, suitors for his\nnotice, petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take\npossession. The picture waits for my verdict; it is not to command me,\nbut I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular fable of the sot\nwho was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke\u2019s\nhouse, washed and dressed and laid in the duke\u2019s bed, and, on his\nwaking, treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured\nthat he had been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it\nsymbolizes so well the state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot,\nbut now and then wakes up, exercises his reason and finds himself a\ntrue prince.\n\nOur reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history our imagination\nplays us false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier\nvocabulary than private John and Edward in a small house and common\nday\u2019s work; but the things of life are the same to both; the sum total\nof both is the same. Why all this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg\nand Gustavus? Suppose they were virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As\ngreat a stake depends on your private act to-day, as followed their\npublic and renowned steps. When private men shall act with original\nviews, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to\nthose of gentlemen.\n\nThe world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the\neyes of nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual\nreverence that is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which\nmen have everywhere suffered the king, the noble, or the great\nproprietor to walk among them by a law of his own, make his own scale\nof men and things and reverse theirs, pay for benefits not with money\nbut with honor, and represent the law in his person, was the\nhieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their consciousness of\ntheir own right and comeliness, the right of every man.\n\nThe magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we\ninquire the reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the\naboriginal Self, on which a universal reliance may be grounded? What is\nthe nature and power of that science-baffling star, without parallax,\nwithout calculable elements, which shoots a ray of beauty even into\ntrivial and impure actions, if the least mark of independence appear?\nThe inquiry leads us to that source, at once the essence of genius, of\nvirtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or Instinct. We denote\nthis primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later teachings are\ntuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis\ncannot go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being\nwhich in calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse\nfrom things, from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with\nthem and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and\nbeing also proceed. We first share the life by which things exist and\nafterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have\nshared their cause. Here is the fountain of action and of thought. Here\nare the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom and which\ncannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We lie in the lap of\nimmense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth and organs\nof its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we do\nnothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask\nwhence this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all\nphilosophy is at fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can\naffirm. Every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind\nand his involuntary perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary\nperceptions a perfect faith is due. He may err in the expression of\nthem, but he knows that these things are so, like day and night, not to\nbe disputed. My wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving;\u2014the\nidlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command my curiosity and\nrespect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of\nperceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they do\nnot distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose\nto see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal.\nIf I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of\ntime all mankind,\u2014although it may chance that no one has seen it before\nme. For my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.\n\nThe relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is\nprofane to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh\nhe should communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the\nworld with his voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls,\nfrom the centre of the present thought; and new date and new create the\nwhole. Whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom, old\nthings pass away,\u2014means, teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now,\nand absorbs past and future into the present hour. All things are made\nsacred by relation to it,\u2014one as much as another. All things are\ndissolved to their centre by their cause, and in the universal miracle\npetty and particular miracles disappear. If therefore a man claims to\nknow and speak of God and carries you backward to the phraseology of\nsome old mouldered nation in another country, in another world, believe\nhim not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and\ncompletion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast\nhis ripened being? Whence then this worship of the past? The centuries\nare conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and\nspace are but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is\nlight: where it is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an\nimpertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful\napologue or parable of my being and becoming.\n\nMan is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say\n\u2018I think,\u2019 \u2018I am,\u2019 but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed before\nthe blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window\nmake no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what\nthey are; they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There\nis simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence.\nBefore a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown\nflower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less. Its\nnature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike. But\nman postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, but with\nreverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that surround\nhim, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and\nstrong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time.\n\nThis should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not\nyet hear God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what\nDavid, or Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price\non a few texts, on a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote\nthe sentences of grandames and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the\nmen of talents and character they chance to see,\u2014painfully recollecting\nthe exact words they spoke; afterwards, when they come into the point\nof view which those had who uttered these sayings, they understand them\nand are willing to let the words go; for at any time they can use words\nas good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we shall see truly. It\nis as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for the weak to be\nweak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the memory\nof its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his\nvoice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of\nthe corn.\n\nAnd now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid;\nprobably cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering\nof the intuition. That thought by what I can now nearest approach to\nsay it, is this. When good is near you, when you have life in yourself,\nit is not by any known or accustomed way; you shall not discern the\nfootprints of any other; you shall not see the face of man; you shall\nnot hear any name;\u2014the way, the thought, the good shall be wholly\nstrange and new. It shall exclude example and experience. You take the\nway from man, not to man. All persons that ever existed are its\nforgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There is\nsomewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision there is nothing that\ncan be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion\nbeholds identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of\nTruth and Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well.\nVast spaces of nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; long\nintervals of time, years, centuries, are of no account. This which I\nthink and feel underlay every former state of life and circumstances,\nas it does underlie my present, and what is called life, and what is\ncalled death.\n\nLife only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of\nrepose; it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new\nstate, in the shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one\nfact the world hates; that the soul _becomes;_ for that for ever\ndegrades the past, turns all riches to poverty, all reputation to a\nshame, confounds the saint with the rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas\nequally aside. Why then do we prate of self-reliance? Inasmuch as the\nsoul is present there will be power not confident but agent. To talk of\nreliance is a poor external way of speaking. Speak rather of that which\nrelies because it works and is. Who has more obedience than I masters\nme, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I must revolve by\nthe gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric when we speak of\neminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man\nor a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of\nnature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men,\npoets, who are not.\n\nThis is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on\nevery topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE.\nSelf-existence is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it\nconstitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into\nall lower forms. All things real are so by so much virtue as they\ncontain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, eloquence,\npersonal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of its\npresence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for\nconservation and growth. Power is, in nature, the essential measure of\nright. Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot\nhelp itself. The genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and\norbit, the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind, the\nvital resources of every animal and vegetable, are demonstrations of\nthe self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul.\n\nThus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the\ncause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books\nand institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the\ninvaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within.\nLet our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law\ndemonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.\n\nBut now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his\ngenius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with\nthe internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the\nurns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before\nthe service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool,\nhow chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or\nsanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our\nfriend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our\nhearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I\nhave all men\u2019s. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly,\neven to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not\nbe mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the\nwhole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic\ntrifles. Friend, client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all\nknock at once at thy closet door and say,\u2014\u2018Come out unto us.\u2019 But keep\nthy state; come not into their confusion. The power men possess to\nannoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but\nthrough my act. \u201cWhat we love that we have, but by desire we bereave\nourselves of the love.\u201d\n\nIf we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let\nus at least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of war\nand wake Thor and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts.\nThis is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check\nthis lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the\nexpectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we\nconverse. Say to them, \u2018O father, O mother, O wife, O brother, O\nfriend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward\nI am the truth\u2019s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law\nless than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I\nshall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the\nchaste husband of one wife,\u2014but these relations I must fill after a new\nand unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I\ncannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for\nwhat I am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to\ndeserve that you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will\nso trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the\nsun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you\nare noble, I will love you: if you are not, I will not hurt you and\nmyself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same\ntruth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this\nnot selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and\nmine, and all men\u2019s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in\ntruth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is\ndictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it\nwill bring us out safe at last.\u2019\u2014But so may you give these friends\npain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their\nsensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when\nthey look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify\nme and do the same thing.\n\nThe populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a\nrejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold\nsensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the\nlaw of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the\nother of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties\nby clearing yourself in the _direct_, or in the _reflex_ way. Consider\nwhether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin,\nneighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you. But\nI may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself. I\nhave my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty\nto many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its\ndebts it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one\nimagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.\n\nAnd truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the\ncommon motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a\ntaskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that\nhe may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a\nsimple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!\n\nIf any man consider the present aspects of what is called by\ndistinction _society_, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew\nand heart of man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous,\ndesponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune,\nafraid of death and afraid of each other. Our age yields no great and\nperfect persons. We want men and women who shall renovate life and our\nsocial state, but we see that most natures are insolvent, cannot\nsatisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all proportion to\ntheir practical force and do lean and beg day and night continually.\nOur housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our\nmarriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for\nus. We are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where\nstrength is born.\n\nIf our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all\nheart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is _ruined_. If the\nfinest genius studies at one of our colleges and is not installed in an\noffice within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or\nNew York, it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in\nbeing disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy\nlad from New Hampshire or Vermont, who in turn tries all the\nprofessions, who _teams it, farms it, peddles_, keeps a school,\npreaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, and so\nforth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is\nworth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and\nfeels no shame in not \u2018studying a profession,\u2019 for he does not postpone\nhis life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred\nchances. Let a Stoic open the resources of man and tell men they are\nnot leaning willows, but can and must detach themselves; that with the\nexercise of self-trust, new powers shall appear; that a man is the word\nmade flesh, born to shed healing to the nations; that he should be\nashamed of our compassion, and that the moment he acts from himself,\ntossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out of the window,\nwe pity him no more but thank and revere him;\u2014and that teacher shall\nrestore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all\nhistory.\n\nIt is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution\nin all the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their\neducation; in their pursuits; their modes of living; their association;\nin their property; in their speculative views.\n\n1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy\noffice is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks\nfor some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and\nloses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and\nmediatorial and miraculous. Prayer that craves a particular commodity,\nany thing less than all good, is vicious. Prayer is the contemplation\nof the facts of life from the highest point of view. It is the\nsoliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the spirit of God\npronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a private\nend is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature\nand consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not\nbeg. He will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer\nkneeling in his field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with\nthe stroke of his oar, are true prayers heard throughout nature, though\nfor cheap ends. Caratach, in Fletcher\u2019s Bonduca, when admonished to\ninquire the mind of the god Audate, replies,\u2014\n\n     \u201cHis hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;\n     Our valors are our best gods.\u201d\n\nAnother sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want\nof self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can\nthereby help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the\nevil begins to be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to\nthem who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company, instead of\nimparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks, putting\nthem once more in communication with their own reason. The secret of\nfortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods and men is the\nself-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide; him all tongues\ngreet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out\nto him and embraces him because he did not need it. We solicitously and\napologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and\nscorned our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him.\n\u201cTo the persevering mortal,\u201d said Zoroaster, \u201cthe blessed Immortals are\nswift.\u201d\n\nAs men\u2019s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a\ndisease of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, \u2018Let\nnot God speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us,\nand we will obey.\u2019 Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my\nbrother, because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables\nmerely of his brother\u2019s, or his brother\u2019s brother\u2019s God. Every new mind\nis a new classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and\npower, a Locke, a Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes\nits classification on other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to\nthe depth of the thought, and so to the number of the objects it\ntouches and brings within reach of the pupil, is his complacency. But\nchiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, which are also\nclassifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought\nof duty, and man\u2019s relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism,\nQuakerism, Swedenborgism. The pupil takes the same delight in\nsubordinating every thing to the new terminology as a girl who has just\nlearned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby. It will\nhappen for a time that the pupil will find his intellectual power has\ngrown by the study of his master\u2019s mind. But in all unbalanced minds\nthe classification is idolized, passes for the end and not for a\nspeedily exhaustible means, so that the walls of the system blend to\ntheir eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe; the\nluminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built.\nThey cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see,\u2014how you can\nsee; \u2018It must be somehow that you stole the light from us.\u2019 They do not\nyet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, will break into any\ncabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it their own.\nIf they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold will\nbe too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and\nthe immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed,\nmillion-colored, will beam over the universe as on the first morning.\n\n2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling,\nwhose idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all\neducated Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable\nin the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were, like an\naxis of the earth. In manly hours we feel that duty is our place. The\nsoul is no traveller; the wise man stays at home, and when his\nnecessities, his duties, on any occasion call him from his house, or\ninto foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men sensible by\nthe expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of\nwisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not\nlike an interloper or a valet.\n\nI have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for\nthe purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is\nfirst domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding\nsomewhat greater than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get\nsomewhat which he does not carry, travels away from himself, and grows\nold even in youth among old things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and\nmind have become old and dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to\nruins.\n\nTravelling is a fool\u2019s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the\nindifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can\nbe intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk,\nembrace my friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples,\nand there beside me is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting,\nidentical, that I fled from. I seek the Vatican and the palaces. I\naffect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions, but I am not\nintoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go.\n\n3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness\naffecting the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and\nour system of education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our\nbodies are forced to stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation\nbut the travelling of the mind? Our houses are built with foreign\ntaste; our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments; our opinions,\nour tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past and the Distant.\nThe soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It was in his\nown mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of his\nown thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed.\nAnd why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty,\nconvenience, grandeur of thought and quaint expression are as near to\nus as to any, and if the American artist will study with hope and love\nthe precise thing to be done by him, considering the climate, the soil,\nthe length of the day, the wants of the people, the habit and form of\nthe government, he will create a house in which all these will find\nthemselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also.\n\nInsist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every\nmoment with the cumulative force of a whole life\u2019s cultivation; but of\nthe adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half\npossession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach\nhim. No man yet knows what it is, nor can, till that person has\nexhibited it. Where is the master who could have taught Shakspeare?\nWhere is the master who could have instructed Franklin, or Washington,\nor Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The Scipionism of\nScipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare will\nnever be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned\nyou, and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this\nmoment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal\nchisel of Phidias, or trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or\nDante, but different from all these. Not possibly will the soul, all\nrich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven tongue, deign to repeat\nitself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, surely you can\nreply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the tongue\nare two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of\nthy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again.\n\n4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our\nspirit of society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of\nsociety, and no man improves.\n\nSociety never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on\nthe other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is\ncivilized, it is christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this\nchange is not amelioration. For every thing that is given something is\ntaken. Society acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a\ncontrast between the well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American,\nwith a watch, a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket, and the\nnaked New Zealander, whose property is a club, a spear, a mat and an\nundivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But compare the health of\nthe two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his\naboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, strike the savage\nwith a broad axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as\nif you struck the blow into soft pitch, and the same blow shall send\nthe white to his grave.\n\nThe civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet.\nHe is supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He\nhas a fine Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by\nthe sun. A Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the\ninformation when he wants it, the man in the street does not know a\nstar in the sky. The solstice he does not observe; the equinox he knows\nas little; and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial\nin his mind. His note-books impair his memory; his libraries overload\nhis wit; the insurance-office increases the number of accidents; and it\nmay be a question whether machinery does not encumber; whether we have\nnot lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity entrenched in\nestablishments and forms some vigor of wild virtue. For every Stoic was\na Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian?\n\nThere is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard\nof height or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular\nequality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the\nlast ages; nor can all the science, art, religion, and philosophy of\nthe nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than Plutarch\u2019s\nheroes, three or four and twenty centuries ago. Not in time is the race\nprogressive. Phocion, Socrates, Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men,\nbut they leave no class. He who is really of their class will not be\ncalled by their name, but will be his own man, and in his turn the\nfounder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are only its\ncostume and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery\nmay compensate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in\ntheir fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment\nexhausted the resources of science and art. Galileo, with an\nopera-glass, discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena\nthan any one since. Columbus found the New World in an undecked boat.\nIt is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and\nmachinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or\ncenturies before. The great genius returns to essential man. We\nreckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of\nscience, and yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, which\nconsisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all\naids. The Emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army, says Las\nCases, \u201cwithout abolishing our arms, magazines, commissaries and\ncarriages, until, in imitation of the Roman custom, the soldier should\nreceive his supply of corn, grind it in his hand-mill, and bake his\nbread himself.\u201d\n\nSociety is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is\ncomposed does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to\nthe ridge. Its unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a\nnation to-day, next year die, and their experience with them.\n\nAnd so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments\nwhich protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away\nfrom themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the\nreligious, learned and civil institutions as guards of property, and\nthey deprecate assaults on these, because they feel them to be assaults\non property. They measure their esteem of each other by what each has,\nand not by what each is. But a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his\nproperty, out of new respect for his nature. Especially he hates what\nhe has if he see that it is accidental,\u2014came to him by inheritance, or\ngift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does not belong\nto him, has no root in him and merely lies there because no revolution\nor no robber takes it away. But that which a man is, does always by\nnecessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which\ndoes not wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or\nstorm, or bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man\nbreathes. \u201cThy lot or portion of life,\u201d said the Caliph Ali, \u201cis\nseeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.\u201d Our\ndependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for\nnumbers. The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the\ngreater the concourse and with each new uproar of announcement, The\ndelegation from Essex! The Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of\nMaine! the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new\nthousand of eyes and arms. In like manner the reformers summon\nconventions and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, O friends! will\nthe God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely the\nreverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support and stands\nalone that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every\nrecruit to his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of\nmen, and, in the endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently\nappear the upholder of all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power\nis inborn, that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him\nand elsewhere, and so perceiving, throws himself unhesitatingly on his\nthought, instantly rights himself, stands in the erect position,\ncommands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who stands on his\nfeet is stronger than a man who stands on his head.\n\nSo use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain\nall, and lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful\nthese winnings, and deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God.\nIn the Will work and acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of\nChance, and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations. A\npolitical victory, a rise of rents, the recovery of your sick or the\nreturn of your absent friend, or some other favorable event raises your\nspirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not believe\nit. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you\npeace but the triumph of principles.\n\n\n\n\nIII.\nCOMPENSATION\n\n\nThe wings of Time are black and white,\nPied with morning and with night.\nMountain tall and ocean deep\nTrembling balance duly keep.\nIn changing moon, in tidal wave,\nGlows the feud of Want and Have.\nGauge of more and less through space\nElectric star and pencil plays.\nThe lonely Earth amid the balls\nThat hurry through the eternal halls,\nA makeweight flying to the void,\nSupplemental asteroid,\nOr compensatory spark,\nShoots across the neutral Dark.\n\n\nMan\u2019s the elm, and Wealth the vine,\nStanch and strong the tendrils twine:\nThough the frail ringlets thee deceive,\nNone from its stock that vine can reave.\nFear not, then, thou child infirm,\nThere\u2019s no god dare wrong a worm.\nLaurel crowns cleave to deserts\nAnd power to him who power exerts;\nHast not thy share? On winged feet,\nLo! it rushes thee to meet;\nAnd all that Nature made thy own,\nFloating in air or pent in stone,\nWill rive the hills and swim the sea\nAnd, like thy shadow, follow thee.\n\n\n\n\nCOMPENSATION\n\n\nEver since I was a boy I have wished to write a discourse on\nCompensation; for it seemed to me when very young that on this subject\nlife was ahead of theology and the people knew more than the preachers\ntaught. The documents too from which the doctrine is to be drawn,\ncharmed my fancy by their endless variety, and lay always before me,\neven in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, the bread in our\nbasket, the transactions of the street, the farm and the\ndwelling-house; greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence\nof character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me also\nthat in it might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of\nthe soul of this world, clean from all vestige of tradition; and so the\nheart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love,\nconversing with that which he knows was always and always must be,\nbecause it really is now. It appeared moreover that if this doctrine\ncould be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright\nintuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us, it would be\na star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey, that\nwould not suffer us to lose our way.\n\nI was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church.\nThe preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the\nordinary manner the doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that\njudgment is not executed in this world; that the wicked are successful;\nthat the good are miserable; and then urged from reason and from\nScripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the next life.\nNo offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine.\nAs far as I could observe when the meeting broke up they separated\nwithout remark on the sermon.\n\nYet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean by\nsaying that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that\nhouses and lands, offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by\nunprincipled men, whilst the saints are poor and despised; and that a\ncompensation is to be made to these last hereafter, by giving them the\nlike gratifications another day,\u2014bank-stock and doubloons, venison and\nchampagne? This must be the compensation intended; for what else? Is it\nthat they are to have leave to pray and praise? to love and serve men?\nWhy, that they can do now. The legitimate inference the disciple would\ndraw was,\u2014\u2018We are to have _such_ a good time as the sinners have\nnow\u2019;\u2014or, to push it to its extreme import,\u2014\u2018You sin now; we shall sin\nby and by; we would sin now, if we could; not being successful, we\nexpect our revenge to-morrow.\u2019\n\nThe fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful;\nthat justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted\nin deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a\nmanly success, instead of confronting and convicting the world from the\ntruth; announcing the presence of the soul; the omnipotence of the\nwill; and so establishing the standard of good and ill, of success and\nfalsehood.\n\nI find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day\nand the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally\nthey treat the related topics. I think that our popular theology has\ngained in decorum, and not in principle, over the superstitions it has\ndisplaced. But men are better than their theology. Their daily life\ngives it the lie. Every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine\nbehind him in his own experience, and all men feel sometimes the\nfalsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser than they\nknow. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without afterthought,\nif said in conversation would probably be questioned in silence. If a\nman dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he\nis answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the\ndissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own\nstatement.\n\nI shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts\nthat indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my\nexpectation if I shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle.\n\nPolarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in\ndarkness and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in\nmale and female; in the inspiration and expiration of plants and\nanimals; in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the\nanimal body; in the systole and diastole of the heart; in the\nundulations of fluids, and of sound; in the centrifugal and centripetal\ngravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical affinity. Superinduce\nmagnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism takes place at\nthe other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty here,\nyou must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that\neach thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as,\nspirit, matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out;\nupper, under; motion, rest; yea, nay.\n\nWhilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The entire\nsystem of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat\nthat resembles the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and\nwoman, in a single needle of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each\nindividual of every animal tribe. The reaction, so grand in the\nelements, is repeated within these small boundaries. For example, in\nthe animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures are\nfavorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and every\ndefect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from\nanother part of the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged,\nthe trunk and extremities are cut short.\n\nThe theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in\npower is lost in time, and the converse. The periodic or compensating\nerrors of the planets is another instance. The influences of climate\nand soil in political history are another. The cold climate\ninvigorates. The barren soil does not breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers\nor scorpions.\n\nThe same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every\nexcess causes a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its\nsour; every evil its good. Every faculty which is a receiver of\npleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse. It is to answer for its\nmoderation with its life. For every grain of wit there is a grain of\nfolly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained something else;\nand for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches increase,\nthey are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much,\nNature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the\nestate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions.\nThe waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their\nloftiest tossing than the varieties of condition tend to equalize\nthemselves. There is always some levelling circumstance that puts down\nthe overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate, substantially on\nthe same ground with all others. Is a man too strong and fierce for\nsociety and by temper and position a bad citizen,\u2014a morose ruffian,\nwith a dash of the pirate in him?\u2014Nature sends him a troop of pretty\nsons and daughters who are getting along in the dame\u2019s classes at the\nvillage school, and love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to\ncourtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar,\ntakes the boar out and puts the lamb in and keeps her balance true.\n\nThe farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President\nhas paid dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his\npeace, and the best of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short\ntime so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is content to\neat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne. Or,\ndo men desire the more substantial and permanent grandeur of genius?