{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_69258/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_69258","id":"gutenberg_69258","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/69258","summary":null,"tags":["American essays -- 19th century","Category: American Literature","Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics"],"text":"SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.\n\n  TWELVE CHAPTERS.\n\n  BY\n\n  RALPH WALDO EMERSON.\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  BOSTON:\n  FIELDS, OSGOOD, & CO.\n  1870.\n\n\n\n\n  Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1870, by\n\n  RALPH WALDO EMERSON,\n\n  in the Clerk\u2019s Office of the District Court of the District of\n  Massachusetts.\n\n\n  UNIVERSITY PRESS: WELCH, BIGELOW, & CO.,\n  CAMBRIDGE.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                         PAGE\n\n  SOCIETY AND SOLITUDE      1\n\n  CIVILIZATION             15\n\n  ART                      31\n\n  ELOQUENCE                53\n\n  DOMESTIC LIFE            91\n\n  FARMING                 121\n\n  WORKS AND DAYS          139\n\n  BOOKS                   167\n\n  CLUBS                   199\n\n  COURAGE                 225\n\n  SUCCESS                 251\n\n  OLD AGE                 279\n\n\n\n\nSOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.\n\n\n\n\nSOCIETY AND SOLITUDE.\n\n\nI fell in with a humorist, on my travels, who had in his chamber a\ncast of the Rondanini Medusa, and who assured me that the name which\nthat fine work of art bore in the catalogues was a misnomer, as he\nwas convinced that the sculptor who carved it intended it for Memory,\nthe mother of the Muses. In the conversation that followed, my new\nfriend made some extraordinary confessions. \u201cDo you not see,\u201d he said,\n\u201cthe penalty of learning, and that each of these scholars whom you\nhave met at S----, though he were to be the last man, would, like the\nexecutioner in Hood\u2019s poem, guillotine the last but one?\u201d He added many\nlively remarks, but his evident earnestness engaged my attention, and,\nin the weeks that followed, we became better acquainted. He had good\nabilities, a genial temper, and no vices; but he had one defect,--he\ncould not speak in the tone of the people. There was some paralysis\non his will, such that, when he met men on common terms, he spoke\nweakly, and from the point, like a flighty girl. His consciousness\nof the fault made it worse. He envied every drover and lumberman in\nthe tavern their manly speech. He coveted Mirabeau\u2019s _don terrible de\nla familiarit\u00e9_, believing that he whose sympathy goes lowest is the\nman from whom kings have the most to fear. For himself, he declared\nthat he could not get enough alone to write a letter to a friend. He\nleft the city; he hid himself in pastures. The solitary river was not\nsolitary enough; the sun and moon put him out. When he bought a house,\nthe first thing he did was to plant trees. He could not enough conceal\nhimself. Set a hedge here; set oaks there,--trees behind trees; above\nall, set evergreens, for they will keep a secret all the year round.\nThe most agreeable compliment you could pay him was, to imply that you\nhad not observed him in a house or a street where you had met him.\nWhilst he suffered at being seen where he was, he consoled himself with\nthe delicious thought of the inconceivable number of places where he\nwas not. All he wished of his tailor was to provide that sober mean\nof color and cut which would never detain the eye for a moment. He\nwent to Vienna, to Smyrna, to London. In all the variety of costumes,\na carnival, a kaleidoscope of clothes, to his horror he could never\ndiscover a man in the street who wore anything like his own dress. He\nwould have given his soul for the ring of Gyges. His dismay at his\nvisibility had blunted the fears of mortality. \u201cDo you think,\u201d he\nsaid, \u201cI am in such great terror of being shot,--I, who am only waiting\nto shuffle off my corporeal jacket, to slip away into the back stars,\nand put diameters of the solar system and sidereal orbits between me\nand all souls,--there to wear out ages in solitude, and forget memory\nitself, if it be possible?\u201d He had a remorse running to despair, of his\nsocial _gaucheries_, and walked miles and miles to get the twitchings\nout of his face, the starts and shrugs out of his arms and shoulders.\nGod may forgive sins, he said, but awkwardness has no forgiveness in\nheaven or earth. He admired in Newton, not so much his theory of the\nmoon, as his letter to Collins, in which he forbade him to insert\nhis name with the solution of the problem in the \u201cPhilosophical\nTransactions\u201d: \u201cIt would perhaps increase my acquaintance, the thing\nwhich I chiefly study to decline.\u201d\n\nThese conversations led me somewhat later to the knowledge of\nsimilar cases, and to the discovery that they are not of very\ninfrequent occurrence. Few substances are found pure in nature.\nThose constitutions which can bear in open day the rough dealing of\nthe world must be of that mean and average structure,--such as iron\nand salt, atmospheric air, and water. But there are metals, like\npotassium and sodium, which, to be kept pure, must be kept under\nnaphtha. Such are the talents determined on some specialty, which a\nculminating civilization fosters in the heart of great cities and in\nroyal chambers. Nature protects her own work. To the culture of the\nworld, an Archimedes, a Newton is indispensable; so she guards them by\na certain aridity. If these had been good fellows, fond of dancing,\nport, and clubs, we should have had no \u201cTheory of the Sphere,\u201d and no\n\u201cPrincipia.\u201d They had that necessity of isolation which genius feels.\nEach must stand on his glass tripod, if he would keep his electricity.\nEven Swedenborg, whose theory of the universe is based on affection,\nand who reprobates to weariness the danger and vice of pure intellect,\nis constrained to make an extraordinary exception: \u201cThere are also\nangels who do not live consociated, but separate, house and house;\nthese dwell in the midst of heaven, because they are the best of\nangels.\u201d\n\nWe have known many fine geniuses with that imperfection that they\ncannot do anything useful, not so much as write one clean sentence.\n\u2019Tis worse, and tragic, that no man is fit for society who has fine\ntraits. At a distance, he is admired; but bring him hand to hand, he\nis a cripple. One protects himself by solitude, and one by courtesy,\nand one by an acid, worldly manner,--each concealing how he can the\nthinness of his skin and his incapacity for strict association. But\nthere is no remedy that can reach the heart of the disease, but either\nhabits of self-reliance that should go in practice to making the man\nindependent of the human race, or else a religion of love. Now he\nhardly seems entitled to marry; for how can he protect a woman, who\ncannot protect himself?\n\nWe pray to be conventional. But the wary Heaven takes care you shall\nnot be, if there is anything good in you. Dante was very bad company,\nand was never invited to dinner. Michel Angelo had a sad, sour time\nof it. The ministers of beauty are rarely beautiful in coaches and\nsaloons. Columbus discovered no isle or key so lonely as himself. Yet\neach of these potentates saw well the reason of his exclusion. Solitary\nwas he? Why, yes; but his society was limited only by the amount of\nbrain Nature appropriated in that age to carry on the government of the\nworld. \u201cIf I stay,\u201d said Dante, when there was question of going to\nRome, \u201cwho will go? and if I go, who will stay?\u201d\n\nBut the necessity of solitude is deeper than we have said, and is\norganic. I have seen many a philosopher whose world is large enough for\nonly one person. He affects to be a good companion; but we are still\nsurprising his secret, that he means and needs to impose his system on\nall the rest. The determination of each is _from_ all the others, like\nthat of each tree up into free space. \u2019Tis no wonder, when each has his\nwhole head, our societies should be so small. Like President Tyler,\nour party falls from us every day, and we must ride in a sulky at last.\nDear heart! take it sadly home to thee,--there is no co-operation.\nWe begin with friendships, and all our youth is a reconnoitring and\nrecruiting of the holy fraternity they shall combine for the salvation\nof men. But so the remoter stars seem a nebula of united light; yet\nthere is no group which a telescope will not resolve, and the dearest\nfriends are separated by impassable gulfs. The co-operation is\ninvoluntary, and is put upon us by the Genius of Life, who reserves\nthis as a part of his prerogative. \u2019Tis fine for us to talk, we sit and\nmuse, and are serene and complete; but the moment we meet with anybody,\neach becomes a fraction.\n\nThough the stuff of tragedy and of romances is in a moral union of two\nsuperior persons, whose confidence in each other for long years, out of\nsight, and in sight, and against all appearances, is at last justified\nby victorious proof of probity to gods and men, causing joyful\nemotions, tears and glory,--though there be for heroes this _moral\nunion_, yet, they, too, are as far off as ever from an intellectual\nunion, and the moral union is for comparatively low and external\npurposes, like the co-operation of a ship\u2019s company or of a fire-club.\nBut how insular and pathetically solitary are all the people we know!\nNor dare they tell what they think of each other, when they meet in\nthe street. We have a fine right, to be sure, to taunt men of the world\nwith superficial and treacherous courtesies!\n\nSuch is the tragic necessity which strict science finds underneath\nour domestic and neighborly life, irresistibly driving each adult\nsoul as with whips into the desert, and making our warm covenants\nsentimental and momentary. We must infer that the ends of thought were\nperemptory, if they were to be secured at such ruinous cost. They are\ndeeper than can be told, and belong to the immensities and eternities.\nThey reach down to that depth where society itself originates and\ndisappears,--where the question is, Which is first, man or men?--where\nthe individual is lost in his source.\n\nBut this banishment to the rocks and echoes no metaphysics can make\nright or tolerable. This result is so against nature, such a half-view,\nthat it must be corrected by a common sense and experience. \u201cA man is\nborn by the side of his father, and there he remains.\u201d A man must be\nclothed with society, or we shall feel a certain bareness and poverty,\nas of a displaced and unfurnished member. He is to be dressed in\narts and institutions, as well as in body-garments. Now and then a\nman exquisitely made can live alone, and must; but coop up most men,\nand you undo them. \u201cThe king lived and ate in his hall with men, and\nunderstood men,\u201d said Selden. When a young barrister said to the late\nMr. Mason, \u201cI keep my chamber to read law,\u201d--\u201cRead law!\u201d replied the\nveteran, \u201c\u2019tis in the court-room you must read law.\u201d Nor is the rule\notherwise for literature. If you would learn to write, \u2019tis in the\nstreet you must learn it. Both for the vehicle and for the aims of fine\narts, you must frequent the public square. The people, and not the\ncollege, is the writer\u2019s home. A scholar is a candle which the love and\ndesire of all men will light. Never his lands or his rents, but the\npower to charm the disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded\nand that rosy visage is his rent and ration. His products are as\nneedful as those of the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without\ncultivated men. As soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher\nwants become imperative.\n\n\u2019Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through\nsympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert fires people\nto a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach alone. Here is\nthe use of society: it is so easy with the great to be great; so easy\nto come up to an existing standard;--as easy as it is to the lover\nto swim to his maiden through waves so grim before. The benefits of\naffection are immense; and the one event which never loses its romance\nis the encounter with superior persons on terms allowing the happiest\nintercourse.\n\nIt by no means follows that we are not fit for society, because\n_soir\u00e9es_ are tedious, and because the _soir\u00e9e_ finds us tedious. A\nbackwoodsman, who had been sent to the university, told me that, when\nhe heard the best-bred young men at the law-school talk together, he\nreckoned himself a boor; but whenever he caught them apart, and had one\nto himself alone, then they were the boors, and he the better man. And\nif we recall the rare hours when we encountered the best persons, we\nthen found ourselves, and then first society seemed to exist. That was\nsociety, though in the transom of a brig, or on the Florida Keys.\n\nA cold, sluggish blood thinks it has not facts enough to the purpose,\nand must decline its turn in the conversation. But they who speak\nhave no more,--have less. \u2019Tis not new facts that avail, but the heat\nto dissolve everybody\u2019s facts. Heat puts you in right relation with\nmagazines of facts. The capital defect of cold, arid natures is the\nwant of animal spirits. They seem a power incredible, as if God should\nraise the dead. The recluse witnesses what others perform by their\naid, with a kind of fear. It is as much out of his possibility as the\nprowess of C\u0153ur de Lion, or an Irishman\u2019s day\u2019s-work on the railroad.\n\u2019Tis said, the present and the future are always rivals. Animal spirits\nconstitute the power of the present, and their feats are like the\nstructure of a pyramid. Their result is a lord, a general, or a boon\ncompanion. Before these, what a base mendicant is Memory with his\nleathern badge! But this genial heat is latent in all constitutions,\nand is disengaged only by the friction of society. As Bacon said of\nmanners, \u201cTo obtain them, it only needs not to despise them,\u201d so we say\nof animal spirits, that they are the spontaneous product of health and\nof a social habit. \u201cFor behavior, men learn it, as they take diseases,\none of another.\u201d\n\nBut the people are to be taken in very small doses. If solitude is\nproud, so is society vulgar. In society, high advantages are set\ndown to the individual as disqualifications. We sink as easily as we\nrise, through sympathy. So many men whom I know are degraded by their\nsympathies, their native aims being high enough, but their relation\nall too tender to the gross people about them. Men cannot afford to\nlive together on their merits, and they adjust themselves by their\ndemerits,--by their love of gossip, or by sheer tolerance and animal\ngood-nature. They untune and dissipate the brave aspirant.\n\nThe remedy is, to reinforce each of these moods from the other.\nConversation will not corrupt us, if we come to the assembly in our\nown garb and speech, and with the energy of health to select what\nis ours and reject what is not. Society we must have; but let it be\nsociety, and not exchanging news, or eating from the same dish. Is it\nsociety to sit in one of your chairs? I cannot go to the houses of my\nnearest relatives, because I do not wish to be alone. Society exists by\nchemical affinity, and not otherwise.\n\nPut any company of people together with freedom for conversation, and a\nrapid self-distribution takes place, into sets and pairs. The best are\naccused of exclusiveness. It would be more true to say, they separate\nas oil from water, as children from old people, without love or hatred\nin the matter, each seeking his like; and any interference with the\naffinities would produce constraint and suffocation. All conversation\nis a magnetic experiment. I know that my friend can talk eloquently;\nyou know that he cannot articulate a sentence: we have seen him in\ndifferent company. Assort your party, or invite none. Put Stubbs and\nColeridge, Quintilian and Aunt Miriam, into pairs, and you make them\nall wretched. \u2019Tis an extempore Sing-Sing built in a parlor. Leave them\nto seek their own mates, and they will be as merry as sparrows.\n\nA higher civility will re-establish in our customs a certain reverence\nwhich we have lost. What to do with these brisk young men who break\nthrough all fences, and make themselves at home in every house? I find\nout in an instant if my companion does not want me, and ropes cannot\nhold me when my welcome is gone. One would think that the affinities\nwould pronounce themselves with a surer reciprocity.\n\nHere again, as so often, Nature delights to put us between extreme\nantagonisms, and our safety is in the skill with which we keep the\ndiagonal line. Solitude is impracticable, and society fatal. We must\nkeep our head in the one and our hands in the other. The conditions are\nmet, if we keep our independence, yet do not lose our sympathy. These\nwonderful horses need to be driven by fine hands. We require such a\nsolitude as shall hold us to its revelations when we are in the street\nand in palaces; for most men are cowed in society, and say good things\nto you in private, but will not stand to them in public. But let us\nnot be the victims of words. Society and solitude are deceptive names.\nIt is not the circumstance of seeing more or fewer people, but the\nreadiness of sympathy, that imports; and a sound mind will derive its\nprinciples from insight, with ever a purer ascent to the sufficient and\nabsolute right, and will accept society as the natural element in which\nthey are to be applied.\n\n\n\n\nCIVILIZATION.\n\n\n\n\nCIVILIZATION.\n\n\nA certain degree of progress from the rudest state in which man is\nfound,--a dweller in caves, or on trees, like an ape,--a cannibal,\nand eater of pounded snails, worms, and offal,--a certain degree of\nprogress from this extreme is called Civilization. It is a vague,\ncomplex name, of many degrees. Nobody has attempted a definition.\nMr. Guizot, writing a book on the subject, does not. It implies the\nevolution of a highly organized man, brought to supreme delicacy of\nsentiment, as in practical power, religion, liberty, sense of honor,\nand taste. In the hesitation to define what it is, we usually suggest\nit by negations. A nation that has no clothing, no iron, no alphabet,\nno marriage, no arts of peace, no abstract thought, we call barbarous.\nAnd after many arts are invented or imported, as among the Turks\nand Moorish nations, it is often a little complaisant to call them\ncivilized.\n\nEach nation grows after its own genius, and has a civilization of its\nown. The Chinese and Japanese, though each complete in his way, is\ndifferent from the man of Madrid or the man of New York. The term\nimports a mysterious progress. In the brutes is none; and in mankind\nto-day the savage tribes are gradually extinguished rather than\ncivilized. The Indians of this country have not learned the white man\u2019s\nwork; and in Africa, the negro of to-day is the negro of Herodotus.\nIn other races the growth is not arrested; but the like progress that\nis made by a boy \u201cwhen he cuts his eye-teeth,\u201d as we say,--childish\nillusions passing daily away, and he seeing things really and\ncomprehensively,--is made by tribes. It is the learning the secret of\ncumulative power, of advancing on one\u2019s self. It implies a facility\nof association, power to compare, the ceasing from fixed ideas. The\nIndian is gloomy and distressed when urged to depart from his habits\nand traditions. He is overpowered by the gaze of the white, and his eye\nsinks. The occasion of one of these starts of growth is always some\nnovelty that astounds the mind, and provokes it to dare to change. Thus\nthere is a Cadmus, a Pytheas, a Manco Capac at the beginning of each\nimprovement,--some superior foreigner importing new and wonderful arts,\nand teaching them. Of course, he must not know too much, but must have\nthe sympathy, language, and gods of those he would inform. But chiefly\nthe sea-shore has been the point of departure to knowledge, as to\ncommerce. The most advanced nations are always those who navigate the\nmost. The power which the sea requires in the sailor makes a man of him\nvery fast, and the change of shores and population clears his head of\nmuch nonsense of his wigwam.\n\nWhere shall we begin or end the list of those feats of liberty and\nwit, each of which feats made an epoch of history? Thus, the effect\nof a framed or stone house is immense on the tranquillity, power, and\nrefinement of the builder. A man in a cave or in a camp, a nomad,\nwill die with no more estate than the wolf or the horse leaves. But\nso simple a labor as a house being achieved, his chief enemies are\nkept at bay. He is safe from the teeth of wild animals, from frost,\nsun-stroke, and weather; and fine faculties begin to yield their fine\nharvest. Invention and art are born, manners and social beauty and\ndelight. \u2019Tis wonderful how soon a piano gets into a log-hut on the\nfrontier. You would think they found it under a pine-stump. With it\ncomes a Latin grammar,--and one of those tow-head boys has written a\nhymn on Sunday. Now let colleges, now let senates take heed! for here\nis one who, opening these fine tastes on the basis of the pioneer\u2019s\niron constitution, will gather all their laurels in his strong hands.\n\nWhen the Indian trail gets widened, graded, and bridged to a good\nroad, there is a benefactor, there is a missionary, a pacificator,\na wealth-bringer, a maker of markets, a vent for industry. Another\nstep in civility is the change from war, hunting, and pasturage to\nagriculture. Our Scandinavian forefathers have left us a significant\nlegend to convey their sense of the importance of this step. \u201cThere\nwas once a giantess who had a daughter, and the child saw a husbandman\nploughing in the field. Then she ran and picked him up with her finger\nand thumb, and put him and his plough and his oxen into her apron, and\ncarried them to her mother, and said, \u2018Mother, what sort of a beetle is\nthis that I found wriggling in the sand?\u2019 But the mother said, \u2018Put it\naway, my child; we must begone out of this land, for these people will\ndwell in it.\u2019\u201d Another success is the post-office, with its educating\nenergy augmented by cheapness and guarded by a certain religious\nsentiment in mankind; so that the power of a wafer or a drop of wax or\ngluten to guard a letter, as it flies over sea, over land, and comes to\nits address as if a battalion of artillery brought it, I look upon as a\nfine metre of civilization.\n\nThe division of labor, the multiplication of the arts of peace, which\nis nothing but a large allowance to each man to choose his work\naccording to his faculty,--to live by his better hand,--fills the State\nwith useful and happy laborers; and they, creating demand by the very\ntemptation of their productions, are rapidly and surely rewarded by\ngood sale: and what a police and ten commandments their work thus\nbecomes. So true is Dr. Johnson\u2019s remark that \u201cmen are seldom more\ninnocently employed than when they are making money.\u201d\n\nThe skilful combinations of civil government, though they usually\nfollow natural leadings, as the lines of race, language, religion, and\nterritory, yet require wisdom and conduct in the rulers, and in their\nresult delight the imagination. \u201cWe see insurmountable multitudes\nobeying, in opposition to their strongest passions, the restraints\nof a power which they scarcely perceive, and the crimes of a single\nindividual marked and punished at the distance of half the earth.\u201d[A]\n\nRight position of woman in the State is another index. Poverty and\nindustry with a healthy mind read very easily the laws of humanity, and\nlove them: place the sexes in right relations of mutual respect, and\na severe morality gives that essential charm to woman which educates\nall that is delicate, poetic, and self-sacrificing, breeds courtesy\nand learning, conversation and wit, in her rough mate; so that I have\nthought a sufficient measure of civilization is the influence of good\nwomen.\n\nAnother measure of culture is the diffusion of knowledge, overrunning\nall the old barriers of caste, and, by the cheap press, bringing the\nuniversity to every poor man\u2019s door in the newsboy\u2019s basket. Scraps of\nscience, of thought, of poetry are in the coarsest sheet, so that in\nevery house we hesitate to burn a newspaper until we have looked it\nthrough.\n\nThe ship, in its latest complete equipment, is an abridgment\nand compend of a nation\u2019s arts: the ship steered by compass\nand chart,--longitude reckoned by lunar observation and by\nchronometer,--driven by steam; and in wildest sea-mountains, at vast\ndistances from home,\n\n  \u201cThe pulses of her iron heart\n  Go beating through the storm.\u201d\n\nNo use can lessen the wonder of this control, by so weak a creature, of\nforces so prodigious. I remember I watched, in crossing the sea, the\nbeautiful skill whereby the engine in its constant working was made to\nproduce two hundred gallons of fresh water out of salt-water, every\nhour,--thereby supplying all the ship\u2019s want.\n\nThe skill that pervades complex details; the man that maintains\nhimself; the chimney taught to burn its own smoke; the farm made to\nproduce all that is consumed on it; the very prison compelled to\nmaintain itself and yield a revenue, and, better still, made a reform\nschool, and a manufactory of honest men out of rogues, as the steamer\nmade fresh water out of salt,--all these are examples of that tendency\nto combine antagonisms, and utilize evil, which is the index of high\ncivilization.\n\nCivilization is the result of highly complex organization. In the\nsnake, all the organs are sheathed; no hands, no feet, no fins, no\nwings. In bird and beast, the organs are released, and begin to play.\nIn man, they are all unbound, and full of joyful action. With this\nunswaddling he receives the absolute illumination we call Reason, and\nthereby true liberty.\n\nClimate has much to do with this melioration. The highest civility has\nnever loved the hot zones. Wherever snow falls, there is usually civil\nfreedom. Where the banana grows, the animal system is indolent and\npampered at the cost of higher qualities: the man is sensual and cruel.\nBut this scale is not invariable. High degrees of moral sentiment\ncontrol the unfavorable influences of climate; and some of our grandest\nexamples of men and of races come from the equatorial regions,--as the\ngenius of Egypt, of India, and of Arabia.\n\nThese feats are measures or traits of civility; and temperate climate\nis an important influence, though not quite indispensable, for there\nhave been learning, philosophy, and art in Iceland, and in the tropics.\nBut one condition is essential to the social education of man, namely,\nmorality. There can be no high civility without a deep morality, though\nit may not always call itself by that name, but sometimes the point\nof honor, as in the institution of chivalry; or patriotism, as in the\nSpartan and Roman republics; or the enthusiasm of some religious sect\nwhich imputes its virtue to its dogma; or the cabalism, or _esprit de\ncorps_, of a masonic or other association of friends.\n\nThe evolution of a highly-destined society must be moral; it must run\nin the grooves of the celestial wheels. It must be catholic in aims.\nWhat is _moral_? It is the respecting in action catholic or universal\nends. Hear the definition which Kant gives of moral conduct: \u201cAct\nalways so that the immediate motive of thy will may become a universal\nrule for all intelligent beings.\u201d\n\nCivilization depends on morality. Everything good in man leans on what\nis higher. This rule holds in small as in great. Thus, all our strength\nand success in the work of our hands depend on our borrowing the aid of\nthe elements. You have seen a carpenter on a ladder with a broad-axe\nchopping upward chips from a beam. How awkward! at what disadvantage he\nworks! But see him on the ground, dressing his timber under him. Now,\nnot his feeble muscles, but the force of gravity brings down the axe;\nthat is to say, the planet itself splits his stick. The farmer had much\nill-temper, laziness, and shirking to endure from his hand-sawyers,\nuntil one day he bethought him to put his saw-mill on the edge of a\nwaterfall; and the river never tires of turning his wheel: the river is\ngood-natured, and never hints an objection.