{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_39827/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_39827","id":"gutenberg_39827","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/39827","summary":null,"tags":["Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Conduct of life"],"text":"Produced by Al Haines.\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n\n                            CONDUCT OF LIFE.\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                             R. W. EMERSON.\n\n\n\n\n                                BOSTON:\n                      JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY,\n            LATE TICKNOR & FIELDS, AND FIELDS, OSGOOD, & Co.\n                                 1871.\n\n\n\n\n       Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1860, by\n                             R. W. EMERSON,\n     in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of\n                             Massachusetts\n\n\n\n\n                               CONTENTS.\n\n      I. Fate\n     II. Power\n    III. Wealth\n     IV. Culture\n      V. Behavior\n     VI. Worship\n    VII. Considerations by the Way\n   VIII. Beauty\n     IX. Illusions\n\n\n\n                                   I.\n\n\n                                 FATE.\n\n\n    Delicate omens traced in air\n    To the lone bard true witness bare;\n    Birds with auguries on their wings\n    Chanted undeceiving things\n    Him to beckon, him to warn;\n    Well might then the poet scorn\n    To learn of scribe or courier\n    Hints writ in vaster character;\n    And on his mind, at dawn of day,\n    Soft shadows of the evening lay.\n    For the prevision is allied\n    Unto the thing so signified;\n    Or say, the foresight that awaits\n    Is the same Genius that creates.\n\n\n\n\n                                 FATE.\n\n\nIt chanced during one winter, a few years ago, that our cities were bent\non discussing the theory of the Age.  By an odd coincidence, four or\nfive noted men were each reading a discourse to the citizens of Boston\nor New York, on the Spirit of the Times.  It so happened that the\nsubject had the same prominence in some remarkable pamphlets and\njournals issued in London in the same season.  To me, however, the\nquestion of the times resolved itself into a practical question of the\nconduct of life.  How shall I live?  We are incompetent to solve the\ntimes.  Our geometry cannot span the huge orbits of the prevailing\nideas, behold their return, and reconcile their opposition. We can only\nobey our own polarity.  'Tis fine for us to speculate and elect our\ncourse, if we must accept an irresistible dictation.\n\nIn our first steps to gain our wishes, we come upon immovable\nlimitations.  We are fired with the hope to reform men.  After many\nexperiments, we find that we must begin earlier,--at school.  But the\nboys and girls are not docile; we can make nothing of them.  We decide\nthat they are not of good stock.  We must begin our reform earlier\nstill,--at generation: that is to say, there is Fate, or laws of the\nworld.\n\nBut if there be irresistible dictation, this dictation understands\nitself.  If we must accept Fate, we are not less compelled to affirm\nliberty, the significance of the individual, the grandeur of duty, the\npower of character.  This is true, and that other is true.  But our\ngeometry cannot span these extreme points, and reconcile them.  What to\ndo? By obeying each thought frankly, by harping, or, if you will,\npounding on each string, we learn at last its power.  By the same\nobedience to other thoughts, we learn theirs, and then comes some\nreasonable hope of harmonizing them.  We are sure, that, though we know\nnot how, necessity does comport with liberty, the individual with the\nworld, my polarity with the spirit of the times. The riddle of the age\nhas for each a private solution.  If one would study his own time, it\nmust be by this method of taking up in turn each of the leading topics\nwhich belong to our scheme of human life, and, by firmly stating all\nthat is agreeable to experience on one, and doing the same justice to\nthe opposing facts in the others, the true limitations will appear.  Any\nexcess of emphasis, on one part, would be corrected, and a just balance\nwould be made.\n\nBut let us honestly state the facts.  Our America has a bad name for\nsuperficialness.  Great men, great nations, have not been boasters and\nbuffoons, but perceivers of the terror of life, and have manned\nthemselves to face it.  The Spartan, embodying his religion in his\ncountry, dies before its majesty without a question.  The Turk, who\nbelieves his doom is written on the iron leaf in the moment when he\nentered the world, rushes on the enemy's sabre with undivided will.  The\nTurk, the Arab, the Persian, accepts the foreordained fate.\n\n    \"On two days, it steads not to run from thy grave,\n      The appointed, and the unappointed day;\n    On the first, neither balm nor physician can save,\n      Nor thee, on the second, the Universe slay.\"\n\nThe Hindoo, under the wheel, is as firm.  Our Calvinists, in the last\ngeneration, had something of the same dignity.  They felt that the\nweight of the Universe held them down to their place. What could _they_\ndo?  Wise men feel that there is something which cannot be talked or\nvoted away,--a strap or belt which girds the world.\n\n    \"The Destiny, minister general,\n    That executeth in the world o'er all,\n    The purveyance which God hath seen beforne,\n    So strong it is, that tho' the world had sworn\n    The contrary of a thing by yea or nay,\n    Yet sometime it shall fallen on a day\n    That falleth not oft in a thousand year;\n    For, certainly, our appetites here,\n    Be it of war, or peace, or hate, or love,\n    All this is ruled by the sight above.\"\n      CHAUCER: _The Knight's Tale_.\n\nThe Greek Tragedy expressed the same sense: \"Whatever is fated, that\nwill take place.  The great immense mind of Jove is not to be\ntransgressed.\"\n\nSavages cling to a local god of one tribe or town.  The broad ethics of\nJesus were quickly narrowed to village theologies, which preach an\nelection or favoritism.  And, now and then, an amiable parson, like Jung\nStilling, or Robert Huntington, believes in a pistareen-Providence,\nwhich, whenever the good man wants a dinner, makes that somebody shall\nknock at his door, and leave a half-dollar.  But Nature is no\nsentimentalist,--does not cosset or pamper us.  We must see that the\nworld is rough and surly, and will not mind drowning a man or a woman;\nbut swallows your ship like a grain of dust.  The cold, inconsiderate of\npersons, tingles your blood, benumbs your feet, freezes a man like an\napple.  The diseases, the elements, fortune, gravity, lightning, respect\nno persons.  The way of Providence is a little rude. The habit of snake\nand spider, the snap of the tiger and other leapers and bloody jumpers,\nthe crackle of the bones of his prey in the coil of the anaconda,--these\nare in the system, and our habits are like theirs.  You have just dined,\nand, however scrupulously the slaughter-house is concealed in the\ngraceful distance of miles, there is complicity,--expensive races,--race\nliving at the expense of race.  The planet is liable to shocks from\ncomets, perturbations from planets, rendings from earthquake and\nvolcano, alterations of climate, precessions of equinoxes.  Rivers dry\nup by opening of the forest.  The sea changes its bed.  Towns and\ncounties fall into it.  At Lisbon, an earthquake killed men like flies.\nAt Naples, three years ago, ten thousand persons were crushed in a few\nminutes.  The scurvy at sea; the sword of the climate in the west of\nAfrica, at Cayenne, at Panama, at New Orleans, cut off men like a\nmassacre.  Our western prairie shakes with fever and ague.  The cholera,\nthe small-pox, have proved as mortal to some tribes, as a frost to the\ncrickets, which, having filled the summer with noise, are silenced by a\nfall of the temperature of one night.  Without uncovering what does not\nconcern us, or counting how many species of parasites hang on a bombyx;\nor groping after intestinal parasites, or infusory biters, or the\nobscurities of alternate generation;--the forms of the shark, the\n_labrus_, the jaw of the sea-wolf paved with crushing teeth, the weapons\nof the grampus, and other warriors hidden in the sea,--are hints of\nferocity in the interiors of nature. Let us not deny it up and down.\nProvidence has a wild, rough, incalculable road to its end, and it is of\nno use to try to whitewash its huge, mixed instrumentalities, or to\ndress up that terrific benefactor in a clean shirt and white neckcloth\nof a student in divinity.\n\nWill you say, the disasters which threaten mankind are exceptional, and\none need not lay his account for cataclysms every day?  Aye, but what\nhappens once, may happen again, and so long as these strokes are not to\nbe parried by us, they must be feared.\n\nBut these shocks and ruins are less destructive to us, than the stealthy\npower of other laws which act on us daily.  An expense of ends to means\nis fate;--organization tyrannizing over character. The menagerie, or\nforms and powers of the spine, is a book of fate: the bill of the bird,\nthe skull of the snake, determines tyrannically its limits.  So is the\nscale of races, of temperaments; so is sex; so is climate; so is the\nreaction of talents imprisoning the vital power in certain directions.\nEvery spirit makes its house; but afterwards the house confines the\nspirit.\n\nThe gross lines are legible to the dull: the cabman is phrenologist so\nfar: he looks in your face to see if his shilling is sure.  A dome of\nbrow denotes one thing; a pot-belly another; a squint, a pugnose, mats\nof hair, the pigment of the epidermis, betray character.  People seem\nsheathed in their tough organization.  Ask Spurzheim, ask the doctors,\nask Quetelet, if temperaments decide nothing? or if there be anything\nthey do not decide?  Read the description in medical books of the four\ntemperaments, and you will think you are reading your own thoughts which\nyou had not yet told.  Find the part which black eyes, and which blue\neyes, play severally in the company.  How shall a man escape from his\nancestors, or draw off from his veins the black drop which he drew from\nhis father's or his mother's life?  It often appears in a family, as if\nall the qualities of the progenitors were potted in several jars,--some\nruling quality in each son or daughter of the house,--and sometimes the\nunmixed temperament, the rank unmitigated elixir, the family vice, is\ndrawn off in a separate individual, and the others are proportionally\nrelieved. We sometimes see a change of expression in our companion, and\nsay, his father, or his mother, comes to the windows of his eyes, and\nsometimes a remote relative.  In different hours, a man represents each\nof several of his ancestors, as if there were seven or eight of us\nrolled up in each man's skin,--seven or eight ancestors at least,--and\nthey constitute the variety of notes for that new piece of music which\nhis life is.  At the corner of the street, you read the possibility of\neach passenger, in the facial angle, in the complexion, in the depth of\nhis eye. His parentage determines it.  Men are what their mothers made\nthem.  You may as well ask a loom which weaves huckaback, why it does\nnot make cashmere, as expect poetry from this engineer, or a chemical\ndiscovery from that jobber.  Ask the digger in the ditch to explain\nNewton's laws: the fine organs of his brain have been pinched by\noverwork and squalid poverty from father to son, for a hundred years.\nWhen each comes forth from his mother's womb, the gate of gifts closes\nbehind him. Let him value his hands and feet, he has but one pair.  So\nhe has but one future, and that is already predetermined in his lobes,\nand described in that little fatty face, pig-eye, and squat form.  All\nthe privilege and all the legislation of the world cannot meddle or help\nto make a poet or a prince of him.\n\nJesus said, \"When he looketh on her, he hath committed adultery.\"  But\nhe is an adulterer before he has yet looked on the woman, by the\nsuperfluity of animal, and the defect of thought, in his constitution.\nWho meets him, or who meets her, in the street, sees that they are ripe\nto be each other's victim.\n\nIn certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the\nstronger these are, the individual is so much weaker.  The more of these\ndrones perish, the better for the hive.  If, later, they give birth to\nsome superior individual, with force enough to add to this animal a new\naim, and a complete apparatus to work it out, all the ancestors are\ngladly forgotten.  Most men and most women are merely one couple more.\nNow and then, one has a new cell or camarilla opened in his brain,--an\narchitectural, a musical, or a philological knack, some stray taste or\ntalent for flowers, or chemistry, or pigments, or story-telling, a good\nhand for drawing, a good foot for dancing, an athletic frame for wide\njourneying, &c.--which skill nowise alters rank in the scale of nature,\nbut serves to pass the time, the life of sensation going on as before.\nAt last, these hints and tendencies are fixed in one, or in a\nsuccession.  Each absorbs so much food and force, as to become itself a\nnew centre.  The new talent draws off so rapidly the vital force, that\nnot enough remains for the animal functions, hardly enough for health;\nso that, in the second generation, if the like genius appear, the health\nis visibly deteriorated, and the generative force impaired.\n\nPeople are born with the moral or with the material bias;--uterine\nbrothers with this diverging destination: and I suppose, with high\nmagnifiers, Mr. Frauenhofer or Dr. Carpenter might come to distinguish\nin the embryo at the fourth day, this is a Whig, and that a Free-soiler.\n\nIt was a poetic attempt to lift this mountain of Fate, to reconcile this\ndespotism of race with liberty, which led the Hindoos to say, \"Fate is\nnothing but the deeds committed in a prior state of existence.\"  I find\nthe coincidence of the extremes of eastern and western speculation in\nthe daring statement of Schelling, \"there is in every man a certain\nfeeling, that he has been what he is from all eternity, and by no means\nbecame such in time.\"  To say it less sublimely,--in the history of the\nindividual is always an account of his condition, and he knows himself\nto be a party to his present estate.\n\nA good deal of our politics is physiological.  Now and then, a man of\nwealth in the heyday of youth adopts the tenet of broadest freedom.  In\nEngland, there is always some man of wealth and large connection\nplanting himself, during all his years of health, on the side of\nprogress, who, as soon as he begins to die, checks his forward play,\ncalls in his troops, and becomes conservative.  All conservatives are\nsuch from personal defects.  They have been effeminated by position or\nnature, born halt and blind, through luxury of their parents, and can\nonly, like invalids, act on the defensive.  But strong natures,\nbackwoodsmen, New Hampshire giants, Napoleons, Burkes, Broughams,\nWebsters, Kossuths, are inevitable patriots, until their life ebbs, and\ntheir defects and gout, palsy and money, warp them.\n\nThe strongest idea incarnates itself in majorities and nations, in the\nhealthiest and strongest. Probably, the election goes by avoirdupois\nweight, and, if you could weigh bodily the tonnage of any hundred of the\nWhig and the Democratic party in a town, on the Dearborn balance, as\nthey passed the hayscales, you could predict with certainty which party\nwould carry it.  On the whole, it would be rather the speediest way of\ndeciding the vote, to put the selectmen or the mayor and aldermen at the\nhayscales.\n\nIn science, we have to consider two things: power and circumstance.  All\nwe know of the egg, from each successive discovery, is, _another\nvesicle_; and if, after five hundred years, you get a better observer,\nor a better glass, he finds within the last observed another.  In\nvegetable and animal tissue, it is just alike, and all that the primary\npower or spasm operates, is, still, vesicles, vesicles.  Yes,--but the\ntyrannical Circumstance!  A vesicle in new circumstances, a vesicle\nlodged in darkness, Oken thought, became animal; in light, a plant.\nLodged in the parent animal, it suffers changes, which end in\nunsheathing miraculous capability in the unaltered vesicle, and it\nunlocks itself to fish, bird, or quadruped, head and foot, eye and claw.\nThe Circumstance is Nature.  Nature is, what you may do.  There is much\nyou may not.  We have two things,--the circumstance, and the life.  Once\nwe thought, positive power was all.  Now we learn, that negative power,\nor circumstance, is half. Nature is the tyrannous circumstance, the\nthick skull, the sheathed snake, the ponderous, rock-like jaw;\nnecessitated activity; violent direction; the conditions of a tool, like\nthe locomotive, strong enough on its track, but which can do nothing but\nmischief off of it; or skates, which are wings on the ice, but fetters\non the ground.\n\nThe book of Nature is the book of Fate.  She turns the gigantic\npages,--leaf after leaf,--never re-turning one.  One leaf she lays down,\na floor of granite; then a thousand ages, and a bed of slate; a thousand\nages, and a measure of coal; a thousand ages, and a layer of marl and\nmud: vegetable forms appear; her first misshapen animals, zoophyte,\ntrilobium, fish; then, saurians,--rude forms, in which she has only\nblocked her future statue, concealing under these unwieldly monsters the\nfine type of her coming king.  The face of the planet cools and dries,\nthe races meliorate, and man is born.  But when a race has lived its\nterm, it comes no more again.\n\nThe population of the world is a conditional population; not the best,\nbut the best that could live now; and the scale of tribes, and the\nsteadiness with which victory adheres to one tribe, and defeat to\nanother, is as uniform as the superposition of strata.  We know in\nhistory what weight belongs to race.  We see the English, French, and\nGermans planting themselves on every shore and market of America and\nAustralia, and monopolizing the commerce of these countries.  We like\nthe nervous and victorious habit of our own branch of the family. We\nfollow the step of the Jew, of the Indian, of the Negro.  We see how\nmuch will has been expended to extinguish the Jew, in vain.  Look at the\nunpalatable conclusions of Knox, in his \"Fragment of Races,\"--a rash and\nunsatisfactory writer, but charged with pungent and unforgetable truths.\n\"Nature respects race, and not hybrids.\"  \"Every race has its own\n_habitat_.\"  \"Detach a colony from the race, and it deteriorates to the\ncrab.\"  See the shades of the picture.  The German and Irish millions,\nlike the Negro, have a great deal of guano in their destiny.  They are\nferried over the Atlantic, and carted over America, to ditch and to\ndrudge, to make corn cheap, and then to lie down prematurely to make a\nspot of green grass on the prairie. One more fagot of these adamantine\nbandages, is, the new science of Statistics.  It is a rule, that the\nmost casual and extraordinary events--if the basis of population is\nbroad enough--become matter of fixed calculation.  It would not be safe\nto say when a captain like Bonaparte, a singer like Jenny Lind, or a\nnavigator like Bowditch, would be born in Boston: but, on a population\nof twenty or two hundred millions, something like accuracy may be\nhad.[1]\n\n  [1] \"Everything which pertains to the human species, considered as a\n      whole, belongs to the order of physical facts.  The greater the\n      number of individuals, the more does the influence of the\n      individual will disappear, leaving predominance to a series of\n      general facts dependent on causes by which society exists, and is\n      preserved.\"--QUETELET.\n\n'Tis frivolous to fix pedantically the date of particular inventions.\nThey have all been invented over and over fifty times.  Man is the arch\nmachine, of which all these shifts drawn from himself are toy models.\nHe helps himself on each emergency by copying or duplicating his own\nstructure, just so far as the need is.  'Tis hard to find the right\nHomer, Zoroaster, or Menu; harder still to find the Tubal Cain, or\nVulcan, or Cadmus, or Copernicus, or Fust, or Fulton, the indisputable\ninventor.  There are scores and centuries of them. \"The air is full of\nmen.\"  This kind of talent so abounds, this constructive tool-making\nefficiency, as if it adhered to the chemic atoms, as if the air he\nbreathes were made of Vaucansons, Franklins, and Watts.\n\nDoubtless, in every million there will be an astronomer, a\nmathematician, a comic poet, a mystic. No one can read the history of\nastronomy, without perceiving that Copernicus, Newton, Laplace, are not\nnew men, or a new kind of men, but that Thales, Anaximenes, Hipparchus,\nEmpedocles, Aristarchus, Pythagoras, OEnopides, had anticipated them;\neach had the same tense geometrical brain, apt for the same vigorous\ncomputation and logic, a mind parallel to the movement of the world.\nThe Roman mile probably rested on a measure of a degree of the meridian.\nMahometan and Chinese know what we know of leap-year, of the Gregorian\ncalendar, and of the precession of the equinoxes.  As, in every barrel\nof cowries, brought to New Bedford, there shall be one _orangia_, so\nthere will, in a dozen millions of Malays and Mahometans, be one or two\nastronomical skulls. In a large city, the most casual things, and things\nwhose beauty lies in their casualty, are produced as punctually and to\norder as the baker's muffin for breakfast.  Punch makes exactly one\ncapital joke a week; and the journals contrive to furnish one good piece\nof news every day.\n\nAnd not less work the laws of repression, the penalties of violated\nfunctions.  Famine, typhus, frost, war, suicide, and effete races, must\nbe reckoned calculable parts of the system of the world.\n\nThese are pebbles from the mountain, hints of the terms by which our\nlife is walled up, and which show a kind of mechanical exactness, as of\na loom or mill, in what we call casual or fortuitous events.\n\nThe force with which we resist these torrents of tendency looks so\nridiculously inadequate, that it amounts to little more than a criticism\nor a protest made by a minority of one, under compulsion of millions.  I\nseemed, in the height of a tempest, to see men overboard struggling in\nthe waves, and driven about here and there.  They glanced intelligently\nat each other, but 'twas little they could do for one another; 'twas\nmuch if each could keep afloat alone.  Well, they had a right to their\neye-beams, and all the rest was Fate.\n\n\nWe cannot trifle with this reality, this cropping-out in our planted\ngardens of the core of the world. No picture of life can have any\nveracity that does not admit the odious facts.  A man's power is hooped\nin by a necessity, which, by many experiments, he touches on every side,\nuntil he learns its arc.\n\nThe element running through entire nature, which we popularly call Fate,\nis known to us as limitation.  Whatever limits us, we call Fate.  If we\nare brute and barbarous, the fate takes a brute and dreadful shape.  As\nwe refine, our checks become finer.  If we rise to spiritual culture,\nthe antagonism takes a spiritual form.  In the Hindoo fables, Vishnu\nfollows Maya through all her ascending changes, from insect and crawfish\nup to elephant; whatever form she took, he took the male form of that\nkind, until she became at last woman and goddess, and he a man and a\ngod.  The limitations refine as the soul purifies, but the ring of\nnecessity is always perched at the top.\n\nWhen the gods in the Norse heaven were unable to bind the Fenris Wolf\nwith steel or with weight of mountains,--the one he snapped and the\nother he spurned with his heel,--they put round his foot a limp band\nsofter than silk or cobweb, and this held him: the more he spurned it,\nthe stiffer it drew.  So soft and so stanch is the ring of Fate. Neither\nbrandy, nor nectar, nor sulphuric ether, nor hell-fire, nor ichor, nor\npoetry, nor genius, can get rid of this limp band.  For if we give it\nthe high sense in which the poets use it, even thought itself is not\nabove Fate: that too must act according to eternal laws, and all that is\nwilful and fantastic in it is in opposition to its fundamental essence.\n\nAnd, last of all, high over thought, in the world of morals, Fate\nappears as vindicator, levelling the high, lifting the low, requiring\njustice in man, and always striking soon or late, when justice is not\ndone.  What is useful will last; what is hurtful will sink.  \"The doer\nmust suffer,\" said the Greeks: \"you would soothe a Deity not to be\nsoothed.\"  \"God himself cannot procure good for the wicked,\" said the\nWelsh triad.  \"God may consent, but only for a time,\" said the bard of\nSpain.  The limitation is impassable by any insight of man.  In its last\nand loftiest ascensions, insight itself, and the freedom of the will, is\none of its obedient members.  But we must not run into generalizations\ntoo large, but show the natural bounds or essential distinctions, and\nseek to do justice to the other elements as well.\n\n\nThus we trace Fate, in matter, mind, and morals,--in race, in\nretardations of strata, and in thought and character as well.  It is\neverywhere bound or limitation.  But Fate has its lord; limitation its\nlimits; is different seen from above and from below; from within and\nfrom without.  For, though Fate is immense, so is power, which is the\nother fact in the dual world, immense.  If Fate follows and limits\npower, power attends and antagonizes Fate.  We must respect Fate as\nnatural history, but there is more than natural history. For who and\nwhat is this criticism that pries into the matter?  Man is not order of\nnature, sack and sack, belly and members, link in a chain, nor any\nignominious baggage, but a stupendous antagonism, a dragging together of\nthe poles of the Universe.  He betrays his relation to what is below\nhim,--thick-skulled, small-brained, fishy, quadrumanous,--quadruped\nill-disguised, hardly escaped into biped, and has paid for the new\npowers by loss of some of the old ones.  But the lightning which\nexplodes and fashions planets, maker of planets and suns, is in him.  On\none side, elemental order, sandstone and granite, rock-ledges, peat-bog,\nforest, sea and shore; and, on the other part, thought, the spirit which\ncomposes and decomposes nature,--here they are, side by side, god and\ndevil, mind and matter, king and conspirator, belt and spasm, riding\npeacefully together in the eye and brain of every man.\n\nNor can he blink the freewill.  To hazard the contradiction,--freedom is\nnecessary.  If you please to plant yourself on the side of Fate, and\nsay, Fate is all; then we say, a part of Fate is the freedom of man.\nForever wells up the impulse of choosing and acting in the soul.\nIntellect annuls Fate.  So far as a man thinks, he is free.  And though\nnothing is more disgusting than the crowing about liberty by slaves, as\nmost men are, and the flippant mistaking for freedom of some paper\npreamble like a \"Declaration of Independence,\" or the statute right to\nvote, by those who have never dared to think or to act, yet it is\nwholesome to man to look not at Fate, but the other way: the practical\nview is the other.  His sound relation to these facts is to use and\ncommand, not to cringe to them.  \"Look not on nature, for her name is\nfatal,\" said the oracle.  The too much contemplation of these limits\ninduces meanness.  They who talk much of destiny, their birth-star, &c.,\nare in a lower dangerous plane, and invite the evils they fear.\n\nI cited the instinctive and heroic races as proud believers in Destiny.\nThey conspire with it; a loving resignation is with the event.  But the\ndogma makes a different impression, when it is held by the weak and\nlazy.  'Tis weak and vicious people who cast the blame on Fate.  The\nright use of Fate is to bring up our conduct to the loftiness of nature.\nRude and invincible except by themselves are the elements.  So let man\nbe.  Let him empty his breast of his windy conceits, and show his\nlordship by manners and deeds on the scale of nature.  Let him hold his\npurpose as with the tug of gravitation.  No power, no persuasion, no\nbribe shall make him give up his point.  A man ought to compare\nadvantageously with a river, an oak, or a mountain.  He shall have not\nless the flow, the expansion, and the resistance of these.\n\n'Tis the best use of Fate to teach a fatal courage. Go face the fire at\nsea, or the cholera in your friend's house, or the burglar in your own,\nor what danger lies in the way of duty, knowing you are guarded by the\ncherubim of Destiny.  If you believe in Fate to your harm, believe it,\nat least, for your good.\n\nFor, if Fate is so prevailing, man also is part of it, and can confront\nfate with fate.  If the Universe have these savage accidents, our atoms\nare as savage in resistance.  We should be crushed by the atmosphere,\nbut for the reaction of the air within the body.  A tube made of a film\nof glass can resist the shock of the ocean, if filled with the same\nwater.  If there be omnipotence in the stroke, there is omnipotence of\nrecoil.\n\n1. But Fate against Fate is only parrying and defence: there are, also,\nthe noble creative forces. The revelation of Thought takes man out of\nservitude into freedom.  We rightly say of ourselves, we were born, and\nafterward we were born again, and many times.  We have successive\nexperiences so important, that the new forgets the old, and hence the\nmythology of the seven or the nine heavens.  The day of days, the great\nday of the feast of life, is that in which the inward eye opens to the\nUnity in things, to the omnipresence of law;--sees that what is must be,\nand ought to be, or is the best.  This beatitude dips from on high down\non us, and we see.  It is not in us so much as we are in it.  If the air\ncome to our lungs, we breathe and live; if not, we die.  If the light\ncome to our eyes, we see; else not.  And if truth come to our mind, we\nsuddenly expand to its dimensions, as if we grew to worlds.  We are as\nlawgivers; we speak for Nature; we prophesy and divine.\n\nThis insight throws us on the party and interest of the Universe,\nagainst all and sundry; against ourselves, as much as others.  A man\nspeaking from insight affirms of himself what is true of the mind:\nseeing its immortality, he says, I am immortal; seeing its\ninvincibility, he says, I am strong.  It is not in us, but we are in it.\nIt is of the maker, not of what is made.  All things are touched and\nchanged by it.  This uses, and is not used.  It distances those who\nshare it, from those who share it not.  Those who share it not are\nflocks and herds.  It dates from itself;--not from former men or better\nmen,--gospel, or constitution, or college, or custom.  Where it shines,\nNature is no longer intrusive, but all things make a musical or\npictorial impression.  The world of men show like a comedy without\nlaughter:--populations, interests, government, history;--'tis all toy\nfigures in a toy house.  It does not overvalue particular truths.  We\nhear eagerly every thought and word quoted from an intellectual man.\nBut, in his presence, our own mind is roused to activity, and we forget\nvery fast what he says, much more interested in the new play of our own\nthought, than in any thought of his.  'Tis the majesty into which we\nhave suddenly mounted, the impersonality, the scorn of egotisms, the\nsphere of laws, that engage us.  Once we were stepping a little this\nway, and a little that way; now, we are as men in a balloon, and do not\nthink so much of the point we have left, or the point we would make, as\nof the liberty and glory of the way.\n\nJust as much intellect as you add, so much organic power.  He who sees\nthrough the design, presides over it, and must will that which must be.\nWe sit and rule, and, though we sleep, our dream will come to pass.  Our\nthought, though it were only an hour old, affirms an oldest necessity,\nnot to be separated from thought, and not to be separated from will.\nThey must always have coexisted.  It apprises us of its sovereignty and\ngodhead, which refuse to be severed from it.  It is not mine or thine,\nbut the will of all mind.  It is poured into the souls of all men, as\nthe soul itself which constitutes them men.  I know not whether there\nbe, as is alleged, in the upper region of our atmosphere, a permanent\nwesterly current, which carries with it all atoms which rise to that\nheight, but I see, that when souls reach a certain clearness of\nperception, they accept a knowledge and motive above selfishness. A\nbreath of will blows eternally through the universe of souls in the\ndirection of the Right and Necessary.  It is the air which all\nintellects inhale and exhale, and it is the wind which blows the worlds\ninto order and orbit.\n\nThought dissolves the material universe, by carrying the mind up into a\nsphere where all is plastic. Of two men, each obeying his own thought,\nhe whose thought is deepest will be the strongest character.  Always one\nman more than another represents the will of Divine Providence to the\nperiod.\n\n2. If thought makes free, so does the moral sentiment.  The mixtures of\nspiritual chemistry refuse to be analyzed.  Yet we can see that with the\nperception of truth is joined the desire that it shall prevail.  That\naffection is essential to will. Moreover, when a strong will appears, it\nusually results from a certain unity of organization, as if the whole\nenergy of body and mind flowed in one direction. All great force is real\nand elemental.  There is no manufacturing a strong will.  There must be\na pound to balance a pound.  Where power is shown in will, it must rest\non the universal force.  Alaric and Bonaparte must believe they rest on\na truth, or their will can be bought or bent.  There is a bribe possible\nfor any finite will.  But the pure sympathy with universal ends is an\ninfinite force, and cannot be bribed or bent.  Whoever has had\nexperience of the moral sentiment cannot choose but believe in unlimited\npower.  Each pulse from that heart is an oath from the Most High.  I\nknow not what the word _sublime_ means, if it be not the intimations in\nthis infant of a terrific force.  A text of heroism, a name and anecdote\nof courage, are not arguments, but sallies of freedom.  One of these is\nthe verse of the Persian Hafiz, \"'Tis written on the gate of Heaven, 'Wo\nunto him who suffers himself to be betrayed by Fate!'\"  Does the reading\nof history make us fatalists?  What courage does not the opposite\nopinion show!  A little whim of will to be free gallantly contending\nagainst the universe of chemistry.\n\nBut insight is not will, nor is affection will. Perception is cold, and\ngoodness dies in wishes; as Voltaire said, 'tis the misfortune of worthy\npeople that they are cowards; \"_un des plus grands malheurs des honnetes\ngens c'est qu'ils sont des laches_.\" There must be a fusion of these two\nto generate the energy of will.  There can be no driving force, except\nthrough the conversion of the man into his will, making him the will,\nand the will him.  And one may say boldly, that no man has a right\nperception of any truth, who has not been reacted on by it, so as to be\nready to be its martyr.\n\nThe one serious and formidable thing in nature is a will.  Society is\nservile from want of will, and therefore the world wants saviours and\nreligions. One way is right to go: the hero sees it, and moves on that\naim, and has the world under him for root and support.  He is to others\nas the world. His approbation is honor; his dissent, infamy.  The glance\nof his eye has the force of sunbeams.  A personal influence towers up in\nmemory only worthy, and we gladly forget numbers, money, climate,\ngravitation, and the rest of Fate.\n\n\nWe can afford to allow the limitation, if we know it is the meter of the\ngrowing man.  We stand against Fate, as children stand up against the\nwall in their father's house, and notch their height from year to year.\nBut when the boy grows to man, and is master of the house, he pulls down\nthat wall, and builds a new and bigger.  'Tis only a question of time.\nEvery brave youth is in training to ride and rule this dragon.  His\nscience is to make weapons and wings of these passions and retarding\nforces. Now whether, seeing these two things, fate and power, we are\npermitted to believe in unity?  The bulk of mankind believe in two gods.\nThey are under one dominion here in the house, as friend and parent, in\nsocial circles, in letters, in art, in love, in religion: but in\nmechanics, in dealing with steam and climate, in trade, in politics,\nthey think they come under another; and that it would be a practical\nblunder to transfer the method and way of working of one sphere, into\nthe other.  What good, honest, generous men at home, will be wolves and\nfoxes on change!  What pious men in the parlor will vote for what\nreprobates at the polls!  To a certain point, they believe themselves\nthe care of a Providence.  But, in a steamboat, in an epidemic, in war,\nthey believe a malignant energy rules.\n\nBut relation and connection are not somewhere and sometimes, but\neverywhere and always.  The divine order does not stop where their sight\nstops. The friendly power works on the same rules, in the next farm, and\nthe next planet.  But, where they have not experience, they run against\nit, and hurt themselves.  Fate, then, is a name for facts not yet passed\nunder the fire of thought;--for causes which are impenetrated.\n\nBut every jet of chaos which threatens to exterminate us, is convertible\nby intellect into wholesome force.  Fate is unpenetrated causes.  The\nwater drowns ship and sailor, like a grain of dust.  But learn to swim,\ntrim your bark, and the wave which drowned it, will be cloven by it, and\ncarry it, like its own foam, a plume and a power.  The cold is\ninconsiderate of persons, tingles your blood, freezes a man like a\ndew-drop.  But learn to skate, and the ice will give you a graceful,\nsweet, and poetic motion.  The cold will brace your limbs and brain to\ngenius, and make you foremost men of time. Cold and sea will train an\nimperial Saxon race, which nature cannot bear to lose, and, after\ncooping it up for a thousand years in yonder England, gives a hundred\nEnglands, a hundred Mexicos.  All the bloods it shall absorb and\ndomineer: and more than Mexicos,--the secrets of water and steam, the\nspasms of electricity, the ductility of metals, the chariot of the air,\nthe ruddered balloon are awaiting you.\n\nThe annual slaughter from typhus far exceeds that of war; but right\ndrainage destroys typhus. The plague in the sea-service from scurvy is\nhealed by lemon juice and other diets portable or procurable: the\ndepopulation by cholera and small-pox is ended by drainage and\nvaccination; and every other pest is not less in the chain of cause and\neffect, and may be fought off.  And, whilst art draws out the venom, it\ncommonly extorts some benefit from the vanquished enemy.  The\nmischievous torrent is taught to drudge for man: the wild beasts he\nmakes useful for food, or dress, or labor; the chemic explosions are\ncontrolled like his watch.  These are now the steeds on which he rides.\nMan moves in all modes, by legs of horses, by wings of wind, by steam,\nby gas of balloon, by electricity, and stands on tiptoe threatening to\nhunt the eagle in his own element.  There's nothing he will not make his\ncarrier.\n\nSteam was, till the other day, the devil which we dreaded.  Every pot\nmade by any human potter or brazier had a hole in its cover, to let off\nthe enemy, lest he should lift pot and roof, and carry the house away.\nBut the Marquis of Worcester, Watt, and Fulton bethought themselves,\nthat, where was power, was not devil, but was God; that it must be\navailed of, and not by any means let off and wasted. Could he lift pots\nand roofs and houses so handily? he was the workman they were in search\nof.  He could be used to lift away, chain, and compel other devils, far\nmore reluctant and dangerous, namely, cubic miles of earth, mountains,\nweight or resistance of water, machinery, and the labors of all men in\nthe world; and time he shall lengthen, and shorten space.\n\nIt has not fared much otherwise with higher kinds of steam.  The opinion\nof the million was the terror of the world, and it was attempted, either\nto dissipate it, by amusing nations, or to pile it over with strata of\nsociety,--a layer of soldiers; over that, a layer of lords; and a king\non the top; with clamps and hoops of castles, garrisons, and police.\nBut, sometimes, the religious principle would get in, and burst the\nhoops, and rive every mountain laid on top of it.  The Fultons and Watts\nof politics, believing in unity, saw that it was a power, and, by\nsatisfying it, (as justice satisfies everybody,) through a different\ndisposition of society,--grouping it on a level, instead of piling it\ninto a mountain,--they have contrived to make of this terror the most\nharmless and energetic form of a State.\n\nVery odious, I confess, are the lessons of Fate. Who likes to have a\ndapper phrenologist pronouncing on his fortunes?  Who likes to believe\nthat he has hidden in his skull, spine, and pelvis, all the vices of a\nSaxon or Celtic race, which will be sure to pull him down,--with what\ngrandeur of hope and resolve he is fired,--into a selfish, huckstering,\nservile, dodging animal?  A learned physician tells us, the fact is\ninvariable with the Neapolitan, that, when mature, he assumes the forms\nof the unmistakable scoundrel.  That is a little overstated,--but may\npass.\n\nBut these are magazines and arsenals.  A man must thank his defects, and\nstand in some terror of his talents.  A transcendent talent draws so\nlargely on his forces, as to lame him; a defect pays him revenues on the\nother side.  The sufferance, which is the badge of the Jew, has made\nhim, in these days, the ruler of the rulers of the earth. If Fate is ore\nand quarry, if evil is good in the making, if limitation is power that\nshall be, if calamities, oppositions, and weights are wings and\nmeans,--we are reconciled.\n\nFate involves the melioration.  No statement of the Universe can have\nany soundness, which does not admit its ascending effort.  The direction\nof the whole, and of the parts, is toward benefit, and in proportion to\nthe health.  Behind every individual, closes organization: before him,\nopens liberty,--the Better, the Best.  The first and worst races are\ndead.  The second and imperfect races are dying out, or remain for the\nmaturing of higher.  In the latest race, in man, every generosity, every\nnew perception, the love and praise he extorts from his fellows, are\ncertificates of advance out of fate into freedom.  Liberation of the\nwill from the sheaths and clogs of organization which he has outgrown,\nis the end and aim of this world.  Every calamity is a spur and valuable\nhint; and where his endeavors do not yet fully avail, they tell as\ntendency. The whole circle of animal life,--tooth against\ntooth,--devouring war, war for food, a yelp of pain and a grunt of\ntriumph, until, at last, the whole menagerie, the whole chemical mass is\nmellowed and refined for higher use,--pleases at a sufficient\nperspective.\n\nBut to see how fate slides into freedom, and freedom into fate, observe\nhow far the roots of every creature run, or find, if you can, a point\nwhere there is no thread of connection.  Our life is consentaneous and\nfar-related.  This knot of nature is so well tied, that nobody was ever\ncunning enough to find the two ends.  Nature is intricate, overlapped,\ninterweaved, and endless.  Christopher Wren said of the beautiful King's\nCollege chapel, \"that, if anybody would tell him where to lay the first\nstone, he would build such another.\"  But where shall we find the first\natom in this house of man, which is all consent, inosculation, and\nbalance of parts?\n\nThe web of relation is shown in _habitat_, shown in hybernation.  When\nhybernation was observed, it was found, that, whilst some animals became\ntorpid in winter, others were torpid in summer: hybernation then was a\nfalse name.  The _long sleep_ is not an effect of cold, but is regulated\nby the supply of food proper to the animal.  It becomes torpid when the\nfruit or prey it lives on is not in season, and regains its activity\nwhen its food is ready.\n\nEyes are found in light; ears in auricular air; feet on land; fins in\nwater; wings in air; and, each creature where it was meant to be, with a\nmutual fitness.  Every zone has its own Fauna. There is adjustment\nbetween the animal and its food, its parasite, its enemy.  Balances are\nkept. It is not allowed to diminish in numbers, nor to exceed.  The like\nadjustments exist for man.  His food is cooked, when he arrives; his\ncoal in the pit; the house ventilated; the mud of the deluge dried; his\ncompanions arrived at the same hour, and awaiting him with love,\nconcert, laughter, and tears. These are coarse adjustments, but the\ninvisible are not less.  There are more belongings to every creature\nthan his air and his food.  His instincts must be met, and he has\npredisposing power that bends and fits what is near him to his use.  He\nis not possible until the invisible things are right for him, as well as\nthe visible.  Of what changes, then, in sky and earth, and in finer\nskies and earths, does the appearance of some Dante or Columbus apprise\nus!\n\nHow is this effected?  Nature is no spendthrift, but takes the shortest\nway to her ends.  As the general says to his soldiers, \"if you want a\nfort, build a fort,\" so nature makes every creature do its own work and\nget its living,--is it planet, animal, or tree.  The planet makes\nitself.  The animal cell makes itself;--then, what it wants.  Every\ncreature,--wren or dragon,--shall make its own lair. As soon as there is\nlife, there is self-direction, and absorbing and using of material.\nLife is freedom,--life in the direct ratio of its amount.  You may be\nsure, the new-born man is not inert.  Life works both voluntarily and\nsupernaturally in its neighborhood. Do you suppose, he can be estimated\nby his weight in pounds, or, that he is contained in his skin,--this\nreaching, radiating, jaculating fellow? The smallest candle fills a mile\nwith its rays, and the papillae of a man run out to every star.\n\nWhen there is something to be done, the world knows how to get it done.\nThe vegetable eye makes leaf, pericarp, root, bark, or thorn, as the\nneed is; the first cell converts itself into stomach, mouth, nose, or\nnail, according to the want: the world throws its life into a hero or a\nshepherd; and puts him where he is wanted.  Dante and Columbus were\nItalians, in their time: they would be Russians or Americans to-day.\nThings ripen, new men come.  The adaptation is not capricious.  The\nulterior aim, the purpose beyond itself, the correlation by which\nplanets subside and crystallize, then animate beasts and men, will not\nstop, but will work into finer particulars, and from finer to finest.\n\nThe secret of the world is, the tie between person and event.  Person\nmakes event, and event person. The \"times,\" \"the age,\" what is that, but\na few profound persons and a few active persons who epitomize the\ntimes?--Goethe, Hegel, Metternich, Adams, Calhoun, Guizot, Peel, Cobden,\nKossuth, Rothschild, Astor, Brunel, and the rest.  The same fitness must\nbe presumed between a man and the time and event, as between the sexes,\nor between a race of animals and the food it eats, or the inferior races\nit uses.  He thinks his fate alien, because the copula is hidden.  But\nthe soul contains the event that shall befall it, for the event is only\nthe actualization of its thoughts; and what we pray to ourselves for is\nalways granted.  The event is the print of your form.  It fits you like\nyour skin.  What each does is proper to him.  