\nNeither has this an immunity. He who by force of will or of thought is\ngreat and overlooks thousands, has the charges of that eminence. With\nevery influx of light comes new danger. Has he light? he must bear\nwitness to the light, and always outrun that sympathy which gives him\nsuch keen satisfaction, by his fidelity to new revelations of the\nincessant soul. He must hate father and mother, wife and child. Has he\nall that the world loves and admires and covets?\u2014he must cast behind\nhim their admiration, and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth,\nand become a byword and a hissing.\n\nThis law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build\nor plot or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long.\n_Res nolunt diu male administrari_. Though no checks to a new evil\nappear, the checks exist, and will appear. If the government is cruel,\nthe governor\u2019s life is not safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will\nyield nothing. If you make the criminal code sanguinary, juries will\nnot convict. If the law is too mild, private vengeance comes in. If the\ngovernment is a terrific democracy, the pressure is resisted by an\nover-charge of energy in the citizen, and life glows with a fiercer\nflame. The true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost\nrigors or felicities of condition and to establish themselves with\ngreat indifferency under all varieties of circumstances. Under all\ngovernments the influence of character remains the same,\u2014in Turkey and\nin New England about alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt,\nhistory honestly confesses that man must have been as free as culture\ncould make him.\n\nThese appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in\nevery one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the\npowers of nature. Every thing is made of one hidden stuff; as the\nnaturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis, and regards a horse\nas a running man, a fish as a swimming man, a bird as a flying man, a\ntree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not only the main character\nof the type, but part for part all the details, all the aims,\nfurtherances, hindrances, energies and whole system of every other.\nEvery occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world\nand a correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of human\nlife; of its good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its\nend. And each one must somehow accommodate the whole man and recite all\nhis destiny.\n\nThe world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find\nthe animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears,\ntaste, smell, motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction\nthat take hold on eternity,\u2014all find room to consist in the small\ncreature. So do we put our life into every act. The true doctrine of\nomnipresence is that God reappears with all his parts in every moss and\ncobweb. The value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every\npoint. If the good is there, so is the evil; if the affinity, so the\nrepulsion; if the force, so the limitation.\n\nThus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul which\nwithin us is a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its\ninspiration; out there in history we can see its fatal strength. \u201cIt is\nin the world, and the world was made by it.\u201d Justice is not postponed.\nA perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life. \u1f08\u03b5\u1f76 \u03b3\u1f70\u03c1 \u03b5\u1f56\n\u03c0\u03af\u03c0\u03c4\u03bf\u03c5\u03c3\u03b9\u03bd \u03bf\u1f31 \u0394\u03b9\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cd\u03b2\u03bf\u03b9,\u2014The dice of God are always loaded. The world\nlooks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which,\nturn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its\nexact value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is\ntold, every crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong\nredressed, in silence and certainty. What we call retribution is the\nuniversal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears.\nIf you see smoke, there must be fire. If you see a hand or a limb, you\nknow that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind.\n\nEvery act rewards itself, or, in other words integrates itself, in a\ntwofold manner; first in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly in\nthe circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the\nretribution. The causal retribution is in the thing and is seen by the\nsoul. The retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding;\nit is inseparable from the thing, but is often spread over a long time\nand so does not become distinct until after many years. The specific\nstripes may follow late after the offence, but they follow because they\naccompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one stem. Punishment is\na fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which\nconcealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, cannot\nbe severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end\npreexists in the means, the fruit in the seed.\n\nWhilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be disparted, we\nseek to act partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,\u2014to\ngratify the senses we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs\nof the character. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the\nsolution of one problem,\u2014how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual\nstrong, the sensual bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the moral deep,\nthe moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper\nsurface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a _one end_, without\nan _other end_. The soul says, \u2018Eat;\u2019 the body would feast. The soul\nsays, \u2018The man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul;\u2019 the body\nwould join the flesh only. The soul says, \u2018Have dominion over all\nthings to the ends of virtue;\u2019 the body would have the power over\nthings to its own ends.\n\nThe soul strives amain to live and work through all things. It would be\nthe only fact. All things shall be added unto it,\u2014power, pleasure,\nknowledge, beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; to set up\nfor himself; to truck and higgle for a private good; and, in\nparticulars, to ride that he may ride; to dress that he may be dressed;\nto eat that he may eat; and to govern, that he may be seen. Men seek to\nbe great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and fame. They think\nthat to be great is to possess one side of nature,\u2014the sweet, without\nthe other side, the bitter.\n\nThis dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day it\nmust be owned no projector has had the smallest success. The parted\nwater reunites behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant\nthings, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong things, as\nsoon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no more halve\nthings and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside\nthat shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. \u201cDrive out\nNature with a fork, she comes running back.\u201d\n\nLife invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek\nto dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know, that they\ndo not touch him;\u2014but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in\nhis soul. If he escapes them in one part they attack him in another\nmore vital part. If he has escaped them in form and in the appearance,\nit is because he has resisted his life and fled from himself, and the\nretribution is so much death. So signal is the failure of all attempts\nto make this separation of the good from the tax, that the experiment\nwould not be tried,\u2014since to try it is to be mad,\u2014but for the\ncircumstance, that when the disease began in the will, of rebellion and\nseparation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the man ceases\nto see God whole in each object, but is able to see the sensual\nallurement of an object and not see the sensual hurt; he sees the\nmermaid\u2019s head but not the dragon\u2019s tail, and thinks he can cut off\nthat which he would have from that which he would not have. \u201cHow secret\nart thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence, O thou only\ngreat God, sprinkling with an unwearied providence certain penal\nblindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires!\u201d[1]\n\n     [1] St. Augustine, Confessions, B. I.\n\nThe human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of\nhistory, of law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in\nliterature unawares. Thus the Greeks called Jupiter, Supreme Mind; but\nhaving traditionally ascribed to him many base actions, they\ninvoluntarily made amends to reason by tying up the hands of so bad a\ngod. He is made as helpless as a king of England. Prometheus knows one\nsecret which Jove must bargain for; Minerva, another. He cannot get his\nown thunders; Minerva keeps the key of them:\u2014\n\n     \u201cOf all the gods, I only know the keys\n     That ope the solid doors within whose vaults\n     His thunders sleep.\u201d\n\nA plain confession of the in-working of the All and of its moral aim.\nThe Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem\nimpossible for any fable to be invented and get any currency which was\nnot moral. Aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover, and though\nTithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles is not quite invulnerable;\nthe sacred waters did not wash the heel by which Thetis held him.\nSiegfried, in the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a leaf fell on\nhis back whilst he was bathing in the dragon\u2019s blood, and that spot\nwhich it covered is mortal. And so it must be. There is a crack in\nevery thing God has made. It would seem there is always this vindictive\ncircumstance stealing in at unawares even into the wild poesy in which\nthe human fancy attempted to make bold holiday and to shake itself free\nof the old laws,\u2014this back-stroke, this kick of the gun, certifying\nthat the law is fatal; that in nature nothing can be given, all things\nare sold.\n\nThis is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the\nuniverse and lets no offence go unchastised. The Furies they said are\nattendants on justice, and if the sun in heaven should transgress his\npath they would punish him. The poets related that stone walls and iron\nswords and leathern thongs had an occult sympathy with the wrongs of\ntheir owners; that the belt which Ajax gave Hector dragged the Trojan\nhero over the field at the wheels of the car of Achilles, and the sword\nwhich Hector gave Ajax was that on whose point Ajax fell. They recorded\nthat when the Thasians erected a statue to Theagenes, a victor in the\ngames, one of his rivals went to it by night and endeavored to throw it\ndown by repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal and\nwas crushed to death beneath its fall.\n\nThis voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought\nabove the will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer\nwhich has nothing private in it; that which he does not know; that\nwhich flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active\ninvention; that which in the study of a single artist you might not\neasily find, but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit\nof them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in that early\nHellenic world that I would know. The name and circumstance of Phidias,\nhowever convenient for history, embarrass when we come to the highest\ncriticism. We are to see that which man was tending to do in a given\nperiod, and was hindered, or, if you will, modified in doing, by the\ninterfering volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakspeare, the organ\nwhereby man at the moment wrought.\n\nStill more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of\nall nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the\nstatements of an absolute truth without qualification. Proverbs, like\nthe sacred books of each nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions.\nThat which the droning world, chained to appearances, will not allow\nthe realist to say in his own words, it will suffer him to say in\nproverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws, which the pulpit,\nthe senate and the college deny, is hourly preached in all markets and\nworkshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as\nomnipresent as that of birds and flies.\n\nAll things are double, one against another.\u2014Tit for tat; an eye for an\neye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love\nfor love.\u2014Give and it shall be given you.\u2014He that watereth shall be\nwatered himself.\u2014What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and take\nit.\u2014Nothing venture, nothing have.\u2014Thou shalt be paid exactly for what\nthou hast done, no more, no less.\u2014Who doth not work shall not eat.\u2014Harm\nwatch, harm catch.\u2014Curses always recoil on the head of him who\nimprecates them.\u2014If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, the\nother end fastens itself around your own.\u2014Bad counsel confounds the\nadviser.\u2014The Devil is an ass.\n\nIt is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is\novermastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature. We\naim at a petty end quite aside from the public good, but our act\narranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of\nthe world.\n\nA man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his\nwill he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word.\nEvery opinion reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball thrown\nat a mark, but the other end remains in the thrower\u2019s bag. Or rather it\nis a harpoon hurled at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of\ncord in the boat, and, if the harpoon is not good, or not well thrown,\nit will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain or to sink the boat.\n\nYou cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. \u201cNo man had ever a point\nof pride that was not injurious to him,\u201d said Burke. The exclusive in\nfashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment,\nin the attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not\nsee that he shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut\nout others. Treat men as pawns and ninepins and you shall suffer as\nwell as they. If you leave out their heart, you shall lose your own.\nThe senses would make things of all persons; of women, of children, of\nthe poor. The vulgar proverb, \u201cI will get it from his purse or get it\nfrom his skin,\u201d is sound philosophy.\n\nAll infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily\npunished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations\nto my fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as\nwater meets water, or as two currents of air mix, with perfect\ndiffusion and interpenetration of nature. But as soon as there is any\ndeparture from simplicity, and attempt at halfness, or good for me that\nis not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; he shrinks from me as\nfar as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek mine; there is\nwar between us; there is hate in him and fear in me.\n\nAll the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust\naccumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner.\nFear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all\nrevolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he\nappears. He is a carrion crow, and though you see not well what he\nhovers for, there is death somewhere. Our property is timid, our laws\nare timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear for ages has boded\nand mowed and gibbered over government and property. That obscene bird\nis not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be\nrevised.\n\nOf the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly\nfollows the suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of\ncloudless noon, the emerald of Polycrates, the awe of prosperity, the\ninstinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks of a\nnoble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are the tremblings of the\nbalance of justice through the heart and mind of man.\n\nExperienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot\nand lot as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small\nfrugality. The borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any\nthing who has received a hundred favors and rendered none? Has he\ngained by borrowing, through indolence or cunning, his neighbor\u2019s\nwares, or horses, or money? There arises on the deed the instant\nacknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other;\nthat is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in the\nmemory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction alters\naccording to its nature their relation to each other. He may soon come\nto see that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden\nin his neighbor\u2019s coach, and that \u201cthe highest price he can pay for a\nthing is to ask for it.\u201d\n\nA wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that\nit is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just\ndemand on your time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for first\nor last you must pay your entire debt. Persons and events may stand for\na time between you and justice, but it is only a postponement. You must\npay at last your own debt. If you are wise you will dread a prosperity\nwhich only loads you with more. Benefit is the end of nature. But for\nevery benefit which you receive, a tax is levied. He is great who\nconfers the most benefits. He is base,\u2014and that is the one base thing\nin the universe,\u2014to receive favors and render none. In the order of\nnature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them, or\nonly seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line\nfor line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much\ngood staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it\naway quickly in some sort.\n\nLabor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the\nprudent, is the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon,\na knife, is some application of good sense to a common want. It is best\nto pay in your land a skilful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to\ngardening; in your sailor, good sense applied to navigation; in the\nhouse, good sense applied to cooking, sewing, serving; in your agent,\ngood sense applied to accounts and affairs. So do you multiply your\npresence, or spread yourself throughout your estate. But because of the\ndual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no\ncheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself.\nFor the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and\ncredit are signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited\nor stolen, but that which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue,\ncannot be counterfeited or stolen. These ends of labor cannot be\nanswered but by real exertions of the mind, and in obedience to pure\nmotives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, cannot extort the\nknowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains\nyield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you\nshall have the Power; but they who do not the thing have not the power.\n\nHuman labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to\nthe construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of\nthe perfect compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give\nand Take, the doctrine that every thing has its price,\u2014and if that\nprice is not paid, not that thing but something else is obtained, and\nthat it is impossible to get any thing without its price,\u2014is not less\nsublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states, in the\nlaws of light and darkness, in all the action and reaction of nature. I\ncannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those\nprocesses with which he is conversant, the stern ethics which sparkle\non his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule,\nwhich stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the\nhistory of a state,\u2014do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom\nnamed, exalt his business to his imagination.\n\nThe league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a\nhostile front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world\npersecute and whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for\ntruth and benefit, but there is no den in the wide world to hide a\nrogue. Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. Commit a crime,\nand it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground, such as reveals\nin the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and\nmole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe out the\nfoot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or\nclew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and\nsubstances of nature,\u2014water, snow, wind, gravitation,\u2014become penalties\nto the thief.\n\nOn the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right\naction. Love, and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just,\nas much as the two sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has\nabsolute good, which like fire turns every thing to its own nature, so\nthat you cannot do him any harm; but as the royal armies sent against\nNapoleon, when he approached cast down their colors and from enemies\nbecame friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, offence,\npoverty, prove benefactors:\u2014\n\n     \u201cWinds blow and waters roll\n     Strength to the brave, and power and deity,\n     Yet in themselves are nothing.\u201d\n\nThe good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever\na point of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a\ndefect that was not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable\nadmired his horns and blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his\nfeet saved him, and afterwards, caught in the thicket, his horns\ndestroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults. As\nno man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against\nit, so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or\ntalents of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph\nof the other over his own want of the same. Has he a defect of temper\nthat unfits him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain\nhimself alone and acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the\nwounded oyster, he mends his shell with pearl.\n\nOur strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms\nitself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and\nstung and sorely assailed. A great man is always willing to be little.\nWhilst he sits on the cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he\nis pushed, tormented, defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he\nhas been put on his wits, on his manhood; he has gained facts; learns\nhis ignorance; is cured of the insanity of conceit; has got moderation\nand real skill. The wise man throws himself on the side of his\nassailants. It is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak\npoint. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin and\nwhen they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. Blame is\nsafer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as all\nthat is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success.\nBut as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one\nthat lies unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to\nwhich we do not succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander\nbelieves that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into\nhimself, so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist.\n\nThe same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity,\ndefend us, if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are\nnot the best of our institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of\nwisdom. Men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition\nthat they can be cheated. But it is as impossible for a man to be\ncheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be and not to be at\nthe same time. There is a third silent party to all our bargains. The\nnature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the\nfulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to\nloss. If you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in\nyour debt. Every stroke shall be repaid. The longer The payment is\nwithholden, the better for you; for compound interest on compound\ninterest is the rate and usage of this exchequer.\n\nThe history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature,\nto make water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no\ndifference whether the actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob\nis a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and\ntraversing its work. The mob is man voluntarily descending to the\nnature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity is night. Its actions are\ninsane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a principle; it would\nwhip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by inflicting fire and\noutrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these. It\nresembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the\nruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their\nspite against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every\nlash inflicted is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious\nabode; every burned book or house enlightens the world; every\nsuppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to\nside. Hours of sanity and consideration are always arriving to\ncommunities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen and the martyrs\nare justified.\n\nThus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man is\nall. Every thing has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage has\nits tax. I learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not\nthe doctrine of indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing these\nrepresentations,\u2014What boots it to do well? there is one event to good\nand evil; if I gain any good I must pay for it; if I lose any good I\ngain some other; all actions are indifferent.\n\nThere is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own\nnature. The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul _is_.\nUnder all this running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow\nwith perfect balance, lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Essence,\nor God, is not a relation or a part, but the whole. Being is the vast\naffirmative, excluding negation, self-balanced, and swallowing up all\nrelations, parts and times within itself. Nature, truth, virtue, are\nthe influx from thence. Vice is the absence or departure of the same.\nNothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great Night or shade on\nwhich as a background the living universe paints itself forth, but no\nfact is begotten by it; it cannot work, for it is not. It cannot work\nany good; it cannot work any harm. It is harm inasmuch as it is worse\nnot to be than to be.\n\nWe feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the\ncriminal adheres to his vice and contumacy and does not come to a\ncrisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning\nconfutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore\noutwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie\nwith him he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a\ndemonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but, should we\nnot see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account.\n\nNeither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude\nmust be bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty\nto wisdom; they are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I\nproperly _am;_ in a virtuous act I add to the world; I plant into\ndeserts conquered from Chaos and Nothing and see the darkness receding\non the limits of the horizon. There can be no excess to love, none to\nknowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes are considered in the\npurest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms an Optimism,\nnever a Pessimism.\n\nHis life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. Our\ninstinct uses \u201cmore\u201d and \u201cless\u201d in application to man, of the _presence\nof the soul_, and not of its absence, the brave man is greater than the\ncoward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man and not less,\nthan the fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue, for\nthat is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any\ncomparative. Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert\nor sweat, has no root in me, and the next wind will blow it away. But\nall the good of nature is the soul\u2019s, and may be had if paid for in\nnature\u2019s lawful coin, that is, by labor which the heart and the head\nallow. I no longer wish to meet a good I do not earn, for example to\nfind a pot of buried gold, knowing that it brings with it new burdens.\nI do not wish more external goods,\u2014neither possessions, nor honors, nor\npowers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax is certain. But\nthere is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists and that\nit is not desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene\neternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn\nthe wisdom of St. Bernard,\u2014\u201cNothing can work me damage except myself;\nthe harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real\nsufferer but by my own fault.\u201d\n\nIn the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of\ncondition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of\nMore and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel indignation\nor malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less faculty, and\none feels sad and knows not well what to make of it. He almost shuns\ntheir eye; he fears they will upbraid God. What should they do? It\nseems a great injustice. But see the facts nearly and these mountainous\ninequalities vanish. Love reduces them as the sun melts the iceberg in\nthe sea. The heart and soul of all men being one, this bitterness of\n_His_ and _Mine_ ceases. His is mine. I am my brother and my brother is\nme. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors, I can yet\nlove; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his own the\ngrandeur he loves. Thereby I make the discovery that my brother is my\nguardian, acting for me with the friendliest designs, and the estate I\nso admired and envied is my own. It is the nature of the soul to\nappropriate all things. Jesus and Shakspeare are fragments of the soul,\nand by love I conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain.\nHis virtue,\u2014is not that mine? His wit,\u2014if it cannot be made mine, it is\nnot wit.\n\nSuch also is the natural history of calamity. The changes which break\nup at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of a\nnature whose law is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic necessity\nquitting its whole system of things, its friends and home and laws and\nfaith, as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case,\nbecause it no longer admits of its growth, and slowly forms a new\nhouse. In proportion to the vigor of the individual these revolutions\nare frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant and all\nworldly relations hang very loosely about him, becoming as it were a\ntransparent fluid membrane through which the living form is seen, and\nnot, as in most men, an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates\nand of no settled character, in which the man is imprisoned. Then there\ncan be enlargement, and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man\nof yesterday. And such should be the outward biography of man in time,\na putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his\nraiment day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, resting, not\nadvancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, this\ngrowth comes by shocks.\n\nWe cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not\nsee that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters\nof the old. We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper\neternity and omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in\nto-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the\nruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and organs,\nnor believe that the spirit can feed, cover, and nerve us again. We\ncannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so graceful. But we sit and\nweep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, \u2018Up and onward for\nevermore!\u2019 We cannot stay amid the ruins. Neither will we rely on the\nnew; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like those monsters who\nlook backwards.\n\nAnd yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the\nunderstanding also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a\nmutilation, a cruel disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of\nfriends, seems at the moment unpaid loss, and unpayable. But the sure\nyears reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts. The\ndeath of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which seemed nothing but\nprivation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius; for\nit commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an\nepoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up\na wonted occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the\nformation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character. It\npermits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances and the\nreception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the\nnext years; and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny\ngarden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its\nhead, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is\nmade the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide\nneighborhoods of men.\n\n\n\n\nIV.\nSPIRITUAL LAWS\n\n\nThe living Heaven thy prayers respect,\nHouse at once and architect,\nQuarrying man\u2019s rejected hours,\nBuilds therewith eternal towers;\nSole and self-commanded works,\nFears not undermining days,\nGrows by decays,\nAnd, by the famous might that lurks\nIn reaction and recoil,\nMakes flame to freeze, and ice to boil;\nForging, through swart arms of Offence,\nThe silver seat of Innocence.\n\n\n\n\nSPIRITUAL LAWS\n\n\nWhen the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at\nourselves in the light of thought, we discover that our life is\nembosomed in beauty. Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing\nforms, as clouds do far off. Not only things familiar and stale, but\neven the tragic and terrible are comely as they take their place in the\npictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at the water-side, the old\nhouse, the foolish person, however neglected in the passing, have a\ngrace in the past. Even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has\nadded a solemn ornament to the house. The soul will not know either\ndeformity or pain. If in the hours of clear reason we should speak the\nseverest truth, we should say that we had never made a sacrifice. In\nthese hours the mind seems so great that nothing can be taken from us\nthat seems much. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe\nremains to the heart unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate our\ntrust. No man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might. Allow for\nexaggeration in the most patient and sorely ridden hack that ever was\ndriven. For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the\ninfinite lies stretched in smiling repose.\n\nThe intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful if man will live\nthe life of nature and not import into his mind difficulties which are\nnone of his. No man need be perplexed in his speculations. Let him do\nand say what strictly belongs to him, and though very ignorant of\nbooks, his nature shall not yield him any intellectual obstructions and\ndoubts. Our young people are diseased with the theological problems of\noriginal sin, origin of evil, predestination and the like. These never\npresented a practical difficulty to any man,\u2014never darkened across any\nman\u2019s road who did not go out of his way to seek them. These are the\nsoul\u2019s mumps and measles and whooping-coughs, and those who have not\ncaught them cannot describe their health or prescribe the cure. A\nsimple mind will not know these enemies. It is quite another thing that\nhe should be able to give account of his faith and expound to another\nthe theory of his self-union and freedom. This requires rare gifts. Yet\nwithout this self-knowledge there may be a sylvan strength and\nintegrity in that which he is. \u201cA few strong instincts and a few plain\nrules\u201d suffice us.\n\nMy will never gave the images in my mind the rank they now take. The\nregular course of studies, the years of academical and professional\neducation have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under\nthe bench at the Latin School. What we do not call education is more\nprecious than that which we call so. We form no guess, at the time of\nreceiving a thought, of its comparative value. And education often\nwastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk this natural\nmagnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it.\n\nIn like manner our moral nature is vitiated by any interference of our\nwill. People represent virtue as a struggle, and take to themselves\ngreat airs upon their attainments, and the question is everywhere vexed\nwhen a noble nature is commended, whether the man is not better who\nstrives with temptation. But there is no merit in the matter. Either\nGod is there or he is not there. We love characters in proportion as\nthey are impulsive and spontaneous. The less a man thinks or knows\nabout his virtues the better we like him. Timoleon\u2019s victories are the\nbest victories, which ran and flowed like Homer\u2019s verses, Plutarch\nsaid. When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful and\npleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are,\nand not turn sourly on the angel and say \u2018Crump is a better man with\nhis grunting resistance to all his native devils.\u2019\n\nNot less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all\npractical life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to\nit. We impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to C\u00e6sar and Napoleon; but\nthe best of their power was in nature, not in them. Men of an\nextraordinary success, in their honest moments, have always sung, \u2018Not\nunto us, not unto us.\u2019 According to the faith of their times they have\nbuilt altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or to St. Julian. Their success\nlay in their parallelism to the course of thought, which found in them\nan unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were the visible\nconductors seemed to the eye their deed. Did the wires generate the\ngalvanism? It is even true that there was less in them on which they\ncould reflect than in another; as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth\nand hollow. That which externally seemed will and immovableness was\nwillingness and self-annihilation. Could Shakspeare give a theory of\nShakspeare? Could ever a man of prodigious mathematical genius convey\nto others any insight into his methods? If he could communicate that\nsecret it would instantly lose its exaggerated value, blending with the\ndaylight and the vital energy the power to stand and to go.\n\nThe lesson is forcibly taught by these observations that our life might\nbe much easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a\nhappier place than it is; that there is no need of struggles,\nconvulsions, and despairs, of the wringing of the hands and the\ngnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our own evils. We interfere\nwith the optimism of nature; for whenever we get this vantage-ground of\nthe past, or of a wiser mind in the present, we are able to discern\nthat we are begirt with laws which execute themselves.\n\nThe face of external nature teaches the same lesson. Nature will not\nhave us fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our\nlearning much better than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come\nout of the caucus, or the bank, or the Abolition-convention, or the\nTemperance-meeting, or the Transcendental club into the fields and\nwoods, she says to us, \u2018So hot? my little Sir.\u2019\n\nWe are full of mechanical actions. We must needs intermeddle and have\nthings in our own way, until the sacrifices and virtues of society are\nodious. Love should make joy; but our benevolence is unhappy. Our\nSunday-schools and churches and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck.\nWe pain ourselves to please nobody. There are natural ways of arriving\nat the same ends at which these aim, but do not arrive. Why should all\nvirtue work in one and the same way? Why should all give dollars? It is\nvery inconvenient to us country folk, and we do not think any good will\ncome of it. We have not dollars; merchants have; let them give them.\nFarmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will sew; laborers will\nlend a hand; the children will bring flowers. And why drag this dead\nweight of a Sunday-school over the whole Christendom? It is natural and\nbeautiful that childhood should inquire and maturity should teach; but\nit is time enough to answer questions when they are asked. Do not shut\nup the young people against their will in a pew and force the children\nto ask them questions for an hour against their will.\n\nIf we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and\nmodes of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by\nponderous machinery, which resembles the endless aqueducts which the\nRomans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the\ndiscovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source. It is\na Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar can leap over. It is a standing\narmy, not so good as a peace. It is a graduated, titled, richly\nappointed empire, quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to\nanswer just as well.\n\nLet us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways.\nWhen the fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the\nleaf falls. The circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of\nman and all animals is a falling forward. All our manual labor and\nworks of strength, as prying, splitting, digging, rowing and so forth,\nare done by dint of continual falling, and the globe, earth, moon,\ncomet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever.\n\nThe simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of\na machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows\nhow knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The\nsimplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read, but is\ninexhaustible. The last analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a\nman\u2019s wisdom by his hope, knowing that the perception of the\ninexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth. The wild fertility of\nnature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our\nfluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and schools, for\nerudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One sees\nvery well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle\npoint whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason.\nHe is old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He\nhears and feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler.\nThere is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We\nside with the hero, as we read or paint, against the coward and the\nrobber; but we have been ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be\nagain,\u2014not in the low circumstance, but in comparison with the\ngrandeurs possible to the soul.\n\nA little consideration of what takes place around us every day would\nshow us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that\nour painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our\neasy, simple, spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting\nourselves with obedience we become divine. Belief and love,\u2014a believing\nlove will relieve us of a vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists.\nThere is a soul at the centre of nature and over the will of every man,\nso that none of us can wrong the universe. It has so infused its strong\nenchantment into nature that we prosper when we accept its advice, and\nwhen we struggle to wound its creatures our hands are glued to our\nsides, or they beat our own breasts. The whole course of things goes to\nteach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of us,\nand by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why need you\nchoose so painfully your place and occupation and associates and modes\nof action and of entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for\nyou that precludes the need of balance and wilful election. For you\nthere is a reality, a fit place and congenial duties. Place yourself in\nthe middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it\nfloats, and you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a\nperfect contentment. Then you put all gainsayers in the wrong. Then you\nare the world, the measure of right, of truth, of beauty. If we will\nnot be mar-plots with our miserable interferences, the work, the\nsociety, letters, arts, science, religion of men would go on far better\nthan now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the world, and\nstill predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize itself, as\ndo now the rose and the air and the sun.\n\nI say, _do not choose;_ but that is a figure of speech by which I would\ndistinguish what is commonly called _choice_ among men, and which is a\npartial act, the choice of the hands, of the eyes, of the appetites,\nand not a whole act of the man. But that which I call right or\ngoodness, is the choice of my constitution; and that which I call\nheaven, and inwardly aspire after, is the state or circumstance\ndesirable to my constitution; and the action which I in all my years\ntend to do, is the work for my faculties. We must hold a man amenable\nto reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not an\nexcuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade.\nWhat business has he with an evil trade? Has he not a _calling_ in his\ncharacter?\n\nEach man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one\ndirection in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently\ninviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river;\nhe runs against obstructions on every side but one, on that side all\nobstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening\nchannel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his\norganization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself\nin him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when\nit is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the\nmore truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his\nwork exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly\nproportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by\nthe breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do\nsomewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he\nhas another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward\n\u201csigns that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,\u201d\nis fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one\nmind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.\n\nBy doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply, and\ncreates the taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work he\nunfolds himself. It is the vice of our public speaking that it has not\nabandonment. Somewhere, not only every orator but every man should let\nout all the length of all the reins; should find or make a frank and\nhearty expression of what force and meaning is in him. The common\nexperience is that the man fits himself as well as he can to the\ncustomary details of that work or trade he falls into, and tends it as\na dog turns a spit. Then is he a part of the machine he moves; the man\nis lost. Until he can manage to communicate himself to others in his\nfull stature and proportion, he does not yet find his vocation. He must\nfind in that an outlet for his character, so that he may justify his\nwork to their eyes. If the labor is mean, let him by his thinking and\ncharacter make it liberal. Whatever he knows and thinks, whatever in\nhis apprehension is worth doing, that let him communicate, or men will\nnever know and honor him aright. Foolish, whenever you take the\nmeanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it\ninto the obedient spiracle of your character and aims.\n\nWe like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men,\nand do not perceive that any thing man can do may be divinely done. We\nthink greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties, in\ncertain offices or occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract\nrapture from a catgut, and Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a\nnimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors, and\nLandseer out of swine, and the hero out of the pitiful habitation and\ncompany in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition or\nvulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet\nwritten, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as\nany. In our estimates let us take a lesson from kings. The parts of\nhospitality, the connection of families, the impressiveness of death,\nand a thousand other things, royalty makes its own estimate of, and a\nroyal mind will. To make habitually a new estimate,\u2014that is elevation.\n\nWhat a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In\nhimself is his might. Let him regard no good as solid but that which is\nin his nature and which must grow out of him as long as he exists. The\ngoods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter\nthem on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite\nproductiveness.\n\nHe may have his own. A man\u2019s genius, the quality that differences him\nfrom every other, the susceptibility to one class of influences, the\nselection of what is fit for him, the rejection of what is unfit,\ndetermines for him the character of the universe. A man is a method, a\nprogressive arrangement; a selecting principle, gathering his like to\nhim wherever he goes. He takes only his own out of the multiplicity\nthat sweeps and circles round him. He is like one of those booms which\nare set out from the shore on rivers to catch drift-wood, or like the\nloadstone amongst splinters of steel. Those facts, words, persons,\nwhich dwell in his memory without his being able to say why, remain\nbecause they have a relation to him not less real for being as yet\nunapprehended. They are symbols of value to him as they can interpret\nparts of his consciousness which he would vainly seek words for in the\nconventional images of books and other minds. What attracts my\nattention shall have it, as I will go to the man who knocks at my door,\nwhilst a thousand persons as worthy go by it, to whom I give no regard.\nIt is enough that these particulars speak to me. A few anecdotes, a few\ntraits of character, manners, face, a few incidents, have an emphasis\nin your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance if\nyou measure them by the ordinary standards. They relate to your gift.\nLet them have their weight, and do not reject them and cast about for\nillustration and facts more usual in literature. What your heart thinks\ngreat is great. The soul\u2019s emphasis is always right.\n\nOver all things that are agreeable to his nature and genius the man has\nthe highest right. Everywhere he may take what belongs to his spiritual\nestate, nor can he take any thing else though all doors were open, nor\ncan all the force of men hinder him from taking so much. It is vain to\nattempt to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it. It will\ntell itself. That mood into which a friend can bring us is his dominion\nover us. To the thoughts of that state of mind he has a right. All the\nsecrets of that state of mind he can compel. This is a law which\nstatesmen use in practice. All the terrors of the French Republic,\nwhich held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But\nNapoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with\nthe morals, manners and name of that interest, saying that it was\nindispensable to send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same\nconnection, which, in fact, constitutes a sort of free-masonry. M. de\nNarbonne in less than a fortnight penetrated all the secrets of the\nimperial cabinet.\n\nNothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood. Yet a man may\ncome to find _that_ the strongest of defences and of ties,\u2014that he has\nbeen understood; and he who has received an opinion may come to find it\nthe most inconvenient of bonds.\n\nIf a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils\nwill become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he\npublishes. If you pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and\nangles, it is vain to say, I will pour it only into this or that;\u2014it\nwill find its level in all. Men feel and act the consequences of your\ndoctrine without being able to show how they follow. Show us an arc of\nthe curve, and a good mathematician will find out the whole figure. We\nare always reasoning from the seen to the unseen. Hence the perfect\nintelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages. A man\ncannot bury his meanings so deep in his book but time and like-minded\nmen will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine, had he? What secret\ncan he conceal from the eyes of Bacon? of Montaigne? of Kant?\nTherefore, Aristotle said of his works, \u201cThey are published and not\npublished.\u201d\n\nNo man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near\nto his eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets\nto a carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser,\u2014the secrets he would\nnot utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from\npremature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that\nstare us in the face, until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened;\nthen we behold them, and the time when we saw them not is like a dream.\n\nNot in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world\nis very empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all\nits pride. \u201cEarth fills her lap with splendors\u201d _not_ her own. The vale\nof Tempe, Tivoli and Rome are earth and water, rocks and sky. There are\nas good earth and water in a thousand places, yet how unaffecting!\n\nPeople are not the better for the sun and moon, the horizon and the\ntrees; as it is not observed that the keepers of Roman galleries or the\nvalets of painters have any elevation of thought, or that librarians\nare wiser men than others. There are graces in the demeanor of a\npolished and noble person which are lost upon the eye of a churl. These\nare like the stars whose light has not yet reached us.\n\nHe may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of our waking\nknowledge. The visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions\nof the day. Hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day. We\nsee our evil affections embodied in bad physiognomies. On the Alps the\ntraveller sometimes beholds his own shadow magnified to a giant, so\nthat every gesture of his hand is terrific. \u201cMy children,\u201d said an old\nman to his boys scared by a figure in the dark entry, \u201cmy children, you\nwill never see any thing worse than yourselves.\u201d As in dreams, so in\nthe scarcely less fluid events of the world every man sees himself in\ncolossal, without knowing that it is himself. The good, compared to the\nevil which he sees, is as his own good to his own evil. Every quality\nof his mind is magnified in some one acquaintance, and every emotion of\nhis heart in some one. He is like a quincunx of trees, which counts\nfive,\u2014east, west, north, or south; or an initial, medial, and terminal\nacrostic. And why not? He cleaves to one person and avoids another,\naccording to their likeness or unlikeness to himself, truly seeking\nhimself in his associates and moreover in his trade and habits and\ngestures and meats and drinks, and comes at last to be faithfully\nrepresented by every view you take of his circumstances.\n\nHe may read what he writes. What can we see or acquire but what we are?\nYou have observed a skilful man reading Virgil. Well, that author is a\nthousand books to a thousand persons. Take the book into your two hands\nand read your eyes out, you will never find what I find. If any\ningenious reader would have a monopoly of the wisdom or delight he\ngets, he is as secure now the book is Englished, as if it were\nimprisoned in the Pelews\u2019 tongue. It is with a good book as it is with\ngood company. Introduce a base person among gentlemen, it is all to no\npurpose; he is not their fellow. Every society protects itself. The\ncompany is perfectly safe, and he is not one of them, though his body\nis in the room.\n\nWhat avails it to fight with the eternal laws of mind, which adjust the\nrelation of all persons to each other by the mathematical measure of\ntheir havings and beings? Gertrude is enamored of Guy; how high, how\naristocratic, how Roman his mien and manners! to live with him were\nlife indeed, and no purchase is too great; and heaven and earth are\nmoved to that end. Well, Gertrude has Guy; but what now avails how\nhigh, how aristocratic, how Roman his mien and manners, if his heart\nand aims are in the senate, in the theatre and in the billiard-room,\nand she has no aims, no conversation that can enchant her graceful\nlord?\n\nHe shall have his own society. We can love nothing but nature. The most\nwonderful talents, the most meritorious exertions really avail very\nlittle with us; but nearness or likeness of nature,\u2014how beautiful is\nthe ease of its victory! Persons approach us, famous for their beauty,\nfor their accomplishments, worthy of all wonder for their charms and\ngifts; they dedicate their whole skill to the hour and the\ncompany,\u2014with very imperfect result. To be sure it would be ungrateful\nin us not to praise them loudly. Then, when all is done, a person of\nrelated mind, a brother or sister by nature, comes to us so softly and\neasily, so nearly and intimately, as if it were the blood in our proper\nveins, that we feel as if some one was gone, instead of another having\ncome; we are utterly relieved and refreshed; it is a sort of joyful\nsolitude. We foolishly think in our days of sin that we must court\nfriends by compliance to the customs of society, to its dress, its\nbreeding, and its estimates. But only that soul can be my friend which\nI encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not\ndecline and which does not decline to me, but, native of the same\ncelestial latitude, repeats in its own all my experience. The scholar\nforgets himself and apes the customs and costumes of the man of the\nworld to deserve the smile of beauty, and follows some giddy girl, not\nyet taught by religious passion to know the noble woman with all that\nis serene, oracular and beautiful in her soul. Let him be great, and\nlove shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect\nof the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the\ninsane levity of choosing associates by others\u2019 eyes.\n\nHe may set his own rate. It is a maxim worthy of all acceptation that a\nman may have that allowance he takes. Take the place and attitude which\nbelong to you, and all men acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves\nevery man, with profound unconcern, to set his own rate. Hero or\ndriveller, it meddles not in the matter. It will certainly accept your\nown measure of your doing and being, whether you sneak about and deny\nyour own name, or whether you see your work produced to the concave\nsphere of the heavens, one with the revolution of the stars.\n\nThe same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and\nnot otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not by\nwords. He teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no\nteaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in\nwhich you are; a transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he;\nthen is a teaching, and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he\never quite lose the benefit. But your propositions run out of one ear\nas they ran in at the other. We see it advertised that Mr. Grand will\ndeliver an oration on the Fourth of July, and Mr. Hand before the\nMechanics\u2019 Association, and we do not go thither, because we know that\nthese gentlemen will not communicate their own character and experience\nto the company. If we had reason to expect such a confidence we should\ngo through all inconvenience and opposition. The sick would be carried\nin litters. But a public oration is an escapade, a non-committal, an\napology, a gag, and not a communication, not a speech, not a man.\n\nA like Nemesis presides over all intellectual works. We have yet to\nlearn that the thing uttered in words is not therefore affirmed. It\nmust affirm itself, or no forms of logic or of oath can give it\nevidence. The sentence must also contain its own apology for being\nspoken.\n\nThe effect of any writing on the public mind is mathematically\nmeasurable by its depth of thought. How much water does it draw? If it\nawaken you to think, if it lift you from your feet with the great voice\nof eloquence, then the effect is to be wide, slow, permanent, over the\nminds of men; if the pages instruct you not, they will die like flies\nin the hour. The way to speak and write what shall not go out of\nfashion is to speak and write sincerely. The argument which has not\npower to reach my own practice, I may well doubt will fail to reach\nyours. But take Sidney\u2019s maxim:\u2014\u201cLook in thy heart, and write.\u201d He that\nwrites to himself writes to an eternal public. That statement only is\nfit to be made public which you have come at in attempting to satisfy\nyour own curiosity. The writer who takes his subject from his ear and\nnot from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he seems to\nhave gained, and when the empty book has gathered all its praise, and\nhalf the people say, \u2018What poetry! what genius!\u2019 it still needs fuel to\nmake fire. That only profits which is profitable. Life alone can impart\nlife; and though we should burst we can only be valued as we make\nourselves valuable. There is no luck in literary reputation. They who\nmake up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy\nreaders of the hour when it appears, but a court as of angels, a public\nnot to be bribed, not to be entreated and not to be overawed, decides\nupon every man\u2019s title to fame. Only those books come down which\ndeserve to last. Gilt edges, vellum and morocco, and\npresentation-copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in\ncirculation beyond its intrinsic date. It must go with all Walpole\u2019s\nNoble and Royal Authors to its fate. Blackmore, Kotzebue, or Pollok may\nendure for a night, but Moses and Homer stand for ever. There are not\nin the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and\nunderstand Plato,\u2014never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet\nto every generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few\npersons, as if God brought them in his hand. \u201cNo book,\u201d said Bentley,\n\u201cwas ever written down by any but itself.\u201d The permanence of all books\nis fixed by no effort, friendly or hostile, but by their own specific\ngravity, or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant\nmind of man. \u201cDo not trouble yourself too much about the light on your\nstatue,\u201d said Michael Angelo to the young sculptor; \u201cthe light of the\npublic square will test its value.\u201d\n\nIn like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of\nthe sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he\nwas great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he\ndid, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the\nworld, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment. But now, every\nthing he did, even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread,\nlooks large, all-related, and is called an institution.\n\nThese are the demonstrations in a few particulars of the genius of\nnature; they show the direction of the stream. But the stream is blood;\nevery drop is alive. Truth has not single victories; all things are its\norgans,\u2014not only dust and stones, but errors and lies. The laws of\ndisease, physicians say, are as beautiful as the laws of health. Our\nphilosophy is affirmative and readily accepts the testimony of negative\nfacts, as every shadow points to the sun. By a divine necessity every\nfact in nature is constrained to offer its testimony.\n\nHuman character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and\nword, the mere air of doing a thing, the intimated purpose, expresses\ncharacter. If you act you show character; if you sit still, if you\nsleep, you show it. You think because you have spoken nothing when\nothers spoke, and have given no opinion on the times, on the church, on\nslavery, on marriage, on socialism, on secret societies, on the\ncollege, on parties and persons, that your verdict is still expected\nwith curiosity as a reserved wisdom. Far otherwise; your silence\nanswers very loud. You have no oracle to utter, and your fellow-men\nhave learned that you cannot help them; for oracles speak. Doth not\nWisdom cry and Understanding put forth her voice?\n\nDreadful limits are set in nature to the powers of dissimulation. Truth\ntyrannizes over the unwilling members of the body. Faces never lie, it\nis said. No man need be deceived who will study the changes of\nexpression. When a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye\nis as clear as the heavens. When he has base ends and speaks falsely,\nthe eye is muddy and sometimes asquint.\n\nI have heard an experienced counsellor say that he never feared the\neffect upon a jury of a lawyer who does not believe in his heart that\nhis client ought to have a verdict. If he does not believe it his\nunbelief will appear to the jury, despite all his protestations, and\nwill become their unbelief. This is that law whereby a work of art, of\nwhatever kind, sets us in the same state of mind wherein the artist was\nwhen he made it. That which we do not believe we cannot adequately say,\nthough we may repeat the words never so often. It was this conviction\nwhich Swedenborg expressed when he described a group of persons in the\nspiritual world endeavoring in vain to articulate a proposition which\nthey did not believe; but they could not, though they twisted and\nfolded their lips even to indignation.\n\nA man passes for that he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity\nconcerning other people\u2019s estimate of us, and all fear of remaining\nunknown is not less so. If a man know that he can do any thing,\u2014that he\ncan do it better than any one else,\u2014he has a pledge of the\nacknowledgment of that fact by all persons. The world is full of\njudgment-days, and into every assembly that a man enters, in every\naction he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop of boys\nthat whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and\naccurately weighed in the course of a few days and stamped with his\nright number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength,\nspeed and temper. A stranger comes from a distant school, with better\ndress, with trinkets in his pockets, with airs and pretensions; an\nolder boy says to himself, \u2018It\u2019s of no use; we shall find him out\nto-morrow.\u2019 \u2018What has he done?\u2019 is the divine question which searches\nmen and transpierces every false reputation. A fop may sit in any chair\nof the world nor be distinguished for his hour from Homer and\nWashington; but there need never be any doubt concerning the respective\nability of human beings. Pretension may sit still, but cannot act.\nPretension never feigned an act of real greatness. Pretension never\nwrote an Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor christianized the world, nor\nabolished slavery.\n\nAs much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as there\nis, so much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The\nhigh, the generous, the self-devoted sect will always instruct and\ncommand mankind. Never was a sincere word utterly lost. Never a\nmagnanimity fell to the ground, but there is some heart to greet and\naccept it unexpectedly. A man passes for that he is worth. What he is\nengraves itself on his face, on his form, on his fortunes, in letters\nof light. Concealment avails him nothing, boasting nothing. There is\nconfession in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in salutations,\nand the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good\nimpression. Men know not why they do not trust him, but they do not\ntrust him. His vice glasses his eye, cuts lines of mean expression in\nhis cheek, pinches the nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of\nthe head, and writes O fool! fool! on the forehead of a king.\n\nIf you would not be known to do any thing, never do it. A man may play\nthe fool in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem\nto see. He may be a solitary eater, but he cannot keep his foolish\ncounsel. A broken complexion, a swinish look, ungenerous acts and the\nwant of due knowledge,\u2014all blab. Can a cook, a Chiffinch, an Iachimo be\nmistaken for Zeno or Paul? Confucius exclaimed,\u2014\u201cHow can a man be\nconcealed? How can a man be concealed?\u201d\n\nOn the other hand, the hero fears not that if he withhold the avowal of\na just and brave act it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows\nit,\u2014himself,\u2014and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to\nnobleness of aim which will prove in the end a better proclamation of\nit than the relating of the incident. Virtue is the adherence in action\nto the nature of things, and the nature of things makes it prevalent.\nIt consists in a perpetual substitution of being for seeming, and with\nsublime propriety God is described as saying, I AM.\n\nThe lesson which these observations convey is, Be, and not seem. Let us\nacquiesce. Let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the\ndivine circuits. Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low\nin the Lord\u2019s power and learn that truth alone makes rich and great.\n\nIf you visit your friend, why need you apologize for not having visited\nhim, and waste his time and deface your own act? Visit him now. Let him\nfeel that the highest love has come to see him, in thee its lowest\norgan. Or why need you torment yourself and friend by secret\nself-reproaches that you have not assisted him or complimented him with\ngifts and salutations heretofore? Be a gift and a benediction. Shine\nwith real light and not with the borrowed reflection of gifts. Common\nmen are apologies for men; they bow the head, excuse themselves with\nprolix reasons, and accumulate appearances because the substance is\nnot.\n\nWe are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude.\nWe call the poet inactive, because he is not a president, a merchant,\nor a porter. We adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded\non a thought which we have. But real action is in silent moments. The\nepochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a\ncalling, our marriage, our acquisition of an office, and the like, but\nin a silent thought by the way-side as we walk; in a thought which\nrevises our entire manner of life and says,\u2014\u2018Thus hast thou done, but\nit were better thus.\u2019 And all our after years, like menials, serve and\nwait on this, and according to their ability execute its will. This\nrevisal or correction is a constant force, which, as a tendency,\nreaches through our lifetime. The object of the man, the aim of these\nmoments, is to make daylight shine through him, to suffer the law to\ntraverse his whole being without obstruction, so that on what point\nsoever of his doing your eye falls it shall report truly of his\ncharacter, whether it be his diet, his house, his religious forms, his\nsociety, his mirth, his vote, his opposition. Now he is not\nhomogeneous, but heterogeneous, and the ray does not traverse; there\nare no thorough lights, but the eye of the beholder is puzzled,\ndetecting many unlike tendencies and a life not yet at one.\n\nWhy should we make it a point with our false modesty to disparage that\nman we are and that form of being assigned to us? A good man is\ncontented. I love and honor Epaminondas, but I do not wish to be\nEpaminondas. I hold it more just to love the world of this hour than\nthe world of his hour. Nor can you, if I am true, excite me to the\nleast uneasiness by saying, \u2018He acted and thou sittest still.\u2019 I see\naction to be good, when the need is, and sitting still to be also good.\nEpaminondas, if he was the man I take him for, would have sat still\nwith joy and peace, if his lot had been mine. Heaven is large, and\naffords space for all modes of love and fortitude. Why should we be\nbusybodies and superserviceable? Action and inaction are alike to the\ntrue. One piece of the tree is cut for a weathercock and one for the\nsleeper of a bridge; the virtue of the wood is apparent in both.\n\nI desire not to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly\nshows me that the soul had need of an organ here. Shall I not assume\nthe post? Shall I skulk and dodge and duck with my unseasonable\napologies and vain modesty and imagine my being here impertinent? less\npertinent than Epaminondas or Homer being there? and that the soul did\nnot know its own needs? Besides, without any reasoning on the matter, I\nhave no discontent. The good soul nourishes me and unlocks new\nmagazines of power and enjoyment to me every day. I will not meanly\ndecline the immensity of good, because I have heard that it has come to\nothers in another shape.\n\nBesides, why should we be cowed by the name of Action? \u2019Tis a trick of\nthe senses,\u2014no more. We know that the ancestor of every action is a\nthought. The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing unless\nit have an outside badge,\u2014some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or\nCalvinistic prayer-meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great\ndonation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action\nto testify that it is somewhat. The rich mind lies in the sun and\nsleeps, and is Nature. To think is to act.\n\nLet us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is\nof an infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with\nthe celestial air until it eclipses the sun and moon. Let us seek one\npeace by fidelity. Let me heed my duties. Why need I go gadding into\nthe scenes and philosophy of Greek and Italian history before I have\njustified myself to my benefactors? How dare I read Washington\u2019s\ncampaigns when I have not answered the letters of my own\ncorrespondents? Is not that a just objection to much of our reading? It\nis a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbors.\nIt is peeping. Byron says of Jack Bunting,\u2014\n\n     \u201cHe knew not what to say, and so he swore.\u201d\n\nI may say it of our preposterous use of books,\u2014He knew not what to do,\nand so _he read_. I can think of nothing to fill my time with, and I\nfind the Life of Brant. It is a very extravagant compliment to pay to\nBrant, or to General Schuyler, or to General Washington. My time should\nbe as good as their time,\u2014my facts, my net of relations, as good as\ntheirs, or either of theirs. Rather let me do my work so well that\nother idlers if they choose may compare my texture with the texture of\nthese and find it identical with the best.\n\nThis over-estimate of the possibilities of Paul and Pericles, this\nunder-estimate of our own, comes from a neglect of the fact of an\nidentical nature. Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and\nthe same way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the\ngood player. The poet uses the names of C\u00e6sar, of Tamerlane, of\nBonduca, of Belisarius; the painter uses the conventional story of the\nVirgin Mary, of Paul, of Peter. He does not therefore defer to the\nnature of these accidental men, of these stock heroes. If the poet\nwrite a true drama, then he is C\u00e6sar, and not the player of C\u00e6sar; then\nthe selfsame strain of thought, emotion as pure, wit as subtle, motions\nas swift, mounting, extravagant, and a heart as great, self-sufficing,\ndauntless, which on the waves of its love and hope can uplift all that\nis reckoned solid and precious in the world,\u2014palaces, gardens, money,\nnavies, kingdoms,\u2014marking its own incomparable worth by the slight it\ncasts on these gauds of men;\u2014these all are his, and by the power of\nthese he rouses the nations. Let a man believe in God, and not in names\nand places and persons. Let the great soul incarnated in some woman\u2019s\nform, poor and sad and single, in some Dolly or Joan, go out to\nservice, and sweep chambers and scour floors, and its effulgent\ndaybeams cannot be muffled or hid, but to sweep and scour will\ninstantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and radiance of\nhuman life, and all people will get mops and brooms; until, lo!\nsuddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and\ndone some other deed, and that is now the flower and head of all living\nnature.\n\nWe are the photometers, we the irritable goldleaf and tinfoil that\nmeasure the accumulations of the subtle element. We know the authentic\neffects of the true fire through every one of its million disguises.\n\n\n\n\nV.\nLOVE\n\n\n\u201cI was as a gem concealed;\nMe my burning ray revealed.\u201d\n                    _Koran_.\n\n\n\n\nLOVE\n\n\nEvery promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments; each of its joys\nripens into a new want. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in\nthe first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which\nshall lose all particular regards in its general light. The\nintroduction to this felicity is in a private and tender relation of\none to one, which is the enchantment of human life; which, like a\ncertain divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at one period and\nworks a revolution in his mind and body; unites him to his race,\npledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries him with new\nsympathy into nature, enhances the power of the senses, opens the\nimagination, adds to his character heroic and sacred attributes,\nestablishes marriage, and gives permanence to human society.\n\nThe natural association of the sentiment of love with the heyday of the\nblood seems to require that in order to portray it in vivid tints,\nwhich every youth and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing\nexperience, one must not be too old. The delicious fancies of youth\nreject the least savor of a mature philosophy, as chilling with age and\npedantry their purple bloom. And therefore I know I incur the\nimputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose\nthe Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors I\nshall appeal to my seniors. For it is to be considered that this\npassion of which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet forsakes\nnot the old, or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow\nold, but makes the aged participators of it not less than the tender\nmaiden, though in a different and nobler sort. For it is a fire that\nkindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom, caught\nfrom a wandering spark out of another private heart, glows and enlarges\nuntil it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, upon the\nuniversal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all nature\nwith its generous flames. It matters not therefore whether we attempt\nto describe the passion at twenty, at thirty, or at eighty years. He\nwho paints it at the first period will lose some of its later, he who\npaints it at the last, some of its earlier traits. Only it is to be\nhoped that by patience and the Muses\u2019 aid we may attain to that inward\nview of the law which shall describe a truth ever young and beautiful,\nso central that it shall commend itself to the eye, at whatever angle\nbeholden.\n\nAnd the first condition is, that we must leave a too close and\nlingering adherence to facts, and study the sentiment as it appeared in\nhope and not in history. For each man sees his own life defaced and\ndisfigured, as the life of man is not, to his imagination. Each man\nsees over his own experience a certain stain of error, whilst that of\nother men looks fair and ideal. Let any man go back to those delicious\nrelations which make the beauty of his life, which have given him\nsincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan. Alas! I\nknow not why, but infinite compunctions embitter in mature life the\nremembrances of budding joy and cover every beloved name. Every thing\nis beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all\nis sour, if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is\nseemly and noble. In the actual world\u2014the painful kingdom of time and\nplace\u2014dwell care, and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal,\nis immortal hilarity, the rose of joy. Round it all the Muses sing. But\ngrief cleaves to names, and persons, and the partial interests of\nto-day and yesterday.\n\nThe strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of\npersonal relations usurps in the conversation of society. What do we\nwish to know of any worthy person so much, as how he has sped in the\nhistory of this sentiment? What books in the circulating libraries\ncirculate? How we glow over these novels of passion, when the story is\ntold with any spark of truth and nature! And what fastens attention, in\nthe intercourse of life, like any passage betraying affection between\ntwo parties? Perhaps we never saw them before, and never shall meet\nthem again. But we see them exchange a glance, or betray a deep\nemotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and take\nthe warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind\nlove a lover. The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness\nare nature\u2019s most winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and\ngrace in the coarse and rustic. The rude village boy teases the girls\nabout the school-house door;\u2014but to-day he comes running into the\nentry, and meets one fair child disposing her satchel; he holds her\nbooks to help her, and instantly it seems to him as if she removed\nherself from him infinitely, and was a sacred precinct. Among the\nthrong of girls he runs rudely enough, but one alone distances him; and\nthese two little neighbors, that were so close just now, have learned\nto respect each other\u2019s personality. Or who can avert his eyes from the\nengaging, half-artful, half-artless ways of school-girls who go into\nthe country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of paper, and talk\nhalf an hour about nothing with the broad-faced, good-natured shop-boy.\nIn the village they are on a perfect equality, which love delights in,\nand without any coquetry the happy, affectionate nature of woman flows\nout in this pretty gossip. The girls may have little beauty, yet\nplainly do they establish between them and the good boy the most\nagreeable, confiding relations, what with their fun and their earnest,\nabout Edgar and Jonas and Almira, and who was invited to the party, and\nwho danced at the dancing-school, and when the singing-school would\nbegin, and other nothings concerning which the parties cooed. By and by\nthat boy wants a wife, and very truly and heartily will he know where\nto find a sincere and sweet mate, without any risk such as Milton\ndeplores as incident to scholars and great men.\n\nI have been told that in some public discourses of mine my reverence\nfor the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations.\nBut now I almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words.\nFor persons are love\u2019s world, and the coldest philosopher cannot\nrecount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the\npower of love, without being tempted to unsay, as treasonable to\nnature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. For though the\ncelestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of\ntender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or\ncomparison and putting us quite beside ourselves we can seldom see\nafter thirty years, yet the remembrance of these visions outlasts all\nother remembrances, and is a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows. But\nhere is a strange fact; it may seem to many men, in revising their\nexperience, that they have no fairer page in their life\u2019s book than the\ndelicious memory of some passages wherein affection contrived to give a\nwitchcraft, surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth, to a\nparcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. In looking backward\nthey may find that several things which were not the charm have more\nreality to this groping memory than the charm itself which embalmed\nthem. But be our experience in particulars what it may, no man ever\nforgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which\ncreated all things anew; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry,\nand art; which made the face of nature radiant with purple light, the\nmorning and the night varied enchantments; when a single tone of one\nvoice could make the heart bound, and the most trivial circumstance\nassociated with one form is put in the amber of memory; when he became\nall eye when one was present, and all memory when one was gone; when\nthe youth becomes a watcher of windows and studious of a glove, a veil,\na ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is too solitary\nand none too silent, for him who has richer company and sweeter\nconversation in his new thoughts than any old friends, though best and\npurest, can give him; for the figures, the motions, the words of the\nbeloved object are not like other images written in water, but, as\nPlutarch said, \u201cenamelled in fire,\u201d and make the study of midnight:\u2014\n\n     \u201cThou art not gone being gone, where\u2019er thou art,\n     Thou leav\u2019st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart.\u201d\n\nIn the noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the\nrecollection of days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be\ndrugged with the relish of pain and fear; for he touched the secret of\nthe matter who said of love,\u2014\n\n     \u201cAll other pleasures are not worth its pains:\u201d\n\nand when the day was not long enough, but the night too must be\nconsumed in keen recollections; when the head boiled all night on the\npillow with the generous deed it resolved on; when the moonlight was a\npleasing fever and the stars were letters and the flowers ciphers and\nthe air was coined into song; when all business seemed an impertinence,\nand all the men and women running to and fro in the streets, mere\npictures.\n\nThe passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive\nand significant. Nature grows conscious. Every bird on the boughs of\nthe tree sings now to his heart and soul. The notes are almost\narticulate. The clouds have faces as he looks on them. The trees of the\nforest, the waving grass and the peeping flowers have grown\nintelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which\nthey seem to invite. Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In the green\nsolitude he finds a dearer home than with men:\u2014\n\n     \u201cFountain-heads and pathless groves,\n     Places which pale passion loves,\n     Moonlight walks, when all the fowls\n     Are safely housed, save bats and owls,\n     A midnight bell, a passing groan,\u2014\n     These are the sounds we feed upon.\u201d\n\nBehold there in the wood the fine madman! He is a palace of sweet\nsounds and sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms\nakimbo; he soliloquizes; he accosts the grass and the trees; he feels\nthe blood of the violet, the clover and the lily in his veins; and he\ntalks with the brook that wets his foot.\n\nThe heats that have opened his perceptions of natural beauty have made\nhim love music and verse. It is a fact often observed, that men have\nwritten good verses under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write\nwell under any other circumstances.\n\nThe like force has the passion over all his nature. It expands the\nsentiment; it makes the clown gentle and gives the coward heart. Into\nthe most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy\nthe world, so only it have the countenance of the beloved object. In\ngiving him to another it still more gives him to himself. He is a new\nman, with new perceptions, new and keener purposes, and a religious\nsolemnity of character and aims. He does not longer appertain to his\nfamily and society; _he_ is somewhat; _he_ is a person; _he_ is a soul.\n\nAnd here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that influence\nwhich is thus potent over the human youth. Beauty, whose revelation to\nman we now celebrate, welcome as the sun wherever it pleases to shine,\nwhich pleases everybody with it and with themselves, seems sufficient\nto itself. The lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and\nsolitary. Like a tree in flower, so much soft, budding, informing\nloveliness is society for itself; and she teaches his eye why Beauty\nwas pictured with Loves and Graces attending her steps. Her existence\nmakes the world rich. Though she extrudes all other persons from his\nattention as cheap and unworthy, she indemnifies him by carrying out\nher own being into somewhat impersonal, large, mundane, so that the\nmaiden stands to him for a representative of all select things and\nvirtues. For that reason the lover never sees personal resemblances in\nhis mistress to her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a\nlikeness to her mother, or her sisters, or to persons not of her blood.\nThe lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond\nmornings, to rainbows and the song of birds.\n\nThe ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who can analyze the\nnameless charm which glances from one and another face and form? We are\ntouched with emotions of tenderness and complacency, but we cannot find\nwhereat this dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. It is\ndestroyed for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to\norganization. Nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love\nknown and described in society, but, as it seems to me, to a quite\nother and unattainable sphere, to relations of transcendent delicacy\nand sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and foreshow. We cannot\napproach beauty. Its nature is like opaline doves\u2019-neck lustres,\nhovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the most excellent things,\nwhich all have this rainbow character, defying all attempts at\nappropriation and use. What else did Jean Paul Richter signify, when he\nsaid to music, \u201cAway! away! thou speakest to me of things which in all\nmy endless life I have not found, and shall not find.\u201d The same fluency\nmay be observed in every work of the plastic arts. The statue is then\nbeautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out\nof criticism and can no longer be defined by compass and\nmeasuring-wand, but demands an active imagination to go with it and to\nsay what it is in the act of doing. The god or hero of the sculptor is\nalways represented in a transition _from_ that which is representable\nto the senses, _to_ that which is not. Then first it ceases to be a\nstone. The same remark holds of painting. And of poetry the success is\nnot attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it astonishes and\nfires us with new endeavors after the unattainable. Concerning it\nLandor inquires \u201cwhether it is not to be referred to some purer state\nof sensation and existence.\u201d\n\nIn like manner, personal beauty is then first charming and itself when\nit dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an\nend; when it suggests gleams and visions and not earthly satisfactions;\nwhen it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel\nhis right to it, though he were C\u00e6sar; he cannot feel more right to it\nthan to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset.\n\nHence arose the saying, \u201cIf I love you, what is that to you?\u201d We say so\nbecause we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it. It\nis not you, but your radiance. It is that which you know not in\nyourself and can never know.\n\nThis agrees well with that high philosophy of Beauty which the ancient\nwriters delighted in; for they said that the soul of man, embodied here\non earth, went roaming up and down in quest of that other world of its\nown out of which it came into this, but was soon stupefied by the light\nof the natural sun, and unable to see any other objects than those of\nthis world, which are but shadows of real things. Therefore the Deity\nsends the glory of youth before the soul, that it may avail itself of\nbeautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of the celestial good and\nfair; and the man beholding such a person in the female sex runs to her\nand finds the highest joy in contemplating the form, movement, and\nintelligence of this person, because it suggests to him the presence of\nthat which indeed is within the beauty, and the cause of the beauty.\n\nIf however, from too much conversing with material objects, the soul\nwas gross, and misplaced its satisfaction in the body, it reaped\nnothing but sorrow; body being unable to fulfil the promise which\nbeauty holds out; but if, accepting the hint of these visions and\nsuggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the soul passes through the\nbody and falls to admire strokes of character, and the lovers\ncontemplate one another in their discourses and their actions, then\nthey pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more inflame their\nlove of it, and by this love extinguishing the base affection, as the\nsun puts out the fire by shining on the hearth, they become pure and\nhallowed. By conversation with that which is in itself excellent,\nmagnanimous, lowly, and just, the lover comes to a warmer love of these\nnobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he passes from\nloving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the one beautiful\nsoul only the door through which he enters to the society of all true\nand pure souls. In the particular society of his mate he attains a\nclearer sight of any spot, any taint which her beauty has contracted\nfrom this world, and is able to point it out, and this with mutual joy\nthat they are now able, without offence, to indicate blemishes and\nhindrances in each other, and give to each all help and comfort in\ncuring the same. And beholding in many souls the traits of the divine\nbeauty, and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint\nwhich it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends to the highest\nbeauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on this\nladder of created souls.\n\nSomewhat like this have the truly wise told us of love in all ages. The\ndoctrine is not old, nor is it new. If Plato, Plutarch and Apuleius\ntaught it, so have Petrarch, Angelo and Milton. It awaits a truer\nunfolding in opposition and rebuke to that subterranean prudence which\npresides at marriages with words that take hold of the upper world,\nwhilst one eye is prowling in the cellar; so that its gravest discourse\nhas a savor of hams and powdering-tubs. Worst, when this sensualism\nintrudes into the education of young women, and withers the hope and\naffection of human nature by teaching that marriage signifies nothing\nbut a housewife\u2019s thrift, and that woman\u2019s life has no other aim.\n\nBut this dream of love, though beautiful, is only one scene in our\nplay. In the procession of the soul from within outward, it enlarges\nits circles ever, like the pebble thrown into the pond, or the light\nproceeding from an orb. The rays of the soul alight first on things\nnearest, on every utensil and toy, on nurses and domestics, on the\nhouse and yard and passengers, on the circle of household acquaintance,\non politics and geography and history. But things are ever grouping\nthemselves according to higher or more interior laws. Neighborhood,\nsize, numbers, habits, persons, lose by degrees their power over us.\nCause and effect, real affinities, the longing for harmony between the\nsoul and the circumstance, the progressive, idealizing instinct,\npredominate later, and the step backward from the higher to the lower\nrelations is impossible. Thus even love, which is the deification of\npersons, must become more impersonal every day. Of this at first it\ngives no hint. Little think the youth and maiden who are glancing at\neach other across crowded rooms with eyes so full of mutual\nintelligence, of the precious fruit long hereafter to proceed from this\nnew, quite external stimulus. The work of vegetation begins first in\nthe irritability of the bark and leaf-buds. From exchanging glances,\nthey advance to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then to fiery passion,\nto plighting troth and marriage. Passion beholds its object as a\nperfect unit. The soul is wholly embodied, and the body is wholly\nensouled:\u2014\n\n     \u201cHer pure and eloquent blood\n     Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,\n     That one might almost say her body thought.\u201d\n\nRomeo, if dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens\nfine. Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more, than\nJuliet,\u2014than Romeo. Night, day, studies, talents, kingdoms, religion,\nare all contained in this form full of soul, in this soul which is all\nform. The lovers delight in endearments, in avowals of love, in\ncomparisons of their regards. When alone, they solace themselves with\nthe remembered image of the other. Does that other see the same star,\nthe same melting cloud, read the same book, feel the same emotion, that\nnow delight me? They try and weigh their affection, and adding up\ncostly advantages, friends, opportunities, properties, exult in\ndiscovering that willingly, joyfully, they would give all as a ransom\nfor the beautiful, the beloved head, not one hair of which shall be\nharmed. But the lot of humanity is on these children. Danger, sorrow,\nand pain arrive to them, as to all. Love prays. It makes covenants with\nEternal Power in behalf of this dear mate. The union which is thus\neffected and which adds a new value to every atom in nature\u2014for it\ntransmutes every thread throughout the whole web of relation into a\ngolden ray, and bathes the soul in a new and sweeter element\u2014is yet a\ntemporary state. Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, protestations,\nnor even home in another heart, content the awful soul that dwells in\nclay. It arouses itself at last from these endearments, as toys, and\nputs on the harness and aspires to vast and universal aims. The soul\nwhich is in the soul of each, craving a perfect beatitude, detects\nincongruities, defects and disproportion in the behavior of the other.\nHence arise surprise, expostulation and pain. Yet that which drew them\nto each other was signs of loveliness, signs of virtue; and these\nvirtues are there, however eclipsed. They appear and reappear and\ncontinue to attract; but the regard changes, quits the sign and\nattaches to the substance. This repairs the wounded affection.\nMeantime, as life wears on, it proves a game of permutation and\ncombination of all possible positions of the parties, to employ all the\nresources of each and acquaint each with the strength and weakness of\nthe other. For it is the nature and end of this relation, that they\nshould represent the human race to each other. All that is in the\nworld, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly wrought into the\ntexture of man, of woman:\u2014\n\n     \u201cThe person love does to us fit,\n     Like manna, has the taste of all in it.\u201d\n\nThe world rolls; the circumstances vary every hour. The angels that\ninhabit this temple of the body appear at the windows, and the gnomes\nand vices also. By all the virtues they are united. If there be virtue,\nall the vices are known as such; they confess and flee. Their once\nflaming regard is sobered by time in either breast, and losing in\nviolence what it gains in extent, it becomes a thorough good\nunderstanding. They resign each other without complaint to the good\noffices which man and woman are severally appointed to discharge in\ntime, and exchange the passion which once could not lose sight of its\nobject, for a cheerful, disengaged furtherance, whether present or\nabsent, of each other\u2019s designs. At last they discover that all which\nat first drew them together,\u2014those once sacred features, that magical\nplay of charms,\u2014was deciduous, had a prospective end, like the\nscaffolding by which the house was built; and the purification of the\nintellect and the heart from year to year is the real marriage,\nforeseen and prepared from the first, and wholly above their\nconsciousness. Looking at these aims with which two persons, a man and\na woman, so variously and correlatively gifted, are shut up in one\nhouse to spend in the nuptial society forty or fifty years, I do not\nwonder at the emphasis with which the heart prophesies this crisis from\nearly infancy, at the profuse beauty with which the instincts deck the\nnuptial bower, and nature and intellect and art emulate each other in\nthe gifts and the melody they bring to the epithalamium.\n\nThus are we put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person,\nnor partiality, but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the\nend of increasing virtue and wisdom. We are by nature observers, and\nthereby learners. That is our permanent state. But we are often made to\nfeel that our affections are but tents of a night. Though slowly and\nwith pain, the objects of the affections change, as the objects of\nthought do. There are moments when the affections rule and absorb the\nman and make his happiness dependent on a person or persons. But in\nhealth the mind is presently seen again,\u2014its overarching vault, bright\nwith galaxies of immutable lights, and the warm loves and fears that\nswept over us as clouds must lose their finite character and blend with\nGod, to attain their own perfection. But we need not fear that we can\nlose any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to\nthe end. That which is so beautiful and attractive as these relations,\nmust be succeeded and supplanted only by what is more beautiful, and so\non for ever.\n\n\n\n\nVI.\nFRIENDSHIP\n\n\nA ruddy drop of manly blood\nThe surging sea outweighs;\nThe world uncertain comes and goes,\nThe lover rooted stays.\nI fancied he was fled,\nAnd, after many a year,\nGlowed unexhausted kindliness\nLike daily sunrise there.\nMy careful heart was free again,\u2014\nO friend, my bosom said,\nThrough thee alone the sky is arched,\nThrough thee the rose is red,\nAll things through thee take nobler form\nAnd look beyond the earth,\nThe mill-round of our fate appears\nA sun-path in thy worth.\nMe too thy nobleness has taught\nTo master my despair;\nThe fountains of my hidden life\nAre through thy friendship fair.\n\n\n\n\nFRIENDSHIP\n\n\nWe have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the\nselfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human\nfamily is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many\npersons we meet in houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we\nhonor, and who honor us! How many we see in the street, or sit with in\nchurch, whom, though silently, we warmly rejoice to be with! Read the\nlanguage of these wandering eye-beams. The heart knoweth.\n\nThe effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain\ncordial exhilaration. In poetry and in common speech, the emotions of\nbenevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened\nto the material effects of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more\nactive, more cheering, are these fine inward irradiations. From the\nhighest degree of passionate love to the lowest degree of good-will,\nthey make the sweetness of life.\n\nOur intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The\nscholar sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not\nfurnish him with one good thought or happy expression; but it is\nnecessary to write a letter to a friend,\u2014and forthwith troops of gentle\nthoughts invest themselves, on every hand, with chosen words. See, in\nany house where virtue and self-respect abide, the palpitation which\nthe approach of a stranger causes. A commended stranger is expected and\nannounced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain invades all the\nhearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear to the good\nhearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all things fly into\ntheir places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, and they must get\nup a dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, only the good report\nis told by others, only the good and new is heard by us. He stands to\nus for humanity. He is what we wish. Having imagined and invested him,\nwe ask how we should stand related in conversation and action with such\na man, and are uneasy with fear. The same idea exalts conversation with\nhim. We talk better than we are wont. We have the nimblest fancy, a\nricher memory, and our dumb devil has taken leave for the time. For\nlong hours we can continue a series of sincere, graceful, rich\ncommunications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that\nthey who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance, shall feel a\nlively surprise at our unusual powers. But as soon as the stranger\nbegins to intrude his partialities, his definitions, his defects, into\nthe conversation, it is all over. He has heard the first, the last and\nbest he will ever hear from us. He is no stranger now. Vulgarity,\nignorance, misapprehension are old acquaintances. Now, when he comes,\nhe may get the order, the dress and the dinner,\u2014but the throbbing of\nthe heart and the communications of the soul, no more.\n\nWhat is so pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world\nfor me again? What so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in\na thought, in a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this\nbeating heart, the steps and forms of the gifted and the true! The\nmoment we indulge our affections, the earth is metamorphosed; there is\nno winter and no night; all tragedies, all ennuis vanish,\u2014all duties\neven; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant\nof beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that somewhere in the\nuniverse it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content and\ncheerful alone for a thousand years.\n\nI awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old\nand the new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth\nhimself so to me in his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and\nyet I am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise, the lovely and the\nnoble-minded, as from time to time they pass my gate. Who hears me, who\nunderstands me, becomes mine,\u2014a possession for all time. Nor is Nature\nso poor but she gives me this joy several times, and thus we weave\nsocial threads of our own, a new web of relations; and, as many\nthoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we shall by and by\nstand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer strangers and\npilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me unsought.\nThe great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine affinity\nof virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I but the Deity in me\nand in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual\ncharacter, relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually\nconnives, and now makes many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent\nlovers, who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths, and\nenlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These are new poetry of the\nfirst Bard,\u2014poetry without stop,\u2014hymn, ode and epic, poetry still\nflowing, Apollo and the Muses chanting still. Will these too separate\nthemselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear it\nnot; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple\naffinity, and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same\naffinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men\nand women, wherever I may be.\n\nI confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is\nalmost dangerous to me to \u201ccrush the sweet poison of misused wine\u201d of\nthe affections. A new person is to me a great event and hinders me from\nsleep. I have often had fine fancies about persons which have given me\ndelicious hours; but the joy ends in the day; it yields no fruit.\nThought is not born of it; my action is very little modified. I must\nfeel pride in my friend\u2019s accomplishments as if they were mine, and a\nproperty in his virtues. I feel as warmly when he is praised, as the\nlover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden. We over-estimate\nthe conscience of our friend. His goodness seems better than our\ngoodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Every thing that is\nhis,\u2014his name, his form, his dress, books and instruments,\u2014fancy\nenhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth.\n\nYet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without their analogy\nin the ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the immortality of the\nsoul, is too good to be believed. The lover, beholding his maiden, half\nknows that she is not verily that which he worships; and in the golden\nhour of friendship we are surprised with shades of suspicion and\nunbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our hero the virtues in which he\nshines, and afterwards worship the form to which we have ascribed this\ndivine inhabitation. In strictness, the soul does not respect men as it\nrespects itself. In strict science all persons underlie the same\ncondition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by\nmining for the metaphysical foundation of this Elysian temple? Shall I\nnot be as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know\nthem for what they are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their\nappearance, though it needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root\nof the plant is not unsightly to science, though for chaplets and\nfestoons we cut the stem short. And I must hazard the production of the\nbald fact amidst these pleasing reveries, though it should prove an\nEgyptian skull at our banquet. A man who stands united with his thought\nconceives magnificently of himself. He is conscious of a universal\nsuccess, even though bought by uniform particular failures. No\nadvantages, no powers, no gold or force, can be any match for him. I\ncannot choose but rely on my own poverty more than on your wealth. I\ncannot make your consciousness tantamount to mine. Only the star\ndazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like ray. I hear what you say of\nthe admirable parts and tried temper of the party you praise, but I see\nwell that for all his purple cloaks I shall not like him, unless he is\nat last a poor Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the vast\nshadow of the Phenomenal includes thee also in its pied and painted\nimmensity,\u2014thee also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou art\nnot Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,\u2014thou art not my soul, but a\npicture and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already\nthou art seizing thy hat and cloak. Is it not that the soul puts forth\nfriends as the tree puts forth leaves, and presently, by the\ngermination of new buds, extrudes the old leaf? The law of nature is\nalternation for evermore. Each electrical state superinduces the\nopposite. The soul environs itself with friends that it may enter into\na grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a\nseason, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method\nbetrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The\ninstinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and the\nreturning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus every man\npasses his life in the search after friendship, and if he should record\nhis true sentiment, he might write a letter like this to each new\ncandidate for his love:\u2014\n\nDEAR FRIEND,\n\nIf I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with\nthine, I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings\nand goings. I am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable, and I\nrespect thy genius; it is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not\npresume in thee a perfect intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a\ndelicious torment. Thine ever, or never.\n\nYet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity and not for\nlife. They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, and not\ncloth. Our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we\nhave made them a texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre\nof the human heart. The laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of\none web with the laws of nature and of morals. But we have aimed at a\nswift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden sweetness. We snatch at the\nslowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which many summers and many\nwinters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but with an\nadulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In vain.\nWe are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we\nmeet, begin to play, and translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost\nall people descend to meet. All association must be a compromise, and,\nwhat is worst, the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the\nbeautiful natures disappears as they approach each other. What a\nperpetual disappointment is actual society, even of the virtuous and\ngifted! After interviews have been compassed with long foresight we\nmust be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, unseasonable\napathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the heyday of\nfriendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both\nparties are relieved by solitude.\n\nI ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how many\nfriends I have and what content I can find in conversing with each, if\nthere be one to whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal from one\ncontest, the joy I find in all the rest becomes mean and cowardly. I\nshould hate myself, if then I made my other friends my asylum:\u2014\n\n     \u201cThe valiant warrior famoused for fight,\n     After a hundred victories, once foiled,\n     Is from the book of honor razed quite,\n     And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.\u201d\n\nOur impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are a\ntough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature\nripening. It would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best\nsouls were yet ripe enough to know and own it. Respect the\n_naturlangsamkeit_ which hardens the ruby in a million years, and works\nin duration in which Alps and Andes come and go as rainbows. The good\nspirit of our life has no heaven which is the price of rashness. Love,\nwhich is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the total worth\nof man. Let us not have this childish luxury in our regards, but the\nausterest worth; let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in\nthe truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of\nhis foundations.\n\nThe attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I leave,\nfor the time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to speak of\nthat select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, and which\neven leaves the language of love suspicious and common, so much is this\npurer, and nothing is so much divine.\n\nI do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage.\nWhen they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the\nsolidest thing we know. For now, after so many ages of experience, what\ndo we know of nature or of ourselves? Not one step has man taken toward\nthe solution of the problem of his destiny. In one condemnation of\nfolly stand the whole universe of men. But the sweet sincerity of joy\nand peace which I draw from this alliance with my brother\u2019s soul is the\nnut itself whereof all nature and all thought is but the husk and\nshell. Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might well be\nbuilt, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day.\nHappier, if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law!\nHe who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an\nOlympian, to the great games where the first-born of the world are the\ncompetitors. He proposes himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger,\nare in the lists, and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his\nconstitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and\ntear of all these. The gifts of fortune may be present or absent, but\nall the speed in that contest depends on intrinsic nobleness and the\ncontempt of trifles. There are two elements that go to the composition\nof friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority in\neither, no reason why either should be first named. One is truth. A\nfriend is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think\naloud. I am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal\nthat I may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation,\ncourtesy, and second thought, which men never put off, and may deal\nwith him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom\nmeets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like diadems and\nauthority, only to the highest rank; _that_ being permitted to speak\ntruth, as having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man\nalone is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins.\nWe parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by\ngossip, by amusements, by affairs. We cover up our thought from him\nunder a hundred folds. I knew a man who under a certain religious\nfrenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting all compliment and\ncommonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered,\nand that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, and\nall men agreed he was mad. But persisting\u2014as indeed he could not help\ndoing\u2014for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of\nbringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No\nman would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off\nwith any chat of markets or reading-rooms. But every man was\nconstrained by so much sincerity to the like plaindealing, and what\nlove of nature, what poetry, what symbol of truth he had, he did\ncertainly show him. But to most of us society shows not its face and\neye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with men in\na false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not? We can seldom go\nerect. Almost every man we meet requires some civility,\u2014requires to be\nhumored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or\nphilanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils\nall conversation with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not\nmy ingenuity, but me. My friend gives me entertainment without\nrequiring any stipulation on my part. A friend therefore is a sort of\nparadox in nature. I who alone am, I who see nothing in nature whose\nexistence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, behold now the\nsemblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and curiosity,\nreiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned the\nmasterpiece of nature.\n\nThe other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by\nevery sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by\nlust, by hate, by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and\ntrifle,\u2014but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in\nanother as to draw us by love. Can another be so blessed and we so pure\nthat we can offer him tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me I have\ntouched the goal of fortune. I find very little written directly to the\nheart of this matter in books. And yet I have one text which I cannot\nchoose but remember. My author says,\u2014\u201cI offer myself faintly and\nbluntly to those whose I effectually am, and tender myself least to him\nto whom I am the most devoted.\u201d I wish that friendship should have\nfeet, as well as eyes and eloquence. It must plant itself on the\nground, before it vaults over the moon. I wish it to be a little of a\ncitizen, before it is quite a cherub. We chide the citizen because he\nmakes love a commodity. It is an exchange of gifts, of useful loans; it\nis good neighborhood; it watches with the sick; it holds the pall at\nthe funeral; and quite loses sight of the delicacies and nobility of\nthe relation. But though we cannot find the god under this disguise of\na sutler, yet on the other hand we cannot forgive the poet if he spins\nhis thread too fine and does not substantiate his romance by the\nmunicipal virtues of justice, punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate\nthe prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and\nworldly alliances. I much prefer the company of ploughboys and\ntin-peddlers to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days\nof encounter by a frivolous display, by rides in a curricle and dinners\nat the best taverns. The end of friendship is a commerce the most\nstrict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we\nhave experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations\nand passages of life and death. It is fit for serene days and graceful\ngifts and country rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare,\nshipwreck, poverty, and persecution. It keeps company with the sallies\nof the wit and the trances of religion. We are to dignify to each other\nthe daily needs and offices of man\u2019s life, and embellish it by courage,\nwisdom and unity. It should never fall into something usual and\nsettled, but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and reason to\nwhat was drudgery.\n\nFriendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each so\nwell tempered and so happily adapted, and withal so circumstanced (for\neven in that particular, a poet says, love demands that the parties be\naltogether paired), that its satisfaction can very seldom be assured.\nIt cannot subsist in its perfection, say some of those who are learned\nin this warm lore of the heart, betwixt more than two. I am not quite\nso strict in my terms, perhaps because I have never known so high a\nfellowship as others. I please my imagination more with a circle of\ngodlike men and women variously related to each other and between whom\nsubsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of _one to one_\nperemptory for conversation, which is the practice and consummation of\nfriendship. Do not mix waters too much. The best mix as ill as good and\nbad. You shall have very useful and cheering discourse at several times\nwith two several men, but let all three of you come together and you\nshall not have one new and hearty word. Two may talk and one may hear,\nbut three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and\nsearching sort. In good company there is never such discourse between\ntwo, across the table, as takes place when you leave them alone. In\ngood company the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul\nexactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present. No\npartialities of friend to friend, no fondnesses of brother to sister,\nof wife to husband, are there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he\nmay then speak who can sail on the common thought of the party, and not\npoorly limited to his own. Now this convention, which good sense\ndemands, destroys the high freedom of great conversation, which\nrequires an absolute running of two souls into one.\n\nNo two men but being left alone with each other enter into simpler\nrelations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ two shall\nconverse. Unrelated men give little joy to each other, will never\nsuspect the latent powers of each. We talk sometimes of a great talent\nfor conversation, as if it were a permanent property in some\nindividuals. Conversation is an evanescent relation,\u2014no more. A man is\nreputed to have thought and eloquence; he cannot, for all that, say a\nword to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his silence with as much\nreason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade.\nIn the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought he\nwill regain his tongue.\n\nFriendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that\npiques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other\nparty. Let me be alone to the end of the world, rather than that my\nfriend should overstep, by a word or a look, his real sympathy. I am\nequally balked by antagonism and by compliance. Let him not cease an\ninstant to be himself. The only joy I have in his being mine, is that\nthe _not mine_ is _mine_. I hate, where I looked for a manly\nfurtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush of\nconcession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his\necho. The condition which high friendship demands is ability to do\nwithout it. That high office requires great and sublime parts. There\nmust be very two, before there can be very one. Let it be an alliance\nof two large, formidable natures, mutually beheld, mutually feared,\nbefore yet they recognize the deep identity which, beneath these\ndisparities, unites them.\n\nHe only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that\ngreatness and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to\nintermeddle with his fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. Leave\nto the diamond its ages to grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of\nthe eternal. Friendship demands a religious treatment. We talk of\nchoosing our friends, but friends are self-elected. Reverence is a\ngreat part of it. Treat your friend as a spectacle. Of course he has\nmerits that are not yours, and that you cannot honor if you must needs\nhold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those merits room; let\nthem mount and expand. Are you the friend of your friend\u2019s buttons, or\nof his thought? To a great heart he will still be a stranger in a\nthousand particulars, that he may come near in the holiest ground.\nLeave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, and to suck\na short and all-confounding pleasure, instead of the noblest benefit.\n\nLet us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why should\nwe desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? Why insist\non rash personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house, or\nknow his mother and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your\nown? Are these things material to our covenant? Leave this touching and\nclawing. Let him be to me a spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity,\na glance from him, I want, but not news, nor pottage. I can get\npolitics and chat and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions.\nShould not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, universal\nand great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane in\ncomparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that\nclump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, but\nraise it to that standard. That great defying eye, that scornful beauty\nof his mien and action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather\nfortify and enhance. Worship his superiorities; wish him not less by a\nthought, but hoard and tell them all. Guard him as thy counterpart. Let\nhim be to thee for ever a sort of beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly\nrevered, and not a trivial conveniency to be soon outgrown and cast\naside. The hues of the opal, the light of the diamond, are not to be\nseen if the eye is too near. To my friend I write a letter and from him\nI receive a letter. That seems to you a little. It suffices me. It is a\nspiritual gift worthy of him to give and of me to receive. It profanes\nnobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will not\nto the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than\nall the annals of heroism have yet made good.\n\nRespect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to prejudice its\nperfect flower by your impatience for its opening. We must be our own\nbefore we can be another\u2019s. There is at least this satisfaction in\ncrime, according to the Latin proverb;\u2014you can speak to your accomplice\non even terms. _Crimen quos inquinat, \u00e6quat_. To those whom we admire\nand love, at first we cannot. Yet the least defect of self-possession\nvitiates, in my judgment, the entire relation. There can never be deep\npeace between two spirits, never mutual respect, until in their\ndialogue each stands for the whole world.