\n\nWe had letters to send: couriers could not go fast enough, nor far\nenough; broke their wagons, foundered their horses; bad roads in\nspring, snow-drifts in winter, heats in summer; could not get the\nhorses out of a walk. But we found out that the air and earth were\nfull of Electricity; and always going our way,--just the way we wanted\nto send. _Would he take a message?_ Just as lief as not; had nothing\nelse to do; would carry it in no time. Only one doubt occurred, one\nstaggering objection,--he had no carpet-bag, no visible pockets, no\nhands, not so much as a mouth, to carry a letter. But, after much\nthought and many experiments, we managed to meet the conditions, and\nto fold up the letter in such invisible compact form as he could\ncarry in those invisible pockets of his, never wrought by needle and\nthread,--and it went like a charm.\n\nI admire still more than the saw-mill the skill which, on the\nsea-shore, makes the tides drive the wheels and grind corn, and which\nthus engages the assistance of the moon, like a hired hand, to grind,\nand wind, and pump, and saw, and split stone, and roll iron.\n\nNow that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor,\nto hitch his wagon to a star, and see his chore done by the gods\nthemselves. That is the way we are strong, by borrowing the might of\nthe elements. The forces of steam, gravity, galvanism, light, magnets,\nwind, fire, serve us day by day, and cost us nothing.\n\nOur astronomy is full of examples of calling in the aid of these\nmagnificent helpers. Thus, on a planet so small as ours, the want of\nan adequate base for astronomical measurements is early felt, as, for\nexample, in detecting the parallax of a star. But the astronomer,\nhaving by an observation fixed the place of a star, by so simple an\nexpedient as waiting six months, and then repeating his observation,\ncontrived to put the diameter of the earth\u2019s orbit, say two hundred\nmillions of miles, between his first observation and his second, and\nthis line afforded him a respectable base for his triangle.\n\nAll our arts aim to win this vantage. We cannot bring the heavenly\npowers to us, but, if we will only choose our jobs in directions in\nwhich they travel, they will undertake them with the greatest pleasure.\nIt is a peremptory rule with them, that _they never go out of their\nroad_. We are dapper little busybodies, and run this way and that\nway superserviceably; but they swerve never from their foreordained\npaths,--neither the sun, nor the moon, nor a bubble of air, nor a mote\nof dust.\n\nAnd as our handiworks borrow the elements, so all our social and\npolitical action leans on principles. To accomplish anything excellent,\nthe will must work for catholic and universal ends. A puny creature\nwalled in on every side, as Daniel wrote,--\n\n          \u201cUnless above himself he can\n  Erect himself, how poor a thing is man!\u201d\n\nbut when his will leans on a principle, when he is the vehicle of\nideas, he borrows their omnipotence. Gibraltar may be strong, but ideas\nare impregnable, and bestow on the hero their invincibility. \u201cIt was\na great instruction,\u201d said a saint in Cromwell\u2019s war, \u201cthat the best\ncourages are but beams of the Almighty.\u201d Hitch your wagon to a star.\nLet us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and bag alone. Let\nus not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find all their teams\ngoing the other way,--Charles\u2019s Wain, Great Bear, Orion, Leo, Hercules:\nevery god will leave us. Work rather for those interests which the\ndivinities honor and promote,--justice, love, freedom, knowledge,\nutility.\n\nIf we can thus ride in Olympian chariots by putting our works in the\npath of the celestial circuits, we can harness also evil agents, the\npowers of darkness, and force them to serve against their will the ends\nof wisdom and virtue. Thus, a wise government puts fines and penalties\non pleasant vices. What a benefit would the American government, not\nyet relieved of its extreme need, render to itself, and to every city,\nvillage, and hamlet in the States, if it would tax whiskey and rum\nalmost to the point of prohibition! Was it Bonaparte who said that he\nfound vices very good patriots?--\u201che got five millions from the love of\nbrandy, and he should be glad to know which of the virtues would pay\nhim as much.\u201d Tobacco and opium have broad backs, and will cheerfully\ncarry the load of armies, if you choose to make them pay high for such\njoy as they give and such harm as they do.\n\nThese are traits, and measures, and modes; and the true test of\ncivilization is, not the census, nor the size of cities, nor the\ncrops,--no, but the kind of man the country turns out. I see the vast\nadvantages of this country, spanning the breadth of the temperate\nzone. I see the immense material prosperity,--towns on towns, states\non states, and wealth piled in the massive architecture of cities;\nCalifornia quartz-mountains dumped down in New York to be repiled\narchitecturally along-shore from Canada to Cuba, and thence westward\nto California again. But it is not New York streets built by the\nconfluence of workmen and wealth of all nations, though stretching out\ntowards Philadelphia until they touch it, and northward until they\ntouch New Haven, Hartford, Springfield, Worcester, and Boston,--not\nthese that make the real estimation. But, when I look over this\nconstellation of cities which animate and illustrate the land, and\nsee how little the government has to do with their daily life, how\nself-helped and self-directed all families are,--knots of men in purely\nnatural societies,--societies of trade, of kindred blood, of habitual\nhospitality, house and house, man acting on man by weight of opinion,\nof longer or better-directed industry, the refining influence of\nwomen, the invitation which experience and permanent causes open to\nyouth and labor,--when I see how much each virtuous and gifted person,\nwhom all men consider, lives affectionately with scores of excellent\npeople who are not known far from home, and perhaps with great reason\nreckons these people his superiors in virtue, and in the symmetry and\nforce of their qualities, I see what cubic values America has, and\nin these a better certificate of civilization than great cities or\nenormous wealth.\n\nIn strictness, the vital refinements are the moral and intellectual\nsteps. The appearance of the Hebrew Moses, of the Indian Buddh,--in\nGreece, of the Seven Wise Masters, of the acute and upright Socrates,\nand of the Stoic Zeno,--in Jud\u00e6a, the advent of Jesus,--and in modern\nChristendom, of the realists Huss, Savonarola, and Luther, are causal\nfacts which carry forward races to new convictions, and elevate the\nrule of life. In the presence of these agencies, it is frivolous to\ninsist on the invention of printing or gunpowder, of steam-power or\ngas-light, percussion-caps and rubber-shoes, which are toys thrown off\nfrom that security, freedom, and exhilaration which a healthy morality\ncreates in society. These arts add a comfort and smoothness to house\nand street life; but a purer morality, which kindles genius, civilizes\ncivilization, casts backward all that we held sacred into the profane,\nas the flame of oil throws a shadow when shined upon by the flame of\nthe Bude-light. Not the less the popular measures of progress will ever\nbe the arts and the laws.\n\nBut if there be a country which cannot stand any one of these tests,--a\ncountry where knowledge cannot be diffused without perils of mob-law\nand statute-law,--where speech is not free,--where the post-office is\nviolated, mail-bags opened, and letters tampered with,--where public\ndebts and private debts outside of the State are repudiated,--where\nliberty is attacked in the primary institution of social life,--where\nthe position of the white woman is injuriously affected by the\noutlawry of the black woman,--where the arts, such as they have, are\nall imported, having no indigenous life,--where the laborer is not\nsecured in the earnings of his own hands,--where suffrage is not free\nor equal,--that country is, in all these respects, not civil, but\nbarbarous; and no advantages of soil, climate, or coast can resist\nthese suicidal mischiefs.\n\nMorality and all the incidents of morality are essential; as, justice\nto the citizen, and personal liberty. Montesquieu says: \u201cCountries are\nwell cultivated, not as they are fertile, but as they are free\u201d; and\nthe remark holds not less but more true of the culture of men, than of\nthe tillage of land. And the highest proof of civility is, that the\nwhole public action of the State is directed on securing the greatest\ngood of the greatest number.\n\n\n\n\nART.\n\n\n\n\nART.\n\n\nAll departments of life at the present day,--Trade, Politics, Letters,\nScience, or Religion,--seem to feel, and to labor to express, the\nidentity of their law. They are rays of one sun; they translate each\ninto a new language the sense of the other. They are sublime when seen\nas emanations of a Necessity contradistinguished from the vulgar Fate,\nby being instant and alive, and dissolving man, as well as his works,\nin its flowing beneficence. This influence is conspicuously visible in\nthe principles and history of Art.\n\nOn one side in primary communication with absolute truth through\nthought and instinct, the human mind on the other side tends, by an\nequal necessity, to the publication and embodiment of its thought,\nmodified and dwarfed by the impurity and untruth which, in all our\nexperience, injure the individuality through which it passes. The\nchild not only suffers, but cries; not only hungers, but eats. The\nman not only thinks, but speaks and acts. Every thought that arises\nin the mind, in its rising aims to pass out of the mind into act;\njust as every plant, in the moment of germination, struggles up to\nlight. Thought is the seed of action; but action is as much its second\nform as thought is its first. It rises in thought, to the end that\nit may be uttered and acted. The more profound the thought, the more\nburdensome. Always in proportion to the depth of its sense does it\nknock importunately at the gates of the soul, to be spoken, to be done.\nWhat is in, will out. It struggles to the birth. Speech is a great\npleasure, and action a great pleasure; they cannot be foreborne.\n\nThe utterance of thought and emotion in speech and action may be\nconscious or unconscious. The sucking child is an unconscious actor.\nThe man in an ecstasy of fear or anger is an unconscious actor. A large\npart of our habitual actions are unconsciously done, and most of our\nnecessary words are unconsciously said.\n\nThe conscious utterance of thought, by speech or action, to any end,\nis Art. From the first imitative babble of a child to the despotism of\neloquence, from his first pile of toys or chip bridge to the masonry\nof Minot Rock Light-house or the Pacific Railroad, from the tattooing\nof the Owhyhees to the Vatican Gallery, from the simplest expedient\nof private prudence to the American Constitution, from its first to\nits last works, Art is the spirit\u2019s voluntary use and combination\nof things to serve its end. The Will distinguishes it as spiritual\naction. Relatively to themselves, the bee, the bird, the beaver, have\nno art; for what they do, they do instinctively; but relatively to\nthe Supreme Being, they have. And the same is true of all unconscious\naction: relatively to the doer, it is instinct; relatively to the First\nCause, it is Art. In this sense, recognizing the Spirit which informs\nNature, Plato rightly said, \u201cThose things which are said to be done\nby Nature are indeed done by Divine Art.\u201d Art, universally, is the\nspirit creative. It was defined by Aristotle, \u201cThe reason of the thing,\nwithout the matter.\u201d\n\nIf we follow the popular distinction of works according to their aim,\nwe should say, the Spirit, in its creation, aims at use or at beauty,\nand hence Art divides itself into the Useful and the Fine Arts.\n\nThe useful arts comprehend not only those that lie next to instinct,\nas agriculture, building, weaving, &c., but also navigation, practical\nchemistry, and the construction of all the grand and delicate tools and\ninstruments by which man serves himself: as language, the watch, the\nship, the decimal cipher; and also the sciences, so far as they are\nmade serviceable to political economy.\n\nWhen we reflect on the pleasure we receive from a ship, a railroad,\na dry-dock; or from a picture, a dramatic representation, a statue,\na poem, we find that these have not a quite simple, but a blended\norigin. We find that the question, What is Art? leads us directly to\nanother,--Who is the artist? and the solution of this is the key to the\nhistory of Art.\n\nI hasten to state the principle which prescribes, through different\nmeans, its firm law to the useful and the beautiful arts. The law\nis this. The universal soul is the alone creator of the useful and\nthe beautiful; therefore, to make anything useful or beautiful, the\nindividual must be submitted to the universal mind.\n\nIn the first place, let us consider this in reference to the useful\narts. Here the omnipotent agent is Nature; all human acts are\nsatellites to her orb. Nature is the representative of the universal\nmind, and the law becomes this,--that Art must be a complement to\nnature, strictly subsidiary. It was said, in allusion to the great\nstructures of the ancient Romans,--the aqueducts and bridges,--that\n\u201ctheir Art was a Nature working to municipal ends.\u201d That is a true\naccount of all just works of useful art. Smeaton built Eddystone\nLight-house on the model of an oak-tree, as being the form in nature\nbest designed to resist a constant assailing force. Dollond formed his\nachromatic telescope on the model of the human eye. Duhamel built a\nbridge by letting in a piece of stronger timber for the middle of the\nunder surface, getting his hint from the structure of the shin-bone.\n\nThe first and last lesson of the useful arts is, that Nature tyrannizes\nover our works. They must be conformed to her law, or they will be\nground to powder by her omnipresent activity. Nothing droll, nothing\nwhimsical will endure. Nature is ever interfering with Art. You cannot\nbuild your house or pagoda as you will, but as you must. There is a\nquick bound set to your caprice. The leaning tower can only lean so\nfar. The verandah or pagoda roof can curve upward only to a certain\npoint. The slope of your roof is determined by the weight of snow. It\nis only within narrow limits that the discretion of the architect may\nrange: gravity, wind, sun, rain, the size of men and animals, and such\nlike, have more to say than he. It is the law of fluids that prescribes\nthe shape of the boat,--keel, rudder, and bows,--and, in the finer\nfluid above, the form and tackle of the sails. Man seems to have no\noption about his tools, but merely the necessity to learn from Nature\nwhat will fit best, as if he were fitting a screw or a door. Beneath\na necessity thus almighty, what is artificial in man\u2019s life seems\ninsignificant. He seems to take his task so minutely from intimations\nof Nature, that his works become as it were hers, and he is no longer\nfree.\n\nBut if we work within this limit, she yields us all her strength. All\npowerful action is performed by bringing the forces of nature to bear\nupon our objects. We do not grind corn or lift the loom by our own\nstrength, but we build a mill in such position as to set the north wind\nto play upon our instrument, or the elastic force of steam, or the ebb\nand flow of the sea. So in our handiwork, we do few things by muscular\nforce, but we place ourselves in such attitudes as to bring the force\nof gravity, that is, the weight of the planet, to bear upon the spade\nor the axe we wield. In short, in all our operations we seek not to use\nour own, but to bring a quite infinite force to bear.\n\nLet us now consider this law as it affects the works that have beauty\nfor their end, that is, the productions of the Fine Arts. Here again\nthe prominent fact is subordination of man. His art is the least part\nof his work of art. A great deduction is to be made before we can know\nhis proper contribution to it.\n\nMusic, Eloquence, Poetry, Painting, Sculpture, Architecture. This is\na rough enumeration of the Fine Arts. I omit Rhetoric, which only\nrespects the form of eloquence and poetry. Architecture and eloquence\nare mixed arts, whose end is sometimes beauty and sometimes use.\n\nIt will be seen that in each of these arts there is much which is\nnot spiritual. Each has a material basis, and in each the creating\nintellect is crippled in some degree by the stuff on which it works.\nThe basis of poetry is language, which is material only on one side.\nIt is a demi-god. But being applied primarily to the common necessities\nof man, it is not new-created by the poet for his own ends.\n\nThe basis of music is the qualities of the air and the vibrations of\nsonorous bodies. The pulsation of a stretched string or wire gives the\near the pleasure of sweet sound, before yet the musician has enhanced\nthis pleasure by concords and combinations.\n\nEloquence, as far as it is a fine art, is modified how much by the\nmaterial organization of the orator, the tone of the voice, the\nphysical strength, the play of the eye and countenance. All this is\nso much deduction from the purely spiritual pleasure,--as so much\ndeduction from the merit of Art,--and is the attribute of Nature.\n\nIn painting, bright colors stimulate the eye, before yet they are\nharmonized into a landscape. In sculpture and in architecture the\nmaterial, as marble or granite, and in architecture the mass, are\nsources of great pleasure, quite independent of the artificial\narrangement. The art resides in the model, in the plan; for it is on\nthat the genius of the artist is expended, not on the statue or the\ntemple. Just as much better as is the polished statue of dazzling\nmarble than the clay model, or as much more impressive as is the\ngranite cathedral or pyramid than the ground-plan or profile of them\non paper, so much more beauty owe they to Nature than to Art.\n\nThere is a still larger deduction to be made from the genius of the\nartist in favor of Nature than I have yet specified.\n\nA jumble of musical sounds on a viol or a flute, in which the rhythm of\nthe tune is played without one of the notes being right, gives pleasure\nto the unskilful ear. A very coarse imitation of the human form on\ncanvas, or in wax-work,--a coarse sketch in colors of a landscape,\nin which imitation is all that is attempted,--these things give to\nunpractised eyes, to the uncultured, who do not ask a fine spiritual\ndelight, almost as much pleasure as a statue of Canova or a picture of\nTitian.\n\nAnd in the statue of Canova, or the picture of Titian, these give the\ngreat part of the pleasure; they are the basis on which the fine spirit\nrears a higher delight, but to which these are indispensable.\n\nAnother deduction from the genius of the artist is what is conventional\nin his art, of which there is much in every work of art. Thus how\nmuch is there that is not original in every particular building, in\nevery statue, in every tune, painting, poem, or harangue!--whatever is\nnational or usual; as the usage of building all Roman churches in the\nform of a cross, the prescribed distribution of parts of a theatre, the\ncustom of draping a statue in classical costume. Yet who will deny\nthat the merely conventional part of the performance contributes much\nto its effect?\n\nOne consideration more exhausts, I believe, all the deductions from\nthe genius of the artist in any given work. This is the adventitious.\nThus the pleasure that a noble temple gives us is only in part owing to\nthe temple. It is exalted by the beauty of sunlight, the play of the\nclouds, the landscape around it, its grouping with the houses, trees,\nand towers in its vicinity. The pleasure of eloquence is in greatest\npart owing often to the stimulus of the occasion which produces it,--to\nthe magic of sympathy, which exalts the feeling of each by radiating on\nhim the feeling of all.\n\nThe effect of music belongs how much to the place,--as the church, or\nthe moonlight walk; or to the company; or, if on the stage, to what\nwent before in the play, or to the expectation of what shall come after.\n\nIn poetry, \u201cIt is tradition more than invention that helps the poet to\na good fable.\u201d The adventitious beauty of poetry may be felt in the\ngreater delight which a verse gives in happy quotation than in the poem.\n\nIt is a curious proof of our conviction that the artist does not feel\nhimself to be the parent of his work, and is as much surprised at the\neffect as we, that we are so unwilling to impute our best sense of\nany work of art to the author. The highest praise we can attribute to\nany writer, painter, sculptor, builder, is, that he actually possessed\nthe thought or feeling with which he has inspired us. We hesitate at\ndoing Spenser so great an honor as to think that he intended by his\nallegory the sense we affix to it. We grudge to Homer the wide human\ncircumspection his commentators ascribe to him. Even Shakspeare,\nof whom we can believe everything, we think indebted to Goethe and\nto Coleridge for the wisdom they detect in his Hamlet and Antony.\nEspecially have we this infirmity of faith in contemporary genius. We\nfear that Allston and Greenough did not foresee and design all the\neffect they produce on us.\n\nOur arts are happy hits. We are like the musician on the lake, whose\nmelody is sweeter than he knows, or like a traveller, surprised by a\nmountain echo, whose trivial word returns to him in romantic thunders.\n\nIn view of these facts, I say that the power of Nature predominates\nover the human will in all works of even the fine arts, in all that\nrespects their material and external circumstances. Nature paints the\nbest part of the picture; carves the best part of the statue; builds\nthe best part of the house; and speaks the best part of the oration.\nFor all the advantages to which I have adverted are such as the artist\ndid not consciously produce. He relied on their aid, he put himself in\nthe way to receive aid from some of them; but he saw that his planting\nand his watering waited for the sunlight of Nature, or were vain.\n\nLet us proceed to the consideration of the law stated in the beginning\nof this essay, as it affects the purely spiritual part of a work of art.\n\nAs, in useful art, so far as it is useful, the work must be strictly\nsubordinated to the laws of Nature, so as to become a sort of\ncontinuation, and in nowise a contradiction of Nature; so, in art that\naims at beauty, must the parts be subordinated to Ideal Nature, and\neverything individual abstracted, so that it shall be the production of\nthe universal soul.\n\nThe artist who is to produce a work which is to be admired, not by his\nfriends or his townspeople or his contemporaries, but by all men, and\nwhich is to be more beautiful to the eye in proportion to its culture,\nmust disindividualize himself, and be a man of no party, and no manner,\nand no age, but one through whom the soul of all men circulates, as the\ncommon air through his lungs. He must work in the spirit in which we\nconceive a prophet to speak, or an angel of the Lord to act; that is,\nhe is not to speak his own words, or do his own works, or think his own\nthoughts, but he is to be an organ through which the universal mind\nacts.\n\nIn speaking of the useful arts, I pointed to the fact that we do not\ndig, or grind, or hew, by our muscular strength, but by bringing the\nweight of the planet to bear on the spade, axe, or bar. Precisely\nanalogous to this, in the fine arts, is the manner of our intellectual\nwork. We aim to hinder our individuality from acting. So much as we\ncan shove aside our egotism, our prejudice, and will, and bring the\nomniscience of reason upon the subject before us, so perfect is the\nwork. The wonders of Shakspeare are things which he saw whilst he stood\naside, and then returned to record them. The poet aims at getting\nobservations without aim; to subject to thought things seen without\n(voluntary) thought.\n\nIn eloquence, the great triumphs of the art are, when the orator is\nlifted above himself; when consciously he makes himself the mere tongue\nof the occasion and the hour, and says what cannot but be said. Hence\nthe term _abandonment_, to describe the self-surrender of the orator.\nNot his will, but the principle on which he is horsed, the great\nconnection and crisis of events, thunder in the ear of the crowd.\n\nIn poetry, where every word is free, every word is necessary. Good\npoetry could not have been otherwise written than it is. The first time\nyou hear it, it sounds rather as if copied out of some invisible tablet\nin the Eternal mind, than as if arbitrarily composed by the poet. The\nfeeling of all great poets has accorded with this. They found the\nverse, not made it. The muse brought it to them.\n\nIn sculpture, did ever anybody call the Apollo a fancy piece? Or say of\nthe Laoco\u00f6n how it might be made different? A masterpiece of art has in\nthe mind a fixed place in the chain of being, as much as a plant or a\ncrystal.\n\nThe whole language of men, especially of artists, in reference to this\nsubject, points at the belief that every work of art, in proportion to\nits excellence, partakes of the precision of fate: no room was there\nfor choice, no play for fancy; for in the moment, or in the successive\nmoments, when that form was seen, the iron lids of Reason were\nunclosed, which ordinarily are heavy with slumber. The individual mind\nbecame for the moment the vent of the mind of humanity.\n\nThere is but one Reason. The mind that made the world is not one mind,\nbut _the_ mind. Every man is an inlet to the same, and to all of the\nsame. And every work of art is a more or less pure manifestation of\nthe same. Therefore we arrive at this conclusion, which I offer as a\nconfirmation of the whole view, that the delight which a work of art\naffords, seems to arise from our recognizing in it the mind that formed\nNature, again in active operation.\n\nIt differs from the works of Nature in this, that they are organically\nreproductive. This is not; but spiritually it is prolific by its\npowerful action on the intellects of men.\n\nHence it follows that a study of admirable works of art sharpens our\nperceptions of the beauty of Nature; that a certain analogy reigns\nthroughout the wonders of both; that the contemplation of a work of\ngreat art draws us into a state of mind which may be called religious.\nIt conspires with all exalted sentiments.\n\nProceeding from absolute mind, whose nature is goodness as much as\ntruth, the great works are always attuned to moral nature. If the earth\nand sea conspire with virtue more than vice,--so do the masterpieces\nof art. The galleries of ancient sculpture in Naples and Rome strike\nno deeper conviction into the mind than the contrast of the purity,\nthe severity, expressed in these fine old heads, with the frivolity\nand grossness of the mob that exhibits and the mob that gazes at them.\nThese are the countenances of the first-born,--the face of man in the\nmorning of the world. No mark is on these lofty features, of sloth, or\nluxury, or meanness, and they surprise you with a moral admonition,\nas they speak of nothing around you, but remind you of the fragrant\nthoughts and the purest resolutions of your youth.\n\nHerein is the explanation of the analogies which exist in all the arts.\nThey are the reappearance of one mind, working in many materials to\nmany temporary ends. Raphael paints wisdom; Handel sings it, Phidias\ncarves it, Shakspeare writes it, Wren builds it, Columbus sails it,\nLuther preaches it, Washington arms it, Watt mechanizes it. Painting\nwas called \u201csilent poetry\u201d; and poetry, \u201cspeaking painting.\u201d The laws\nof each art are convertible into the laws of every other.\n\nHerein we have an explanation of the necessity that reigns in all the\nkingdom of Art.\n\nArising out of eternal Reason, one and perfect, whatever is beautiful\nrests on the foundation of the necessary. Nothing is arbitrary, nothing\nis insulated in beauty. It depends forever on the necessary and the\nuseful. The plumage of the bird, the mimic plumage of the insect, has a\nreason for its rich colors in the constitution of the animal. Fitness\nis so inseparable an accompaniment of beauty, that it has been taken\nfor it. The most perfect form to answer an end is so far beautiful.