Events are the children of\nhis body and mind.  We learn that the soul of Fate is the soul of us, as\nHafiz sings,\n\n    Alas! till now I had not known,\n    My guide and fortune's guide are one.\n\nAll the toys that infatuate men, and which they play for,--houses, land,\nmoney, luxury, power, fame, are the selfsame thing, with a new gauze or\ntwo of illusion overlaid.  And of all the drums and rattles by which men\nare made willing to have their heads broke, and are led out solemnly\nevery morning to parade,--the most admirable is this by which we are\nbrought to believe that events are arbitrary, and independent of\nactions.  At the conjuror's, we detect the hair by which he moves his\npuppet, but we have not eyes sharp enough to descry the thread that ties\ncause and effect.\n\nNature magically suits the man to his fortunes, by making these the\nfruit of his character.  Ducks take to the water, eagles to the sky,\nwaders to the sea margin, hunters to the forest, clerks to\ncounting-rooms, soldiers to the frontier.  Thus events grow on the same\nstem with persons; are sub-persons. The pleasure of life is according to\nthe man that lives it, and not according to the work or the place. Life\nis an ecstasy.  We know what madness belongs to love,--what power to\npaint a vile object in hues of heaven.  As insane persons are\nindifferent to their dress, diet, and other accommodations, and, as we\ndo in dreams, with equanimity, the most absurd acts, so, a drop more of\nwine in our cup of life will reconcile us to strange company and work.\nEach creature puts forth from itself its own condition and sphere, as\nthe slug sweats out its slimy house on the pear-leaf, and the woolly\naphides on the apple perspire their own bed, and the fish its shell.  In\nyouth, we clothe ourselves with rainbows, and go as brave as the zodiac.\nIn age, we put out another sort of perspiration,--gout, fever,\nrheumatism, caprice, doubt, fretting, and avarice.\n\nA man's fortunes are the fruit of his character. A man's friends are his\nmagnetisms.  We go to Herodotus and Plutarch for examples of Fate; but\nwe are examples.  \"_Quisque suos patimur manes_.\"  The tendency of every\nman to enact all that is in his constitution is expressed in the old\nbelief, that the efforts which we make to escape from our destiny only\nserve to lead us into it: and I have noticed, a man likes better to be\ncomplimented on his position, as the proof of the last or total\nexcellence, than on his merits.\n\nA man will see his character emitted in the events that seem to meet,\nbut which exude from and accompany him.  Events expand with the\ncharacter.  As once he found himself among toys, so now he plays a part\nin colossal systems, and his growth is declared in his ambition, his\ncompanions, and his performance.  He looks like a piece of luck, but is\na piece of causation;--the mosaic, angulated and ground to fit into the\ngap he fills.  Hence in each town there is some man who is, in his brain\nand performance, an explanation of the tillage, production, factories,\nbanks, churches, ways of living, and society, of that town.  If you do\nnot chance to meet him, all that you see will leave you a little\npuzzled: if you see him, it will become plain.  We know in Massachusetts\nwho built New Bedford, who built Lynn, Lowell, Lawrence, Clinton,\nFitchburg, Holyoke, Portland, and many another noisy mart.  Each of\nthese men, if they were transparent, would seem to you not so much men,\nas walking cities, and, wherever you put them, they would build one.\n\nHistory is the action and reaction of these two,--Nature and\nThought;--two boys pushing each other on the curb-stone of the pavement.\nEverything is pusher or pushed: and matter and mind are in perpetual\ntilt and balance, so.  Whilst the man is weak, the earth takes up him.\nHe plants his brain and affections.  By and by he will take up the\nearth, and have his gardens and vineyards in the beautiful order and\nproductiveness of his thought.  Every solid in the universe is ready to\nbecome fluid on the approach of the mind, and the power to flux it is\nthe measure of the mind.  If the wall remain adamant, it accuses the\nwant of thought.  To a subtler force, it will stream into new forms,\nexpressive of the character of the mind. What is the city in which we\nsit here, but an aggregate of incongruous materials, which have obeyed\nthe will of some man?  The granite was reluctant, but his hands were\nstronger, and it came.  Iron was deep in the ground, and well combined\nwith stone; but could not hide from his fires.  Wood, lime, stuffs,\nfruits, gums, were dispersed over the earth and sea, in vain.  Here they\nare, within reach of every man's day-labor,--what he wants of them. The\nwhole world is the flux of matter over the wires of thought to the poles\nor points where it would build.  The races of men rise out of the ground\npreoccupied with a thought which rules them, and divided into parties\nready armed and angry to fight for this metaphysical abstraction. The\nquality of the thought differences the Egyptian and the Roman, the\nAustrian and the American.  The men who come on the stage at one period\nare all found to be related to each other. Certain ideas are in the air.\nWe are all impressionable, for we are made of them; all impressionable,\nbut some more than others, and these first express them.  This explains\nthe curious contemporaneousness of inventions and discoveries.  The\ntruth is in the air, and the most impressionable brain will announce it\nfirst, but all will announce it a few minutes later.  So women, as most\nsusceptible, are the best index of the coming hour. So the great man,\nthat is, the man most imbued with the spirit of the time, is the\nimpressionable man,--of a fibre irritable and delicate, like iodine to\nlight.  He feels the infinitesimal attractions. His mind is righter than\nothers, because he yields to a current so feeble as can be felt only by\na needle delicately poised.\n\nThe correlation is shown in defects.  Moeller, in his Essay on\nArchitecture, taught that the building which was fitted accurately to\nanswer its end, would turn out to be beautiful, though beauty had not\nbeen intended.  I find the like unity in human structures rather\nvirulent and pervasive; that a crudity in the blood will appear in the\nargument; a hump in the shoulder will appear in the speech and\nhandiwork.  If his mind could be seen, the hump would be seen.  If a man\nhas a seesaw in his voice, it will run into his sentences, into his\npoem, into the structure of his fable, into his speculation, into his\ncharity.  And, as every man is hunted by his own daemon, vexed by his\nown disease, this checks all his activity.\n\nSo each man, like each plant, has his parasites. A strong, astringent,\nbilious nature has more truculent enemies than the slugs and moths that\nfret my leaves.  Such an one has curculios, borers, knife-worms: a\nswindler ate him first, then a client, then a quack, then smooth,\nplausible gentlemen, bitter and selfish as Moloch.\n\nThis correlation really existing can be divined. If the threads are\nthere, thought can follow and show them.  Especially when a soul is\nquick and docile; as Chaucer sings,\n\n    \"Or if the soul of proper kind\n    Be so perfect as men find,\n    That it wot what is to come,\n    And that he warneth all and some\n    Of every of their aventures,\n    By previsions or figures;\n    But that our flesh hath not might\n    It to understand aright\n    For it is warned too darkly.\"--\n\nSome people are made up of rhyme, coincidence, omen, periodicity, and\npresage: they meet the person they seek; what their companion prepares\nto say to them, they first say to him; and a hundred signs apprise them\nof what is about to befall.\n\nWonderful intricacy in the web, wonderful constancy in the design this\nvagabond life admits.  We wonder how the fly finds its mate, and yet\nyear after year we find two men, two women, without legal or carnal tie,\nspend a great part of their best time within a few feet of each other.\nAnd the moral is, that what we seek we shall find; what we flee from\nflees from us; as Goethe said, \"what we wish for in youth, comes in\nheaps on us in old age,\" too often cursed with the granting of our\nprayer: and hence the high caution, that, since we are sure of having\nwhat we wish, we beware to ask only for high things.\n\nOne key, one solution to the mysteries of human condition, one solution\nto the old knots of fate, freedom, and foreknowledge, exists, the\npropounding, namely, of the double consciousness.  A man must ride\nalternately on the horses of his private and his public nature, as the\nequestrians in the circus throw themselves nimbly from horse to horse,\nor plant one foot on the back of one, and the other foot on the back of\nthe other.  So when a man is the victim of his fate, has sciatica in his\nloins, and cramp in his mind; a club-foot and a club in his wit; a sour\nface, and a selfish temper; a strut in his gait, and a conceit in his\naffection; or is ground to powder by the vice of his race; he is to\nrally on his relation to the Universe, which his ruin benefits. Leaving\nthe daemon who suffers, he is to take sides with the Deity who secures\nuniversal benefit by his pain.\n\nTo offset the drag of temperament and race, which pulls down, learn this\nlesson, namely, that by the cunning co-presence of two elements, which\nis throughout nature, whatever lames or paralyzes you, draws in with it\nthe divinity, in some form, to repay.  A good intention clothes itself\nwith sudden power.  When a god wishes to ride, any chip or pebble will\nbud and shoot out winged feet, and serve him for a horse.\n\nLet us build altars to the Blessed Unity which holds nature and souls in\nperfect solution, and compels every atom to serve an universal end.  I\ndo not wonder at a snow-flake, a shell, a summer landscape, or the glory\nof the stars; but at the necessity of beauty under which the universe\nlies; that all is and must be pictorial; that the rainbow, and the curve\nof the horizon, and the arch of the blue vault are only results from the\norganism of the eye. There is no need for foolish amateurs to fetch me\nto admire a garden of flowers, or a sun-gilt cloud, or a waterfall, when\nI cannot look without seeing splendor and grace.  How idle to choose a\nrandom sparkle here or there, when the indwelling necessity plants the\nrose of beauty on the brow of chaos, and discloses the central intention\nof Nature to be harmony and joy.\n\nLet us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity. If we thought men were\nfree in the sense, that, in a single exception one fantastical will\ncould prevail over the law of things, it were all one as if a child's\nhand could pull down the sun.  If, in the least particular, one could\nderange the order of nature,--who would accept the gift of life?\n\nLet us build altars to the Beautiful Necessity, which secures that all\nis made of one piece; that plaintiff and defendant, friend and enemy,\nanimal and planet, food and eater, are of one kind.  In astronomy, is\nvast space, but no foreign system; in geology, vast time, but the same\nlaws as to-day. Why should we be afraid of Nature, which is no other\nthan \"philosophy and theology embodied\"? Why should we fear to be\ncrushed by savage elements, we who are made up of the same elements? Let\nus build to the Beautiful Necessity, which makes man brave in believing\nthat he cannot shun a danger that is appointed, nor incur one that is\nnot; to the Necessity which rudely or softly educates him to the\nperception that there are no contingencies; that Law rules throughout\nexistence, a Law which is not intelligent but intelligence,--not\npersonal nor impersonal,--it disdains words and passes understanding; it\ndissolves persons; it vivifies nature; yet solicits the pure in heart to\ndraw on all its omnipotence.\n\n\n\n\n                                  II.\n\n\n                                 POWER.\n\n\n    His tongue was framed to music,\n    And his hand was armed with skill,\n    His face was the mould of beauty,\n    And his heart the throne of will.\n\n\n\n                                 POWER.\n\n\nThere is not yet any inventory of a man's faculties, any more than a\nbible of his opinions.  Who shall set a limit to the influence of a\nhuman being? There are men, who, by their sympathetic attractions, carry\nnations with them, and lead the activity of the human race.  And if\nthere be such a tie, that, wherever the mind of man goes, nature will\naccompany him, perhaps there are men whose magnetisms are of that force\nto draw material and elemental powers, and, where they appear, immense\ninstrumentalities organize around them.  Life is a search after power;\nand this is an element with which the world is so saturated,--there is\nno chink or crevice in which it is not lodged,--that no honest seeking\ngoes unrewarded.  A man should prize events and possessions as the ore\nin which this fine mineral is found; and he can well afford to let\nevents and possessions, and the breath of the body go, if their value\nhas been added to him in the shape of power.  If he have secured the\nelixir, he can spare the wide gardens from which it was distilled. A\ncultivated man, wise to know and bold to perform, is the end to which\nnature works, and the education of the will is the flowering and result\nof all this geology and astronomy.\n\nAll successful men have agreed in one thing,--they were _causationists_.\nThey believed that things went not by luck, but by law; that there was\nnot a weak or a cracked link in the chain that joins the first and last\nof things.  A belief in causality, or strict connection between every\ntrifle and the principle of being, and, in consequence, belief in\ncompensation, or, that nothing is got for nothing,--characterizes all\nvaluable minds, and must control every effort that is made by an\nindustrious one. The most valiant men are the best believers in the\ntension of the laws.  \"All the great captains,\" said Bonaparte, \"have\nperformed vast achievements by conforming with the rules of the art,--by\nadjusting efforts to obstacles.\"\n\nThe key to the age may be this, or that, or the other, as the young\norators describe;--the key to all ages is--Imbecility; imbecility in the\nvast majority of men, at all times, and, even in heroes, in all but\ncertain eminent moments; victims of gravity, custom, and fear.  This\ngives force to the strong,--that the multitude have no habit of\nself-reliance or original action.\n\nWe must reckon success a constitutional trait. Courage,--the old\nphysicians taught, (and their meaning holds, if their physiology is a\nlittle mythical,)--courage, or the degree of life, is as the degree of\ncirculation of the blood in the arteries. \"During passion, anger, fury,\ntrials of strength, wrestling, fighting, a large amount of blood is\ncollected in the arteries, the maintenance of bodily strength requiring\nit, and but little is sent into the veins.  This condition is constant\nwith intrepid persons.\"  Where the arteries hold their blood, is courage\nand adventure possible.  Where they pour it unrestrained into the veins,\nthe spirit is low and feeble.  For performance of great mark, it needs\nextraordinary health.  If Eric is in robust health, and has slept well,\nand is at the top of his condition, and thirty years old, at his\ndeparture from Greenland, he will steer west, and his ships will reach\nNewfoundland.  But take out Eric, and put in a stronger and bolder\nman,--Biorn, or Thorfin,--and the ships will, with just as much ease,\nsail six hundred, one thousand, fifteen hundred miles further, and reach\nLabrador and New England.  There is no chance in results.  With adults,\nas with children, one class enter cordially into the game, and whirl\nwith the whirling world; the others have cold hands, and remain\nbystanders; or are only dragged in by the humor and vivacity of those\nwho can carry a dead weight.  The first wealth is health.  Sickness is\npoor-spirited, and cannot serve any one: it must husband its resources\nto live.  But health or fulness answers its own ends, and has to spare,\nruns over, and inundates the neighborhoods and creeks of other men's\nnecessities.\n\nAll power is of one kind, a sharing of the nature of the world.  The\nmind that is parallel with the laws of nature will be in the current of\nevents, and strong with their strength.  One man is made of the same\nstuff of which events are made; is in sympathy with the course of\nthings; can predict it. Whatever befalls, befalls him first; so that he\nis equal to whatever shall happen.  A man who knows men, can talk well\non politics, trade, law, war, religion.  For, everywhere, men are led in\nthe same manners.\n\nThe advantage of a strong pulse is not to be supplied by any labor, art,\nor concert.  It is like the climate, which easily rears a crop, which no\nglass, or irrigation, or tillage, or manures, can elsewhere rival.  It\nis like the opportunity of a city like New York, or Constantinople,\nwhich needs no diplomacy to force capital or genius or labor to it.\nThey come of themselves, as the waters flow to it.  So a broad, healthy,\nmassive understanding seems to lie on the shore of unseen rivers, of\nunseen oceans, which are covered with barks, that, night and day, are\ndrifted to this point.  That is poured into its lap, which other men lie\nplotting for.  It is in everybody's secret; anticipates everybody's\ndiscovery; and if it do not command every fact of the genius and the\nscholar, it is because it is large and sluggish, and does not think them\nworth the exertion which you do.\n\nThis affirmative force is in one, and is not in another, as one horse\nhas the spring in him, and another in the whip.  \"On the neck of the\nyoung man,\" said Hafiz, \"sparkles no gem so gracious as enterprise.\"\nImport into any stationary district, as into an old Dutch population in\nNew York or Pennsylvania, or among the planters of Virginia, a colony of\nhardy Yankees, with seething brains, heads full of steam-hammer, pulley,\ncrank, and toothed wheel,--and everything begins to shine with values.\nWhat enhancement to all the water and land in England, is the arrival of\nJames Watt or Brunel!  In every company, there is not only the active\nand passive sex, but, in both men and women, a deeper and more important\n_sex of mind_, namely, the inventive or creative class of both men and\nwomen, and the uninventive or accepting class. Each _plus_ man\nrepresents his set, and, if he have the accidental advantage of personal\nascendency,--which implies neither more nor less of talent, but merely\nthe temperamental or taming eye of a soldier or a schoolmaster, (which\none has, and one has not, as one has a black moustache and one a blond,)\nthen quite easily and without envy or resistance, all his coadjutors and\nfeeders will admit his right to absorb them.  The merchant works by\nbook-keeper and cashier; the lawyer's authorities are hunted up by\nclerks; the geologist reports the surveys of his subalterns; Commander\nWilkes appropriates the results of all the naturalists attached to the\nExpedition; Thorwaldsen's statue is finished by stone-cutters; Dumas has\njourneymen; and Shakspeare was theatre-manager, and used the labor of\nmany young men, as well as the playbooks.\n\nThere is always room for a man of force, and he makes room for many.\nSociety is a troop of thinkers, and the best heads among them take the\nbest places.  A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled,\nthe houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and\nfarms. His eye makes estates, as fast as the sun breeds clouds.\n\nWhen a new boy comes into school, when a man travels, and encounters\nstrangers every day, or, when into any old club a new comer is\ndomesticated, that happens which befalls, when a strange ox is driven\ninto a pen or pasture where cattle are kept; there is at once a trial of\nstrength between the best pair of horns and the new comer, and it is\nsettled thenceforth which is the leader.  So now, there is a measuring\nof strength, very courteous, but decisive, and an acquiescence\nthenceforward when these two meet.  Each reads his fate in the other's\neyes.  The weaker party finds, that none of his information or wit quite\nfits the occasion. He thought he knew this or that: he finds that he\nomitted to learn the end of it.  Nothing that he knows will quite hit\nthe mark, whilst all the rival's arrows are good, and well thrown.  But\nif he knew all the facts in the encyclopaedia, it would not help him:\nfor this is an affair of presence of mind, of attitude, of aplomb: the\nopponent has the sun and wind, and, in every cast, the choice of weapon\nand mark; and, when he himself is matched with some other antagonist,\nhis own shafts fly well and hit. 'Tis a question of stomach and\nconstitution.  The second man is as good as the first,--perhaps better;\nbut has not stoutness or stomach, as the first has, and so his wit seems\nover-fine or under-fine.\n\nHealth is good,--power, life, that resists disease, poison, and all\nenemies, and is conservative, as well as creative.  Here is question,\nevery spring, whether to graft with wax, or whether with clay; whether\nto whitewash or to potash, or to prune; but the one point is the thrifty\ntree.  A good tree, that agrees with the soil, will grow in spite of\nblight, or bug, or pruning, or neglect, by night and by day, in all\nweathers and all treatments.  Vivacity, leadership, must be had, and we\nare not allowed to be nice in choosing.  We must fetch the pump with\ndirty water, if clean cannot be had.  If we will make bread, we must\nhave contagion, yeast, emptyings, or what not, to induce fermentation\ninto the dough: as the torpid artist seeks inspiration at any cost, by\nvirtue or by vice, by friend or by fiend, by prayer or by wine.  And we\nhave a certain instinct, that where is great amount of life, though\ngross and peccant, it has its own checks and purifications, and will be\nfound at last in harmony with moral laws.\n\nWe watch in children with pathetic interest, the degree in which they\npossess recuperative force. When they are hurt by us, or by each other,\nor go to the bottom of the class, or miss the annual prizes, or are\nbeaten in the game,--if they lose heart, and remember the mischance in\ntheir chamber at home, they have a serious check.  But if they have the\nbuoyancy and resistance that preoccupies them with new interest in the\nnew moment,--the wounds cicatrize, and the fibre is the tougher for the\nhurt.\n\nOne comes to value this _plus_ health, when he sees that all\ndifficulties vanish before it.  A timid man listening to the alarmists\nin Congress, and in the newspapers, and observing the profligacy of\nparty,--sectional interests urged with a fury which shuts its eyes to\nconsequences, with a mind made up to desperate extremities, ballot in\none hand, and rifle in the other,--might easily believe that he and his\ncountry have seen their best days, and he hardens himself the best he\ncan against the coming ruin.  But, after this has been foretold with\nequal confidence fifty times, and government six per cents have not\ndeclined a quarter of a mill, he discovers that the enormous elements of\nstrength which are here in play, make our politics unimportant.\nPersonal power, freedom, and the resources of nature strain every\nfaculty of every citizen.  We prosper with such vigor, that, like\nthrifty trees, which grow in spite of ice, lice, mice, and borers, so we\ndo not suffer from the profligate swarms that fatten on the national\ntreasury.  The huge animals nourish huge parasites, and the rancor of\nthe disease attests the strength of the constitution.  The same energy\nin the Greek _Demos_ drew the remark, that the evils of popular\ngovernment appear greater than they are; there is compensation for them\nin the spirit and energy it awakens. The rough and ready style which\nbelongs to a people of sailors, foresters, farmers, and mechanics, has\nits advantages.  Power educates the potentate. As long as our people\nquote English standards they dwarf their own proportions.  A Western\nlawyer of eminence said to me he wished it were a penal offence to bring\nan English law-book into a court in this country, so pernicious had he\nfound in his experience our deference to English precedent. The very\nword 'commerce' has only an English meaning, and is pinched to the cramp\nexigencies of English experience.  The commerce of rivers, the commerce\nof railroads, and who knows but the commerce of air-balloons, must add\nan American extension to the pond-hole of admiralty.  As long as our\npeople quote English standards, they will miss the sovereignty of power;\nbut let these rough riders,--legislators in shirt-sleeves,--Hoosier,\nSucker, Wolverine, Badger,--or whatever hard head Arkansas, Oregon, or\nUtah sends, half orator, half assassin, to represent its wrath and\ncupidity at Washington,--let these drive as they may; and the\ndisposition of territories and public lands, the necessity of balancing\nand keeping at bay the snarling majorities of German, Irish, and of\nnative millions, will bestow promptness, address, and reason, at last,\non our buffalo-hunter, and authority and majesty of manners.  The\ninstinct of the people is right.  Men expect from good whigs, put into\noffice by the respectability of the country, much less skill to deal\nwith Mexico, Spain, Britain, or with our own malcontent members, than\nfrom some strong transgressor, like Jefferson, or Jackson, who first\nconquers his own government, and then uses the same genius to conquer\nthe foreigner.  The senators who dissented from Mr. Polk's Mexican war,\nwere not those who knew better, but those who, from political position,\ncould afford it; not Webster, but Benton and Calhoun.\n\nThis power, to be sure, is not clothed in satin. 'Tis the power of Lynch\nlaw, of soldiers and pirates; and it bullies the peaceable and loyal.\nBut it brings its own antidote; and here is my point,--that all kinds of\npower usually emerge at the same time; good energy, and bad; power of\nmind, with physical health; the ecstasies of devotion, with the\nexasperations of debauchery.  The same elements are always present, only\nsometimes these conspicuous, and sometimes those; what was yesterday\nforeground, being to-day background,--what was surface, playing now a\nnot less effective part as basis.  The longer the drought lasts, the\nmore is the atmosphere surcharged with water.  The faster the ball falls\nto the sun, the force to fly off is by so much augmented.  And, in\nmorals, wild liberty breeds iron conscience; natures with great impulses\nhave great resources, and return from far.  In politics, the sons of\ndemocrats will be whigs; whilst red republicanism, in the father, is a\nspasm of nature to engender an intolerable tyrant in the next age. On\nthe other hand, conservatism, ever more timorous and narrow, disgusts\nthe children, and drives them for a mouthful of fresh air into\nradicalism.\n\nThose who have most of this coarse energy,--the 'bruisers,' who have run\nthe gauntlet of caucus and tavern through the county or the state, have\ntheir own vices, but they have the good nature of strength and courage.\nFierce and unscrupulous, they are usually frank and direct, and above\nfalsehood. Our politics fall into bad hands, and churchmen and men of\nrefinement, it seems agreed, are not fit persons to send to Congress.\nPolitics is a deleterious profession, like some poisonous handicrafts.\nMen in power have no opinions, but may be had cheap for any opinion, for\nany purpose,--and if it be only a question between the most civil and\nthe most forcible, I lean to the last.  These Hoosiers and Suckers are\nreally better than the snivelling opposition.  Their wrath is at least\nof a bold and manly cast.  They see, against the unanimous declarations\nof the people, how much crime the people will bear; they proceed from\nstep to step, and they have calculated but too justly upon their\nExcellencies, the New England governors, and upon their Honors, the New\nEngland legislators.  The messages of the governors and the resolutions\nof the legislatures, are a proverb for expressing a sham virtuous\nindignation, which, in the course of events, is sure to be belied.\n\nIn trade, also, this energy usually carries a trace of ferocity.\nPhilanthropic and religious bodies do not commonly make their executive\nofficers out of saints.  The communities hitherto founded by\nSocialists,--the Jesuits, the Port-Royalists, the American communities\nat New Harmony, at Brook Farm, at Zoar, are only possible, by installing\nJudas as steward.  The rest of the offices may be filled by good\nburgesses.  The pious and charitable proprietor has a foreman not quite\nso pious and charitable.  The most amiable of country gentlemen has a\ncertain pleasure in the teeth of the bull-dog which guards his orchard.\nOf the Shaker society, it was formerly a sort of proverb in the country,\nthat they always sent the devil to market.  And in representations of\nthe Deity, painting, poetry, and popular religion have ever drawn the\nwrath from Hell. It is an esoteric doctrine of society, that a little\nwickedness is good to make muscle; as if conscience were not good for\nhands and legs, as if poor decayed formalists of law and order cannot\nrun like wild goats, wolves, and conies; that, as there is a use in\nmedicine for poisons, so the world cannot move without rogues; that\npublic spirit and the ready hand are as well found among the malignants.\n'Tis not very rare, the coincidence of sharp private and political\npractice, with public spirit, and good neighborhood.\n\nI knew a burly Boniface who for many years kept a public-house in one of\nour rural capitals. He was a knave whom the town could ill spare. He was\na social, vascular creature, grasping and selfish.  There was no crime\nwhich he did not or could not commit.  But he made good friends of the\nselectmen, served them with his best chop, when they supped at his\nhouse, and also with his honor the Judge, he was very cordial, grasping\nhis hand. He introduced all the fiends, male and female, into the town,\nand united in his person the functions of bully, incendiary, swindler,\nbarkeeper, and burglar. He girdled the trees, and cut off the horses'\ntails of the temperance people, in the night.  He led the rummies' and\nradicals in town-meeting with a speech.  Meantime, he was civil, fat,\nand easy, in his house, and precisely the most public-spirited citizen.\nHe was active in getting the roads repaired and planted with\nshade-trees; he subscribed for the fountains, the gas, and the\ntelegraph; he introduced the new horse-rake, the new scraper, the\nbaby-jumper, and what not, that Connecticut sends to the admiring\ncitizens.  He did this the easier, that the peddler stopped at his\nhouse, and paid his keeping, by setting up his new trap on the\nlandlord's premises.\n\nWhilst thus the energy for originating and executing work, deforms\nitself by excess, and so our axe chops off our own fingers,--this evil\nis not without remedy.  All the elements whose aid man calls in, will\nsometimes become his masters, especially those of most subtle force.\nShall he, then, renounce steam, fire, and electricity, or, shall he\nlearn to deal with them?  The rule for this whole class of agencies\nis,--all _plus_ is good; only put it in the right place.\n\nMen of this surcharge of arterial blood cannot live on nuts, herb-tea,\nand elegies; cannot read novels, and play whist; cannot satisfy all\ntheir wants at the Thursday Lecture, or the Boston Athenaeum.  They pine\nfor adventure, and must go to Pike's Peak; had rather die by the hatchet\nof a Pawnee, than sit all day and every day at a counting-room desk.\nThey are made for war, for the sea, for mining, hunting, and clearing;\nfor hair-breadth adventures, huge risks, and the joy of eventful living.\nSome men cannot endure an hour of calm at sea.  I remember a poor Malay\ncook, on board a Liverpool packet, who, when the wind blew a gale, could\nnot contain his joy; \"Blow!\" he cried, \"me do tell you, blow!\"  Their\nfriends and governors must see that some vent for their explosive\ncomplexion is provided.  The roisters who are destined for infamy at\nhome, if sent to Mexico, will \"cover you with glory,\" and come back\nheroes and generals.  There are Oregons, Californias, and Exploring\nExpeditions enough appertaining to America, to find them in files to\ngnaw, and in crocodiles to eat.  The young English are fine animals,\nfull of blood, and when they have no wars to breathe their riotous\nvalors in, they seek for travels as dangerous as war, diving into\nMaelstroms; swimming Hellesponts; wading up the snowy Himmaleh; hunting\nlion, rhinoceros, elephant, in South Africa; gypsying with Borrow in\nSpain and Algiers; riding alligators in South America with Waterton;\nutilizing Bedouin, Sheik, and Pacha, with Layard; yachting among the\nicebergs of Lancaster Sound; peeping into craters on the equator; or\nrunning on the creases of Malays in Borneo.\n\nThe excess of virility has the same importance in general history, as in\nprivate and industrial life. Strong race or strong individual rests at\nlast on natural forces, which are best in the savage, who, like the\nbeasts around him, is still in reception of the milk from the teats of\nNature.  Cut off the connection between any of our works, and this\naboriginal source, and the work is shallow.  The people lean on this,\nand the mob is not quite so bad an argument as we sometimes say, for it\nhas this good side.  \"March without the people,\" said a French deputy\nfrom the tribune, \"and you march into night: their instincts are a\nfinger-pointing of Providence, always turned toward real benefit.  But\nwhen you espouse an Orleans party, or a Bourbon, or a Montalembert\nparty, or any other but an organic party, though you mean well, you have\na personality instead of a principle, which will inevitably drag you\ninto a corner.\"\n\nThe best anecdotes of this force are to be had from savage life, in\nexplorers, soldiers, and buccaneers.  But who cares for fallings-out of\nassassins, and fights of bears, or grindings of icebergs? Physical force\nhas no value, where there is nothing else.  Snow in snow-banks, fire in\nvolcanoes and solfataras is cheap.  The luxury of ice is in tropical\ncountries, and midsummer days.  The luxury of fire is, to have a little\non our hearth: and of electricity, not volleys of the charged cloud, but\nthe manageable stream on the battery-wires.  So of spirit, or energy;\nthe rests or remains of it in the civil and moral man, are worth all the\ncannibals in the Pacific.\n\nIn history, the great moment is, when the savage is just ceasing to be a\nsavage, with all his hairy Pelasgic strength directed on his opening\nsense of beauty:--and you have Pericles and Phidias,--not yet passed\nover into the Corinthian civility. Everything good in nature and the\nworld is in that moment of transition, when the swarthy juices still\nflow plentifully from nature, but their astringency or acridity is got\nout by ethics and humanity.\n\nThe triumphs of peace have been in some proximity to war.  Whilst the\nhand was still familiar with the sword-hilt, whilst the habits of the\ncamp were still visible in the port and complexion of the gentleman, his\nintellectual power culminated: the compression and tension of these\nstern conditions is a training for the finest and softest arts, and can\nrarely be compensated in tranquil times, except by some analogous vigor\ndrawn from occupations as hardy as war.\n\nWe say that success is constitutional; depends on a _plus_ condition of\nmind and body, on power of work, on courage: that it is of main efficacy\nin carrying on the world, and, though rarely found in the right state\nfor an article of commerce, but oftener in the supersaturate or excess,\nwhich makes it dangerous and destructive, yet it cannot be spared, and\nmust be had in that form, and absorbents provided to take off its edge.\n\nThe affirmative class monopolize the homage of mankind.  They originate\nand execute all the great feats.  What a force was coiled up in the\nskull of Napoleon!  Of the sixty thousand men making his army at Eylau,\nit seems some thirty thousand were thieves and burglars.  The men whom,\nin peaceful communities, we hold if we can, with iron at their legs, in\nprisons, under the muskets of sentinels, this man dealt with, hand to\nhand, dragged them to their duty, and won his victories by their\nbayonets.\n\nThis aboriginal might gives a surprising pleasure when it appears under\nconditions of supreme refinement, as in the proficients in high art.\nWhen Michel Angelo was forced to paint the Sistine Chapel in fresco, of\nwhich art he knew nothing, he went down into the Pope's gardens behind\nthe Vatican, and with a shovel dug out ochres, red and yellow, mixed\nthem with glue and water with his own hands, and having, after many\ntrials, at last suited himself, climbed his ladders, and painted away,\nweek after week, month after month, the sibyls and prophets.  He\nsurpassed his successors in rough vigor, as much as in purity of\nintellect and refinement.  He was not crushed by his one picture left\nunfinished at last.  Michel was wont to draw his figures first in\nskeleton, then to clothe them with flesh, and lastly to drape them.\n\"Ah!\" said a brave painter to me, thinking on these things, \"if a man\nhas failed, you will find he has dreamed instead of working.  There is\nno way to success in our art, but to take off your coat, grind paint,\nand work like a digger on the railroad, all day and every day.\"\n\nSuccess goes thus invariably with a certain plus or positive power: an\nounce of power must balance an ounce of weight.  And, though a man\ncannot return into his mother's womb, and be born with new amounts of\nvivacity, yet there are two economies, which are the best _succedanea_\nwhich the case admits.  The first is, the stopping off decisively our\nmiscellaneous activity, and concentrating our force on one or a few\npoints; as the gardener, by severe pruning, forces the sap of the tree\ninto one or two vigorous limbs, instead of suffering it to spindle into\na sheaf of twigs.\n\n\"Enlarge not thy destiny,\" said the oracle: \"endeavor not to do more\nthan is given thee in charge.\"  The one prudence in life is\nconcentration; the one evil is dissipation: and it makes no difference\nwhether our dissipations are coarse or fine; property and its cares,\nfriends, and a social habit, or politics, or music, or feasting.\nEverything is good which takes away one plaything and delusion more, and\ndrives us home to add one stroke of faithful work.  Friends, books,\npictures, lower duties, talents, flatteries, hopes,--all are\ndistractions which cause oscillations in our giddy balloon, and make a\ngood poise and a straight course impossible.  You must elect your work;\nyou shall take what your brain can, and drop all the rest.  Only so, can\nthat amount of vital force accumulate, which can make the step from\nknowing to doing.  No matter how much faculty of idle seeing a man has,\nthe step from knowing to doing is rarely taken.  'Tis a stop out of a\nchalk circle of imbecility into fruitfulness. Many an artist lacking\nthis, lacks all: he sees the masculine Angelo or Cellini with despair.\nHe, too, is up to Nature and the First Cause in his thought.  But the\nspasm to collect and swing his whole being into one act, he has not.\nThe poet Campbell said, that \"a man accustomed to work was equal to any\nachievement he resolved on, and, that, for himself, necessity not\ninspiration was the prompter of his muse.\"\n\nConcentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade,\nin short, in all management of human affairs.  One of the high anecdotes\nof the world is the reply of Newton to the inquiry, \"how he had been\nable to achieve his discoveries?\"--\"By always intending my mind.\"  Or if\nyou will have a text from politics, take this from Plutarch: \"There was,\nin the whole city, but one street in which Pericles was ever seen, the\nstreet which led to the market-place and the council house.  He declined\nall invitations to banquets, and all gay assemblies and company.  During\nthe whole period of his administration, he never dined at the table of a\nfriend.\"  Or if we seek an example from trade,--\"I hope,\" said a good\nman to Rothschild, \"your children are not too fond of money and\nbusiness: I am sure you would not wish that.\"--\"I am sure I should wish\nthat: I wish them to give mind, soul, heart, and body to business,--that\nis the way to be happy.  It requires a great deal of boldness and a\ngreat deal of caution, to make a great fortune, and when you have got\nit, it requires ten times as much wit to keep it.  If I were to listen\nto all the projects proposed to me, I should ruin myself very soon.\nStick to one business, young man.  Stick to your brewery, (he said this\nto young Buxton,) and you will be the great brewer of London.  Be\nbrewer, and banker, and merchant, and manufacturer, and you will soon be\nin the Gazette.\"\n\nMany men are knowing, many are apprehensive and tenacious, but they do\nnot rush to a decision. But in our flowing affairs a decision must be\nmade,--the best, if you can; but any is better than none.  There are\ntwenty ways of going to a point, and one is the shortest; but set out at\nonce on one.  A man who has that presence of mind which can bring to him\non the instant all he knows, is worth for action a dozen men who know as\nmuch, but can only bring it to light slowly.  The good Speaker in the\nHouse is not the man who knows the theory of parliamentary tactics, but\nthe man who decides off-hand.  The good judge is not he who does\nhair-splitting justice to every allegation, but who, aiming at\nsubstantial justice, rules something intelligible for the guidance of\nsuitors. The good lawyer is not the man who has an eye to every side and\nangle of contingency, and qualifies all his qualifications, but who\nthrows himself on your part so heartily, that he can get you out of a\nscrape.  Dr. Johnson said, in one of his flowing sentences, \"Miserable\nbeyond all names of wretchedness is that unhappy pair, who are doomed to\nreduce beforehand to the principles of abstract reason all the details\nof each domestic day.  There are cases where little can be said, and\nmuch must be done.\"\n\nThe second substitute for temperament is drill, the power of use and\nroutine.  The hack is a better roadster than the Arab barb.  In\nchemistry, the galvanic stream, slow, but continuous, is equal in power\nto the electric spark, and is, in our arts, a better agent.  So in human\naction, against the spasm of energy, we offset the continuity of drill.\nWe spread the same amount of force over much time, instead of condensing\nit into a moment.  'Tis the same ounce of gold here in a ball, and there\nin a leaf.  At West Point, Col. Buford, the chief engineer, pounded with\na hammer on the trunnions of a cannon, until he broke them off.  He\nfired a piece of ordnance some hundred times in swift succession, until\nit burst.  Now which stroke broke the trunnion? Every stroke.  Which\nblast burst the piece? Every blast.  \"_Diligence passe sens_\" Henry\nVIII. was wont to say, or, great is drill.  John Kemble said, that the\nworst provincial company of actors would go through a play better than\nthe best amateur company.  Basil Hall likes to show that the worst\nregular troops will beat the best volunteers.  Practice is nine tenths.\nA course of mobs is good practice for orators.  All the great speakers\nwere bad speakers at first. Stumping it through England for seven years,\nmade Cobden a consummate debater.  Stumping it through New England for\ntwice seven, trained Wendell Phillips.  The way to learn German, is, to\nread the same dozen pages over and over a hundred times, till you know\nevery word and particle in them, and can pronounce and repeat them by\nheart.  No genius can recite a ballad at first reading, so well as\nmediocrity can at the fifteenth or twentieth reading.  The rule for\nhospitality and Irish 'help,' is, to have the same dinner every day\nthroughout the year.  At last, Mrs. O'Shaughnessy learns to cook it to a\nnicety, the host learns to carve it, and the guests are well served.  A\nhumorous friend of mine thinks, that the reason why Nature is so perfect\nin her art, and gets up such inconceivably fine sunsets, is, that she\nhas learned how, at last, by dint of doing the same thing so very often.\nCannot one converse better on a topic on which he has experience, than\non one which is new?  Men whose opinion is valued on 'Change, are only\nsuch as have a special experience, and off that ground their opinion is\nnot valuable, \"More are made good by exercitation, than by nature,\" said\nDemocritus.  The friction in nature is so enormous that we cannot spare\nany power.  It is not question to express our thought, to elect our way,\nbut to overcome resistances of the medium and material in everything we\ndo.  Hence the use of drill, and the worthlessness of amateurs to cope\nwith practitioners.  Six hours every day at the piano, only to give\nfacility of touch; six hours a day at painting, only to give command of\nthe odious materials, oil, ochres, and brushes.  The masters say, that\nthey know a master in music, only by seeing the pose of the hands on the\nkeys;--so difficult and vital an act is the command of the instrument.\nTo have learned the use of the tools, by thousands of manipulations; to\nhave learned the arts of reckoning, by endless adding and dividing, is\nthe power of the mechanic and the clerk. I remarked in England, in\nconfirmation of a frequent experience at home, that, in literary\ncircles, the men of trust and consideration, bookmakers, editors,\nuniversity deans and professors, bishops, too, were by no means men of\nthe largest literary talent, but usually of a low and ordinary\nintellectuality, with a sort of mercantile activity and working talent.\nIndifferent hacks and mediocrities tower, by pushing their forces to a\nlucrative point, or by working power, over multitudes of superior men,\nin Old as in New England.\n\nI have not forgotten that there are sublime considerations which limit\nthe value of talent and superficial success.  We can easily overpraise\nthe vulgar hero.  There are sources on which we have not drawn.  I know\nwhat I abstain from.  I adjourn what I have to say on this topic to the\nchapters on Culture and Worship.  But this force or spirit, being the\nmeans relied on by Nature for bringing the work of the day about,--as\nfar as we attach importance to household life, and the prizes of the\nworld, we must respect that.  And I hold, that an economy may be applied\nto it; it is as much a subject of exact law and arithmetic as fluids and\ngases are; it may be husbanded, or wasted; every man is efficient only\nas he is a container or vessel of this force, and never was any signal\nact or achievement in history, but by this expenditure.  This is not\ngold, but the gold-maker; not the fame, but the exploit.\n\nIf these forces and this husbandry are within reach of our will, and the\nlaws of them can be read, we infer that all success, and all conceivable\nbenefit for man, is also, first or last, within his reach, and has its\nown sublime economies by which it may be attained.  The world is\nmathematical, and has no casualty, in all its vast and flowing curve.\nSuccess has no more eccentricity, than the gingham and muslin we weave\nin our mills.  I know no more affecting lesson to our busy, plotting New\nEngland brains, than to go into one of the factories with which we have\nlined all the watercourses in the States.  A man hardly knows how much\nhe is a machine, until he begins to make telegraph, loom, press, and\nlocomotive, in his own image.  But in these, he is forced to leave out\nhis follies and hindrances, so that when we go to the mill, the machine\nis more moral than we.  Let a man dare go to a loom, and see if he be\nequal to it.  Let machine confront machine, and see how they come out.\nThe world-mill is more complex than the calico-mill, and the architect\nstooped less.  