\n\nWhat is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of\nspirit we can. Let us be silent,\u2014so we may hear the whisper of the\ngods. Let us not interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should\nsay to the select souls, or how to say any thing to such? No matter how\ningenious, no matter how graceful and bland. There are innumerable\ndegrees of folly and wisdom, and for you to say aught is to be\nfrivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait until the necessary\nand everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail themselves of\nyour lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to have a\nfriend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting into\nhis house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, and you\nshall never catch a true glance of his eye. We see the noble afar off\nand they repel us; why should we intrude? Late,\u2014very late,\u2014we perceive\nthat no arrangements, no introductions, no consuetudes or habits of\nsociety would be of any avail to establish us in such relations with\nthem as we desire,\u2014but solely the uprise of nature in us to the same\ndegree it is in them; then shall we meet as water with water; and if we\nshould not meet them then, we shall not want them, for we are already\nthey. In the last analysis, love is only the reflection of a man\u2019s own\nworthiness from other men. Men have sometimes exchanged names with\ntheir friends, as if they would signify that in their friend each loved\nhis own soul.\n\nThe higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy\nto establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world.\nFriends such as we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope\ncheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the\nuniversal power, souls are now acting, enduring, and daring, which can\nlove us and which we can love. We may congratulate ourselves that the\nperiod of nonage, of follies, of blunders and of shame, is passed in\nsolitude, and when we are finished men we shall grasp heroic hands in\nheroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see, not to strike\nleagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be.\nOur impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no god\nattends. By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little you\ngain the great. You demonstrate yourself, so as to put yourself out of\nthe reach of false relations, and you draw to you the first-born of the\nworld,\u2014those rare pilgrims whereof only one or two wander in nature at\nonce, and before whom the vulgar great show as spectres and shadows\nmerely.\n\nIt is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if so\nwe could lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular\nviews we make from insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and\nthough it seem to rob us of some joy, will repay us with a greater. Let\nus feel if we will the absolute insulation of man. We are sure that we\nhave all in us. We go to Europe, or we pursue persons, or we read\nbooks, in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal\nus to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the Europe,\nan old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. Let us\ndrop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us even bid\nour dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, \u2018Who are you?\nUnhand me: I will be dependent no more.\u2019 Ah! seest thou not, O brother,\nthat thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be\nmore each other\u2019s because we are more our own? A friend is Janus-faced;\nhe looks to the past and the future. He is the child of all my\nforegoing hours, the prophet of those to come, and the harbinger of a\ngreater friend.\n\nI do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them\nwhere I can find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on\nour own terms, and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot\nafford to speak much with my friend. If he is great he makes me so\ngreat that I cannot descend to converse. In the great days,\npresentiments hover before me in the firmament. I ought then to\ndedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go out that I\nmay seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding into the sky\nin which now they are only a patch of brighter light. Then, though I\nprize my friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their\nvisions, lest I lose my own. It would indeed give me a certain\nhousehold joy to quit this lofty seeking, this spiritual astronomy or\nsearch of stars, and come down to warm sympathies with you; but then I\nknow well I shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods. It is\ntrue, next week I shall have languid moods, when I can well afford to\noccupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall regret the lost\nliterature of your mind, and wish you were by my side again. But if you\ncome, perhaps you will fill my mind only with new visions; not with\nyourself but with your lustres, and I shall not be able any more than\nnow to converse with you. So I will owe to my friends this evanescent\nintercourse. I will receive from them not what they have but what they\nare. They shall give me that which properly they cannot give, but which\nemanates from them. But they shall not hold me by any relations less\nsubtile and pure. We will meet as though we met not, and part as though\nwe parted not.\n\nIt has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a\nfriendship greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the\nother. Why should I cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not\ncapacious? It never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide\nand vain into ungrateful space, and only a small part on the reflecting\nplanet. Let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion. If he\nis unequal he will presently pass away; but thou art enlarged by thy\nown shining, and no longer a mate for frogs and worms, dost soar and\nburn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a disgrace to love\nunrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited.\nTrue love transcends the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the\neternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but\nfeels rid of so much earth and feels its independency the surer. Yet\nthese things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the\nrelation. The essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity\nand trust. It must not surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its\nobject as a god, that it may deify both.\n\n\n\n\nVII.\nPRUDENCE\n\n\nTheme no poet gladly sung,\nFair to old and foul to young;\nScorn not thou the love of parts,\nAnd the articles of arts.\nGrandeur of the perfect sphere\nThanks the atoms that cohere.\n\n\n\n\nPRUDENCE\n\n\nWhat right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have Little, and that\nof the negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going\nwithout, not in the inventing of means and methods, not in adroit\nsteering, not in gentle repairing. I have no skill to make money spend\nwell, no genius in my economy, and whoever sees my garden discovers\nthat I must have some other garden. Yet I love facts, and hate\nlubricity and people without perception. Then I have the same title to\nwrite on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. We write\nfrom aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint\nthose qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the man of\nenergy and tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church or the\nbar; and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find what he\nhas not by his praise. Moreover it would be hardly honest in me not to\nbalance these fine lyric words of Love and Friendship with words of\ncoarser sound, and whilst my debt to my senses is real and constant,\nnot to own it in passing.\n\nPrudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances.\nIt is the outmost action of the inward life. It is God taking thought\nfor oxen. It moves matter after the laws of matter. It is content to\nseek health of body by complying with physical conditions, and health\nof mind by the laws of the intellect.\n\nThe world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for\nitself, but has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of\nshows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own\noffice is subaltern; knows that it is surface and not centre where it\nworks. Prudence is false when detached. It is legitimate when it is the\nNatural History of the soul incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty of\nlaws within the narrow scope of the senses.\n\nThere are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is\nsufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class live to\nthe utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good.\nAnother class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the\npoet and artist and the naturalist and man of science. A third class\nlive above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing\nsignified; these are wise men. The first class have common sense; the\nsecond, taste; and the third, spiritual perception. Once in a long\ntime, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and enjoys the symbol\nsolidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and lastly, whilst\nhe pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does not\noffer to build houses and barns thereon,\u2014reverencing the splendor of\nthe God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny.\n\nThe world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base\nprudence, which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no other\nfaculties than the palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a\nprudence which adores the Rule of Three, which never subscribes, which\nnever gives, which seldom lends, and asks but one question of any\nproject,\u2014Will it bake bread? This is a disease like a thickening of the\nskin until the vital organs are destroyed. But culture, revealing the\nhigh origin of the apparent world and aiming at the perfection of the\nman as the end, degrades every thing else, as health and bodily life,\ninto means. It sees prudence not to be a several faculty, but a name\nfor wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and its wants.\nCultivated men always feel and speak so, as if a great fortune, the\nachievement of a civil or social measure, great personal influence, a\ngraceful and commanding address, had their value as proofs of the\nenergy of the spirit. If a man lose his balance and immerse himself in\nany trades or pleasures for their own sake, he may be a good wheel or\npin, but he is not a cultivated man.\n\nThe spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and\ncowards, and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature\u2019s joke, and\ntherefore literature\u2019s. The true prudence limits this sensualism by\nadmitting the knowledge of an internal and real world. This recognition\nonce made, the order of the world and the distribution of affairs and\ntimes, being studied with the co-perception of their subordinate place,\nwill reward any degree of attention. For our existence, thus apparently\nattached in nature to the sun and the returning moon and the periods\nwhich they mark,\u2014so susceptible to climate and to country, so alive to\nsocial good and evil, so fond of splendor and so tender to hunger and\ncold and debt,\u2014reads all its primary lessons out of these books.\n\nPrudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is. It takes the\nlaws of the world whereby man\u2019s being is conditioned, as they are, and\nkeeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects space\nand time, climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity, growth and death.\nThere revolve, to give bound and period to his being on all sides, the\nsun and moon, the great formalists in the sky: here lies stubborn\nmatter, and will not swerve from its chemical routine. Here is a\nplanted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced and\ndistributed externally with civil partitions and properties which\nimpose new restraints on the young inhabitant.\n\nWe eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which\nblows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too\nhot, too dry or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and\ndivine in its coming, is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A\ndoor is to be painted, a lock to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or\nmeal or salt; the house smokes, or I have a headache; then the tax, and\nan affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains, and the\nstinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word,\u2014these eat\nup the hours. Do what we can, summer will have its flies; if we walk in\nthe woods we must feed mosquitos; if we go a-fishing we must expect a\nwet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; we often\nresolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the\nclouds and the rain.\n\nWe are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and\nyears. The hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the\nnorthern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the\nfixed smile of the tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At\nnight he may sleep on a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild\ndate-tree grows, nature has, without a prayer even, spread a table for\nhis morning meal. The northerner is perforce a householder. He must\nbrew, bake, salt and preserve his food, and pile wood and coal. But as\nit happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new\nacquaintance with nature, and as nature is inexhaustibly significant,\nthe inhabitants of these climates have always excelled the southerner\nin force. Such is the value of these matters that a man who knows other\nthings can never know too much of these. Let him have accurate\nperceptions. Let him, if he have hands, handle; if eyes, measure and\ndiscriminate; let him accept and hive every fact of chemistry, natural\nhistory and economics; the more he has, the less is he willing to spare\nany one. Time is always bringing the occasions that disclose their\nvalue. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and innocent action. The\ndomestic man, who loves no music so well as his kitchen clock and the\nairs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces\nwhich others never dream of. The application of means to ends insures\nvictory and the songs of victory not less in a farm or a shop than in\nthe tactics of party or of war. The good husband finds method as\nefficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in the harvesting of\nfruits in the cellar, as in Peninsular campaigns or the files of the\nDepartment of State. In the rainy day he builds a work-bench, or gets\nhis tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber, and stored with\nnails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. Herein he tastes an old\njoy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of garrets, presses and\ncorn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long housekeeping. His garden\nor his poultry-yard tells him many pleasant anecdotes. One might find\nargument for optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element\nof pleasure in every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man\nkeep the law,\u2014any law,\u2014and his way will be strown with satisfactions.\nThere is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the\namount.\n\nOn the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you\nthink the senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do\nnot clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of\ncause and effect. It is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose\nand imperfect perception. Dr. Johnson is reported to have said,\u2014\u201cIf the\nchild says he looked out of this window, when he looked out of\nthat,\u2014whip him.\u201d Our American character is marked by a more than\naverage delight in accurate perception, which is shown by the currency\nof the byword, \u201cNo mistake.\u201d But the discomfort of unpunctuality, of\nconfusion of thought about facts, of inattention to the wants of\nto-morrow, is of no nation. The beautiful laws of time and space, once\ndislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the hive be\ndisturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey it will yield us\nbees. Our words and actions to be fair must be timely. A gay and\npleasant sound is the whetting of the scythe in the mornings of June,\nyet what is more lonesome and sad than the sound of a whetstone or\nmower\u2019s rifle when it is too late in the season to make hay?\nScatter-brained and \u201cafternoon\u201d men spoil much more than their own\naffair in spoiling the temper of those who deal with them. I have seen\na criticism on some paintings, of which I am reminded when I see the\nshiftless and unhappy men who are not true to their senses. The last\nGrand Duke of Weimar, a man of superior understanding, said,\u2014\u201cI have\nsometimes remarked in the presence of great works of art, and just now\nespecially in Dresden, how much a certain property contributes to the\neffect which gives life to the figures, and to the life an irresistible\ntruth. This property is the hitting, in all the figures we draw, the\nright centre of gravity. I mean the placing the figures firm upon their\nfeet, making the hands grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where\nthey should look. Even lifeless figures, as vessels and stools\u2014let them\nbe drawn ever so correctly\u2014lose all effect so soon as they lack the\nresting upon their centre of gravity, and have a certain swimming and\noscillating appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery (the only\ngreatly affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most\npassionless piece you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the\nVirgin and Child. Nevertheless, it awakens a deeper impression than the\ncontortions of ten crucified martyrs. For beside all the resistless\nbeauty of form, it possesses in the highest degree the property of the\nperpendicularity of all the figures.\u201d This perpendicularity we demand\nof all the figures in this picture of life. Let them stand on their\nfeet, and not float and swing. Let us know where to find them. Let them\ndiscriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed, call a\nspade a spade, give us facts, and honor their own senses with trust.\n\nBut what man shall dare tax another with imprudence? Who is prudent?\nThe men we call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain\nfatal dislocation in our relation to nature, distorting our modes of\nliving and making every law our enemy, which seems at last to have\naroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of\nReform. We must call the highest prudence to counsel, and ask why\nhealth and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than\nthe rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants and\nanimals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; but\nthis remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be\ncoincident. Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric\ninspiration should not chide and insult, but should announce and lead\nthe civil code and the day\u2019s work. But now the two things seem\nirreconcilably parted. We have violated law upon law until we stand\namidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason\nand the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should be the dowry of\nevery man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is rare. Health\nor sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the child\nof genius and every child should be inspired; but now it is not to be\npredicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial\nhalf-lights, by courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to\nmoney; talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well\nto-morrow; and society is officered by _men of parts_, as they are\nproperly called, and not by divine men. These use their gifts to refine\nluxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic, and piety, and\nlove. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they find\nbeauty in rites and bounds that resist it.\n\nWe have found out fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but no\ngifts can raise intemperance. The man of talent affects to call his\ntransgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them\nnothing considered with his devotion to his art. His art never taught\nhim lewdness, nor the love of wine, nor the wish to reap where he had\nnot sowed. His art is less for every deduction from his holiness, and\nless for every defect of common sense. On him who scorned the world as\nhe said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. He that despiseth small\nthings will perish by little and little. Goethe\u2019s Tasso is very likely\nto be a pretty fair historical portrait, and that is true tragedy. It\ndoes not seem to me so genuine grief when some tyrannous Richard the\nThird oppresses and slays a score of innocent persons, as when Antonio\nand Tasso, both apparently right, wrong each other. One living after\nthe maxims of this world and consistent and true to them, the other\nfired with all divine sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of\nsense, without submitting to their law. That is a grief we all feel, a\nknot we cannot untie. Tasso\u2019s is no infrequent case in modern\nbiography. A man of genius, of an ardent temperament, reckless of\nphysical laws, self-indulgent, becomes presently unfortunate,\nquerulous, a \u201cdiscomfortable cousin,\u201d a thorn to himself and to others.\n\nThe scholar shames us by his bifold life. Whilst something higher than\nprudence is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, he is\nan encumbrance. Yesterday, C\u00e6sar was not so great; to-day, the felon at\nthe gallows\u2019 foot is not more miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the\nlight of an ideal world in which he lives, the first of men; and now\noppressed by wants and by sickness, for which he must thank himself. He\nresembles the pitiful drivellers whom travellers describe as\nfrequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who skulk about all day,\nyellow, emaciated, ragged, sneaking; and at evening, when the bazaars\nare open, slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become\ntranquil and glorified seers. And who has not seen the tragedy of\nimprudent genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary\ndifficulties, at last sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a\ngiant slaughtered by pins?\n\nIs it not better that a man should accept the first pains and\nmortifications of this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him,\nas hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his\nown labor and self-denial? Health, bread, climate, social position,\nhave their importance, and he will give them their due. Let him esteem\nNature a perpetual counsellor, and her perfections the exact measure of\nour deviations. Let him make the night night, and the day day. Let him\ncontrol the habit of expense. Let him see that as much wisdom may be\nexpended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom may\nbe drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on\nevery piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the\nbetter for knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard, or the\nState-Street prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the foot; or the\nthrift of the agriculturist, to stick a tree between whiles, because it\nwill grow whilst he sleeps; or the prudence which consists in\nhusbanding little strokes of the tool, little portions of time,\nparticles of stock and small gains. The eye of prudence may never shut.\nIron, if kept at the ironmonger\u2019s, will rust; beer, if not brewed in\nthe right state of the atmosphere, will sour; timber of ships will rot\nat sea, or if laid up high and dry, will strain, warp and dry-rot;\nmoney, if kept by us, yields no rent and is liable to loss; if\ninvested, is liable to depreciation of the particular kind of stock.\nStrike, says the smith, the iron is white; keep the rake, says the\nhaymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and the cart as nigh the rake.\nOur Yankee trade is reputed to be very much on the extreme of this\nprudence. It takes bank-notes, good, bad, clean, ragged, and saves\nitself by the speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust,\nnor beer sour, nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor\nmoney stocks depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee\nsuffers any one of them to remain in his possession. In skating over\nthin ice our safety is in our speed.\n\nLet him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that every\nthing in nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by luck,\nand that what he sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command let him\nput the bread he eats at his own disposal, that he may not stand in\nbitter and false relations to other men; for the best good of wealth is\nfreedom. Let him practise the minor virtues. How much of human life is\nlost in waiting! let him not make his fellow-creatures wait. How many\nwords and promises are promises of conversation! Let his be words of\nfate. When he sees a folded and sealed scrap of paper float round the\nglobe in a pine ship and come safe to the eye for which it was written,\namidst a swarming population, let him likewise feel the admonition to\nintegrate his being across all these distracting forces, and keep a\nslender human word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive\nus hither and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of\none man reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the\nmost distant climates.\n\nWe must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that\nonly. Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The\nprudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by\none set of men, whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another, but\nthey are reconcilable. Prudence concerns the present time, persons,\nproperty and existing forms. But as every fact hath its roots in the\nsoul, and if the soul were changed, would cease to be, or would become\nsome other thing,\u2014the proper administration of outward things will\nalways rest on a just apprehension of their cause and origin; that is,\nthe good man will be the wise man, and the single-hearted the politic\nman. Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the\nliar, but is a stab at the health of human society. On the most\nprofitable lie the course of events presently lays a destructive tax;\nwhilst frankness invites frankness, puts the parties on a convenient\nfooting and makes their business a friendship. Trust men and they will\nbe true to you; treat them greatly and they will show themselves great,\nthough they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of\ntrade.\n\nSo, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not\nconsist in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk\nin the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself\nup to resolution. Let him front the object of his worst apprehension,\nand his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless. The Latin\nproverb says, \u201cIn battles the eye is first overcome.\u201d Entire\nself-possession may make a battle very little more dangerous to life\nthan a match at foils or at football. Examples are cited by soldiers of\nmen who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire given to it, and who\nhave stepped aside from the path of the ball. The terrors of the storm\nare chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. The drover, the\nsailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews itself at as vigorous\na pulse under the sleet as under the sun of June.\n\nIn the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes\nreadily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but\nit is a bad counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently\nstrong. To himself he seems weak; to others, formidable. You are afraid\nof Grim; but Grim also is afraid of you. You are solicitous of the\ngood-will of the meanest person, uneasy at his ill-will. But the\nsturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood, if you rip up\n_his_ claims, is as thin and timid as any, and the peace of society is\noften kept, because, as children say, one is afraid, and the other\ndares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten; bring them hand to\nhand, and they are a feeble folk.\n\nIt is a proverb that \u2018courtesy costs nothing\u2019; but calculation might\ncome to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but\nkindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an\neye-water. If you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never recognize\nthe dividing lines, but meet on what common ground remains,\u2014if only\nthat the sun shines and the rain rains for both; the area will widen\nvery fast, and ere you know it, the boundary mountains on which the eye\nhad fastened have melted into air. If they set out to contend, Saint\nPaul will lie and Saint John will hate. What low, poor, paltry,\nhypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the pure and\nchosen souls! They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to\nconfess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a\nthought has enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery,\nmodesty, or hope. So neither should you put yourself in a false\nposition with your contemporaries by indulging a vein of hostility and\nbitterness. Though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs,\nassume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are saying precisely\nthat which all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out your\nparadoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt. So at\nleast shall you get an adequate deliverance. The natural motions of the\nsoul are so much better than the voluntary ones that you will never do\nyourself justice in dispute. The thought is not then taken hold of by\nthe right handle, does not show itself proportioned and in its true\nbearings, but bears extorted, hoarse, and half witness. But assume a\nconsent and it shall presently be granted, since really and underneath\ntheir external diversities, all men are of one heart and mind.\n\nWisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly\nfooting. We refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited\nfor some better sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when?\nTo-morrow will be like to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are\npreparing to live. Our friends and fellow-workers die off from us.\nScarcely can we say we see new men, new women, approaching us. We are\ntoo old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage of any greater\nor more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections and\nconsuetudes that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the feet.\nUndoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily\nwhisper names prouder, and that tickle the fancy more. Every man\u2019s\nimagination hath its friends; and life would be dearer with such\ncompanions. But if you cannot have them on good mutual terms, you\ncannot have them. If not the Deity but our ambition hews and shapes the\nnew relations, their virtue escapes, as strawberries lose their flavor\nin garden-beds.\n\nThus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility and all the virtues\nrange themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a\npresent well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be\nmade of one element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of\nmanners and actions is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we will we\nare pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten commandments.\n\n\n\n\nVIII.\nHEROISM\n\n\n\u201cParadise is under the shadow of swords.\u201d\n                    _Mahomet._\n\nRuby wine is drunk by knaves,\nSugar spends to fatten slaves,\nRose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;\nThunderclouds are Jove\u2019s festoons,\nDrooping oft in wreaths of dread\nLightning-knotted round his head;\nThe hero is not fed on sweets,\nDaily his own heart he eats;\nChambers of the great are jails,\nAnd head-winds right for royal sails.\n\n\n\n\nHEROISM\n\n\nIn the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays Of Beaumont\nand Fletcher, there is a constant recognition of gentility, as if a\nnoble behavior were as easily marked in the society of their age as\ncolor is in our American population. When any Rodrigo, Pedro or Valerio\nenters, though he be a stranger, the duke or governor exclaims, \u2018This\nis a gentleman,\u2014and proffers civilities without end; but all the rest\nare slag and refuse. In harmony with this delight in personal\nadvantages there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of character\nand dialogue,\u2014as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, the Double\nMarriage,\u2014wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial and on such\ndeep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the slightest\nadditional incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. Among\nmany texts take the following. The Roman Martius has conquered\nAthens,\u2014all but the invincible spirits of Sophocles, the duke of\nAthens, and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of the latter inflames\nMartius, and he seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles will not ask\nhis life, although assured that a word will save him, and the execution\nof both proceeds:\u2014\n\n_Valerius_. Bid thy wife farewell.\n\n_Sophocles_. No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen,\nYonder, above, \u2019bout Ariadne\u2019s crown,\nMy spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste.\n\n_Dorigen_. Stay, Sophocles,\u2014with this tie up my sight;\nLet not soft nature so transformed be,\nAnd lose her gentler sexed humanity,\nTo make me see my lord bleed. So, \u2019tis well;\nNever one object underneath the sun\nWill I behold before my Sophocles:\nFarewell; now teach the Romans how to die.\n\n_Martius_. Dost know what \u2019t is to die?\n\n_Sophocles_. Thou dost not, Martius,\nAnd, therefore, not what \u2019tis to live; to die\nIs to begin to live. It is to end\nAn old, stale, weary work, and to commence\nA newer and a better. \u2019Tis to leave\nDeceitful knaves for the society\nOf gods and goodness. Thou thyself must part\nAt last from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs,\nAnd prove thy fortitude what then \u2019t will do.\n\n_Valerius_. But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus?\n\n_Sophocles_. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent\nTo them I ever loved best? Now I\u2019ll kneel,\nBut with my back toward thee; \u2019tis the last duty\nThis trunk can do the gods.\n\n_Martius_. Strike, strike, Valerius,\nOr Martius\u2019 heart will leap out at his mouth.\nThis is a man, a woman. Kiss thy lord,\nAnd live with all the freedom you were wont.\nO love! thou doubly hast afflicted me\nWith virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart,\nMy hand shall cast thee quick into my urn,\nEre thou transgress this knot of piety.\n\n_Valerius_. What ails my brother?\n\n_Sophocles_. Martius, O Martius,\nThou now hast found a way to conquer me.\n\n_Dorigen_. O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak\nFit words to follow such a deed as this?\n\n_Martius_. This admirable duke, Valerius,\nWith his disdain of fortune and of death,\nCaptived himself, has captivated me,\nAnd though my arm hath ta\u2019en his body here,\nHis soul hath subjugated Martius\u2019 soul.\nBy Romulus, he is all soul, I think;\nHe hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved;\nThen we have vanquished nothing; he is free,\nAnd Martius walks now in captivity.\n\n\nI do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or oration\nthat our press vents in the last few years, which goes to the same\ntune. We have a great many flutes and flageolets, but not often the\nsound of any fife. Yet, Wordsworth\u2019s \u201cLaodamia,\u201d and the ode of \u201cDion,\u201d\nand some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and Scott will sometimes\ndraw a stroke like the portrait of Lord Evandale given by Balfour of\nBurley. Thomas Carlyle, with his natural taste for what is manly and\ndaring in character, has suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to\ndrop from his biographical and historical pictures. Earlier, Robert\nBurns has given us a song or two. In the Harleian Miscellanies there is\nan account of the battle of Lutzen which deserves to be read. And Simon\nOckley\u2019s History of the Saracens recounts the prodigies of individual\nvalor, with admiration all the more evident on the part of the narrator\nthat he seems to think that his place in Christian Oxford requires of\nhim some proper protestations of abhorrence. But if we explore the\nliterature of Heroism we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its\nDoctor and historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the\nEpaminondas, the Scipio of old, and I must think we are more deeply\nindebted to him than to all the ancient writers. Each of his \u201cLives\u201d is\na refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and\npolitical theorists. A wild courage, a Stoicism not of the schools but\nof the blood, shines in every anecdote, and has given that book its\nimmense fame.\n\nWe need books of this tart cathartic virtue more than books of\npolitical science or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the\nwise. Seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a\nragged and dangerous front. The violations of the laws of nature by our\npredecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also. The\ndisease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural,\nintellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on violation to breed\nsuch compound misery. A lock-jaw that bends a man\u2019s head back to his\nheels; hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes; insanity\nthat makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine, indicate a\ncertain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by human crime,\nmust have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily no man exists who\nhas not in his own person become to some amount a stockholder in the\nsin, and so made himself liable to a share in the expiation.\n\nOur culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear\nin season that he is born into the state of war, and that the\ncommonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go\ndancing in the weeds of peace, but warned, self-collected and neither\ndefying nor dreading the thunder, let him take both reputation and life\nin his hand, and, with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by\nthe absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his behavior.\n\nTowards all this external evil the man within the breast assumes a\nwarlike attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with\nthe infinite army of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we\ngive the name of Heroism. Its rudest form is the contempt for safety\nand ease, which makes the attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust\nwhich slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its\nenergy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind\nof such balance that no disturbances can shake his will, but pleasantly\nand as it were merrily he advances to his own music, alike in frightful\nalarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is\nsomewhat not philosophical in heroism; there is somewhat not holy in\nit; it seems not to know that other souls are of one texture with it;\nit has pride; it is the extreme of individual nature. Nevertheless we\nmust profoundly revere it. There is somewhat in great actions which\ndoes not allow us to go behind them. Heroism feels and never reasons,\nand therefore is always right; and although a different breeding,\ndifferent religion and greater intellectual activity would have\nmodified or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero that\nthing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of\nphilosophers or divines. It is the avowal of the unschooled man that he\nfinds a quality in him that is negligent of expense, of health, of\nlife, of danger, of hatred, of reproach, and knows that his will is\nhigher and more excellent than all actual and all possible antagonists.\n\nHeroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in\ncontradiction, for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism\nis an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual\u2019s character. Now\nto no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man\nmust be supposed to see a little farther on his own proper path than\nany one else. Therefore just and wise men take umbrage at his act,\nuntil after some little time be past: then they see it to be in unison\nwith their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean contrary\nto a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself by its\ncontempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last,\nand then the prudent also extol.\n\nSelf-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at\nwar, and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and\nwrong, and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents.\nIt speaks the truth and it is just, generous, hospitable, temperate,\nscornful of petty calculations and scornful of being scorned. It\npersists; it is of an undaunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be\nwearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life. That false\nprudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment of\nheroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What\nshall it say then to the sugar-plums and cats\u2019-cradles, to the toilet,\ncompliments, quarrels, cards and custard, which rack the wit of all\nsociety? What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures!\nThere seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness. When the\nspirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little\nman takes the great hoax so innocently, works in it so headlong and\nbelieving, is born red, and dies gray, arranging his toilet, attending\non his own health, laying traps for sweet food and strong wine, setting\nhis heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a little gossip or a\nlittle praise, that the great soul cannot choose but laugh at such\nearnest nonsense. \u201cIndeed, these humble considerations make me out of\nlove with greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many\npairs of silk stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were\nthe peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one\nfor superfluity, and one other for use!