\nWe feel, in seeing a noble building, which rhymes well, as we do in\nhearing a perfect song, that it is spiritually organic; that is, had a\nnecessity, in nature, for being, was one of the possible forms in the\nDivine mind, and is now only discovered and executed by the artist, not\narbitrarily composed by him.\n\nAnd so every genuine work of art has as much reason for being as the\nearth and the sun. The gayest charm of beauty has a root in the\nconstitution of things. The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the\nodes of Pindar, the tragedies of \u00c6schylus, the Doric temples, the\nGothic cathedrals, the plays of Shakspeare, all and each were made not\nfor sport, but in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and\nloving men.\n\nViewed from this point, the history of Art becomes intelligible, and,\nmoreover, one of the most agreeable studies. We see how each work of\nart sprang irresistibly from necessity, and, moreover, took its form\nfrom the broad hint of Nature. Beautiful in this wise is the obvious\norigin of all the known orders of architecture; namely, that they\nwere the idealizing of the primitive abodes of each people. There\nwas no wilfulness in the savages in this perpetuating of their first\nrude abodes. The first form in which they built a house would be the\nfirst form of their public and religious edifice also. This form\nbecomes immediately sacred in the eyes of their children, and, as more\ntraditions cluster round it, is imitated with more splendor in each\nsucceeding generation.\n\nIn like manner, it has been remarked by Goethe that the granite\nbreaks into parallelepipeds, which broken in two, one part would\nbe an obelisk; that in Upper Egypt the inhabitants would naturally\nmark a memorable spot by setting up so conspicuous a stone. Again,\nhe suggested, we may see in any stone wall, on a fragment of rock,\nthe projecting veins of harder stone, which have resisted the action\nof frost and water which has decomposed the rest. This appearance\ncertainly gave the hint of the hieroglyphics inscribed on their\nobelisk. The amphitheatre of the old Romans,--any one may see its\norigin who looks at the crowd running together to see any fight,\nsickness, or odd appearance in the street. The first comers gather\nround in a circle; those behind stand on tiptoe; and farther back they\nclimb on fences or window-sills, and so make a cup of which the object\nof attention occupies the hollow area. The architect put benches in\nthis, and enclosed the cup with a wall,--and, behold a coliseum!\n\nIt would be easy to show of many fine things in the world,--in the\ncustoms of nations, the etiquette of courts, the constitution of\ngovernments,--the origin in quite simple local necessities. Heraldry,\nfor example, and the ceremonies of a coronation, are a dignified\nrepetition of the occurrences that might befall a dragoon and his\nfootboy. The College of Cardinals were originally the parish priests\nof Rome. The leaning towers originated from the civil discords which\ninduced every lord to build a tower. Then it became a point of family\npride,--and for more pride the novelty of a leaning tower was built.\n\nThis strict dependence of Art upon material and ideal Nature, this\nadamantine necessity which underlies it, has made all its past, and\nmay foreshow its future history. It never was in the power of any man,\nor any community, to call the arts into being. They come to serve his\nactual wants, never to please his fancy. These arts have their origin\nalways in some enthusiasm, as love, patriotism, or religion. Who carved\nmarble? The believing man, who wished to symbolize their gods to the\nwaiting Greeks.\n\nThe Gothic cathedrals were built when the builder and the priest and\nthe people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid every\nstone. The Madonnas of Raphael and Titian were made to be worshipped.\nTragedy was instituted for the like purpose, and the miracles of\nmusic: all sprang out of some genuine enthusiasm, and never out of\ndilettanteism and holidays. Now they languish, because their purpose\nis merely exhibition. Who cares, who knows what works of art our\ngovernment have ordered to be made for the Capitol? They are a mere\nflourish to please the eye of persons who have associations with\nbooks and galleries. But in Greece, the Demos of Athens divided into\npolitical factions upon the merits of Phidias.\n\nIn this country, at this time, other interests than religion and\npatriotism are predominant, and the arts, the daughters of enthusiasm,\ndo not flourish. The genuine offspring of our ruling passions we\nbehold. Popular institutions, the school, the reading-room, the\ntelegraph, the post-office, the exchange, the insurance-company, and\nthe immense harvest of economical inventions, are the fruit of the\nequality and the boundless liberty of lucrative callings. These are\nsuperficial wants; and their fruits are these superficial institutions.\nBut as far as they accelerate the end of political freedom and\nnational education, they are preparing the soil of man for fairer\nflowers and fruits in another age. For beauty, truth, and goodness\nare not obsolete; they spring eternal in the breast of man; they are\nas indigenous in Massachusetts as in Tuscany or the Isles of Greece.\nAnd that Eternal Spirit, whose triple face they are, moulds from them\nforever, for his mortal child, images to remind him of the Infinite and\nFair.\n\n\n\n\nELOQUENCE.\n\n\n\n\nELOQUENCE.\n\n\nIt is the doctrine of the popular music-masters, that whoever can\nspeak can sing. So, probably, every man is eloquent once in his life.\nOur temperaments differ in capacity of heat, or, we boil at different\ndegrees. One man is brought to the boiling-point by the excitement of\nconversation in the parlor. The waters, of course, are not very deep.\nHe has a two-inch enthusiasm, a patty-pan ebullition. Another requires\nthe additional caloric of a multitude, and a public debate; a third\nneeds an antagonist, or a hot indignation; a fourth needs a revolution;\nand a fifth, nothing less than the grandeur of absolute ideas, the\nsplendors and shades of Heaven and Hell.\n\nBut because every man is an orator, how long soever he may have been\na mute, an assembly of men is so much more susceptible. The eloquence\nof one stimulates all the rest, some up to the speaking-point, and\nall others to a degree that makes them good receivers and conductors,\nand they avenge themselves for their enforced silence by increased\nloquacity on their return to the fireside.\n\nThe plight of these phlegmatic brains is better than that of those\nwho prematurely boil, and who impatiently break silence before their\ntime. Our county conventions often exhibit a small-pot-soon-hot style\nof eloquence. We are too much reminded of a medical experiment where a\nseries of patients are taking nitrous-oxide gas. Each patient, in turn,\nexhibits similar symptoms,--redness in the face, volubility, violent\ngesticulation, delirious attitudes, occasional stamping, an alarming\nloss of perception of the passage of time, a selfish enjoyment of his\nsensations, and loss of perception of the sufferings of the audience.\n\nPlato says, that the punishment which the wise suffer, who refuse to\ntake part in the government, is, to live under the government of worse\nmen; and the like regret is suggested to all the auditors, as the\npenalty of abstaining to speak,--that they shall hear worse orators\nthan themselves.\n\nBut this lust to speak marks the universal feeling of the energy of\nthe engine, and the curiosity men feel to touch the springs. Of all\nthe musical instruments on which men play, a popular assembly is\nthat which has the largest compass and variety, and out of which,\nby genius and study, the most wonderful effects can be drawn. An\naudience is not a simple addition of the individuals that compose it.\nTheir sympathy gives them a certain social organism, which fills each\nmember, in his own degree, and most of all the orator, as a jar in a\nbattery is charged with the whole electricity of the battery. No one\ncan survey the face of an excited assembly, without being apprised\nof new opportunity for painting in fire human thought, and being\nagitated to agitate. How many orators sit mute there below! They come\nto get justice done to that ear and intuition which no Chatham and no\nDemosthenes has begun to satisfy.\n\nThe Welsh Triads say, \u201cMany are the friends of the golden tongue.\u201d\nWho can wonder at the attractiveness of Parliament, or of Congress,\nor the bar, for our ambitious young men, when the highest bribes of\nsociety are at the feet of the successful orator? He has his audience\nat his devotion. All other fames must hush before his. He is the\ntrue potentate; for they are not kings who sit on thrones, but they\nwho know how to govern. The definitions of eloquence describe its\nattraction for young men. Antiphon the Rhamnusian, one of Plutarch\u2019s\nten orators, advertised in Athens, \u201cthat he would cure distempers of\nthe mind with words.\u201d No man has a prosperity so high or firm but two\nor three words can dishearten it. There is no calamity which right\nwords will not begin to redress. Isocrates described his art as \u201cthe\npower of magnifying what was small and diminishing what was great,\u201d--an\nacute but partial definition. Among the Spartans, the art assumed a\nSpartan shape, namely, of the sharpest weapon. Socrates says: \u201cIf\nany one wishes to converse with the meanest of the Laced\u00e6monians, he\nwill at first find him despicable in conversation; but, when a proper\nopportunity offers, this same person, like a skilful jaculator, will\nhurl a sentence worthy of attention, short and contorted, so that he\nwho converses with him will appear to be in no respect superior to a\nboy.\u201d Plato\u2019s definition of rhetoric is, \u201cthe art of ruling the minds\nof men.\u201d The Koran says, \u201cA mountain may change its place, but a man\nwill not change his disposition\u201d yet the end of eloquence is,--is it\nnot?--to alter in a pair of hours, perhaps in a half-hour\u2019s discourse,\nthe convictions and habits of years. Young men, too, are eager to enjoy\nthis sense of added power and enlarged sympathetic existence. The\norator sees himself the organ of a multitude, and concentrating their\nvalors and powers:\n\n  \u201cBut now the blood of twenty thousand men\n  Blushed in my face.\u201d\n\nThat which he wishes, that which eloquence ought to reach, is, not a\nparticular skill in telling a story, or neatly summing up evidence,\nor arguing logically, or dexterously addressing the prejudice of the\ncompany,--no, but a taking sovereign possession of the audience. Him\nwe call an artist, who shall play on an assembly of men as a master on\nthe keys of the piano,--who, seeing the people furious, shall soften\nand compose them, shall draw them, when he will, to laughter and to\ntears. Bring him to his audience, and, be they who they may,--coarse or\nrefined, pleased or displeased, sulky or savage, with their opinions\nin the keeping of a confessor, or with their opinions in their\nbank-safes,--he will have them pleased and humored as he chooses; and\nthey shall carry and execute that which he bids them.\n\nThis is that despotism which poets have celebrated in the \u201cPied Piper\nof Hamelin,\u201d whose music drew like the power of gravitation,--drew\nsoldiers and priests, traders and feasters, women and boys, rats and\nmice; or that of the minstrel of Meudon, who made the pall-bearers\ndance around the bier. This is a power of many degrees, and requiring\nin the orator a great range of faculty and experience, requiring a\nlarge composite man, such as Nature rarely organizes; so that, in our\nexperience, we are forced to gather up the figure in fragments, here\none talent, and there another.\n\nThe audience is a constant metre of the orator. There are many\naudiences in every public assembly, each one of which rules in turn.\nIf anything comic and coarse is spoken, you shall see the emergence\nof the boys and rowdies, so loud and vivacious that you might think\nthe house was filled with them. If new topics are started, graver and\nhigher, these roisters recede; a more chaste and wise attention takes\nplace. You would think the boys slept, and that the men have any degree\nof profoundness. If the speaker utter a noble sentiment, the attention\ndeepens, a new and highest audience now listens, and the audiences\nof the fun and of facts and of the understanding are all silenced\nand awed. There is also something excellent in every audience,--the\ncapacity of virtue. They are ready to be beatified. They know so much\nmore than the orator,--and are so just! There is a tablet there for\nevery line he can inscribe, though he should mount to the highest\nlevels. Humble persons are conscious of new illumination; narrow brows\nexpand with enlarged affections;--delicate spirits, long unknown to\nthemselves, masked and muffled in coarsest fortunes, who now hear their\nown native language for the first time, and leap to hear it. But all\nthese several audiences, each above each, which successively appear to\ngreet the variety of style and topic, are really composed out of the\nsame persons; nay, sometimes the same individual will take active part\nin them all, in turn.\n\nThis range of many powers in the consummate speaker, and of many\naudiences in one assembly, leads us to consider the successive stages\nof oratory.\n\nPerhaps it is the lowest of the qualities of an orator, but it is, on\nso many occasions, of chief importance,--a certain robust and radiant\nphysical health; or,--shall I say?--great volumes of animal heat. When\neach auditor feels himself to make too large a part of the assembly,\nand shudders with cold at the thinness of the morning audience, and\nwith fear lest all will heavily fail through one bad speech, mere\nenergy and mellowness are then inestimable. Wisdom and learning would\nbe harsh and unwelcome, compared with a substantial cordial man, made\nof milk, as we say, who is a house-warmer, with his obvious honesty\nand good meaning, and a hue-and-cry style of harangue, which inundates\nthe assembly with a flood of animal spirits, and makes all safe and\nsecure, so that any and every sort of good speaking becomes at once\npracticable. I do not rate this animal eloquence very highly; and yet,\nas we must be fed and warmed before we can do any work well,--even the\nbest,--so is this semi-animal exuberance, like a good stove, of the\nfirst necessity in a cold house.\n\nClimate has much to do with it,--climate and race. Set a New-Englander\nto describe any accident which happened in his presence. What\nhesitation and reserve in his narrative! He tells with difficulty some\nparticulars, and gets as fast as he can to the result, and, though he\ncannot describe, hopes to suggest the whole scene. Now listen to a\npoor Irishwoman recounting some experience of hers. Her speech flows\nlike a river,--so unconsidered, so humorous, so pathetic, such justice\ndone to all the parts! It is a true transubstantiation,--the fact\nconverted into speech, all warm and colored and alive, as it fell out.\nOur Southern people are almost all speakers, and have every advantage\nover the New England people, whose climate is so cold that, \u2019tis said,\nwe do not like to open our mouths very wide. But neither can the\nSoutherner in the United States, nor the Irish, compare with the lively\ninhabitant of the south of Europe. The traveller in Sicily needs no\ngayer melodramatic exhibition than the _table d\u2019h\u00f4te_ of his inn will\nafford him in the conversation of the joyous guests. They mimic the\nvoice and manner of the person they describe; they crow, squeal, hiss,\ncackle, bark, and scream like mad, and, were it only by the physical\nstrength exerted in telling the story, keep the table in unbounded\nexcitement. But in every constitution some large degree of animal vigor\nis necessary as material foundation for the higher qualities of the art.\n\nBut eloquence must be attractive, or it is none. The virtue of books\nis, to be readable, and of orators, to be interesting; and this is\na gift of Nature; as Demosthenes, the most laborious student in\nthat kind, signified his sense of this necessity when he wrote,\n\u201cGood Fortune,\u201d as his motto on his shield. As we know, the power of\ndiscourse of certain individuals amounts to fascination, though it may\nhave no lasting effect. Some portion of this sugar must intermingle.\nThe right eloquence needs no bell to call the people together, and no\nconstable to keep them. It draws the children from their play, the\nold from their arm-chairs, the invalid from his warm chamber: it holds\nthe hearer fast; steals away his feet, that he shall not depart,--his\nmemory, that he shall not remember the most pressing affairs,--his\nbelief, that he shall not admit any opposing considerations. The\npictures we have of it in semi-barbarous ages, when it has some\nadvantages in the simpler habit of the people, show what it aims at. It\nis said that the Khans, or story-tellers, in Ispahan and other cities\nof the East, attain a controlling power over their audience, keeping\nthem for many hours attentive to the most fanciful and extravagant\nadventures. The whole world knows pretty well the style of these\nimprovisators, and how fascinating they are, in our translations of the\n\u201cArabian Nights.\u201d Scheherezade tells these stories to save her life,\nand the delight of young Europe and young America in them proves that\nshe fairly earned it. And who does not remember in childhood some white\nor black or yellow Scheherezade, who, by that talent of telling endless\nfeats of fairies and magicians, and kings and queens, was more dear and\nwonderful to a circle of children than any orator in England or America\nis now? The more indolent and imaginative complexion of the Eastern\nnations makes them much more impressible by these appeals to the fancy.\n\nThese legends are only exaggerations of real occurrences, and every\nliterature contains these high compliments to the art of the orator\nand the bard, from the Hebrew and the Greek down to the Scottish\nGlenkindie, who\n\n      \u201charpit a fish out o\u2019 saut-water,\n    Or water out of a stone,\n  Or milk out of a maiden\u2019s breast\n    Who bairn had never none.\u201d\n\nHomer specially delighted in drawing the same figure. For what is the\n\u201cOdyssey\u201d but a history of the orator, in the largest style, carried\nthrough a series of adventures furnishing brilliant opportunities to\nhis talent? See with what care and pleasure the poet brings him on the\nstage. Helen is pointing out to Priam, from a tower, the different\nGrecian chiefs. \u201cThe old man asked: \u2018Tell me, dear child, who is\nthat man, shorter by a head than Agamemnon, yet he looks broader in\nhis shoulders and breast. His arms lie on the ground, but he, like a\nleader, walks about the bands of the men. He seems to me like a stately\nram, who goes as a master of the flock.\u2019 Him answered Helen, daughter\nof Jove: \u2018This is the wise Ulysses, son of Laertes, who was reared\nin the state of craggy Ithaca, knowing all wiles and wise counsels.\u2019\nTo her the prudent Antenor replied again: \u2018O woman, you have spoken\ntruly. For once the wise Ulysses came hither on an embassy, with\nMenelaus, beloved by Mars. I received them, and entertained them at my\nhouse. I became acquainted with the genius and the prudent judgments\nof both. When they mixed with the assembled Trojans, and stood, the\nbroad shoulders of Menelaus rose above the other; but, both sitting,\nUlysses was more majestic. When they conversed, and interweaved stories\nand opinions with all, Menelaus spoke succinctly,--few but very sweet\nwords, since he was not talkative, nor superfluous in speech, and was\nthe younger. But when the wise Ulysses arose, and stood, and looked\ndown, fixing his eyes on the ground, and neither moved his sceptre\nbackward nor forward, but held it still, like an awkward person, you\nwould say it was some angry or foolish man; but when he sent his\ngreat voice forth out of his breast, and his words fell like the\nwinter snows, not then would any mortal contend with Ulysses; and we,\nbeholding, wondered not afterwards so much at his aspect.\u2019\u201d[B] Thus he\ndoes not fail to arm Ulysses at first with this power of overcoming\nall opposition by the blandishments of speech. Plutarch tells us that\nThucydides, when Archidamus, king of Sparta, asked him which was the\nbest wrestler,--Pericles or he,--replied, \u201cWhen I throw him, he says he\nwas never down, and he persuades the very spectators to believe him.\u201d\nPhilip of Macedon said of Demosthenes, on hearing the report of one of\nhis orations, \u201cHad I been there, he would have persuaded me to take up\narms against myself\u201d; and Warren Hastings said of Burke\u2019s speech on\nhis impeachment, \u201cAs I listened to the orator, I felt for more than\nhalf an hour as if I were the most culpable being on earth.\u201d\n\nIn these examples, higher qualities have already entered; but the power\nof detaining the ear by pleasing speech, and addressing the fancy and\nimagination, often exists without higher merits. Thus separated, as\nthis fascination of discourse aims only at amusement, though it be\ndecisive in its momentary effect, it is yet a juggle, and of no lasting\npower. It is heard like a band of music passing through the streets,\nwhich converts all the passengers into poets, but is forgotten as soon\nas it has turned the next corner; and unless this oiled tongue could,\nin Oriental phrase, lick the sun and moon away, it must take its place\nwith opium and brandy. I know no remedy against it but cotton-wool, or\nthe wax which Ulysses stuffed into the ears of his sailors to pass the\nSirens safely.\n\nThere are all degrees of power, and the least are interesting, but\nthey must not be confounded. There is the glib tongue and cool\nself-possession of the salesman in a large shop, which, as is well\nknown, overpower the prudence and resolution of housekeepers of both\nsexes. There is a petty lawyer\u2019s fluency, which is sufficiently\nimpressive to him who is devoid of that talent, though it be, in so\nmany cases, nothing more than a facility of expressing with accuracy\nand speed what everybody thinks and says more slowly, without new\ninformation, or precision of thought,--but the same thing, neither less\nnor more. It requires no special insight to edit one of our country\nnewspapers. Yet whoever can say off currently, sentence by sentence,\nmatter neither better nor worse than what is there printed, will be\nvery impressive to our easily pleased population. These talkers are\nof that class who prosper, like the celebrated schoolmaster, by being\nonly one lesson ahead of the pupil. Add a little sarcasm, and prompt\nallusion to passing occurrences, and you have the mischievous member\nof Congress. A spice of malice, a ruffian touch in his rhetoric,\nwill do him no harm with his audience. These accomplishments are\nof the same kind, and only a degree higher than the coaxing of the\nauctioneer, or the vituperative style well described in the street-word\n\u201cjawing.\u201d These kinds of public and private speaking have their use and\nconvenience to the practitioners; but we may say of such collectively,\nthat the habit of oratory is apt to disqualify them for eloquence.\n\nOne of our statesmen said, \u201cThe curse of this country is eloquent men.\u201d\nAnd one cannot wonder at the uneasiness sometimes manifested by trained\nstatesmen, with large experience of public affairs, when they observe\nthe disproportionate advantage suddenly given to oratory over the most\nsolid and accumulated public service. In a Senate or other business\ncommittee, the solid result depends on a few men with working-talent.\nThey know how to deal with the facts before them, to put things into a\npractical shape, and they value men only as they can forward the work.\nBut a new man comes there, who has no capacity for helping them at all,\nis insignificant, and nobody in the committee, but has a talent for\nspeaking. In the debate with open doors, this precious person makes a\nspeech, which is printed, and read all over the Union, and he at once\nbecomes famous, and takes the lead in the public mind over all these\nexecutive men, who, of course, are full of indignation to find one who\nhas no tact or skill, and knows he has none, put over them by means of\nthis talking-power which they despise.\n\nLeaving behind us these pretensions, better or worse, to come a little\nnearer to the verity,--eloquence is attractive as an example of the\nmagic of personal ascendency,--a total and resultant power, rare,\nbecause it requires a rich coincidence of powers, intellect, will,\nsympathy, organs, and, over all, good fortune in the cause. We have\na half-belief that the person is possible who can counterpoise all\nother persons. We believe that there may be a man who is a match for\nevents,--one who never found his match,--against whom other men being\ndashed are broken,--one of inexhaustible personal resources, who can\ngive you any odds and beat you. What we really wish for is a mind\nequal to any exigency. You are safe in your rural district, or in the\ncity, in broad daylight, amidst the police, and under the eyes of a\nhundred thousand people. But how is it on the Atlantic, in a storm,--do\nyou understand how to infuse your reason into men disabled by terror,\nand to bring yourself off safe then?--how among thieves, or among an\ninfuriated populace, or among cannibals? Face to face with a highwayman\nwho has every temptation and opportunity for violence and plunder, can\nyou bring yourself off safe by your wit, exercised through speech?--a\nproblem easy enough to C\u00e6sar or Napoleon. Whenever a man of that\nstamp arrives, the highwayman has found a master. What a difference\nbetween men in power of face! A man succeeds because he has more power\nof eye than another, and so coaxes or confounds him. The newspapers,\nevery week, report the adventures of some impudent swindler, who, by\nsteadiness of carriage, duped those who should have known better. Yet\nany swindlers we have known are novices and bunglers, as is attested\nby their ill name. A greater power of face would accomplish anything,\nand, with the rest of their takings, take away the bad name. A greater\npower of carrying the thing loftily, and with perfect assurance, would\nconfound merchant, banker, judge, men of influence and power,--poet\nand president,--and might head any party, unseat any sovereign, and\nabrogate any constitution in Europe and America. It was said that a\nman has at one step attained vast power, who has renounced his moral\nsentiment, and settled it with himself that he will no longer stick\nat anything. It was said of Sir William Pepperel, one of the worthies\nof New England, that, \u201cput him where you might, he commanded, and saw\nwhat he willed come to pass.\u201d Julius C\u00e6sar said to Metellus, when that\ntribune interfered to hinder him from entering the Roman treasury,\n\u201cYoung man, it is easier for me to put you to death than to say that I\nwill\u201d; and the youth yielded. In earlier days, he was taken by pirates.\nWhat then? He threw himself into their ship, established the most\nextraordinary intimacies, told them stories, declaimed to them; if they\ndid not applaud his speeches, he threatened them with hanging,--which\nhe performed afterwards,--and, in a short time, was master of all on\nboard. A man this is who cannot be disconcerted, and so can never play\nhis last card, but has a reserve of power when he has hit his mark.\nWith a serene face, he subverts a kingdom. What is told of him is\nmiraculous; it affects men so. The confidence of men in him is lavish,\nand he changes the face of the world, and histories, poems, and new\nphilosophies arise to account for him. A supreme commander over all\nhis passions and affections; but the secret of his ruling is higher\nthan that. It is the power of Nature running without impediment from\nthe brain and will into the hands. Men and women are his game. Where\nthey are, he cannot be without resource. \u201cWhoso can speak well,\u201d said\nLuther, \u201cis a man.\u201d It was men of this stamp that the Grecian States\nused to ask of Sparta for generals. They did not send to Laced\u00e6mon\nfor troops, but they said, \u201cSend us a commander\u201d; and Pausanias, or\nGylippus, or Brasidas, or Agis, was despatched by the Ephors.