In the gingham-mill, a broken thread or a shred spoils\nthe web through a piece of a hundred yards, and is traced back to the\ngirl that wove it, and lessens her wages.  The stockholder, on being\nshown this, rubs his hands with delight.  Are you so cunning, Mr.\nProfitless, and do you expect to swindle your master and employer, in\nthe web you weave?  A day is a more magnificent cloth than any muslin,\nthe mechanism that makes it is infinitely cunninger, and you shall not\nconceal the sleezy, fraudulent, rotten hours you have slipped into the\npiece, nor fear that any honest thread, or straighter steel, or more\ninflexible shaft, will not testify in the web.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III.\n\n\n                                WEALTH.\n\n\n    Who shall tell what did befall,\n    Far away in time, when once,\n    Over the lifeless ball,\n    Hung idle stars and suns?\n    What god the element obeyed?\n    Wings of what wind the lichen bore,\n    Wafting the puny seeds of power,\n    Which, lodged in rock, the rock abrade?\n    And well the primal pioneer\n    Knew the strong task to it assigned\n    Patient through Heaven's enormous year\n    To build in matter home for mind.\n    From air the creeping centuries drew\n    The matted thicket low and wide,\n    This must the leaves of ages strew\n    The granite slab to clothe and hide,\n    Ere wheat can wave its golden pride.\n    What smiths, and in what furnace, rolled\n    (In dizzy aeons dim and mute\n    The reeling brain can ill compute)\n    Copper and iron, lead, and gold?\n    What oldest star the fame can save\n    Of races perishing to pave\n    The planet with a floor of lime?\n    Dust is their pyramid and mole:\n    Who saw what ferns and palms were pressed\n    Under the tumbling mountain's breast,\n    In the safe herbal of the coal?\n    But when the quarried means were piled,\n    All is waste and worthless, till\n    Arrives the wise selecting will,\n    And, out of slime and chaos, Wit\n    Draws the threads of fair and fit.\n    Then temples rose, and towns, and marts,\n    The shop of toil, the hall of arts;\n    Then flew the sail across the seas\n    To feed the North from tropic trees;\n    The storm-wind wove, the torrent span,\n    Where they were bid the rivers ran;\n    New slaves fulfilled the poet's dream,\n    Galvanic wire, strong-shouldered steam.\n    Then docks were built, and crops were stored,\n    And ingots added to the hoard.\n    But, though light-headed man forget,\n    Remembering Matter pays her debt:\n    Still, through her motes and masses, draw\n    Electric thrills and ties of Law,\n    Which bind the strengths of Nature wild\n    To the conscience of a child.\n\n\n\n                                WEALTH.\n\n\nAs soon as a stranger is introduced into any company, one of the first\nquestions which all wish to have answered, is, How does that man get his\nliving?  And with reason.  He is no whole man until he knows how to earn\na blameless livelihood. Society is barbarous, until every industrious\nman can get his living without dishonest customs.\n\nEvery man is a consumer, and ought to be a producer.  He fails to make\nhis place good in the world, unless he not only pays his debt, but also\nadds something to the common wealth.  Nor can he do justice to his\ngenius, without making some larger demand on the world than a bare\nsubsistence.  He is by constitution expensive, and needs to be rich.\n\nWealth has its source in applications of the mind to nature, from the\nrudest strokes of spade and axe, up to the last secrets of art.\nIntimate ties subsist between thought and all production; because a\nbetter order is equivalent to vast amounts of brute labor.  The forces\nand the resistances are Nature's, but the mind acts in bringing things\nfrom where they abound to where they are wanted; in wise combining; in\ndirecting the practice of the useful arts, and in the creation of finer\nvalues, by fine art, by eloquence, by song, or the reproductions of\nmemory.  Wealth is in applications of mind to nature, and the art of\ngetting rich consists not in industry, much less in saving, but in a\nbetter order, in timeliness, in being at the right spot.  One man has\nstronger arms, or longer legs; another sees by the course of streams,\nand growth of markets, where land will be wanted, makes a clearing to\nthe river, goes to sleep, and wakes up rich.  Steam is no stronger now,\nthan it was a hundred years ago; but is put to better use.  A clever\nfellow was acquainted with the expansive force of steam; he also saw the\nwealth of wheat and grass rotting in Michigan.  Then he cunningly screws\non the steam-pipe to the wheat-crop.  Puff now, O Steam! The steam puffs\nand expands as before, but this time it is dragging all Michigan at its\nback to hungry New York and hungry England.  Coal lay in ledges under\nthe ground since the Flood, until a laborer with pick and windlass\nbrings it to the surface.  We may well call it black diamonds.  Every\nbasket is power and civilization.  For coal is a portable climate.  It\ncarries the heat of the tropics to Labrador and the polar circle: and it\nis the means of transporting itself whithersoever it is wanted. Watt and\nStephenson whispered in the ear of mankind their secret, that a\nhalf-ounce of coal will draw two tons a mile, and coal carries coal, by\nrail and by boat, to make Canada as warm as Calcutta, and with its\ncomfort brings its industrial power.\n\nWhen the farmer's peaches are taken from under the tree, and carried\ninto town, they have a new look, and a hundredfold value over the fruit\nwhich grew on the same bough, and lies fulsomely on the ground.  The\ncraft of the merchant is this bringing a thing from where it abounds, to\nwhere it is costly.\n\nWealth begins in a tight roof that keeps the rain and wind out; in a\ngood pump that yields you plenty of sweet water; in two suits of\nclothes, so to change your dress when you are wet; in dry sticks to\nburn; in a good double-wick lamp; and three meals; in a horse, or a\nlocomotive, to cross the land; in a boat to cross the sea; in tools to\nwork with; in books to read; and so, in giving, on all sides, by tools\nand auxiliaries, the greatest possible extension to our powers, as if it\nadded feet, and hands, and eyes, and blood, length to the day, and\nknowledge, and good-will.\n\nWealth begins with these articles of necessity. And here we must recite\nthe iron law which Nature thunders in these northern climates.  First,\nshe requires that each man should feed himself. If, happily, his fathers\nhave left him no inheritance, he must go to work, and by making his\nwants less, or his gains more, he must draw himself out of that state of\npain and insult in which she forces the beggar to lie.  She gives him no\nrest until this is done: she starves, taunts, and torments him, takes\naway warmth, laughter, sleep, friends, and daylight, until he has fought\nhis way to his own loaf.  Then, less peremptorily, but still with sting\nenough, she urges him to the acquisition of such things as belong to\nhim.  Every warehouse and shop-window, every fruit-tree, every thought\nof every hour, opens a new want to him, which it concerns his power and\ndignity to gratify.  It is of no use to argue the wants down: the\nphilosophers have laid the greatness of man in making his wants few; but\nwill a man content himself with a hut and a handful of dried pease?  He\nis born to be rich.  He is thoroughly related; and is tempted out by his\nappetites and fancies to the conquest of this and that piece of nature,\nuntil he finds his well-being in the use of his planet, and of more\nplanets than his own.  Wealth requires, besides the crust of bread and\nthe roof,--the freedom of the city, the freedom of the earth,\ntravelling, machinery, the benefits of science, music, and fine arts,\nthe best culture, and the best company.  He is the rich man who can\navail himself of all men's faculties.  He is the richest man who knows\nhow to draw a benefit from the labors of the greatest number of men, of\nmen in distant countries, and in past times.  The same correspondence\nthat is between thirst in the stomach, and water in the spring, exists\nbetween the whole of man and the whole of nature.  The elements offer\ntheir service to him.  The sea, washing the equator and the poles,\noffers its perilous aid, and the power and empire that follow it,--day\nby day to his craft and audacity.  \"Beware of me,\" it says, \"but if you\ncan hold me, I am the key to all the lands.\"  Fire offers, on its side,\nan equal power.  Fire, steam, lightning, gravity, ledges of rock, mines\nof iron, lead, quicksilver, tin, and gold; forests of all woods; fruits\nof all climates; animals of all habits; the powers of tillage; the\nfabrics of his chemic laboratory; the webs of his loom; the masculine\ndraught of his locomotive, the talismans of the machine-shop; all grand\nand subtile things, minerals, gases, ethers, passions, war, trade,\ngovernment, are his natural playmates, and, according to the excellence\nof the machinery in each human being, is his attraction for the\ninstruments he is to employ.  The world is his tool-chest, and he is\nsuccessful, or his education is carried on just so far, as is the\nmarriage of his faculties with nature, or, the degree in which he takes\nup things into himself.\n\nThe strong race is strong on these terms.  The Saxons are the merchants\nof the world; now, for a thousand years, the leading race, and by\nnothing more than their quality of personal independence, and, in its\nspecial modification, pecuniary independence. No reliance for bread and\ngames on the government, no clanship, no patriarchal style of living by\nthe revenues of a chief, no marrying-on,--no system of clientship suits\nthem; but every man must pay his scot.  The English are prosperous and\npeaceable, with their habit of considering that every man must take care\nof himself, and has himself to thank, if he do not maintain and improve\nhis position in society.\n\nThe subject of economy mixes itself with morals, inasmuch as it is a\nperemptory point of virtue that a man's independence be secured.\nPoverty demoralizes.  A man in debt is so far a slave; and Wall-street\nthinks it easy for a _millionaire_ to be a man of his word, a man of\nhonor, but, that, in failing circumstances, no man can be relied on to\nkeep his integrity.  And when one observes in the hotels and palaces of\nour Atlantic capitals, the habit of expense, the riot of the senses, the\nabsence of bonds, clanship, fellow-feeling of any kind, he feels, that,\nwhen a man or a woman is driven to the wall, the chances of integrity\nare frightfully diminished, as if virtue were coming to be a luxury\nwhich few could afford, or, as Burke said, \"at a market almost too high\nfor humanity.\"  He may fix his inventory of necessities and of\nenjoyments on what scale he pleases, but if he wishes the power and\nprivilege of thought, the chalking out his own career, and having\nsociety on his own terms, he must bring his wants within his proper\npower to satisfy.\n\nThe manly part is to do with might and main what you can do.  The world\nis full of fops who never did anything, and who have persuaded beauties\nand men of genius to wear their fop livery, and these will deliver the\nfop opinion, that it is not respectable to be seen earning a living;\nthat it is much more respectable to spend without earning; and this\ndoctrine of the snake will come also from the elect sons of light; for\nwise men are not wise at all hours, and will speak five times from their\ntaste or their humor, to once from their reason. The brave workman, who\nmight betray his feeling of it in his manners, if he do not succumb in\nhis practice, must replace the grace or elegance forfeited, by the merit\nof the work done.  No matter whether he make shoes, or statues, or laws.\nIt is the privilege of any human work which is well done to invest the\ndoer with a certain haughtiness. He can well afford not to conciliate,\nwhose faithful work will answer for him.  The mechanic at his bench\ncarries a quiet heart and assured manners, and deals on even terms with\nmen of any condition. The artist has made his picture so true, that it\ndisconcerts criticism.  The statue is so beautiful, that it contracts no\nstain from the market, but makes the market a silent gallery for itself.\nThe case of the young lawyer was pitiful to disgust,--a paltry matter of\nbuttons or tweezer-cases; but the determined youth saw in it an aperture\nto insert his dangerous wedges, made the insignificance of the thing\nforgotten, and gave fame by his sense and energy to the name and affairs\nof the Tittleton snuffbox factory.\n\nSociety in large towns is babyish, and wealth is made a toy.  The life\nof pleasure is so ostentatious, that a shallow observer must believe\nthat this is the agreed best use of wealth, and, whatever is pretended,\nit ends in cosseting.  But, if this were the main use of surplus\ncapital, it would bring us to barricades, burned towns, and tomahawks,\npresently.  Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature\nto themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the\nincarnation and nutriment of their design.  Power is what they\nwant,--not candy;--power to execute their design, power to give legs and\nfeet, form and actuality to their thought, which, to a clear-sighted\nman, appears the end for which the Universe exists, and all its\nresources might be well applied. Columbus thinks that the sphere is a\nproblem for practical navigation, as well as for closet geometry, and\nlooks on all kings and peoples as cowardly landsmen, until they dare fit\nhim out.  Few men on the planet have more truly belonged to it.  But he\nwas forced to leave much of his map blank. His successors inherited his\nmap, and inherited his fury to complete it.\n\nSo the men of the mine, telegraph, mill, map, and survey,--the\nmonomaniacs, who talk up their project in marts, and offices, and\nentreat men to subscribe:--how did our factories get built? how did\nNorth America get netted with iron rails, except by the importunity of\nthese orators, who dragged all the prudent men in?  Is party the madness\nof many for the gain of a few?  This _speculative_ genius is the madness\nof few for the gain of the world.  The projectors are sacrificed, but\nthe public is the gainer.  Each of these idealists, working after his\nthought, would make it tyrannical, if he could.  He is met and\nantagonized by other speculators, as hot as he.  The equilibrium is\npreserved by these counteractions, as one tree keeps down another in the\nforest, that it may not absorb all the sap in the ground.  And the\nsupply in nature of railroad presidents, copper-miners,\ngrand-junctioners, smoke-burners, fire-annihilators, &c., is limited by\nthe same law which keeps the proportion in the supply of carbon, of\nalum, and of hydrogen.\n\nTo be rich is to have a ticket of admission to the master-works and\nchief men of each race.  It is to have the sea, by voyaging; to visit\nthe mountains, Niagara, the Nile, the desert, Rome, Paris,\nConstantinople; to see galleries, libraries, arsenals, manufactories.\nThe reader of Humboldt's \"Cosmos\" follows the marches of a man whose\neyes, ears, and mind are armed by all the science, arts, and implements\nwhich mankind have any where accumulated, and who is using these to add\nto the stock.  So is it with Denon, Beckford, Belzoni, Wilkinson,\nLayard, Kane, Lepsius, and Livingston.  \"The rich man,\" says Saadi, \"is\neverywhere expected and at home.\"  The rich take up something more of\nthe world into man's life. They include the country as well as the town,\nthe ocean-side, the White Hills, the Far West, and the old European\nhomesteads of man, in their notion of available material.  The world is\nhis, who has money to go over it.  He arrives at the sea-shore, and a\nsumptuous ship has floored and carpeted for him the stormy Atlantic, and\nmade it a luxurious hotel, amid the horrors of tempests.  The Persians\nsay, \"'Tis the same to him who wears a shoe, as if the whole earth were\ncovered with leather.\"\n\nKings are said to have long arms, but every man should have long arms,\nand should pluck his living, his instruments, his power, and his\nknowing, from the sun, moon, and stars.  Is not then the demand to be\nrich legitimate?  Yet, I have never seen a rich man.  I have never seen\na man as rich as all men ought to be, or, with an adequate command of\nnature.  The pulpit and the press have many commonplaces denouncing the\nthirst for wealth; but if men should take these moralists at their word,\nand leave off aiming to be rich, the moralists would rush to rekindle at\nall hazards this love of power in the people, lest civilization should\nbe undone.  Men are urged by their ideas to acquire the command over\nnature.  Ages derive a culture from the wealth of Roman Caesars, Leo\nTenths, magnificent Kings of France, Grand Dukes of Tuscany, Dukes of\nDevonshire, Townleys, Vernons, and Peels, in England; or whatever great\nproprietors.  It is the interest of all men, that there should be\nVaticans and Louvres full of noble works of art; British Museums, and\nFrench Gardens of Plants, Philadelphia Academies of Natural History,\nBodleian, Ambrosian, Royal, Congressional Libraries.  It is the interest\nof all that there should be Exploring Expeditions; Captain Cooks to\nvoyage round the world, Rosses, Franklins, Richardsons, and Kanes, to\nfind the magnetic and the geographic poles.  We are all richer for the\nmeasurement of a degree of latitude on the earth's surface.  Our\nnavigation is safer for the chart.  How intimately our knowledge of the\nsystem of the Universe rests on that!--and a true economy in a state or\nan individual will forget its frugality in behalf of claims like these.\n\nWhilst it is each man's interest, that, not only ease and convenience of\nliving, but also wealth or surplus product should exist somewhere, it\nneed not be in his hands.  Often it is very undesirable to him.  Goethe\nsaid well, \"nobody should be rich but those who understand it.\"  Some\nmen are born to own, and can animate all their possessions.  Others\ncannot: their owning is not graceful; seems to be a compromise of their\ncharacter: they seem to steal their own dividends.  They should own who\ncan administer; not they who hoard and conceal; not they who, the\ngreater proprietors they are, are only the greater beggars, but they\nwhose work carves out work for more, opens a path for all.  For he is\nthe rich man in whom the people are rich, and he is the poor man in whom\nthe people are poor: and how to give all access to the masterpieces of\nart and nature, is the problem of civilization.  The socialism of our\nday has done good service in setting men on thinking how certain\ncivilizing benefits, now only enjoyed by the opulent, can be enjoyed by\nall.  For example, the providing to each man the means and apparatus of\nscience, and of the arts.  There are many articles good for occasional\nuse, which few men are able to own. Every man wishes to see the ring of\nSaturn, the satellites and belts of Jupiter and Mars; the mountains and\ncraters in the moon: yet how few can buy a telescope! and of those,\nscarcely one would like the trouble of keeping it in order, and\nexhibiting it.  So of electrical and chemical apparatus, and many the\nlike things.  Every man may have occasion to consult books which he does\nnot care to possess, such as cyclopedias, dictionaries, tables, charts,\nmaps, and public documents: pictures also of birds, beasts, fishes,\nshells, trees, flowers, whose names he desires to know.\n\nThere is a refining influence from the arts of Design on a prepared\nmind, which is as positive as that of music, and not to be supplied from\nany other source.  But pictures, engravings, statues, and casts, beside\ntheir first cost, entail expenses, as of galleries and keepers for the\nexhibition; and the use which any man can make of them is rare, and\ntheir value, too, is much enhanced by the numbers of men who can share\ntheir enjoyment.  In the Greek cities, it was reckoned profane, that any\nperson should pretend a property in a work of art, which belonged to all\nwho could behold it.  I think sometimes,--could I only have music on my\nown terms;--could I live in a great city, and know where I could go\nwhenever I wished the ablution and inundation of musical waves,--that\nwere a bath and a medicine.\n\nIf properties of this kind were owned by states, towns, and lyceums,\nthey would draw the bonds of neighborhood closer.  A town would exist to\nan intellectual purpose.  In Europe, where the feudal forms secure the\npermanence of wealth in certain families, those families buy and\npreserve those things, and lay them open to the public.  But in America,\nwhere democratic institutions divide every estate into small portions,\nafter a few years, the public should step into the place of these\nproprietors, and provide this culture and inspiration for the citizen.\n\nMan was born to be rich, or, inevitably grows rich by the use of his\nfaculties; by the union of thought with nature.  Property is an\nintellectual production.  The game requires coolness, right reasoning,\npromptness, and patience in the players. Cultivated labor drives out\nbrute labor.  An infinite number of shrewd men, in infinite years, have\narrived at certain best and shortest ways of doing, and this accumulated\nskill in arts, cultures, harvestings, curings, manufactures,\nnavigations, exchanges, constitutes the worth of our world to-day.\n\nCommerce is a game of skill, which every man cannot play, which few men\ncan play well.  The right merchant is one who has the just average of\nfaculties we call _common sense_; a man of a strong affinity for facts,\nwho makes up his decision on what he has seen.  He is thoroughly\npersuaded of the truths of arithmetic.  There is always a reason, _in\nthe man_, for his good or bad fortune, and so, in making money.  Men\ntalk as if there were some magic about this, and believe in magic, in\nall parts of life.  He knows, that all goes on the old road, pound for\npound, cent for cent,--for every effect a perfect cause,--and that good\nluck is another name for tenacity of purpose.  He insures himself in\nevery transaction, and likes small and sure gains.  Probity and\ncloseness to the facts are the basis, but the masters of the art add a\ncertain long arithmetic.  The problem is, to combine many and remote\noperations, with the accuracy and adherence to the facts, which is easy\nin near and small transactions; so to arrive at gigantic results,\nwithout any compromise of safety.  Napoleon was fond of telling the\nstory of the Marseilles banker, who said to his visitor, surprised at\nthe contrast between the splendor of the banker's chateau and\nhospitality, and the meanness of the counting-room in which he had seen\nhim,--\"Young man, you are too young to understand how masses are\nformed,--the true and only power,--whether composed of money, water, or\nmen, it is all alike,--a mass is an immense centre of motion, but it\nmust be begun, it must be kept up:\"--and he might have added, that the\nway in which it must be begun and kept up, is, by obedience to the law\nof particles.\n\nSuccess consists in close appliance to the laws of the world, and, since\nthose laws are intellectual and moral, an intellectual and moral\nobedience. Political Economy is as good a book wherein to read the life\nof man, and the ascendency of laws over all private and hostile\ninfluences, as any Bible which has come down to us.\n\nMoney is representative, and follows the nature and fortunes of the\nowner.  The coin is a delicate meter of civil, social, and moral\nchanges.  The farmer is covetous of his dollar, and with reason. It is\nno waif to him.  He knows how many strokes of labor it represents.  His\nbones ache with the day's work that earned it.  He knows how much land\nit represents;--how much rain, frost, and sunshine.  He knows that, in\nthe dollar, he gives you so much discretion and patience, so much\nhoeing, and threshing.  Try to lift his dollar; you must lift all that\nweight.  In the city, where money follows the skit of a pen, or a lucky\nrise in exchange, it comes to be looked on as light.  I wish the farmer\nheld it dearer, and would spend it only for real bread; force for force.\n\nThe farmer's dollar is heavy, and the clerk's is light and nimble; leaps\nout of his pocket; jumps on to cards and faro-tables: but still more\ncurious is its susceptibility to metaphysical changes.  It is the finest\nbarometer of social storms, and announces revolutions.\n\nEvery step of civil advancement makes every man's dollar worth more.  In\nCalifornia, the country where it grew,--what would it buy?  A few years\nsince, it would buy a shanty, dysentery, hunger, bad company, and crime.\nThere are wide countries, like Siberia, where it would buy little else\nto-day, than some petty mitigation of suffering. In Rome, it will buy\nbeauty and magnificence. Forty years ago, a dollar would not buy much in\nBoston.  Now it will buy a great deal more in our old town, thanks to\nrailroads, telegraphs, steamers, and the contemporaneous growth of New\nYork, and the whole country.  Yet there are many goods appertaining to a\ncapital city, which are not yet purchasable here, no, not with a\nmountain of dollars. A dollar in Florida is not worth a dollar in\nMassachusetts.  A dollar is not value, but representative of value, and,\nat last, of moral values.  A dollar is rated for the corn it will buy,\nor to speak strictly, not for the corn or house-room, but for Athenian\ncorn, and Roman house-room,--for the wit, probity, and power, which we\neat bread and dwell in houses to share and exert.  Wealth is mental;\nwealth is moral.  The value of a dollar is, to buy just things: a dollar\ngoes on increasing in value with all the genius, and all the virtue of\nthe world.  A dollar in a university, is worth more than a dollar in a\njail; in a temperate, schooled, law-abiding community, than in some sink\nof crime, where dice, knives, and arsenic, are in constant play.\n\nThe \"Bank-Note Detector\" is a useful publication. But the current\ndollar, silver or paper, is itself the detector of the right and wrong\nwhere it circulates.  Is it not instantly enhanced by the increase of\nequity?  If a trader refuses to sell his vote, or adheres to some odious\nright, he makes so much more equity in Massachusetts; and every acre in\nthe State is more worth, in the hour of his action. If you take out of\nState-street the ten honestest merchants, and put in ten roguish\npersons, controlling the same amount of capital,--the rates of insurance\nwill indicate it; the soundness of banks will show it: the highways will\nbe less secure: the schools will feel it; the children will bring home\ntheir little dose of the poison: the judge will sit less firmly on the\nbench, and his decisions be less upright; he has lost so much support\nand constraint,--which all need; and the pulpit will betray it, in a\nlaxer rule of life.  An apple-tree, if you take out every day for a\nnumber of days, a load of loam, and put in a load of sand about its\nroots,--will find it out.  An apple-tree is a stupid kind of creature,\nbut if this treatment be pursued for a short time, I think it would\nbegin to mistrust something.  And if you should take out of the powerful\nclass engaged in trade a hundred good men, and put in a hundred bad, or,\nwhat is just the same thing, introduce a demoralizing institution, would\nnot the dollar, which is not much stupider than an apple-tree, presently\nfind it out?  The value of a dollar is social, as it is created by\nsociety. Every man who removes into this city, with any purchasable\ntalent or skill in him, gives to every man's labor in the city, a new\nworth.  If a talent is anywhere born into the world, the community of\nnations is enriched; and, much more, with a new degree of probity.  The\nexpense of crime, one of the principal charges of every nation, is so\nfar stopped.  In Europe, crime is observed to increase or abate with the\nprice of bread.  If the Rothschilds at Paris do not accept bills, the\npeople at Manchester, at Paisley, at Birmingham, are forced into the\nhighway, and landlords are shot down in Ireland.  The police records\nattest it.  The vibrations are presently felt in New York, New Orleans,\nand Chicago.  Not much otherwise, the economical power touches the\nmasses through the political lords.  Rothschild refuses the Russian\nloan, and there is peace, and the harvests are saved.  He takes it, and\nthere is war, and an agitation through a large portion of mankind, with\nevery hideous result, ending in revolution, and a new order.\n\nWealth brings with it its own checks and balances.  The basis of\npolitical economy is non-interference.  The only safe rule is found in\nthe self-adjusting meter of demand and supply.  Do not legislate.\nMeddle, and you snap the sinews with your sumptuary laws.  Give no\nbounties: make equal laws: secure life and property, and you need not\ngive alms.  Open the doors of opportunity to talent and virtue, and they\nwill do themselves justice, and property will not be in bad hands. In a\nfree and just commonwealth, property rushes from the idle and imbecile,\nto the industrious, brave, and persevering.\n\nThe laws of nature play through trade, as a toy-battery exhibits the\neffects of electricity.  The level of the sea is not more surely kept,\nthan is the equilibrium of value in society, by the demand and supply:\nand artifice or legislation punishes itself, by reactions, gluts, and\nbankruptcies.  The sublime laws play indifferently through atoms and\ngalaxies. Whoever knows what happens in the getting and spending of a\nloaf of bread and a pint of beer; that no wishing will change the\nrigorous limits of pints and penny loaves; that, for all that is\nconsumed, so much less remains in the basket and pot; but what is gone\nout of these is not wasted, but well spent, if it nourish his body, and\nenable him to finish his task;--knows all of political economy that the\nbudgets of empires can teach him.  The interest of petty economy is this\nsymbolization of the great economy; the way in which a house, and a\nprivate man's methods, tally with the solar system, and the laws of give\nand take, throughout nature; and, however wary we are of the falsehoods\nand petty tricks which we suicidally play off on each other, every man\nhas a certain satisfaction, whenever his dealing touches on the\ninevitable facts; when he sees that things themselves dictate the price,\nas they always tend to do, and, in large manufactures, are seen to do.\nYour paper is not fine or coarse enough,--is too heavy, or too thin.\nThe manufacturer says, he will furnish you with just that thickness or\nthinness you want; the pattern is quite indifferent to him; here is his\nschedule;--any variety of paper, as cheaper or dearer, with the prices\nannexed.  A pound of paper costs so much, and you may have it made up in\nany pattern you fancy.\n\nThere is in all our dealings a self-regulation that supersedes\nchaffering.  You will rent a house, but must have it cheap.  The owner\ncan reduce the rent, but so he incapacitates himself from making proper\nrepairs, and the tenant gets not the house he would have, but a worse\none; besides, that a relation a little injurious is established between\nlandlord and tenant.  You dismiss your laborer, saying, \"Patrick, I\nshall send for you as soon as I cannot do without you.\"  Patrick goes\noff contented, for he knows that the weeds will grow with the potatoes,\nthe vines must be planted, next week, and, however unwilling you may be,\nthe cantelopes, crook-necks, and cucumbers will send for him.  Who but\nmust wish that all labor and value should stand on the same simple and\nsurly market?  If it is the best of its kind, it will.  We must have\njoiner, locksmith, planter, priest, poet, doctor, cook, weaver, ostler;\neach in turn, through the year.\n\nIf a St. Michael's pear sells for a shilling, it costs a shilling to\nraise it.  If, in Boston, the best securities offer twelve _per cent._\nfor money, they have just six _per cent._ of insecurity.  You may not\nsee that the fine pear costs you a shilling, but it costs the community\nso much.  The shilling represents the number of enemies the pear has,\nand the amount of risk in ripening it.  The price of coal shows the\nnarrowness of the coal-field, and a compulsory confinement of the miners\nto a certain district.  All salaries are reckoned on contingent, as well\nas on actual services.  \"If the wind were always southwest by west,\"\nsaid the skipper, \"women might take ships to sea.\"  One might say, that\nall things are of one price; that nothing is cheap or dear; and that the\napparent disparities that strike us, are only a shopman's trick of\nconcealing the damage in your bargain.  A youth coming into the city\nfrom his native New Hampshire farm, with its hard fare still fresh in\nhis remembrance, boards at a first-class hotel, and believes he must\nsomehow have outwitted Dr. Franklin and Malthus, for luxuries are cheap.\nBut he pays for the one convenience of a better dinner, by the loss of\nsome of the richest social and educational advantages.  He has lost what\nguards! what incentives!  He will perhaps find by and by, that he left\nthe Muses at the door of the hotel, and found the Furies inside.  Money\noften costs too much, and power and pleasure are not cheap.  The ancient\npoet said, \"the gods sell all things at a fair price.\"\n\nThere is an example of the compensations in the commercial history of\nthis country.  When the European wars threw the carrying-trade of the\nworld, from 1800 to 1812, into American bottoms, a seizure was now and\nthen made of an American ship.  Of course, the loss was serious to the\nowner, but the country was indemnified; for we charged threepence a\npound for carrying cotton, sixpence for tobacco, and so on; which paid\nfor the risk and loss, and brought into the country an immense\nprosperity, early marriages, private wealth, the building of cities, and\nof states: and, after the war was over, we received compensation over\nand above, by treaty, for all the seizures.  Well, the Americans grew\nrich and great.  But the pay-day comes round.  Britain, France, and\nGermany, which our extraordinary profits had impoverished, send out,\nattracted by the fame of our advantages, first their thousands, then\ntheir millions, of poor people, to share the crop. At first, we employ\nthem, and increase our prosperity: but, in the artificial system of\nsociety and of protected labor, which we also have adopted and enlarged,\nthere come presently checks and stoppages.  Then we refuse to employ\nthese poor men. But they will not so be answered.  They go into the poor\nrates, and, though we refuse wages, we must now pay the same amount in\nthe form of taxes.  Again, it turns out that the largest proportion of\ncrimes are committed by foreigners.  The cost of the crime, and the\nexpense of courts, and of prisons, we must bear, and the standing army\nof preventive police we must pay.  The cost of education of the\nposterity of this great colony, I will not compute.  But the gross\namount of these costs will begin to pay back what we thought was a net\ngain from our transatlantic customers of 1800. It is vain to refuse this\npayment.  We cannot get rid of these people, and we cannot get rid of\ntheir will to be supported.  That has become an inevitable element of\nour politics; and, for their votes, each of the dominant parties courts\nand assists them to get it executed.  Moreover, we have to pay, not what\nwould have contented them at home, but what they have learned to think\nnecessary here; so that opinion, fancy, and all manner of moral\nconsiderations complicate the problem.\n\n\nThere are a few measures of economy which will bear to be named without\ndisgust; for the subject is tender, and we may easily have too much of\nit; and therein resembles the hideous animalcules of which our bodies\nare built up,--which, offensive in the particular, yet compose valuable\nand effective masses.  Our nature and genius force us to respect ends,\nwhilst we use means.  We must use the means, and yet, in our most\naccurate using, somehow screen and cloak them, as we can only give them\nany beauty, by a reflection of the glory of the end.  That is the good\nhead, which serves the end, and commands the means.  The rabble are\ncorrupted by their means: the means are too strong for them, and they\ndesert their end.\n\n1. The first of these measures is that each man's expense must proceed\nfrom his character.  As long as your genius buys, the investment is\nsafe, though you spend like a monarch.  Nature arms each man with some\nfaculty which enables him to do easily some feat impossible to any\nother, and thus makes him necessary to society.  This native\ndetermination guides his labor and his spending.  He wants an equipment\nof means and tools proper to his talent.  And to save on this point,\nwere to neutralize the special strength and helpfulness of each mind. Do\nyour work, respecting the excellence of the work, and not its\nacceptableness.  This is so much economy, that, rightly read, it is the\nsum of economy.  Profligacy consists not in spending years of time or\nchests of money,--but in spending them off the line of your career.  The\ncrime which bankrupts men and states, is, job-work;--declining from your\nmain design, to serve a turn here or there. Nothing is beneath you, if\nit is in the direction of your life: nothing is great or desirable, if\nit is off from that.  I think we are entitled here to draw a straight\nline, and say, that society can never prosper, but must always be\nbankrupt, until every man does that which he was created to do.\n\nSpend for your expense, and retrench the expense which is not yours.\nAllston, the painter, was wont to say, that he built a plain house, and\nfilled it with plain furniture, because he would hold out no bribe to\nany to visit him, who had not similar tastes to his own.  We are\nsympathetic, and, like children, want everything we see.  But it is a\nlarge stride to independence,--when a man, in the discovery of his\nproper talent, has sunk the necessity for false expenses.  As the\nbetrothed maiden, by one secure affection, is relieved from a system of\nslaveries,--the daily inculcated necessity of pleasing all,--so the man\nwho has found what he can do, can spend on that, and leave all other\nspending.  Montaigne said, \"When he was a younger brother, he went brave\nin dress and equipage, but afterward his chateau and farms might answer\nfor him.\"  Let a man who belongs to the class of nobles, those, namely,\nwho have found out that they can do something, relieve himself of all\nvague squandering on objects not his.  Let the realist not mind\nappearances.  Let him delegate to others the costly courtesies and\ndecorations of social life.  The virtues are economists, but some of the\nvices are also. Thus, next to humility, I have noticed that pride is a\npretty good husband.  A good pride is, as I reckon it, worth from five\nhundred to fifteen hundred a year.  Pride is handsome, economical: pride\neradicates so many vices, letting none subsist but itself, that it seems\nas if it were a great gain to exchange vanity for pride.  Pride can go\nwithout domestics, without fine clothes, can live in a house with two\nrooms, can eat potato, purslain, beans, lyed corn, can work on the soil,\ncan travel afoot, can talk with poor men, or sit silent well-contented\nin fine saloons.  But vanity costs money, labor, horses, men, women,\nhealth, and peace, and is still nothing at last, a long way leading\nnowhere.--Only one drawback; proud people are intolerably selfish, and\nthe vain are gentle and giving.\n\nArt is a jealous mistress, and, if a man have a genius for painting,\npoetry, music, architecture, or philosophy, he makes a bad husband, and\nan ill provider, and should be wise in season, and not fetter himself\nwith duties which will embitter his days, and spoil him for his proper\nwork.  We had in this region, twenty years ago, among our educated men,\na sort of Arcadian fanaticism, a passionate desire to go upon the land,\nand unite farming to intellectual pursuits.  Many effected their\npurpose, and made the experiment, and some became downright ploughmen;\nbut all were cured of their faith that scholarship and practical\nfarming, (I mean, with one's own hands,) could be united.\n\nWith brow bent, with firm intent, the pale scholar leaves his desk to\ndraw a freer breath, and get a juster statement of his thought, in the\ngarden-walk. He stoops to pull up a purslain, or a dock, that is choking\nthe young corn, and finds there are two: close behind the last, is a\nthird; he reaches out his hand to a fourth; behind that, are four\nthousand and one.  He is heated and untuned, and, by and by, wakes up\nfrom his idiot dream of chickweed and red-root, to remember his morning\nthought, and to find, that, with his adamantine purposes, he has been\nduped by a dandelion.  A garden is like those pernicious machineries we\nread of, every month, in the newspapers, which catch a man's coat-skirt\nor his hand, and draw in his arm, his leg, and his whole body to\nirresistible destruction.  In an evil hour he pulled down his wall, and\nadded a field to his homestead.  No land is bad, but land is worse.  If\na man own land, the land owns him. Now let him leave home, if he dare.\nEvery tree and graft, every hill of melons, row of corn, or quickset\nhedge, all he has done, and all he means to do, stand in his way, like\nduns, when he would go out of his gate.  The devotion to these vines and\ntrees he finds poisonous.  Long free walks, a circuit of miles, free his\nbrain, and serve his body. Long marches are no hardship to him.  He\nbelieves he composes easily on the hills.  But this pottering in a few\nsquare yards of garden is dispiriting and drivelling.  The smell of the\nplants has drugged him, and robbed him of energy.  He finds a catalepsy\nin his bones.  He grows peevish and poor-spirited.  The genius of\nreading and of gardening are antagonistic, like resinous and vitreous\nelectricity.  One is concentrative in sparks and shocks: the other is\ndiffuse strength; so that each disqualifies its workman for the other's\nduties.\n\nAn engraver whose hands must be of an exquisite delicacy of stroke,\nshould not lay stone walls.  Sir David Brewster gives exact instructions\nfor microscopic observation:--\"Lie down on your back, and hold the\nsingle lens and object over your eye,\" &c. &c.  How much more the seeker\nof abstract truth, who needs periods of isolation, and rapt\nconcentration, and almost a going out of the body to think!\n\n2. Spend after your genius, _and by system_. Nature goes by rule, not by\nsallies and saltations. There must be system in the economies.  Saving\nand unexpensiveness will not keep the most pathetic family from ruin,\nnor will bigger incomes make free spending safe.  The secret of success\nlies never in the amount of money, but in the relation of income to\noutgo; as if, after expense has been fixed at a certain point, then new\nand steady rills of income, though never so small, being added, wealth\nbegins.  But in ordinary, as means increase, spending increases faster,\nso that, large incomes, in England and elsewhere, are found not to help\nmatters;--the eating quality of debt does not relax its voracity.  When\nthe cholera is in the potato, what is the use of planting larger crops?\nIn England, the richest country in the universe, I was assured by shrewd\nobservers, that great lords and ladies had no more guineas to give away\nthan other people; that liberality with money is as rare, and as\nimmediately famous a virtue as it is here.  Want is a growing giant whom\nthe coat of Have was never large enough to cover.  I remember in\nWarwickshire, to have been shown a fair manor, still in the same name as\nin Shakspeare's time.  The rent-roll, I was told, is some fourteen\nthousand pounds a year: but, when the second son of the late proprietor\nwas born, the father was perplexed how to provide for him.  The eldest\nson must inherit the manor; what to do with this supernumerary?  He was\nadvised to breed him for the Church, and to settle him in the\nrectorship, which was in the gift of the family; which was done.  It is\na general rule in that country, that bigger incomes do not help anybody.\nIt is commonly observed, that a sudden wealth, like a prize drawn in a\nlottery, or a large bequest to a poor family, does not permanently\nenrich.  They have served no apprenticeship to wealth, and, with the\nrapid wealth, come rapid claims: which they do not know how to deny, and\nthe treasure is quickly dissipated.\n\nA system must be in every economy, or the best single expedients are of\nno avail.  A farm is a good thing, when it begins and ends with itself,\nand does not need a salary, or a shop, to eke it out. Thus, the cattle\nare a main link in the chain-ring. If the non-conformist or aesthetic\nfarmer leaves out the cattle, and does not also leave out the want which\nthe cattle must supply, he must fill the gap by begging or stealing.\nWhen men now alive were born, the farm yielded everything that was\nconsumed on it.  The farm yielded no money, and the farmer got on\nwithout.  If he fell sick, his neighbors came in to his aid: each gave a\nday's work; or a half day; or lent his yoke of oxen, or his horse, and\nkept his work even: hoed his potatoes, mowed his hay, reaped his rye;\nwell knowing that no man could afford to hire labor, without selling his\nland.  In autumn, a farmer could sell an ox or a hog, and get a little\nmoney to pay taxes withal. Now, the farmer buys almost all he\nconsumes,--tin-ware, cloth, sugar, tea, coffee, fish, coal,\nrailroad-tickets, and newspapers.\n\nA master in each art is required, because the practice is never with\nstill or dead subjects, but they change in your hands.  You think\nfarm-buildings and broad acres a solid property: but its value is\nflowing like water.  It requires as much watching as if you were\ndecanting wine from a cask. The farmer knows what to do with it, stops\nevery leak, turns all the streamlets to one reservoir, and decants wine:\nbut a blunderhead comes out of Cornhill, tries his hand, and it all\nleaks away.  So is it with granite streets, or timber townships, as with\nfruit or flowers.  Nor is any investment so permanent, that it can be\nallowed to remain without incessant watching, as the history of each\nattempt to lock up an inheritance through two generations for an unborn\ninheritor may show.\n\nWhen Mr. Cockayne takes a cottage in the country, and will keep his cow,\nhe thinks a cow is a creature that is fed on hay, and gives a pail of\nmilk twice a day.  But the cow that he buys gives milk for three months;\nthen her bag dries up.  What to do with a dry cow? who will buy her?\nPerhaps he bought also a yoke of oxen to do his work; but they get blown\nand lame.  What to do with blown and lame oxen?  The farmer fats his,\nafter the spring-work is done, and kills them in the fall. But how can\nCockayne, who has no pastures, and leaves his cottage daily in the cars,\nat business hours, be pothered with fatting and killing oxen? He plants\ntrees; but there must be crops, to keep the trees in ploughed land.\nWhat shall be the crops?  He will have nothing to do with trees, but\nwill have grass.  After a year or two, the grass must be turned up and\nploughed: now what crops? Credulous Cockayne!\n\n3. Help comes in the custom of the country, and the rule of _Impera\nparendo_.  The rule is not to dictate, nor to insist on carrying out\neach of your schemes by ignorant wilfulness, but to learn practically\nthe secret spoken from all nature, that things themselves refuse to be\nmismanaged, and will show to the watchful their own law.  Nobody need\nstir hand or foot.  The custom of the country will do it all.  I know\nnot how to build or to plant; neither how to buy wood, nor what to do\nwith the house-lot, the field, or the wood-lot, when bought.  Never\nfear: it is all settled how it shall be, long beforehand, in the custom\nof the country, whether to sand, or whether to clay it, when to plough,\nand how to dress, whether to grass, or to corn; and you cannot help or\nhinder it.  