\u201d\n\nCitizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the\ninconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon narrowly\nthe loss of time and the unusual display; the soul of a better quality\nthrusts back the unseasonable economy into the vaults of life, and\nsays, I will obey the God, and the sacrifice and the fire he will\nprovide. Ibn Hankal, the Arabian geographer, describes a heroic extreme\nin the hospitality of Sogd, in Bukharia. \u201cWhen I was in Sogd I saw a\ngreat building, like a palace, the gates of which were open and fixed\nback to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was told\nthat the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years.\nStrangers may present themselves at any hour and in whatever number;\nthe master has amply provided for the reception of the men and their\nanimals, and is never happier than when they tarry for some time.\nNothing of the kind have I seen in any other country.\u201d The magnanimous\nknow very well that they who give time, or money, or shelter, to the\nstranger,\u2014so it be done for love and not for ostentation,\u2014do, as it\nwere, put God under obligation to them, so perfect are the\ncompensations of the universe. In some way the time they seem to lose\nis redeemed and the pains they seem to take remunerate themselves.\nThese men fan the flame of human love and raise the standard of civil\nvirtue among mankind. But hospitality must be for service and not for\nshow, or it pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high\nto value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives\nwhat it hath, and all it hath, but its own majesty can lend a better\ngrace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts.\n\nThe temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no\ndishonor to the worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy,\nnot for its austerity. It seems not worth his while to be solemn and\ndenounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of\ntobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, or gold. A great man scarcely knows\nhow he dines, how he dresses; but without railing or precision his\nliving is natural and poetic. John Eliot, the Indian Apostle, drank\nwater, and said of wine,\u2014\u201cIt is a noble, generous liquor and we should\nbe humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was made before\nit.\u201d Better still is the temperance of King David, who poured out on\nthe ground unto the Lord the water which three of his warriors had\nbrought him to drink, at the peril of their lives.\n\nIt is told of Brutus, that when he fell on his sword after the battle\nof Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripides,\u2014\u201cO Virtue! I have followed\nthee through life, and I find thee at last but a shade.\u201d I doubt not\nthe hero is slandered by this report. The heroic soul does not sell its\njustice and its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep\nwarm. The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.\nPoverty is its ornament. It does not need plenty, and can very well\nabide its loss.\n\nBut that which takes my fancy most in the heroic class, is the\ngood-humor and hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common\nduty can very well attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But\nthese rare souls set opinion, success, and life at so cheap a rate that\nthey will not soothe their enemies by petitions, or the show of sorrow,\nbut wear their own habitual greatness. Scipio, charged with peculation,\nrefuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait for justification,\nthough he had the scroll of his accounts in his hands, but tears it to\npieces before the tribunes. Socrates\u2019s condemnation of himself to be\nmaintained in all honor in the Prytaneum, during his life, and Sir\nThomas More\u2019s playfulness at the scaffold, are of the same strain. In\nBeaumont and Fletcher\u2019s \u201cSea Voyage,\u201d Juletta tells the stout captain\nand his company,\u2014\n\n     _Juletta_. Why, slaves, \u2019tis in our power to hang ye.\n     _Master_. Very likely,\n     \u2019Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye.\n\nThese replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a\nperfect health. The great will not condescend to take any thing\nseriously; all must be as gay as the song of a canary, though it were\nthe building of cities or the eradication of old and foolish churches\nand nations which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years.\nSimple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind\nthem, and play their own game in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws of\nthe world; and such would appear, could we see the human race assembled\nin vision, like little children frolicking together, though to the eyes\nof mankind at large they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and\ninfluences.\n\nThe interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a romance\nover the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school,\nour delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All these\ngreat and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in beholding\nthe Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already\ndomesticating the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great guest\nin our small houses. The first step of worthiness will be to disabuse\nus of our superstitious associations with places and times, with number\nand size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia and England, so\ntingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods\nsojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut\nRiver and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names\nof foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we will\ntarry a little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only\nthat thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends,\nangels and the Supreme Being shall not be absent from the chamber where\nthou sittest. Epaminondas, brave and affectionate, does not seem to us\nto need Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well\nwhere he is. The Jerseys were handsome ground enough for Washington to\ntread, and London streets for the feet of Milton. A great man makes his\nclimate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the beloved\nelement of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest which is\ninhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the imagination\nin reading the actions of Pericles, Xenophon, Columbus, Bayard, Sidney,\nHampden, teach us how needlessly mean our life is; that we, by the\ndepth of our living, should deck it with more than regal or national\nsplendor, and act on principles that should interest man and nature in\nthe length of our days.\n\nWe have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men who never\nripened, or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary.\nWhen we see their air and mien, when we hear them speak of society, of\nbooks, of religion, we admire their superiority; they seem to throw\ncontempt on our entire polity and social state; theirs is the tone of a\nyouthful giant who is sent to work revolutions. But they enter an\nactive profession and the forming Colossus shrinks to the common size\nof man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always make\nthe Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment\nthey put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow. They found no\nexample and no companion, and their heart fainted. What then? The\nlesson they gave in their first aspirations is yet true; and a better\nvalor and a purer truth shall one day organize their belief. Or why\nshould a woman liken herself to any historical woman, and think,\nbecause Sappho, or S\u00e9vign\u00e9, or De Sta\u00ebl, or the cloistered souls who\nhave had genius and cultivation do not satisfy the imagination and the\nserene Themis, none can,\u2014certainly not she? Why not? She has a new and\nunattempted problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest nature\nthat ever bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on\nher way, accept the hint of each new experience, search in turn all the\nobjects that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the\ncharm of her new-born being, which is the kindling of a new dawn in the\nrecesses of space. The fair girl who repels interference by a decided\nand proud choice of influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and\nlofty, inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The\nsilent heart encourages her; O friend, never strike sail to a fear!\nCome into port greatly, or sail with God the seas. Not in vain you\nlive, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision.\n\nThe characteristic of heroism is its persistency. All men have\nwandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have\nchosen your part, abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile\nyourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the\ncommon the heroic. Yet we have the weakness to expect the sympathy of\npeople in those actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy\nand appeal to a tardy justice. If you would serve your brother, because\nit is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your words when you\nfind that prudent people do not commend you. Adhere to your own act,\nand congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and\nextravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high\ncounsel that I once heard given to a young person,\u2014\u201cAlways do what you\nare afraid to do.\u201d A simple manly character need never make an apology,\nbut should regard its past action with the calmness of Phocion, when he\nadmitted that the event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his\ndissuasion from the battle.\n\nThere is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation\nin the thought\u2014this is a part of my constitution, part of my relation\nand office to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted with me that I\nshould never appear to disadvantage, never make a ridiculous figure?\nLet us be generous of our dignity as well as of our money. Greatness\nonce and for ever has done with opinion. We tell our charities, not\nbecause we wish to be praised for them, not because we think they have\ngreat merit, but for our justification. It is a capital blunder; as you\ndiscover when another man recites his charities.\n\nTo speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some rigor\nof temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an\nasceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at\nease and in plenty, in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great\nmultitude of suffering men. And not only need we breathe and exercise\nthe soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence, of debt, of solitude,\nof unpopularity,\u2014but it behooves the wise man to look with a bold eye\ninto those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men, and to familiarize\nhimself with disgusting forms of disease, with sounds of execration,\nand the vision of violent death.\n\nTimes of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never\nshines in which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, we\nsay, are historically somewhat better in this country and at this hour\nthan perhaps ever before. More freedom exists for culture. It will not\nnow run against an axe at the first step out of the beaten track of\nopinion. But whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge.\nHuman virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of\npersecution always proceeds. It is but the other day that the brave\nLovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the rights of free\nspeech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live.\n\nI see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk, but after the\ncounsel of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let him go\nhome much, and stablish himself in those courses he approves. The\nunremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties\nis hardening the character to that temper which will work with honor,\nif need be in the tumult, or on the scaffold. Whatever outrages have\nhappened to men may befall a man again; and very easily in a republic,\nif there appear any signs of a decay of religion. Coarse slander, fire,\ntar and feathers and the gibbet, the youth may freely bring home to his\nmind and with what sweetness of temper he can, and inquire how fast he\ncan fix his sense of duty, braving such penalties, whenever it may\nplease the next newspaper and a sufficient number of his neighbors to\npronounce his opinions incendiary.\n\nIt may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart\nto see how quick a bound Nature has set to the utmost infliction of\nmalice. We rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us:\u2014\n\n     \u201cLet them rave:\n     Thou art quiet in thy grave.\u201d\n\nIn the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we are\ndeaf to the higher voices, who does not envy those who have seen safely\nto an end their manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of our\npolitics but inly congratulates Washington that he is long already\nwrapped in his shroud, and for ever safe; that he was laid sweet in his\ngrave, the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him? Who does not\nsometimes envy the good and brave who are no more to suffer from the\ntumults of the natural world, and await with curious complacency the\nspeedy term of his own conversation with finite nature? And yet the\nlove that will be annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made\ndeath impossible, and affirms itself no mortal but a native of the\ndeeps of absolute and inextinguishable being.\n\n\n\n\nIX.\nTHE OVER-SOUL\n\n\n\u201cBut souls that of his own good life partake,\nHe loves as his own self; dear as his eye\nThey are to Him: He\u2019ll never them forsake:\nWhen they shall die, then God himself shall die:\nThey live, they live in blest eternity.\u201d\n                    _Henry More_.\n\n\nSpace is ample, east and west,\nBut two cannot go abreast,\nCannot travel in it two:\nYonder masterful cuckoo\nCrowds every egg out of the nest,\nQuick or dead, except its own;\nA spell is laid on sod and stone,\nNight and Day \u2019ve been tampered with,\nEvery quality and pith\nSurcharged and sultry with a power\nThat works its will on age and hour.\n\n\n\n\nTHE OVER-SOUL\n\n\nThere is a difference between one and another hour of life in their\nauthority and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments; our vice\nis habitual. Yet there is a depth in those brief moments which\nconstrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other\nexperiences. For this reason the argument which is always forthcoming\nto silence those who conceive extraordinary hopes of man, namely the\nappeal to experience, is for ever invalid and vain. We give up the past\nto the objector, and yet we hope. He must explain this hope. We grant\nthat human life is mean, but how did we find out that it was mean? What\nis the ground of this uneasiness of ours; of this old discontent? What\nis the universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by\nwhich the soul makes its enormous claim? Why do men feel that the\nnatural history of man has never been written, but he is always leaving\nbehind what you have said of him, and it becomes old, and books of\nmetaphysics worthless? The philosophy of six thousand years has not\nsearched the chambers and magazines of the soul. In its experiments\nthere has always remained, in the last analysis, a residuum it could\nnot resolve. Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is\ndescending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator\nhas no prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next\nmoment. I am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin\nfor events than the will I call mine.\n\nAs with events, so is it with thoughts. When I watch that flowing\nriver, which, out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams\ninto me, I see that I am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised\nspectator of this ethereal water; that I desire and look up and put\nmyself in the attitude of reception, but from some alien energy the\nvisions come.\n\nThe Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the\nonly prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we\nrest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity,\nthat Over-soul, within which every man\u2019s particular being is contained\nand made one with all other; that common heart of which all sincere\nconversation is the worship, to which all right action is submission;\nthat overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents, and\nconstrains every one to pass for what he is, and to speak from his\ncharacter and not from his tongue, and which evermore tends to pass\ninto our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and\nbeauty. We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles.\nMeantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the\nuniversal beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related;\nthe eternal ONE. And this deep power in which we exist and whose\nbeatitude is all accessible to us, is not only self-sufficing and\nperfect in every hour, but the act of seeing and the thing seen, the\nseer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are one. We see the\nworld piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the tree; but\nthe whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by\nthe vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by\nfalling back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of\nprophecy which is innate in every man, we can know what it saith. Every\nman\u2019s words who speaks from that life must sound vain to those who do\nnot dwell in the same thought on their own part. I dare not speak for\nit. My words do not carry its august sense; they fall short and cold.\nOnly itself can inspire whom it will, and behold! their speech shall be\nlyrical, and sweet, and universal as the rising of the wind. Yet I\ndesire, even by profane words, if I may not use sacred, to indicate the\nheaven of this deity and to report what hints I have collected of the\ntranscendent simplicity and energy of the Highest Law.\n\nIf we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse,\nin times of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams,\nwherein often we see ourselves in masquerade,\u2014the droll disguises only\nmagnifying and enhancing a real element and forcing it on our distinct\nnotice,\u2014we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into\nknowledge of the secret of nature. All goes to show that the soul in\nman is not an organ, but animates and exercises all the organs; is not\na function, like the power of memory, of calculation, of comparison,\nbut uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, but a light; is not\nthe intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect and the\nwill; is the background of our being, in which they lie,\u2014an immensity\nnot possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from behind,\na light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are\nnothing, but the light is all. A man is the facade of a temple wherein\nall wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating,\ndrinking, planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent\nhimself, but misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the\nsoul, whose organ he is, would he let it appear through his action,\nwould make our knees bend. When it breathes through his intellect, it\nis genius; when it breathes through his will, it is virtue; when it\nflows through his affection, it is love. And the blindness of the\nintellect begins when it would be something of itself. The weakness of\nthe will begins when the individual would be something of himself. All\nreform aims in some one particular to let the soul have its way through\nus; in other words, to engage us to obey.\n\nOf this pure nature every man is at some time sensible. Language cannot\npaint it with his colors. It is too subtile. It is undefinable,\nunmeasurable; but we know that it pervades and contains us. We know\nthat all spiritual being is in man. A wise old proverb says, \u201cGod comes\nto see us without bell;\u201d that is, as there is no screen or ceiling\nbetween our heads and the infinite heavens, so is there no bar or wall\nin the soul where man, the effect, ceases, and God, the cause, begins.\nThe walls are taken away. We lie open on one side to the deeps of\nspiritual nature, to the attributes of God. Justice we see and know,\nLove, Freedom, Power. These natures no man ever got above, but they\ntower over us, and most in the moment when our interests tempt us to\nwound them.\n\nThe sovereignty of this nature whereof we speak is made known by its\nindependency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand.\nThe soul circumscribes all things. As I have said, it contradicts all\nexperience. In like manner it abolishes time and space. The influence\nof the senses has in most men overpowered the mind to that degree that\nthe walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable;\nand to speak with levity of these limits is, in the world, the sign of\ninsanity. Yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of\nthe soul. The spirit sports with time,\u2014\n\n     \u201cCan crowd eternity into an hour,\n     Or stretch an hour to eternity.\u201d\n\nWe are often made to feel that there is another youth and age than that\nwhich is measured from the year of our natural birth. Some thoughts\nalways find us young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the\nuniversal and eternal beauty. Every man parts from that contemplation\nwith the feeling that it rather belongs to ages than to mortal life.\nThe least activity of the intellectual powers redeems us in a degree\nfrom the conditions of time. In sickness, in languor, give us a strain\nof poetry or a profound sentence, and we are refreshed; or produce a\nvolume of Plato or Shakspeare, or remind us of their names, and\ninstantly we come into a feeling of longevity. See how the deep divine\nthought reduces centuries and millenniums and makes itself present\nthrough all ages. Is the teaching of Christ less effective now than it\nwas when first his mouth was opened? The emphasis of facts and persons\nin my thought has nothing to do with time. And so always the soul\u2019s\nscale is one, the scale of the senses and the understanding is another.\nBefore the revelations of the soul, Time, Space and Nature shrink away.\nIn common speech we refer all things to time, as we habitually refer\nthe immensely sundered stars to one concave sphere. And so we say that\nthe Judgment is distant or near, that the Millennium approaches, that a\nday of certain political, moral, social reforms is at hand, and the\nlike, when we mean that in the nature of things one of the facts we\ncontemplate is external and fugitive, and the other is permanent and\nconnate with the soul. The things we now esteem fixed shall, one by\none, detach themselves like ripe fruit from our experience, and fall.\nThe wind shall blow them none knows whither. The landscape, the\nfigures, Boston, London, are facts as fugitive as any institution past,\nor any whiff of mist or smoke, and so is society, and so is the world.\nThe soul looketh steadily forwards, creating a world before her,\nleaving worlds behind her. She has no dates, nor rites, nor persons,\nnor specialties nor men. The soul knows only the soul; the web of\nevents is the flowing robe in which she is clothed.\n\nAfter its own law and not by arithmetic is the rate of its progress to\nbe computed. The soul\u2019s advances are not made by gradation, such as can\nbe represented by motion in a straight line, but rather by ascension of\nstate, such as can be represented by metamorphosis,\u2014from the egg to the\nworm, from the worm to the fly. The growths of genius are of a certain\n_total_ character, that does not advance the elect individual first\nover John, then Adam, then Richard, and give to each the pain of\ndiscovered inferiority,\u2014but by every throe of growth the man expands\nthere where he works, passing, at each pulsation, classes, populations,\nof men. With each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the\nvisible and finite, and comes out into eternity, and inspires and\nexpires its air. It converses with truths that have always been spoken\nin the world, and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with Zeno and\nArrian than with persons in the house.\n\nThis is the law of moral and of mental gain. The simple rise as by\nspecific levity not into a particular virtue, but into the region of\nall the virtues. They are in the spirit which contains them all. The\nsoul requires purity, but purity is not it; requires justice, but\njustice is not that; requires beneficence, but is somewhat better; so\nthat there is a kind of descent and accommodation felt when we leave\nspeaking of moral nature to urge a virtue which it enjoins. To the\nwell-born child all the virtues are natural, and not painfully\nacquired. Speak to his heart, and the man becomes suddenly virtuous.\n\nWithin the same sentiment is the germ of intellectual growth, which\nobeys the same law. Those who are capable of humility, of justice, of\nlove, of aspiration, stand already on a platform that commands the\nsciences and arts, speech and poetry, action and grace. For whoso\ndwells in this moral beatitude already anticipates those special powers\nwhich men prize so highly. The lover has no talent, no skill, which\npasses for quite nothing with his enamoured maiden, however little she\nmay possess of related faculty; and the heart which abandons itself to\nthe Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works, and will travel\na royal road to particular knowledges and powers. In ascending to this\nprimary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from our remote station\non the circumference instantaneously to the centre of the world, where,\nas in the closet of God, we see causes, and anticipate the universe,\nwhich is but a slow effect.\n\nOne mode of the divine teaching is the incarnation of the spirit in a\nform,\u2014in forms, like my own. I live in society, with persons who answer\nto thoughts in my own mind, or express a certain obedience to the great\ninstincts to which I live. I see its presence to them. I am certified\nof a common nature; and these other souls, these separated selves, draw\nme as nothing else can. They stir in me the new emotions we call\npassion; of love, hatred, fear, admiration, pity; thence come\nconversation, competition, persuasion, cities and war. Persons are\nsupplementary to the primary teaching of the soul. In youth we are mad\nfor persons. Childhood and youth see all the world in them. But the\nlarger experience of man discovers the identical nature appearing\nthrough them all. Persons themselves acquaint us with the impersonal.\nIn all conversation between two persons tacit reference is made, as to\na third party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is\nnot social; it is impersonal; is God. And so in groups where debate is\nearnest, and especially on high questions, the company become aware\nthat the thought rises to an equal level in all bosoms, that all have a\nspiritual property in what was said, as well as the sayer. They all\nbecome wiser than they were. It arches over them like a temple, this\nunity of thought in which every heart beats with nobler sense of power\nand duty, and thinks and acts with unusual solemnity. All are conscious\nof attaining to a higher self-possession. It shines for all. There is a\ncertain wisdom of humanity which is common to the greatest men with the\nlowest, and which our ordinary education often labors to silence and\nobstruct. The mind is one, and the best minds, who love truth for its\nown sake, think much less of property in truth. They accept it\nthankfully everywhere, and do not label or stamp it with any man\u2019s\nname, for it is theirs long beforehand, and from eternity. The learned\nand the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom. Their violence\nof direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly. We owe\nmany valuable observations to people who are not very acute or\nprofound, and who say the thing without effort which we want and have\nlong been hunting in vain. The action of the soul is oftener in that\nwhich is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any\nconversation. It broods over every society, and they unconsciously seek\nfor it in each other. We know better than we do. We do not yet possess\nourselves, and we know at the same time that we are much more. I feel\nthe same truth how often in my trivial conversation with my neighbors,\nthat somewhat higher in each of us overlooks this by-play, and Jove\nnods to Jove from behind each of us.\n\nMen descend to meet. In their habitual and mean service to the world,\nfor which they forsake their native nobleness, they resemble those\nArabian sheiks who dwell in mean houses and affect an external poverty,\nto escape the rapacity of the Pacha, and reserve all their display of\nwealth for their interior and guarded retirements.\n\nAs it is present in all persons, so it is in every period of life. It\nis adult already in the infant man. In my dealing with my child, my\nLatin and Greek, my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but\nas much soul as I have avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against\nmine, one for one, and leaves me, if I please, the degradation of\nbeating him by my superiority of strength. But if I renounce my will\nand act for the soul, setting that up as umpire between us two, out of\nhis young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves with me.\n\nThe soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we\nsee it, let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people\nask you, when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear, \u2018How do\nyou know it is truth, and not an error of your own?\u2019 We know truth when\nwe see it, from opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are\nawake. It was a grand sentence of Emanuel Swedenborg, which would alone\nindicate the greatness of that man\u2019s perception,\u2014\u201cIt is no proof of a\nman\u2019s understanding to be able to confirm whatever he pleases; but to\nbe able to discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is\nfalse,\u2014this is the mark and character of intelligence.\u201d In the book I\nread, the good thought returns to me, as every truth will, the image of\nthe whole soul. To the bad thought which I find in it, the same soul\nbecomes a discerning, separating sword, and lops it away. We are wiser\nthan we know. If we will not interfere with our thought, but will act\nentirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we know the particular\nthing, and every thing, and every man. For the Maker of all things and\nall persons stands behind us and casts his dread omniscience through us\nover things.\n\nBut beyond this recognition of its own in particular passages of the\nindividual\u2019s experience, it also reveals truth. And here we should seek\nto reinforce ourselves by its very presence, and to speak with a\nworthier, loftier strain of that advent. For the soul\u2019s communication\nof truth is the highest event in nature, since it then does not give\nsomewhat from itself, but it gives itself, or passes into and becomes\nthat man whom it enlightens; or, in proportion to that truth he\nreceives, it takes him to itself.\n\nWe distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its\nown nature, by the term _Revelation_. These are always attended by the\nemotion of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the\nDivine mind into our mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet\nbefore the flowing surges of the sea of life. Every distinct\napprehension of this central commandment agitates men with awe and\ndelight. A thrill passes through all men at the reception of new truth,\nor at the performance of a great action, which comes out of the heart\nof nature. In these communications the power to see is not separated\nfrom the will to do, but the insight proceeds from obedience, and the\nobedience proceeds from a joyful perception. Every moment when the\nindividual feels himself invaded by it is memorable. By the necessity\nof our constitution a certain enthusiasm attends the individual\u2019s\nconsciousness of that divine presence. The character and duration of\nthis enthusiasm varies with the state of the individual, from an\necstasy and trance and prophetic inspiration,\u2014which is its rarer\nappearance,\u2014to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion, in which form it\nwarms, like our household fires, all the families and associations of\nmen, and makes society possible. A certain tendency to insanity has\nalways attended the opening of the religious sense in men, as if they\nhad been \u201cblasted with excess of light.\u201d The trances of Socrates, the\n\u201cunion\u201d of Plotinus, the vision of Porphyry, the conversion of Paul,\nthe aurora of Behmen, the convulsions of George Fox and his Quakers,\nthe illumination of Swedenborg, are of this kind. What was in the case\nof these remarkable persons a ravishment, has, in innumerable instances\nin common life, been exhibited in less striking manner. Everywhere the\nhistory of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm. The rapture of\nthe Moravian and Quietist; the opening of the internal sense of the\nWord, in the language of the New Jerusalem Church; the _revival_ of the\nCalvinistic churches; the _experiences_ of the Methodists, are varying\nforms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul\nalways mingles with the universal soul.\n\nThe nature of these revelations is the same; they are perceptions of\nthe absolute law. They are solutions of the soul\u2019s own questions. They\ndo not answer the questions which the understanding asks. The soul\nanswers never by words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after.\n\nRevelation is the disclosure of the soul. The popular notion of a\nrevelation is that it is a telling of fortunes. In past oracles of the\nsoul the understanding seeks to find answers to sensual questions, and\nundertakes to tell from God how long men shall exist, what their hands\nshall do and who shall be their company, adding names and dates and\nplaces. But we must pick no locks. We must check this low curiosity. An\nanswer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to the questions\nyou ask. Do not require a description of the countries towards which\nyou sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to-morrow\nyou arrive there and know them by inhabiting them. Men ask concerning\nthe immortality of the soul, the employments of heaven, the state of\nthe sinner, and so forth. They even dream that Jesus has left replies\nto precisely these interrogatories. Never a moment did that sublime\nspirit speak in their _patois_. To truth, justice, love, the attributes\nof the soul, the idea of immutableness is essentially associated.\nJesus, living in these moral sentiments, heedless of sensual fortunes,\nheeding only the manifestations of these, never made the separation of\nthe idea of duration from the essence of these attributes, nor uttered\na syllable concerning the duration of the soul. It was left to his\ndisciples to sever duration from the moral elements, and to teach the\nimmortality of the soul as a doctrine, and maintain it by evidences.\nThe moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is\nalready fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility,\nthere is no question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this\nquestion or condescends to these evidences. For the soul is true to\nitself, and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the\npresent, which is infinite, to a future which would be finite.\n\nThese questions which we lust to ask about the future are a confession\nof sin. God has no answer for them. No answer in words can reply to a\nquestion of things. It is not in an arbitrary \u201cdecree of God,\u201d but in\nthe nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow;\nfor the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause\nand effect. By this veil which curtains events it instructs the\nchildren of men to live in to-day. The only mode of obtaining an answer\nto these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity, and,\naccepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature,\nwork and live, work and live, and all unawares the advancing soul has\nbuilt and forged for itself a new condition, and the question and the\nanswer are one.\n\nBy the same fire, vital, consecrating, celestial, which burns until it\nshall dissolve all things into the waves and surges of an ocean of\nlight, we see and know each other, and what spirit each is of. Who can\ntell the grounds of his knowledge of the character of the several\nindividuals in his circle of friends? No man. Yet their acts and words\ndo not disappoint him. In that man, though he knew no ill of him, he\nput no trust. In that other, though they had seldom met, authentic\nsigns had yet passed, to signify that he might be trusted as one who\nhad an interest in his own character. We know each other very\nwell,\u2014which of us has been just to himself and whether that which we\nteach or behold is only an aspiration or is our honest effort also.\n\nWe are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies aloft in our life\nor unconscious power. The intercourse of society, its trade, its\nreligion, its friendships, its quarrels, is one wide, judicial\ninvestigation of character. In full court, or in small committee, or\nconfronted face to face, accuser and accused, men offer themselves to\nbe judged. Against their will they exhibit those decisive trifles by\nwhich character is read. But who judges? and what? Not our\nunderstanding. We do not read them by learning or craft. No; the wisdom\nof the wise man consists herein, that he does not judge them; he lets\nthem judge themselves and merely reads and records their own verdict.\n\nBy virtue of this inevitable nature, private will is overpowered, and,\nmaugre our efforts or our imperfections, your genius will speak from\nyou, and mine from me. That which we are, we shall teach, not\nvoluntarily but involuntarily. Thoughts come into our minds by avenues\nwhich we never left open, and thoughts go out of our minds through\navenues which we never voluntarily opened. Character teaches over our\nhead. The infallible index of true progress is found in the tone the\nman takes. Neither his age, nor his breeding, nor company, nor books,\nnor actions, nor talents, nor all together can hinder him from being\ndeferential to a higher spirit than his own. If he have not found his\nhome in God, his manners, his forms of speech, the turn of his\nsentences, the build, shall I say, of all his opinions will\ninvoluntarily confess it, let him brave it out how he will. If he have\nfound his centre, the Deity will shine through him, through all the\ndisguises of ignorance, of ungenial temperament, of unfavorable\ncircumstance. The tone of seeking is one, and the tone of having is\nanother.\n\nThe great distinction between teachers sacred or literary,\u2014between\npoets like Herbert, and poets like Pope,\u2014between philosophers like\nSpinoza, Kant and Coleridge, and philosophers like Locke, Paley,\nMackintosh and Stewart,\u2014between men of the world who are reckoned\naccomplished talkers, and here and there a fervent mystic, prophesying\nhalf insane under the infinitude of his thought,\u2014is that one class\nspeak _from within_, or from experience, as parties and possessors of\nthe fact; and the other class _from without_, as spectators merely, or\nperhaps as acquainted with the fact on the evidence of third persons.\nIt is of no use to preach to me from without. I can do that too easily\nmyself. Jesus speaks always from within, and in a degree that\ntranscends all others. In that is the miracle. I believe beforehand\nthat it ought so to be. All men stand continually in the expectation of\nthe appearance of such a teacher. But if a man do not speak from within\nthe veil, where the word is one with that it tells of, let him lowly\nconfess it.\n\nThe same Omniscience flows into the intellect, and makes what we call\ngenius. Much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom, and the most\nilluminated class of men are no doubt superior to literary fame, and\nare not writers. Among the multitude of scholars and authors, we feel\nno hallowing presence; we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than\nof inspiration; they have a light and know not whence it comes and call\nit their own; their talent is some exaggerated faculty, some overgrown\nmember, so that their strength is a disease. In these instances the\nintellectual gifts do not make the impression of virtue, but almost of\nvice; and we feel that a man\u2019s talents stand in the way of his\nadvancement in truth. But genius is religious. It is a larger imbibing\nof the common heart. It is not anomalous, but more like and not less\nlike other men. There is in all great poets a wisdom of humanity which\nis superior to any talents they exercise. The author, the wit, the\npartisan, the fine gentleman, does not take place of the man. Humanity\nshines in Homer, in Chaucer, in Spenser, in Shakspeare, in Milton. They\nare content with truth. They use the positive degree. They seem frigid\nand phlegmatic to those who have been spiced with the frantic passion\nand violent coloring of inferior but popular writers. For they are\npoets by the free course which they allow to the informing soul, which\nthrough their eyes beholds again and blesses the things which it hath\nmade. The soul is superior to its knowledge, wiser than any of its\nworks. The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think\nless of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to\nteach us to despise all he has done. Shakspeare carries us to such a\nlofty strain of intelligent activity as to suggest a wealth which\nbeggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has\ncreated, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent\npoetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a\npassing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in\nHamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day for ever.\nWhy then should I make account of Hamlet and Lear, as if we had not the\nsoul from which they fell as syllables from the tongue?\n\nThis energy does not descend into individual life on any other\ncondition than entire possession. It comes to the lowly and simple; it\ncomes to whomsoever will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as\ninsight; it comes as serenity and grandeur. When we see those whom it\ninhabits, we are apprised of new degrees of greatness. From that\ninspiration the man comes back with a changed tone. He does not talk\nwith men with an eye to their opinion. He tries them. It requires of us\nto be plain and true. The vain traveller attempts to embellish his life\nby quoting my lord and the prince and the countess, who thus said or\ndid to _him_. The ambitious vulgar show you their spoons and brooches\nand rings, and preserve their cards and compliments. The more\ncultivated, in their account of their own experience, cull out the\npleasing, poetic circumstance,\u2014the visit to Rome, the man of genius\nthey saw, the brilliant friend They know; still further on perhaps the\ngorgeous landscape, the mountain lights, the mountain thoughts they\nenjoyed yesterday,\u2014and so seek to throw a romantic color over their\nlife. But the soul that ascends to worship the great God is plain and\ntrue; has no rose-color, no fine friends, no chivalry, no adventures;\ndoes not want admiration; dwells in the hour that now is, in the\nearnest experience of the common day,\u2014by reason of the present moment\nand the mere trifle having become porous to thought and bibulous of the\nsea of light.