\n\nIt is easy to illustrate this overpowering personality by these\nexamples of soldiers and kings; but there are men of the most peaceful\nway of life, and peaceful principle, who are felt, wherever they go, as\nsensibly as a July sun or a December frost,--men who, if they speak,\nare heard, though they speak in a whisper,--who, when they act, act\neffectually, and what they do is imitated; and these examples may be\nfound on very humble platforms, as well as on high ones.\n\nIn old countries, a high money-value is set on the services of men who\nhave achieved a personal distinction. He who has points to carry must\nhire, not a skilful attorney, but a commanding person. A barrister\nin England is reputed to have made thirty or forty thousand pounds\n_per annum_ in representing the claims of railroad companies before\ncommittees of the House of Commons. His clients pay not so much for\nlegal as for manly accomplishments,--for courage, conduct, and a\ncommanding social position, which enable him to make their claims\nheard and respected.\n\nI know very well, that, among our cool and calculating people, where\nevery man mounts guard over himself, where heats and panics and\nabandonments are quite out of the system, there is a good deal of\nscepticism as to extraordinary influence. To talk of an overpowering\nmind rouses the same jealousy and defiance which one may observe\nround a table where anybody is recounting the marvellous anecdotes\nof mesmerism. Each auditor puts a final stroke to the discourse by\nexclaiming, \u201cCan he mesmerize _me_?\u201d So each man inquires if any orator\ncan change _his_ convictions.\n\nBut does any one suppose himself to be quite impregnable? Does he think\nthat not possibly a man may come to him who shall persuade him out of\nhis most settled determination?--for example, good sedate citizen as\nhe is, to make a fanatic of him,--or, if he is penurious, to squander\nmoney for some purpose he now least thinks of,--or, if he is a prudent,\nindustrious person, to forsake his work, and give days and weeks to\na new interest? No, he defies any one, every one. Ah! he is thinking\nof resistance, and of a different turn from his own. But what if one\nshould come of the same turn of mind as his own, and who sees much\nfarther on his own way than he? A man who has tastes like mine, but in\ngreater power, will rule me any day, and make me love my ruler.\n\nThus it is not powers of speech that we primarily consider under this\nword _eloquence_, but the power that, being present, gives them their\nperfection, and, being absent, leaves them a merely superficial value.\nEloquence is the appropriate organ of the highest personal energy.\nPersonal ascendency may exist with or without adequate talent for its\nexpression. It is as surely felt as a mountain or a planet; but when\nit is weaponed with a power of speech, it seems first to become truly\nhuman, works actively in all directions, and supplies the imagination\nwith fine materials.\n\nThis circumstance enters into every consideration of the power of\norators, and is the key to all their effects. In the assembly, you\nshall find the orator and the audience in perpetual balance; and the\npredominance of either is indicated by the choice of topic. If the\ntalents for speaking exist, but not the strong personality, then there\nare good speakers who perfectly receive and express the will of the\naudience, and the commonest populace is flattered by hearing its low\nmind returned to it with every ornament which happy talent can add. But\nif there be personality in the orator, the face of things changes. The\naudience is thrown into the attitude of pupil, follows like a child its\npreceptor, and hears what he has to say. It is as if, amidst the king\u2019s\ncouncil at Madrid, Ximenes urged that an advantage might be gained of\nFrance, and Mendoza that Flanders might be kept down, and Columbus,\nbeing introduced, was interrogated whether his geographical knowledge\ncould aid the cabinet, and he can say nothing to one party or to the\nother, but he can show how all Europe can be diminished and reduced\nunder the king, by annexing to Spain a continent as large as six or\nseven Europes.\n\nThis balance between the orator and the audience is expressed in what\nis called the pertinence of the speaker. There is always a rivalry\nbetween the orator and the occasion, between the demands of the hour\nand the prepossession of the individual. The emergency which has\nconvened the meeting is usually of more importance than anything the\ndebaters have in their minds, and therefore becomes imperative to them.\nBut if one of them have anything of commanding necessity in his heart,\nhow speedily he will find vent for it, and with the applause of the\nassembly! This balance is observed in the privatest intercourse. Poor\nTom never knew the time when the present occurrence was so trivial that\nhe could tell what was passing in his mind without being checked for\nunseasonable speech; but let Bacon speak, and wise men would rather\nlisten, though the revolution of kingdoms was on foot. I have heard\nit reported of an eloquent preacher, whose voice is not yet forgotten\nin this city, that, on occasions of death or tragic disaster, which\noverspread the congregation with gloom, he ascended the pulpit with\nmore than his usual alacrity, and, turning to his favorite lessons of\ndevout and jubilant thankfulness,--\u201cLet us praise the Lord,\u201d--carried\naudience, mourners, and mourning along with him, and swept away all the\nimpertinence of private sorrow with his hosannas and songs of praise.\nPepys says of Lord Clarendon (with whom \u201che is mad in love\u201d), on his\nreturn from a conference, \u201cI did never observe how much easier a man do\nspeak when he knows all the company to be below him, than in him; for,\nthough he spoke indeed excellent well, yet his manner and freedom of\ndoing it, as if he played with it, and was informing only all the rest\nof the company, was mighty pretty.\u201d[C]\n\nThis rivalry between the orator and the occasion is inevitable, and\nthe occasion always yields to the eminence of the speaker; for a great\nman is the greatest of occasions. Of course, the interest of the\naudience and of the orator conspire. It is well with them only when his\ninfluence is complete; then only they are well pleased. Especially, he\nconsults his power by making instead of taking his theme. If he should\nattempt to instruct the people in that which they already know, he\nwould fail; but, by making them wise in that which he knows, he has\nthe advantage of the assembly every moment. Napoleon\u2019s tactics of\nmarching on the angle of an army, and always presenting a superiority\nof numbers, is the orator\u2019s secret also.\n\nThe several talents which the orator employs, the splendid weapons\nwhich went to the equipment of Demosthenes, of \u00c6schines, of Demades\nthe natural orator, of Fox, of Pitt, of Patrick Henry, of Adams, of\nMirabeau, deserve a special enumeration. We must not quite omit to name\nthe principal pieces.\n\nThe orator, as we have seen, must be a substantial personality. Then,\nfirst, he must have power of statement,--must have the fact, and\nknow how to tell it. In any knot of men conversing on any subject,\nthe person who knows most about it will have the ear of the company,\nif he wishes it, and lead the conversation,--no matter what genius\nor distinction other men there present may have; and in any public\nassembly, him who has the facts, and can and will state them, people\nwill listen to, though he is otherwise ignorant, though he is hoarse\nand ungraceful, though he stutters and screams.\n\nIn a court of justice, the audience are impartial; they really wish to\nsift the statements and know what the truth is. And in the examination\nof witnesses there usually leap out, quite unexpectedly, three or four\nstubborn words or phrases which are the pith and fate of the business,\nwhich sink into the ear of all parties, and stick there, and determine\nthe cause. All the rest is repetition and qualifying; and the court\nand the county have really come together to arrive at these three or\nfour memorable expressions, which betrayed the mind and meaning of\nsomebody.\n\nIn every company, the man with the fact is like the guide you hire to\nlead your party up a mountain, or through a difficult country. He may\nnot compare with any of the party in mind, or breeding, or courage, or\npossessions, but he is much more important to the present need than\nany of them. That is what we go to the court-house for,--the statement\nof the fact, and the elimination of a general fact, the real relation\nof all the parties; and it is the certainty with which, indifferently\nin any affair that is well handled, the truth stares us in the face,\nthrough all the disguises that are put upon it,--a piece of the\nwell-known human life,--that makes the interest of a court-room to the\nintelligent spectator.\n\nI remember, long ago, being attracted by the distinction of the\ncounsel, and the local importance of the cause, into the court-room.\nThe prisoner\u2019s counsel were the strongest and cunningest lawyers in\nthe Commonwealth. They drove the attorney for the State from corner to\ncorner, taking his reasons from under him, and reducing him to silence,\nbut not to submission. When hard pressed, he revenged himself, in his\nturn, on the judge, by requiring the court to define what salvage was.\nThe court, thus pushed, tried words, and said everything it could\nthink of to fill the time, supposing cases, and describing duties of\ninsurers, captains, pilots, and miscellaneous sea-officers that are or\nmight be,--like a schoolmaster puzzled by a hard sum, who reads the\ncontext with emphasis. But all this flood not serving the cuttle-fish\nto get away in, the horrible shark of the district-attorney being still\nthere, grimly awaiting with his \u201cThe court must define,\u201d--the poor\ncourt pleaded its inferiority. The superior court must establish the\nlaw for this, and it read away piteously the decisions of the Supreme\nCourt, but read to those who had no pity. The judge was forced at last\nto rule something, and the lawyers saved their rogue under the fog\nof a definition. The parts were so well cast and discriminated, that\nit was an interesting game to watch. The government was well enough\nrepresented. It was stupid, but it had a strong will and possession,\nand stood on that to the last. The judge had a task beyond his\npreparation, yet his position remained real: he was there to represent\na great reality,--the justice of states, which we could well enough see\nbeetling over his head, and which his trifling talk nowise affected,\nand did not impede, since he was entirely well-meaning.\n\nThe statement of the fact, however, sinks before the statement of\nthe law, which requires immeasurably higher powers, and is a rarest\ngift, being in all great masters one and the same thing,--in\nlawyers, nothing technical, but always some piece of common sense,\nalike interesting to laymen as to clerks. Lord Mansfield\u2019s merit\nis the merit of common sense. It is the same quality we admire in\nAristotle, Montaigne, Cervantes, or in Samuel Johnson, or Franklin. Its\napplication to law seems quite accidental. Each of Mansfield\u2019s famous\ndecisions contains a level sentence or two, which hit the mark. His\nsentences are not always finished to the eye, but are finished to the\nmind. The sentences are involved, but a solid proposition is set forth,\na true distinction is drawn. They come from and they go to the sound\nhuman understanding; and I read without surprise that the black-letter\nlawyers of the day sneered at his \u201cequitable decisions,\u201d as if they\nwere not also learned. This, indeed, is what speech is for,--to make\nthe statement; and all that is called eloquence seems to me of little\nuse, for the most part, to those who have if, but inestimable to such\nas have something to say.\n\nNext to the knowledge of the fact and its law is method, which\nconstitutes the genius and efficiency of all remarkable men. A crowd\nof men go up to Faneuil Hall; they are all pretty well acquainted with\nthe object of the meeting; they have all read the facts in the same\nnewspapers. The orator possesses no information which his hearers have\nnot; yet he teaches them to see the thing with his eyes. By the new\nplacing, the circumstances acquire new solidity and worth. Every fact\ngains consequence by his naming it, and trifles become important. His\nexpressions fix themselves in men\u2019s memories, and fly from mouth to\nmouth. His mind has some new principle of order. Where he looks, all\nthings fly into their places. What will he say next? Let this man\nspeak, and this man only. By applying the habits of a higher style of\nthought to the common affairs of this world, he introduces beauty and\nmagnificence wherever he goes. Such a power was Burke\u2019s, and of this\ngenius we have had some brilliant examples in our own political and\nlegal men.\n\nImagery. The orator must be, to a certain extent, a poet. We are\nsuch imaginative creatures, that nothing so works on the human mind,\nbarbarous or civil, as a trope. Condense some daily experience into a\nglowing symbol, and an audience is electrified. They feel as if they\nalready possessed some new right and power over a fact, which they can\ndetach, and so completely master in thought. It is a wonderful aid to\nthe memory, which carries away the image, and never loses it. A popular\nassembly, like the House of Commons, or the French Chamber, or the\nAmerican Congress, is commanded by these two powers,--first by a fact,\nthen by skill of statement. Put the argument into a concrete shape,\ninto an image,--some hard phrase, round and solid as a ball, which they\ncan see and handle and carry home with them,--and the cause is half\nwon.\n\nStatement, method, imagery, selection, tenacity of memory, power of\ndealing with facts, of illuminating them, of sinking them by ridicule\nor by diversion of the mind, rapid generalization, humor, pathos,\nare keys which the orator holds; and yet these fine gifts are not\neloquence, and do often hinder a man\u2019s attainment of it. And if we\ncome to the heart of the mystery, perhaps we should say that the truly\neloquent man is a sane man with power to communicate his sanity. If\nyou arm the man with the extraordinary weapons of this art, give him\na grasp of facts, learning, quick fancy, sarcasm, splendid allusion,\ninterminable illustration,--all these talents, so potent and charming,\nhave an equal power to insnare and mislead the audience and the orator.\nHis talents are too much for him, his horses run away with him; and\npeople always perceive whether you drive, or whether the horses take\nthe bits in their teeth and run. But these talents are quite something\nelse when they are subordinated and serve him; and we go to Washington,\nor to Westminster Hall, or might well go round the world, to see a\nman who drives, and is not run away with,--a man who, in prosecuting\ngreat designs, has an absolute command of the means of representing his\nideas, and uses them only to express these; placing facts, placing men;\namid the inconceivable levity of human beings, never for an instant\nwarped from his erectness. There is for every man a statement possible\nof that truth which he is most unwilling to receive,--a statement\npossible, so broad and so pungent that he cannot get away from it, but\nmust either bend to it or die of it. Else there would be no such word\nas eloquence, which means this. The listener cannot hide from himself\nthat something has been shown him and the whole world, which he did\nnot wish to see; and, as he cannot dispose of it, it disposes of him.\nThe history of public men and affairs in America will readily furnish\ntragic examples of this fatal force.\n\nFor the triumphs of the art somewhat more must still be required,\nnamely, a reinforcing of man from events, so as to give the double\nforce of reason and destiny. In transcendent eloquence, there was\never some crisis in affairs, such as could deeply engage the man to\nthe cause he pleads, and draw all this wide power to a point. For\nthe explosions and eruptions, there must be accumulations of heat\nsomewhere, beds of ignited anthracite at the centre. And in cases where\nprofound conviction has been wrought, the eloquent man is he who is no\nbeautiful speaker, but who is inwardly drunk with a certain belief. It\nagitates and tears him, and perhaps almost bereaves him of the power\nof articulation. Then it rushes from him as in short, abrupt screams,\nin torrents of meaning. The possession the subject has of his mind is\nso entire, that it insures an order of expression which is the order\nof Nature itself, and so the order of greatest force, and inimitable\nby any art. And the main distinction between him and other well-graced\nactors is the conviction, communicated by every word, that his mind is\ncontemplating a whole, and inflamed by the contemplation of the whole,\nand that the words and sentences uttered by him, however admirable,\nfall from him as unregarded parts of that terrible whole which he\nsees, and which he means that you shall see. Add to this concentration\na certain regnant calmness, which, in all the tumult, never utters a\npremature syllable, but keeps the secret of its means and method; and\nthe orator stands before the people as a demoniacal power to whose\nmiracles they have no key. This terrible earnestness makes good the\nancient superstition of the hunter, that the bullet will hit its mark,\nwhich is first dipped in the marksman\u2019s blood.\n\nEloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards, it\nmay warm itself until it exhales symbols of every kind and color,\nspeaks only through the most poetic forms; but, first and last, it\nmust still be at bottom a biblical statement of fact. The orator is\nthereby an orator, that he keeps his feet ever on a fact. Thus only\nis he invincible. No gifts, no graces, no power of wit or learning or\nillustration, will make any amends for want of this. All audiences\nare just to this point. Fame of voice or of rhetoric will carry people\na few times to hear a speaker; but they soon begin to ask, \u201cWhat\nis he driving at?\u201d and if this man does not stand for anything, he\nwill be deserted. A good upholder of anything which they believe, a\nfact-speaker of any kind, they will long follow; but a pause in the\nspeaker\u2019s own character is very properly a loss of attraction. The\npreacher enumerates his classes of men, and I do not find my place\ntherein; I suspect, then, that no man does. Everything is my cousin;\nand whilst he speaks things, I feel that he is touching some of my\nrelations, and I am uneasy; but whilst he deals in words, we are\nreleased from attention. If you would lift me, you must be on higher\nground. If you would liberate me, you must be free. If you would\ncorrect my false view of facts,--hold up to me the same facts in the\ntrue order of thought, and I cannot go back from the new conviction.\n\nThe power of Chatham, of Pericles, of Luther, rested on this strength\nof character, which, because it did not and could not fear anybody,\nmade nothing of their antagonists, and became sometimes exquisitely\nprovoking and sometimes terrific to these.\n\nWe are slenderly furnished with anecdotes of these men, nor can we help\nourselves by those heavy books in which their discourses are reported.\nSome of them were writers, like Burke; but most of them were not,\nand no record at all adequate to their fame remains. Besides, what\nis best is lost,--the fiery life of the moment. But the conditions\nfor eloquence always exist. It is always dying out of famous places,\nand appearing in corners. Wherever the polarities meet, wherever the\nfresh moral sentiment, the instinct of freedom and duty, come in\ndirect opposition to fossil conservatism and the thirst of gain, the\nspark will pass. The resistance to slavery in this country has been a\nfruitful nursery of orators. The natural connection by which it drew\nto itself a train of moral reforms, and the slight yet sufficient\nparty organization it offered, reinforced the city with new blood from\nthe woods and mountains. Wild men, John Baptists, Hermit Peters, John\nKnoxes, utter the savage sentiment of Nature in the heart of commercial\ncapitals. They send us every year some piece of aboriginal strength,\nsome tough oak-stick of a man who is not to be silenced or insulted\nor intimidated by a mob, because he is more mob than they,--one who\nmobs the mob,--some sturdy countryman, on whom neither money, nor\npoliteness, nor hard words, nor eggs, nor blows, nor brickbats, make\nany impression. He is fit to meet the bar-room wits and bullies; he is\na wit and a bully himself, and something more: he is a graduate of the\nplough, and the stub-hoe, and the bushwhacker; knows all the secrets\nof swamp and snow-bank, and has nothing to learn of labor or poverty\nor the rough of farming. His hard head went through, in childhood, the\ndrill of Calvinism, with text and mortification, so that he stands\nin the New England assembly a purer bit of New England than any, and\nflings his sarcasms right and left. He has not only the documents in\nhis pocket to answer all cavils, and to prove all his positions, but\nhe has the eternal reason in his head. This man scornfully renounces\nyour civil organizations,--county, or city, or governor, or army,--is\nhis own navy and artillery, judge and jury, legislature and executive.\nHe has learned his lessons in a bitter school. Yet, if the pupil be of\na texture to bear it, the best university that can be recommended to a\nman of ideas is the gauntlet of the mobs.\n\nHe who will train himself to mastery in this science of persuasion must\nlay the emphasis of education, not on popular arts, but on character\nand insight. Let him see that his speech is not differenced from\naction; that, when he has spoken, he has not done nothing, nor done\nwrong, but has cleared his own skirts, has engaged himself to wholesome\nexertion. Let him look on opposition as opportunity. He cannot be\ndefeated or put down. There is a principle of resurrection in him, an\nimmortality of purpose. Men are averse and hostile, to give value to\ntheir suffrages. It is not the people that are in fault for not being\nconvinced, but he that cannot convince them. He should mould them,\narmed as he is with the reason and love which are also the core of\ntheir nature. He is not to neutralize their opposition, but he is to\nconvert them into fiery apostles and publishers of the same wisdom.\n\nThe highest platform of eloquence is the moral sentiment. It is what\nis called affirmative truth, and has the property of invigorating the\nhearer; and it conveys a hint of our eternity, when he feels himself\naddressed on grounds which will remain when everything else is taken,\nand which have no trace of time or place or party. Everything hostile\nis stricken down in the presence of the sentiments; their majesty is\nfelt by the most obdurate. It is observable that, as soon as one acts\nfor large masses, the moral element will and must be allowed for,\nwill and must work; and the men least accustomed to appeal to these\nsentiments invariably recall them when they address nations. Napoleon,\neven, must accept and use it as he can.\n\nIt is only to these simple strokes that the highest power\nbelongs,--when a weak human hand touches, point by point, the eternal\nbeams and rafters on which the whole structure of Nature and society\nis laid. In this tossing sea of delusion, we feel with our feet the\nadamant; in this dominion of chance, we find a principle of permanence.\nFor I do not accept that definition of Isocrates, that the office of\nhis art is, to make the great small and the small great; but I esteem\nthis to be its perfection,--when the orator sees through all masks to\nthe eternal scale of truth, in such sort that he can hold up before\nthe eyes of men the fact of to-day steadily to that standard, thereby\nmaking the great great, and the small small, which is the true way to\nastonish and to reform mankind.\n\nAll the chief orators of the world have been grave men, relying on\nthis reality. One thought the philosophers of Demosthenes\u2019s own time\nfound running through all his orations,--this namely, that \u201cvirtue\nsecures its own success.\u201d \u201cTo stand on one\u2019s own feet\u201d Heeren finds the\nkey-note to the discourses of Demosthenes, as of Chatham.\n\nEloquence, like every other art, rests on laws the most exact and\ndeterminate. It is the best speech of the best soul. It may well stand\nas the exponent of all that is grand and immortal in the mind. If it do\nnot so become an instrument, but aspires to be somewhat of itself, and\nto glitter for show, it is false and weak. In its right exercise, it\nis an elastic, unexhausted power,--who has sounded, who has estimated\nit?--expanding with the expansion of our interests and affections. Its\ngreat masters, whilst they valued every help to its attainment, and\nthought no pains too great which contributed in any manner to further\nit;--resembling the Arabian warrior of fame, who wore seventeen weapons\nin his belt, and in personal combat used them all occasionally;--yet\nsubordinated all means; never permitted any talent--neither voice,\nrhythm, poetic power, anecdote, sarcasm--to appear for show; but were\ngrave men, who preferred their integrity to their talent, and esteemed\nthat object for which they toiled, whether the prosperity of their\ncountry, or the laws, or a reformation, or liberty of speech or of the\npress, or letters, or morals, as above the whole world, and themselves\nalso.\n\n\n\n\nDOMESTIC LIFE.\n\n\n\n\nDOMESTIC LIFE.\n\n\nThe perfection of the providence for childhood is easily acknowledged.\nThe care which covers the seed of the tree under tough husks and stony\ncases provides for the human plant the mother\u2019s breast and the father\u2019s\nhouse. The size of the nestler is comic, and its tiny beseeching\nweakness is compensated perfectly by the happy patronizing look of the\nmother, who is a sort of high reposing Providence toward it. Welcome to\nthe parents the puny struggler, strong in his weakness, his little arms\nmore irresistible than the soldier\u2019s, his lips touched with persuasion\nwhich Chatham and Pericles in manhood had not. His unaffected\nlamentations when he lifts up his voice on high, or, more beautiful,\nthe sobbing child,--the face all liquid grief, as he tries to swallow\nhis vexation,--soften all hearts to pity, and to mirthful and\nclamorous compassion. The small despot asks so little that all reason\nand all nature are on his side. His ignorance is more charming than\nall knowledge, and his little sins more bewitching than any virtue.\nHis flesh is angels\u2019 flesh, all alive. \u201cInfancy,\u201d said Coleridge,\n\u201cpresents body and spirit in unity: the body is all animated.\u201d All\nday, between his three or four sleeps, he coos like a pigeon-house,\nsputters, and spurs, and puts on his faces of importance; and when he\nfasts, the little Pharisee fails not to sound his trumpet before him.\nBy lamplight he delights in shadows on the wall; by daylight, in yellow\nand scarlet. Carry him out of doors,--he is overpowered by the light\nand by the extent of natural objects, and is silent. Then presently\nbegins his use of his fingers, and he studies power, the lesson of\nhis race. First it appears in no great harm, in architectural tastes.\nOut of blocks, thread-spools, cards, and checkers, he will build his\npyramid with the gravity of Palladio. With an acoustic apparatus of\nwhistle and rattle he explores the laws of sound. But chiefly, like his\nsenior countrymen, the young American studies new and speedier modes of\ntransportation. Mistrusting the cunning of his small legs, he wishes\nto ride on the necks and shoulders of all flesh. The small enchanter\nnothing can withstand,--no seniority of age, no gravity of character;\nuncles, aunts, grandsires, grandams, fall an easy prey: he conforms to\nnobody, all conform to him; all caper and make mouths, and babble, and\nchirrup to him. On the strongest shoulders he rides, and pulls the hair\nof laurelled heads.\n\n\u201cThe childhood,\u201d said Milton, \u201cshows the man, as morning shows the\nday.\u201d The child realizes to every man his own earliest remembrance,\nand so supplies a defect in our education, or enables us to live over\nthe unconscious history with a sympathy so tender as to be almost\npersonal experience.