Nature has her own best mode of doing each thing, and she\nhas somewhere told it plainly, if we will keep our eyes and ears open.\nIf not, she will not be slow in undeceiving us, when we prefer our own\nway to hers.  How often we must remember the art of the surgeon, which,\nin replacing the broken bone, contents itself with releasing the parts\nfrom false position; they fly into place by the action of the muscles.\nOn this art of nature all our arts rely.\n\nOf the two eminent engineers in the recent construction of railways in\nEngland, Mr. Brunel went straight from terminus to terminus, through\nmountains, over streams, crossing highways, cutting ducal estates in\ntwo, and shooting through this man's cellar, and that man's attic\nwindow, and so arriving at his end, at great pleasure to geometers, but\nwith cost to his company.  Mr. Stephenson, on the contrary, believing\nthat the river knows the way, followed his valley, as implicitly as our\nWestern Railroad follows the Westfield River, and turned out to be the\nsafest and cheapest engineer.  We say the cows laid out Boston.  Well,\nthere are worse surveyors.  Every pedestrian in our pastures has\nfrequent occasion to thank the cows for cutting the best path through\nthe thicket, and over the hills: and travellers and Indians know the\nvalue of a buffalo-trail, which is sure to be the easiest possible pass\nthrough the ridge.\n\nWhen a citizen, fresh from Dock-square, or Milk-street, comes out and\nbuys land in the country, his first thought is to a fine outlook from\nhis windows: his library must command a western view: a sunset every\nday, bathing the shoulder of Blue Hills, Wachusett, and the peaks of\nMonadnoc and Uncanoonuc.  What, thirty acres, and all this magnificence\nfor fifteen hundred dollars!  It would be cheap at fifty thousand.  He\nproceeds at once, his eyes dim with tears of joy, to fix the spot for\nhis corner-stone.  But the man who is to level the ground, thinks it\nwill take many hundred loads of gravel to fill the hollow to the road.\nThe stonemason who should build the well thinks he shall have to dig\nforty feet: the baker doubts he shall never like to drive up to the\ndoor: the practical neighbor cavils at the position of the barn; and the\ncitizen comes to know that his predecessor the farmer built the house in\nthe right spot for the sun and wind, the spring, and water-drainage, and\nthe convenience to the pasture, the garden, the field, and the road.  So\nDock-square yields the point, and things have their own way.  Use has\nmade the farmer wise, and the foolish citizen learns to take his\ncounsel.  From step to step he comes at last to surrender at discretion.\nThe farmer affects to take his orders; but the citizen says, You may ask\nme as often as you will, and in what ingenious forms, for an opinion\nconcerning the mode of building my wall, or sinking my well, or laying\nout my acre, but the ball will rebound to you.  These are matters on\nwhich I neither know, nor need to know anything.  These are questions\nwhich you and not I shall answer.\n\nNot less, within doors, a system settles itself paramount and tyrannical\nover master and mistress, servant and child, cousin and acquaintance.\n'Tis in vain that genius or virtue or energy of character strive and cry\nagainst it.  This is fate.  And 'tis very well that the poor husband\nreads in a book of a new way of living, and resolves to adopt it at\nhome: let him go home and try it, if he dare.\n\n4. Another point of economy is to look for seed of the same kind as you\nsow: and not to hope to buy one kind with another kind.  Friendship buys\nfriendship; justice, justice; military merit, military success.  Good\nhusbandry finds wife, children, and household.  The good merchant large\ngains, ships, stocks, and money.  The good poet fame, and literary\ncredit; but not either, the ether. Yet there is commonly a confusion of\nexpectations on these points.  Hotspur lives for the moment; praises\nhimself for it; and despises Furlong, that he does not.  Hotspur, of\ncourse, is poor; and Furlong a good provider.  The odd circumstance is,\nthat Hotspur thinks it a superiority in himself, this improvidence,\nwhich ought to be rewarded with Furlong's lands.\n\nI have not at all completed my design.  But we must not leave the topic,\nwithout casting one glance into the interior recesses.  It is a doctrine\nof philosophy, that man is a being of degrees; that there is nothing in\nthe world, which is not repeated in his body; his body being a sort of\nminiature or summary of the world: then that there is nothing in his\nbody, which is not repeated as in a celestial sphere in his mind: then,\nthere is nothing in his brain, which is not repeated in a higher sphere,\nin his moral system.\n\n5. Now these things are so in Nature.  All things ascend, and the royal\nrule of economy is, that it should ascend also, or, whatever we do must\nalways have a higher aim.  Thus it is a maxim, that money is another\nkind of blood.  _Pecunia alter sanguis_: or, the estate of a man is only\na larger kind of body, and admits of regimen analogous to his bodily\ncirculations.  So there is no maxim of the merchant, _e.g._, \"Best use\nof money is to pay debts;\" \"Every business by itself;\" \"Best time is\npresent time;\" \"The right investment is in tools of your trade;\" or the\nlike, which does not admit of an extended sense.  The counting-room\nmaxims liberally expounded are laws of the Universe.  The merchant's\neconomy is a coarse symbol of the soul's economy.  It is, to spend for\npower, and not for pleasure.  It is to invest income; that is to say, to\ntake up particulars into generals; days into integral eras,--literary,\nemotive, practical, of its life, and still to ascend in its investment.\nThe merchant has but one rule, _absorb and invest_: he is to be\ncapitalist: the scraps and filings must be gathered back into the\ncrucible; the gas and smoke must be burned, and earnings must not go to\nincrease expense, but to capital again.  Well, the man must be\ncapitalist.  Will he spend his income, or will he invest?  His body and\nevery organ is under the same law.  His body is a jar, in which the\nliquor of life is stored.  Will he spend for pleasure?  The way to ruin\nis short and facile.  Will he not spend, but hoard for power?  It passes\nthrough the sacred fermentations, by that law of Nature whereby\neverything climbs to higher platforms, and bodily vigor becomes mental\nand moral vigor.  The bread he eats is first strength and animal\nspirits: it becomes, in higher laboratories, imagery and thought; and in\nstill higher results, courage and endurance.  This is the right compound\ninterest; this is capital doubled, quadrupled, centupled; man raised to\nhis highest power.\n\nThe true thrift is always to spend on the higher plane; to invest and\ninvest, with keener avarice, that he may spend in spiritual creation,\nand not in augmenting animal existence.  Nor is the man enriched, in\nrepeating the old experiments of animal sensation, nor unless through\nnew powers and ascending pleasures, he knows himself by the actual\nexperience of higher good, to be already on the way to the highest.\n\n\n\n\n                                  IV.\n\n\n                                CULTURE\n\n\n    Can rules or tutors educate\n    The semigod whom we await?\n    He must be musical,\n    Tremulous, impressional,\n    Alive to gentle influence\n    Of landscape and of sky,\n    And tender to the spirit-touch\n    Of man's or maiden's eye:\n    But, to his native centre fast,\n    Shall into Future fuse the Past,\n    And the world's flowing fates in his own mould recast.\n\n\n\n                                CULTURE.\n\n\nThe word of ambition at the present day is Culture.  Whilst all the\nworld is in pursuit of power, and of wealth as a means of power, culture\ncorrects the theory of success.  A man is the prisoner of his power.  A\ntopical memory makes him an almanac; a talent for debate, a disputant;\nskill to get money makes him a miser, that is, a beggar.  Culture\nreduces these inflammations by invoking the aid of other powers against\nthe dominant talent, and by appealing to the rank of powers.  It watches\nsuccess.  For performance, Nature has no mercy, and sacrifices the\nperformer to get it done; makes a dropsy or a tympany of him.  If she\nwants a thumb, she makes one at the cost of arms and legs, and any\nexcess of power in one part is usually paid for at once by some defect\nin a contiguous part.\n\nOur efficiency depends so much on our concentration, that Nature usually\nin the instances where a marked man is sent into the world, overloads\nhim with bias, sacrificing his symmetry to his working power.  It is\nsaid, no man can write but one book; and if a man have a defect, it is\napt to leave its impression on all his performances.  If she creates a\npoliceman like Fouche, he is made up of suspicions and of plots to\ncircumvent them.  \"The air,\" said Fouche, \"is full of poniards.\"  The\nphysician Sanctorius spent his life in a pair of scales, weighing his\nfood.  Lord Coke valued Chaucer highly, because the Canon Yeman's Tale\nillustrates the statute _Hen. V. Chap._ 4, against alchemy.  I saw a man\nwho believed the principal mischiefs in the English state were derived\nfrom the devotion to musical concerts.  A freemason, not long since, set\nout to explain to this country, that the principal cause of the success\nof General Washington, was, the aid he derived from the freemasons.\n\nBut worse than the harping on one string, Nature has secured\nindividualism, by giving the private person a high conceit of his weight\nin the system. The pest of society is egotists.  There are dull and\nbright, sacred and profane, coarse and fine egotists. 'Tis a disease\nthat, like influenza, falls on all constitutions.  In the distemper\nknown to physicians as _chorea_, the patient sometimes turns round, and\ncontinues to spin slowly on one spot.  Is egotism a metaphysical\nvarioloid of this malady?  The man runs round a ring formed by his own\ntalent, falls into an admiration of it, and loses relation to the world.\nIt is a tendency in all minds.  One of its annoying forms, is a craving\nfor sympathy.  The sufferers parade their miseries, tear the lint from\ntheir bruises, reveal their indictable crimes, that you may pity them.\nThey like sickness, because physical pain will extort some show of\ninterest from the bystanders, as we have seen children, who, finding\nthemselves of no account when grown people come in, will cough till they\nchoke, to draw attention.\n\nThis distemper is the scourge of talent,--of artists, inventors, and\nphilosophers.  Eminent spiritualists shall have an incapacity of putting\ntheir act or word aloof from them, and seeing it bravely for the nothing\nit is.  Beware of the man who says, \"I am on the eve of a revelation.\"\nIt is speedily punished, inasmuch as this habit invites men to humor it,\nand by treating the patient tenderly, to shut him up in a narrower\nselfism, and exclude him from the great world of God's cheerful fallible\nmen and women.  Let us rather be insulted, whilst we are insultable.\nReligious literature has eminent examples, and if we run over our\nprivate list of poets, critics, philanthropists, and philosophers, we\nshall find them infected with this dropsy and elephantiasis, which we\nought to have tapped.\n\nThis goitre of egotism is so frequent among notable persons, that we\nmust infer some strong necessity in nature which it subserves; such as\nwe see in the sexual attraction.  The preservation of the species was a\npoint of such necessity, that Nature has secured it at all hazards by\nimmensely overloading the passion, at the risk of perpetual crime and\norder.  So egotism has its root in the cardinal necessity by which each\nindividual persists to be what he is.\n\nThis individuality is not only not inconsistent with culture, but is the\nbasis of it.  Every valuable nature is there in its own right, and the\nstudent we speak to must have a motherwit invincible by his culture,\nwhich uses all books, arts, facilities, and elegancies of intercourse,\nbut is never subdued and lost in them.  He only is a well-made man who\nhas a good determination.  And the end of culture is not to destroy\nthis, God forbid! but to train away all impediment and mixture, and\nleave nothing but pure power.  Our student must have a style and\ndetermination, and be a master in his own specialty. But, having this,\nhe must put it behind him.  He must have a catholicity, a power to see\nwith a free and disengaged look every object.  Yet is this private\ninterest and self so overcharged, that, if a man seeks a companion who\ncan look at objects for their own sake, and without affection or\nself-reference, he will find the fewest who will give him that\nsatisfaction; whilst most men are afflicted with a coldness, an\nincuriosity, as soon as any object does not connect with their\nself-love.  Though they talk of the object before them, they are\nthinking of themselves, and their vanity is laying little traps for your\nadmiration.\n\nBut after a man has discovered that there are limits to the interest\nwhich his private history has for mankind, he still converses with his\nfamily, or a few companions,--perhaps with half a dozen personalities\nthat are famous in his neighborhood.  In Boston, the question of life is\nthe names of some eight or ten men.  Have you seen Mr. Allston, Doctor\nChanning, Mr. Adams, Mr. Webster, Mr. Greenough?  Have you heard\nEverett, Garrison, Father Taylor, Theodore Parker?  Have you talked with\nMessieurs Turbinewheel, Summitlevel, and Lacofrupees?  Then you may as\nwell die.  In New York, the question is of some other eight, or ten, or\ntwenty.  Have you seen a few lawyers, merchants, and brokers,--two or\nthree scholars, two or three capitalists, two or three editors of\nnewspapers?  New York is a sucked orange.  All conversation is at an\nend, when we have discharged ourselves of a dozen personalities,\ndomestic or imported, which make up our American existence. Nor do we\nexpect anybody to be other than a faint copy of these heroes.\n\nLife is very narrow.  Bring any club or company of intelligent men\ntogether again after ten years, and if the presence of some penetrating\nand calming genius could dispose them to frankness, what a confession of\ninsanities would come up!  The \"causes\" to which we have sacrificed,\nTariff or Democracy, Whigism or Abolition, Temperance or Socialism,\nwould show like roots of bitterness and dragons of wrath: and our\ntalents are as mischievous as if each had been seized upon by some bird\nof prey, which had whisked him away from fortune, from truth, from the\ndear society of the poets, some zeal, some bias, and only when he was,\nnow gray and nerveless, was it relaxing its claws, and he awaking to\nsober perceptions.\n\nCulture is the suggestion from certain best thoughts, that a man has a\nrange of affinities, through which he can modulate the violence of any\nmaster-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor\nhim against himself.  Culture redresses his balance, puts him among his\nequals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns\nhim of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.\n\n'Tis not a compliment but a disparagement to consult a man only on\nhorses, or on steam, or on theatres, or on eating, or on books, and,\nwhenever he appears, considerately to turn the conversation to the\nbantling he is known to fondle.  In the Norse heaven of our forefathers,\nThor's house had five hundred and forty floors; and man's house has five\nhundred and forty floors.  His excellence is facility of adaptation and\nof transition through many related points, to wide contrasts and\nextremes.  Culture kills his exaggeration, his conceit of his village or\nhis city.  We must leave our pets at home, when we go into the street,\nand meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense. No\nperformance is worth loss of geniality.  'Tis a cruel price we pay for\ncertain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.  In the Norse\nlegend, Allfadir did not get a drink of Mimir's spring, (the fountain of\nwisdom,) until he left his eye in pledge.  And here is a pedant that\ncannot unfold his wrinkles, nor conceal his wrath at interruption by the\nbest, if their conversation do not fit his impertinency,--here is he to\nafflict us with his personalities.  'Tis incident to scholars, that each\nof them fancies he is pointedly odious in his community. Draw him out of\nthis limbo of irritability. Cleanse with healthy blood his parchment\nskin. You restore to him his eyes which he left in pledge at Mimir's\nspring.  If you are the victim of your doing, who cares what you do?  We\ncan spare your opera, your gazetteer, your chemic analysis, your\nhistory, your syllogisms.  Your man of genius pays dear for his\ndistinction.  His head runs up into a spire, and instead of a healthy\nman, merry and wise, he is some mad dominie.  Nature is reckless of the\nindividual.  When she has points to carry, she carries them.  To wade in\nmarshes and sea-margins is the destiny of certain birds, and they are so\naccurately made for this, that they are imprisoned in those places.\nEach animal out of its _habitat_ would starve.  To the physician, each\nman, each woman, is an amplification of one organ.  A soldier, a\nlocksmith, a bank-clerk, and a dancer could not exchange functions.  And\nthus we are victims of adaptation.\n\nThe antidotes against this organic egotism, are, the range and variety\nof attractions, as gained by acquaintance with the world, with men of\nmerit, with classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons, and\nwith the high resources of philosophy, art, and religion: books, travel,\nsociety, solitude.\n\nThe hardiest skeptic who has seen a horse broken, a pointer trained, or,\nwho has visited a menagerie, or the exhibition of the Industrious Fleas,\nwill not deny the validity of education.  \"A boy,\" says Plato, \"is the\nmost vicious of all wild beasts;\" and, in the same spirit, the old\nEnglish poet Gascoigne says, \"a boy is better unborn than untaught.\"\nThe city breeds one kind of speech and manners; the back-country a\ndifferent style; the sea, another; the army, a fourth.  We know that an\narmy which can be confided in, may be formed by discipline; that, by\nsystematic discipline all men may be made heroes: Marshal Lannes said to\na French officer, \"Know, Colonel, that none but a poltroon will boast\nthat he never was afraid.\"  A great part of courage is the courage of\nhaving done the thing before.  And, in all human action, those faculties\nwill be strong which are used.  Robert Owen said, \"Give me a tiger, and\nI will educate him.\"  'Tis inhuman to want faith in the power of\neducation, since to meliorate, is the law of nature; and men are valued\nprecisely as they exert onward or meliorating force.  On the other hand,\npoltroonery is the acknowledging an inferiority to be incurable.\n\nIncapacity of melioration is the only mortal distemper.  There are\npeople who can never understand a trope, or any second or expanded sense\ngiven to your words, or any humor; but remain literalists, after hearing\nthe music, and poetry, and rhetoric, and wit, of seventy or eighty\nyears.  They are past the help of surgeon or clergy.  But even these can\nunderstand pitchforks and the cry of fire! and I have noticed in some of\nthis class a marked dislike of earthquakes.\n\nLet us make our education brave and preventive. Politics is an\nafter-work, a poor patching.  We are always a little late.  The evil is\ndone, the law is passed, and we begin the up-hill agitation for repeal\nof that of which we ought to have prevented the enacting.  We shall one\nday learn to supersede politics by education.  What we call our\nroot-and-branch reforms of slavery, war, gambling, intemperance, is only\nmedicating the symptoms.  We must begin higher up, namely, in Education.\n\nOur arts and tools give to him who can handle them much the same\nadvantage over the novice, as if you extended his life, ten, fifty, or a\nhundred years.  And I think it the part of good sense to provide every\nfine soul with such culture, that it shall not, at thirty or forty\nyears, have to say, \"This which I might do is made hopeless through my\nwant of weapons.\"\n\nBut it is conceded that much of our training fails of effect; that all\nsuccess is hazardous and rare; that a large part of our cost and pains\nis thrown away.  Nature takes the matter into her own hands, and, though\nwe must not omit any jot of our system, we can seldom be sure that it\nhas availed much, or, that as much good would not have accrued from a\ndifferent system.\n\nBooks, as containing the finest records of human wit, must always enter\ninto our notion of culture. The best heads that ever existed, Pericles,\nPlato, Julius Caesar, Shakspeare, Goethe, Milton, were well-read,\nuniversally educated men, and quite too wise to undervalue letters.\nTheir opinion has weight, because they had means of knowing the opposite\nopinion.  We look that a great man should be a good reader, or, in\nproportion to the spontaneous power should be the assimilating power.\nGood criticism is very rare, and always precious. I am always happy to\nmeet persons who perceive the transcendent superiority of Shakspeare\nover all other writers.  I like people who like Plato. Because this love\ndoes not consist with self-conceit.\n\nBut books are good only as far as a boy is ready for them.  He sometimes\ngets ready very slowly. You send your child to the schoolmaster, but\n'tis the schoolboys who educate him.  You send him to the Latin class,\nbut much of his tuition comes, on his way to school, from the\nshop-windows.  You like the strict rules and the long terms; and he\nfinds his best leading in a by-way of his own, and refuses any\ncompanions but of his choosing.  He hates the grammar and _Gradus_, and\nloves guns, fishing-rods, horses, and boats.  Well, the boy is right;\nand you are not fit to direct his bringing up, if your theory leaves out\nhis gymnastic training. Archery, cricket, gun and fishing-rod, horse and\nboat, are all educators, liberalizers; and so are dancing, dress, and\nthe street-talk; and,--provided only the boy has resources, and is of a\nnoble and ingenuous strain,--these will not serve him less than the\nbooks.  He learns chess, whist, dancing, and theatricals.  The father\nobserves that another boy has learned algebra and geometry in the same\ntime.  But the first boy has acquired much more than these poor games\nalong with them.  He is infatuated for weeks with whist and chess; but\npresently will find out, as you did, that when he rises from the game\ntoo long played, he is vacant and forlorn, and despises himself.\nThenceforward it takes place with other things, and has its due weight\nin his experience.  These minor skills and accomplishments, for example,\ndancing, are tickets of admission to the dress-circle of mankind, and\nthe being master of them enables the youth to judge intelligently of\nmuch, on which, otherwise, he would give a pedantic squint.  Landor\nsaid, \"I have suffered more from my bad dancing, than from all the\nmisfortunes and miseries of my life put together.\"  Provided always the\nboy is teachable, (for we are not proposing to make a statue out of\npunk,) football, cricket, archery, swimming, skating, climbing, fencing,\nriding, are lessons in the art of power, which it is his main business\nto learn;--riding, specially, of which Lord Herbert of Cherbury said, \"a\ngood rider on a good horse is as much above himself and others as the\nworld can make him.\"  Besides, the gun, fishing-rod, boat, and horse,\nconstitute, among all who use them, secret freemasonries.  They are as\nif they belonged to one club.\n\nThere is also a negative value in these arts. Their chief use to the\nyouth, is, not amusement, but to be known for what they are, and not to\nremain to him occasions of heart-burn.  We are full of superstitions.\nEach class fixes its eyes on the advantages it has not; the refined, on\nrude strength; the democrat, on birth and breeding.  One of the benefits\nof a college education is, to show the boy its little avail.  I knew a\nleading man in a leading city, who, having set his heart on an education\nat the university, and missed it, could never quite feel himself the\nequal of his own brothers who had gone thither.  His easy superiority to\nmultitudes of professional men could never quite countervail to him this\nimaginary defect.  Balls, riding, wine-parties, and billiards, pass to a\npoor boy for something fine and romantic, which they are not; and a free\nadmission to them on an equal footing, if it were possible, only once or\ntwice, would be worth ten times its cost, by undeceiving him.\n\nI am not much an advocate for travelling, and I observe that men run\naway to other countries, because they are not good in their own, and run\nback to their own, because they pass for nothing in the new places.  For\nthe most part, only the light characters travel.  Who are you that have\nno task to keep you at home?  I have been quoted as saying captious\nthings about travel; but I mean to do justice.  I think, there is a\nrestlessness in our people, which argues want of character.  All\neducated Americans, first or last, go to Europe;--perhaps, because it is\ntheir mental home, as the invalid habits of this country might suggest.\nAn eminent teacher of girls said, \"the idea of a girl's education, is,\nwhatever qualifies them for going to Europe.\"  Can we never extract this\ntape-worm of Europe from the brain of our countrymen?  One sees very\nwell what their fate must be.  He that does not fill a place at home,\ncannot abroad.  He only goes there to hide his insignificance in a\nlarger crowd.  You do not think you will find anything there which you\nhave not seen at home?  The stuff of all countries is just the same.  Do\nyou suppose, there is any country where they do not scald milkpans, and\nswaddle the infants, and burn the brushwood, and broil the fish? What is\ntrue anywhere is true everywhere.  And let him go where he will, he can\nonly find so much beauty or worth as he carries.\n\nOf course, for some men, travel may be useful. Naturalists, discoverers,\nand sailors are born.  Some men are made for couriers, exchangers,\nenvoys, missionaries, bearers of despatches, as others are for farmers\nand working-men.  And if the man is of a light and social turn, and\nNature has aimed to make a legged and winged creature, framed for\nlocomotion, we must follow her hint, and furnish him with that breeding\nwhich gives currency, as sedulously as with that which gives worth.  But\nlet us not be pedantic, but allow to travel its full effect. The boy\ngrown up on the farm, which he has never left, is said in the country to\nhave had no chance, and boys and men of that condition look upon work on\na railroad, or drudgery in a city, as opportunity. Poor country boys of\nVermont and Connecticut formerly owed what knowledge they had, to their\npeddling trips to the Southern States.  California and the Pacific Coast\nis now the university of this class, as Virginia was in old times.  'To\nhave some chance' is their word.  And the phrase 'to know the world,' or\nto travel, is synonymous with all men's ideas of advantage and\nsuperiority.  No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As\nmany languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so\nmany times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison,\nwherefrom to judge his own.  One use of travel, is, to recommend the\nbooks and works of home; [we go to Europe to be Americanized;] and\nanother, to find men.  For, as Nature has put fruits apart in latitudes,\na new fruit in every degree, so knowledge and fine moral quality she\nlodges in distant men. And thus, of the six or seven teachers whom each\nman wants among his contemporaries, it often happens, that one or two of\nthem live on the other side of the world.\n\nMoreover, there is in every constitution a certain solstice, when the\nstars stand still in our inward firmament, and when there is required\nsome foreign force, some diversion or alterative to prevent stagnation.\nAnd, as a medical remedy, travel seems one of the best.  Just as a man\nwitnessing the admirable effect of ether to lull pain, and meditating on\nthe contingencies of wounds, cancers, lockjaws, rejoices in Dr.\nJackson's benign discovery, so a man who looks at Paris, at Naples, or\nat London, says, 'If I should be driven from my own home, here, at\nleast, my thoughts can be consoled by the most prodigal amusement and\noccupation which the human race in ages could contrive and accumulate.'\n\nAkin to the benefit of foreign travel, the aesthetic value of railroads\nis to unite the advantages of town and country life, neither of which we\ncan spare. A man should live in or near a large town, because, let his\nown genius be what it may, it will repel quite as much of agreeable and\nvaluable talent as it draws, and, in a city, the total attraction of all\nthe citizens is sure to conquer, first or last, every repulsion, and\ndrag the most improbable hermit within its walls some day in the year.\nIn town, he can find the swimming-school, the gymnasium, the\ndancing-master, the shooting-gallery, opera, theatre, and panorama; the\nchemist's shop, the museum of natural history; the gallery of fine arts;\nthe national orators, in their turn; foreign travellers, the libraries,\nand his club.  In the country, he can find solitude and reading, manly\nlabor, cheap living, and his old shoes; moors for game, hills for\ngeology, and groves for devotion.  Aubrey writes, \"I have heard Thomas\nHobbes say, that, in the Earl of Devon's house, in Derbyshire, there was\na good library and books enough for him, and his lordship stored the\nlibrary with what books he thought fit to be bought.  But the want of\ngood conversation was a very great inconvenience, and, though he\nconceived he could order his thinking as well as another, yet he found a\ngreat defect.  In the country, in long time, for want of good\nconversation, one's understanding and invention contract a moss on them,\nlike an old paling in an orchard.\"\n\nCities give us collision.  'Tis said, London and New York take the\nnonsense out of a man.  A great part of our education is sympathetic and\nsocial.  Boys and girls who have been brought up with well-informed and\nsuperior people, show in their manners an inestimable grace.  Fuller\nsays, that \"William, Earl of Nassau, won a subject from the King of\nSpain, every time he put off his hat.\"  You cannot have one well-bred\nman, without a whole society of such.  They keep each other up to any\nhigh point.  Especially women;--it requires a great many cultivated\nwomen,--saloons of bright, elegant, reading women, accustomed to ease\nand refinement, to spectacles, pictures, sculpture, poetry, and to\nelegant society, in order that you should have one Madame de Stael.  The\nhead of a commercial house, or a leading lawyer or politician is brought\ninto daily contact with troops of men from all parts of the country, and\nthose too the driving-wheels, the business men of each section, and one\ncan hardly suggest for an apprehensive man a more searching culture.\nBesides, we must remember the high social possibilities of a million of\nmen.  The best bribe which London offers to-day to the imagination, is,\nthat, in such a vast variety of people and conditions, one can believe\nthere is room for persons of romantic character to exist, and that the\npoet, the mystic, and the hero may hope to confront their counterparts.\n\nI wish cities could teach their best lesson,--of quiet manners.  It is\nthe foible especially of American youth,--pretension.  The mark of the\nman of the world is absence of pretension.  He does not make a speech;\nhe takes a low business-tone, avoids all brag, is nobody, dresses\nplainly, promises not at all, performs much, speaks in monosyllables,\nhugs his fact.  He calls his employment by its lowest name, and so takes\nfrom evil tongues their sharpest weapon.  His conversation clings to the\nweather and the news, yet he allows himself to be surprised into\nthought, and the unlocking of his learning and philosophy.  How the\nimagination is piqued by anecdotes of some great man passing incognito,\nas a king in gray clothes,--of Napoleon affecting a plain suit at his\nglittering levee; of Burns, or Scott, or Beethoven, or Wellington, or\nGoethe, or any container of transcendent power, passing for nobody; of\nEpaminondas, \"who never says anything, but will listen eternally;\" of\nGoethe, who preferred trifling subjects and common expressions in\nintercourse with strangers, worse rather than better clothes, and to\nappear a little more capricious than he was.  There are advantages in\nthe old hat and box-coat.  I have heard, that, throughout this country,\na certain respect is paid to good broadcloth; but dress makes a little\nrestraint: men will not commit themselves.  But the box-coat is like\nwine; it unlocks the tongue, and men say what they think.  An old poet\nsays,\n\n      \"Go far and go sparing,\n    For you'll find it certain,\n    The poorer and the baser you appear,\n    The more you'll look through still.\"[2]\n\n  [2] Beaumont and Fletcher: _The Tamer Tamed_.\n\nNot much otherwise Milnes writes, in the \"Lay of the Humble,\"\n\n    \"To me men are for what they are,\n    They wear no masks with me.\"\n\n\n'Tis odd that our people should have--not water on the brain,--but a\nlittle gas there.  A shrewd foreigner said of the Americans, that,\n\"whatever they say has a little the air of a speech.\"  Yet one of the\ntraits down in the books as distinguishing the Anglo-Saxon, is, a trick\nof self-disparagement.  To be sure, in old, dense countries, among a\nmillion of good coats, a fine coat comes to be no distinction, and you\nfind humorists.  In an English party, a man with no marked manners or\nfeatures, with a face like red dough, unexpectedly discloses wit,\nlearning, a wide range of topics, and personal familiarity with good men\nin all parts of the world, until you think you have fallen upon some\nillustrious personage.  Can it be that the American forest has refreshed\nsome weeds of old Pictish barbarism just ready to die out,--the love of\nthe scarlet feather, of beads, and tinsel?  The Italians are fond of red\nclothes, peacock plumes, and embroidery; and I remember one rainy\nmorning in the city of Palermo, the street was in a blaze with scarlet\numbrellas.  The English have a plain taste.  The equipages of the\ngrandees are plain.  A gorgeous livery indicates new and awkward city\nwealth. Mr. Pitt, like Mr. Pym, thought the title of _Mister_ good\nagainst any king in Europe.  They have piqued themselves on governing\nthe whole world in the poor, plain, dark Committee-room which the House\nof Commons sat in, before the fire.\n\nWhilst we want cities as the centres where the best things are found,\ncities degrade us by magnifying trifles.  The countryman finds the town\na chophouse, a barber's shop.  He has lost the lines of grandeur of the\nhorizon, hills and plains, and with them, sobriety and elevation.  He\nhas come among a supple, glib-tongued tribe, who live for show, servile\nto public opinion.  Life is dragged down to a fracas of pitiful cares\nand disasters.  You say the gods ought to respect a life whose objects\nare their own; but in cities they have betrayed you to a cloud of\ninsignificant annoyances:\n\n    \"Mirmidons, race feconde,\n    Mirmidons,\n    Enfin nous commandons;\n    Jupiter livre le monde\n    Aux mirmidons, aux mirmidons.\"[3]\n\n    'Tis heavy odds\n    Against the gods,\n    When they will match with myrmidons.\n    We spawning, spawning myrmidons,\n    Our turn to-day! we take command,\n    Jove gives the globe into the hand\n    Of myrmidons, of myrmidons.\n\n\n  [3] Beranger.\n\nWhat is odious but noise, and people who scream and bewail? people whose\nvane points always east, who live to dine, who send for the doctor, who\ncoddle themselves, who toast their feet on the register, who intrigue to\nsecure a padded chair, and a corner out of the draught.  Suffer them\nonce to begin the enumeration of their infirmities, and the sun will go\ndown on the unfinished tale.  Let these triflers put us out of conceit\nwith petty comforts.  To a man at work, the frost is but a color: the\nrain, the wind, he forgot them when he came in.  Let us learn to live\ncoarsely, dress plainly, and lie hard. The least habit of dominion over\nthe palate has certain good effects not easily estimated.  Neither will\nwe be driven into a quiddling abstemiousness.  'Tis a superstition to\ninsist on a special diet.  All is made at last of the same chemical\natoms.\n\nA man in pursuit of greatness feels no little wants.  How can you mind\ndiet, bed, dress, or salutes or compliments, or the figure you make in\ncompany, or wealth, or even the bringing things to pass, when you think\nhow paltry are the machinery and the workers?  Wordsworth was praised to\nme, in Westmoreland, for having afforded to his country neighbors an\nexample of a modest household where comfort and culture were secured,\nwithout display. And a tender boy who wears his rusty cap and outgrown\ncoat, that he may secure the coveted place in college, and the right in\nthe library, is educated to some purpose.  There is a great deal of\nself-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and\ncountry, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that\nkeeps the earth sweet; that saves on superfluities, and spends on\nessentials; that goes rusty, and educates the boy; that sells the horse,\nbut builds the school; works early and late, takes two looms in the\nfactory, three looms, six looms, but pays off the mortgage on the\npaternal farm, and then goes back cheerfully to work again.\n\nWe can ill spare the commanding social benefits of cities; they must be\nused; yet cautiously, and haughtily,--and will yield their best values\nto him who best can do without them.  Keep the town for occasions, but\nthe habits should be formed to retirement.  Solitude, the safeguard of\nmediocrity, is to genius the stern friend, the cold, obscure shelter\nwhere moult the wings which will bear it farther than suns and stars.\nHe who should inspire and lead his race must be defended from travelling\nwith the souls of other men, from living, breathing, reading, and\nwriting in the daily, time-worn yoke of their opinions.  \"In the\nmorning,--solitude;\" said Pythagoras; that Nature may speak to the\nimagination, as she does never in company, and that her favorite may\nmake acquaintance with those divine strengths which disclose themselves\nto serious and abstracted thought.  'Tis very certain that Plato,\nPlotinus, Archimedes, Hermes, Newton, Milton, Wordsworth, did not live\nin a crowd, but descended into it from time to time as benefactors: and\nthe wise instructor will press this point of securing to the young soul\nin the disposition of time and the arrangements of living, periods and\nhabits of solitude.  The high advantage of university-life is often the\nmere mechanical one, I may call it, of a separate chamber and\nfire,--which parents will allow the boy without hesitation at Cambridge,\nbut do not think needful at home.  We say solitude, to mark the\ncharacter of the tone of thought; but if it can be shared between two or\nmore than two, it is happier, and not less noble. \"We four,\" wrote\nNeander to his sacred friends, \"will enjoy at Halle the inward\nblessedness of a _civitas Dei_, whose foundations are forever\nfriendship.  The more I know you, the more I dissatisfy and must\ndissatisfy all my wonted companions. Their very presence stupefies me.\nThe common understanding withdraws itself from the one centre of all\nexistence.\"\n\nSolitude takes off the pressure of present importunities that more\ncatholic and humane relations may appear.  The saint and poet seek\nprivacy to ends the most public and universal: and it is the secret of\nculture, to interest the man more in his public, than in his private\nquality.  Here is a new poem, which elicits a good many comments in the\njournals, and in conversation.  From these it is easy, at last, to\neliminate the verdict which readers passed upon it; and that is, in the\nmain, unfavorable. The poet, as a craftsman, is only interested in the\npraise accorded to him, and not in the censure, though it be just.  And\nthe poor little poet hearkens only to that, and rejects the censure, as\nproving incapacity in the critic.  But the poet _cultivated_ becomes a\nstockholder in both companies,--say Mr. Curfew,--in the Curfew stock,\nand in the _humanity_ stock; and, in the last, exults as much in the\ndemonstration of the unsoundness of Curfew, as his interest in the\nformer gives him pleasure in the currency of Curfew.  For, the\ndepreciation of his Curfew stock only shows the immense values of the\nhumanity stock.  As soon as he sides with his critic against himself,\nwith joy, he is a cultivated man.\n\nWe must have an intellectual quality in all property and in all action,\nor they are nought.  I must have children, I must have events, I must\nhave a social state and history, or my thinking and speaking want body\nor basis.  But to give these accessories any value, I must know them as\ncontingent and rather showy possessions, which pass for more to the\npeople than to me.  We see this abstraction in scholars, as a matter of\ncourse: but what a charm it adds when observed in practical men.\nBonaparte, like Caesar, was intellectual, and could look at every object\nfor itself, without affection.  Though an egotist _a l'outrance_, he\ncould criticize a play, a building, a character, on universal grounds,\nand give a just opinion.  A man known to us only as a celebrity in\npolitics or in trade, gains largely in our esteem if we discover that he\nhas some intellectual taste or skill; as when we learn of Lord Fairfax,\nthe Long Parliament's general, his passion for antiquarian studies; or\nof the French regicide Carnot, his sublime genius in mathematics; or of\na living banker, his success in poetry; or of a partisan journalist, his\ndevotion to ornithology.  So, if in travelling in the dreary\nwildernesses of Arkansas or Texas, we should observe on the next seat a\nman reading Horace, or Martial, or Calderon, we should wish to hug him.\nIn callings that require roughest energy, soldiers, sea-captains, and\ncivil engineers sometimes betray a fine insight, if only through a\ncertain gentleness when off duty; a good-natured admission that there\nare illusions, and who shall say that he is not their sport? We only\nvary the phrase, not the doctrine, when we say, that culture opens the\nsense of beauty. A man is a beggar who only lives to the useful, and,\nhowever he may serve as a pin or rivet in the social machine, cannot be\nsaid to have arrived at self-possession.  I suffer, every day, from the\nwant of perception of beauty in people.  They do not know the charm with\nwhich all moments and objects can be embellished, the charm of manners,\nof self-command, of benevolence.  Repose and cheerfulness are the badge\nof the gentleman,--repose in energy.  The Greek battle-pieces are calm;\nthe heroes, in whatever violent actions engaged, retain a serene aspect;\nas we say of Niagara, that it falls without speed.  A cheerful,\nintelligent face is the end of culture, and success enough. For it\nindicates the purpose of Nature and wisdom attained.\n\nWhen our higher faculties are in activity, we are domesticated, and\nawkwardness and discomfort give place to natural and agreeable\nmovements.  It is noticed, that the consideration of the great periods\nand spaces of astronomy induces a dignity of mind, and an indifference\nto death.  The influence of fine scenery, the presence of mountains,\nappeases our irritations and elevates our friendships.  Even a high\ndome, and the expansive interior of a cathedral, have a sensible effect\non manners.  I have heard that stiff people lose something of their\nawkwardness under high ceilings, and in spacious halls. I think,\nsculpture and painting have an effect to teach us manners, and abolish\nhurry.\n\nBut, over all, culture must reinforce from higher influx the empirical\nskills of eloquence, or of politics, or of trade, and the useful arts.\nThere is a certain loftiness of thought and power to marshal and adjust\nparticulars, which can only come from an insight of their whole\nconnection.  The orator who has once seen things in their divine order,\nwill never quite lose sight of this, and will come to affairs as from a\nhigher ground, and, though he will say nothing of philosophy, he will\nhave a certain mastery in dealing with them, and an incapableness of\nbeing dazzled or frighted, which will distinguish his handling from that\nof attorneys and factors.  A man who stands on a good footing with the\nheads of parties at Washington, reads the rumors of the newspapers, and\nthe guesses of provincial politicians, with a key to the right and wrong\nin each statement, and sees well enough where all this will end.\nArchimedes will look through your Connecticut machine, at a glance, and\njudge of its fitness. And much more, a wise man who knows not only what\nPlato, but what Saint John can show him, can easily raise the affair he\ndeals with, to a certain majesty.  Plato says, Pericles owed this\nelevation to the lessons of Anaxagoras.  Burke descended from a higher\nsphere when he would influence human affairs.  Franklin, Adams,\nJefferson, Washington, stood on a fine humanity, before which the brawls\nof modern senates are but pot-house politics.\n\nBut there are higher secrets of culture, which are not for the\napprentices, but for proficients. These are lessons only for the brave.\nWe must know our friends under ugly masks.  The calamities are our\nfriends.  Ben Jonson specifies in his address to the Muse:--\n\n    \"Get him the time's long grudge, the court's ill-will,\n    And, reconciled, keep him suspected still,\n    Make him lose all his friends, and, what is worse,\n    Almost all ways to any better course;\n    With me thou leav'st a better Muse than thee,\n    And which thou brought'st me, blessed Poverty.\"\n\nWe wish to learn philosophy by rote, and play at heroism.  But the wiser\nGod says, Take the shame, the poverty, and the penal solitude, that\nbelong to truth-speaking.  Try the rough water as well as the smooth.\nRough water can teach lessons worth knowing.  When the state is unquiet,\npersonal qualities are more than ever decisive.  Fear not a revolution\nwhich will constrain you to live five years in one.  Don't be so tender\nat making an enemy now and then.  Be willing to go to Coventry\nsometimes, and let the populace bestow on you their coldest contempts.\nThe finished man of the world must eat of every apple once.  He must\nhold his hatreds also at arm's length, and not remember spite.  He has\nneither friends nor enemies, but values men only as channels of power.\n\nHe who aims high, must dread an easy home and popular manners.  Heaven\nsometimes hedges a rare character about with ungainliness and odium, as\nthe burr that protects the fruit.  If there is any great and good thing\nin store for you, it will not come at the first or the second call, nor\nin the shape of fashion, ease, and city drawing-rooms.  Popularity is\nfor dolls.  \"Steep and craggy,\" said Porphyry, \"is the path of the\ngods.\"  Open your Marcus Antoninus.  In the opinion of the ancients, he\nwas the great man who scorned to shine, and who contested the frowns of\nfortune.  They preferred the noble vessel too late for the tide,\ncontending with winds and waves, dismantled and unrigged, to her\ncompanion borne into harbor with colors flying and guns firing.  There\nis none of the social goods that may not be purchased too dear, and mere\namiableness must not take rank with high aims and self-subsistency.\n\nBettine replies to Goethe's mother, who chides her disregard of\ndress,--\"If I cannot do as I have a mind, in our poor Frankfort, I shall\nnot carry things far.