\n\nConverse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like\nword-catching. The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written, yet\nare they so cheap and so things of course, that in the infinite riches\nof the soul it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground, or\nbottling a little air in a phial, when the whole earth and the whole\natmosphere are ours. Nothing can pass there, or make you one of the\ncircle, but the casting aside your trappings, and dealing man to man in\nnaked truth, plain confession, and omniscient affirmation.\n\nSouls such as these treat you as gods would, walk as gods in the earth,\naccepting without any admiration your wit, your bounty, your virtue\neven,\u2014say rather your act of duty, for your virtue they own as their\nproper blood, royal as themselves, and over-royal, and the father of\nthe gods. But what rebuke their plain fraternal bearing casts on the\nmutual flattery with which authors solace each other and wound\nthemselves! These flatter not. I do not wonder that these men go to see\nCromwell and Christina and Charles the Second and James the First and\nthe Grand Turk. For they are, in their own elevation, the fellows of\nkings, and must feel the servile tone of conversation in the world.\nThey must always be a godsend to princes, for they confront them, a\nking to a king, without ducking or concession, and give a high nature\nthe refreshment and satisfaction of resistance, of plain humanity, of\neven companionship and of new ideas. They leave them wiser and superior\nmen. Souls like these make us feel that sincerity is more excellent\nthan flattery. Deal so plainly with man and woman as to constrain the\nutmost sincerity and destroy all hope of trifling with you. It is the\nhighest compliment you can pay. Their \u201chighest praising,\u201d said Milton,\n\u201cis not flattery, and their plainest advice is a kind of praising.\u201d\n\nIneffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The\nsimplest person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for\never and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and\nunsearchable. It inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing\nto man, arises the idea of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the\nscars of our mistakes and disappointments! When we have broken our god\nof tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric, then may God fire the\nheart with his presence. It is the doubling of the heart itself, nay,\nthe infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new\ninfinity on every side. It inspires in man an infallible trust. He has\nnot the conviction, but the sight, that the best is the true, and may\nin that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears,\nand adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his private\nriddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. In\nthe presence of law to his mind he is overflowed with a reliance so\nuniversal that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable\nprojects of mortal condition in its flood. He believes that he cannot\nescape from his good. The things that are really for thee gravitate to\nthee. You are running to seek your friend. Let your feet run, but your\nmind need not. If you do not find him, will you not acquiesce that it\nis best you should not find him? for there is a power, which, as it is\nin you, is in him also, and could therefore very well bring you\ntogether, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness to\ngo and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you,\nthe love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that\nyou have no right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented\nfrom going? O, believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken\nover the round world, which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on\nthine ear! Every proverb, every book, every byword that belongs to thee\nfor aid or comfort, shall surely come home through open or winding\npassages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and\ntender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. And this\nbecause the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a wall,\nnot an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls\nuninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of\nthe globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one.\n\nLet man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his\nheart; this, namely; that the Highest dwells with him; that the sources\nof nature are in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there. But\nif he would know what the great God speaketh, he must \u2018go into his\ncloset and shut the door,\u2019 as Jesus said. God will not make himself\nmanifest to cowards. He must greatly listen to himself, withdrawing\nhimself from all the accents of other men\u2019s devotion. Even their\nprayers are hurtful to him, until he have made his own. Our religion\nvulgarly stands on numbers of believers. Whenever the appeal is\nmade,\u2014no matter how indirectly,\u2014to numbers, proclamation is then and\nthere made that religion is not. He that finds God a sweet enveloping\nthought to him never counts his company. When I sit in that presence,\nwho shall dare to come in? When I rest in perfect humility, when I burn\nwith pure love, what can Calvin or Swedenborg say?\n\nIt makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The\nfaith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority\nmeasures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The\nposition men have given to Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is\na position of authority. It characterizes themselves. It cannot alter\nthe eternal facts. Great is the soul, and plain. It is no flatterer, it\nis no follower; it never appeals from itself. It believes in itself.\nBefore the immense possibilities of man all mere experience, all past\nbiography, however spotless and sainted, shrinks away. Before that\nheaven which our presentiments foreshow us, we cannot easily praise any\nform of life we have seen or read of. We not only affirm that we have\nfew great men, but, absolutely speaking, that we have none; that we\nhave no history, no record of any character or mode of living that\nentirely contents us. The saints and demigods whom history worships we\nare constrained to accept with a grain of allowance. Though in our\nlonely hours we draw a new strength out of their memory, yet, pressed\non our attention, as they are by the thoughtless and customary, they\nfatigue and invade. The soul gives itself, alone, original and pure, to\nthe Lonely, Original and Pure, who, on that condition, gladly inhabits,\nleads and speaks through it. Then is it glad, young and nimble. It is\nnot wise, but it sees through all things. It is not called religious,\nbut it is innocent. It calls the light its own, and feels that the\ngrass grows and the stone falls by a law inferior to, and dependent on,\nits nature. Behold, it saith, I am born into the great, the universal\nmind. I, the imperfect, adore my own Perfect. I am somehow receptive of\nthe great soul, and thereby I do Overlook the sun and the stars and\nfeel them to be the fair accidents and effects which change and pass.\nMore and more the surges of everlasting nature enter into me, and I\nbecome public and human in my regards and actions. So come I to live in\nthoughts and act with energies which are immortal. Thus revering the\nsoul, and learning, as the ancient said, that \u201cits beauty is immense,\u201d\nman will come to see that the world is the perennial miracle which the\nsoul worketh, and be less astonished at particular wonders; he will\nlearn that there is no profane history; that all history is sacred;\nthat the universe is represented in an atom, in a moment of time. He\nwill weave no longer a spotted life of shreds and patches, but he will\nlive with a divine unity. He will cease from what is base and frivolous\nin his life and be content with all places and with any service he can\nrender. He will calmly front the morrow in the negligency of that trust\nwhich carries God with it and so hath already the whole future in the\nbottom of the heart.\n\n\n\n\nX.\nCIRCLES\n\n\nNature centres into balls,\nAnd her proud ephemerals,\nFast to surface and outside,\nScan the profile of the sphere;\nKnew they what that signified,\nA new genesis were here.\n\n\n\n\nCIRCLES\n\n\nThe eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second;\nand throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It\nis the highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine\ndescribed the nature of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and\nits circumference nowhere. We are all our lifetime reading the copious\nsense of this first of forms. One moral we have already deduced, in\nconsidering the circular or compensatory character of every human\naction. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every action admits of\nbeing outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around\nevery circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but\nevery end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on\nmid-noon, and under every deep a lower deep opens.\n\nThis fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable,\nthe flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at\nonce the inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently\nserve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every\ndepartment.\n\nThere are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile.\nPermanence is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a\ntransparent law, not a mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and\nholds it fluid. Our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws\nafter it this train of cities and institutions. Let us rise into\nanother idea: they will disappear. The Greek sculpture is all melted\naway, as if it had been statues of ice; here and there a solitary\nfigure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of snow left\nin cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the genius that\ncreated it creates now somewhat else. The Greek letters last a little\nlonger, but are already passing under the same sentence and tumbling\ninto the inevitable pit which the creation of new thought opens for all\nthat is old. The new continents are built out of the ruins of an old\nplanet; the new races fed out of the decomposition of the foregoing.\nNew arts destroy the old. See the investment of capital in aqueducts\nmade useless by hydraulics; fortifications, by gunpowder; roads and\ncanals, by railways; sails, by steam; steam by electricity.\n\nYou admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many ages.\nYet a little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which builds is\nbetter than that which is built. The hand that built can topple it down\nmuch faster. Better than the hand and nimbler was the invisible thought\nwhich wrought through it; and thus ever, behind the coarse effect, is a\nfine cause, which, being narrowly seen, is itself the effect of a finer\ncause. Every thing looks permanent until its secret is known. A rich\nestate appears to women a firm and lasting fact; to a merchant, one\neasily created out of any materials, and easily lost. An orchard, good\ntillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a river, to\na citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state of\nthe crop. Nature looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a\ncause like all the rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these\nfields stretch so immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually\nconsiderable? Permanence is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial.\nMoons are no more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls.\n\nThe key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look,\nhe has a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his\nfacts are classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea\nwhich commands his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle,\nwhich, from a ring imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to\nnew and larger circles, and that without end. The extent to which this\ngeneration of circles, wheel without wheel, will go, depends on the\nforce or truth of the individual soul. For it is the inert effort of\neach thought, having formed itself into a circular wave of\ncircumstance,\u2014as for instance an empire, rules of an art, a local\nusage, a religious rite,\u2014to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify\nand hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over\nthat boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on the great deep,\nwhich also runs up into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to\nbind. But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in its first and\nnarrowest pulses, it already tends outward with a vast force and to\nimmense and innumerable expansions.\n\nEvery ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general\nlaw only a particular fact of some more general law presently to\ndisclose itself. There is no outside, no inclosing wall, no\ncircumference to us. The man finishes his story,\u2014how good! how final!\nhow it puts a new face on all things! He fills the sky. Lo! on the\nother side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we had\njust pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is our first\nspeaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is\nforthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by\nthemselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be\nescaped, will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that\nseemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a\nbolder generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to\nupheave all thy creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the\nnations, and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet\ndepicted. Every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a\nsuggestion of that he should be. Men walk as prophecies of the next\nage.\n\nStep by step we scale this mysterious ladder: the steps are actions;\nthe new prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and\njudged by that which follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by the\nnew; it is only limited by the new. The new statement is always hated\nby the old, and, to those dwelling in the old, comes like an abyss of\nscepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to it, for the eye and it are\neffects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit appear, and\npresently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles before the\nrevelation of the new hour.\n\nFear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass and material,\nthreatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; it goes to\nrefine and raise thy theory of matter just as much.\n\nThere are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man\nsupposes himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth\nin him, if he rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can be\notherwise. The last chamber, the last closet, he must feel was never\nopened; there is always a residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That is,\nevery man believes that he has a greater possibility.\n\nOur moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts\nand can write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the\nsame thought, the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write,\nwhilst I write it, seems the most natural thing in the world; but\nyesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now I see\nso much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I shall wonder who he was that\nwrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this infirm faith, this will\nnot strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God in nature; I am a\nweed by the wall.\n\nThe continual effort to raise himself above himself, to work a pitch\nabove his last height, betrays itself in a man\u2019s relations. We thirst\nfor approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of nature\nis love; yet, if I have a friend I am tormented by my imperfections.\nThe love of me accuses the other party. If he were high enough to\nslight me, then could I love him, and rise by my affection to new\nheights. A man\u2019s growth is seen in the successive choirs of his\nfriends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he gains a better. I\nthought as I walked in the woods and mused on my friends, why should I\nplay with them this game of idolatry? I know and see too well, when not\nvoluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons called high and worthy.\nRich, noble and great they are by the liberality of our speech, but\ntruth is sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I forsake for these, they are not\nthou! Every personal consideration that we allow costs us heavenly\nstate. We sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent\npleasure.\n\nHow often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we\nfind their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once\ncome up with a man\u2019s limitations, it is all over with him. Has he\ntalents? has he enterprise? has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely\nalluring and attractive was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to\nswim in; now, you have found his shores, found it a pond, and you care\nnot if you never see it again.\n\nEach new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly discordant\nfacts, as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato are reckoned the\nrespective heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle\nplatonizes. By going one step farther back in thought, discordant\nopinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one\nprinciple, and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still\nhigher vision.\n\nBeware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all\nthings are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a\ngreat city, and no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There\nis not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there\nis not any literary reputation, not the so-called eternal names of\nfame, that may not be revised and condemned. The very hopes of man, the\nthoughts of his heart, the religion of nations, the manners and morals\nof mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization. Generalization\nis always a new influx of the divinity into the mind. Hence the thrill\nthat attends it.\n\nValor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have\nhis flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will,\nhe stands. This can only be by his preferring truth to his past\napprehension of truth, and his alert acceptance of it from whatever\nquarter; the intrepid conviction that his laws, his relations to\nsociety, his Christianity, his world, may at any time be superseded and\ndecease.\n\nThere are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it\nacademically, as the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday\nof youth and poetry that it may be true, that it is true in gleams and\nfragments. Then its countenance waxes stern and grand, and we see that\nit must be true. It now shows itself ethical and practical. We learn\nthat God is; that he is in me; and that all things are shadows of him.\nThe idealism of Berkeley is only a crude statement of the idealism of\nJesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact that all nature\nis the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself. Much\nmore obviously is history and the state of the world at any one time\ndirectly dependent on the intellectual classification then existing in\nthe minds of men. The things which are dear to men at this hour are so\non account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and\nwhich cause the present order of things, as a tree bears its apples. A\nnew degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system\nof human pursuits.\n\nConversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the\n_termini_ which bound the common of silence on every side. The parties\nare not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under\nthis Pentecost. To-morrow they will have receded from this high-water\nmark. To-morrow you shall find them stooping under the old\npack-saddles. Yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst it glows on our\nwalls. When each new speaker strikes a new light, emancipates us from\nthe oppression of the last speaker, to oppress us with the greatness\nand exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields us to another\nredeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. O, what truths\nprofound and executable only in ages and orbs, are supposed in the\nannouncement of every truth! In common hours, society sits cold and\nstatuesque. We all stand waiting, empty,\u2014knowing, possibly, that we can\nbe full, surrounded by mighty symbols which are not symbols to us, but\nprose and trivial toys. Then cometh the god and converts the statues\ninto fiery men, and by a flash of his eye burns up the veil which\nshrouded all things, and the meaning of the very furniture, of cup and\nsaucer, of chair and clock and tester, is manifest. The facts which\nloomed so large in the fogs of yesterday,\u2014property, climate, breeding,\npersonal beauty and the like, have strangely changed their proportions.\nAll that we reckoned settled shakes and rattles; and literatures,\ncities, climates, religions, leave their foundations and dance before\nour eyes. And yet here again see the swift circumspection! Good as is\ndiscourse, silence is better, and shames it. The length of the\ndiscourse indicates the distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the\nhearer. If they were at a perfect understanding in any part, no words\nwould be necessary thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be\nsuffered.\n\nLiterature is a point outside of our hodiernal circle through which a\nnew one may be described. The use of literature is to afford us a\nplatform whence we may command a view of our present life, a purchase\nby which we may move it. We fill ourselves with ancient learning,\ninstall ourselves the best we can in Greek, in Punic, in Roman houses,\nonly that we may wiselier see French, English and American houses and\nmodes of living. In like manner we see literature best from the midst\nof wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high religion.\nThe field cannot be well seen from within the field. The astronomer\nmust have his diameter of the earth\u2019s orbit as a base to find the\nparallax of any star.\n\nTherefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not\nin the encyclopaedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of\nDivinity, but in the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline to\nrepeat my old steps, and do not believe in remedial force, in the power\nof change and reform. But some Petrarch or Ariosto, filled with the new\nwine of his imagination, writes me an ode or a brisk romance, full of\ndaring thought and action. He smites and arouses me with his shrill\ntones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, and I open my eye on my own\npossibilities. He claps wings to the sides of all the solid old lumber\nof the world, and I am capable once more of choosing a straight path in\ntheory and practice.\n\nWe have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world.\nWe can never see Christianity from the catechism:\u2014from the pastures,\nfrom a boat in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we\npossibly may. Cleansed by the elemental light and wind, steeped in the\nsea of beautiful forms which the field offers us, we may chance to cast\na right glance back upon biography. Christianity is rightly dear to the\nbest of mankind; yet was there never a young philosopher whose breeding\nhad fallen into the Christian church by whom that brave text of Paul\u2019s\nwas not specially prized:\u2014\u201cThen shall also the Son be subject unto Him\nwho put all things under him, that God may be all in all.\u201d Let the\nclaims and virtues of persons be never so great and welcome, the\ninstinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal and\nillimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of bigots\nwith this generous word out of the book itself.\n\nThe natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric\ncircles, and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations which\napprise us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed, but\nsliding. These manifold tenacious qualities, this chemistry and\nvegetation, these metals and animals, which seem to stand there for\ntheir own sake, are means and methods only,\u2014are words of God, and as\nfugitive as other words. Has the naturalist or chemist learned his\ncraft, who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective\naffinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is\nonly a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to\nlike, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need\nnot be pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate\nalso, and not final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle\nsubterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their\ncounterpart, but, rightly considered, these things proceed from the\neternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect are two sides of one\nfact.\n\nThe same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the virtues,\nand extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man will not\nbe prudent in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so much\ndeduction from his grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he\nsacrifices prudence, to what god he devotes it; if to ease and\npleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a great trust, he can\nwell spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead.\nGeoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may\nbe safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril.\nIn many years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to me\nthat with every precaution you take against such an evil you put\nyourself into the power of the evil. I suppose that the highest\nprudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too sudden a rushing from the\ncentre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many times we shall fall\nback into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the great\nsentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, your\nbravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and the low\nhave their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as\nyou. \u201cBlessed be nothing\u201d and \u201cThe worse things are, the better they\nare\u201d are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of common life.\n\nOne man\u2019s justice is another\u2019s injustice; one man\u2019s beauty another\u2019s\nugliness; one man\u2019s wisdom another\u2019s folly; as one beholds the same\nobjects from a higher point. One man thinks justice consists in paying\ndebts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very\nremiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that\nsecond man has his own way of looking at things; asks himself Which\ndebt must I pay first, the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor?\nthe debt of money, or the debt of thought to mankind, of genius to\nnature? For you, O broker, there is no other principle but arithmetic.\nFor me, commerce is of trivial import; love, faith, truth of character,\nthe aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I detach one duty,\nlike you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces mechanically\non the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that,\nthough slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these\ndebts without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate\nhimself to the payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he\nowe no debt but money? And are all claims on him to be postponed to a\nlandlord\u2019s or a banker\u2019s?\n\nThere is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of\nsociety are vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery\nthat we must cast away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed\nsuch, into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices:\u2014\n\n     \u201cForgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too,\n     Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.\u201d\n\nIt is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our\ncontritions also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by\nday; but when these waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost\ntime. I no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what\nremains to me of the month or the year; for these moments confer a sort\nof omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration, but\nsees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to be\ndone, without time.\n\nAnd thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have\narrived at a fine Pyrrhonism, at an equivalence and indifferency of all\nactions, and would fain teach us that _if we are true_, forsooth, our\ncrimes may be lively stones out of which we shall construct the temple\nof the true God!\n\nI am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened by seeing the\npredominance of the saccharine principle throughout vegetable nature,\nand not less by beholding in morals that unrestrained inundation of the\nprinciple of good into every chink and hole that selfishness has left\nopen, yea into selfishness and sin itself; so that no evil is pure, nor\nhell itself without its extreme satisfactions. But lest I should\nmislead any when I have my own head and obey my whims, let me remind\nthe reader that I am only an experimenter. Do not set the least value\non what I do, or the least discredit on what I do not, as if I\npretended to settle any thing as true or false. I unsettle all things.\nNo facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply experiment, an\nendless seeker with no Past at my back.\n\nYet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake\ncould never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of\nfixture or stability in the soul. Whilst the eternal generation of\ncircles proceeds, the eternal generator abides. That central life is\nsomewhat superior to creation, superior to knowledge and thought, and\ncontains all its circles. For ever it labors to create a life and\nthought as Large and excellent as itself, but in vain, for that which\nis made instructs how to make a better.\n\nThus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things\nrenew, germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into\nthe new hour? Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only\ndisease; all others run into this one. We call it by many names,\u2014fever,\nintemperance, insanity, stupidity and crime; they are all forms of old\nage; they are rest, conservatism, appropriation, inertia; not newness,\nnot the way onward. We grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst\nwe converse with what is above us, we do not grow old, but grow young.\nInfancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, with religious eye looking upward,\ncounts itself nothing and abandons itself to the instruction flowing\nfrom all sides. But the man and woman of seventy assume to know all,\nthey have outlived their hope, they renounce aspiration, accept the\nactual for the necessary and talk down to the young. Let them, then,\nbecome organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be lovers; let them behold\ntruth; and their eyes are uplifted, their wrinkles smoothed, they are\nperfumed again with hope and power. This old age ought not to creep on\na human mind. In nature every moment is new; the past is always\nswallowed and forgotten; the coming only is sacred. Nothing is secure\nbut life, transition, the energizing spirit. No love can be bound by\noath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth so\nsublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts.\nPeople wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there\nany hope for them.\n\nLife is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the\npleasure, the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. Of\nlower states, of acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but\nthe masterpieces of God, the total growths and universal movements of\nthe soul, he hideth; they are incalculable. I can know that truth is\ndivine and helpful; but how it shall help me I can have no guess, for\n_so to be_ is the sole inlet of _so to know_. The new position of the\nadvancing man has all the powers of the old, yet has them all new. It\ncarries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet is itself an\nexhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my once\nhoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now, for the first time seem I\nto know any thing rightly. The simplest words,\u2014we do not know what they\nmean except when we love and aspire.\n\nThe difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the\nold and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new\nand better goals. Character makes an overpowering present; a cheerful,\ndetermined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see\nthat much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character\ndulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror we\ndo not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had\nexaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not\nconvulsible or tormentable; events pass over him without much\nimpression. People say sometimes, \u2018See what I have overcome; see how\ncheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black\nevents.\u2019 Not if they still remind me of the black event. True conquest\nis the causing the calamity to fade and disappear as an early cloud of\ninsignificant result in a history so large and advancing.\n\nThe one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget\nourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our\nsempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why; in\nshort to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved without\nenthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is by abandonment. The\ngreat moments of history are the facilities of performance through the\nstrength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion. \u201cA man,\u201d said\nOliver Cromwell, \u201cnever rises so high as when he knows not whither he\nis going.\u201d Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and alcohol are the\nsemblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence their\ndangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of\nwild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames\nand generosities of the heart.\n\n\n\n\nXI.\nINTELLECT\n\n\nGo, speed the stars of Thought\nOn to their shining goals;\u2014\nThe sower scatters broad his seed,\nThe wheat thou strew\u2019st be souls.\n\n\n\n\nINTELLECT\n\n\nEvery substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in\nthe chemical tables, positively to that which stands below it. Water\ndissolves wood and iron and salt; air dissolves water; electric fire\ndissolves air, but the intellect dissolves fire, gravity, laws, method,\nand the subtlest unnamed relations of nature in its resistless\nmenstruum. Intellect lies behind genius, which is intellect\nconstructive. Intellect is the simple power anterior to all action or\nconstruction. Gladly would I unfold in calm degrees a natural history\nof the intellect, but what man has yet been able to mark the steps and\nboundaries of that transparent essence? The first questions are always\nto be asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness\nof a child. How can we speak of the action of the mind under any\ndivisions, as of its knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so\nforth, since it melts will into perception, knowledge into act? Each\nbecomes the other. Itself alone is. Its vision is not like the vision\nof the eye, but is union with the things known.\n\nIntellect and intellection signify to the common ear consideration of\nabstract truth. The considerations of time and place, of you and me, of\nprofit and hurt tyrannize over most men\u2019s minds. Intellect separates\nthe fact considered, from you, from all local and personal reference,\nand discerns it as if it existed for its own sake. Heraclitus looked\nupon the affections as dense and colored mists. In the fog of good and\nevil affections it is hard for man to walk forward in a straight line.\nIntellect is void of affection and sees an object as it stands in the\nlight of science, cool and disengaged. The intellect goes out of the\nindividual, floats over its own personality, and regards it as a fact,\nand not as _I_ and _mine_. He who is immersed in what concerns person\nor place cannot see the problem of existence. This the intellect always\nponders. Nature shows all things formed and bound. The intellect\npierces the form, overleaps the wall, detects intrinsic likeness\nbetween remote things and reduces all things into a few principles.\n\nThe making a fact the subject of thought raises it. All that mass of\nmental and moral phenomena which we do not make objects of voluntary\nthought, come within the power of fortune; they constitute the\ncircumstance of daily life; they are subject to change, to fear, and\nhope. Every man beholds his human condition with a degree of\nmelancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so man,\nimprisoned in mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events. But\na truth, separated by the intellect, is no longer a subject of destiny.\nWe behold it as a god upraised above care and fear. And so any fact in\nour life, or any record of our fancies or reflections, disentangled\nfrom the web of our unconsciousness, becomes an object impersonal and\nimmortal. It is the past restored, but embalmed. A better art than that\nof Egypt has taken fear and corruption out of it. It is eviscerated of\ncare. It is offered for science. What is addressed to us for\ncontemplation does not threaten us but makes us intellectual beings.\n\nThe growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind\nthat grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that\nspontaneity. God enters by a private door into every individual. Long\nprior to the age of reflection is the thinking of the mind. Out of\ndarkness it came insensibly into the marvellous light of to-day. In the\nperiod of infancy it accepted and disposed of all impressions from the\nsurrounding creation after its own way. Whatever any mind doth or saith\nis after a law; and this native law remains over it after it has come\nto reflection or conscious thought. In the most worn, pedantic,\nintroverted self-tormenter\u2019s life, the greatest part is incalculable by\nhim, unforeseen, unimaginable, and must be, until he can take himself\nup by his own ears. What am I? What has my will done to make me that I\nam? Nothing. I have been floated into this thought, this hour, this\nconnection of events, by secret currents of might and mind, and my\ningenuity and wilfulness have not thwarted, have not aided to an\nappreciable degree.\n\nOur spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot with your best\ndeliberation and heed come so close to any question as your spontaneous\nglance shall bring you, whilst you rise from your bed, or walk abroad\nin the morning after meditating the matter before sleep on the previous\nnight. Our thinking is a pious reception. Our truth of thought is\ntherefore vitiated as much by too violent direction given by our will,\nas by too great negligence. We do not determine what we will think. We\nonly open our senses, clear away as we can all obstruction from the\nfact, and suffer the intellect to see. We have little control over our\nthoughts. We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for moments\ninto their heaven and so fully engage us that we take no thought for\nthe morrow, gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own.\nBy and by we fall out of that rapture, bethink us where we have been,\nwhat we have seen, and repeat as truly as we can what we have beheld.\nAs far as we can recall these ecstasies we carry away in the\nineffaceable memory the result, and all men and all the ages confirm\nit. It is called Truth. But the moment we cease to report and attempt\nto correct and contrive, it is not truth.\n\nIf we consider what persons have stimulated and profited us, we shall\nperceive the superiority of the spontaneous or intuitive principle over\nthe arithmetical or logical. The first contains the second, but virtual\nand latent. We want in every man a long logic; we cannot pardon the\nabsence of it, but it must not be spoken. Logic is the procession or\nproportionate unfolding of the intuition; but its virtue is as silent\nmethod; the moment it would appear as propositions and have a separate\nvalue it is worthless.\n\nIn every man\u2019s mind, some images, words and facts remain, without\neffort on his part to imprint them, which others forget, and afterwards\nthese illustrate to him important laws. All our progress is an\nunfolding, like the vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an\nopinion, then a knowledge, as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust\nthe instinct to the end, though you can render no reason. It is vain to\nhurry it. By trusting it to the end, it shall ripen into truth and you\nshall know why you believe.\n\nEach mind has its own method. A true man never acquires after college\nrules. What you have aggregated in a natural manner surprises and\ndelights when it is produced. For we cannot oversee each other\u2019s\nsecret. And hence the differences between men in natural endowment are\ninsignificant in comparison with their common wealth. Do you think the\nporter and the cook have no anecdotes, no experiences, no wonders for\nyou? Every body knows as much as the savant. The walls of rude minds\nare scrawled all over with facts, with thoughts. They shall one day\nbring a lantern and read the inscriptions. Every man, in the degree in\nwhich he has wit and culture, finds his curiosity inflamed concerning\nthe modes of living and thinking of other men, and especially of those\nclasses whose minds have not been subdued by the drill of school\neducation.\n\nThis instinctive action never ceases in a healthy mind, but becomes\nricher and more frequent in its informations through all states of\nculture. At last comes the era of reflection, when we not only observe,\nbut take pains to observe; when we of set purpose sit down to consider\nan abstract truth; when we keep the mind\u2019s eye open whilst we converse,\nwhilst we read, whilst we act, intent to learn the secret law of some\nclass of facts.