\n\nFast--almost too fast for the wistful curiosity of the parents,\nstudious of the witchcraft of curls and dimples and broken words--the\nlittle talker grows to a boy. He walks daily among wonders: fire,\nlight, darkness, the moon, the stars, the furniture of the house, the\nred tin horse, the domestics, who like rude foster-mothers befriend and\nfeed him, the faces that claim his kisses, are all in turn absorbing;\nyet warm, cheerful, and with good appetite the little sovereign subdues\nthem without knowing it; the new knowledge is taken up into the life of\nto-day and becomes the means of more. The blowing rose is a new event;\nthe garden full of flowers is Eden over again to the small Adam; the\nrain, the ice, the frost, make epochs in his life. What a holiday is\nthe first snow in which Twoshoes can be trusted abroad!\n\nWhat art can paint or gild any object in after-life with the glow which\nNature gives to the first baubles of childhood! St. Peter\u2019s cannot\nhave the magical power over us that the red and gold covers of our\nfirst picture-book possessed. How the imagination cleaves to the warm\nglories of that tinsel even now! What entertainments make every day\nbright and short for the fine freshman! The street is old as Nature;\nthe persons all have their sacredness. His imaginative life dresses all\nthings in their best. His fears adorn the dark parts with poetry. He\nhas heard of wild horses and of bad boys, and with a pleasing terror he\nwatches at his gate for the passing of those varieties of each species.\nThe first ride into the country, the first bath in running water,\nthe first time the skates are put on, the first game out of doors in\nmoonlight, the books of the nursery, are new chapters of joy. The\n\u201cArabian Nights\u2019 Entertainments,\u201d the \u201cSeven Champions of Christendom,\u201d\n\u201cRobinson Crusoe,\u201d and the \u201cPilgrim\u2019s Progress,\u201d--what mines of thought\nand emotion, what a wardrobe to dress the whole world withal, are\nin this encyclop\u00e6dia of young thinking! And so by beautiful traits,\nwhich, without art, yet seem the masterpiece of wisdom, provoking the\nlove that watches and educates him, the little pilgrim prosecutes the\njourney through nature which he has thus gayly begun. He grows up the\nornament and joy of the house, which rings to his glee, to rosy boyhood.\n\nThe household is the home of the man, as well as of the child. The\nevents that occur therein are more near and affecting to us than\nthose which are sought in senates and academies. Domestic events are\ncertainly our affair. What are called public events may or may not\nbe ours. If a man wishes to acquaint himself with the real history\nof the world, with the spirit of the age, he must not go first to\nthe state-house or the court-room. The subtle spirit of life must be\nsought in facts nearer. It is what is done and suffered in the house,\nin the constitution, in the temperament, in the personal history, that\nhas the profoundest interest for us. Fact is better than fiction, if\nonly we could get pure fact. Do you think any rhetoric or any romance\nwould get your ear from the wise gypsy who could tell straight on the\nreal fortunes of the man; who could reconcile your moral character and\nyour natural history; who could explain your misfortunes, your fevers,\nyour debts, your temperament, your habits of thought, your tastes,\nand, in every explanation, not sever you from the whole, but unite you\nto it? Is it not plain that not in senates, or courts, or chambers\nof commerce, but in the dwelling-house must the true character and\nhope of the time be consulted? These facts are, to be sure, harder to\nread. It is easier to count the census, or compute the square extent\nof a territory, to criticise its polity, books, art, than to come to\nthe persons and dwellings of men, and read their character and hope\nin their way of life. Yet we are always hovering round this better\ndivination. In one form or another, we are always returning to it. The\nphysiognomy and phrenology of to-day are rash and mechanical systems\nenough, but they rest on everlasting foundations. We are sure that\nthe sacred form of man is not seen in these whimsical, pitiful, and\nsinister masks (masks which we wear and which we meet), these bloated\nand shrivelled bodies, bald heads, bead eyes, short winds, puny and\nprecarious healths, and early deaths. We live ruins amidst ruins. The\ngreat facts are the near ones. The account of the body is to be sought\nin the mind. The history of your fortunes is written first in your life.\n\nLet us come, then, out of the public square, and enter the domestic\nprecinct. Let us go to the sitting-room, the table-talk, and the\nexpenditure of our contemporaries. An increased consciousness of the\nsoul, you say, characterizes the period. Let us see if it has not only\narranged the atoms at the circumference, but the atoms at the core.\nDoes the household obey an idea? Do you see the man,--his form, genius,\nand aspiration,--in his economy? Is that translucent, thorough-lighted?\nThere should be nothing confounding and conventional in economy, but\nthe genius and love of the man so conspicuously marked in all his\nestate, that the eye that knew him should read his character in his\nproperty, in his grounds, in his ornaments, in every expense. A man\u2019s\nmoney should not follow the direction of his neighbor\u2019s money, but\nshould represent to him the things he would willingliest do with it. I\nam not one thing and my expenditure another. My expenditure is me. That\nour expenditure and our character are twain, is the vice of society.\n\nWe ask the price of many things in shops and stalls, but some things\neach man buys without hesitation, if it were only letters at the\npost-office, conveyance in carriages and boats, tools for his work,\nbooks that are written to his condition, etc. Let him never buy\nanything else than what he wants, never subscribe at others\u2019 instance,\nnever give unwillingly. Thus, a scholar is a literary foundation.\nAll his expense is for Aristotle, Fabricius, Erasmus, and Petrarch.\nDo not ask him to help with his savings young drapers or grocers to\nstock their shops, or eager agents to lobby in legislatures, or join a\ncompany to build a factory or a fishing-craft. These things are also\nto be done, but not by such as he. How could such a book as Plato\u2019s\nDialogues have come down, but for the sacred savings of scholars and\ntheir fantastic appropriation of them?\n\nAnother man is a mechanical genius, an inventor of looms, a builder\nof ships,--a ship-building foundation, and could achieve nothing\nif he should dissipate himself on books or on horses. Another is a\nfarmer,--an agricultural foundation; another is a chemist,--and the\nsame rule holds for all. We must not make believe with our money, but\nspend heartily, and buy _up_ and not _down_.\n\nI am afraid that, so considered, our houses will not be found to have\nunity, and to express the best thought. The household, the calling,\nthe friendships, of the citizen are not homogeneous. His house ought\nto show us his honest opinion of what makes his well-being when he\nrests among his kindred, and forgets all affectation, compliance,\nand even exertion of will. He brings home whatever commodities and\nornaments have for years allured his pursuit, and his character must be\nseen in them. But what idea predominates in our houses? Thrift first,\nthen convenience and pleasure. Take off all the roofs, from street to\nstreet, and we shall seldom find the temple of any higher god than\nPrudence. The progress of domestic living has been in cleanliness, in\nventilation, in health, in decorum, in countless means and arts of\ncomfort, in the concentration of all the utilities of every clime in\neach house. They are arranged for low benefits. The houses of the rich\nare confectioners\u2019 shops, where we get sweetmeats and wine; the houses\nof the poor are imitations of these to the extent of their ability.\nWith these ends housekeeping is not beautiful; it cheers and raises\nneither the husband, the wife, nor the child; neither the host, nor\nthe guest; it oppresses women. A house kept to the end of prudence is\nlaborious without joy; a house kept to the end of display is impossible\nto all but a few women, and their success is dearly bought.\n\nIf we look at this matter curiously, it becomes dangerous. We need\nall the force of an idea to lift this load; for the wealth and\nmultiplication of conveniences embarrass us, especially in northern\nclimates. The shortest enumeration of our wants in this rugged climate\nappalls us by the multitude of things not easy to be done. And if you\nlook at the multitude of particulars, one would say: Good housekeeping\nis impossible; order is too precious a thing to dwell with men and\nwomen. See, in families where there is both substance and taste, at\nwhat expense any favorite punctuality is maintained. If the children,\nfor example, are considered, dressed, dieted, attended, kept in proper\ncompany, schooled, and at home fostered by the parents,--then does the\nhospitality of the house suffer; friends are less carefully bestowed,\nthe daily table less catered. If the hours of meals are punctual, the\napartments are slovenly. If the linens and hangings are clean and fine,\nand the furniture good, the yard, the garden, the fences are neglected.\nIf all are well attended, then must the master and mistress be studious\nof particulars at the cost of their own accomplishments and growth,--or\npersons are treated as things.\n\nThe difficulties to be overcome must be freely admitted; they are\nmany and great. Nor are they to be disposed of by any criticism\nor amendment of particulars taken one at a time, but only by the\narrangement of the household to a higher end than those to which our\ndwellings are usually built and furnished. And is there any calamity\nmore grave, or that more invokes the best good-will to remove it,\nthan this?--to go from chamber to chamber, and see no beauty; to find\nin the housemates no aim; to hear an endless chatter and blast; to be\ncompelled to criticise; to hear only to dissent and to be disgusted;\nto find no invitation to what is good in us, and no receptacle for\nwhat is wise;--this is a great price to pay for sweet bread and warm\nlodging,--being defrauded of affinity, of repose, of genial culture,\nand the inmost presence of beauty.\n\nIt is a sufficient accusation of our ways of living, and certainly\nought to open our ear to every good-minded reformer, that our idea of\ndomestic well-being now needs wealth to execute it. Give me the means,\nsays the wife, and your house shall not annoy your taste nor waste\nyour time. On hearing this, we understand how these Means have come\nto be so omnipotent on earth. And indeed the love of wealth seems to\ngrow chiefly out of the root of the love of the Beautiful. The desire\nof gold is not for gold. It is not the love of much wheat and wool\nand household-stuff. It is the means of freedom and benefit. We scorn\nshifts; we desire the elegance of munificence; we desire at least to\nput no stint or limit on our parents, relatives, guests, or dependents;\nwe desire to play the benefactor and the prince with our townsmen, with\nthe stranger at the gate, with the bard, or the beauty, with the man\nor woman of worth, who alights at our door. How can we do this, if the\nwants of each day imprison us in lucrative labors, and constrain us to\na continual vigilance lest we be betrayed into expense?\n\n_Give us wealth, and the home shall exist._ But that is a very\nimperfect and inglorious solution of the problem, and therefore no\nsolution. \u201c_Give us wealth._\u201d You ask too much. Few have wealth; but\nall must have a home. Men are not born rich; and in getting wealth, the\nman is generally sacrificed, and often is sacrificed without acquiring\nwealth at last. Besides, that cannot be the right answer;--there are\nobjections to wealth. Wealth is a shift. The wise man angles with\nhimself only, and with no meaner bait. Our whole use of wealth needs\nrevision and reform. Generosity does not consist in giving money or\nmoney\u2019s worth. These so-called _goods_ are only the shadow of good. To\ngive money to a sufferer is only a come-off. It is only a postponement\nof the real payment, a bribe paid for silence,--a credit-system\nin which a paper promise to pay answers for the time instead of\nliquidation. We owe to man higher succors than food and fire. We owe to\nman man. If he is sick, is unable, is mean-spirited and odious, it is\nbecause there is so much of his nature which is unlawfully withholden\nfrom him. He should be visited in this his prison with rebuke to the\nevil demons, with manly encouragement, with no mean-spirited offer of\ncondolence because you have not money, or mean offer of money as the\nutmost benefit, but by your heroism, your purity, and your faith.\nYou are to bring with you that spirit which is understanding, health\nand self-help. To offer him money in lieu of these is to do him the\nsame wrong as when the bridegroom offers his betrothed virgin a sum\nof money to release him from his engagements. The great depend on\ntheir heart, not on their purse. Genius and virtue, like diamonds,\nare best plain-set,--set in lead, set in poverty. The greatest man in\nhistory was the poorest. How was it with the captains and sages of\nGreece and Rome, with Socrates, with Epaminondas? Aristides was made\ngeneral receiver of Greece, to collect the tribute which each state\nwas to furnish against the barbarian. \u201cPoor,\u201d says Plutarch, \u201cwhen he\nset about it, poorer when he had finished it.\u201d How was it with \u00c6milius\nand Cato? What kind of house was kept by Paul and John,--by Milton and\nMarvell,--by Samuel Johnson,--by Samuel Adams in Boston, and Jean Paul\nRichter at Baireuth?\n\nI think it plain that this voice of communities and ages, \u2018Give us\nwealth, and the good household shall exist,\u2019 is vicious, and leaves\nthe whole difficulty untouched. It is better, certainly, in this form,\n\u2018Give us your labor, and the household begins.\u2019 I see not how serious\nlabor, the labor of all and every day, is to be avoided; and many\nthings betoken a revolution of opinion and practice in regard to manual\nlabor that may go far to aid our practical inquiry. Another age may\ndivide the manual labor of the world more equally on all the members\nof society, and so make the labors of a few hours avail to the wants\nand add to the vigor of the man. But the reform that applies itself to\nthe household must not be partial. It must correct the whole system of\nour social living. It must come with plain living and high thinking; it\nmust break up caste, and put domestic service on another foundation.\nIt must come in connection with a true acceptance by each man of his\nvocation,--not chosen by his parents or friends, but by his genius,\nwith earnestness and love.\n\nNor is this redress so hopeless as it seems. Certainly, if we begin by\nreforming particulars of our present system, correcting a few evils\nand letting the rest stand, we shall soon give up in despair. For our\nsocial forms are very far from truth and equity. But the way to set the\naxe at the root of the tree is, to raise our aim. Let us understand,\nthen, that a house should bear witness in all its economy that human\nculture is the end to which it is built and garnished. It stands there\nunder the sun and moon to ends analogous, and not less noble than\ntheirs. It is not for festivity, it is not for sleep: but the pine and\nthe oak shall gladly descend from the mountains to uphold the roof of\nmen as faithful and necessary as themselves; to be the shelter always\nopen to good and true persons;--a hall which shines with sincerity,\nbrows ever tranquil, and a demeanor impossible to disconcert; whose\ninmates know what they want; who do not ask your house how theirs\nshould be kept. They have aims: they cannot pause for trifles. The\ndiet of the house does not create its order, but knowledge, character,\naction, absorb so much life and yield so much entertainment that the\nrefectory has ceased to be so curiously studied. With a change of aim\nhas followed a change of the whole scale by which men and things were\nwont to be measured. Wealth and poverty are seen for what they are.\nIt begins to be seen that the poor are only they who feel poor, and\npoverty consists in feeling poor. The rich, as we reckon them, and\namong them the very rich, in a true scale would be found very indigent\nand ragged. The great make us feel, first of all, the indifference of\ncircumstances. They call into activity the higher perceptions, and\nsubdue the low habits of comfort and luxury; but the higher perceptions\nfind their objects everywhere: only the low habits need palaces and\nbanquets.\n\nLet a man, then, say, My house is here in the county, for the culture\nof the county;--an eating-house and sleeping-house for travellers it\nshall be, but it shall be much more. I pray you, O excellent wife, not\nto cumber yourself and me to get a rich dinner for this man or this\nwoman who has alighted at our gate, nor a bedchamber made ready at too\ngreat a cost. These things, if they are curious in, they can get for\na dollar at any village. But let this stranger, if he will, in your\nlooks, in your accent and behavior, read your heart and earnestness,\nyour thought and will, which he cannot buy at any price, in any village\nor city, and which he may well travel fifty miles, and dine sparely\nand sleep hard, in order to behold. Certainly, let the board be spread\nand let the bed be dressed for the traveller; but let not the emphasis\nof hospitality lie in these things. Honor to the house where they are\nsimple to the verge of hardship, so that there the intellect is awake\nand reads the laws of the universe, the soul worships truth and love,\nhonor and courtesy flow into all deeds.\n\nThere was never a country in the world which could so easily exhibit\nthis heroism as ours; never anywhere the State has made such efficient\nprovision for popular education, where intellectual entertainment is\nso within reach of youthful ambition. The poor man\u2019s son is educated.\nThere is many a humble house in every city, in every town, where talent\nand taste, and sometimes genius, dwell with poverty and labor. Who\nhas not seen, and who can see unmoved, under a low roof, the eager,\nblushing boys discharging as they can their household chores, and\nhastening into the sitting-room to the study of to-morrow\u2019s merciless\nlesson, yet stealing time to read one chapter more of the novel hardly\nsmuggled into the tolerance of father and mother,--atoning for the\nsame by some pages of Plutarch or Goldsmith; the warm sympathy with\nwhich they kindle each other in school-yard, or in barn or wood-shed,\nwith scraps of poetry or song, with phrases of the last oration, or\nmimicry of the orator; the youthful criticism, on Sunday, of the\nsermons; the school declamation faithfully rehearsed at home, sometimes\nto the fatigue, sometimes to the admiration of sisters; the first\nsolitary joys of literary vanity, when the translation or the theme has\nbeen completed, sitting alone near the top of the house; the cautious\ncomparison of the attractive advertisement of the arrival of Macready,\nBooth, or Kemble, or of the discourse of a well-known speaker, with\nthe expense of the entertainment; the affectionate delight with which\nthey greet the return of each one after the early separations which\nschool or business require; the foresight with which, during such\nabsences, they hive the honey which opportunity offers, for the ear and\nimagination of the others; and the unrestrained glee with which they\ndisburden themselves of their early mental treasures when the holidays\nbring them again together? What is the hoop that holds them stanch?\nIt is the iron band of poverty, of necessity, of austerity, which,\nexcluding them from the sensual enjoyments which make other boys too\nearly old, has directed their activity in safe and right channels, and\nmade them, despite themselves, reverers of the grand, the beautiful,\nand the good. Ah! short-sighted students of books, of Nature, and of\nman! too happy, could they know their advantages. They pine for freedom\nfrom that mild parental yoke; they sigh for fine clothes, for rides,\nfor the theatre, and premature freedom and dissipation, which others\npossess. Woe to them, if their wishes were crowned! The angels that\ndwell with them, and are weaving laurels of life for their youthful\nbrows, are Toil, and Want, and Truth, and Mutual Faith.\n\nIn many parts of true economy a cheering lesson may be learned from the\nmode of life and manners of the later Romans, as described to us in\nthe letters of the younger Pliny. Nor can I resist the temptation of\nquoting so trite an instance as the noble housekeeping of Lord Falkland\nin Clarendon: \u201cHis house being within little more than ten miles from\nOxford, he contracted familiarity and friendship with the most polite\nand accurate men of that University, who found such an immenseness of\nwit, and such a solidity of judgment in him, so infinite a fancy, bound\nin by a most logical ratiocination, such a vast knowledge that he was\nnot ignorant in anything, yet such an excessive humility, as if he had\nknown nothing, that they frequently resorted and dwelt with him, as in\na college situated in a purer air; so that his house was a university\nin a less volume, whither they came, not so much for repose as study,\nand to examine and refine those grosser propositions which laziness\nand consent made current in vulgar conversation.\u201d\n\nI honor that man whose ambition it is, not to win laurels in the state\nor the army, not to be a jurist or a naturalist, not to be a poet or\na commander, but to be a master of living well, and to administer\nthe offices of master or servant, of husband, father, and friend.\nBut it requires as much breadth of power for this as for those other\nfunctions,--as much, or more,--and the reason for the failure is the\nsame. I think the vice of our housekeeping is, that it does not hold\nman sacred. The vice of government, the vice of education, the vice of\nreligion, is one with that of private life.\n\nIn the old fables, we used to read of a cloak brought from fairy-land\nas a gift for the fairest and purest in Prince Arthur\u2019s court. It was\nto be her prize whom it would fit. Every one was eager to try it on,\nbut it would fit nobody: for one it was a world too wide, for the next\nit dragged on the ground, and for the third it shrunk to a scarf. They,\nof course, said that the devil was in the mantle, for really the truth\nwas in the mantle, and was exposing the ugliness which each would fain\nconceal. All drew back with terror from the garment. The innocent\nGenelas alone could wear it. In like manner, every man is provided in\nhis thought with a measure of man which he applies to every passenger.\nUnhappily, not one in many thousands comes up to the stature and\nproportions of the model. Neither does the measurer himself; neither\ndo the people in the street; neither do the select individuals whom he\nadmires,--the heroes of the race. When he inspects them critically, he\ndiscovers that their aims are low, that they are too quickly satisfied.\nHe observes the swiftness with which life culminates, and the humility\nof the expectations of the greatest part of men. To each occurs, soon\nafter the age of puberty, some event, or society, or way of living,\nwhich becomes the crisis of life, and the chief fact in their history.\nIn woman, it is love and marriage (which is more reasonable); and\nyet it is pitiful to date and measure all the facts and sequel of an\nunfolding life from such a youthful, and generally inconsiderate,\nperiod as the age of courtship and marriage. In men, it is their place\nof education, choice of an employment, settlement in a town, or removal\nto the East or to the West, or some other magnified trifle, which makes\nthe meridian moment, and all the after years and actions only derive\ninterest from their relation to that. Hence it comes that we soon catch\nthe trick of each man\u2019s conversation, and, knowing his two or three\nmain facts, anticipate what he thinks of each new topic that rises. It\nis scarcely less perceivable in educated men, so called, than in the\nuneducated. I have seen finely endowed men at college festivals, ten,\ntwenty years after they had left the halls, returning, as it seemed,\nthe same boys who went away. The same jokes pleased, the same straws\ntickled; the manhood and offices they brought thither at this return\nseemed mere ornamental masks: underneath they were boys yet. We never\ncome to be citizens of the world, but are still villagers, who think\nthat everything in their petty town is a little superior to the same\nthing anywhere else. In each the circumstance signalized differs, but\nin each it is made the coals of an ever-burning egotism. In one, it was\nhis going to sea; in a second, the difficulties he combated in going to\ncollege; in a third, his journey to the West, or his voyage to Canton;\nin a fourth, his coming out of the Quaker Society; in a fifth, his\nnew diet and regimen; in a sixth, his coming forth from the abolition\norganizations; and in a seventh, his going into them. It is a life of\ntoys and trinkets. We are too easily pleased.\n\nI think this sad result appears in the manners. The men we see in each\nother do not give us the image and likeness of man. The men we see are\nwhipped through the world; they are harried, wrinkled, anxious; they\nall seem the hacks of some invisible riders. How seldom do we behold\ntranquillity! We have never yet seen a man. We do not know the majestic\nmanners that belong to him, which appease and exalt the beholder. There\nare no divine persons with us, and the multitude do not hasten to be\ndivine. And yet we hold fast, all our lives long, a faith in a better\nlife, in better men, in clean and noble relations, notwithstanding\nour total inexperience of a true society. Certainly, this was not the\nintention of nature, to produce, with all this immense expenditure of\nmeans and power, so cheap and humble a result. The aspirations in the\nheart after the good and true teach us better,--nay, the men themselves\nsuggest a better life.\n\nEvery individual nature has its own beauty. One is struck in every\ncompany, at every fireside, with the riches of nature, when he hears\nso many new tones, all musical, sees in each person original manners,\nwhich have a proper and peculiar charm, and reads new expressions of\nface. He perceives that nature has laid for each the foundations of a\ndivine building, if the soul will build thereon. There is no face, no\nform, which one cannot in fancy associate with great power of intellect\nor with generosity of soul. In our experience, to be sure, beauty is\nnot, as it ought to be, the dower of man and of woman as invariably as\nsensation. Beauty is, even in the beautiful, occasional,--or, as one\nhas said, culminating and perfect only a single moment, before which\nit is unripe, and after which it is on the wane. But beauty is never\nquite absent from our eyes. Every face, every figure, suggests its own\nright and sound estate. Our friends are not their own highest form.\nBut let the hearts they have agitated witness what power has lurked in\nthe traits of these structures of clay that pass and repass us! The\nsecret power of form over the imagination and affections transcends all\nour philosophy. The first glance we meet may satisfy us that matter is\nthe vehicle of higher powers than its own, and that no laws of line\nor surface can ever account for the inexhaustible expressiveness of\nform. We see heads that turn on the pivot of the spine,--no more; and\nwe see heads that seem to turn on a pivot as deep as the axle of the\nworld,--so slow, and lazily, and great, they move. We see on the lip of\nour companion the presence or absence of the great masters of thought\nand poetry to his mind. We read in his brow, on meeting him after many\nyears, that he is where we left him, or that he has made great strides.\n\nWhilst thus nature and the hints we draw from man suggest a true and\nlofty life, a household equal to the beauty and grandeur of this world,\nespecially we learn the same lesson from those best relations to\nindividual men which the heart is always prompting us to form. Happy\nwill that house be in which the relations are formed from character,\nafter the highest, and not after the lowest order; the house in which\ncharacter marries, and not confusion and a miscellany of unavowable\nmotives. Then shall marriage be a covenant to secure to either party\nthe sweetness and honor of being a calm, continuing, inevitable\nbenefactor to the other. Yes, and the sufficient reply to the sceptic\nwho doubts the competence of man to elevate and to be elevated is in\nthat desire and power to stand in joyful and ennobling intercourse with\nindividuals, which makes the faith and the practice of all reasonable\nmen.