\"  And the youth must rate at its true mark the\ninconceivable levity of local opinion. The longer we live, the more we\nmust endure the elementary existence of men and women; and every brave\nheart must treat society as a child, and never allow it to dictate.\n\n\"All that class of the severe and restrictive virtues,\" said Burke, \"are\nalmost too costly for humanity.\"  Who wishes to be severe?  Who wishes\nto resist the eminent and polite, in behalf of the poor, and low, and\nimpolite? and who that dares do it, can keep his temper sweet, his\nfrolic spirits?  The high virtues are not debonair, but have their\nredress in being illustrious at last. What forests of laurel we bring,\nand the tears of mankind, to those who stood firm against the opinion of\ntheir contemporaries!  The measure of a master is his success in\nbringing all men round to his opinion twenty years later.\n\nLet me say here, that culture cannot begin too early.  In talking with\nscholars, I observe that they lost on ruder companions those years of\nboyhood which alone could give imaginative literature a religious and\ninfinite quality in their esteem.  I find, too, that the chance for\nappreciation is much increased by being the son of an appreciator, and\nthat these boys who now grow up are caught not only years too late, but\ntwo or three births too late, to make the best scholars of.  And I think\nit a presentable motive to a scholar, that, as, in an old community, a\nwell-born proprietor is usually found, after the first heats of youth,\nto be a careful husband, and to feel a habitual desire that the estate\nshall suffer no harm by his administration, but shall be delivered down\nto the next heir in as good condition as he received it;--so, a\nconsiderate man will reckon himself a subject of that secular\nmelioration by which mankind is mollified, cured, and refined, and will\nshun every expenditure of his forces on pleasure or gain, which will\njeopardize this social and secular accumulation.\n\nThe fossil strata show us that Nature began with rudimental forms, and\nrose to the more complex, as fast as the earth was fit for their\ndwelling-place; and that the lower perish, as the higher appear.  Very\nfew of our race can be said to be yet finished men. We still carry\nsticking to us some remains of the preceding inferior quadruped\norganization.  We call these millions men; but they are not yet men.\nHalf-engaged in the soil, pawing to get free, man needs all the music\nthat can be brought to disengage him.  If Love, red Love, with tears and\njoy; if Want with his scourge; if War with his cannonade; if\nChristianity with its charity; if Trade with its money; if Art with its\nportfolios; if Science with her telegraphs through the deeps of space\nand time; can set his dull nerves throbbing, and by loud taps on the\ntough chrysalis, can break its walls, and let the new creature emerge\nerect and free,--make way, and sing paean!  The age of the quadruped is\nto go out,--the age of the brain and of the heart is to come in.  The\ntime will come when the evil forms we have known can no more be\norganized. Man's culture can spare nothing, wants all the material.  He\nis to convert all impediments into instruments, all enemies into power.\nThe formidable mischief will only make the more useful slave. And if one\nshall read the future of the race hinted in the organic effort of Nature\nto mount and meliorate, and the corresponding impulse to the Better in\nthe human being, we shall dare affirm that there is nothing he will not\novercome and convert, until at last culture shall absorb the chaos and\ngehenna. He will convert the Furies into Muses, and the hells into\nbenefit.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V.\n\n\n                               BEHAVIOR.\n\n\n    Grace, Beauty, and Caprice\n    Build this golden portal;\n    Graceful women, chosen men\n    Dazzle every mortal:\n    Their sweet and lofty countenance\n    His enchanting food;\n    He need not go to them, their forms\n    Beset his solitude.\n    He looketh seldom in their face,\n    His eyes explore the ground,\n    The green grass is a looking-glass\n    Whereon their traits are found.\n    Little he says to them,\n    So dances his heart in his breast,\n    Their tranquil mien bereaveth him\n    Of wit, of words, of rest.\n    Too weak to win, too fond to shun\n    The tyrants of his doom,\n    The much deceived Endymion\n    Slips behind a tomb.\n\n\n\n                               BEHAVIOR.\n\n\nThe soul which animates Nature is not less significantly published in\nthe figure, movement, and gesture of animated bodies, than in its last\nvehicle of articulate speech.  This silent and subtile language is\nManners; not _what_, but _how_.  Life expresses.  A statue has no\ntongue, and needs none.  Good tableaux do not need declamation. Nature\ntells every secret once.  Yes, but in man she tells it all the time, by\nform, attitude, gesture, mien, face, and parts of the face, and by the\nwhole action of the machine.  The visible carriage or action of the\nindividual, as resulting from his organization and his will combined, we\ncall manners. What are they but thought entering the hands and feet,\ncontrolling the movements of the body, the speech and behavior?\n\nThere is always a best way of doing everything, if it be to boil an egg.\nManners are the happy ways of doing things; each once a stroke of genius\nor of love,--now repeated and hardened into usage. They form at last a\nrich varnish, with which the routine of life is washed, and its details\nadorned. If they are superficial, so are the dew-drops which give such a\ndepth to the morning meadows. Manners are very communicable: men catch\nthem from each other.  Consuelo, in the romance, boasts of the lessons\nshe had given the nobles in manners, on the stage; and, in real life,\nTalma taught Napoleon the arts of behavior.  Genius invents fine\nmanners, which the baron and the baroness copy very fast, and, by the\nadvantage of a palace, better the instruction.  They stereotype the\nlesson they have learned into a mode.\n\nThe power of manners is incessant,--an element as unconcealable as fire.\nThe nobility cannot in any country be disguised, and no more in a\nrepublic or a democracy, than in a kingdom.  No man can resist their\ninfluence.  There are certain manners which are learned in good society,\nof that force, that, if a person have them, he or she must be\nconsidered, and is everywhere welcome, though without beauty, or wealth,\nor genius.  Give a boy address and accomplishments, and you give him the\nmastery of palaces and fortunes where he goes. He has not the trouble of\nearning or owning them; they solicit him to enter and possess.  We send\ngirls of a timid, retreating disposition to the boarding-school, to the\nriding-school, to the ballroom, or wheresoever they can come into\nacquaintance and nearness of leading persons of their own sex; where\nthey might learn address, and see it near at hand. The power of a woman\nof fashion to lead, and also to daunt and repel, derives from their\nbelief that she knows resources and behaviors not known to them; but\nwhen these have mastered her secret, they learn to confront her, and\nrecover their self-possession.\n\nEvery day bears witness to their gentle rule. People who would obtrude,\nnow do not obtrude. The mediocre circle learns to demand that which\nbelongs to a high state of nature or of culture. Your manners are always\nunder examination, and by committees little suspected,--a police in\ncitizens' clothes,--but are awarding or denying you very high prizes\nwhen you least think of it.\n\nWe talk much of utilities,--but 'tis our manners that associate us.  In\nhours of business, we go to him who knows, or has, or does this or that\nwhich we want, and we do not let our taste or feeling stand in the way.\nBut this activity over, we return to the indolent state, and wish for\nthose we can be at ease with: those who will go where we go, whose\nmanners do not offend us, whose social tone chimes with ours.  When we\nreflect on their persuasive and cheering force; how they recommend,\nprepare, and draw people together; how, in all clubs, manners make the\nmembers; how manners make the fortune of the ambitious youth; that, for\nthe most part, his manners marry him, and, for the most part, he marries\nmanners; when we think what keys they are, and to what secrets; what\nhigh lessons and inspiring tokens of character they convey; and what\ndivination is required in us, for the reading of this fine telegraph, we\nsee what range the subject has, and what relations to convenience,\npower, and beauty.\n\nTheir first service is very low,--when they are the minor morals: but\n'tis the beginning of civility,--to make us, I mean, endurable to each\nother. We prize them for their rough-plastic, abstergent force; to get\npeople out of the quadruped state; to get them washed, clothed, and set\nup on end; to slough their animal husks and habits; compel them to be\nclean; overawe their spite and meanness, teach them to stifle the base,\nand choose the generous expression, and make them know how much happier\nthe generous behaviors are.\n\nBad behavior the laws cannot reach.  Society is infested with rude,\ncynical, restless, and frivolous persons who prey upon the rest, and\nwhom, a public opinion concentrated into good manners, forms accepted by\nthe sense of all, can reach:--the contradictors and railers at public\nand private tables, who are like terriers, who conceive it the duty of a\ndog of honor to growl at any passer-by, and do the honors of the house\nby barking him out of sight:--I have seen men who neigh like a horse\nwhen you contradict them, or say something which they do not\nunderstand:--then the overbold, who make their own invitation to your\nhearth; the persevering talker, who gives you his society in large,\nsaturating doses; the pitiers of themselves,--a perilous class; the\nfrivolous Asmodeus, who relies on you to find him in ropes of sand to\ntwist; the monotones; in short, every stripe of absurdity;--these are\nsocial inflictions which the magistrate cannot cure or defend you from,\nand which must be intrusted to the restraining force of custom, and\nproverbs, and familiar rules of behavior impressed on young people in\ntheir school-days.\n\nIn the hotels on the banks of the Mississippi, they print, or used to\nprint, among the rules of the house, that \"no gentleman can be permitted\nto come to the public table without his coat;\" and in the same country,\nin the pews of the churches, little placards plead with the worshipper\nagainst the fury of expectoration.  Charles Dickens self-sacrificingly\nundertook the reformation of our American manners in unspeakable\nparticulars.  I think the lesson was not quite lost; that it held bad\nmanners up, so that the churls could see the deformity. Unhappily, the\nbook had its own deformities.  It ought not to need to print in a\nreading-room a caution to strangers not to speak loud; nor to persons\nwho look over fine engravings, that they should be handled like cobwebs\nand butterflies' wings; nor to persons who look at marble statues, that\nthey shall not smite them with canes.  But, even in the perfect\ncivilization of this city, such cautions are not quite needless in the\nAthenaeum and City Library.\n\nManners are factitious, and grow out of circumstance as well as out of\ncharacter.  If you look at the pictures of patricians and of peasants,\nof different periods and countries, you will see how well they match the\nsame classes in our towns.  The modern aristocrat not only is well drawn\nin Titian's Venetian doges, and in Roman coins and statues, but also in\nthe pictures which Commodore Perry brought home of dignitaries in Japan.\nBroad lands and great interests not only arrive to such heads as can\nmanage them, but form manners of power.  A keen eye, too, will see nice\ngradations of rank, or see in the manners the degree of homage the party\nis wont to receive.  A prince who is accustomed every day to be courted\nand deferred to by the highest grandees, acquires a corresponding\nexpectation, and a becoming mode of receiving and replying to this\nhomage.\n\nThere are always exceptional people and modes. English grandees affect\nto be farmers.  Claverhouse is a fop, and, under the finish of dress,\nand levity of behavior, hides the terror of his war.  But Nature and\nDestiny are honest, and never fail to leave their mark, to hang out a\nsign for each and for every quality.  It is much to conquer one's face,\nand perhaps the ambitious youth thinks he has got the whole secret when\nhe has learned, that disengaged manners are commanding.  Don't be\ndeceived by a facile exterior.  Tender men sometimes have strong wills.\nWe had, in Massachusetts, an old statesman, who had sat all his life in\ncourts and in chairs of state, without overcoming an extreme\nirritability of face, voice, and bearing: when he spoke, his voice would\nnot serve him; it cracked, it broke, it wheezed, it piped;--little cared\nhe; he knew that it had got to pipe, or wheeze, or screech his argument\nand his indignation.  When he sat down, after speaking, he seemed in a\nsort of fit, and held on to his chair with both hands: but underneath\nall this irritability, was a puissant will, firm, and advancing, and a\nmemory in which lay in order and method like geologic strata every fact\nof his history, and under the control of his will.\n\nManners are partly factitious, but, mainly, there must be capacity for\nculture in the blood.  Else all culture is vain.  The obstinate\nprejudice in favor of blood, which lies at the base of the feudal and\nmonarchical fabrics of the old world, has some reason in common\nexperience.  Every man,--mathematician, artist, soldier, or\nmerchant,--looks with confidence for some traits and talents in his own\nchild, which he would not dare to presume in the child of a stranger.\nThe Orientalists are very orthodox on this point.  \"Take a thorn-bush,\"\nsaid the emir Abdel-Kader, \"and sprinkle it for a whole year with\nwater;--it will yield nothing but thorns. Take a date-tree, leave it\nwithout culture, and it will always produce dates.  Nobility is the\ndate-tree, and the Arab populace is a bush of thorns.\"\n\nA main fact in the history of manners is the wonderful expressiveness of\nthe human body.  If it were made of glass, or of air, and the thoughts\nwere written on steel tablets within, it could not publish more truly\nits meaning than now.  Wise men read very sharply all your private\nhistory in your look and gait and behavior.  The whole economy of nature\nis bent on expression.  The tell-tale body is all tongues.  Men are like\nGeneva watches with crystal faces which expose the whole movement.  They\ncarry the liquor of life flowing up and down in these beautiful bottles,\nand announcing to the curious how it is with them. The face and eyes\nreveal what the spirit is doing, how old it is, what aims it has.  The\neyes indicate the antiquity of the soul, or, through how many forms it\nhas already ascended.  It almost violates the proprieties, if we say\nabove the breath here, what the confessing eyes do not hesitate to utter\nto every street passenger.\n\nMan cannot fix his eye on the sun, and so far seems imperfect.  In\nSiberia, a late traveller found men who could see the satellites of\nJupiter with their unarmed eye.  In some respects the animals excel us.\nThe birds have a longer sight, beside the advantage by their wings of a\nhigher observatory. A cow can bid her calf by secret signal, probably of\nthe eye, to run away, or to lie down and hide itself.  The jockeys say\nof certain horses, that \"they look over the whole ground.\"  The outdoor\nlife, and hunting, and labor, give equal vigor to the human eye.  A\nfarmer looks out at you as strong as the horse; his eye-beam is like the\nstroke of a staff.  An eye can threaten like a loaded and levelled gun,\nor can insult like hissing or kicking; or, in its altered mood, by beams\nof kindness, it can make the heart dance with joy.\n\nThe eye obeys exactly the action of the mind. When a thought strikes us,\nthe eyes fix, and remain gazing at a distance; in enumerating the names\nof persons or of countries, as France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, the eyes\nwink at each new name.  There is no nicety of learning sought by the\nmind, which the eyes do not vie in acquiring. \"An artist,\" said Michel\nAngelo, \"must have his measuring tools not in the hand, but in the eye;\"\nand there is no end to the catalogue of its performances, whether in\nindolent vision, (that of health and beauty,) or in strained vision,\n(that of art and labor.)\n\nEyes are bold as lions,--roving, running, leaping, here and there, far\nand near.  They speak all languages.  They wait for no introduction;\nthey are no Englishmen; ask no leave of age, or rank; they respect\nneither poverty nor riches, neither learning nor power, nor virtue, nor\nsex, but intrude, and come again, and go through and through you, in a\nmoment of time.  What inundation of life and thought is discharged from\none soul into another, through them!  The glance is natural magic.  The\nmysterious communication established across a house between two entire\nstrangers, moves all the springs of wonder.  The communication by the\nglance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will.\nIt is the bodily symbol of identity of nature.  We look into the eyes to\nknow if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but\nmake a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.  The revelations\nare sometimes terrific.  The confession of a low, usurping devil is\nthere made, and the observer shall seem to feel the stirring of owls,\nand bats, and horned hoofs, where he looked for innocence and\nsimplicity.  'Tis remarkable, too, that the spirit that appears at the\nwindows of the house does at once invest himself in a new form of his\nown, to the mind of the beholder.\n\nThe eyes of men converse as much as their tongues, with the advantage,\nthat the ocular dialect needs no dictionary, but is understood all the\nworld over.  When the eyes say one thing, and the tongue another, a\npractised man relies on the language of the first.  If the man is off\nhis centre, the eyes show it.  You can read in the eyes of your\ncompanion, whether your argument hits him, though his tongue will not\nconfess it.  There is a look by which a man shows he is going to say a\ngood thing, and a look when he has said it.  Vain and forgotten are all\nthe fine offers and offices of hospitality, if there is no holiday in\nthe eye. How many furtive inclinations avowed by the eye, though\ndissembled by the lips!  One comes away from a company, in which, it may\neasily happen, he has said nothing, and no important remark has been\naddressed to him, and yet, if in sympathy with the society, he shall not\nhave a sense of this fact, such a stream of life has been flowing into\nhim, and out from him, through the eyes.  There are eyes, to be sure,\nthat give no more admission into the man than blueberries.  Others are\nliquid and deep,--wells that a man might fall into;--others are\naggressive and devouring, seem to call out the police, take all too much\nnotice, and require crowded Broadways, and the security of millions, to\nprotect individuals against them.  The military eye I meet, now darkly\nsparkling under clerical, now under rustic brows.  'Tis the city of\nLacedaemon; 'tis a stack of bayonets.  There are asking eyes, asserting\neyes, prowling eyes; and eyes full of fate,--some of good, and some of\nsinister omen. The alleged power to charm down insanity, or ferocity in\nbeasts, is a power behind the eye.  It must be a victory achieved in the\nwill, before it can be signified in the eye.  'Tis very certain that\neach man carries in his eye the exact indication of his rank in the\nimmense scale of men, and we are always learning to read it.  A complete\nman should need no auxiliaries to his personal presence. Whoever looked\non him would consent to his will, being certified that his aims were\ngenerous and universal. The reason why men do not obey us, is because\nthey see the mud at the bottom of our eye.\n\nIf the organ of sight is such a vehicle of power, the other features\nhave their own.  A man finds room in the few square inches of the face\nfor the traits of all his ancestors; for the expression of all his\nhistory, and his wants.  The sculptor, and Winckelmann, and Lavater,\nwill tell you how significant a feature is the nose; how its forms\nexpress strength or weakness of will, and good or bad temper.  The nose\nof Julius Caesar, of Dante, and of Pitt, suggest \"the terrors of the\nbeak.\"  What refinement, and what limitations, the teeth betray! \"Beware\nyou don't laugh,\" said the wise mother, \"for then you show all your\nfaults.\"\n\nBalzac left in manuscript a chapter, which he called \"_Theorie de la\ndemarche_\" in which he says: \"The look, the voice, the respiration, and\nthe attitude or walk, are identical.  But, as it has not been given to\nman, the power to stand guard, at once, over these four different\nsimultaneous expressions of his thought, watch that one which speaks out\nthe truth, and you will know the whole man.\"\n\nPalaces interest us mainly in the exhibition of manners, which, in the\nidle and expensive society dwelling in them, are raised to a high art.\nThe maxim of courts is, that manner is power.  A calm and resolute\nbearing, a polished speech, an embellishment of trifles, and the art of\nhiding all uncomfortable feeling, are essential to the courtier: and\nSaint Simon, and Cardinal de Retz, and Roederer, and an encyclopaedia of\nMemoires, will instruct you, if you wish, in those potent secrets.\nThus, it is a point of pride with kings, to remember faces and names.\nIt is reported of one prince, that his head had the air of leaning\ndownwards, in order not to humble the crowd.  There are people who come\nin ever like a child with a piece of good news.  It was said of the late\nLord Holland, that he always came down to breakfast with the air of a\nman who had just met with some signal good-fortune.  In \"_Notre Dame_,\"\nthe grandee took his place on the dais, with the look of one who is\nthinking of something else.  But we must not peep and eavesdrop at\npalace-doors.\n\nFine manners need the support of fine manners in others.  A scholar may\nbe a well-bred man, or he may not.  The enthusiast is introduced to\npolished scholars in society, and is chilled and silenced by finding\nhimself not in their element.  They all have somewhat which he has not,\nand, it seems, ought to have.  But if he finds the scholar apart from\nhis companions, it is then the enthusiast's turn, and the scholar has no\ndefence, but must deal on his terms.  Now they must fight the battle out\non their private strengths.  What is the talent of that character so\ncommon,--the successful man of the world,--in all marts, senates, and\ndrawing-rooms?  Manners: manners of power; sense to see his advantage,\nand manners up to it.  See him approach his man.  He knows that troops\nbehave as they are handled at first;--that is his cheap secret; just\nwhat happens to every two persons who meet on any affair,--one instantly\nperceives that he has the key of the situation, that his will\ncomprehends the other's will, as the cat does the mouse; and he has only\nto use courtesy, and furnish good-natured reasons to his victim to cover\nup the chain, lest he be shamed into resistance.\n\nThe theatre in which this science of manners has a formal importance is\nnot with us a court, but dress-circles, wherein, after the close of the\nday's business, men and women meet at leisure, for mutual entertainment,\nin ornamented drawing-rooms. Of course, it has every variety of\nattraction and merit; but, to earnest persons, to youths or maidens who\nhave great objects at heart, we cannot extol it highly.  A well-dressed,\ntalkative company, where each is bent to amuse the other.--yet the\nhigh-born Turk who came hither fancied that every woman seemed to be\nsuffering for a chair; that all the talkers were brained and exhausted\nby the deoxygenated air: it spoiled the best persons: it put all on\nstilts.  Yet here are the secret biographies written and read.  The\naspect of that man is repulsive: I do not wish to deal with him.  The\nother is irritable, shy, and on his guard.  The youth looks humble and\nmanly: I choose him.  Look on this woman.  There is not beauty, nor\nbrilliant sayings, nor distinguished power to serve you; but all see her\ngladly; her whole air and impression are healthful.  Here come the\nsentimentalists, and the invalids.  Here is Elise, who caught cold in\ncoming into the world, and has always increased it since.  Here are\ncreep-mouse manners; and thievish manners.  \"Look at Northcote,\" said\nFuseli; \"he looks like a rat that has seen a cat.\"  In the shallow\ncompany, easily excited, easily tired, here is the columnar Bernard: the\nAlleghanies do not express more repose than his behavior.  Here are the\nsweet following eyes of Cecile: it seemed always that she demanded the\nheart.  Nothing can be more excellent in kind than the Corinthian grace\nof Gertrude's manners, and yet Blanche, who has no manners, has better\nmanners than she; for the movements of Blanche are the sallies of a\nspirit which is sufficient for the moment, and she can afford to express\nevery thought by instant action.\n\nManners have been somewhat cynically defined to be a contrivance of wise\nmen to keep fools at a distance.  Fashion is shrewd to detect those who\ndo not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her attentions.  Society\nis very swift in its instincts, and, if you do not belong to it, resists\nand sneers at you; or quietly drops you.  The first weapon enrages the\nparty attacked; the second is still more effective, but is not to be\nresisted, as the date of the transaction is not easily found.  People\ngrow up and grow old under this infliction, and never suspect the truth,\nascribing the solitude which acts on them very injuriously, to any cause\nbut the right one.\n\nThe basis of good manners is self-reliance.  Necessity is the law of all\nwho are not self-possessed. Those who are not self-possessed, obtrude,\nand pain us.  Some men appear to feel that they belong to a Pariah\ncaste.  They fear to offend, they bend and apologize, and walk through\nlife with a timid step. As we sometimes dream that we are in a\nwell-dressed company without any coat, so Godfrey acts ever as if he\nsuffered from some mortifying circumstance.  The hero should find\nhimself at home, wherever he is; should impart comfort by his own\nsecurity and good-nature to all beholders.  The hero is suffered to be\nhimself.  A person of strong mind comes to perceive that for him an\nimmunity is secured so long as he renders to society that service which\nis native and proper to him,--an immunity from all the observances, yea,\nand duties, which society so tyrannically imposes on the rank and file\nof its members.  \"Euripides,\" says Aspasia, \"has not the fine manners of\nSophocles; but,\"--she adds good-humoredly, \"the movers and masters of\nour souls have surely a right to throw out their limbs as carelessly as\nthey please, on the world that belongs to them, and before the creatures\nthey have animated.\"[4]\n\n  [4] Landor: Pericles and Aspasia.\n\nManners require time, as nothing is more vulgar than haste.  Friendship\nshould be surrounded with ceremonies and respects, and not crushed into\ncorners.  Friendship requires more time than poor busy men can usually\ncommand.  Here comes to me Roland, with a delicacy of sentiment leading\nand inwrapping him like a divine cloud or holy ghost.  'Tis a great\ndestitution to both that this should not be entertained with large\nleisures, but contrariwise should be balked by importunate affairs.\n\nBut through this lustrous varnish, the reality is ever shining.  'Tis\nhard to keep the _what_ from breaking through this pretty painting of\nthe _how_. The core will come to the surface.  Strong will and keen\nperception overpower old manners, and create new; and the thought of the\npresent moment has a greater value than all the past.  In persons of\ncharacter, we do not remark manners, because of their instantaneousness.\nWe are surprised by the thing done, out of all power to watch the way of\nit.  Yet nothing is more charming than to recognize the great style\nwhich runs through the actions of such.  People masquerade before us in\ntheir fortunes, titles, offices, and connections, as academic or civil\npresidents, or senators, or professors, or great lawyers, and impose on\nthe frivolous, and a good deal on each other, by these fames.  At least,\nit is a point of prudent good manners to treat these reputations\ntenderly, as if they were merited. But the sad realist knows these\nfellows at a glance, and they know him; as when in Paris the chief of\nthe police enters a ballroom, so many diamonded pretenders shrink and\nmake themselves as inconspicuous as they can, or give him a supplicating\nlook as they pass.  \"I had received,\" said a sibyl, \"I had received at\nbirth the fatal gift of penetration:\"--and these Cassandras are always\nborn.\n\nManners impress as they indicate real power.  A man who is sure of his\npoint, carries a broad and contented expression, which everybody reads.\nAnd you cannot rightly train one to an air and manner, except by making\nhim the kind of man of whom that manner is the natural expression.\nNature forever puts a premium on reality.  What is done for effect, is\nseen to be done for effect; what is done for love, is felt to be done\nfor love.  A man inspires affection and honor, because he was not lying\nin wait for these.  The things of a man for which we visit him, were\ndone in the dark and the cold.  A little integrity is better than any\ncareer.  So deep are the sources of this surface-action, that even the\nsize of your companion seems to vary with his freedom of thought.  Not\nonly is he larger, when at ease, and his thoughts generous, but\neverything around him becomes variable with expression.  No carpenter's\nrule, no rod and chain, will measure the dimensions of any house or\nhouse-lot: go into the house: if the proprietor is constrained and\ndeferring, 'tis of no importance how large his house, how beautiful his\ngrounds,--you quickly come to the end of all: but if the man is\nself-possessed, happy, and at home, his house is deep-founded,\nindefinitely large and interesting, the roof and dome buoyant as the\nsky.  Under the humblest roof, the commonest person in plain clothes\nsits there massive, cheerful, yet formidable like the Egyptian colossi.\n\nNeither Aristotle, nor Leibnitz, nor Junius, nor Champollion has set\ndown the grammar-rules of this dialect, older than Sanscrit; but they\nwho cannot yet read English, can read this.  Men take each other's\nmeasure, when they meet for the first time,--and every time they meet.\nHow do they get this rapid knowledge, even before they speak, of each\nother's power and dispositions?  One would say, that the persuasion of\ntheir speech is not in what they say,--or, that men do not convince by\ntheir argument,--but by their personality, by who they are, and what\nthey said and did heretofore. A man already strong is listened to, and\neverything he says is applauded.  Another opposes him with sound\nargument, but the argument is scouted, until by and by it gets into the\nmind of some weighty person; then it begins to tell on the community.\n\nSelf-reliance is the basis of behavior, as it is the guaranty that the\npowers are not squandered in too much demonstration.  In this country,\nwhere school education is universal, we have a superficial culture, and\na profusion of reading and writing and expression.  We parade our\nnobilities in poems and orations, instead of working them up into\nhappiness. There is a whisper out of the ages to him who can understand\nit,--'whatever is known to thyself alone, has always very great value.'\nThere is some reason to believe, that, when a man does not write his\npoetry, it escapes by other vents through him, instead of the one vent\nof writing; clings to his form and manners, whilst poets have often\nnothing poetical about them except their verses.  Jacobi said, that\n\"when a man has fully expressed his thought, he has somewhat less\npossession of it.\"  One would say, the rule is,--What a man is\nirresistibly urged to say, helps him and us.  In explaining his thought\nto others, he explains it to himself: but when he opens it for show, it\ncorrupts him.\n\nSociety is the stage on which manners are shown; novels are their\nliterature.  Novels are the journal or record of manners; and the new\nimportance of these books derives from the fact, that the novelist\nbegins to penetrate the surface, and treat this part of life more\nworthily.  The novels used to be all alike, and had a quite vulgar tone.\nThe novels used to lead us on to a foolish interest in the fortunes of\nthe boy and girl they described. The boy was to be raised from a humble\nto a high position.  He was in want of a wife and a castle, and the\nobject of the story was to supply him with one or both.  We watched\nsympathetically, step by step, his climbing, until, at last, the point\nis gained, the wedding day is fixed, and we follow the gala procession\nhome to the castle, when the doors are slammed in our face, and the poor\nreader is left outside in the cold, not enriched by so much as an idea,\nor a virtuous impulse.\n\nBut the victories of character are instant, and victories for all.  Its\ngreatness enlarges all.  We are fortified by every heroic anecdote.  The\nnovels are as useful as Bibles, if they teach you the secret, that the\nbest of life is conversation, and the greatest success is confidence, or\nperfect understanding between sincere people.  'Tis a French definition\nof friendship, _rien que s'entendre_, good understanding. The highest\ncompact we can make with our fellow, is,--'Let there be truth between us\ntwo for evermore.'  That is the charm in all good novels, as it is the\ncharm in all good histories, that the heroes mutually understand, from\nthe first, and deal loyally, and with a profound trust in each other. It\nis sublime to feel and say of another, I need never meet, or speak, or\nwrite to him: we need not reinforce ourselves, or send tokens of\nremembrance: I rely on him as on myself: if he did thus or thus, I know\nit was right.\n\nIn all the superior people I have met, I notice directness, truth spoken\nmore truly, as if everything of obstruction, of malformation, had been\ntrained away.  What have they to conceal?  What have they to exhibit?\nBetween simple and noble persons, there is always a quick intelligence:\nthey recognize at sight, and meet on a better ground than the talents\nand skills they may chance to possess, namely, on sincerity and\nuprightness.  For, it is not what talents or genius a man has, but how\nhe is to his talents, that constitutes friendship and character.  The\nman that stands by himself, the universe stands by him also.  It is\nrelated of the monk Basle, that, being excommunicated by the Pope, he\nwas, at his death, sent in charge of an angel to find a fit place of\nsuffering in hell; but, such was the eloquence and good-humor of the\nmonk, that, wherever he went he was received gladly, and civilly\ntreated, even by the most uncivil angels: and, when he came to discourse\nwith them, instead of contradicting or forcing him, they took his part,\nand adopted his manners: and even good angels came from far, to see him,\nand take up their abode with him.  The angel that was sent to find a\nplace of torment for him, attempted to remove him to a worse pit, but\nwith no better success; for such was the contented spirit of the monk,\nthat he found something to praise in every place and company, though in\nhell, and made a kind of heaven of it.  At last the escorting angel\nreturned with his prisoner to them that sent him, saying, that no\nphlegethon could be found that would burn him; for that, in whatever\ncondition, Basle remained incorrigibly Basle.  The legend says, his\nsentence was remitted, and he was allowed to go into heaven, and was\ncanonized as a saint.\n\nThere is a stroke of magnanimity in the correspondence of Bonaparte with\nhis brother Joseph, when the latter was King of Spain, and complained\nthat he missed in Napoleon's letters the affectionate tone which had\nmarked their childish correspondence. \"I am sorry,\" replies Napoleon,\n\"you think you shall find your brother again only in the Elysian Fields.\nIt is natural, that at forty, he should not feel towards you as he did\nat twelve.  But his feelings towards you have greater truth and\nstrength. His friendship has the features of his mind.\"\n\nHow much we forgive to those who yield us the rare spectacle of heroic\nmanners!  We will pardon them the want of books, of arts, and even of\nthe gentler virtues.  How tenaciously we remember them!  Here is a\nlesson which I brought along with me in boyhood from the Latin School,\nand which ranks with the best of Roman anecdotes. Marcus Scaurus was\naccused by Quintus Varius Hispanus, that he had excited the allies to\ntake arms against the Republic.  But he, full of firmness and gravity,\ndefended himself in this manner: \"Quintus Varius Hispanus alleges that\nMarcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, excited the allies to arms:\nMarcus Scaurus, President of the Senate, denies it.  There is no\nwitness.  Which do you believe, Romans?\"  \"_Utri creditis, Quirites?_\"\nWhen he had said these words, he was absolved by the assembly of the\npeople.\n\nI have seen manners that make a similar impression with personal beauty;\nthat give the like exhilaration, and refine us like that; and, in\nmemorable experiences, they are suddenly better than beauty, and make\nthat superfluous and ugly.  But they must be marked by fine perception,\nthe acquaintance with real beauty.  They must always show self-control:\nyou shall not be facile, apologetic, or leaky, but king over your word;\nand every gesture and action shall indicate power at rest.  Then they\nmust be inspired by the good heart.  There is no beautifier of\ncomplexion, or form, or behavior, like the wish to scatter joy and not\npain around us.\n\n'Tis good to give a stranger a meal, or a night's lodging.  'Tis better\nto be hospitable to his good meaning and thought, and give courage to a\ncompanion.  We must be as courteous to a man as we are to a picture,\nwhich we are willing to give the advantage of a good light.  Special\nprecepts are not to be thought of: the talent of well-doing contains\nthem all.  Every hour will show a duty as paramount as that of my whim\njust now; and yet I will write it,--that there is one topic peremptorily\nforbidden to all well-bred, to all rational mortals, namely, their\ndistempers.  If you have not slept, or if you have slept, or if you have\nheadache, or sciatica, or leprosy, or thunder-stroke, I beseech you, by\nall angels, to hold your peace, and not pollute the morning, to which\nall the housemates bring serene and pleasant thoughts, by corruption and\ngroans.  Come out of the azure. Love the day.  Do not leave the sky out\nof your landscape.  The oldest and the most deserving person should come\nvery modestly into any newly awaked company, respecting the divine\ncommunications, out of which all must be presumed to have newly come.\nAn old man who added an elevating culture to a large experience of life,\nsaid to me, \"When you come into the room, I think I will study how to\nmake humanity beautiful to you.\"\n\nAs respects the delicate question of culture, I do not think that any\nother than negative rules can be laid down.  For positive rules, for\nsuggestion, Nature alone inspires it.  Who dare assume to guide a youth,\na maid, to perfect manners?--the golden mean is so delicate,\ndifficult,--say frankly, unattainable.  What finest hands would not be\nclumsy to sketch the genial precepts of the young girl's demeanor?  The\nchances seem infinite against success; and yet success is continually\nattained. There must not be secondariness, and 'tis a thousand to one\nthat her air and manner will at once betray that she is not primary, but\nthat there is some other one or many of her class, to whom she\nhabitually postpones herself.  But Nature lifts her easily, and without\nknowing it, over these impossibilities, and we are continually surprised\nwith graces and felicities not only unteachable, but undescribable.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VI.\n\n\n                                WORSHIP.\n\n\n    This is he, who, felled by foes,\n    Sprung harmless up, refreshed by blows\n    He to captivity was sold,\n    But him no prison-bars would hold:\n    Though they sealed him in a rock,\n    Mountain chains he can unlock:\n    Thrown to lions for their meat,\n    The crouching lion kissed his feet:\n    Bound to the stake, no flames appalled,\n    But arched o'er him an honoring vault.\n    This is he men miscall Fate,\n    Threading dark ways, arriving late,\n    But ever coming in time to crown\n    The truth, and hurl wrongdoers down.\n    He is the oldest, and best known,\n    More near than aught thou call'st thy own,\n    Yet, greeted in another's eyes,\n    Disconcerts with glad surprise.\n    This is Jove, who, deaf to prayers,\n    Floods with blessings unawares.\n    Draw, if thou canst, the mystic line,\n    Severing rightly his from thine,\n    Which is human, which divine.\n\n\n\nWORSHIP.\n\n\nSome of my friends have complained, when the preceding papers were read,\nthat we discussed Fate, Power, and Wealth, on too low a platform; gave\ntoo much line to the evil spirit of the times; too many cakes to\nCerberus; that we ran Cudworth's risk of making, by excess of candor,\nthe argument of atheism so strong, that he could not answer it. I have\nno fears of being forced in my own despite to play, as we say, the\ndevil's attorney.  I have no infirmity of faith; no belief that it is of\nmuch importance what I or any man may say: I am sure that a certain\ntruth will be said through me, though I should be dumb, or though I\nshould try to say the reverse.  Nor do I fear skepticism for any good\nsoul.  A just thinker will allow full swing to his skepticism.  I dip my\npen in the blackest ink, because I am not afraid of falling into my\ninkpot. I have no sympathy with a poor man I knew, who, when suicides\nabounded, told me he dared not look at his razor.  We are of different\nopinions at different hours, but we always may be said to be at heart on\nthe side of truth.\n\nI see not why we should give ourselves such sanctified airs.  If the\nDivine Providence has hid from men neither disease, nor deformity, nor\ncorrupt society, but has stated itself out in passions, in war, in\ntrade, in the love of power and pleasure, in hunger and need, in\ntyrannies, literatures, and arts,--let us not be so nice that we cannot\nwrite these facts down coarsely as they stand, or doubt but there is a\ncounter-statement as ponderous, which we can arrive at, and which, being\nput, will make all square.  The solar system has no anxiety about its\nreputation, and the credit of truth and honesty is as safe; nor have I\nany fear that a skeptical bias can be given by leaning hard on the sides\nof fate, of practical power, or of trade, which the doctrine of Faith\ncannot down-weigh.  The strength of that principle is not measured in\nounces and pounds: it tyrannizes at the centre of Nature. We may well\ngive skepticism as much line as we can.  The spirit will return, and\nfill us.  It drives the drivers.  It counterbalances any accumulations\nof power.\n\n    \"Heaven kindly gave our blood a moral flow.\"\n\nWe are born loyal.  The whole creation is made of hooks and eyes, of\nbitumen, of sticking-plaster, and whether your community is made in\nJerusalem or in California, of saints or of wreckers, it coheres in a\nperfect ball.  Men as naturally make a state, or a church, as\ncaterpillars a web.  If they were more refined, it would be less formal,\nit would be nervous, like that of the Shakers, who, from long habit of\nthinking and feeling together, it is said, are affected in the same way,\nat the same time, to work and to play, and as they go with perfect\nsympathy to their tasks in the field or shop, so are they inclined for a\nride or a journey at the same instant, and the horses come up with the\nfamily carriage unbespoken to the door.\n\nWe are born believing.  A man bears beliefs, as a tree bears apples.  A\nself-poise belongs to every particle; and a rectitude to every mind, and\nis the Nemesis and protector of every society.  I and my neighbors have\nbeen bred in the notion, that, unless we came soon to some good\nchurch,--Calvinism, or Behmenism, or Romanism, or Mormonism,--there\nwould be a universal thaw and dissolution. No Isaiah or Jeremy has\narrived.  Nothing can exceed the anarchy that has followed in our skies.\nThe stern old faiths have all pulverized.  'Tis a whole population of\ngentlemen and ladies out in search of religions.  'Tis as flat anarchy\nin our ecclesiastic realms, as that which existed in Massachusetts, in\nthe Revolution, or which prevails now on the slope of the Rocky\nMountains or Pike's Peak.  Yet we make shift to live.  Men are loyal.\nNature has self-poise in all her works; certain proportions in which\noxygen and azote combine, and, not less a harmony in faculties, a\nfitness in the spring and the regulator.\n\nThe decline of the influence of Calvin, or Fenelon, or Wesley, or\nChanning, need give us no uneasiness.  The builder of heaven has not so\nill constructed his creature as that the religion, that is, the public\nnature, should fall out: the public and the private element, like north\nand south, like inside and outside, like centrifugal and centripetal,\nadhere to every soul, and cannot be subdued, except the soul is\ndissipated.  God builds his temple in the heart on the ruins of churches\nand religions.\n\nIn the last chapters, we treated some particulars of the question of\nculture.  But the whole state of man is a state of culture; and its\nflowering and completion may be described as Religion, or Worship.\nThere is always some religion, some hope and fear extended into the\ninvisible,--from the blind boding which nails a horseshoe to the mast or\nthe threshold, up to the song of the Elders in the Apocalypse.  But the\nreligion cannot rise above the state of the votary.  Heaven always bears\nsome proportion to earth.  The god of the cannibals will be a cannibal,\nof the crusaders a crusader, and of the merchants a merchant.  In all\nages, souls out of time, extraordinary, prophetic, are born, who are\nrather related to the system of the world, than to their particular age\nand locality. These announce absolute truths, which, with whatever\nreverence received, are speedily dragged down into a savage\ninterpretation.  The interior tribes of our Indians, and some of the\nPacific islanders, flog their gods, when things take an unfavorable\nturn.  The Greek poets did not hesitate to let loose their petulant wit\non their deities also.  Laomedon, in his anger at Neptune and Apollo,\nwho had built Troy for him, and demanded their price, does not hesitate\nto menace them that he will cut their ears off.[5]  Among our Norse\nforefathers, King Olaf's mode of converting Eyvind to Christianity was\nto put a pan of glowing coals on his belly, which burst asunder.  \"Wilt\nthou now, Eyvind, believe in Christ?\" asks Olaf, in excellent faith.\nAnother argument was an adder put into the mouth of the reluctant\ndisciple Rand, who refused to believe.\n\n  [5] Iliad, Book xxi. 1. 455.\n\nChristianity, in the romantic ages, signified European culture,--the\ngrafted or meliorated tree in a crab forest.  And to marry a pagan wife\nor husband, was to marry Beast, and voluntarily to take a step backwards\ntowards the baboon.\n\n    \"Hengist had verament\n    A daughter both fair and gent,\n    But she was heathen Sarazine,\n    And Vortigern for love fine\n    Her took to fere and to wife,\n    And was cursed in all his life;\n    For he let Christian wed heathen,\n    And mixed our blood as flesh and mathen.\"[6]\n\n  [6] Moths or worms\n\nWhat Gothic mixtures the Christian creed drew from the pagan sources,\nRichard of Devizes's chronicle of Richard I.'s crusade, in the twelfth\ncentury, may show.  