\n\nWhat is the hardest task in the world? To think. I would put myself in\nthe attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I\nblench and withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he\nmeant who said, No man can see God face to face and live. For example,\na man explores the basis of civil government. Let him intend his mind\nwithout respite, without rest, in one direction. His best heed long\ntime avails him nothing. Yet thoughts are flitting before him. We all\nbut apprehend, we dimly forebode the truth. We say I will walk abroad,\nand the truth will take form and clearness to me. We go forth, but\ncannot find it. It seems as if we needed only the stillness and\ncomposed attitude of the library to seize the thought. But we come in,\nand are as far from it as at first. Then, in a moment, and unannounced,\nthe truth appears. A certain wandering light appears, and is the\ndistinction, the principle, we wanted. But the oracle comes because we\nhad previously laid siege to the shrine. It seems as if the law of the\nintellect resembled that law of nature by which we now inspire, now\nexpire the breath; by which the heart now draws in, then hurls out the\nblood,\u2014the law of undulation. So now you must labor with your brains,\nand now you must forbear your activity and see what the great Soul\nshoweth.\n\nThe immortality of man is as legitimately preached from the\nintellections as from the moral volitions. Every intellection is mainly\nprospective. Its present value is its least. Inspect what delights you\nin Plutarch, in Shakspeare, in Cervantes. Each truth that a writer\nacquires is a lantern, which he turns full on what facts and thoughts\nlay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats and rubbish which had\nlittered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact in his private\nbiography becomes an illustration of this new principle, revisits the\nday, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm. Men say, Where\ndid he get this? and think there was something divine in his life. But\nno; they have myriads of facts just as good, would they only get a lamp\nto ransack their attics withal.\n\nWe are all wise. The difference between persons is not in wisdom but in\nart. I knew, in an academical club, a person who always deferred to me;\nwho, seeing my whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had\nsomewhat superior; whilst I saw that his experiences were as good as\nmine. Give them to me and I would make the same use of them. He held\nthe old; he holds the new; I had the habit of tacking together the old\nand the new which he did not use to exercise. This may hold in the\ngreat examples. Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare we should not be\nconscious of any steep inferiority; no, but of a great equality,\u2014only\nthat he possessed a strange skill of using, of classifying, his facts,\nwhich we lacked. For notwithstanding our utter incapacity to produce\nanything like Hamlet and Othello, see the perfect reception this wit\nand immense knowledge of life and liquid eloquence find in us all.\n\nIf you gather apples in the sunshine, or make hay, or hoe corn, and\nthen retire within doors and shut your eyes and press them with your\nhand, you shall still see apples hanging in the bright light with\nboughs and leaves thereto, or the tasselled grass, or the corn-flags,\nand this for five or six hours afterwards. There lie the impressions on\nthe retentive organ, though you knew it not. So lies the whole series\nof natural images with which your life has made you acquainted, in your\nmemory, though you know it not; and a thrill of passion flashes light\non their dark chamber, and the active power seizes instantly the fit\nimage, as the word of its momentary thought.\n\nIt is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure,\nis quite tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our\nwiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood,\nand always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond;\nuntil by and by we begin to suspect that the biography of the one\nfoolish person we know is, in reality, nothing less than the miniature\nparaphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal History.\n\nIn the intellect constructive, which we popularly designate by the word\nGenius, we observe the same balance of two elements as in intellect\nreceptive. The constructive intellect produces thoughts, sentences,\npoems, plans, designs, systems. It is the generation of the mind, the\nmarriage of thought with nature. To genius must always go two gifts,\nthe thought and the publication. The first is revelation, always a\nmiracle, which no frequency of occurrence or incessant study can ever\nfamiliarize, but which must always leave the inquirer stupid with\nwonder. It is the advent of truth into the world, a form of thought now\nfor the first time bursting into the universe, a child of the old\neternal soul, a piece of genuine and immeasurable greatness. It seems,\nfor the time, to inherit all that has yet existed and to dictate to the\nunborn. It affects every thought of man and goes to fashion every\ninstitution. But to make it available it needs a vehicle or art by\nwhich it is conveyed to men. To be communicable it must become picture\nor sensible object. We must learn the language of facts. The most\nwonderful inspirations die with their subject if he has no hand to\npaint them to the senses. The ray of light passes invisible through\nspace and only when it falls on an object is it seen. When the\nspiritual energy is directed on something outward, then it is a\nthought. The relation between it and you first makes you, the value of\nyou, apparent to me. The rich inventive genius of the painter must be\nsmothered and lost for want of the power of drawing, and in our happy\nhours we should be inexhaustible poets if once we could break through\nthe silence into adequate rhyme. As all men have some access to primary\ntruth, so all have some art or power of communication in their head,\nbut only in the artist does it descend into the hand. There is an\ninequality, whose laws we do not yet know, between two men and between\ntwo moments of the same man, in respect to this faculty. In common\nhours we have the same facts as in the uncommon or inspired, but they\ndo not sit for their portraits; they are not detached, but lie in a\nweb. The thought of genius is spontaneous; but the power of picture or\nexpression, in the most enriched and flowing nature, implies a mixture\nof will, a certain control over the spontaneous states, without which\nno production is possible. It is a conversion of all nature into the\nrhetoric of thought, under the eye of judgment, with a strenuous\nexercise of choice. And yet the imaginative vocabulary seems to be\nspontaneous also. It does not flow from experience only or mainly, but\nfrom a richer source. Not by any conscious imitation of particular\nforms are the grand strokes of the painter executed, but by repairing\nto the fountain-head of all forms in his mind. Who is the first\ndrawing-master? Without instruction we know very well the ideal of the\nhuman form. A child knows if an arm or a leg be distorted in a picture;\nif the attitude be natural or grand or mean; though he has never\nreceived any instruction in drawing or heard any conversation on the\nsubject, nor can himself draw with correctness a single feature. A good\nform strikes all eyes pleasantly, long before they have any science on\nthe subject, and a beautiful face sets twenty hearts in palpitation,\nprior to all consideration of the mechanical proportions of the\nfeatures and head. We may owe to dreams some light on the fountain of\nthis skill; for as soon as we let our will go and let the unconscious\nstates ensue, see what cunning draughtsmen we are! We entertain\nourselves with wonderful forms of men, of women, of animals, of\ngardens, of woods and of monsters, and the mystic pencil wherewith we\nthen draw has no awkwardness or inexperience, no meagreness or poverty;\nit can design well and group well; its composition is full of art, its\ncolors are well laid on and the whole canvas which it paints is\nlifelike and apt to touch us with terror, with tenderness, with desire\nand with grief. Neither are the artist\u2019s copies from experience ever\nmere copies, but always touched and softened by tints from this ideal\ndomain.\n\nThe conditions essential to a constructive mind do not appear to be so\noften combined but that a good sentence or verse remains fresh and\nmemorable for a long time. Yet when we write with ease and come out\ninto the free air of thought, we seem to be assured that nothing is\neasier than to continue this communication at pleasure. Up, down,\naround, the kingdom of thought has no inclosures, but the Muse makes us\nfree of her city. Well, the world has a million writers. One would\nthink then that good thought would be as familiar as air and water, and\nthe gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we can count all\nour good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty years.\nIt is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in\nadvance of the creative, so that there are many competent judges of the\nbest book, and few writers of the best books. But some of the\nconditions of intellectual construction are of rare occurrence. The\nintellect is a whole and demands integrity in every work. This is\nresisted equally by a man\u2019s devotion to a single thought and by his\nambition to combine too many.\n\nTruth is our element of life, yet if a man fasten his attention on a\nsingle aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time,\nthe truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood; herein\nresembling the air, which is our natural element, and the breath of our\nnostrils, but if a stream of the same be directed on the body for a\ntime, it causes cold, fever, and even death. How wearisome the\ngrammarian, the phrenologist, the political or religious fanatic, or\nindeed any possessed mortal whose balance is lost by the exaggeration\nof a single topic. It is incipient insanity. Every thought is a prison\nalso. I cannot see what you see, because I am caught up by a strong\nwind and blown so far in one direction that I am out of the hoop of\nyour horizon.\n\nIs it any better if the student, to avoid this offence, and to\nliberalize himself, aims to make a mechanical whole of history, or\nscience, or philosophy, by a numerical addition of all the facts that\nfall within his vision? The world refuses to be analyzed by addition\nand subtraction. When we are young we spend much time and pains in\nfilling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, Love, Poetry,\nPolitics, Art, in the hope that in the course of a few years we shall\nhave condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories\nat which the world has yet arrived. But year after year our tables get\nno completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola,\nwhose arcs will never meet.\n\nNeither by detachment neither by aggregation is the integrity of the\nintellect transmitted to its works, but by a vigilance which brings the\nintellect in its greatness and best state to operate every moment. It\nmust have the same wholeness which nature has. Although no diligence\ncan rebuild the universe in a model by the best accumulation or\ndisposition of details, yet does the world reappear in miniature in\nevery event, so that all the laws of nature may be read in the smallest\nfact. The intellect must have the like perfection in its apprehension\nand in its works. For this reason, an index or mercury of intellectual\nproficiency is the perception of identity. We talk with accomplished\npersons who appear to be strangers in nature. The cloud, the tree, the\nturf, the bird are not theirs, have nothing of them; the world is only\ntheir lodging and table. But the poet, whose verses are to be spheral\nand complete, is one whom Nature cannot deceive, whatsoever face of\nstrangeness she may put on. He feels a strict consanguinity, and\ndetects more likeness than variety in all her changes. We are stung by\nthe desire for new thought; but when we receive a new thought it is\nonly the old thought with a new face, and though we make it our own we\ninstantly crave another; we are not really enriched. For the truth was\nin us before it was reflected to us from natural objects; and the\nprofound genius will cast the likeness of all creatures into every\nproduct of his wit.\n\nBut if the constructive powers are rare and it is given to few men to\nbe poets, yet every man is a receiver of this descending holy ghost,\nand may well study the laws of its influx. Exactly parallel is the\nwhole rule of intellectual duty to the rule of moral duty. A\nself-denial no less austere than the saint\u2019s is demanded of the\nscholar. He must worship truth, and forego all things for that, and\nchoose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby\naugmented.\n\nGod offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take\nwhich you please,\u2014you can never have both. Between these, as a\npendulum, man oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates\nwill accept the first creed, the first philosophy, the first political\nparty he meets,\u2014most likely his father\u2019s. He gets rest, commodity, and\nreputation; but he shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of\ntruth predominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings, and\nafloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, and recognize all the opposite\nnegations between which, as walls, his being is swung. He submits to\nthe inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but he is a\ncandidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law\nof his being.\n\nThe circle of the green earth he must measure with his shoes to find\nthe man who can yield him truth. He shall then know that there is\nsomewhat more blessed and great in hearing than in speaking. Happy is\nthe hearing man; unhappy the speaking man. As long as I hear truth I am\nbathed by a beautiful element and am not conscious of any limits to my\nnature. The suggestions are thousandfold that I hear and see. The\nwaters of the great deep have ingress and egress to the soul. But if I\nspeak, I define, I confine and am less. When Socrates speaks, Lysis and\nMenexenus are afflicted by no shame that they do not speak. They also\nare good. He likewise defers to them, loves them, whilst he speaks.\nBecause a true and natural man contains and is the same truth which an\neloquent man articulates; but in the eloquent man, because he can\narticulate it, it seems something the less to reside, and he turns to\nthese silent beautiful with the more inclination and respect. The\nancient sentence said, Let us be silent, for so are the gods. Silence\nis a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great\nand universal. Every man\u2019s progress is through a succession of\nteachers, each of whom seems at the time to have a superlative\ninfluence, but it at last gives place to a new. Frankly let him accept\nit all. Jesus says, Leave father, mother, house and lands, and follow\nme. Who leaves all, receives more. This is as true intellectually as\nmorally. Each new mind we approach seems to require an abdication of\nall our past and present possessions. A new doctrine seems at first a\nsubversion of all our opinions, tastes, and manner of living. Such has\nSwedenborg, such has Kant, such has Coleridge, such has Hegel or his\ninterpreter Cousin seemed to many young men in this country. Take\nthankfully and heartily all they can give. Exhaust them, wrestle with\nthem, let them not go until their blessing be won, and after a short\nseason the dismay will be overpast, the excess of influence withdrawn,\nand they will be no longer an alarming meteor, but one more bright star\nshining serenely in your heaven and blending its light with all your\nday.\n\nBut whilst he gives himself up unreservedly to that which draws him,\nbecause that is his own, he is to refuse himself to that which draws\nhim not, whatsoever fame and authority may attend it, because it is not\nhis own. Entire self-reliance belongs to the intellect. One soul is a\ncounterpoise of all souls, as a capillary column of water is a balance\nfor the sea. It must treat things and books and sovereign genius as\nitself also a sovereign. If \u00c6schylus be that man he is taken for, he\nhas not yet done his office when he has educated the learned of Europe\nfor a thousand years. He is now to approve himself a master of delight\nto me also. If he cannot do that, all his fame shall avail him nothing\nwith me. I were a fool not to sacrifice a thousand \u00c6schyluses to my\nintellectual integrity. Especially take the same ground in regard to\nabstract truth, the science of the mind. The Bacon, the Spinoza, the\nHume, Schelling, Kant, or whosoever propounds to you a philosophy of\nthe mind, is only a more or less awkward translator of things in your\nconsciousness which you have also your way of seeing, perhaps of\ndenominating. Say then, instead of too timidly poring into his obscure\nsense, that he has not succeeded in rendering back to you your\nconsciousness. He has not succeeded; now let another try. If Plato\ncannot, perhaps Spinoza will. If Spinoza cannot, then perhaps Kant.\nAnyhow, when at last it is done, you will find it is no recondite, but\na simple, natural, common state which the writer restores to you.\n\nBut let us end these didactics. I will not, though the subject might\nprovoke it, speak to the open question between Truth and Love. I shall\nnot presume to interfere in the old politics of the skies;\u2014\u201cThe\ncherubim know most; the seraphim love most.\u201d The gods shall settle\ntheir own quarrels. But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the\nintellect, without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men\nwho have been its prophets and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure\nreason, the _Trismegisti_, the expounders of the principles of thought\nfrom age to age. When at long intervals we turn over their abstruse\npages, wonderful seems the calm and grand air of these few, these great\nspiritual lords who have walked in the world,\u2014these of the old\nreligion,\u2014dwelling in a worship which makes the sanctities of\nChristianity look _parvenues_ and popular; for \u201cpersuasion is in soul,\nbut necessity is in intellect.\u201d This band of grandees, Hermes,\nHeraclitus, Empedocles, Plato, Plotinus, Olympiodorus, Proclus,\nSynesius and the rest, have somewhat so vast in their logic, so primary\nin their thinking, that it seems antecedent to all the ordinary\ndistinctions of rhetoric and literature, and to be at once poetry and\nmusic and dancing and astronomy and mathematics. I am present at the\nsowing of the seed of the world. With a geometry of sunbeams the soul\nlays the foundations of nature. The truth and grandeur of their thought\nis proved by its scope and applicability, for it commands the entire\nschedule and inventory of things for its illustration. But what marks\nits elevation and has even a comic look to us, is the innocent serenity\nwith which these babe-like Jupiters sit in their clouds, and from age\nto age prattle to each other and to no contemporary. Well assured that\ntheir speech is intelligible and the most natural thing in the world,\nthey add thesis to thesis, without a moment\u2019s heed of the universal\nastonishment of the human race below, who do not comprehend their\nplainest argument; nor do they ever relent so much as to insert a\npopular or explaining sentence, nor testify the least displeasure or\npetulance at the dulness of their amazed auditory. The angels are so\nenamored of the language that is spoken in heaven that they will not\ndistort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men, but\nspeak their own, whether there be any who understand it or not.\n\n\n\n\nXII.\nART\n\n\nGive to barrows trays and pans\nGrace and glimmer of romance,\nBring the moonlight into noon\nHid in gleaming piles of stone;\nOn the city\u2019s paved street\nPlant gardens lined with lilac sweet,\nLet spouting fountains cool the air,\nSinging in the sun-baked square.\nLet statue, picture, park and hall,\nBallad, flag and festival,\nThe past restore, the day adorn\nAnd make each morrow a new morn\nSo shall the drudge in dusty frock\nSpy behind the city clock\nRetinues of airy kings,\nSkirts of angels, starry wings,\nHis fathers shining in bright fables,\nHis children fed at heavenly tables.\n\u2019Tis the privilege of Art\nThus to play its cheerful part,\nMan in Earth to acclimate\nAnd bend the exile to his fate,\nAnd, moulded of one element\nWith the days and firmament,\nTeach him on these as stairs to climb\nAnd live on even terms with Time;\nWhilst upper life the slender rill\nOf human sense doth overfill.\n\n\n\n\nART\n\n\nBecause the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in\nevery act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This\nappears in works both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the\npopular distinction of works according to their aim either at use or\nbeauty. Thus in our fine arts, not imitation but creation is the aim.\nIn landscapes the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer\ncreation than we know. The details, the prose of nature he should omit\nand give us only the spirit and splendor. He should know that the\nlandscape has beauty for his eye because it expresses a thought which\nis to him good; and this because the same power which sees through his\neyes is seen in that spectacle; and he will come to value the\nexpression of nature and not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy\nthe features that please him. He will give the gloom of gloom and the\nsunshine of sunshine. In a portrait he must inscribe the character and\nnot the features, and must esteem the man who sits to him as himself\nonly an imperfect picture or likeness of the aspiring original within.\n\nWhat is that abridgment and selection we observe in all spiritual\nactivity, but itself the creative impulse? for it is the inlet of that\nhigher illumination which teaches to convey a larger sense by simpler\nsymbols. What is a man but nature\u2019s finer success in self-explication?\nWhat is a man but a finer and compacter landscape than the horizon\nfigures,\u2014nature\u2019s eclecticism? and what is his speech, his love of\npainting, love of nature, but a still finer success,\u2014all the weary\nmiles and tons of space and bulk left out, and the spirit or moral of\nit contracted into a musical word, or the most cunning stroke of the\npencil?\n\nBut the artist must employ the symbols in use in his day and nation to\nconvey his enlarged sense to his fellow-men. Thus the new in art is\nalways formed out of the old. The Genius of the Hour sets his\nineffaceable seal on the work and gives it an inexpressible charm for\nthe imagination. As far as the spiritual character of the period\noverpowers the artist and finds expression in his work, so far it will\nretain a certain grandeur, and will represent to future beholders the\nUnknown, the Inevitable, the Divine. No man can quite exclude this\nelement of Necessity from his labor. No man can quite emancipate\nhimself from his age and country, or produce a model in which the\neducation, the religion, the politics, usages and arts of his times\nshall have no share. Though he were never so original, never so wilful\nand fantastic, he cannot wipe out of his work every trace of the\nthoughts amidst which it grew. The very avoidance betrays the usage he\navoids. Above his will and out of his sight he is necessitated by the\nair he breathes and the idea on which he and his contemporaries live\nand toil, to share the manner of his times, without knowing what that\nmanner is. Now that which is inevitable in the work has a higher charm\nthan individual talent can ever give, inasmuch as the artist\u2019s pen or\nchisel seems to have been held and guided by a gigantic hand to\ninscribe a line in the history of the human race. This circumstance\ngives a value to the Egyptian hieroglyphics, to the Indian, Chinese and\nMexican idols, however gross and shapeless. They denote the height of\nthe human soul in that hour, and were not fantastic, but sprung from a\nnecessity as deep as the world. Shall I now add that the whole extant\nproduct of the plastic arts has herein its highest value, _as history;_\nas a stroke drawn in the portrait of that fate, perfect and beautiful,\naccording to whose ordinations all beings advance to their beatitude?\n\nThus, historically viewed, it has been the office of art to educate the\nperception of beauty. We are immersed in beauty, but our eyes have no\nclear vision. It needs, by the exhibition of single traits, to assist\nand lead the dormant taste. We carve and paint, or we behold what is\ncarved and painted, as students of the mystery of Form. The virtue of\nart lies in detachment, in sequestering one object from the\nembarrassing variety. Until one thing comes out from the connection of\nthings, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but no thought. Our\nhappiness and unhappiness are unproductive. The infant lies in a\npleasing trance, but his individual character and his practical power\ndepend on his daily progress in the separation of things, and dealing\nwith one at a time. Love and all the passions concentrate all existence\naround a single form. It is the habit of certain minds to give an\nall-excluding fulness to the object, the thought, the word, they alight\nupon, and to make that for the time the deputy of the world. These are\nthe artists, the orators, the leaders of society. The power to detach\nand to magnify by detaching is the essence of rhetoric in the hands of\nthe orator and the poet. This rhetoric, or power to fix the momentary\neminency of an object,\u2014so remarkable in Burke, in Byron, in\nCarlyle,\u2014the painter and sculptor exhibit in color and in stone. The\npower depends on the depth of the artist\u2019s insight of that object he\ncontemplates. For every object has its roots in central nature, and may\nof course be so exhibited to us as to represent the world. Therefore\neach work of genius is the tyrant of the hour and concentrates\nattention on itself. For the time, it is the only thing worth naming to\ndo that,\u2014be it a sonnet, an opera, a landscape, a statue, an oration,\nthe plan of a temple, of a campaign, or of a voyage of discovery.\nPresently we pass to some other object, which rounds itself into a\nwhole as did the first; for example a well-laid garden; and nothing\nseems worth doing but the laying out of gardens. I should think fire\nthe best thing in the world, if I were not acquainted with air, and\nwater, and earth. For it is the right and property of all natural\nobjects, of all genuine talents, of all native properties whatsoever,\nto be for their moment the top of the world. A squirrel leaping from\nbough to bough and making the Wood but one wide tree for his pleasure,\nfills the eye not less than a lion,\u2014is beautiful, self-sufficing, and\nstands then and there for nature. A good ballad draws my ear and heart\nwhilst I listen, as much as an epic has done before. A dog, drawn by a\nmaster, or a litter of pigs, satisfies and is a reality not less than\nthe frescoes of Angelo. From this succession of excellent objects we\nlearn at last the immensity of the world, the opulence of human nature,\nwhich can run out to infinitude in any direction. But I also learn that\nwhat astonished and fascinated me in the first work astonished me in\nthe second work also; that excellence of all things is one.\n\nThe office of painting and sculpture seems to be merely initial. The\nbest pictures can easily tell us their last secret. The best pictures\nare rude draughts of a few of the miraculous dots and lines and dyes\nwhich make up the ever-changing \u201clandscape with figures\u201d amidst which\nwe dwell. Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs.\nWhen that has educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, to\ngrace, the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten; so\npainting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form,\nand as I see many pictures and higher genius in the art, I see the\nboundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in which the artist\nstands free to choose out of the possible forms. If he can draw every\nthing, why draw any thing? and then is my eye opened to the eternal\npicture which nature paints in the street, with moving men and\nchildren, beggars and fine ladies, draped in red and green and blue and\ngray; long-haired, grizzled, white-faced, black-faced, wrinkled, giant,\ndwarf, expanded, elfish,\u2014capped and based by heaven, earth and sea.\n\nA gallery of sculpture teaches more austerely the same lesson. As\npicture teaches the coloring, so sculpture the anatomy of form. When I\nhave seen fine statues and afterwards enter a public assembly, I\nunderstand well what he meant who said, \u201cWhen I have been reading\nHomer, all men look like giants.\u201d I too see that painting and sculpture\nare gymnastics of the eye, its training to the niceties and curiosities\nof its function. There is no statue like this living man, with his\ninfinite advantage over all ideal sculpture, of perpetual variety. What\na gallery of art have I here! No mannerist made these varied groups and\ndiverse original single figures. Here is the artist himself\nimprovising, grim and glad, at his block. Now one thought strikes him,\nnow another, and with each moment he alters the whole air, attitude and\nexpression of his clay. Away with your nonsense of oil and easels, of\nmarble and chisels; except to open your eyes to the masteries of\neternal art, they are hypocritical rubbish.\n\nThe reference of all production at last to an aboriginal Power explains\nthe traits common to all works of the highest art,\u2014that they are\nuniversally intelligible; that they restore to us the simplest states\nof mind, and are religious. Since what skill is therein shown is the\nreappearance of the original soul, a jet of pure light, it should\nproduce a similar impression to that made by natural objects. In happy\nhours, nature appears to us one with art; art perfected,\u2014the work of\ngenius. And the individual, in whom simple tastes and susceptibility to\nall the great human influences overpower the accidents of a local and\nspecial culture, is the best critic of art. Though we travel the world\nover to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we find it\nnot. The best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces, in\noutlines, or rules of art can ever teach, namely a radiation from the\nwork of art of human character,\u2014a wonderful expression through stone,\nor canvas, or musical sound, of the deepest and simplest attributes of\nour nature, and therefore most intelligible at last to those souls\nwhich have these attributes. In the sculptures of the Greeks, in the\nmasonry of the Romans, and in the pictures of the Tuscan and Venetian\nmasters, the highest charm is the universal language they speak. A\nconfession of moral nature, of purity, love, and hope, breathes from\nthem all. That which we carry to them, the same we bring back more\nfairly illustrated in the memory. The traveller who visits the Vatican,\nand passes from chamber to chamber through galleries of statues, vases,\nsarcophagi and candelabra, through all forms of beauty cut in the\nrichest materials, is in danger of forgetting the simplicity of the\nprinciples out of which they all sprung, and that they had their origin\nfrom thoughts and laws in his own breast. He studies the technical\nrules on these wonderful remains, but forgets that these works were not\nalways thus constellated; that they are the contributions of many ages\nand many countries; that each came out of the solitary workshop of one\nartist, who toiled perhaps in ignorance of the existence of other\nsculpture, created his work without other model save life, household\nlife, and the sweet and smart of personal relations, of beating hearts,\nand meeting eyes; of poverty and necessity and hope and fear. These\nwere his inspirations, and these are the effects he carries home to\nyour heart and mind. In proportion to his force, the artist will find\nin his work an outlet for his proper character. He must not be in any\nmanner pinched or hindered by his material, but through his necessity\nof imparting himself the adamant will be wax in his hands, and will\nallow an adequate communication of himself, in his full stature and\nproportion. He need not cumber himself with a conventional nature and\nculture, nor ask what is the mode in Rome or in Paris, but that house\nand weather and manner of living which poverty and the fate of birth\nhave made at once so odious and so dear, in the gray unpainted wood\ncabin, on the corner of a New Hampshire farm, or in the log-hut of the\nbackwoods, or in the narrow lodging where he has endured the\nconstraints and seeming of a city poverty, will serve as well as any\nother condition as the symbol of a thought which pours itself\nindifferently through all.\n\nI remember when in my younger days I had heard of the wonders of\nItalian painting, I fancied the great pictures would be great\nstrangers; some surprising combination of color and form; a foreign\nwonder, barbaric pearl and gold, like the spontoons and standards of\nthe militia, which play such pranks in the eyes and imaginations of\nschool-boys. I was to see and acquire I knew not what. When I came at\nlast to Rome and saw with eyes the pictures, I found that genius left\nto novices the gay and fantastic and ostentatious, and itself pierced\ndirectly to the simple and true; that it was familiar and sincere; that\nit was the old, eternal fact I had met already in so many forms,\u2014unto\nwhich I lived; that it was the plain _you and me_ I knew so well,\u2014had\nleft at home in so many conversations. I had the same experience\nalready in a church at Naples. There I saw that nothing was changed\nwith me but the place, and said to myself\u2014\u2018Thou foolish child, hast\nthou come out hither, over four thousand miles of salt water, to find\nthat which was perfect to thee there at home?\u2019 That fact I saw again in\nthe Academmia at Naples, in the chambers of sculpture, and yet again\nwhen I came to Rome and to the paintings of Raphael, Angelo, Sacchi,\nTitian, and Leonardo da Vinci. \u201cWhat, old mole! workest thou in the\nearth so fast?\u201d It had travelled by my side; that which I fancied I had\nleft in Boston was here in the Vatican, and again at Milan and at\nParis, and made all travelling ridiculous as a treadmill. I now require\nthis of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not that they dazzle\nme. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes men so\nmuch as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been\nsimple, and all great pictures are.\n\nThe Transfiguration, by Raphael, is an eminent example of this peculiar\nmerit. A calm benignant beauty shines over all this picture, and goes\ndirectly to the heart. It seems almost to call you by name. The sweet\nand sublime face of Jesus is beyond praise, yet how it disappoints all\nflorid expectations! This familiar, simple, home-speaking countenance\nis as if one should meet a friend. The knowledge of picture-dealers has\nits value, but listen not to their criticism when your heart is touched\nby genius. It was not painted for them, it was painted for you; for\nsuch as had eyes capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty\nemotions.\n\nYet when we have said all our fine things about the arts, we must end\nwith a frank confession, that the arts, as we know them, are but\ninitial. Our best praise is given to what they aimed and promised, not\nto the actual result. He has conceived meanly of the resources of man,\nwho believes that the best age of production is past. The real value of\nthe Iliad or the Transfiguration is as signs of power; billows or\nripples they are of the stream of tendency; tokens of the everlasting\neffort to produce, which even in its worst estate the soul betrays. Art\nhas not yet come to its maturity if it do not put itself abreast with\nthe most potent influences of the world, if it is not practical and\nmoral, if it do not stand in connection with the conscience, if it do\nnot make the poor and uncultivated feel that it addresses them with a\nvoice of lofty cheer. There is higher work for Art than the arts. They\nare abortive births of an imperfect or vitiated instinct. Art is the\nneed to create; but in its essence, immense and universal, it is\nimpatient of working with lame or tied hands, and of making cripples\nand monsters, such as all pictures and statues are. Nothing less than\nthe creation of man and nature is its end. A man should find in it an\noutlet for his whole energy. He may paint and carve only as long as he\ncan do that. Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of\ncircumstance on every side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of\nuniversal relation and power which the work evinced in the artist, and\nits highest effect is to make new artists.\n\nAlready History is old enough to witness the old age and disappearance\nof particular arts. The art of sculpture is long ago perished to any\nreal effect. It was originally a useful art, a mode of writing, a\nsavage\u2019s record of gratitude or devotion, and among a people possessed\nof a wonderful perception of form this childish carving was refined to\nthe utmost splendor of effect. But it is the game of a rude and\nyouthful people, and not the manly labor of a wise and spiritual\nnation. Under an oak-tree loaded with leaves and nuts, under a sky full\nof eternal eyes, I stand in a thoroughfare; but in the works of our\nplastic arts and especially of sculpture, creation is driven into a\ncorner. I cannot hide from myself that there is a certain appearance of\npaltriness, as of toys and the trumpery of a theatre, in sculpture.\nNature transcends all our moods of thought, and its secret we do not\nyet find. But the gallery stands at the mercy of our moods, and there\nis a moment when it becomes frivolous. I do not wonder that Newton,\nwith an attention habitually engaged on the paths of planets and suns,\nshould have wondered what the Earl of Pembroke found to admire in\n\u201cstone dolls.\u201d Sculpture may serve to teach the pupil how deep is the\nsecret of form, how purely the spirit can translate its meanings into\nthat eloquent dialect. But the statue will look cold and false before\nthat new activity which needs to roll through all things, and is\nimpatient of counterfeits and things not alive. Picture and sculpture\nare the celebrations and festivities of form. But true art is never\nfixed, but always flowing. The sweetest music is not in the oratorio,\nbut in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of\ntenderness, truth, or courage. The oratorio has already lost its\nrelation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth, but that persuading\nvoice is in tune with these. All works of art should not be detached,\nbut extempore performances. A great man is a new statue in every\nattitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all\nbeholders nobly mad. Life may be lyric or epic, as well as a poem or a\nromance.\n\nA true announcement of the law of creation, if a man were found worthy\nto declare it, would carry art up into the kingdom of nature, and\ndestroy its separate and contrasted existence. The fountains of\ninvention and beauty in modern society are all but dried up. A popular\nnovel, a theatre, or a ball-room makes us feel that we are all paupers\nin the alms-house of this world, without dignity, without skill or\nindustry. Art is as poor and low. The old tragic Necessity, which\nlowers on the brows even of the Venuses and the Cupids of the antique,\nand furnishes the sole apology for the intrusion of such anomalous\nfigures into nature,\u2014namely, that they were inevitable; that the artist\nwas drunk with a passion for form which he could not resist, and which\nvented itself in these fine extravagances,\u2014no longer dignifies the\nchisel or the pencil. But the artist and the connoisseur now seek in\nart the exhibition of their talent, or an asylum from the evils of\nlife. Men are not well pleased with the figure they make in their own\nimaginations, and they flee to art, and convey their better sense in an\noratorio, a statue, or a picture. Art makes the same effort which a\nsensual prosperity makes; namely to detach the beautiful from the\nuseful, to do up the work as unavoidable, and, hating it, pass on to\nenjoyment. These solaces and compensations, this division of beauty\nfrom use, the laws of nature do not permit. As soon as beauty is\nsought, not from religion and love but for pleasure, it degrades the\nseeker. High beauty is no longer attainable by him in canvas or in\nstone, in sound, or in lyrical construction; an effeminate, prudent,\nsickly beauty, which is not beauty, is all that can be formed; for the\nhand can never execute any thing higher than the character can inspire.\n\nThe art that thus separates is itself first separated. Art must not be\na superficial talent, but must begin farther back in man. Now men do\nnot see nature to be beautiful, and they go to make a statue which\nshall be. They abhor men as tasteless, dull, and inconvertible, and\nconsole themselves with color-bags and blocks of marble. They reject\nlife as prosaic, and create a death which they call poetic. They\ndespatch the day\u2019s weary chores, and fly to voluptuous reveries. They\neat and drink, that they may afterwards execute the ideal. Thus is art\nvilified; the name conveys to the mind its secondary and bad senses; it\nstands in the imagination as somewhat contrary to nature, and struck\nwith death from the first. Would it not be better to begin higher\nup,\u2014to serve the ideal before they eat and drink; to serve the ideal in\neating and drinking, in drawing the breath, and in the functions of\nlife? Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction\nbetween the fine and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were\ntruly told, if life were nobly spent, it would be no longer easy or\npossible to distinguish the one from the other. In nature, all is\nuseful, all is beautiful. It is therefore beautiful because it is\nalive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful because it is\nsymmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a\nlegislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in\nGreece. It will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the\nfeet of brave and earnest men. It is in vain that we look for genius to\nreiterate its miracles in the old arts; it is its instinct to find\nbeauty and holiness in new and necessary facts, in the field and\nroad-side, in the shop and mill. Proceeding from a religious heart it\nwill raise to a divine use the railroad, the insurance office, the\njoint-stock company; our law, our primary assemblies, our commerce, the\ngalvanic battery, the electric jar, the prism, and the chemist\u2019s\nretort; in which we seek now only an economical use. Is not the selfish\nand even cruel aspect which belongs to our great mechanical works, to\nmills, railways, and machinery, the effect of the mercenary impulses\nwhich these works obey? When its errands are noble and adequate, a\nsteamboat bridging the Atlantic between Old and New England and\narriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet, is a step of\nman into harmony with nature. The boat at St. Petersburg, which plies\nalong the Lena by magnetism, needs little to make it sublime. When\nscience is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by love, they\nwill appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation.\n\n\n     Next Volume","title":"Essays \u2014 First Series","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":74186}