\n\nThe ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it. There is no\nevent greater in life than the appearance of new persons about our\nhearth, except it be the progress of the character which draws them.\nIt has been finely added by Landor to his definition of the _great\nman_, \u201cIt is he who can call together the most select company when it\npleases him.\u201d A verse of the old Greek Menander remains, which runs in\ntranslation:--\n\n  \u201cNot on the store of sprightly wine,\n    Nor plenty of delicious meats,\n  Though generous Nature did design\n    To court us with perpetual treats,--\n  \u2019Tis not on these we for content depend,\n  So much as on the shadow of a Friend.\u201d\n\nIt is the happiness which, where it is truly known, postpones all other\nsatisfactions, and makes politics and commerce and churches cheap. For\nwe figure to ourselves,--do we not?--that when men shall meet as they\nshould, as states meet,--each a benefactor, a shower of falling stars,\nso rich with deeds, with thoughts, with so much accomplishment,--it\nshall be the festival of nature, which all things symbolize; and\nperhaps Love is only the highest symbol of Friendship, as all other\nthings seem symbols of love. In the progress of each man\u2019s character,\nhis relations to the best men, which at first seem only the romances of\nyouth, acquire a graver importance; and he will have learned the lesson\nof life who is skilful in the ethics of friendship.\n\nBeyond its primary ends of the conjugal, parental, and amicable\nrelations, the household should cherish the beautiful arts and the\nsentiment of veneration.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n1. Whatever brings the dweller into a finer life, what educates his\neye, or ear, or hand, whatever purifies and enlarges him, may well find\nplace there. And yet let him not think that a property in beautiful\nobjects is necessary to his apprehension of them, and seek to turn\nhis house into a museum. Rather let the noble practice of the Greeks\nfind place in our society, and let the creations of the plastic arts\nbe collected with care in galleries by the piety and taste of the\npeople, and yielded as freely as the sunlight to all. Meantime, be it\nremembered, we are artists ourselves, and competitors, each one, with\nPhidias and Raphael in the production of what is graceful or grand. The\nfountain of beauty is the heart, and every generous thought illustrates\nthe walls of your chamber. Why should we owe our power of attracting\nour friends to pictures and vases, to cameos and architecture? Why\nshould we convert ourselves into show-men and appendages to our fine\nhouses and our works of art? If by love and nobleness we take up into\nourselves the beauty we admire, we shall spend it again on all around\nus. The man, the woman, needs not the embellishment of canvas and\nmarble, whose every act is a subject for the sculptor, and to whose eye\nthe gods and nymphs never appear ancient; for they know by heart the\nwhole instinct of majesty.\n\nI do not undervalue the fine instruction which statues and pictures\ngive. But I think the public museum in each town will one day relieve\nthe private house of this charge of owning and exhibiting them. I\ngo to Rome and see on the walls of the Vatican the Transfiguration,\npainted by Raphael, reckoned the first picture in the world; or in the\nSistine Chapel I see the grand sibyls and prophets, painted in fresco\nby Michael Angelo,--which have every day now for three hundred years\ninflamed the imagination and exalted the piety of what vast multitudes\nof men of all nations! I wish to bring home to my children and my\nfriends copies of these admirable forms, which I can find in the shops\nof the engravers; but I do not wish the vexation of owning them. I\nwish to find in my own town a library and museum which is the property\nof the town, where I can deposit this precious treasure, where I and\nmy children can see it from time to time, and where it has its proper\nplace among hundreds of such donations from other citizens who have\nbrought thither whatever articles they have judged to be in their\nnature rather a public than a private property.\n\nA collection of this kind, the property of each town, would dignify the\ntown, and we should love and respect our neighbors more. Obviously, it\nwould be easy for every town to discharge this truly municipal duty.\nEvery one of us would gladly contribute his share; and the more gladly,\nthe more considerable the institution had become.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\n2. Certainly, not aloof from this homage to beauty, but in strict\nconnection therewith, the house will come to be esteemed a Sanctuary.\nThe language of a ruder age has given to common law the maxim that\nevery man\u2019s house is his castle: the progress of truth will make every\nhouse a shrine. Will not man one day open his eyes and see how dear\nhe is to the soul of Nature,--how near it is to him? Will he not see,\nthrough all he miscalls accident, that Law prevails for ever and ever;\nthat his private being is a part of it; that its home is in his own\nunsounded heart; that his economy, his labor, his good and bad fortune,\nhis health and manners, are all a curious and exact demonstration in\nminiature of the Genius of the Eternal Providence? When he perceives\nthe Law, he ceases to despond. Whilst he sees it, every thought and\nact is raised, and becomes an act of religion. Does the consecration\nof Sunday confess the desecration of the entire week? Does the\nconsecration of the church confess the profanation of the house? Let\nus read the incantation backward. Let the man stand on his feet. Let\nreligion cease to be occasional; and the pulses of thought that go to\nthe borders of the universe, let them proceed from the bosom of the\nHousehold.\n\nThese are the consolations,--these are the ends to which the household\nis instituted and the rooftree stands. If these are sought, and in any\ngood degree attained, can the State, can commerce, can climate, can\nthe labor of many for one, yield anything better, or half as good?\nBeside these aims, Society is weak and the State an intrusion. I think\nthat the heroism which at this day would make on us the impression\nof Epaminondas and Phocion must be that of a domestic conqueror. He\nwho shall bravely and gracefully subdue this Gorgon of Convention and\nFashion, and show-men how to lead a clean, handsome, and heroic life\namid the beggarly elements of our cities and villages; whoso shall\nteach me how to eat my meat and take my repose, and deal with men,\nwithout any shame following, will restore the life of man to splendor,\nand make his own name dear to all history.\n\n\n\n\nFARMING.\n\n\n\n\nFARMING.\n\n\nThe glory of the farmer is that, in the division of labors, it is his\npart to create. All trade rests at last on his primitive activity. He\nstands close to nature; he obtains from the earth the bread and the\nmeat. The food which was not, he causes to be. The first farmer was\nthe first man, and all historic nobility rests on possession and use\nof land. Men do not like hard work, but every man has an exceptional\nrespect for tillage, and a feeling that this is the original calling of\nhis race, that he himself is only excused from it by some circumstance\nwhich made him delegate it for a time to other hands. If he have\nnot some skill which recommends him to the farmer, some product for\nwhich the farmer will give him corn, he must himself return into his\ndue place among the planters. And the profession has in all eyes its\nancient charm, as standing nearest to God, the first cause.\n\nThen the beauty of nature, the tranquillity and innocence of the\ncountryman, his independence, and his pleasing arts,--the care of bees,\nof poultry, of sheep, of cows, the dairy, the care of hay, of fruits,\nof orchards and forests, and the reaction of these on the workman, in\ngiving him a strength and plain dignity, like the face and manners\nof nature, all men acknowledge. All men keep the farm in reserve as\nan asylum where, in case of mischance, to hide their poverty,--or a\nsolitude, if they do not succeed in society. And who knows how many\nglances of remorse are turned this way from the bankrupts of trade,\nfrom mortified pleaders in courts and senates, or from the victims\nof idleness and pleasure? Poisoned by town life and town vices, the\nsufferer resolves: \u2018Well, my children, whom I have injured, shall go\nback to the land, to be recruited and cured by that which should have\nbeen my nursery, and now shall be their hospital.\u2019\n\nThe farmer\u2019s office is precise and important, but you must not try to\npaint him in rose-color; you cannot make pretty compliments to fate and\ngravitation, whose minister he is. He represents the necessities. It is\nthe beauty of the great economy of the world that makes his comeliness.\nHe bends to the order of the seasons, the weather, the soils and crops,\nas the sails of a ship bend to the wind. He represents continuous hard\nlabor, year in, year out, and small gains. He is a slow person, timed\nto nature, and not to city watches. He takes the pace of seasons,\nplants, and chemistry. Nature never hurries: atom by atom, little\nby little, she achieves her work. The lesson one learns in fishing,\nyachting, hunting, or planting, is the manners of Nature; patience\nwith the delays of wind and sun, delays of the seasons, bad weather,\nexcess or lack of water,--patience with the slowness of our feet, with\nthe parsimony of our strength, with the largeness of sea and land we\nmust traverse, etc. The farmer times himself to Nature, and acquires\nthat livelong patience which belongs to her. Slow, narrow man, his rule\nis, that the earth shall feed and clothe him; and he must wait for his\ncrop to grow. His entertainments, his liberties, and his spending must\nbe on a farmer\u2019s scale, and not on a merchant\u2019s. It were as false for\nfarmers to use a wholesale and massy expense, as for states to use a\nminute economy. But if thus pinched on one side, he has compensatory\nadvantages. He is permanent, clings to his land as the rocks do. In\nthe town where I live, farms remain in the same families for seven and\neight generations; and most of the first settlers (in 1635), should\nthey reappear on the farms to-day, would find their own blood and names\nstill in possession. And the like fact holds in the surrounding towns.\n\nThis hard work will always be done by one kind of man; not by scheming\nspeculators, nor by soldiers, nor professors, nor readers of Tennyson;\nbut by men of endurance,--deep-chested, long-winded, tough, slow and\nsure, and timely. The farmer has a great health, and the appetite of\nhealth, and means to his end: he has broad lands for his home, wood\nto burn great fires, plenty of plain food; his milk, at least, is\nunwatered; and for sleep, he has cheaper and better and more of it than\ncitizens.\n\nHe has grave trusts confided to him. In the great household of Nature,\nthe farmer stands at the door of the bread-room, and weighs to each\nhis loaf. It is for him to say whether men shall marry or not. Early\nmarriages and the number of births are indissolubly connected with\nabundance of food; or, as Burke said, \u201cMan breeds at the mouth.\u201d Then\nhe is the Board of Quarantine. The farmer is a hoarded capital of\nhealth, as the farm is the capital of wealth; and it is from him that\nthe health and power, moral and intellectual, of the cities came.\nThe city is always recruited from the country. The men in cities who\nare the centres of energy, the driving-wheels of trade, politics, or\npractical arts, and the women of beauty and genius are the children or\ngrandchildren of farmers, and are spending the energies which their\nfathers\u2019 hardy, silent life accumulated in frosty furrows, in poverty,\nnecessity, and darkness.\n\nHe is the continuous benefactor. He who digs a well, constructs a stone\nfountain, plants a grove of trees by the roadside, plants an orchard,\nbuilds a durable house, reclaims a swamp, or so much as puts a stone\nseat by the wayside, makes the land so far lovely and desirable, makes\na fortune which he cannot carry away with him, but which is useful to\nhis country long afterwards. The man that works at home helps society\nat large with somewhat more of certainty than he who devotes himself to\ncharities. If it be true that, not by votes of political parties, but\nby the eternal laws of political economy, slaves are driven out of a\nslave State as fast as it is surrounded by free States, then the true\nabolitionist is the farmer, who, heedless of laws and constitutions,\nstands all day in the field, investing his labor in the land, and\nmaking a product with which no forced labor can compete.\n\nWe commonly say that the rich man can speak the truth, can afford\nhonesty, can afford independence of opinion and action;--and that is\nthe theory of nobility. But it is the rich man in a true sense, that is\nto say, not the man of large income and large expenditure, but solely\nthe man whose outlay is less than his income and is steadily kept so.\n\nIn English factories, the boy that watches the loom, to tie the thread\nwhen the wheel stops to indicate that a thread is broken, is called a\n_minder_. And in this great factory of our Copernican globe, shifting\nits slides; rotating its constellations, times, and tides; bringing\nnow the day of planting, then of watering, then of weeding, then of\nreaping, then of curing and storing,--the farmer is the _minder_. His\nmachine is of colossal proportions,--the diameter of the water-wheel,\nthe arms of the levers, the power of the battery, are out of all\nmechanic measure;--and it takes him long to understand its parts and\nits working. This pump never \u201csucks\u201d; these screws are never loose;\nthis machine is never out of gear; the vat and piston, wheels and\ntires, never wear out, but are self-repairing.\n\nWho are the farmer\u2019s servants? Not the Irish, nor the coolies, but\nGeology and Chemistry, the quarry of the air, the water of the brook,\nthe lightning of the cloud, the castings of the worm, the plough of the\nfrost. Long before he was born, the sun of ages decomposed the rocks,\nmellowed his land, soaked it with light and heat, covered it with\nvegetable film, then with forests, and accumulated the sphagnum whose\ndecays made the peat of his meadow.\n\nScience has shown the great circles in which nature works; the manner\nin which marine plants balance the marine animals, as the land plants\nsupply the oxygen which the animals consume, and the animals the carbon\nwhich the plants absorb. These activities are incessant. Nature works\non a method of _all for each and each for all_. The strain that is made\non one point bears on every arch and foundation of the structure. There\nis a perfect solidarity. You cannot detach an atom from its holdings,\nor strip off from it the electricity, gravitation, chemic affinity, or\nthe relation to light and heat, and leave the atom bare. No, it brings\nwith it its universal ties.\n\nNature, like a cautious testator, ties up her estate so as not to\nbestow it all on one generation, but has a forelooking tenderness and\nequal regard to the next and the next, and the fourth, and the fortieth\nage.\n\nThere lie the inexhaustible magazines. The eternal rocks, as we call\nthem, have held their oxygen or lime undiminished, entire, as it was.\nNo particle of oxygen can rust or wear, but has the same energy as\non the first morning. The good rocks, those patient waiters, say to\nhim: \u2018We have the sacred power as we received it. We have not failed\nof our trust, and now--when in our immense day the hour is at last\nstruck--take the gas we have hoarded; mingle it with water; and let it\nbe free to grow in plants and animals, and obey the thought of man.\u2019\n\nThe earth works for him; the earth is a machine which yields almost\ngratuitous service to every application of intellect. Every plant is a\nmanufacturer of soil. In the stomach of the plant development begins.\nThe tree can draw on the whole air, the whole earth, on all the rolling\nmain. The plant is all suction-pipe,--imbibing from the ground by its\nroot, from the air by its leaves, with all its might.\n\nThe air works for him. The atmosphere, a sharp solvent, drinks the\nessence and spirit of every solid on the globe,--a menstruum which\nmelts the mountains into it. Air is matter subdued by heat. As the sea\nis the grand receptacle of all rivers, so the air is the receptacle\nfrom which all things spring, and into which they all return. The\ninvisible and creeping air takes form and solid mass. Our senses are\nsceptics, and believe only the impression of the moment, and do not\nbelieve the chemical fact that these huge mountain-chains are made up\nof gases and rolling wind. But Nature is as subtle as she is strong.\nShe turns her capital day by day; deals never with dead, but ever\nwith quick subjects. All things are flowing, even those that seem\nimmovable. The adamant is always passing into smoke. The plants imbibe\nthe materials which they want from the air and the ground. They burn,\nthat is, exhale and decompose their own bodies into the air and earth\nagain. The animal burns, or undergoes the like perpetual consumption.\nThe earth burns,--the mountains burn and decompose,--slower, but\nincessantly. It is almost inevitable to push the generalization up into\nhigher parts of nature, rank over rank into sentient beings. Nations\nburn with internal fire of thought and affection, which wastes while\nit works. We shall find finer combustion and finer fuel. Intellect is\na fire: rash and pitiless it melts this wonderful bone-house which is\ncalled man. Genius even, as it is the greatest good, is the greatest\nharm. Whilst all thus burns,--the universe in a blaze kindled from\nthe torch of the sun,--it needs a perpetual tempering, a phlegm, a\nsleep, atmospheres of azote, deluges of water, to check the fury of the\nconflagration; a hoarding to check the spending; a centripetence equal\nto the centrifugence: and this is invariably supplied.\n\nThe railroad dirt-cars are good excavators; but there is no porter\nlike Gravitation, who will bring down any weights which man cannot\ncarry, and if he wants aid, knows where to find his fellow-laborers.\nWater works in masses, and sets its irresistible shoulder to your mills\nor your ships, or transports vast boulders of rock in its iceberg a\nthousand miles. But its far greater power depends on its talent of\nbecoming little, and entering the smallest holes and pores. By this\nagency, carrying in solution elements needful to every plant, the\nvegetable world exists.\n\nBut as I said, we must not paint the farmer in rose-color. Whilst these\ngrand energies have wrought for him, and made his task possible, he is\nhabitually engaged in small economies, and is taught the power that\nlurks in petty things. Great is the force of a few simple arrangements;\nfor instance, the powers of a fence. On the prairie you wander a\nhundred miles, and hardly find a stick or a stone. At rare intervals,\na thin oak opening has been spared, and every such section has been\nlong occupied. But the farmer manages to procure wood from far, puts\nup a rail fence, and at once the seeds sprout and the oaks rise. It\nwas only browsing and fire which had kept them down. Plant fruit-trees\nby the roadside, and their fruit will never be allowed to ripen. Draw\na pine fence about them, and for fifty years they mature for the\nowner their delicate fruit. There is a great deal of enchantment in a\nchestnut rail or picketed pine boards.\n\nNature suggests every economical expedient somewhere on a great\nscale. Set out a pine-tree, and it dies in the first year, or lives a\npoor spindle. But Nature drops a pine-cone in Mariposa, and it lives\nfifteen centuries, grows three or four hundred feet high, and thirty\nin diameter,--grows in a grove of giants, like a colonnade of Thebes.\nAsk the tree how it was done. It did not grow on a ridge, but in a\nbasin, where it found deep soil, cold enough and dry enough for the\npine; defended itself from the sun by growing in groves, and from the\nwind by the walls of the mountain. The roots that shot deepest, and\nthe stems of happiest exposure, drew the nourishment from the rest,\nuntil the less thrifty perished and manured the soil for the stronger,\nand the mammoth Sequoias rose to their enormous proportions. The\ntraveller who saw them remembered his orchard at home, where every\nyear, in the destroying wind, his forlorn trees pined like suffering\nvirtue. In September, when the pears hang heaviest, and are taking\nfrom the sun their gay colors, comes usually a gusty day which shakes\nthe whole garden, and throws down the heaviest fruit in bruised\nheaps. The planter took the hint of the Sequoias, built a high wall,\nor--better--surrounded the orchard with a nursery of birches and\nevergreens. Thus he had the mountain basin in miniature; and his pears\ngrew to the size of melons, and the vines beneath them ran an eighth of\na mile. But this shelter creates a new climate. The wall that keeps off\nthe strong wind keeps off the cold wind. The high wall reflecting the\nheat back on the soil gives that acre a quadruple share of sunshine,\n\n  \u201cEnclosing in the garden square\n  A dead and standing pool of air,\u201d\n\nand makes a little Cuba within it, whilst all without is Labrador.\n\nThe chemist comes to his aid every year by following out some new hint\ndrawn from nature, and now affirms that this dreary space occupied by\nthe farmer is needless: he will concentrate his kitchen-garden into a\nbox of one or two rods square, will take the roots into his laboratory;\nthe vines and stalks and stems may go sprawling about in the fields\noutside, he will attend to the roots in his tub, gorge them with food\nthat is good for them. The smaller his garden, the better he can feed\nit, and the larger the crop. As he nursed his Thanksgiving turkeys on\nbread and milk, so he will pamper his peaches and grapes on the viands\nthey like best. If they have an appetite for potash, or salt, or iron,\nor ground bones, or even now and then for a dead hog, he will indulge\nthem. They keep the secret well, and never tell on your table whence\nthey drew their sunset complexion or their delicate flavors.\n\nSee what the farmer accomplishes by a cartload of tiles: he alters\nthe climate by letting off water which kept the land cold through\nconstant evaporation, and allows the warm rain to bring down into\nthe roots the temperature of the air and of the surface-soil; and he\ndeepens the soil, since the discharge of this standing water allows\nthe roots of his plants to penetrate below the surface to the subsoil,\nand accelerates the ripening of the crop. The town of Concord is\none of the oldest towns in this country, far on now in its third\ncentury. The selectmen have once in every five years perambulated the\nboundaries, and yet, in this very year, a large quantity of land has\nbeen discovered and added to the town without a murmur of complaint\nfrom any quarter. By drainage we went down to a subsoil we did not\nknow, and have found there is a Concord under old Concord, which we are\nnow getting the best crops from; a Middlesex under Middlesex; and, in\nfine, that Massachusetts has a basement story more valuable, and that\npromises to pay a better rent, than all the superstructure. But these\ntiles have acquired by association a new interest. These tiles are\npolitical economists, confuters of Malthus and Ricardo; they are so\nmany Young Americans announcing a better era,--more bread. They drain\nthe land, make it sweet and friable; have made English Chat Moss a\ngarden, and will now do as much for the Dismal Swamp. But beyond this\nbenefit, they are the text of better opinions and better auguries for\nmankind.\n\nThere has been a nightmare bred in England of indigestion and spleen\namong landlords and loomlords, namely, the dogma that men breed too\nfast for the powers of the soil; that men multiply in a geometrical\nratio, whilst corn only in an arithmetical; and hence that, the more\nprosperous we are, the faster we approach these frightful limits: nay,\nthe plight of every new generation is worse than of the foregoing,\nbecause the first comers take up the best lands; the next, the second\nbest; and each succeeding wave of population is driven to poorer, so\nthat the land is ever yielding less returns to enlarging hosts of\neaters. Henry Carey of Philadelphia replied: \u2018Not so, Mr. Malthus, but\njust the opposite of so is the fact.\u2019\n\nThe first planter, the savage, without helpers, without tools, looking\nchiefly to safety from his enemy,--man or beast,--takes poor land. The\nbetter lands are loaded with timber, which he cannot clear; they need\ndrainage, which he cannot attempt. He cannot plough, or fell trees, or\ndrain the rich swamp. He is a poor creature; he scratches with a sharp\nstick, lives in a cave or a hutch, has no road but the trail of the\nmoose or bear; he lives on their flesh when he can kill one, on roots\nand fruits when he cannot. He falls, and is lame; he coughs, he has a\nstitch in his side, he has a fever and chills: when he is hungry, he\ncannot always kill and eat a bear;--chances of war,--sometimes the bear\neats him. \u2019Tis long before he digs or plants at all, and then only a\npatch. Later he learns that his planting is better than hunting; that\nthe earth works faster for him than he can work for himself,--works\nfor him when he is asleep, when it rains, when heat overcomes him. The\nsun-stroke which knocks him down brings his corn up. As his family\nthrive, and other planters come up around him, he begins to fell trees,\nand clear good land; and when, by and by, there is more skill, and\ntools and roads, the new generations are strong enough to open the\nlowlands, where the wash of mountains has accumulated the best soil,\nwhich yield a hundred-fold the former crops. The last lands are the\nbest lands. It needs science and great numbers to cultivate the best\nlands, and in the best manner. Thus true political economy is not\nmean, but liberal, and on the pattern of the sun and sky. Population\nincreases in the ratio of morality: credit exists in the ratio of\nmorality.\n\nMeantime we cannot enumerate the incidents and agents of the farm\nwithout reverting to their influence on the farmer. He carries out\nthis cumulative preparation of means to their last effect. This crust\nof soil which ages have refined he refines again for the feeding\nof a civil and instructed people. The great elements with which he\ndeals cannot leave him unaffected, or unconscious of his ministry;\nbut their influence somewhat resembles that which the same Nature has\non the child,--of subduing and silencing him. We see the farmer with\npleasure and respect, when we think what powers and utilities are\nso meekly worn. He knows every secret of labor: he changes the face\nof the landscape. Put him on a new planet, and he would know where\nto begin; yet there is no arrogance in his bearing, but a perfect\ngentleness. The farmer stands well on the world. Plain in manners as\nin dress, he would not shine in palaces; he is absolutely unknown and\ninadmissible therein; living or dying, he never shall be heard of in\nthem; yet the drawing-room heroes put down beside him would shrivel in\nhis presence,--he solid and unexpressive, they expressed to gold-leaf.\nBut he stands well on the world,--as Adam did, as an Indian does, as\nHomer\u2019s heroes, Agamemnon or Achilles, do. He is a person whom a poet\nof any clime--Milton, Firdusi, or Cervantes--would appreciate as being\nreally a piece of the old Nature, comparable to sun and moon, rainbow\nand flood; because he is, as all natural persons are, representative of\nNature as much as these.\n\nThat uncorrupted behavior which we admire in animals and in young\nchildren belongs to him, to the hunter, the sailor,--the man who\nlives in the presence of Nature. Cities force growth, and make men\ntalkative and entertaining, but they make them artificial. What\npossesses interest for us is the _naturel_ of each, his constitutional\nexcellence. This is forever a surprise, engaging and lovely; we cannot\nbe satiated with knowing it, and about it; and it is this which the\nconversation with Nature cherishes and guards.