King Richard taunts God with forsaking him: \"O fie!\nO how unwilling should I be to forsake thee, in so forlorn and dreadful\na position, were I thy lord and advocate, as thou art mine.  In sooth,\nmy standards will in future be despised, not through my fault, but\nthrough thine: in sooth, not through any cowardice of my warfare, art\nthou thyself, my king and my God conquered, this day, and not Richard\nthy vassal.\"  The religion of the early English poets is anomalous, so\ndevout and so blasphemous, in the same breath.  Such is Chaucer's\nextraordinary confusion of heaven and earth in the picture of Dido.\n\n      \"She was so fair,\n    So young, so lusty, with her eyen glad,\n    That if that God that heaven and earthe made\n    Would have a love for beauty and goodness,\n    And womanhede, truth, and seemliness,\n    Whom should he loven but this lady sweet?\n    There n' is no woman to him half so meet.\"\n\n\nWith these grossnesses, we complacently compare our own taste and\ndecorum.  We think and speak with more temperance and gradation,--but is\nnot indifferentism as bad as superstition?\n\nWe live in a transition period, when the old faiths which comforted\nnations, and not only so, but made nations, seem to have spent their\nforce. I do not find the religions of men at this moment very creditable\nto them, but either childish and insignificant, or unmanly and\neffeminating.  The fatal trait is the divorce between religion and\nmorality.  Here are know-nothing religions, or churches that proscribe\nintellect; scortatory religions; slave-holding and slave-trading\nreligions; and, even in the decent populations, idolatries wherein the\nwhiteness of the ritual covers scarlet indulgence.  The lover of the old\nreligion complains that our contemporaries, scholars as well as\nmerchants, succumb to a great despair,--have corrupted into a timorous\nconservatism, and believe in nothing.  In our large cities, the\npopulation is godless, materialized,--no bond, no fellow-feeling, no\nenthusiasm.  These are not men, but hungers, thirsts, fevers, and\nappetites walking.  How is it people manage to live on,--so aimless as\nthey are?  After their peppercorn aims are gained, it seems as if the\nlime in their bones alone held them together, and not any worthy\npurpose.  There is no faith in the intellectual, none in the moral\nuniverse.  There is faith in chemistry, in meat, and wine, in wealth, in\nmachinery, in the steam-engine, galvanic battery, turbine-wheels, sewing\nmachines, and in public opinion, but not in divine causes.  A silent\nrevolution has loosed the tension of the old religious sects, and, in\nplace of the gravity and permanence of those societies of opinion, they\nrun into freak and extravagance. In creeds never was such levity;\nwitness the heathenisms in Christianity, the periodic \"revivals,\" the\nMillennium mathematics, the peacock ritualism, the retrogression to\nPopery, the maundering of Mormons, the squalor of Mesmerism, the\ndeliration of rappings, the rat and mouse revelation, thumps in\ntable-drawers, and black art.  The architecture, the music, the prayer,\npartake of the madness: the arts sink into shift and make-believe.  Not\nknowing what to do, we ape our ancestors; the churches stagger backward\nto the mummeries of the dark ages.  By the irresistible maturing of the\ngeneral mind, the Christian traditions have lost their hold. The dogma\nof the mystic offices of Christ being dropped, and he standing on his\ngenius as a moral teacher, 'tis impossible to maintain the old emphasis\nof his personality; and it recedes, as all persons must, before the\nsublimity of the moral laws. From this change, and in the momentary\nabsence of any religious genius that could offset the immense material\nactivity, there is a feeling that religion is gone.  When Paul Leroux\noffered his article \"_Dieu_\" to the conductor of a leading French\njournal, he replied, \"_La question de Dieu manque d'actualite_.\"  In\nItaly, Mr. Gladstone said of the late King of Naples, \"it has been a\nproverb, that he has erected the negation of God into a system of\ngovernment.\"  In this country, the like stupefaction was in the air, and\nthe phrase \"higher law\" became a political jibe.  What proof of\ninfidelity, like the toleration and propagandism of slavery?  What, like\nthe direction of education?  What, like the facility of conversion?\nWhat, like the externality of churches that once sucked the roots of\nright and wrong, and now have perished away till they are a speck of\nwhitewash on the wall?  What proof of skepticism like the base rate at\nwhich the highest mental and moral gifts are held?  Let a man attain the\nhighest and broadest culture that any American has possessed, then let\nhim die by sea-storm, railroad collision, or other accident, and all\nAmerica will acquiesce that the best thing has happened to him; that,\nafter the education has gone far, such is the expensiveness of America,\nthat the best use to put a fine person to, is, to drown him to save his\nboard.\n\nAnother scar of this skepticism is the distrust in human virtue.  It is\nbelieved by well-dressed proprietors that there is no more virtue than\nthey possess; that the solid portion of society exist for the arts of\ncomfort: that life is an affair to put somewhat between the upper and\nlower mandibles. How prompt the suggestion of a low motive! Certain\npatriots in England devoted themselves for years to creating a public\nopinion that should break down the corn-laws and establish free trade.\n'Well,' says the man in the street, 'Cobden got a stipend out of it.'\nKossuth fled hither across the ocean to try if he could rouse the New\nWorld to a sympathy with European liberty.  'Aye,' says New York, 'he\nmade a handsome thing of it, enough to make him comfortable for life.'\n\nSee what allowance vice finds in the respectable and well-conditioned\nclass.  If a pickpocket intrude into the society of gentlemen, they\nexert what moral force they have, and he finds himself uncomfortable,\nand glad to get away.  But if an adventurer go through all the forms,\nprocure himself to be elected to a post of trust, as of senator, or\npresident,--though by the same arts as we detest in the\nhouse-thief,--the same gentlemen who agree to discountenance the private\nrogue, will be forward to show civilities and marks of respect to the\npublic one: and no amount of evidence of his crimes will prevent them\ngiving him ovations, complimentary dinners, opening their own houses to\nhim, and priding themselves on his acquaintance.  We were not deceived\nby the professions of the private adventurer,--the louder he talked of\nhis honor, the faster we counted our spoons; but we appeal to the\nsanctified preamble of the messages and proclamations of the public\nsinner, as the proof of sincerity.  It must be that they who pay this\nhomage have said to themselves, On the whole, we don't know about this\nthat you call honesty; a bird in the hand is better.\n\nEven well-disposed, good sort of people are touched with the same\ninfidelity, and for brave, straightforward action, use half-measures and\ncompromises.  Forgetful that a little measure is a great error,\nforgetful that a wise mechanic uses a sharp tool, they go on choosing\nthe dead men of routine.  But the official men can in nowise help you in\nany question of to-day, they deriving entirely from the old dead things.\nOnly those can help in counsel or conduct who did not make a party\npledge to defend this or that, but who were appointed by God Almighty,\nbefore they came into the world, to stand for this which they uphold.\n\nIt has been charged that a want of sincerity in the leading men is a\nvice general throughout American society.  But the multitude of the sick\nshall not make us deny the existence of health.  In spite of our\nimbecility and terrors, and \"universal decay of religion,\" &c. &c., the\nmoral sense reappears to-day with the same morning newness that has been\nfrom of old the fountain of beauty and strength. You say, there is no\nreligion now.  'Tis like saying in rainy weather, there is no sun, when\nat that moment we are witnessing one of his superlative effects. The\nreligion of the cultivated class now, to be sure, consists in an\navoidance of acts and engagements which it was once their religion to\nassume.  But this avoidance will yield spontaneous forms in their due\nhour.  There is a principle which is the basis of things, which all\nspeech aims to say, and all action to evolve, a simple, quiet,\nundescribed, undescribable presence, dwelling very peacefully in us, our\nrightful lord: we are not to do, but to let do; not to work, but to be\nworked upon; and to this homage there is a consent of all thoughtful and\njust men in all ages and conditions.  To this sentiment belong vast and\nsudden enlargements of power. 'Tis remarkable that our faith in ecstasy\nconsists with total inexperience of it.  It is the order of the world to\neducate with accuracy the senses and the understanding; and the enginery\nat work to draw out these powers in priority, no doubt, has its office.\nBut we are never without a hint that these powers are mediate and\nservile, and that we are one day to deal with real being,--essences with\nessences. Even the fury of material activity has some results friendly\nto moral health.  The energetic action of the times develops\nindividualism, and the religious appear isolated.  I esteem this a step\nin the right direction.  Heaven deals with us on no representative\nsystem.  Souls are not saved in bundles.  The Spirit saith to the man,\n'How is it with thee? thee personally? is it well? is it ill?'  For a\ngreat nature, it is a happiness to escape a religious\ntraining,--religion of character is so apt to be invaded. Religion must\nalways be a crab fruit: it cannot be grafted and keep its wild beauty.\n\"I have seen,\" said a traveller who had known the extremes of society,\n\"I have seen human nature in all its forms, it is everywhere the same,\nbut the wilder it is, the more virtuous.\"\n\nWe say, the old forms of religion decay, and that a skepticism\ndevastates the community.  I do not think it can be cured or stayed by\nany modification of theologic creeds, much less by theologic discipline.\nThe cure for false theology is motherwit. Forget your books and\ntraditions, and obey your moral perceptions at this hour.  That which is\nsignified by the words \"moral\" and \"spiritual,\" is a lasting essence,\nand, with whatever illusions we have loaded them, will certainly bring\nback the words, age after age, to their ancient meaning. I know no words\nthat mean so much.  In our definitions, we grope after the _spiritual_\nby describing it as invisible.  The true meaning of _spiritual_ is\n_real_; that law which executes itself, which works without means, and\nwhich cannot be conceived as not existing.  Men talk of \"mere\nmorality,\"--which is much as if one should say, 'poor God, with nobody\nto help him.'  I find the omnipresence and the almightiness in the\nreaction of every atom in Nature.  I can best indicate by examples those\nreactions by which every part of Nature replies to the purpose of the\nactor,--beneficently to the good, penally to the bad.  Let us replace\nsentimentalism by realism, and dare to uncover those simple and terrible\nlaws which, be they seen or unseen, pervade and govern.\n\nEvery man takes care that his neighbor shall not cheat him.  But a day\ncomes when he begins to care that he do not cheat his neighbor.  Then\nall goes well.  He has changed his market-cart into a chariot of the\nsun.  What a day dawns, when we have taken to heart the doctrine of\nfaith! to prefer, as a better investment, being to doing; being to\nseeming; logic to rhythm and to display; the year to the day; the life\nto the year; character to performance;--and have come to know, that\njustice will be done us; and, if our genius is slow, the term will be\nlong.\n\n'Tis certain that worship stands in some commanding relation to the\nhealth of man, and to his highest powers, so as to be, in some manner,\nthe source of intellect.  All the great ages have been ages of belief.\nI mean, when there was any extraordinary power of performance, when\ngreat national movements began, when arts appeared, when heroes existed,\nwhen poems were made, the human soul was in earnest, and had fixed its\nthoughts on spiritual verities, with as strict a grasp as that of the\nhands on the sword, or the pencil, or the trowel.  It is true that\ngenius takes its rise out of the mountains of rectitude; that all beauty\nand power which men covet, are somehow born out of that Alpine district;\nthat any extraordinary degree of beauty in man or woman involves a moral\ncharm.  Thus, I think, we very slowly admit in another man a higher\ndegree of moral sentiment than our own,--a finer conscience, more\nimpressionable, or, which marks minuter degrees; an ear to hear acuter\nnotes of right and wrong, than we can.  I think we listen suspiciously\nand very slowly to any evidence to that point.  But, once satisfied of\nsuch superiority, we set no limit to our expectation of his genius.  For\nsuch persons are nearer to the secret of God than others; are bathed by\nsweeter waters; they hear notices, they see visions, where others are\nvacant.  We believe that holiness confers a certain insight, because not\nby our private, but by our public force, can we share and know the\nnature of things.\n\nThere is an intimate interdependence of intellect and morals.  Given the\nequality of two intellects,--which will form the most reliable\njudgments, the good, or the bad hearted?  \"The heart has its arguments,\nwith which the understanding is not acquainted.\"  For the heart is at\nonce aware of the state of health or disease, which is the controlling\nstate, that is, of sanity or of insanity, prior, of course, to all\nquestion of the ingenuity of arguments, the amount of facts, or the\nelegance of rhetoric.  So intimate is this alliance of mind and heart,\nthat talent uniformly sinks with character. The bias of errors of\nprinciple carries away men into perilous courses, as soon as their will\ndoes not control their passion or talent.  Hence the extraordinary\nblunders, and final wrong head, into which men spoiled by ambition\nusually fall.  Hence the remedy for all blunders, the cure of blindness,\nthe cure of crime, is love.  \"As much love, so much mind,\" said the\nLatin proverb.  The superiority that has no superior; the redeemer and\ninstructor of souls, as it is their primal essence, is love.\n\nThe moral must be the measure of health.  If your eye is on the eternal,\nyour intellect will grow, and your opinions and actions will have a\nbeauty which no learning or combined advantages of other men can rival.\nThe moment of your loss of faith, and acceptance of the lucrative\nstandard, will be marked in the pause, or solstice of genius, the\nsequent retrogression, and the inevitable loss of attraction to other\nminds.  The vulgar are sensible of the change in you, and of your\ndescent, though they clap you on the back, and congratulate you on your\nincreased common sense.\n\nOur recent culture has been in natural science. We have learned the\nmanners of the sun and of the moon, of the rivers and the rains, of the\nmineral and elemental kingdoms, of plants and animals. Man has learned\nto weigh the sun, and its weight neither loses nor gains.  The path of a\nstar, the moment of an eclipse, can be determined to the fraction of a\nsecond.  Well, to him the book of History, the book of love, the lures\nof passion, and the commandments of duty are opened: and the next lesson\ntaught, is, the continuation of the inflexible law of matter into the\nsubtile kingdom of will, and of thought; that, if, in sidereal ages,\ngravity and projection keep their craft, and the ball never loses its\nway in its wild path through space,--a secreter gravitation, a secreter\nprojection, rule not less tyrannically in human history, and keep the\nbalance of power from age to age unbroken.  For, though the new element\nof freedom and an individual has been admitted, yet the primordial atoms\nare prefigured and predetermined to moral issues, are in search of\njustice, and ultimate right is done. Religion or worship is the attitude\nof those who see this unity, intimacy, and sincerity; who see that,\nagainst all appearances, the nature of things works for truth and right\nforever.\n\n'Tis a short sight to limit our faith in laws to those of gravity, of\nchemistry, of botany, and so forth.  Those laws do not stop where our\neyes lose them, but push the same geometry and chemistry up into the\ninvisible plane of social and rational life, so that, look where we\nwill, in a boy's game, or in the strifes of races, a perfect reaction, a\nperpetual judgment keeps watch and ward.  And this appears in a class of\nfacts which concerns all men, within and above their creeds.\n\nShallow men believe in luck, believe in circumstances: It was somebody's\nname, or he happened to be there at the time, or, it was so then, and\nanother day it would have been otherwise.  Strong men believe in cause\nand effect.  The man was born to do it, and his father was born to be\nthe father of him and of this deed, and, by looking narrowly, you shall\nsee there was no luck in the matter, but it was all a problem in\narithmetic, or an experiment in chemistry.  The curve of the flight of\nthe moth is preordained, and all things go by number, rule, and weight.\n\nSkepticism is unbelief in cause and effect.  A man does not see, that,\nas he eats, so he thinks: as he deals, so he is, and so he appears; he\ndoes not see, that his son is the son of his thoughts and of his\nactions; that fortunes are not exceptions but fruits; that relation and\nconnection are not somewhere and sometimes, but everywhere and always;\nno miscellany, no exemption, no anomaly,--but method, and an even web;\nand what comes out, that was put in.  As we are, so we do; and as we do,\nso is it done to us; we are the builders of our fortunes; cant and lying\nand the attempt to secure a good which does not belong to us, are, once\nfor all, balked and vain.  But, in the human mind, this tie of fate is\nmade alive.  The law is the basis of the human mind.  In us, it is\ninspiration; out there in Nature, we see its fatal strength.  We call it\nthe moral sentiment.\n\nWe owe to the Hindoo Scriptures a definition of Law, which compares well\nwith any in our Western books.  \"Law it is, which is without name, or\ncolor, or hands, or feet; which is smallest of the least, and largest of\nthe large; all, and knowing all things; which hears without ears, sees\nwithout eyes, moves without feet, and seizes without hands.\"\n\nIf any reader tax me with using vague and traditional phrases, let me\nsuggest to him, by a few examples, what kind of a trust this is, and how\nreal. Let me show him that the dice are loaded; that the colors are\nfast, because they are the native colors of the fleece; that the globe\nis a battery, because every atom is a magnet; and that the police and\nsincerity of the Universe are secured by God's delegating his divinity\nto every particle; that there is no room for hypocrisy, no margin for\nchoice.\n\nThe countryman leaving his native village, for the first time, and going\nabroad, finds all his habits broken up.  In a new nation and language,\nhis sect, as Quaker, or Lutheran, is lost.  What! it is not then\nnecessary to the order and existence of society?  He misses this, and\nthe commanding eye of his neighborhood, which held him to decorum. This\nis the peril of New York, of New Orleans, of London, of Paris, to young\nmen.  But after a little experience, he makes the discovery that there\nare no large cities,--none large enough to hide in; that the censors of\naction are as numerous and as near in Paris, as in Littleton or\nPortland; that the gossip is as prompt and vengeful.  There is no\nconcealment, and, for each offence, a several vengeance; that, reaction,\nor _nothing for nothing, or, things are as broad as they are long_, is\nnot a rule for Littleton or Portland, but for the Universe.\n\nWe cannot spare the coarsest muniment of virtue.  We are disgusted by\ngossip; yet it is of importance to keep the angels in their proprieties.\nThe smallest fly will draw blood, and gossip is a weapon impossible to\nexclude from the privatest, highest, selectest.  Nature created a police\nof many ranks.  God has delegated himself to a million deputies.  From\nthese low external penalties, the scale ascends.  Next come the\nresentments, the fears, which injustice calls out; then, the false\nrelations in which the offender is put to other men; and the reaction of\nhis fault on himself, in the solitude and devastation of his mind.\n\nYou cannot hide any secret.  If the artist succor his flagging spirits\nby opium or wine, his work will characterize itself as the effect of\nopium or wine. If you make a picture or a statue, it sets the beholder\nin that state of mind you had, when you made it.  If you spend for show,\non building, or gardening, or on pictures, or on equipages, it will so\nappear.  We are all physiognomists and penetrators of character, and\nthings themselves are detective. If you follow the suburban fashion in\nbuilding a sumptuous-looking house for a little money, it will appear to\nall eyes as a cheap dear house.  There is no privacy that cannot be\npenetrated.  No secret can be kept in the civilized world.  Society is a\nmasked ball, where every one hides his real character, and reveals it by\nhiding.  If a man wish to conceal anything he carries, those whom he\nmeets know that he conceals somewhat, and usually know what he conceals.\nIs it otherwise if there be some belief or some purpose he would bury in\nhis breast? 'Tis as hard to hide as fire.  He is a strong man who can\nhold down his opinion.  A man cannot utter two or three sentences,\nwithout disclosing to intelligent ears precisely where he stands in life\nand thought, namely, whether in the kingdom of the senses and the\nunderstanding, or, in that of ideas and imagination, in the realm of\nintuitions and duty.  People seem not to see that their opinion of the\nworld is also a confession of character. We can only see what we are,\nand if we misbehave we suspect others.  The fame of Shakspeare or of\nVoltaire, of Thomas a Kempis, or of Bonaparte, characterizes those who\ngive it.  As gas-light is found to be the best nocturnal police, so the\nuniverse protects itself by pitiless publicity.\n\nEach must be armed--not necessarily with musket and pike.  Happy, if,\nseeing these, he can feel that he has better muskets and pikes in his\nenergy and constancy.  To every creature is his own weapon, however\nskilfully concealed from himself, a good while.  His work is sword and\nshield. Let him accuse none, let him injure none.  The way to mend the\nbad world, is to create the right world.  Here is a low political\neconomy plotting to cut the throat of foreign competition, and establish\nour own;--excluding others by force, or making war on them; or, by\ncunning tariffs, giving preference to worse wares of ours.  But the real\nand lasting victories are those of peace, and not of war. The way to\nconquer the foreign artisan, is, not to kill him, but to beat his work.\nAnd the Crystal Palaces and World Fairs, with their committees and\nprizes on all kinds of industry, are the result of this feeling.  The\nAmerican workman who strikes ten blows with his hammer, whilst the\nforeign workman only strikes one, is as really vanquishing that\nforeigner, as if the blows were aimed at and told on his person.  I look\non that man as happy, who, when there is question of success, looks into\nhis work for a reply, not into the market, not into opinion, not into\npatronage.  In every variety of human employment, in the mechanical and\nin the fine arts, in navigation, in farming, in legislating, there are\namong the numbers who do their task perfunctorily, as we say, or just to\npass, and as badly as they dare,--there are the working-men, on whom the\nburden of the business falls,--those who love work, and love to see it\nrightly done, who finish their task for its own sake; and the state and\nthe world is happy, that has the most of such finishers.  The world will\nalways do justice at last to such finishers: it cannot otherwise. He who\nhas acquired the ability, may wait securely the occasion of making it\nfelt and appreciated, and know that it will not loiter.  Men talk as if\nvictory were something fortunate.  Work is victory. Wherever work is\ndone, victory is obtained.  There is no chance, and no blanks.  You want\nbut one verdict: if you have your own, you are secure of the rest.  And\nyet, if witnesses are wanted, witnesses are near.  There was never a man\nborn so wise or good, but one or more companions came into the world\nwith him, who delight in his faculty, and report it.  I cannot see\nwithout awe, that no man thinks alone, and no man acts alone, but the\ndivine assessors who came up with him into life,--now under one\ndisguise, now under another,--like a police in citizens' clothes, walk\nwith him, step for step, through all the kingdom of time.\n\nThis reaction, this sincerity is the property of all things.  To make\nour word or act sublime, we must make it real.  It is our system that\ncounts, not the single word or unsupported action.  Use what language\nyou will, you can never say anything but what you are.  What I am, and\nwhat I think, is conveyed to you, in spite of my efforts to hold it\nback.  What I am has been secretly conveyed from me to another, whilst I\nwas vainly making up my mind to tell him it.  He has heard from me what\nI never spoke.\n\nAs men get on in life, they acquire a love for sincerity, and somewhat\nless solicitude to be lulled or amused.  In the progress of the\ncharacter, there is an increasing faith in the moral sentiment, and a\ndecreasing faith in propositions.  Young people admire talents, and\nparticular excellences.  As we grow older, we value total powers and\neffects, as the spirit, or quality of the man.  We have another sight,\nand a new standard; an insight which disregards what is done _for_ the\neye, and pierces to the doer; an ear which hears not what men say, but\nhears what they do not say.\n\nThere was a wise, devout man who is called, in the Catholic Church, St.\nPhilip Neri, of whom many anecdotes touching his discernment and\nbenevolence are told at Naples and Rome.  Among the nuns in a convent\nnot far from Rome, one had appeared, who laid claim to certain rare\ngifts of inspiration and prophecy, and the abbess advised the Holy\nFather, at Rome, of the wonderful powers shown by her novice.  The Pope\ndid not well know what to make of these new claims, and Philip coming in\nfrom a journey, one day, he consulted him. Philip undertook to visit the\nnun, and ascertain her character.  He threw himself on his mule, all\ntravel-soiled as he was, and hastened through the mud and mire to the\ndistant convent.  He told the abbess the wishes of his Holiness, and\nbegged her to summon the nun without delay.  The nun was sent for, and,\nas soon as she came into the apartment, Philip stretched out his leg all\nbespattered with mud, and desired her to draw off his boots. The young\nnun, who had become the object of much attention and respect, drew back\nwith anger, and refused the office: Philip ran out of doors, mounted his\nmule, and returned instantly to the Pope; \"Give yourself no uneasiness,\nHoly Father, any longer: here is no miracle, for here is no humility.\"\n\nWe need not much mind what people please to say, but what they must say;\nwhat their natures say, though their busy, artful, Yankee understandings\ntry to hold back, and choke that word, and to articulate something\ndifferent.  If we will sit quietly,--what they ought to say is said,\nwith their will, or against their will.  We do not care for you, let us\npretend what we will:--we are always looking through you to the dim\ndictator behind you.  Whilst your habit or whim chatters, we civilly and\nimpatiently wait until that wise superior shall speak again.  Even\nchildren are not deceived by the false reasons which their parents give\nin answer to their questions, whether touching natural facts, or\nreligion, or persons.  When the parent, instead of thinking how it\nreally is, puts them off with a traditional or a hypocritical answer,\nthe children perceive that it is traditional or hypocritical.  To a\nsound constitution the defect of another is at once manifest: and the\nmarks of it are only concealed from us by our own dislocation. An\nanatomical observer remarks, that the sympathies of the chest, abdomen,\nand pelvis, tell at last on the face, and on all its features.  Not only\ndoes our beauty waste, but it leaves word how it went to waste.\nPhysiognomy and phrenology are not new sciences, but declarations of the\nsoul that it is aware of certain new sources of information.  And now\nsciences of broader scope are starting up behind these.  And so for\nourselves, it is really of little importance what blunders in statement\nwe make, so only we make no wilful departures from the truth.  How a\nman's truth comes to mind, long after we have forgotten all his words!\nHow it comes to us in silent hours, that truth is our only armor in all\npassages of life and death!  Wit is cheap, and anger is cheap; but if\nyou cannot argue or explain yourself to the other party, cleave to the\ntruth against me, against thee, and you gain a station from which you\ncannot be dislodged.  The other party will forget the words that you\nspoke, but the part you took continues to plead for you.\n\nWhy should I hasten to solve every riddle which life offers me?  I am\nwell assured that the Questioner, who brings me so many problems, will\nbring the answers also in due time.  Very rich, very potent, very\ncheerful Giver that he is, he shall have it all his own way, for me.\nWhy should I give up my thought, because I cannot answer an objection to\nit?  Consider only, whether it remains in my life the same it was.  That\nonly which we have within, can we see without.  If we meet no gods, it\nis because we harbor none.  If there is grandeur in you, you will find\ngrandeur in porters and sweeps.  He only is rightly immortal, to whom\nall things are immortal.  I have read somewhere, that none is\naccomplished, so long as any are incomplete; that the happiness of one\ncannot consist with the misery of any other.\n\nThe Buddhists say, \"No seed will die:\" every seed will grow.  Where is\nthe service which can escape its remuneration?  What is vulgar, and the\nessence of all vulgarity, but the avarice of reward? 'Tis the difference\nof artisan and artist, of talent and genius, of sinner and saint.  The\nman whose eyes are nailed not on the nature of his act, but on the\nwages, whether it be money, or office, or fame,--is almost equally low.\nHe is great, whose eyes are opened to see that the reward of actions\ncannot be escaped, because he is transformed into his action, and taketh\nits nature, which bears its own fruit, like every other tree.  A great\nman cannot be hindered of the effect of his act, because it is\nimmediate.  The genius of life is friendly to the noble, and in the dark\nbrings them friends from far. Fear God, and where you go, men shall\nthink they walk in hallowed cathedrals.\n\nAnd so I look on those sentiments which make the glory of the human\nbeing, love, humility, faith, as being also the intimacy of Divinity in\nthe atoms; and, that, as soon as the man is right, assurances and\nprevisions emanate from the interior of his body and his mind; as, when\nflowers reach their ripeness, incense exhales from them, and, as a\nbeautiful atmosphere is generated from the planet by the averaged\nemanations from all its rocks and soils.\n\nThus man is made equal to every event.  He can face danger for the\nright.  A poor, tender, painful body, he can run into flame or bullets\nor pestilence, with duty for his guide.  He feels the insurance of a\njust employment.  I am not afraid of accident, as long as I am in my\nplace.  It is strange that superior persons should not feel that they\nhave some better resistance against cholera, than avoiding green peas\nand salads.  Life is hardly respectable,--is it? if it has no generous,\nguaranteeing task, no duties or affections, that constitute a necessity\nof existing.  Every man's task is his life-preserver.  The conviction\nthat his work is dear to God and cannot be spared, defends him.  The\nlightning-rod that disarms the cloud of its threat is his body in its\nduty.  A high aim reacts on the means, on the days, on the organs of the\nbody.  A high aim is curative, as well as arnica. \"Napoleon,\" says\nGoethe, \"visited those sick of the plague, in order to prove that the\nman who could vanquish fear, could vanquish the plague also; and he was\nright.  'Tis incredible what force the will has in such cases: it\npenetrates the body, and puts it in a state of activity, which repels\nall hurtful influences; whilst fear invites them.\"\n\nIt is related of William of Orange, that, whilst he was besieging a town\non the continent, a gentleman sent to him on public business came to his\ncamp, and, learning that the King was before the walls, he ventured to\ngo where he was.  He found him directing the operation of his gunners,\nand, having explained his errand, and received his answer, the King\nsaid, \"Do you not know, sir, that every moment you spend here is at the\nrisk of your life?\"  \"I run no more risk,\" replied the gentleman, \"than\nyour Majesty.\"  \"Yes,\" said the King, \"but my duty brings me here, and\nyours does not.\"  In a few minutes, a cannon-ball fell on the spot, and\nthe gentleman was killed.\n\nThus can the faithful student reverse all the warnings of his early\ninstinct, under the guidance of a deeper instinct.  He learns to welcome\nmisfortune, learns that adversity is the prosperity of the great.  He\nlearns the greatness of humility. He shall work in the dark, work\nagainst failure, pain, and ill-will.  If he is insulted, he can be\ninsulted; all his affair is not to insult.  Hafiz writes,\n\n    At the last day, men shall wear\n    On their heads the dust,\n    As ensign and as ornament\n    Of their lowly trust.\n\n\nThe moral equalizes all; enriches, empowers all. It is the coin which\nbuys all, and which all find in their pocket.  Under the whip of the\ndriver, the slave shall feel his equality with saints and heroes. In the\ngreatest destitution and calamity, it surprises man with a feeling of\nelasticity which makes nothing of loss.\n\nI recall some traits of a remarkable person whose life and discourse\nbetrayed many inspirations of this sentiment.  Benedict was always great\nin the present time.  He had hoarded nothing from the past, neither in\nhis cabinets, neither in his memory.  He had no designs on the future,\nneither for what he should do to men, nor for what men should do for\nhim.  He said, 'I am never beaten until I know that I am beaten.  I meet\npowerful brutal people to whom I have no skill to reply.  They think\nthey have defeated me.  It is so published in society, in the journals;\nI am defeated in this fashion, in all men's sight, perhaps on a dozen\ndifferent lines.  My ledger may show that I am in debt, cannot yet make\nmy ends meet, and vanquish the enemy so.  My race may not be prospering:\nwe are sick, ugly, obscure, unpopular.  My children may be worsted. I\nseem to fail in my friends and clients, too.  That is to say, in all the\nencounters that have yet chanced, I have not been weaponed for that\nparticular occasion, and have been historically beaten; and yet, I know,\nall the time, that I have never been beaten; have never yet fought,\nshall certainly fight, when my hour comes, and shall beat.'  \"A man,\"\nsays the Vishnu Sarma, \"who having well compared his own strength or\nweakness with that of others, after all doth not know the difference, is\neasily overcome by his enemies.\"\n\n'I spent,' he said, 'ten months in the country. Thick-starred Orion was\nmy only companion. Wherever a squirrel or a bee can go with security, I\ncan go.  I ate whatever was set before me; I touched ivy and dogwood.\nWhen I went abroad, I kept company with every man on the road, for I\nknew that my evil and my good did not come from these, but from the\nSpirit, whose servant I was. For I could not stoop to be a circumstance,\nas they did, who put their life into their fortune and their company.  I\nwould not degrade myself by casting about in my memory for a thought,\nnor by waiting for one.  If the thought come, I would give it\nentertainment.  It should, as it ought, go into my hands and feet; but\nif it come not spontaneously, it comes not rightly at all.  If it can\nspare me, I am sure I can spare it.  It shall be the same with my\nfriends.  I will never woo the loveliest.  I will not ask any friendship\nor favor.  When I come to my own, we shall both know it.  Nothing will\nbe to be asked or to be granted.'  Benedict went out to seek his friend,\nand met him on the way; but he expressed no surprise at any\ncoincidences.  On the other hand, if he called at the door of his\nfriend, and he was not at home, he did not go again; concluding that he\nhad misinterpreted the intimations.\n\nHe had the whim not to make an apology to the same individual whom he\nhad wronged.  For this, he said, was a piece of personal vanity; but he\nwould correct his conduct in that respect in which he had faulted, to\nthe next person he should meet.  Thus, he said, universal justice was\nsatisfied.\n\nMira came to ask what she should do with the poor Genesee woman who had\nhired herself to work for her, at a shilling a day, and, now sickening,\nwas like to be bedridden on her hands.  Should she keep her, or should\nshe dismiss her?  But Benedict said, 'Why ask?  One thing will clear\nitself as the thing to be done, and not another, when the hour comes.\nIs it a question, whether to put her into the street?  Just as much\nwhether to thrust the little Jenny on your arm into the street.  The\nmilk and meal you give the beggar, will fatten Jenny.  Thrust the woman\nout, and you thrust your babe out of doors, whether it so seem to you or\nnot.'\n\nIn the Shakers, so called, I find one piece of belief, in the doctrine\nwhich they faithfully hold, that encourages them to open their doors to\nevery wayfaring man who proposes to come among them; for, they say, the\nSpirit will presently manifest to the man himself, and to the society,\nwhat manner of person he is, and whether he belongs among them. They do\nnot receive him, they do not reject him. And not in vain have they worn\ntheir clay coat, and drudged in their fields, and shuffled in their\nBruin dance, from year to year, if they have truly learned thus much\nwisdom.\n\nHonor him whose life is perpetual victory; him, who, by sympathy with\nthe invisible and real, finds support in labor, instead of praise; who\ndoes not shine, and would rather not.  With eyes open, he makes the\nchoice of virtue, which outrages the virtuous; of religion, which\nchurches stop their discords to burn and exterminate; for the highest\nvirtue is always against the law.\n\nMiracle comes to the miraculous, not to the arithmetician.  Talent and\nsuccess interest me but moderately.  The great class, they who affect\nour imagination, the men who could not make their hands meet around\ntheir objects, the rapt, the lost, the fools of ideas,--they suggest\nwhat they cannot execute.  They speak to the ages, and are heard from\nafar.  The Spirit does not love cripples and malformations.  If there\never was a good man, be certain, there was another, and will be more.\n\nAnd so in relation to that future hour, that spectre clothed with beauty\nat our curtain by night, at our table by day,--the apprehension, the\nassurance of a coming change.  The race of mankind have always offered\nat least this implied thanks for the gift of existence,--namely, the\nterror of its being taken away; the insatiable curiosity and appetite\nfor its continuation.  The whole revelation that is vouchsafed us, is,\nthe gentle trust, which, in our experience we find, will cover also with\nflowers the slopes of this chasm.\n\nOf immortality, the soul, when well employed, is incurious.  It is so\nwell, that it is sure it will be well.  It asks no questions of the\nSupreme Power. The son of Antiochus asked his father, when he would join\nbattle?  \"Dost thou fear,\" replied the King, \"that thou only in all the\narmy wilt not hear the trumpet?\"  'Tis a higher thing to confide, that,\nif it is best we should live, we shall live,--'tis higher to have this\nconviction, than to have the lease of indefinite centuries and\nmillenniums and aeons.  Higher than the question of our duration is the\nquestion of our deserving.  Immortality will come to such as are fit for\nit, and he who would be a great soul in future, must be a great soul\nnow. It is a doctrine too great to rest on any legend, that is, on any\nman's experience but our own.  It must be proved, if at all, from our\nown activity and designs, which imply an interminable future for their\nplay.\n\nWhat is called religion effeminates and demoralizes. Such as you are,\nthe gods themselves could not help you.  Men are too often unfit to\nlive, from their obvious inequality to their own necessities, or, they\nsuffer from politics, or bad neighbors, or from sickness, and they would\ngladly know that they were to be dismissed from the duties of life.  But\nthe wise instinct asks, 'How will death help them?'  These are not\ndismissed when they die.  You shall not wish for death out of\npusillanimity.  The weight of the Universe is pressed down on the\nshoulders of each moral agent to hold him to his task.  The only path of\nescape known in all the worlds of God is performance.  You must do your\nwork, before you shall be released.  And as far as it is a question of\nfact respecting the government of the Universe, Marcus Antoninus summed\nthe whole in a word, \"It is pleasant to die, if there be gods; and sad\nto live, if there be none.\"\n\nAnd so I think that the last lesson of life, the choral song which rises\nfrom all elements and all angels, is, a voluntary obedience, a\nnecessitated freedom.  Man is made of the same atoms as the world is, he\nshares the same impressions, predispositions, and destiny.  When his\nmind is illuminated, when his heart is kind, he throws himself joyfully\ninto the sublime order, and does, with knowledge, what the stones do by\nstructure.\n\nThe religion which is to guide and fulfil the present and coming ages,\nwhatever else it be, must be intellectual.  The scientific mind must\nhave a faith which is science.  \"There are two things,\" said Mahomet,\n\"which I abhor, the learned in his infidelities, and the fool in his\ndevotions.\"  Our times are impatient of both, and specially of the last.\nLet us have nothing now which is not its own evidence.  There is surely\nenough for the heart and imagination in the religion itself.  Let us not\nbe pestered with assertions and half-truths, with emotions and snuffle.\n\nThere will be a new church founded on moral science, at first cold and\nnaked, a babe in a manger again, the algebra and mathematics of ethical\nlaw, the church of men to come, without shawms, or psaltery, or sackbut;\nbut it will have heaven and earth for its beams and rafters; science for\nsymbol and illustration; it will fast enough gather beauty, music,\npicture, poetry.  Was never stoicism so stern and exigent as this shall\nbe.  It shall send man home to his central solitude, shame these social,\nsupplicating manners, and make him know that much of the time he must\nhave himself to his friend.  He shall expect no cooeperation, he shall\nwalk with no companion.  The nameless Thought, the nameless Power, the\nsuperpersonal Heart,--he shall repose alone on that.  He needs only his\nown verdict.  No good fame can help, no bad fame can hurt him.  The Laws\nare his consolers, the good Laws themselves are alive, they know if he\nhave kept them, they animate him with the leading of great duty, and an\nendless horizon.  Honor and fortune exist to him who always recognizes\nthe neighborhood of the great, always feels himself in the presence of\nhigh causes.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII.\n\n\n                       CONSIDERATIONS BY THE WAY.\n\n\n    Hear what British Merlin sung,\n    Of keenest eye and truest tongue.\n    Say not, the chiefs who first arrive\n    Usurp the seats for which all strive;\n    The forefathers this land who found\n    Failed to plant the vantage-ground;\n    Ever from one who comes to-morrow\n    Men wait their good and truth to borrow.\n    But wilt thou measure all thy road,\n    See thou lift the lightest load.\n    Who has little, to him who has less, can spare,\n    And thou, Cyndyllan's son! beware\n    Ponderous gold and stuffs to bear,\n    To falter ere thou thy task fulfil,--\n    Only the light-armed climb the hill.\n    The richest of all lords is Use,\n    And ruddy Health the loftiest Muse.\n    Live in the sunshine, swim the sea,\n    Drink the wild air's salubrity:\n    Where the star Canope shines in May,\n    Shepherds are thankful, and nations gay.\n    The music that can deepest reach,\n    And cure all ill, is cordial speech:\n    Mask thy wisdom with delight,\n    Toy with the bow, yet hit the white.\n    Of all wit's uses, the main one\n    Is to live well with who has none.\n    Cleave to thine acre; the round year\n    Will fetch all fruits and virtues here:\n    Fool and foe may harmless roam,\n    Loved and lovers bide at home,\n    A day for toil, an hour for sport,\n    But for a friend is life too short.\n\n\n\n                       CONSIDERATIONS BY THE WAY.\n\n\nAlthough this garrulity of advising is born with us, I confess that life\nis rather a subject of wonder, than of didactics.  So much fate, so much\nirresistible dictation from temperament and unknown inspiration enters\ninto it, that we doubt we can say anything out of our own experience\nwhereby to help each other.  All the professions are timid and expectant\nagencies.  The priest is glad if his prayers or his sermon meet the\ncondition of any soul; if of two, if of ten, 'tis a signal success.  But\nhe walked to the church without any assurance that he knew the\ndistemper, or could heal it.  The physician prescribes hesitatingly out\nof his few resources, the same tonic or sedative to this new and\npeculiar constitution, which he has applied with various success to a\nhundred men before.  If the patient mends, he is glad and surprised.\nThe lawyer advises the client, and tells his story to the jury, and\nleaves it with them, and is as gay and as much relieved as the client,\nif it turns out that he has a verdict.  The judge weighs the arguments,\nand puts a brave face on the matter, and, since there must be a\ndecision, decides as he can, and hopes he has done justice, and given\nsatisfaction to the community; but is only an advocate after all.  And\nso is all life a timid and unskilful spectator.  We do what we must, and\ncall it by the best names. We like very well to be praised for our\naction, but our conscience says, \"Not unto us.\"  'Tis little we can do\nfor each other.  We accompany the youth with sympathy, and manifold old\nsayings of the wise, to the gate of the arena, but 'tis certain that not\nby strength of ours, or of the old sayings, but only on strength of his\nown, unknown to us or to any, he must stand or fall.  That by which a\nman conquers in any passage, is a profound secret to every other being\nin the world, and it is only as he turns his back on us and on all men,\nand draws on this most private wisdom, that any good can come to him.\nWhat we have, therefore, to say of life, is rather description, or, if\nyou please, celebration, than available rules.\n\nYet vigor is contagious, and whatever makes us either think or feel\nstrongly, adds to our power, and enlarges our field of action.  We have\na debt to every great heart, to every fine genius; to those who have put\nlife and fortune on the cast of an act of justice; to those who have\nadded new sciences; to those who have refined life by elegant pursuits.