\n\n\n\n\nWORKS AND DAYS.\n\n\n\n\nWORKS AND DAYS.\n\n\nOur nineteenth century is the age of tools. They grow out of our\nstructure. \u201cMan is the metre of all things,\u201d said Aristotle; \u201cthe hand\nis the instrument of instruments, and the mind is the form of forms.\u201d\nThe human body is the magazine of inventions, the patent-office,\nwhere are the models from which every hint was taken. All the tools\nand engines on earth are only extensions of its limbs and senses. One\ndefinition of man is \u201can intelligence served by organs.\u201d Machines can\nonly second, not supply, his unaided senses. The body is a metre. The\neye appreciates finer differences than art can expose. The apprentice\nclings to his foot-rule, a practised mechanic will measure by his thumb\nand his arm with equal precision; and a good surveyor will pace sixteen\nrods more accurately than another man can measure them by tape. The\nsympathy of eye and hand by which an Indian or a practised slinger hits\nhis mark with a stone, or a wood-chopper or a carpenter swings his axe\nto a hair-line on his log, are examples; and there is no sense or organ\nwhich is not capable of exquisite performance.\n\nMen love to wonder, and that is the seed of our science; and such is\nthe mechanical determination of our age, and so recent are our best\ncontrivances, that use has not dulled our joy and pride in them; and\nwe pity our fathers for dying before steam and galvanism, sulphuric\nether and ocean telegraphs, photograph and spectroscope arrived, as\ncheated out of half their human estate. These arts open great gates of\na future, promising to make the world plastic and to lift human life\nout of its beggary to a godlike ease and power.\n\nOur century, to be sure, had inherited a tolerable apparatus. We had\nthe compass, the printing-press, watches, the spiral spring, the\nbarometer, the telescope. Yet so many inventions have been added,\nthat life seems almost made over new; and as Leibnitz said of Newton,\n\u201cthat if he reckoned all that had been done by mathematicians from the\nbeginning of the world down to Newton, and what had been done by him,\nhis would be the better half,\u201d so one might say that the inventions\nof the last fifty years counterpoise those of the fifty centuries\nbefore them. For the vast production and manifold application of iron\nis new; and our common and indispensable utensils of house and farm\nare new; the sewing-machine, the power-loom, the McCormick reaper,\nthe mowing-machines, gas-light, lucifer-matches, and the immense\nproductions of the laboratory, are new in this century, and one franc\u2019s\nworth of coal does the work of a laborer for twenty days.\n\nWhy need I speak of steam, the enemy of space and time, with its\nenormous strength and delicate applicability, which is made in\nhospitals to bring a bowl of gruel to a sick man\u2019s bed, and can twist\nbeams of iron like candy-braids, and vies with the forces which\nupheaved and doubled over the geologic strata? Steam is an apt scholar\nand a strong-shouldered fellow, but it has not yet done all its work.\nIt already walks about the field like a man, and will do anything\nrequired of it. It irrigates crops, and drags away a mountain. It\nmust sew our shirts, it must drive our gigs; taught by Mr. Babbage,\nit must calculate interest and logarithms. Lord Chancellor Thurlow\nthought it might be made to draw bills and answers in chancery. If\nthat were satire, it is yet coming to render many higher services of\na mechanico-intellectual kind, and will leave the satire short of the\nfact.\n\nHow excellent are the mechanical aids we have applied to the human\nbody, as in dentistry, in vaccination, in the rhinoplastic treatment;\nin the beautiful aid of ether, like a finer sleep; and in the boldest\npromiser of all,--the transfusion of the blood,--which, in Paris, it\nwas claimed, enables a man to change his blood as often as his linen!\n\nWhat of this dapper caoutchouc and gutta-percha, which make water-pipes\nand stomach-pumps, belting for mill-wheels, and diving bells, and\nrain-proof coats for all climates, which teach us to defy the wet,\nand put every man on a footing with the beaver and the crocodile?\nWhat of the grand tools with which we engineer, like kobolds and\nenchanters,--tunnelling Alps, canalling the American Isthmus, piercing\nthe Arabian desert? In Massachusetts, we fight the sea successfully\nwith beach-grass and broom,--and the blowing sand-barrens with pine\nplantations. The soil of Holland, once the most populous in Europe,\nis below the level of the sea. Egypt, where no rain fell for three\nthousand years, now, it is said, thanks Mehemet Ali\u2019s irrigations and\nplanted forests for late-returning showers. The old Hebrew king said,\n\u201cHe makes the wrath of man to praise him.\u201d And there is no argument of\ntheism better than the grandeur of ends brought about by paltry means.\nThe chain of western railroads from Chicago to the Pacific has planted\ncities and civilization in less time than it costs to bring an orchard\ninto bearing.\n\nWhat shall we say of the ocean telegraph, that extension of the eye and\near, whose sudden performance astonished mankind as if the intellect\nwere taking the brute earth itself into training, and shooting the\nfirst thrills of life and thought through the unwilling brain?\n\nThere does not seem any limit to these new informations of the same\nSpirit that made the elements at first, and now, through man, works\nthem. Art and power will go on as they have done,--will make day out\nof night, time out of space, and space out of time.\n\nInvention breeds invention. No sooner is the electric telegraph\ndevised, than gutta-percha, the very material it requires, is found.\nThe aeronaut is provided with gun-cotton, the very fuel he wants for\nhis balloon. When commerce is vastly enlarged, California and Australia\nexpose the gold it needs. When Europe is over-populated, America and\nAustralia crave to be peopled; and so, throughout, every chance is\ntimed, as if Nature, who made the lock, knew where to find the key.\n\nAnother result of our arts is the new intercourse which is surprising\nus with new solutions of the embarrassing political problems. The\nintercourse is not new, but the scale is new. Our selfishness would\nhave held slaves, or would have excluded from a quarter of the planet\nall that are not born on the soil of that quarter. Our politics are\ndisgusting; but what can they help or hinder when from time to time\nthe primal instincts are impressed on masses of mankind, when the\nnations are in exodus and flux? Nature loves to cross her stocks,--and\nGerman, Chinese, Turk, Russ, and Kanaka were putting out to sea, and\nintermarrying race with race; and commerce took the hint, and ships\nwere built capacious enough to carry the people of a county.\n\nThis thousand-handed art has introduced a new element into the state.\nThe science of power is forced to remember the power of science.\nCivilization mounts and climbs. Malthus, when he stated that the mouths\nwent on multiplying geometrically, and the food only arithmetically,\nforgot to say that the human mind was also a factor in political\neconomy, and that the augmenting wants of society would be met by an\naugmenting power of invention.\n\nYes, we have a pretty artillery of tools now in our social\narrangements: we ride four times as fast as our fathers did; travel,\ngrind, weave, forge, plant, till, and excavate better. We have new\nshoes, gloves, glasses, and gimlets; we have the calculus; we have the\nnewspaper, which does its best to make every square acre of land and\nsea give an account of itself at your breakfast-table; we have money,\nand paper money; we have language,--the finest tool of all, and nearest\nto the mind. Much will have more. Man flatters himself that his command\nover nature must increase. Things begin to obey him. We are to have the\nballoon yet, and the next war will be fought in the air. We may yet\nfind a rose-water that will wash the negro white. He sees the skull of\nthe English race changing from its Saxon type under the exigencies of\nAmerican life.\n\nTantalus, who in old times was seen vainly trying to quench his thirst\nwith a flowing stream, which ebbed whenever he approached it, has been\nseen again lately. He is in Paris, in New York, in Boston. He is now in\ngreat spirits; thinks he shall reach it yet; thinks he shall bottle the\nwave. It is, however, getting a little doubtful. Things have an ugly\nlook still. No matter how many centuries of culture have preceded, the\nnew man always finds himself standing on the brink of chaos, always in\na crisis. Can anybody remember when the times were not hard, and money\nnot scarce? Can anybody remember when sensible men, and the right sort\nof men, and the right sort of women, were plentiful? Tantalus begins to\nthink steam a delusion, and galvanism no better than it should be.\n\nMany facts concur to show that we must look deeper for our salvation\nthan to steam, photographs, balloons, or astronomy. These tools\nhave some questionable properties. They are reagents. Machinery is\naggressive. The weaver becomes a web, the machinist a machine. If\nyou do not use the tools, they use you. All tools are in one sense\nedge-tools, and dangerous. A man builds a fine house; and now he has\na master, and a task for life: he is to furnish, watch, show it, and\nkeep it in repair, the rest of his days. A man has a reputation, and\nis no longer free, but must respect that. A man makes a picture or\na book, and, if it succeeds, \u2019tis often the worse for him. I saw a\nbrave man the other day, hitherto as free as the hawk or the fox of\nthe wilderness, constructing his cabinet of drawers for shells, eggs,\nminerals, and mounted birds. It was easy to see that he was amusing\nhimself with making pretty links for his own limbs.\n\nThen the political economist thinks \u201c\u2019tis doubtful if all the\nmechanical inventions that ever existed have lightened the day\u2019s toil\nof one human being.\u201d The machine unmakes the man. Now that the machine\nis so perfect, the engineer is nobody. Every new step in improving the\nengine restricts one more act of the engineer,--unteaches him. Once it\ntook Archimedes; now it only needs a fireman, and a boy to know the\ncoppers, to pull up the handles or mind the water-tank. But when the\nengine breaks, they can do nothing.\n\nWhat sickening details in the daily journals! I believe they have\nceased to publish the \u201cNewgate Calendar\u201d and the \u201cPirate\u2019s Own Book\u201d\nsince the family newspapers, namely, the New York Tribune and the\nLondon Times, have quite superseded them in the freshness, as well\nas the horror, of their records of crime. Politics were never more\ncorrupt and brutal; and Trade, that pride and darling of our ocean,\nthat educator of nations, that benefactor in spite of itself, ends in\nshameful defaulting, bubble, and bankruptcy, all over the world.\n\nOf course, we resort to the enumeration of his arts and inventions as a\nmeasure of the worth of man. But if, with all his arts, he is a felon,\nwe cannot assume the mechanical skill or chemical resources as the\nmeasure of worth. Let us try another gauge.\n\nWhat have these arts done for the character, for the worth of mankind?\nAre men better? \u2019Tis sometimes questioned whether morals have not\ndeclined as the arts have ascended. Here are great arts and little men.\nHere is greatness begotten of paltriness. We cannot trace the triumphs\nof civilization to such benefactors as we wish. The greatest meliorator\nof the world is selfish, huckstering Trade. Every victory over matter\nought to recommend to man the worth of his nature. But now one wonders\nwho did all this good. Look up the inventors. Each has his own knack;\nhis genius is in veins and spots. But the great, equal, symmetrical\nbrain, fed from a great heart, you shall not find. Every one has more\nto hide than he has to show, or is lamed by his excellence. \u2019Tis too\nplain that with the material power the moral progress has not kept\npace. It appears that we have not made a judicious investment. Works\nand days were offered us, and we took works.\n\nThe new study of the Sanskrit has shown us the origin of the old names\nof God,--Dyaus, Deus, Zeus, Zeu pater, Jupiter,--names of the sun,\nstill recognizable through the modifications of our vernacular words,\nimporting that the Day is the Divine Power and Manifestation, and\nindicating that those ancient men, in their attempts to express the\nSupreme Power of the universe, called him the Day, and that this name\nwas accepted by all the tribes.\n\nHesiod wrote a poem which he called \u201cWorks and Days,\u201d in which he\nmarked the changes of the Greek year, instructing the husbandman at\nthe rising of what constellation he might safely sow, when to reap,\nwhen to gather wood, when the sailor might launch his boat in security\nfrom storms, and what admonitions of the planets he must heed. It is\nfull of economies for Grecian life, noting the proper age for marriage,\nthe rules of household thrift, and of hospitality. The poem is full of\npiety as well as prudence, and is adapted to all meridians, by adding\nthe ethics of works and of days. But he has not pushed his study of\ndays into such inquiry and analysis as they invite.\n\nA farmer said \u201che should like to have all the land that joined his\nown.\u201d Bonaparte, who had the same appetite, endeavored to make the\nMediterranean a French lake. Czar Alexander was more expansive, and\nwished to call the Pacific _my ocean_; and the Americans were obliged\nto resist his attempts to make it a close sea. But if he had the earth\nfor his pasture, and the sea for his pond, he would be a pauper still.\nHe only is rich who owns the day. There is no king, rich man, fairy,\nor demon who possesses such power as that. The days are ever divine\nas to the first Aryans. They are of the least pretension, and of the\ngreatest capacity, of anything that exists. They come and go like\nmuffled and veiled figures, sent from a distant friendly party; but\nthey say nothing; and if we do not use the gifts they bring, they carry\nthem as silently away.\n\nHow the day fits itself to the mind, winds itself round it like a fine\ndrapery, clothing all its fancies! Any holiday communicates to us its\ncolor. We wear its cockade and favors in our humor. Remember what\nboys think in the morning of \u201cElection day,\u201d of the Fourth of July,\nof Thanksgiving or Christmas. The very stars in their courses wink\nto them of nuts and cakes, bonbons, presents, and fireworks. Cannot\nmemory still descry the old school-house and its porch, somewhat hacked\nby jack-knives, where you spun tops and snapped marbles; and do you\nnot recall that life was then calendared by moments, threw itself\ninto nervous knots or glittering hours, even as now, and not spread\nitself abroad an equable felicity? In college terms, and in years\nthat followed, the young graduate, when the Commencement anniversary\nreturned, though he were in a swamp, would see a festive light, and\nfind the air faintly echoing with plausive academic thunders. In\nsolitude and in the country, what dignity distinguishes the holy time!\nThe old Sabbath, or Seventh Day, white with the religions of unknown\nthousands of years, when this hallowed hour dawns out of the deep,--a\nclean page, which the wise may inscribe with truth, whilst the savage\nscrawls it with fetishes,--the cathedral music of history breathes\nthrough it a psalm to our solitude.\n\nSo, in the common experience of the scholar, the weathers fit his\nmoods. A thousand tunes the variable wind plays, a thousand spectacles\nit brings, and each is the frame or dwelling of a new spirit. I used\nformerly to choose my time with some nicety for each favorite book.\nOne author is good for winter, and one for the dog-days. The scholar\nmust look long for the right hour for Plato\u2019s Tim\u00e6us. At last the elect\nmorning arrives, the early dawn,--a few lights conspicuous in the\nheaven, as of a world just created and still becoming,--and in its wide\nleisures we dare open that book.\n\nThere are days when the great are near us, when there is no frown on\ntheir brow, no condescension even; when they take us by the hand, and\nwe share their thought. There are days which are the carnival of the\nyear. The angels assume flesh, and repeatedly become visible. The\nimagination of the gods is excited, and rushes on every side into\nforms. Yesterday not a bird peeped; the world was barren, peaked,\nand pining: to-day \u2019tis inconceivably populous; creation swarms and\nmeliorates.\n\nThe days are made on a loom whereof the warp and woof are past and\nfuture time. They are majestically dressed, as if every god brought\na thread to the skyey web. \u2019Tis pitiful the things by which we are\nrich or poor,--a matter of coins, coats, and carpets, a little more\nor less stone, or wood, or paint, the fashion of a cloak or hat; like\nthe luck of naked Indians, of whom one is proud in the possession of\na glass bead or a red feather, and the rest miserable in the want\nof it. But the treasures which Nature spent itself to amass,--the\nsecular, refined, composite anatomy of man,--which all strata go to\nform, which the prior races, from infusory and saurian, existed to\nripen; the surrounding plastic natures; the earth with its foods; the\nintellectual, temperamenting air; the sea with its invitations; the\nheaven deep with worlds; and the answering brain and nervous structure\nreplying to these; the eye that looketh into the deeps, which again\nlook back to the eye,--abyss to abyss;--these, not like a glass bead,\nor the coins or carpets, are given immeasurably to all.\n\nThis miracle is hurled into every beggar\u2019s hands. The blue sky is a\ncovering for a market, and for the cherubim and seraphim. The sky\nis the varnish or glory with which the Artist has washed the whole\nwork,--the verge or confines of matter and spirit. Nature could no\nfarther go. Could our happiest dream come to pass in solid fact,--could\na power open our eyes to behold \u201cmillions of spiritual creatures walk\nthe earth,\u201d--I believe I should find that mid-plain on which they\nmoved floored beneath and arched above with the same web of blue depth\nwhich weaves itself over me now, as I trudge the streets on my affairs.\n\n\u2019Tis singular that our rich English language should have no word to\ndenote the face of the world. _Kinde_ was the old English term, which,\nhowever, filled only half the range of our fine Latin word, with its\ndelicate future tense,--_natura_, _about to be born_, or what German\nphilosophy denotes as a _becoming_. But nothing expresses that power\nwhich seems to work for beauty alone. The Greek _Kosmos_ did; and\ntherefore, with great propriety, Humboldt entitles his book, which\nrecounts the last results of science, _Cosmos_.\n\nSuch are the days,--the earth is the cup, the sky is the cover, of the\nimmense bounty of nature which is offered us for our daily aliment; but\nwhat a force of _illusion_ begins life with us, and attends us to the\nend! We are coaxed, flattered, and duped, from morn to eve, from birth\nto death; and where is the old eye that ever saw through the deception?\nThe Hindoos represent Maia, the illusory energy of Vishnu, as one of\nhis principal attributes. As if, in this gale of warring elements,\nwhich life is, it was necessary to bind souls to human life as mariners\nin a tempest lash themselves to the mast and bulwarks of a ship, and\nNature employed certain illusions as her ties and straps,--a rattle,\na doll, an apple, for a child; skates, a river, a boat, a horse, a\ngun, for the growing boy;--and I will not begin to name those of the\nyouth and adult, for they are numberless. Seldom and slowly the mask\nfalls, and the pupil is permitted to see that all is one stuff, cooked\nand painted under many counterfeit appearances. Hume\u2019s doctrine was\nthat the circumstances vary, the amount of happiness does not; that\nthe beggar cracking fleas in the sunshine under a hedge, and the duke\nrolling by in his chariot, the girl equipped for her first ball, and\nthe orator returning triumphant from the debate, had different means,\nbut the same quantity of pleasant excitement.\n\nThis element of illusion lends all its force to hide the values of\npresent time. Who is he that does not always find himself doing\nsomething less than his best task? \u201cWhat are you doing?\u201d \u201cO, nothing;\nI have been doing thus, or I shall do so or so, but now I am only--\u201d\nAh! poor dupe, will you never slip out of the web of the master\njuggler,--never learn that, as soon as the irrecoverable years have\nwoven their blue glory between to-day and us, these passing hours shall\nglitter and draw us, as the wildest romance and the homes of beauty and\npoetry? How difficult to deal erect with them! The events they bring,\ntheir trade, entertainments, and gossip, their urgent work, all throw\ndust in the eyes and distract attention. He is a strong man who can\nlook them in the eye, see through this juggle, feel their identity, and\nkeep his own; who can know surely that one will be like another to the\nend of the world, nor permit love, or death, or politics, or money,\nwar, or pleasure, to draw him from his task.\n\nThe world is always equal to itself, and every man in moments of deeper\nthought is apprised that he is repeating the experiences of the people\nin the streets of Thebes or Byzantium. An everlasting Now reigns in\nnature, which hangs the same roses on our bushes which charmed the\nRoman and the Chald\u00e6an in their hanging gardens. \u2018To what end, then,\u2019\nhe asks, \u2018should I study languages, and traverse countries, to learn so\nsimple truths?\u2019\n\nHistory of ancient art, excavated cities, recovery of books and\ninscriptions,--yes, the works were beautiful, and the history worth\nknowing; and academies convene to settle the claims of the old schools.\nWhat journeys and measurements,--Niebuhr and M\u00fcller and Layard,--to\nidentify the plain of Troy and Nimroud town! And your homage to Dante\ncosts you so much sailing; and to ascertain the discoverers of America\nneeds as much voyaging as the discovery cost. Poor child! that flexile\nclay of which these old brothers moulded their admirable symbols was\nnot Persian, nor Memphian, nor Teutonic, nor local at all, but was\ncommon lime and silex and water, and sunlight, the heat of the blood,\nand the heaving of the lungs; it was that clay which thou heldest but\nnow in thy foolish hands, and threwest away to go and seek in vain in\nsepulchres, mummy-pits, and old book-shops of Asia Minor, Egypt, and\nEngland. It was the deep to-day which all men scorn; the rich poverty,\nwhich men hate; the populous, all-loving solitude, which men quit\nfor the tattle of towns. HE lurks, _he_ hides,--_he_ who is success,\nreality, joy, and power. One of the illusions is that the present hour\nis not the critical, decisive hour. Write it on your heart that every\nday is the best day in the year. No man has learned anything rightly,\nuntil he knows that every day is Doomsday. \u2019Tis the old secret of the\ngods that they come in low disguises. \u2019Tis the vulgar great who come\ndizened with gold and jewels. Real kings hide away their crowns in\ntheir wardrobes, and affect a plain and poor exterior. In the Norse\nlegend of our ancestors, Odin dwells in a fisher\u2019s hut, and patches\na boat. In the Hindoo legends, Hari dwells a peasant among peasants.\nIn the Greek legend, Apollo lodges with the shepherds of Admetus; and\nJove liked to rusticate among the poor Ethiopians. So, in our history,\nJesus is born in a barn, and his twelve peers are fishermen. \u2019Tis the\nvery principle of science that Nature shows herself best in leasts;\n\u2019twas the maxim of Aristotle and Lucretius; and, in modern times, of\nSwedenborg and of Hahnemann. The order of changes in the egg determines\nthe age of fossil strata. So it was the rule of our poets, in the\nlegends of fairy lore, that the fairies largest in power were the least\nin size. In the Christian graces, humility stands highest of all, in\nthe form of the Madonna; and in life, this is the secret of the wise.\nWe owe to genius always the same debt, of lifting the curtain from the\ncommon, and showing us that divinities are sitting disguised in the\nseeming gang of gypsies and pedlers. In daily life, what distinguishes\nthe master is the using those materials he has, instead of looking\nabout for what are more renowned, or what others have used well. \u201cA\ngeneral,\u201d said Bonaparte, \u201calways has troops enough, if he only knows\nhow to employ those he has, and bivouacs with them.\u201d Do not refuse\nthe employment which the hour brings you, for one more ambitious. The\nhighest heaven of wisdom is alike near from every point, and thou must\nfind it, if at all, by methods native to thyself alone.\n\nThat work is ever the more pleasant to the imagination which is not now\nrequired. How wistfully, when we have promised to attend the working\ncommittee, we look at the distant hills and their seductions!\n\nThe use of history is to give value to the present hour and its duty.\nThat is good which commends to me my country, my climate, my means\nand materials, my associates. I knew a man in a certain religious\nexaltation, who \u201cthought it an honor to wash his own face.\u201d He seemed\nto me more sane than those who hold themselves cheap.\n\nZo\u00f6logists may deny that horse-hairs in the water change to worms; but\nI find that whatever is old corrupts, and the past turns to snakes. The\nreverence for the deeds of our ancestors is a treacherous sentiment.\nTheir merit was not to reverence the old, but to honor the present\nmoment; and we falsely make them excuses of the very habit which they\nhated and defied.\n\nAnother illusion is, that there is not time enough for our work. Yet\nwe might reflect that though many creatures eat from one dish, each,\naccording to its constitution, assimilates from the elements what\nbelongs to it, whether time, or space, or light, or water, or food. A\nsnake converts whatever prey the meadow yields him into snake; a fox,\ninto fox; and Peter and John are working up all existence into Peter\nand John. A poor Indian chief of the Six Nations of New York made a\nwiser reply than any philosopher, to some one complaining that he had\nnot enough time. \u201cWell,\u201d said Red Jacket, \u201cI suppose you have all there\nis.\u201d\n\nA third illusion haunts us, that a long duration, as a year, a decade,\na century, is valuable. But an old French sentence says, \u201cGod works\nin moments,\u201d--\u201c_En peu d\u2019heure Dieu labeure_.\u201d We ask for long life,\nbut \u2019tis deep life, or grand moments, that signify. Let the measure of\ntime be spiritual, not mechanical. Life is unnecessarily long. Moments\nof insight, of fine personal relation, a smile, a glance,--what ample\nborrowers of eternity they are! Life culminates and concentrates; and\nHomer said, \u201cThe gods ever give to mortals their apportioned share of\nreason only on one day.\u201d\n\nI am of the opinion of the poet Wordsworth, \u201cthat there is no real\nhappiness in this life, but in intellect and virtue.\u201d I am of the\nopinion of Pliny, \u201cthat, whilst we are musing on these things, we are\nadding to the length of our lives.\u201d I am of the opinion of Glauco, who\nsaid, \u201cThe measure of life, O Socrates, is, with the wise, the speaking\nand hearing such discourses as yours.\u201d\n\nHe only can enrich me who can recommend to me the space between sun\nand sun. \u2019Tis the measure of a man,--his apprehension of a day. For\nwe do not listen with the best regard to the verses of a man who is\nonly a poet, nor to his problems, if he is only an algebraist; but if\na man is at once acquainted with the geometric foundations of things\nand with their festal splendor, his poetry is exact and his arithmetic\nmusical. And him I reckon the most learned scholar, not who can unearth\nfor me the buried dynasties of Sesostris and Ptolemy, the Sothiac era,\nthe Olympiads and consulships, but who can unfold the theory of this\nparticular Wednesday. Can he uncover the ligaments concealed from\nall but piety, which attach the dull men and things we know to the\nFirst Cause? These passing fifteen minutes, men think, are time, not\neternity; are low and subaltern, are but hope or memory, that is, the\nway _to_ or the way _from_ welfare, but not welfare. Can he show their\ntie? That interpreter shall guide us from a menial and eleemosynary\nexistence into riches and stability. He dignifies the place where he\nis. This mendicant America, this curious, peering, itinerant, imitative\nAmerica, studious of Greece and Rome, of England and Germany, will\ntake off its dusty shoes, will take off its glazed traveller\u2019s-cap,\nand sit at home with repose and deep joy on its face. The world has no\nsuch landscape, the aeons of history no such hour, the future no equal\nsecond opportunity. Now let poets sing! now let arts unfold!