\n'Tis the fine souls who serve us, and not what is called fine society.\nFine society is only a self-protection against the vulgarities of the\nstreet and the tavern.  Fine society, in the common acceptation, has\nneither ideas nor aims.  It renders the service of a perfumery, or a\nlaundry, not of a farm or factory.  'Tis an exclusion and a precinct.\nSidney Smith said, \"A few yards in London cement or dissolve\nfriendship.\"  It is an unprincipled decorum; an affair of clean linen\nand coaches, of gloves, cards, and elegance in trifles.  There are other\nmeasures of self-respect for a man, than the number of clean shirts he\nputs on every day. Society wishes to be amused.  I do not wish to be\namused.  I wish that life should not be cheap, but sacred.  I wish the\ndays to be as centuries, loaded, fragrant.  Now we reckon them as\nbank-days, by some debt which is to be paid us, or which we are to pay,\nor some pleasure we are to taste.  Is all we have to do to draw the\nbreath in, and blow it out again?  Porphyry's definition is better;\n\"Life is that which holds matter together.\"  The babe in arms is a\nchannel through which the energies we call fate, love, and reason,\nvisibly stream.  See what a cometary train of auxiliaries man carries\nwith him, of animals, plants, stones, gases, and imponderable elements.\nLet us infer his ends from this pomp of means.  Mirabeau said, \"Why\nshould we feel ourselves to be men, unless it be to succeed in\neverything, everywhere.  You must say of nothing, _That is beneath me_,\nnor feel that anything can be out of your power.  Nothing is impossible\nto the man who can will.  _Is that necessary?  That shall be_:--this is\nthe only law of success.\"  Whoever said it, this is in the right key.\nBut this is not the tone and genius of the men in the street. In the\nstreets, we grow cynical.  The men we meet are coarse and torpid.  The\nfinest wits have their sediment.  What quantities of fribbles, paupers,\ninvalids, epicures, antiquaries, politicians, thieves, and triflers of\nboth sexes, might be advantageously spared!  Mankind divides itself into\ntwo classes,--benefactors and malefactors.  The second class is vast,\nthe first a handful.  A person seldom falls sick, but the bystanders are\nanimated with a faint hope that he will die:--quantities of poor lives;\nof distressing invalids; of cases for a gun. Franklin said, \"Mankind are\nvery superficial and dastardly: they begin upon a thing, but, meeting\nwith a difficulty, they fly from it discouraged: but they have\ncapacities, if they would employ them.\"  Shall we then judge a country\nby the majority, or by the minority?  By the minority, surely. 'Tis\npedantry to estimate nations by the census, or by square miles of land,\nor other than by their importance to the mind of the time.\n\nLeave this hypocritical prating about the masses. Masses are rude, lame,\nunmade, pernicious in their demands and influence, and need not to be\nflattered but to be schooled.  I wish not to concede anything to them,\nbut to tame, drill, divide, and break them up, and draw individuals out\nof them.  The worst of charity is, that the lives you are asked to\npreserve are not worth preserving.  Masses! the calamity is the masses.\nI do not wish any mass at all, but honest men only, lovely, sweet,\naccomplished women only, and no shovel-handed, narrow-brained,\ngin-drinking million stockingers or lazzaroni at all.  If government\nknew how, I should like to see it check, not multiply the population.\nWhen it reaches its true law of action, every man that is born will be\nhailed as essential. Away with this hurrah of masses, and let us have\nthe considerate vote of single men spoken on their honor and their\nconscience.  In old Egypt, it was established law, that the vote of a\nprophet be reckoned equal to a hundred hands.  I think it was much\nunder-estimated.  \"Clay and clay differ in dignity,\" as we discover by\nour preferences every day.  What a vicious practice is this of our\npoliticians at Washington pairing off! as if one man who votes wrong,\ngoing away, could excuse you, who mean to vote right, for going away;\nor, as if your presence did not tell in more ways than in your vote.\nSuppose the three hundred heroes at Thermopylae had paired off with\nthree hundred Persians: would it have been all the same to Greece, and\nto history?  Napoleon was called by his men _Cent Mille_.  Add honesty\nto him, and they might have called him Hundred Million.\n\nNature makes fifty poor melons for one that is good, and shakes down a\ntree full of gnarled, wormy, unripe crabs, before you can find a dozen\ndessert apples; and she scatters nations of naked Indians, and nations\nof clothed Christians, with two or three good heads among them.  Nature\nworks very hard, and only hits the white once in a million throws.  In\nmankind, she is contented if she yields one master in a century.  The\nmore difficulty there is in creating good men, the more they are used\nwhen they come.  I once counted in a little neighborhood, and found that\nevery able-bodied man had, say from twelve to fifteen persons dependent\non him for material aid,--to whom he is to be for spoon and jug, for\nbacker and sponsor, for nursery and hospital, and many functions beside:\nnor does it seem to make much difference whether he is bachelor or\npatriarch; if he do not violently decline the duties that fall to him,\nthis amount of helpfulness will in one way or another be brought home to\nhim.  This is the tax which his abilities pay.  The good men are\nemployed for private centres of use, and for larger influence.  All\nrevelations, whether of mechanical or intellectual or moral science, are\nmade not to communities, but to single persons. All the marked events of\nour day, all the cities, all the colonizations, may be traced back to\ntheir origin in a private brain.  All the feats which make our civility\nwere the thoughts of a few good heads.\n\nMeantime, this spawning productivity is not noxious or needless.  You\nwould say, this rabble of nations might be spared.  But no, they are all\ncounted and depended on.  Fate keeps everything alive so long as the\nsmallest thread of public necessity holds it on to the tree.  The\ncoxcomb and bully and thief class are allowed as proletaries, every one\nof their vices being the excess or acridity of a virtue.  The mass are\nanimal, in pupilage, and near chimpanzee.  But the units, whereof this\nmass is composed are neuters, every one of which may be grown to a\nqueen-bee.  The rule is, we are used as brute atoms, until we think:\nthen, we use all the rest.  Nature turns all malfaisance to good.\nNature provided for real needs.  No sane man at last distrusts himself.\nHis existence is a perfect answer to all sentimental cavils.  If he is,\nhe is wanted, and has the precise properties that are required.  That we\nare here, is proof we ought to be here.  We have as good right, and the\nsame sort of right to be here, as Cape Cod or Sandy Hook have to be\nthere.\n\nTo say then, the majority are wicked, means no malice, no bad heart in\nthe observer, but, simply, that the majority are unripe, and have not\nyet come to themselves, do not yet know their opinion. That, if they\nknew it, is an oracle for them and for all.  But in the passing moment,\nthe quadruped interest is very prone to prevail: and this beast-force,\nwhilst it makes the discipline of the world, the school of heroes, the\nglory of martyrs, has provoked, in every age, the satire of wits, and\nthe tears of good men.  They find the journals, the clubs, the\ngovernments, the churches, to be in the interest, and the pay of the\ndevil.  And wise men have met this obstruction in their times, like\nSocrates, with his famous irony; like Bacon, with life-long\ndissimulation; like Erasmus, with his book \"The Praise of Folly;\" like\nRabelais, with his satire rending the nations.  \"They were the fools who\ncried against me, you will say,\" wrote the Chevalier de Boufflers to\nGrimm; \"aye, but the fools have the advantage of numbers, and 'tis that\nwhich decides.  'Tis of no use for us to make war with them; we shall\nnot weaken them; they will always be the masters. There will not be a\npractice or an usage introduced, of which they are not the authors.\"\n\nIn front of these sinister facts, the first lesson of history is the\ngood of evil.  Good is a good doctor, but Bad is sometimes a better.\n'Tis the oppressions of William the Norman, savage forest-laws, and\ncrushing despotism, that made possible the inspirations of _Magna\nCharta_ under John.  Edward I. wanted money, armies, castles, and as\nmuch as he could get.  It was necessary to call the people together by\nshorter, swifter ways,--and the House of Commons arose.  To obtain\nsubsidies, he paid in privileges.  In the twenty-fourth year of his\nreign, he decreed, \"that no tax should be levied without consent of\nLords and Commons;\"--which is the basis of the English Constitution.\nPlutarch affirms that the cruel wars which followed the march of\nAlexander, introduced the civility, language, and arts of Greece into\nthe savage East; introduced marriage; built seventy cities; and united\nhostile nations under one government.  The barbarians who broke up the\nRoman empire did not arrive a day too soon. Schiller says, the Thirty\nYears' War made Germany a nation.  Rough, selfish despots serve men\nimmensely, as Henry VIII. in the contest with the Pope; as the\ninfatuations no less than the wisdom of Cromwell; as the ferocity of the\nRussian czars; as the fanaticism of the French regicides of 1789. The\nfrost which kills the harvest of a year, saves the harvests of a\ncentury, by destroying the weevil or the locust.  Wars, fires, plagues,\nbreak up immovable routine, clear the ground of rotten races and dens of\ndistemper, and open a fair field to new men.  There is a tendency in\nthings to right themselves, and the war or revolution or bankruptcy that\nshatters a rotten system, allows things to take a new and natural order.\nThe sharpest evils are bent into that periodicity which makes the errors\nof planets, and the fevers and distempers of men, self-limiting.  Nature\nis upheld by antagonism.  Passions, resistance, danger, are educators.\nWe acquire the strength we have overcome.  Without war, no soldier;\nwithout enemies, no hero. The sun were insipid, if the universe were not\nopaque.  And the glory of character is in affronting the horrors of\ndepravity, to draw thence new nobilities of power: as Art lives and\nthrills in new use and combining of contrasts, and mining into the dark\nevermore for blacker pits of night. What would painter do, or what would\npoet or saint, but for crucifixions and hells?  And evermore in the\nworld is this marvellous balance of beauty and disgust, magnificence and\nrats.  Not Antoninus, but a poor washer-woman said, \"The more trouble,\nthe more lion; that's my principle.\"  I do not think very respectfully\nof the designs or the doings of the people who went to California, in\n1849.  It was a rush and a scramble of needy adventurers, and, in the\nwestern country, a general jail-delivery of all the rowdies of the\nrivers.  Some of them went with honest purposes, some with very bad\nones, and all of them with the very commonplace wish to find a short way\nto wealth.  But Nature watches over all, and turns this malfaisance to\ngood.  California gets peopled and subdued,--civilized in this immoral\nway,--and, on this fiction, a real prosperity is rooted and grown.  'Tis\na decoy-duck; 'tis tubs thrown to amuse the whale: but real ducks, and\nwhales that yield oil, are caught.  And, out of Sabine rapes, and out of\nrobbers' forays, real Romes and their heroisms come in fulness of time.\n\nIn America, the geography is sublime, but the men are not: the\ninventions are excellent, but the inventors one is sometimes ashamed of.\nThe agencies by which events so grand as the opening of California, of\nTexas, of Oregon, and the junction of the two oceans, are effected, are\npaltry,--coarse selfishness, fraud, and conspiracy: and most of the\ngreat results of history are brought about by discreditable means.\n\nThe benefaction derived in Illinois, and the great West, from railroads\nis inestimable, and vastly exceeding any intentional philanthropy on\nrecord. What is the benefit done by a good King Alfred, or by a Howard,\nor Pestalozzi, or Elizabeth Fry, or Florence Nightingale, or any lover,\nless or larger, compared with the involuntary blessing wrought on\nnations by the selfish capitalists who built the Illinois, Michigan, and\nthe network of the Mississippi valley roads, which have evoked not only\nall the wealth of the soil, but the energy of millions of men.  'Tis a\nsentence of ancient wisdom, \"that God hangs the greatest weights on the\nsmallest wires.\"\n\nWhat happens thus to nations, befalls every day in private houses.  When\nthe friends of a gentleman brought to his notice the follies of his sons\nwith many hints of their danger, he replied, that he knew so much\nmischief when he was a boy, and had turned out on the whole so\nsuccessfully, that he was not alarmed by the dissipation of boys; 'twas\ndangerous water, but, he thought, they would soon touch bottom, and then\nswim to the top. This is bold practice, and there are many failures to a\ngood escape.  Yet one would say, that a good understanding would suffice\nas well as moral sensibility to keep one erect; the gratifications of\nthe passions are so quickly seen to be damaging, and,--what men like\nleast,--seriously lowering them in social rank.  Then all talent sinks\nwith character.\n\n\"_Croyez moi, l'erreur aussi a son merite_,\" said Voltaire.  We see\nthose who surmount, by dint of some egotism or infatuation, obstacles\nfrom which the prudent recoil.  The right partisan is a heady narrow\nman, who, because he does not see many things, sees some one thing with\nheat and exaggeration, and, if he falls among other narrow men, or on\nobjects which have a brief importance, as some trade or politics of the\nhour, he prefers it to the universe, and seems inspired, and a godsend\nto those who wish to magnify the matter, and carry a point.  Better,\ncertainly, if we could secure the strength and fire which rude,\npassionate men bring into society, quite clear of their vices.  But who\ndares draw out the linchpin from the wagon-wheel? 'Tis so manifest, that\nthere is no moral deformity, but is a good passion out of place; that\nthere is no man who is not indebted to his foibles; that, according to\nthe old oracle, \"the Furies are the bonds of men;\" that the poisons are\nour principal medicines, which kill the disease, and save the life.  In\nthe high prophetic phrase, _He causes the wrath of man to praise him_,\nand twists and wrenches our evil to our good. Shakspeare wrote,--\n\n    \"'Tis said, best men are moulded of their faults;\"\n\nand great educators and lawgivers, and especially generals, and leaders\nof colonies, mainly rely on this stuff, and esteem men of irregular and\npassional force the best timber.  A man of sense and energy, the late\nhead of the Farm School in Boston harbor, said to me, \"I want none of\nyour good boys,--give me the bad ones.\"  And this is the reason, I\nsuppose, why, as soon as the children are good, the mothers are scared,\nand think they are going to die.  Mirabeau said, \"There are none but men\nof strong passions capable of going to greatness; none but such capable\nof meriting the public gratitude.\"  Passion, though a bad regulator, is\na powerful spring.  Any absorbing passion has the effect to deliver from\nthe little coils and cares of every day: 'tis the heat which sets our\nhuman atoms spinning, overcomes the friction of crossing thresholds, and\nfirst addresses in society, and gives us a good start and speed, easy to\ncontinue, when once it is begun.  In short, there is no man who is not\nat some time indebted to his vices, as no plant that is not fed from\nmanures.  We only insist that the man meliorate, and that the plant grow\nupward, and convert the base into the better nature.\n\nThe wise workman will not regret the poverty or the solitude which\nbrought out his working talents. The youth is charmed with the fine air\nand accomplishments of the children of fortune.  But all great men come\nout of the middle classes.  'Tis better for the head; 'tis better for\nthe heart.  Marcus Antoninus says, that Fronto told him, \"that the\nso-called high-born are for the most part heartless;\" whilst nothing is\nso indicative of deepest culture as a tender consideration of the\nignorant.  Charles James Fox said of England, \"The history of this\ncountry proves, that we are not to expect from men in affluent\ncircumstances the vigilance, energy, and exertion without which the\nHouse of Commons would lose its greatest force and weight.  Human nature\nis prone to indulgence, and the most meritorious public services have\nalways been performed by persons in a condition of life removed from\nopulence.\"  And yet what we ask daily, is to be conventional.  Supply,\nmost kind gods! this defect in my address, in my form, in my fortunes,\nwhich puts me a little out of the ring: supply it, and let me be like\nthe rest whom I admire, and on good terms with them.  But the wise gods\nsay, No, we have better things for thee.  By humiliations, by defeats,\nby loss of sympathy, by gulfs of disparity, learn a wider truth and\nhumanity than that of a fine gentleman.  A Fifth-Avenue landlord, a\nWest-End householder, is not the highest style of man: and, though good\nhearts and sound minds are of no condition, yet he who is to be wise for\nmany, must not be protected.  He must know the huts where poor men lie,\nand the chores which poor men do.  The first-class minds, AEsop,\nSocrates, Cervantes, Shakspeare, Franklin, had the poor man's feeling\nand mortification.  A rich man was never insulted in his life: but this\nman must be stung.  A rich man was never in danger from cold, or hunger,\nor war, or ruffians, and you can see he was not, from the moderation of\nhis ideas.  'Tis a fatal disadvantage to be cockered, and to eat too\nmuch cake.  What tests of manhood could he stand?  Take him out of his\nprotections.  He is a good book-keeper; or he is a shrewd adviser in the\ninsurance office: perhaps he could pass a college examination, and take\nhis degrees: perhaps he can give wise counsel in a court of law.  Now\nplant him down among farmers, firemen, Indians, and emigrants.  Set a\ndog on him: set a highwayman on him: try him with a course of mobs: send\nhim to Kansas, to Pike's Peak, to Oregon: and, if he have true faculty,\nthis may be the element he wants, and he will come out of it with\nbroader wisdom and manly power. AEsop, Saadi, Cervantes, Regnard, have\nbeen taken by corsairs, left for dead, sold for slaves, and know the\nrealities of human life.\n\nBad times have a scientific value.  These are occasions a good learner\nwould not miss.  As we go gladly to Faneuil Hall, to be played upon by\nthe stormy winds and strong fingers of enraged patriotism, so is a\nfanatical persecution, civil war, national bankruptcy, or revolution,\nmore rich in the central tones than languid years of prosperity. What\nhad been, ever since our memory, solid continent, yawns apart, and\ndiscloses its composition and genesis.  We learn geology the morning\nafter the earthquake, on ghastly diagrams of cloven mountains, upheaved\nplains, and the dry bed of the sea.\n\nIn our life and culture, everything is worked up, and comes in\nuse,--passion, war, revolt, bankruptcy, and not less, folly and\nblunders, insult, ennui, and bad company.  Nature is a rag-merchant, who\nworks up every shred and ort and end into new creations; like a good\nchemist, whom I found, the other day, in his laboratory, converting his\nold shirts into pure white sugar.  Life is a boundless privilege, and\nwhen you pay for your ticket, and get into the car, you have no guess\nwhat good company you shall find there.  You buy much that is not\nrendered in the bill.  Men achieve a certain greatness unawares, when\nworking to another aim.\n\nIf now in this connection of discourse, we should venture on laying down\nthe first obvious rules of life, I will not here repeat the first rule\nof economy, already propounded once and again, that every man shall\nmaintain himself,--but I will say, get health.  No labor, pains,\ntemperance, poverty, nor exercise, that can gain it, must be grudged.\nFor sickness is a cannibal which eats up all the life and youth it can\nlay hold of, and absorbs its own sons and daughters.  I figure it as a\npale, wailing, distracted phantom, absolutely selfish, heedless of what\nis good and great, attentive to its sensations, losing its soul, and\nafflicting other souls with meanness and mopings, and with ministration\nto its voracity of trifles.  Dr. Johnson said severely, \"Every man is a\nrascal as soon as he is sick.\"  Drop the cant, and treat it sanely.  In\ndealing with the drunken, we do not affect to be drunk. We must treat\nthe sick with the same firmness, giving them, of course, every aid,--but\nwithholding ourselves.  I once asked a clergyman in a retired town, who\nwere his companions? what men of ability he saw? he replied, that he\nspent his time with the sick and the dying.  I said, he seemed to me to\nneed quite other company, and all the more that he had this: for if\npeople were sick and dying to any purpose, we would leave all and go to\nthem, but, as far as I had observed, they were as frivolous as the rest,\nand sometimes much more frivolous.  Let us engage our companions not to\nspare us.  I knew a wise woman who said to her friends, \"When I am old,\nrule me.\"  And the best part of health is fine disposition.  It is more\nessential than talent, even in the works of talent.  Nothing will supply\nthe want of sunshine to peaches, and, to make knowledge valuable, you\nmust have the cheerfulness of wisdom.  Whenever you are sincerely\npleased, you are nourished.  The joy of the spirit indicates its\nstrength.  All healthy things are sweet-tempered.  Genius works in\nsport, and goodness smiles to the last; and, for the reason, that\nwhoever sees the law which distributes things, does not despond, but is\nanimated to great desires and endeavors.  He who desponds betrays that\nhe has not seen it.\n\n'Tis a Dutch proverb, that \"paint costs nothing,\" such are its\npreserving qualities in damp climates. Well, sunshine costs less, yet is\nfiner pigment.  And so of cheerfulness, or a good temper, the more it is\nspent, the more of it remains.  The latent heat of an ounce of wood or\nstone is inexhaustible.  You may rub the same chip of pine to the point\nof kindling, a hundred times; and the power of happiness of any soul is\nnot to be computed or drained.  It is observed that a depression of\nspirits develops the germs of a plague in individuals and nations.\n\nIt is an old commendation of right behavior, \"_Aliis loetus, sapiens\nsibi_,\" which our English proverb translates, \"Be merry _and_ wise.\"  I\nknow how easy it is to men of the world to look grave and sneer at your\nsanguine youth, and its glittering dreams.  But I find the gayest\ncastles in the air that were ever piled, far better for comfort and for\nuse, than the dungeons in the air that are daily dug and caverned out by\ngrumbling, discontented people. I know those miserable fellows, and I\nhate them, who see a black star always riding through the light and\ncolored clouds in the sky overhead: waves of light pass over and hide it\nfor a moment, but the black star keeps fast in the zenith.  But power\ndwells with cheerfulness; hope puts us in a working mood, whilst despair\nis no muse, and untunes the active powers.  A man should make life and\nNature happier to us, or he had better never been born.  When the\npolitical economist reckons up the unproductive classes, he should put\nat the head this class of pitiers of themselves, cravers of sympathy,\nbewailing imaginary disasters.  An old French verse runs, in my\ntranslation:--\n\n    Some of your griefs you have cured,\n      And the sharpest you still have survived;\n    But what torments of pain you endured\n      From evils that never arrived!\n\n\nThere are three wants which never can be satisfied: that of the rich,\nwho wants something more; that of the sick, who wants something\ndifferent; and that of the traveller, who says, 'Anywhere but here.'\nThe Turkish cadi said to Layard, \"After the fashion of thy people, thou\nhast wandered from one place to another, until thou art happy and\ncontent in none.\"  My countrymen are not less infatuated with the\n_rococo_ toy of Italy.  All America seems on the point of embarking for\nEurope.  But we shall not always traverse seas and lands with light\npurposes, and for pleasure, as we say.  One day we shall cast out the\npassion for Europe, by the passion for America.  Culture will give\ngravity and domestic rest to those who now travel only as not knowing\nhow else to spend money.  Already, who provoke pity like that excellent\nfamily party just arriving in their well-appointed carriage, as far from\nhome and any honest end as ever?  Each nation has asked successively,\n'What are they here for?' until at last the party are shamefaced, and\nanticipate the question at the gates of each town.\n\nGenial manners are good, and power of accommodation to any circumstance,\nbut the high prize of life, the crowning fortune of a man is to be born\nwith a bias to some pursuit, which finds him in employment and\nhappiness,--whether it be to make baskets, or broadswords, or canals, or\nstatutes, or songs.  I doubt not this was the meaning of Socrates, when\nhe pronounced artists the only truly wise, as being actually, not\napparently so.\n\nIn childhood, we fancied ourselves walled in by the horizon, as by a\nglass bell, and doubted not, by distant travel, we should reach the\nbaths of the descending sun and stars.  On experiment, the horizon flies\nbefore us, and leaves us on an endless common, sheltered by no glass\nbell.  Yet 'tis strange how tenaciously we cling to that bell-astronomy,\nof a protecting domestic horizon.  I find the same illusion in the\nsearch after happiness, which I observe, every summer, recommenced in\nthis neighborhood, soon after the pairing of the birds.  The young\npeople do not like the town, do not like the sea-shore, they will go\ninland; find a dear cottage deep in the mountains, secret as their\nhearts.  They set forth on their travels in search of a home: they reach\nBerkshire; they reach Vermont; they look at the farms;--good farms, high\nmountain-sides: but where is the seclusion?  The farm is near this; 'tis\nnear that; they have got far from Boston, but 'tis near Albany, or near\nBurlington, or near Montreal.  They explore a farm, but the house is\nsmall, old, thin; discontented people lived there, and are\ngone:--there's too much sky, too much out-doors; too public.  The youth\naches for solitude.  When he comes to the house, he passes through the\nhouse. That does not make the deep recess he sought. 'Ah! now, I\nperceive,' he says, 'it must be deep with persons; friends only can give\ndepth.'  Yes, but there is a great dearth, this year, of friends; hard\nto find, and hard to have when found: they are just going away: they too\nare in the whirl of the flitting world, and have engagements and\nnecessities.  They are just starting for Wisconsin; have letters from\nBremen:--see you again, soon.  Slow, slow to learn the lesson, that\nthere is but one depth, but one interior, and that is--his purpose.\nWhen joy or calamity or genius shall show him it, then woods, then\nfarms, then city shopmen and cab-drivers, indifferently with prophet or\nfriend, will mirror back to him its unfathomable heaven, its populous\nsolitude.\n\nThe uses of travel are occasional, and short; but the best fruit it\nfinds, when it finds it, is conversation; and this is a main function of\nlife.  What a difference in the hospitality of minds!  Inestimable is he\nto whom we can say what we cannot say to ourselves.  Others are\ninvoluntarily hurtful to us, and bereave us of the power of thought,\nimpound and imprison us.  As, when there is sympathy, there needs but\none wise man in a company, and all are wise,--so, a blockhead makes a\nblockhead of his companion.  Wonderful power to benumb possesses this\nbrother.  When he comes into the office or public room, the society\ndissolves; one after another slips out, and the apartment is at his\ndisposal.  What is incurable but a frivolous habit?\n\nA fly is as untamable as a hyena.  Yet folly in the sense of fun,\nfooling, or dawdling can easily be borne; as Talleyrand said, \"I find\nnonsense singularly refreshing;\" but a virulent, aggressive fool taints\nthe reason of a household.  I have seen a whole family of quiet,\nsensible people unhinged and beside themselves, victims of such a rogue.\nFor the steady wrongheadedness of one perverse person irritates the\nbest: since we must withstand absurdity.  But resistance only\nexasperates the acrid fool, who believes that Nature and gravitation are\nquite wrong, and he only is right.  Hence all the dozen inmates are soon\nperverted, with whatever virtues and industries they have, into\ncontradictors, accusers, explainers, and repairers of this one\nmalefactor; like a boat about to be overset, or a carriage run away\nwith,--not only the foolish pilot or driver, but everybody on board is\nforced to assume strange and ridiculous attitudes, to balance the\nvehicle and prevent the upsetting.  For remedy, whilst the case is yet\nmild, I recommend phlegm and truth: let all the truth that is spoken or\ndone be at the zero of indifferency, or truth itself will be folly.\nBut, when the case is seated and malignant, the only safety is in\namputation; as seamen say, you shall cut and run.  How to live with\nunfit companions?--for, with such, life is for the most part spent: and\nexperience teaches little better than our earliest instinct of\nself-defence, namely, not to engage, not to mix yourself in any manner\nwith them; but let their madness spend itself unopposed;--you are you,\nand I am I.\n\nConversation is an art in which a man has all mankind for his\ncompetitors, for it is that which all are practising every day while\nthey live.  Our habit of thought,--take men as they rise,--is not\nsatisfying; in the common experience, I fear, it is poor and squalid.\nThe success which will content them, is, a bargain, a lucrative\nemployment, an advantage gained over a competitor, a marriage, a\npatrimony, a legacy, and the like.  With these objects, their\nconversation deals with surfaces: politics, trade, personal defects,\nexaggerated bad news, and the rain.  This is forlorn, and they feel sore\nand sensitive.  Now, if one comes who can illuminate this dark house\nwith thoughts, show them their native riches, what gifts they have, how\nindispensable each is, what magical powers over nature and men; what\naccess to poetry, religion, and the powers which constitute character;\nhe wakes in them the feeling of worth, his suggestions require new ways\nof living, new books, new men, new arts and sciences,--then we come out\nof our egg-shell existence into the great dome, and see the zenith over\nand the nadir under us.  Instead of the tanks and buckets of knowledge\nto which we are daily confined, we come down to the shore of the sea,\nand dip our hands in its miraculous waves.  'Tis wonderful the effect on\nthe company. They are not the men they were.  They have all been to\nCalifornia, and all have come back millionnaires.  There is no book and\nno pleasure in life comparable to it.  Ask what is best in our\nexperience, and we shall say, a few pieces of plain-dealing with wise\npeople.  Our conversation once and again has apprised us that we belong\nto better circles than we have yet beheld; that a mental power invites\nus, whose generalizations are more worth for joy and for effect than\nanything that is now called philosophy or literature.  In excited\nconversation, we have glimpses of the Universe, hints of power native to\nthe soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as\nwe can hardly attain in lone meditation.  Here are oracles sometimes\nprofusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours.\n\nAdd the consent of will and temperament, and there exists the covenant\nof friendship.  Our chief want in life, is, somebody who shall make us\ndo what we can.  This is the service of a friend. With him we are easily\ngreat.  There is a sublime attraction in him to whatever virtue is in\nus.  How he flings wide the doors of existence!  What questions we ask\nof him! what an understanding we have! how few words are needed!  It is\nthe only real society.  An Eastern poet, Ali Ben Abu Taleb, writes with\nsad truth,--\n\n    \"He who has a thousand friends has not a friend to spare,\n    And he who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.\"\n\nBut few writers have said anything better to this point than Hafiz, who\nindicates this relation as the test of mental health: \"Thou learnest no\nsecret until thou knowest friendship, since to the unsound no heavenly\nknowledge enters.\"  Neither is life long enough for friendship.  That is\na serious and majestic affair, like a royal presence, or a religion, and\nnot a postilion's dinner to be eaten on the run. There is a pudency\nabout friendship, as about love, and though fine souls never lose sight\nof it, yet they do not name it.  With the first class of men our\nfriendship or good understanding goes quite behind all accidents of\nestrangement, of condition, of reputation.  And yet we do not provide\nfor the greatest good of life.  We take care of our health; we lay up\nmoney; we make our roof tight, and our clothing sufficient; but who\nprovides wisely that he shall not be wanting in the best property of\nall,--friends? We know that all our training is to fit us for this, and\nwe do not take the step towards it.  How long shall we sit and wait for\nthese benefactors?\n\nIt makes no difference, in looking back five years, how you have been\ndieted or dressed; whether you have been lodged on the first floor or\nthe attic; whether you have had gardens and baths, good cattle and\nhorses, have been carried in a neat equipage, or in a ridiculous truck:\nthese things are forgotten so quickly, and leave no effect.  But it\ncounts much whether we have had good companions, in that time;--almost\nas much as what we have been doing.  And see the overpowering importance\nof neighborhood in all association.  As it is marriage, fit or unfit,\nthat makes our home, so it is who lives near us of equal social\ndegree,--a few people at convenient distance, no matter how bad\ncompany,--these, and these only, shall be your life's companions: and\nall those who are native, congenial, and by many an oath of the heart,\nsacramented to you, are gradually and totally lost.  You cannot deal\nsystematically with this fine element of society, and one may take a\ngood deal of pains to bring people together, and to organize clubs and\ndebating societies, and yet no result come of it. But it is certain that\nthere is a great deal of good in us that does not know itself, and that\na habit of union and competition brings people up and keeps them up to\ntheir highest point; that life would be twice or ten times life, if\nspent with wise and fruitful companions.  The obvious inference is, a\nlittle useful deliberation and preconcert, when one goes to buy house\nand land.\n\nBut we live with people on other platforms; we live with dependents, not\nonly with the young whom we are to teach all we know, and clothe with\nthe advantages we have earned, but also with those who serve us\ndirectly, and for money.  Yet the old rules hold good.  Let not the tie\nbe mercenary, though the service is measured by money. Make yourself\nnecessary to somebody.  Do not make life hard to any.  This point is\nacquiring new importance in American social life.  Our domestic service\nis usually a foolish fracas of unreasonable demand on one side, and\nshirking on the other.  A man of wit was asked, in the train, what was\nhis errand in the city?  He replied, \"I have been sent to procure an\nangel to do cooking.\"  A lady complained to me, that, of her two\nmaidens, one was absent-minded, and the other was absent-bodied. And the\nevil increases from the ignorance and hostility of every ship-load of\nthe immigrant population swarming into houses and farms.  Few people\ndiscern that it rests with the master or the mistress what service comes\nfrom the man or the maid; that this identical hussy was a tutelar spirit\nin one house, and a haridan in the other.  All sensible people are\nselfish, and nature is tugging at every contract to make the terms of it\nfair.  If you are proposing only your own, the other party must deal a\nlittle hardly by you.  If you deal generously, the other, though selfish\nand unjust, will make an exception in your favor, and deal truly with\nyou. When I asked an iron-master about the slag and cinder in railroad\niron,--\"O,\" he said, \"there's always good iron to be had: if there's\ncinder in the iron, 'tis because there was cinder in the pay.\"\n\nBut why multiply these topics, and their illustrations, which are\nendless?  Life brings to each his task, and, whatever art you select,\nalgebra, planting, architecture, poems, commerce, politics,--all are\nattainable, even to the miraculous triumphs, on the same terms, of\nselecting that for which you are apt;--begin at the beginning, proceed\nin order, step by step.  'Tis as easy to twist iron anchors, and braid\ncannons, as to braid straw, to boil granite as to boil water, if you\ntake all the steps in order. Wherever there is failure, there is some\ngiddiness, some superstition about luck, some step omitted, which Nature\nnever pardons.  The happy conditions of life may be had on the same\nterms. Their attraction for you is the pledge that they are within your\nreach.  Our prayers are prophets. There must be fidelity, and there must\nbe adherence.  How respectable the life that clings to its objects!\nYouthful aspirations are fine things, your theories and plans of life\nare fair and commendable:--but will you stick?  Not one, I fear, in that\nCommon full of people, or, in a thousand, but one: and, when you tax\nthem with treachery, and remind them of their high resolutions, they\nhave forgotten that they made a vow.  The individuals are fugitive, and\nin the act of becoming something else, and irresponsible.  The race is\ngreat, the ideal fair, but the men whiffling and unsure.  The hero is he\nwho is immovably centred.  The main difference between people seems to\nbe, that one man can come under obligations on which you can rely,--is\nobligable; and another is not.  As he has not a law within him, there's\nnothing to tie him to.\n\n'Tis inevitable to name particulars of virtue, and of condition, and to\nexaggerate them.  But all rests at last on that integrity which dwarfs\ntalent, and can spare it.  Sanity consists in not being subdued by your\nmeans.  Fancy prices are paid for position, and for the culture of\ntalent, but to the grand interests, superficial success is of no\naccount. The man,--it is his attitude,--not feats, but forces,--not on\nset days and public occasions, but, at all hours, and in repose alike as\nin energy, still formidable, and not to be disposed of.  The populace\nsays, with Horne Tooke, \"If you would be powerful, pretend to be\npowerful.\"  I prefer to say, with the old prophet, \"Seekest thou great\nthings? seek them not:\"--or, what was said of a Spanish prince, \"The\nmore you took from him, the greater he looked.\"  _Plus on lui ote, plus\nil est grand_.\n\nThe secret of culture is to learn, that a few great points steadily\nreappear, alike in the poverty of the obscurest farm, and in the\nmiscellany of metropolitan life, and that these few are alone to be\nregarded,--the escape from all false ties; courage to be what we are;\nand love of what is simple and beautiful; independence, and cheerful\nrelation, these are the essentials,--these, and the wish to serve,--to\nadd somewhat to the well-being of men.\n\n\n\n\n                                 VIII.\n\n\n                                BEAUTY.\n\n\n    Was never form and never face\n    So sweet to SEYD as only grace\n    Which did not slumber like a stone\n    But hovered gleaming and was gone.\n    Beauty chased he everywhere,\n    In flame, in storm, in clouds of air.\n    He smote the lake to feed his eye\n      With the beryl beam of the broken wave\n    He flung in pebbles well to hear\n      The moment's music which they gave.\n    Oft pealed for him a lofty tone\n    From nodding pole and belting zone.\n    He heard a voice none else could hear\n    From centred and from errant sphere.\n    The quaking earth did quake in rhyme,\n    Seas ebbed and flowed in epic chime.\n    In dens of passion, and pits of wo,\n    He saw strong Eros struggling through,\n    To sun the dark and solve the curse,\n    And beam to the bounds of the universe.\n    While thus to love he gave his days\n    In loyal worship, scorning praise,\n    How spread their lures for him, in vain,\n    Thieving Ambition and paltering Gain!\n    He thought it happier to be dead,\n    To die for Beauty, than live for bread.\n\n\n\n                                BEAUTY.\n\n\nThe spiral tendency of vegetation infects education also.  Our books\napproach very slowly the things we most wish to know.  What a parade we\nmake of our science, and how far off, and at arm's length, it is from\nits objects!  Our botany is all names, not powers: poets and romancers\ntalk of herbs of grace and healing; but what does the botanist know of\nthe virtues of his weeds?  The geologist lays bare the strata, and can\ntell them all on his fingers: but does he know what effect passes into\nthe man who builds his house in them? what effect on the race that\ninhabits a granite shelf? what on the inhabitants of marl and of\nalluvium?\n\nWe should go to the ornithologist with a new feeling, if he could teach\nus what the social birds say, when they sit in the autumn council,\ntalking together in the trees.  The want of sympathy makes his record a\ndull dictionary.  His result is a dead bird.  The bird is not in its\nounces and inches, but in its relations to Nature; and the skin or\nskeleton you show me, is no more a heron, than a heap of ashes or a\nbottle of gases into which his body has been reduced, is Dante or\nWashington. The naturalist is led _from_ the road by the whole distance\nof his fancied advance.  The boy had juster views when he gazed at the\nshells on the beach, or the flowers in the meadow, unable to call them\nby their names, than the man in the pride of his nomenclature.\nAstrology interested us, for it tied man to the system.  Instead of an\nisolated beggar, the farthest star felt him, and he felt the star.\nHowever rash and however falsified by pretenders and traders in it, the\nhint was true and divine, the soul's avowal of its large relations, and,\nthat climate, century, remote natures, as well as near, are part of its\nbiography.  Chemistry takes to pieces, but it does not construct.\nAlchemy which sought to transmute one element into another, to prolong\nlife, to arm with power,--that was in the right direction.  All our\nscience lacks a human side. The tenant is more than the house.  Bugs and\nstamens and spores, on which we lavish so many years, are not\nfinalities, and man, when his powers unfold in order, will take Nature\nalong with him, and emit light into all her recesses.  The human heart\nconcerns us more than the poring into microscopes, and is larger than\ncan be measured by the pompous figures of the astronomer.\n\nWe are just so frivolous and skeptical.  Men hold themselves cheap and\nvile: and yet a man is a fagot of thunderbolts.  All the elements pour\nthrough his system: he is the flood of the flood, and fire of the fire;\nhe feels the antipodes and the pole, as drops of his blood: they are the\nextension of his personality.  His duties are measured by that\ninstrument he is; and a right and perfect man would be felt to the\ncentre of the Copernican system.  'Tis curious that we only believe as\ndeep as we live.  We do not think heroes can exert any more awful power\nthan that surface-play which amuses us.  A deep man believes in\nmiracles, waits for them, believes in magic, believes that the orator\nwill decompose his adversary; believes that the evil eye can wither,\nthat the heart's blessing can heal; that love can exalt talent; can\novercome all odds.  From a great heart secret magnetisms flow\nincessantly to draw great events. But we prize very humble utilities, a\nprudent husband, a good son, a voter, a citizen, and deprecate any\nromance of character; and perhaps reckon only his money value,--his\nintellect, his affection, as a sort of bill of exchange, easily\nconvertible into fine chambers, pictures, music, and wine.\n\nThe motive of science was the extension of man, on all sides, into\nNature, till his hands should touch the stars, his eyes see through the\nearth, his ears understand the language of beast and bird, and the sense\nof the wind; and, through his sympathy, heaven and earth should talk\nwith him.  But that is not our science.  These geologies, chemistries,\nastronomies, seem to make wise, but they leave us where they found us.\nThe invention is of use to the inventor, of questionable help to any\nother. The formulas of science are like the papers in your pocket-book,\nof no value to any but the owner. Science in England, in America, is\njealous of theory, hates the name of love and moral purpose.  There's a\nrevenge for this inhumanity. What manner of man does science make?  The\nboy is not attracted.  He says, I do not wish to be such a kind of man\nas my professor is.  The collector has dried all the plants in his\nherbal, but he has lost weight and humor.  He has got all snakes and\nlizards in his phials, but science has done for him also, and has put\nthe man into a bottle.  Our reliance on the physician is a kind of\ndespair of ourselves.  The clergy have bronchitis, which does not seem a\ncertificate of spiritual health.  Macready thought it came of the\n_falsetto_ of their voicing. An Indian prince, Tisso, one day riding in\nthe forest, saw a herd of elk sporting.  \"See how happy,\" he said,\n\"these browsing elks are!  Why should not priests, lodged and fed\ncomfortably in the temples, also amuse themselves?\"  Returning home, he\nimparted this reflection to the king.  The king, on the next day,\nconferred the sovereignty on him, saying, \"Prince, administer this\nempire for seven days: at the termination of that period, I shall put\nthee to death.\"  At the end of the seventh day, the king inquired, \"From\nwhat cause hast thou become so emaciated?\"  He answered, \"From the\nhorror of death.\"  The monarch rejoined: \"Live, my child, and be wise.\nThou hast ceased to take recreation, saying to thyself, in seven days I\nshall be put to death.  These priests in the temple incessantly meditate\non death; how can they enter into healthful diversions?\"  But the men of\nscience or the doctors or the clergy are not victims of their pursuits,\nmore than others.  The miller, the lawyer, and the merchant, dedicate\nthemselves to their own details, and do not come out men of more force.\nHave they divination, grand aims, hospitality of soul, and the equality\nto any event, which we demand in man, or only the reactions of the mill,\nof the wares, of the chicane?\n\nNo object really interests us but man, and in man only his\nsuperiorities; and, though we are aware of a perfect law in Nature, it\nhas fascination for us only through its relation to him, or, as it is\nrooted in the mind.  At the birth of Winckelmann, more than a hundred\nyears ago, side by side with this arid, departmental, _post mortem_\nscience, rose an enthusiasm in the study of Beauty; and perhaps some\nsparks from it may yet light a conflagration in the other.  Knowledge of\nmen, knowledge of manners, the power of form, and our sensibility to\npersonal influence, never go out of fashion.  These are facts of a\nscience which we study without book, whose teachers and subjects are\nalways near us.\n\nSo inveterate is our habit of criticism, that much of our knowledge in\nthis direction belongs to the chapter of pathology.  The crowd in the\nstreet oftener furnishes degradations than angels or redeemers: but they\nall prove the transparency. Every spirit makes its house; and we can\ngive a shrewd guess from the house to the inhabitant. But not less does\nNature furnish us with every sign of grace and goodness.  The delicious\nfaces of children, the beauty of school-girls, \"the sweet seriousness of\nsixteen,\" the lofty air of well-born, well-bred boys, the passionate\nhistories in the looks and manners of youth and early manhood, and the\nvaried power in all that well-known company that escort us through\nlife,--we know how these forms thrill, paralyze, provoke, inspire, and\nenlarge us.\n\nBeauty is the form under which the intellect prefers to study the world.\nAll privilege is that of beauty; for there are many beauties; as, of\ngeneral nature, of the human face and form, of manners, of brain, or\nmethod, moral beauty, or beauty of the soul.\n\nThe ancients believed that a genius or demon took possession at birth of\neach mortal, to guide him; that these genii were sometimes seen as a\nflame of fire partly immersed in the bodies which they governed;--on an\nevil man, resting on his head; in a good man, mixed with his substance.\nThey thought the same genius, at the death of its ward, entered a\nnew-born child, and they pretended to guess the pilot, by the sailing of\nthe ship. We recognize obscurely the same fact, though we give it our\nown names.  We say, that every man is entitled to be valued by his best\nmoment.  We measure our friends so.  We know, they have intervals of\nfolly, whereof we take no heed, but wait the reappearings of the genius,\nwhich are sure and beautiful.  On the other side, everybody knows people\nwho appear beridden, and who, with all degrees of ability, never impress\nus with the air of free agency.  They know it too, and peep with their\neyes to see if you detect their sad plight.  We fancy, could we\npronounce the solving word, and disenchant them, the cloud would roll\nup, the little rider would be discovered and unseated, and they would\nregain their freedom.  The remedy seems never to be far off, since the\nfirst step into thought lifts this mountain of necessity. Thought is the\npent air-ball which can rive the planet, and the beauty which certain\nobjects have for him, is the friendly fire which expands the thought,\nand acquaints the prisoner that liberty and power await him.\n\nThe question of Beauty takes us out of surfaces, to thinking of the\nfoundations of things.  Goethe said, \"The beautiful is a manifestation\nof secret laws of Nature, which, but for this appearance, had been\nforever concealed from us.\"  And the working of this deep instinct makes\nall the excitement--much of it superficial and absurd enough--about\nworks of art, which leads armies of vain travellers every year to Italy,\nGreece, and Egypt. Every man values every acquisition he makes in the\nscience of beauty, above his possessions. The most useful man in the\nmost useful world, so long as only commodity was served, would remain\nunsatisfied.  But, as fast as he sees beauty, life acquires a very high\nvalue.\n\nI am warned by the ill fate of many philosophers not to attempt a\ndefinition of Beauty.  I will rather enumerate a few of its qualities.\nWe ascribe beauty to that which is simple; which has no superfluous\nparts; which exactly answers its end; which stands related to all\nthings; which is the mean of many extremes.  It is the most enduring\nquality, and the most ascending quality.  We say, love is blind, and the\nfigure of Cupid is drawn with a bandage round his eyes.  Blind:--yes,\nbecause he does not see what he does not like; but the sharpest-sighted\nhunter in the universe is Love, for finding what he seeks, and only\nthat; and the mythologists tell us, that Vulcan was painted lame, and\nCupid blind, to call attention to the fact, that one was all limbs, and\nthe other, all eyes.  In the true mythology, Love is an immortal child,\nand Beauty leads him as a guide: nor can we express a deeper sense than\nwhen we say, Beauty is the pilot of the young soul.\n\nBeyond their sensuous delight, the forms and colors of Nature have a new\ncharm for us in our perception, that not one ornament was added for\nornament, but is a sign of some better health, or more excellent action.\nElegance of form in bird or beast, or in the human figure, marks some\nexcellence of structure: or beauty is only an invitation from what\nbelongs to us.  'Tis a law of botany, that in plants, the same virtues\nfollow the same forms.  It is a rule of largest application, true in a\nplant, true in a loaf of bread, that in the construction of any fabric\nor organism, any real increase of fitness to its end, is an increase of\nbeauty.\n\nThe lesson taught by the study of Greek and of Gothic art, of antique\nand of Pre-Raphaelite painting, was worth all the research,--namely,\nthat all beauty must be organic; that outside embellishment is\ndeformity.  It is the soundness of the bones that ultimates itself in a\npeach-bloom complexion: health of constitution that makes the sparkle\nand the power of the eye.  'Tis the adjustment of the size and of the\njoining of the sockets of the skeleton, that gives grace of outline and\nthe finer grace of movement.  The cat and the deer cannot move or sit\ninelegantly.  The dancing-master can never teach a badly built man to\nwalk well.  The tint of the flower proceeds from its root, and the\nlustres of the sea-shell begin with its existence.  Hence our taste in\nbuilding rejects paint, and all shifts, and shows the original grain of\nthe wood: refuses pilasters and columns that support nothing, and allows\nthe real supporters of the house honestly to show themselves.  Every\nnecessary or organic action pleases the beholder. A man leading a horse\nto water, a farmer sowing seed, the labors of haymakers in the field,\nthe carpenter building a ship, the smith at his forge, or, whatever\nuseful labor, is becoming to the wise eye. But if it is done to be seen,\nit is mean.  How beautiful are ships on the sea! but ships in the\ntheatre,--or ships kept for picturesque effect on Virginia Water, by\nGeorge IV., and men hired to stand in fitting costumes at a penny an\nhour!--What a difference in effect between a battalion of troops\nmarching to action, and one of our independent companies on a holiday!\nIn the midst of a military show, and a festal procession gay with\nbanners, I saw a boy seize an old tin pan that lay rusting under a wall,\nand poising it on the top of a stick, he set it turning, and made it\ndescribe the most elegant imaginable curves, and drew away attention\nfrom the decorated procession by this startling beauty.\n\nAnother text from the mythologists.  The Greeks fabled that Venus was\nborn of the foam of the sea.  Nothing interests us which is stark or\nbounded, but only what streams with life, what is in act or endeavor to\nreach somewhat beyond.  The pleasure a palace or a temple gives the eye,\nis, that an order and method has been communicated to stones, so that\nthey speak and geometrize, become tender or sublime with expression.\nBeauty is the moment of transition, as if the form were just ready to\nflow into other forms.  Any fixedness, heaping, or concentration on one\nfeature,--a long nose, a sharp chin, a hump-back,--is the reverse of the\nflowing, and therefore deformed.  Beautiful as is the symmetry of any\nform, if the form can move, we seek a more excellent symmetry.  The\ninterruption of equilibrium stimulates the eye to desire the restoration\nof symmetry, and to watch the steps through which it is attained.  This\nis the charm of running water, sea-waves, the flight of birds, and the\nlocomotion of animals.  This is the theory of dancing, to recover\ncontinually in changes the lost equilibrium, not by abrupt and angular,\nbut by gradual and curving movements.  I have been told by persons of\nexperience in matters of taste, that the fashions follow a law of\ngradation, and are never arbitrary.  The new mode is always only a step\nonward in the same direction as the last mode; and a cultivated eye is\nprepared for and predicts the new fashion.  This fact suggests the\nreason of all mistakes and offence in our own modes.  It is necessary in\nmusic, when you strike a discord, to let down the ear by an intermediate\nnote or two to the accord again: and many a good experiment, born of\ngood sense, and destined to succeed, fails, only because it is\noffensively sudden.  I suppose, the Parisian milliner who dresses the\nworld from her imperious boudoir will know how to reconcile the Bloomer\ncostume to the eye of mankind, and make it triumphant over Punch\nhimself, by interposing the just gradations.  I need not say, how wide\nthe same law ranges; and how much it can be hoped to effect.  All that\nis a little harshly claimed by progressive parties, may easily come to\nbe conceded without question, if this rule be observed.  Thus the\ncircumstances may be easily imagined, in which woman may speak, vote,\nargue causes, legislate, and drive a coach, and all the most naturally\nin the world, if only it come by degrees.  To this streaming or flowing\nbelongs the beauty that all circular movement has; as, the circulation\nof waters, the circulation of the blood, the periodical motion of\nplanets, the annual wave of vegetation, the action and reaction of\nNature: and, if we follow it out, this demand in our thought for an\never-onward action, is the argument for the immortality.\n\nOne more text from the mythologists is to the same purpose,--_Beauty\nrides on a lion_.  Beauty rests on necessities.  The line of beauty is\nthe result of perfect economy.  The cell of the bee is built at that\nangle which gives the most strength with the least wax; the bone or the\nquill of the bird gives the most alar strength, with the least weight.\n\"It is the purgation of superfluities,\" said Michel Angelo.  There is\nnot a particle to spare in natural structures.  There is a compelling\nreason in the uses of the plant, for every novelty of color or form: and\nour art saves material, by more skilful arrangement, and reaches beauty\nby taking every superfluous ounce that can be spared from a wall, and\nkeeping all its strength in the poetry of columns.  In rhetoric, this\nart of omission is a chief secret of power, and, in general, it is proof\nof high culture, to say the greatest matters in the simplest way.\n\nVeracity first of all, and forever.  _Rien de beau que le vrai_.  In all\ndesign, art lies in making your object prominent, but there is a prior\nart in choosing objects that are prominent.  The fine arts have nothing\ncasual, but spring from the instincts of the nations that created them.\n\nBeauty is the quality which makes to endure. In a house that I know, I\nhave noticed a block of spermaceti lying about closets and\nmantel-pieces, for twenty years together, simply because the tallow-man\ngave it the form of a rabbit; and, I suppose, it may continue to be\nlugged about unchanged for a century.  Let an artist scrawl a few lines\nor figures on the back of a letter, and that scrap of paper is rescued\nfrom danger, is put in portfolio, is framed and glazed, and, in\nproportion to the beauty of the lines drawn, will be kept for centuries.\nBurns writes a copy of verses, and sends them to a newspaper, and the\nhuman race take charge of them that they shall not perish.\n\nAs the flute is heard farther than the cart, see how surely a beautiful\nform strikes the fancy of men, and is copied and reproduced without end.\nHow many copies are there of the Belvedere Apollo, the Venus, the\nPsyche, the Warwick Vase, the Parthenon, and the Temple of Vesta?  These\nare objects of tenderness to all.  In our cities, an ugly building is\nsoon removed, and is never repeated, but any beautiful building is\ncopied and improved upon, so that all masons and carpenters work to\nrepeat and preserve the agreeable forms, whilst the ugly ones die out.\n\nThe felicities of design in art, or in works of Nature, are shadows or\nforerunners of that beauty which reaches its perfection in the human\nform. All men are its lovers.  Wherever it goes, it creates joy and\nhilarity, and everything is permitted to it. It reaches its height in\nwoman.  \"To Eve,\" say the Mahometans, \"God gave two thirds of all\nbeauty.\"  A beautiful woman is a practical poet, taming her savage mate,\nplanting tenderness, hope, and eloquence, in all whom she approaches.\nSome favors of condition must go with it, since a certain serenity is\nessential, but we love its reproofs and superiorities.  Nature wishes\nthat woman should attract man, yet she often cunningly moulds into her\nface a little sarcasm, which seems to say, 'Yes, I am willing to\nattract, but to attract a little better kind of a man than any I yet\nbehold.'  French _memoires_ of the fifteenth century celebrate the name\nof Pauline de Viguiere, a virtuous and accomplished maiden, who so fired\nthe enthusiasm of her contemporaries, by her enchanting form, that the\ncitizens of her native city of Toulouse obtained the aid of the civil\nauthorities to compel her to appear publicly on the balcony at least\ntwice a week, and, as often as she showed herself, the crowd was\ndangerous to life.  Not less, in England, in the last century, was the\nfame of the Gunnings, of whom, Elizabeth married the Duke of Hamilton;\nand Maria, the Earl of Coventry.  Walpole says, \"the concourse was so\ngreat, when the Duchess of Hamilton was presented at court, on Friday,\nthat even the noble crowd in the drawing-room clambered on chairs and\ntables to look at her.  There are mobs at their doors to see them get\ninto their chairs, and people go early to get places at the theatres,\nwhen it is known they will be there.\"  \"Such crowds,\" he adds,\nelsewhere, \"flock to see the Duchess of Hamilton, that seven hundred\npeople sat up all night, in and about an inn, in Yorkshire, to see her\nget into her post-chaise next morning.\"\n\nBut why need we console ourselves with the fames of Helen of Argos, or\nCorinna, or Pauline of Toulouse, or the Duchess of Hamilton?  We all\nknow this magic very well, or can divine it.  It does not hurt weak eyes\nto look into beautiful eyes never so long.  Women stand related to\nbeautiful Nature around us, and the enamored youth mixes their form with\nmoon and stars, with woods and waters, and the pomp of summer.  They\nheal us of awkwardness by their words and looks.  We observe their\nintellectual influence on the most serious student.  They refine and\nclear his mind; teach him to put a pleasing method into what is dry and\ndifficult.  We talk to them, and wish to be listened to; we fear to\nfatigue them, and acquire a facility of expression which passes from\nconversation into habit of style.\n\nThat Beauty is the normal state, is shown by the perpetual effort of\nNature to attain it.  Mirabeau had an ugly face on a handsome ground;\nand we see faces every day which have a good type, but have been marred\nin the casting: a proof that we are all entitled to beauty, should have\nbeen beautiful, if our ancestors had kept the laws,--as every lily and\nevery rose is well.  But our bodies do not fit us, but caricature and\nsatirize us.  Thus, short legs, which constrain us to short, mincing\nsteps, are a kind of personal insult and contumely to the owner; and\nlong stilts, again, put him at perpetual disadvantage, and force him to\nstoop to the general level of mankind.  Martial ridicules a gentleman of\nhis day whose countenance resembled the face of a swimmer seen under\nwater.  Saadi describes a schoolmaster \"so ugly and crabbed, that a\nsight of him would derange the ecstasies of the orthodox.\"  Faces are\nrarely true to any ideal type, but are a record in sculpture of a\nthousand anecdotes of whim and folly.  Portrait painters say that most\nfaces and forms are irregular and unsymmetrical; have one eye blue, and\none gray; the nose not straight; and one shoulder higher than another;\nthe hair unequally distributed, etc.  The man is physically as well as\nmetaphysically a thing of shreds and patches, borrowed unequally from\ngood and bad ancestors, and a misfit from the start.\n\nA beautiful person, among the Greeks, was thought to betray by this sign\nsome secret favor of the immortal gods: and we can pardon pride, when a\nwoman possesses such a figure, that wherever she stands, or moves, or\nleaves a shadow on the wall, or sits for a portrait to the artist, she\nconfers a favor on the world.  And yet--it is not beauty that inspires\nthe deepest passion. Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait.\nBeauty, without expression, tires.  Abbe Menage said of the President Le\nBailleul, \"that he was fit for nothing but to sit for his portrait.\"  A\nGreek epigram intimates that the force of love is not shown by the\ncourting of beauty, but when the like desire is inflamed for one who is\nill-favored. And petulant old gentlemen, who have chanced to suffer some\nintolerable weariness from pretty people, or who have seen cut flowers\nto some profusion, or who see, after a world of pains have been\nsuccessfully taken for the costume, how the least mistake in sentiment\ntakes all the beauty out of your clothes,--affirm, that the secret of\nugliness consists not in irregularity, but in being uninteresting.\n\nWe love any forms, however ugly, from which great qualities shine.  If\ncommand, eloquence, art, or invention, exist in the most deformed\nperson, all the accidents that usually displease, please, and raise\nesteem and wonder higher.  The great orator was an emaciated,\ninsignificant person, but he was all brain.  Cardinal De Retz says of De\nBouillon, \"With the physiognomy of an ox, he had the perspicacity of an\neagle.\"  It was said of Hooke, the friend of Newton, \"he is the most,\nand promises the least, of any man in England.\"  \"Since I am so ugly,\"\nsaid Du Guesclin, \"it behooves that I be bold.\"  Sir Philip Sidney, the\ndarling of mankind, Ben Jonson tells us, \"was no pleasant man in\ncountenance, his face being spoiled with pimples, and of high blood, and\nlong.\"  Those who have ruled human destinies, like planets, for\nthousands of years, were not handsome men.  If a man can raise a small\ncity to be a great kingdom, can make bread cheap, can irrigate deserts,\ncan join oceans by canals, can subdue steam, can organize victory, can\nlead the opinions of mankind, can enlarge knowledge, 'tis no matter\nwhether his nose is parallel to his spine, as it ought to be, or whether\nhe has a nose at all: whether his legs are straight, or whether his legs\nare amputated; his deformities will come to be reckoned ornamental, and\nadvantageous on the whole.  This is the triumph of expression, degrading\nbeauty, charming us with a power so fine and friendly and intoxicating,\nthat it makes admired persons insipid, and the thought of passing our\nlives with them insupportable.  There are faces so fluid with\nexpression, so flushed and rippled by the play of thought, that we can\nhardly find what the mere features really are.  When the delicious\nbeauty of lineaments loses its power, it is because a more delicious\nbeauty has appeared; that an interior and durable form has been\ndisclosed. Still, Beauty rides on her lion, as before.  Still, \"it was\nfor beauty that the world was made.\"  The lives of the Italian artists,\nwho established a despotism of genius amidst the dukes and kings and\nmobs of their stormy epoch, prove how loyal men in all times are to a\nfiner brain, a finer method, than their own.  If a man can cut such a\nhead on his stone gate-post as shall draw and keep a crowd about it all\nday, by its beauty, good nature, and inscrutable meaning:--if a man can\nbuild a plain cottage with such symmetry, as to make all the fine\npalaces look cheap and vulgar; can take such advantage of Nature, that\nall her powers serve him; making use of geometry, instead of expense;\ntapping a mountain for his water-jet; causing the sun and moon to seem\nonly the decorations of his estate; this is still the legitimate\ndominion of beauty.\n\nThe radiance of the human form, though sometimes astonishing, is only a\nburst of beauty for a few years or a few months, at the perfection of\nyouth, and in most, rapidly declines.  But we remain lovers of it, only\ntransferring our interest to interior excellence.  And it is not only\nadmirable in singular and salient talents, but also in the world of\nmanners.\n\nBut the sovereign attribute remains to be noted. Things are pretty,\ngraceful, rich, elegant, handsome, but, until they speak to the\nimagination, not yet beautiful.  This is the reason why beauty is still\nescaping out of all analysis.  It is not yet possessed, it cannot be\nhandled.  Proclus says, \"it swims on the light of forms.\"  It is\nproperly not in the form, but in the mind.  It instantly deserts\npossession, and flies to an object in the horizon.  If I could put my\nhand on the north star, would it be as beautiful?  The sea is lovely,\nbut when we bathe in it, the beauty forsakes all the near water.  For\nthe imagination and senses cannot be gratified at the same time.\nWordsworth rightly speaks of \"a light that never was on sea or land,\"\nmeaning, that it was supplied by the observer, and the Welsh bard warns\nhis countrywomen, that\n\n    --\"half of their charms with Cadwallon shall die.\"\n\nThe new virtue which constitutes a thing beautiful, is a certain\ncosmical quality, or, a power to suggest relation to the whole world,\nand so lift the object out of a pitiful individuality.  Every natural\nfeature,--sea, sky, rainbow, flowers, musical tone,--has in it somewhat\nwhich is not private, but universal, speaks of that central benefit\nwhich is the soul of Nature, and thereby is beautiful.  And, in chosen\nmen and women, I find somewhat in form, speech, and manners, which is\nnot of their person and family, but of a humane, catholic, and spiritual\ncharacter, and we love them as the sky.  They have a largeness of\nsuggestion, and their face and manners carry a certain grandeur, like\ntime and justice.\n\nThe feat of the imagination is in showing the convertibility of every\nthing into every other thing. Facts which had never before left their\nstark common sense, suddenly figure as Eleusinian mysteries. My boots\nand chair and candlestick are fairies in disguise, meteors and\nconstellations.  All the facts in Nature are nouns of the intellect, and\nmake the grammar of the eternal language.  Every word has a double,\ntreble, or centuple use and meaning, What! has my stove and pepper-pot a\nfalse bottom! I cry you mercy, good shoe-box!  I did not know you were a\njewel-case.  Chaff and dust begin to sparkle, and are clothed about with\nimmortality. And there is a joy in perceiving the representative or\nsymbolic character of a fact, which no bare fact or event can ever give.\nThere are no days in life so memorable as those which vibrated to some\nstroke of the imagination.\n\nThe poets are quite right in decking their mistresses with the spoils of\nthe landscape, flower-gardens, gems, rainbows, flushes of morning, and\nstars of night, since all beauty points at identity, and whatsoever\nthing does not express to me the sea and sky, day and night, is somewhat\nforbidden and wrong.  Into every beautiful object, there enters somewhat\nimmeasurable and divine, and just as much into form bounded by outlines,\nlike mountains on the horizon, as into tones of music, or depths of\nspace.  Polarized light showed the secret architecture of bodies; and\nwhen the _second-sight_ of the mind is opened, now one color or form or\ngesture, and now another, has a pungency, as if a more interior ray had\nbeen emitted, disclosing its deep holdings in the frame of things.\n\nThe laws of this translation we do not know, or why one feature or\ngesture enchants, why one word or syllable intoxicates, but the fact is\nfamiliar that the fine touch of the eye, or a grace of manners, or a\nphrase of poetry, plants wings at our shoulders; as if the Divinity, in\nhis approaches, lifts away mountains of obstruction, and deigns to draw\na truer line, which the mind knows and owns.  This is that haughty force\nof beauty, \"_vis superba formae_\" which the poets praise,--under calm\nand precise outline, the immeasurable and divine: Beauty hiding all\nwisdom and power in its calm sky.\n\nAll high beauty has a moral element in it, and I find the antique\nsculpture as ethical as Marcus Antoninus: and the beauty ever in\nproportion to the depth of thought.  Gross and obscure natures, however\ndecorated, seem impure shambles; but character gives splendor to youth,\nand awe to wrinkled skin and gray hairs.  An adorer of truth we cannot\nchoose but obey, and the woman who has shared with us the moral\nsentiment,--her locks must appear to us sublime.  Thus there is a\nclimbing scale of culture, from the first agreeable sensation which a\nsparkling gem or a scarlet stain affords the eye, up through fair\noutlines and details of the landscape, features of the human face and\nform, signs and tokens of thought and character in manners, up to the\nineffable mysteries of the intellect. Wherever we begin, thither our\nsteps tend: an ascent from the joy of a horse in his trappings, up to\nthe perception of Newton, that the globe on which we ride is only a\nlarger apple falling from a larger tree; up to the perception of Plato,\nthat globe and universe are rude and early expressions of an\nall-dissolving Unity,--the first stair on the scale to the temple of the\nMind.\n\n\n\n\n                                  IX.\n\n\n                               ILLUSIONS\n\n\n    Flow, flow the waves hated,\n    Accursed, adored,\n    The waves of mutation:\n    No anchorage is.\n    Sleep is not, death is not;\n    Who seem to die live.\n    House you were born in,\n    Friends of your spring-time,\n    Old man and young maid,\n    Day's toil and its guerdon,\n    They are all vanishing,\n    Fleeing to fables,\n    Cannot be moored.\n    See the stars through them,\n    Through treacherous marbles.\n    Know, the stars yonder,\n    The stars everlasting,\n    Are fugitive also,\n    And emulate, vaulted,\n    The lambent heat-lightning,\n    And fire-fly's flight.\n      When thou dost return\n    On the wave's circulation,\n    Beholding the shimmer,\n    The wild dissipation,\n    And, out of endeavor\n    To change and to flow,\n    The gas become solid,\n    And phantoms and nothings\n    Return to be things,\n    And endless imbroglio\n    Is law and the world,--\n    Then first shalt thou know,\n    That in the wild turmoil,\n    Horsed on the Proteus,\n    Thou ridest to power,\n    And to endurance.\n\n\n\n                               ILLUSIONS.\n\n\nSome years ago, in company with an agreeable party, I spent a long\nsummer day in exploring the Mammoth Cave in Kentucky.  We traversed,\nthrough spacious galleries affording a solid masonry foundation for the\ntown and county overhead, the six or eight black miles from the mouth of\nthe cavern to the innermost recess which tourists visit,--a niche or\ngrotto made of one seamless stalactite, and called, I believe, Serena's\nBower.  I lost the light of one day.  I saw high domes, and bottomless\npits; heard the voice of unseen waterfalls; paddled three quarters of a\nmile in the deep Echo River, whose waters are peopled with the blind\nfish; crossed the streams \"Lethe\" and \"Styx;\" plied with music and guns\nthe echoes in these alarming galleries; saw every form of stalagmite and\nstalactite in the sculptured and fretted chambers,--icicle,\norange-flower, acanthus, grapes, and snowball.  We shot Bengal lights\ninto the vaults and groins of the sparry cathedrals, and examined all\nthe masterpieces which the four combined engineers, water, limestone,\ngravitation, and time, could make in the dark.\n\nThe mysteries and scenery of the cave had the same dignity that belongs\nto all natural objects, and which shames the fine things to which we\nfoppishly compare them.  I remarked, especially, the mimetic habit, with\nwhich Nature, on new instruments, hums her old tunes, making night to\nmimic day, and chemistry to ape vegetation.  But I then took notice, and\nstill chiefly remember, that the best thing which the cave had to offer\nwas an illusion.  On arriving at what is called the \"Star-Chamber,\" our\nlamps were taken from us by the guide, and extinguished or put aside,\nand, on looking upwards, I saw or seemed to see the night heaven thick\nwith stars glimmering more or less brightly over our heads, and even\nwhat seemed a comet flaming among them.  All the party were touched with\nastonishment and pleasure.  Our musical friends sung with much feeling a\npretty song, \"The stars are in the quiet sky,\" &c., and I sat down on\nthe rocky floor to enjoy the serene picture.  Some crystal specks in the\nblack ceiling high overhead, reflecting the light of a half-hid lamp,\nyielded this magnificent effect.\n\nI own, I did not like the cave so well for eking out its sublimities\nwith this theatrical trick.  But I have had many experiences like it,\nbefore and since; and we must be content to be pleased without too\ncuriously analyzing the occasions.  Our conversation with Nature is not\njust what it seems.  The cloud-rack, the sunrise and sunset glories,\nrainbows, and northern lights are not quite so spheral as our childhood\nthought them; and the part our organization plays in them is too large.\nThe senses interfere everywhere, and mix their own structure with all\nthey report of.  Once, we fancied the earth a plane, and stationary.  In\nadmiring the sunset, we do not yet deduct the rounding, coordinating,\npictorial powers of the eye.\n\nThe same interference from our organization creates the most of our\npleasure and pain.  Our first mistake is the belief that the\ncircumstance gives the joy which we give to the circumstance.  Life is\nan ecstasy.  Life is sweet as nitrous oxide; and the fisherman dripping\nall day over a cold pond, the switchman at the railway intersection, the\nfarmer in the field, the negro in the rice-swamp, the fop in the street,\nthe hunter in the woods, the barrister with the jury, the belle at the\nball, all ascribe a certain pleasure to their employment, which they\nthemselves give it.  Health and appetite impart the sweetness to sugar,\nbread, and meat.  We fancy that our civilization has got on far, but we\nstill come back to our primers.\n\nWe live by our imaginations, by our admirations, by our sentiments.  The\nchild walks amid heaps of illusions, which he does not like to have\ndisturbed. The boy, how sweet to him is his fancy! how dear the story of\nbarons and battles!  What a hero he is, whilst he feeds on his heroes!\nWhat a debt is his to imaginative books!  He has no better friend or\ninfluence, than Scott, Shakspeare, Plutarch, and Homer.  The man lives\nto other objects, but who dare affirm that they are more real?  Even the\nprose of the streets is full of refractions.  In the life of the\ndreariest alderman, fancy enters into all details, and colors them with\nrosy hue.  He imitates the air and actions of people whom he admires,\nand is raised in his own eyes.  He pays a debt quicker to a rich man\nthan to a poor man. He wishes the bow and compliment of some leader in\nthe state, or in society; weighs what he says; perhaps he never comes\nnearer to him for that, but dies at last better contented for this\namusement of his eyes and his fancy.\n\nThe world rolls, the din of life is never hushed. In London, in Paris,\nin Boston, in San Francisco, the carnival, the masquerade is at its\nheight. Nobody drops his domino.  The unities, the fictions of the piece\nit would be an impertinence to break. The chapter of fascinations is\nvery long.  Great is paint; nay, God is the painter; and we rightly\naccuse the critic who destroys too many illusions. Society does not love\nits unmaskers.  It was wittily, if somewhat bitterly, said by\nD'Alembert, \"_qu'un etat de vapeur etait un etat tres fachieux,\nparcequ'il nous faisait voir les choses comme elles sont._\"  I find men\nvictims of illusion in all parts of life. Children, youths, adults, and\nold men, all are led by one bawble or another.  Yoganidra, the goddess\nof illusion, Proteus, or Momus, or Gylfi's Mocking,--for the Power has\nmany names,--is stronger than the Titans, stronger than Apollo.  Few\nhave overheard the gods, or surprised their secret.  Life is a\nsuccession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.  All is\nriddle, and the key to a riddle is another riddle.  There are as many\npillows of illusion as flakes in a snow-storm.  We wake from one dream\ninto another dream.  The toys, to be sure, are various, and are\ngraduated in refinement to the quality of the dupe.  The intellectual\nman requires a fine bait; the sots are easily amused. But everybody is\ndrugged with his own frenzy, and the pageant marches at all hours, with\nmusic and banner and badge.\n\nAmid the joyous troop who give in to the charivari, comes now and then a\nsad-eyed boy, whose eyes lack the requisite refractions to clothe the\nshow in due glory, and who is afflicted with a tendency to trace home\nthe glittering miscellany of fruits and flowers to one root.  Science is\na search after identity, and the scientific whim is lurking in all\ncorners.  At the State Fair, a friend of mine complained that all the\nvarieties of fancy pears in our orchards seem to have been selected by\nsomebody who had a whim for a particular kind of pear, and only\ncultivated such as had that perfume; they were all alike.  And I\nremember the quarrel of another youth with the confectioners, that, when\nhe racked his wit to choose the best comfits in the shops, in all the\nendless varieties of sweetmeat he could only find three flavors, or two.\nWhat then? Pears and cakes are good for something; and because you,\nunluckily, have an eye or nose too keen, why need you spoil the comfort\nwhich the rest of us find in them?  I knew a humorist, who, in a good\ndeal of rattle, had a grain or two of sense.  He shocked the company by\nmaintaining that the attributes of God were two,--power and risibility;\nand that it was the duty of every pious man to keep up the comedy.  And\nI have known gentlemen of great stake in the community, but whose\nsympathies were cold,--presidents of colleges, and governors, and\nsenators,--who held themselves bound to sign every temperance pledge,\nand act with Bible societies, and missions, and peace-makers, and cry\n_Hist-a-boy!_ to every good dog.  We must not carry comity too far, but\nwe all have kind impulses in this direction.  When the boys come into my\nyard for leave to gather horse-chestnuts, I own I enter into Nature's\ngame, and affect to grant the permission reluctantly, fearing that any\nmoment they will find out the imposture of that showy chaff.  But this\ntenderness is quite unnecessary; the enchantments are laid on very\nthick.  Their young life is thatched with them.  Bare and grim to tears\nis the lot of the children in the hovel I saw yesterday; yet not the\nless they hung it round with frippery romance, like the children of the\nhappiest fortune, and talked of \"the dear cottage where so many joyful\nhours had flown.\"  Well, this thatching of hovels is the custom of the\ncountry.  Women, more than all, are the element and kingdom of illusion.\nBeing fascinated, they fascinate.  They see through Claude-Lorraines.\nAnd how dare any one, if he could, pluck away the _coulisses_, stage\neffects, and ceremonies, by which they live?  Too pathetic, too\npitiable, is the region of affection, and its atmosphere always liable\nto _mirage_.\n\nWe are not very much to blame for our bad marriages.  We live amid\nhallucinations; and this especial trap is laid to trip up our feet with,\nand all are tripped up first or last.  But the mighty Mother who had\nbeen so sly with us, as if she felt that she owed us some indemnity,\ninsinuates into the Pandora-box of marriage some deep and serious\nbenefits, and some great joys.  We find a delight in the beauty and\nhappiness of children, that makes the heart too big for the body.  In\nthe worst-assorted connections there is ever some mixture of true\nmarriage.  Teague and his jade get some just relations of mutual\nrespect, kindly observation, and fostering of each other, learn\nsomething, and would carry themselves wiselier, if they were now to\nbegin.\n\n'Tis fine for us to point at one or another fine madman, as if there\nwere any exempts.  The scholar in his library is none.  I, who have all\nmy life heard any number of orations and debates, read poems and\nmiscellaneous books, conversed with many geniuses, am still the victim\nof any new page; and, if Marmaduke, or Hugh, or Moosehead, or any other,\ninvent a new style or mythology, I fancy that the world will be all\nbrave and right, if dressed in these colors, which I had not thought of.\nThen at once I will daub with this new paint; but it will not stick.\n'Tis like the cement which the peddler sells at the door; he makes\nbroken crockery hold with it, but you can never buy of him a bit of the\ncement which will make it hold when he is gone.\n\nMen who make themselves felt in the world avail themselves of a certain\nfate in their constitution, which they know how to use.  But they never\ndeeply interest us, unless they lift a corner of the curtain, or betray\nnever so slightly their penetration of what is behind it.  'Tis the\ncharm of practical men, that outside of their practicality are a certain\npoetry and play, as if they led the good horse Power by the bridle, and\npreferred to walk, though they can ride so fiercely.  Bonaparte is\nintellectual, as well as Caesar; and the best soldiers, sea-captains,\nand railway men have a gentleness, when off duty; a good-natured\nadmission that there are illusions, and who shall say that he is not\ntheir sport?  We stigmatize the cast-iron fellows, who cannot so detach\nthemselves, as \"dragon-ridden,\" \"thunder-stricken,\" and fools of fate,\nwith whatever powers endowed.\n\nSince our tuition is through emblems and indirections, 'tis well to know\nthat there is method in it, a fixed scale, and rank above rank in the\nphantasms.  We begin low with coarse masks, and rise to the most subtle\nand beautiful.  The red men told Columbus, \"they had an herb which took\naway fatigue;\" but he found the illusion of \"arriving from the east at\nthe Indies\" more composing to his lofty spirit than any tobacco.  Is not\nour faith in the impenetrability of matter more sedative than narcotics?\nYou play with jackstraws, balls, bowls, horse and gun, estates and\npolitics; but there are finer games before you.  Is not time a pretty\ntoy? Life will show you masks that are worth all your carnivals.  Yonder\nmountain must migrate into your mind.  The fine star-dust and nebulous\nblur in Orion, \"the portentous year of Mizar and Alcor,\" must come down\nand be dealt with in your household thought.  What if you shall come to\ndiscern that the play and playground of all this pompous history are\nradiations from yourself, and that the sun borrows his beams?  What\nterrible questions we are learning to ask!  The former men believed in\nmagic, by which temples, cities, and men were swallowed up, and all\ntrace of them gone. We are coming on the secret of a magic which sweeps\nout of men's minds all vestige of theism and beliefs which they and\ntheir fathers held and were framed upon.\n\nThere are deceptions of the senses, deceptions of the passions, and the\nstructural, beneficent illusions of sentiment and of the intellect.\nThere is the illusion of love, which attributes to the beloved person\nall which that person shares with his or her family, sex, age, or\ncondition, nay, with the human mind itself.  'Tis these which the lover\nloves, and Anna Matilda gets the credit of them.  As if one shut up\nalways in a tower, with one window, through which the face of heaven and\nearth could be seen, should fancy that all the marvels he beheld\nbelonged to that window.  There is the illusion of time, which is very\ndeep; who has disposed of it? or come to the conviction that what seems\nthe succession of thought is only the distribution of wholes into causal\nseries?  The intellect sees that every atom carries the whole of Nature;\nthat the mind opens to omnipotence; that, in the endless striving and\nascents, the metamorphosis is entire, so that the soul doth not know\nitself in its own act, when that act is perfected.  There is illusion\nthat shall deceive even the elect.  There is illusion that shall deceive\neven the performer of the miracle.  Though he make his body, he denies\nthat he makes it. Though the world exist from thought, thought is\ndaunted in presence of the world.  One after the other we accept the\nmental laws, still resisting those which follow, which however must be\naccepted. But all our concessions only compel us to new profusion.  And\nwhat avails it that science has come to treat space and time as simply\nforms of thought, and the material world as hypothetical, and withal our\npretension of property and even of self-hood are fading with the rest,\nif, at last, even our thoughts are not finalities; but the incessant\nflowing and ascension reach these also, and each thought which yesterday\nwas a finality, to-day is yielding to a larger generalization?\n\nWith such volatile elements to work in, 'tis no wonder if our estimates\nare loose and floating.  We must work and affirm, but we have no guess\nof the value of what we say or do.  The cloud is now as big as your\nhand, and now it covers a county. That story of Thor, who was set to\ndrain the drinking-horn in Asgard, and to wrestle with the old woman,\nand to run with the runner Lok, and presently found that he had been\ndrinking up the sea, and wrestling with Time, and racing with Thought,\ndescribes us who are contending, amid these seeming trifles, with the\nsupreme energies of Nature.  We fancy we have fallen into bad company\nand squalid condition, low debts, shoe-bills, broken glass to pay for,\npots to buy, butcher's meat, sugar, milk, and coal.  'Set me some great\ntask, ye gods! and I will show my spirit.'  'Not so,' says the good\nHeaven; 'plod and plough, vamp your old coats and hats, weave a\nshoestring; great affairs and the best wine by and by.'  Well, 'tis all\nphantasm; and if we weave a yard of tape in all humility, and as well as\nwe can, long hereafter we shall see it was no cotton tape at all, but\nsome galaxy which we braided, and that the threads were Time and Nature.\n\nWe cannot write the order of the variable winds. How can we penetrate\nthe law of our shifting moods and susceptibility?  Yet they differ as\nall and nothing.  Instead of the firmament of yesterday, which our eyes\nrequire, it is to-day an eggshell which coops us in; we cannot even see\nwhat or where our stars of destiny are.  From day to day, the capital\nfacts of human life are hidden from our eyes. Suddenly the mist rolls\nup, and reveals them, and we think how much good time is gone, that\nmight have been saved, had any hint of these things been shown.  A\nsudden rise in the road shows us the system of mountains, and all the\nsummits, which have been just as near us all the year, but quite out of\nmind.  But these alternations are not without their order, and we are\nparties to our various fortune.  If life seem a succession of dreams,\nyet poetic justice is done in dreams also.  The visions of good men are\ngood; it is the undisciplined will that is whipped with bad thoughts and\nbad fortunes. When we break the laws, we lose our hold on the central\nreality.  Like sick men in hospitals, we change only from bed to bed,\nfrom one folly to another; and it cannot signify much what becomes of\nsuch castaways,--wailing, stupid, comatose creatures,--lifted from bed\nto bed, from the nothing of life to the nothing of death.\n\nIn this kingdom of illusions we grope eagerly for stays and foundations.\nThere is none but a strict and faithful dealing at home, and a severe\nbarring out of all duplicity or illusion there.  Whatever games are\nplayed with us, we must play no games with ourselves, but deal in our\nprivacy with the last honesty and truth.  I look upon the simple and\nchildish virtues of veracity and honesty as the root of all that is\nsublime in character.  Speak as you think, be what you are, pay your\ndebts of all kinds. I prefer to be owned as sound and solvent, and my\nword as good as my bond, and to be what cannot be skipped, or\ndissipated, or undermined, to all the _eclat_ in the universe.  This\nreality is the foundation of friendship, religion, poetry, and art.  At\nthe top or at the bottom of all illusions, I set the cheat which still\nleads us to work and live for appearances, in spite of our conviction,\nin all sane hours, that it is what we really are that avails with\nfriends, with strangers, and with fate or fortune.\n\nOne would think from the talk of men, that riches and poverty were a\ngreat matter; and our civilization mainly respects it.  But the Indians\nsay, that they do not think the white man with his brow of care, always\ntoiling, afraid of heat and cold, and keeping within doors, has any\nadvantage of them. The permanent interest of every man is, never to be\nin a false position, but to have the weight of Nature to back him in all\nthat he does.  Riches and poverty are a thick or thin costume; and our\nlife--the life of all of us--identical.  For we transcend the\ncircumstance continually, and taste the real quality of existence; as in\nour employments, which only differ in the manipulations, but express the\nsame laws; or in our thoughts, which wear no silks, and taste no\nice-creams.  We see God face to face every hour, and know the savor of\nNature.\n\nThe early Greek philosophers Heraclitus and Xenophanes measured their\nforce on this problem of identity.  Diogenes of Apollonia said, that\nunless the atoms were made of one stuff, they could never blend and act\nwith one another.  But the Hindoos, in their sacred writings, express\nthe liveliest feeling, both of the essential identity, and of that\nillusion which they conceive variety to be \"The notions, '_I am_,' and\n'_This is mine_,' which influence mankind, are but delusions of the\nmother of the world.  Dispel, O Lord of all creatures! the conceit of\nknowledge which proceeds from ignorance.\"  And the beatitude of man they\nhold to lie in being freed from fascination.\n\nThe intellect is stimulated by the statement of truth in a trope, and\nthe will by clothing the laws of life in illusions.  But the unities of\nTruth and of Right are not broken by the disguise.  There need never be\nany confusion in these.  In a crowded life of many parts and performers,\non a stage of nations, or in the obscurest hamlet in Maine or\nCalifornia, the same elements offer the same choices to each new comer,\nand, according to his election, he fixes his fortune in absolute Nature.\nIt would be hard to put more mental and moral philosophy than the\nPersians have thrown into a sentence:--\n\n    \"Fooled thou must be, though wisest of the wise:\n    Then be the fool of virtue, not of vice.\"\n\n\nThere is no chance, and no anarchy, in the universe.  All is system and\ngradation.  Every god is there sitting in his sphere.  The young mortal\nenters the hall of the firmament: there is he alone with them alone,\nthey pouring on him benedictions and gifts, and beckoning him up to\ntheir thrones. On the instant, and incessantly, fall snow-storms of\nillusions.  He fancies himself in a vast crowd which sways this way and\nthat, and whose movement and doings he must obey: he fancies himself\npoor, orphaned, insignificant.  The mad crowd drives hither and thither,\nnow furiously commanding this thing to be done, now that.  What is he\nthat he should resist their will, and think or act for himself?  Every\nmoment, new changes, and new showers of deceptions, to baffle and\ndistract him.  And when, by and by, for an instant, the air clears, and\nthe cloud lifts a little, there are the gods still sitting around him on\ntheir thrones,--they alone with him alone.\n\n\n\n\n                                THE END.","title":"The Conduct of Life","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":67344}