\n\nOne more view remains. But life is good only when it is magical and\nmusical, a perfect timing and consent, and when we do not anatomize\nit. You must treat the days respectfully, you must be a day yourself,\nand not interrogate it like a college professor. The world is\nenigmatical,--everything said, and everything known or done,--and must\nnot be taken literally, but genially. We must be at the top of our\ncondition to understand anything rightly. You must hear the bird\u2019s\nsong without attempting to render it into nouns and verbs. Cannot we be\na little abstemious and obedient? Cannot we let the morning be?\n\nEverything in the universe goes by indirection. There are no straight\nlines. I remember well the foreign scholar who made a week of my youth\nhappy by his visit. \u201cThe savages in the islands,\u201d he said, \u201cdelight to\nplay with the surf, coming in on the top of the rollers, then swimming\nout again, and repeat the delicious man\u0153uvre for hours. Well, human\nlife is made up of such transits. There can be no greatness without\nabandonment. But here your very astronomy is an espionage. I dare not\ngo out of doors and see the moon and stars, but they seem to measure\nmy tasks, to ask how many lines or pages are finished since I saw them\nlast. Not so, as I told you, was it in Belleisle. The days at Belleisle\nwere all different, and only joined by a perfect love of the same\nobject. Just to fill the hour,--that is happiness. Fill my hour, ye\ngods, so that I shall not say, whilst I have done this, \u2018Behold, also,\nan hour of my life is gone,\u2019--but rather, \u2018I have lived an hour.\u2019\u201d\n\nWe do not want factitious men, who can do any literary or professional\nfeat, as, to write poems, or advocate a cause, or carry a measure, for\nmoney; or turn their ability indifferently in any particular direction\nby the strong effort of will. No, what has been best done in the\nworld,--the works of genius,--cost nothing. There is no painful effort,\nbut it is the spontaneous flowing of the thought. Shakspeare made his\nHamlet as a bird weaves its nest. Poems have been written between\nsleeping and waking, irresponsibly. Fancy defines herself:\n\n  \u201cForms that men spy\n  With the half-shut eye\n  In the beams of the setting sun, am I.\u201d\n\nThe masters painted for joy, and knew not that virtue had gone out\nof them. They could not paint the like in cold blood. The masters of\nEnglish lyric wrote their songs so. It was a fine efflorescence of fine\npowers; as was said of the letters of the Frenchwomen,--\u201cthe charming\naccident of their more charming existence.\u201d Then the poet is never the\npoorer for his song. A song is no song unless the circumstance is free\nand fine. If the singer sing from a sense of duty or from seeing no\nway of escape, I had rather have none. Those only can sleep who do not\ncare to sleep; and those only write or speak best who do not too much\nrespect the writing or the speaking.\n\nThe same rule holds in science. The savant is often an amateur. His\nperformance is a memoir to the Academy on fish-worms, tadpoles, or\nspiders\u2019 legs; he observes as other academicians observe; he is\non stilts at a microscope, and,--his memoir finished and read and\nprinted,--he retreats into his routinary existence, which is quite\nseparate from his scientific. But in Newton, science was as easy as\nbreathing; he used the same wit to weigh the moon that he used to\nbuckle his shoes; and all his life was simple, wise, and majestic. So\nwas it in Archimedes,--always self-same, like the sky. In Linn\u00e6us, in\nFranklin, the like sweetness and equality,--no stilts, no tiptoe;--and\ntheir results are wholesome and memorable to all men.\n\nIn stripping time of its illusions, in seeking to find what is the\nheart of the day, we come to the quality of the moment, and drop the\nduration altogether. It is the depth at which we live, and not at all\nthe surface extension, that imports. We pierce to the eternity, of\nwhich time is the flitting surface; and, really, the least acceleration\nof thought, and the least increase of power of thought, make life\nto seem and to be of vast duration. We call it time; but when that\nacceleration and that deepening take effect, it acquires another and a\nhigher name.\n\nThere are people who do not need much experimenting; who, after years\nof activity, say, we knew all this before; who love at first sight\nand hate at first sight; discern the affinities and repulsions; who\ndo not care so much for conditions as others, for they are always in\none condition, and enjoy themselves; who dictate to others, and are\nnot dictated to; who in their consciousness of deserving success\nconstantly slight the ordinary means of attaining it; who have\nself-existence and self-help; who are suffered to be themselves in\nsociety; who are great in the present; who have no talents, or care not\nto have them,--being that which was before talent, and shall be after\nit, and of which talent seems only a tool;--this is character, the\nhighest name at which philosophy has arrived.\n\n\u2019Tis not important how the hero does this or this, but what he is. What\nhe is will appear in every gesture and syllable. In this way the moment\nand the character are one.\n\n\u2019Tis a fine fable for the advantage of character over talent, the Greek\nlegend of the strife of Jove and Ph\u0153bus. Ph\u0153bus challenged the gods,\nand said, \u201cWho will outshoot the far-darting Apollo?\u201d Zeus said, \u201cI\nwill.\u201d Mars shook the lots in his helmet, and that of Apollo leaped out\nfirst. Apollo stretched his bow and shot his arrow into the extreme\nwest. Then Zeus arose, and with one stride cleared the whole distance,\nand said, \u201cWhere shall I shoot? there is no space left.\u201d So the\nbowman\u2019s prize was adjudged to him who drew no bow.\n\nAnd this is the progress of every earnest mind; from the works of man\nand the activity of the hands to a delight in the faculties which rule\nthem; from a respect to the works to a wise wonder at this mystic\nelement of time in which he is conditioned; from local skills and the\neconomy which reckons the amount of production _per_ hour to the finer\neconomy which respects the quality of what is done, and the right we\nhave to the work, or the fidelity with which it flows from ourselves;\nthen to the depth of thought it betrays, looking to its universality,\nor, that its roots are in eternity, not in time. Then it flows from\ncharacter, that sublime health which values one moment as another, and\nmakes us great in all conditions, and is the only definition we have of\nfreedom and power.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS.\n\n\n\n\nBOOKS.\n\n\nIt is easy to accuse books, and bad ones are easily found; and the best\nare but records, and not the things recorded; and certainly there is\ndilettanteism enough, and books that are merely neutral and do nothing\nfor us. In Plato\u2019s \u201cGorgias,\u201d Socrates says: \u201cThe shipmaster walks in\na modest garb near the sea, after bringing his passengers from \u00c6gina\nor from Pontus, not thinking he has done anything extraordinary, and\ncertainly knowing that his passengers are the same, and in no respect\nbetter than when he took them on board.\u201d So is it with books, for\nthe most part: they work no redemption in us. The bookseller might\ncertainly know that his customers are in no respect better for the\npurchase and consumption of his wares. The volume is dear at a dollar,\nand, after reading to weariness the lettered backs, we leave the shop\nwith a sigh, and learn, as I did, without surprise, of a surly bank\ndirector, that in bank parlors they estimate all stocks of this kind as\nrubbish.\n\nBut it is not less true that there are books which are of that\nimportance in a man\u2019s private experience, as to verify for him the\nfables of Cornelius Agrippa, of Michael Scott, or of the old Orpheus of\nThrace,--books which take rank in our life with parents and lovers and\npassionate experiences, so medicinal, so stringent, so revolutionary,\nso authoritative,--books which are the work and the proof of faculties\nso comprehensive, so nearly equal to the world which they paint, that,\nthough one shuts them with meaner ones, he feels his exclusion from\nthem to accuse his way of living.\n\nConsider what you have in the smallest chosen library. A company of\nthe wisest and wittiest men that could be picked out of all civil\ncountries, in a thousand years, have set in best order the results\nof their learning and wisdom. The men themselves were hid and\ninaccessible, solitary, impatient of interruption, fenced by etiquette;\nbut the thought which they did not uncover to their bosom friend is\nhere written out in transparent words to us, the strangers of another\nage.\n\nWe owe to books those general benefits which come from high\nintellectual action. Thus, I think, we often owe to them the perception\nof immortality. They impart sympathetic activity to the moral power.\nGo with mean people, and you think life is mean. Then read Plutarch,\nand the world is a proud place, peopled with men of positive quality,\nwith heroes and demigods standing around us, who will not let us sleep.\nThen, they address the imagination: only poetry inspires poetry.\nThey become the organic culture of the time. College education is the\nreading of certain books which the common sense of all scholars agrees\nwill represent the science already accumulated. If you know that,--for\ninstance in geometry, if you have read Euclid and Laplace,--your\nopinion has some value; if you do not know these, you are not entitled\nto give any opinion on the subject. Whenever any sceptic or bigot\nclaims to be heard on the questions of intellect and morals, we ask if\nhe is familiar with the books of Plato, where all his pert objections\nhave once for all been disposed of. If not, he has no right to our\ntime. Let him go and find himself answered there.\n\nMeantime the colleges, whilst they provide us with libraries, furnish\nno professor of books; and, I think, no chair is so much wanted. In a\nlibrary we are surrounded by many hundreds of dear friends, but they\nare imprisoned by an enchanter in these paper and leathern boxes;\nand though they know us, and have been waiting two, ten, or twenty\ncenturies for us,--some of them,--and are eager to give us a sign, and\nunbosom themselves, it is the law of their limbo that they must not\nspeak until spoken to; and as the enchanter has dressed them, like\nbattalions of infantry, in coat and jacket of one cut, by the thousand\nand ten thousand, your chance of hitting on the right one is to be\ncomputed by the arithmetical rule of Permutation and Combination,--not\na choice out of three caskets, but out of half a million caskets all\nalike. But it happens in our experience, that in this lottery there\nare at least fifty or a hundred blanks to a prize. It seems, then,\nas if some charitable soul, after losing a great deal of time among\nthe false books, and alighting upon a few true ones which made him\nhappy and wise, would do a right act in naming those which have been\nbridges or ships to carry him safely over dark morasses and barren\noceans, into the heart of sacred cities, into palaces and temples.\nThis would be best done by those great masters of books who from time\nto time appear,--the Fabricii, the Seldens, Magliabecchis, Scaligers,\nMirandolas, Bayles, Johnsons, whose eyes sweep the whole horizon of\nlearning. But private readers, reading purely for love of the book,\nwould serve us by leaving each the shortest note of what he found.\n\nThere are books; and it is practicable to read them, because they are\nso few. We look over with a sigh the monumental libraries of Paris, of\nthe Vatican, and the British Museum. In 1858, the number of printed\nbooks in the Imperial Library at Paris was estimated at eight hundred\nthousand volumes, with an annual increase of twelve thousand volumes;\nso that the number of printed books extant to-day may easily exceed\na million. It is easy to count the number of pages which a diligent\nman can read in a day, and the number of years which human life in\nfavorable circumstances allows to reading; and to demonstrate, that,\nthough he should read from dawn till dark, for sixty years, he must\ndie in the first alcoves. But nothing can be more deceptive than this\narithmetic, where none but a natural method is really pertinent. I\nvisit occasionally the Cambridge Library, and I can seldom go there\nwithout renewing the conviction that the best of it all is already\nwithin the four walls of my study at home. The inspection of the\ncatalogue brings me continually back to the few standard writers who\nare on every private shelf; and to these it can afford only the most\nslight and casual additions. The crowds and centuries of books are only\ncommentary and elucidation, echoes and weakeners of these few great\nvoices of Time.\n\nThe best rule of reading will be a method from nature, and not a\nmechanical one of hours and pages. It holds each student to a pursuit\nof his native aim, instead of a desultory miscellany. Let him read what\nis proper to him, and not waste his memory on a crowd of mediocrities.\nAs whole nations have derived their culture from a single book,--as the\nBible has been the literature as well as the religion of large portions\nof Europe,--as Hafiz was the eminent genius of the Persians, Confucius\nof the Chinese, Cervantes of the Spaniards; so, perhaps, the human mind\nwould be a gainer, if all the secondary writers were lost,--say, in\nEngland, all but Shakspeare, Milton, and Bacon,--through the profounder\nstudy so drawn to those wonderful minds. With this pilot of his own\ngenius, let the student read one, or let him read many, he will read\nadvantageously. Dr. Johnson said: \u201cWhilst you stand deliberating\nwhich book your son shall read first, another boy has read both: read\nanything five hours a day, and you will soon be learned.\u201d\n\nNature is much our friend in this matter. Nature is always clarifying\nher water and her wine. No filtration can be so perfect. She does the\nsame thing by books as by her gases and plants. There is always a\nselection in writers, and then a selection from the selection. In the\nfirst place, all books that get fairly into the vital air of the world\nwere written by the successful class, by the affirming and advancing\nclass, who utter what tens of thousands feel though they cannot say.\nThere has already been a scrutiny and choice from many hundreds of\nyoung pens, before the pamphlet or political chapter which you read in\na fugitive journal comes to your eye. All these are young adventurers,\nwho produce their performance to the wise ear of Time, who sits and\nweighs, and, ten years hence, out of a million of pages reprints\none. Again it is judged, it is winnowed by all the winds of opinion,\nand what terrific selection has not passed on it before it can be\nreprinted after twenty years,--and reprinted after a century!--it is as\nif Minos and Rhadamanthus had indorsed the writing. \u2019Tis therefore an\neconomy of time to read old and famed books. Nothing can be preserved\nwhich is not good; and I know beforehand that Pindar, Martial, Terence,\nGalen, Kepler, Galileo, Bacon, Erasmus, More, will be superior to the\naverage intellect. In contemporaries, it is not so easy to distinguish\nbetwixt notoriety and fame.\n\nBe sure, then, to read no mean books. Shun the spawn of the press on\nthe gossip of the hour. Do not read what you shall learn, without\nasking, in the street and the train. Dr. Johnson said, \u201che always went\ninto stately shops\u201d; and good travellers stop at the best hotels; for,\nthough they cost more, they do not cost much more, and there is the\ngood company and the best information. In like manner, the scholar\nknows that the famed books contain, first and last, the best thoughts\nand facts. Now and then, by rarest luck, in some foolish Grub Street\nis the gem we want. But in the best circles is the best information.\nIf you should transfer the amount of your reading day by day from the\nnewspaper to the standard authors---- But who dare speak of such a\nthing?\n\nThe three practical rules, then, which I have to offer, are,--1. Never\nread any book that is not a year old. 2. Never read any but famed\nbooks. 3. Never read any but what you like; or, in Shakspeare\u2019s phrase\n\n  \u201cNo profit goes where is no pleasure ta\u2019en:\n  In brief, sir, study what you most affect.\u201d\n\nMontaigne says, \u201cBooks are a languid pleasure\u201d; but I find certain\nbooks vital and spermatic, not leaving the reader what he was: he shuts\nthe book a richer man. I would never willingly read any others than\nsuch. And I will venture, at the risk of inditing a list of old primers\nand grammars, to count the few books which a superficial reader must\nthankfully use.\n\nOf the old Greek books, I think there are five which we cannot spare:\n1. Homer, who in spite of Pope and all the learned uproar of centuries,\nhas really the true fire, and is good for simple minds, is the true\nand adequate germ of Greece, and occupies that place as history,\nwhich nothing can supply. It holds through all literature, that our\nbest history is still poetry. It is so in Hebrew, in Sanskrit, and\nin Greek. English history is best known through Shakspeare; how much\nthrough Merlin, Robin Hood, and the Scottish ballads!--the German,\nthrough the Nibelungenlied;--the Spanish, through the Cid. Of Homer,\nGeorge Chapman\u2019s is the heroic translation, though the most literal\nprose version is the best of all. 2. Herodotus, whose history contains\ninestimable anecdotes, which brought it with the learned into a sort\nof disesteem; but in these days, when it is found that what is most\nmemorable of history is a few anecdotes, and that we need not be\nalarmed though we should find it not dull, it is regaining credit.\n3. \u00c6schylus, the grandest of the three tragedians, who has given us\nunder a thin veil the first plantation of Europe. The \u201cPrometheus\u201d\nis a poem of the like dignity and scope as the Book of Job, or the\nNorse Edda. 4. Of Plato I hesitate to speak, lest there should be no\nend. You find in him that which you have already found in Homer, now\nripened to thought,--the poet converted to a philosopher, with loftier\nstrains of musical wisdom than Homer reached; as if Homer were the\nyouth, and Plato the finished man; yet with no less security of bold\nand perfect song, when he cares to use it, and with some harp-strings\nfetched from a higher heaven. He contains the future, as he came out\nof the past. In Plato, you explore modern Europe in its causes and\nseed,--all that in thought, which the history of Europe embodies or\nhas yet to embody. The well-informed man finds himself anticipated.\nPlato is up with him too. Nothing has escaped him. Every new crop\nin the fertile harvest of reform, every fresh suggestion of modern\nhumanity, is there. If the student wish to see both sides, and justice\ndone to the man of the world, pitiless exposure of pedants, and the\nsupremacy of truth and the religious sentiment, he shall be contented\nalso. Why should not young men be educated on this book? It would\nsuffice for the tuition of the race,--to test their understanding,\nand to express their reason. Here is that which is so attractive to\nall men,--the literature of aristocracy shall I call it?--the picture\nof the best persons, sentiments, and manners, by the first master, in\nthe best times,--portraits of Pericles, Alcibiades, Crito, Prodicus,\nProtagoras, Anaxagoras, and Socrates, with the lovely background of\nthe Athenian and suburban landscape. Or who can overestimate the\nimages with which Plato has enriched the minds of men, and which pass\nlike bullion in the currency of all nations? Read the \u201cPh\u00e6do,\u201d the\n\u201cProtagoras,\u201d the \u201cPh\u00e6drus,\u201d the \u201cTim\u00e6us,\u201d the \u201cRepublic,\u201d and the\n\u201cApology of Socrates.\u201d 5. Plutarch cannot be spared from the smallest\nlibrary; first, because he is so readable, which is much; then, that he\nis medicinal and invigorating. The lives of Cimon, Lycurgus, Alexander,\nDemosthenes, Phocion, Marcellus, and the rest, are what history has of\nbest. But this book has taken care of itself, and the opinion of the\nworld is expressed in the innumerable cheap editions, which make it\nas accessible as a newspaper. But Plutarch\u2019s \u201cMorals\u201d is less known,\nand seldom reprinted. Yet such a reader as I am writing to can as ill\nspare it as the \u201cLives.\u201d He will read in it the essays \u201cOn the D\u00e6mon\nof Socrates,\u201d \u201cOn Isis and Osiris,\u201d \u201cOn Progress in Virtue,\u201d \u201cOn\nGarrulity,\u201d \u201cOn Love,\u201d and thank anew the art of printing, and the\ncheerful domain of ancient thinking. Plutarch charms by the facility\nof his associations; so that it signifies little where you open\nhis book, you find yourself at the Olympian tables. His memory is\nlike the Isthmian Games, where all that was excellent in Greece was\nassembled, and you are stimulated and recruited by lyric verses, by\nphilosophic sentiments, by the forms and behavior of heroes, by the\nworship of the gods, and by the passing of fillets, parsley and laurel\nwreaths, chariots, armor, sacred cups, and utensils of sacrifice. An\ninestimable trilogy of ancient social pictures are the three \u201cBanquets\u201d\nrespectively of Plato, Xenophon, and Plutarch. Plutarch\u2019s has the least\napproach to historical accuracy; but the meeting of the Seven Wise\nMasters is a charming portraiture of ancient manners and discourse, and\nis as clear as the voice of a fife, and entertaining as a French novel.\nXenophon\u2019s delineation of Athenian manners is an accessory to Plato,\nand supplies traits of Socrates; whilst Plato\u2019s has merits of every\nkind,--being a repertory of the wisdom of the ancients on the subject\nof love,--a picture of a feast of wits, not less descriptive than\nAristophanes,--and, lastly, containing that ironical eulogy of Socrates\nwhich is the source from which all the portraits of that philosopher\ncurrent in Europe have been drawn.\n\nOf course a certain outline should be obtained of Greek history, in\nwhich the important moments and persons can be rightly set down; but\nthe shortest is the best, and if one lacks stomach for Mr. Grote\u2019s\nvoluminous annals, the old slight and popular summary of Goldsmith or\nof Gillies will serve. The valuable part is the age of Pericles and the\nnext generation. And here we must read the \u201cClouds\u201d of Aristophanes,\nand what more of that master we gain appetite for, to learn our way\nin the streets of Athens, and to know the tyranny of Aristophanes,\nrequiring more genius and sometimes not less cruelty than belonged to\nthe official commanders. Aristophanes is now very accessible, with much\nvaluable commentary, through the labors of Mitchell and Cartwright. An\nexcellent popular book is J. A. St. John\u2019s \u201cAncient Greece\u201d; the \u201cLife\nand Letters\u201d of Niebuhr, even more than his Lectures, furnish leading\nviews; and Winckelmann, a Greek born out of due time, has become\nessential to an intimate knowledge of the Attic genius. The secret of\nthe recent histories in German and in English is the discovery, owed\nfirst to Wolff, and later to Boeckh, that the sincere Greek history\nof that period must be drawn from Demosthenes, especially from the\nbusiness orations, and from the comic poets.\n\nIf we come down a little by natural steps from the master to the\ndisciples, we have, six or seven centuries later, the Platonists,--who\nalso cannot be skipped,--Plotinus, Porphyry, Proclus, Synesius,\nJamblichus. Of Jamblichus the Emperor Julian said, \u201cthat he was\nposterior to Plato in time, not in genius.\u201d Of Plotinus, we\nhave eulogies by Porphyry and Longinus, and the favor of the\nEmperor Gallienus,--indicating the respect he inspired among his\ncontemporaries. If any one who had read with interest the \u201cIsis and\nOsiris\u201d of Plutarch should then read a chapter called \u201cProvidence,\u201d by\nSynesius, translated into English by Thomas Taylor, he will find it one\nof the majestic remains of literature, and, like one walking in the\nnoblest of temples, will conceive new gratitude to his fellow-men, and\na new estimate of their nobility. The imaginative scholar will find\nfew stimulants to his brain like these writers. He has entered the\nElysian Fields; and the grand and pleasing figures of gods and d\u00e6mons\nand d\u00e6moniacal men, of the \u201cazonic\u201d and the \u201caquatic gods,\u201d d\u00e6mons\nwith fulgid eyes, and all the rest of the Platonic rhetoric, exalted\na little under the African sun, sail before his eyes. The acolyte has\nmounted the tripod over the cave at Delphi; his heart dances, his\nsight is quickened. These guides speak of the gods with such depth and\nwith such pictorial details, as if they had been bodily present at the\nOlympian feasts. The reader of these books makes new acquaintance with\nhis own mind; new regions of thought are opened. Jamblichus\u2019s \u201cLife\nof Pythagoras\u201d works more directly on the will than the others; since\nPythagoras was eminently a practical person, the founder of a school\nof ascetics and socialists, a planter of colonies, and nowise a man of\nabstract studies alone.\n\nThe respectable and sometimes excellent translations of Bohn\u2019s Library\nhave done for literature what railroads have done for internal\nintercourse. I do not hesitate to read all the books I have named,\nand all good books, in translations. What is really best in any book\nis translatable,--any real insight or broad human sentiment. Nay,\nI observe that, in our Bible, and other books of lofty moral tone,\nit seems easy and inevitable to render the rhythm and music of the\noriginal into phrases of equal melody. The Italians have a fling at\ntranslators,--_i traditori traduttori_; but I thank them. I rarely read\nany Latin, Greek, German, Italian, sometimes not a French book in the\noriginal, which I can procure in a good version. I like to be beholden\nto the great metropolitan English speech, the sea which receives\ntributaries from every region under heaven. I should as soon think\nof swimming across Charles River when I wish to go to Boston, as of\nreading all my books in originals, when I have them rendered for me in\nmy mother-tongue.\n\nFor history there is great choice of ways to bring the student through\nearly Rome. If he can read Livy, he has a good book; but one of the\nshort English compends, some Goldsmith or Ferguson, should be used,\nthat will place in the cycle the bright stars of Plutarch. The\npoet Horace is the eye of the Augustan age; Tacitus, the wisest of\nhistorians; and Martial will give him Roman manners,--and some very\nbad ones,--in the early days of the Empire: but Martial must be read,\nif read at all, in his own tongue. These will bring him to Gibbon, who\nwill take him in charge, and convey him with abundant entertainment\ndown--with notice of all remarkable objects on the way--through\nfourteen hundred years of time. He cannot spare Gibbon, with his vast\nreading,--with such wit and continuity of mind, that, though never\nprofound, his book is one of the conveniences of civilization, like\nthe new railroad from ocean to ocean,--and, I think, will be sure to\nsend the reader to his \u201cMemoirs of Himself,\u201d and the \u201cExtracts from my\nJournal,\u201d and \u201cAbstracts of my Readings,\u201d which will spur the laziest\nscholar to emulation of his prodigious performance.\n\nNow having our idler safe down as far as the fall of Constantinople in\n1453, he is in very good courses; for here are trusty hands waiting for\nhim. The cardinal facts of European history are soon learned. There\nis Dante\u2019s poem, to open the Italian Republics of the Middle Age;\nDante\u2019s \u201cVita Nuova,\u201d to explain Dante and Beatrice; and Boccaccio\u2019s\n\u201cLife of Dante,\u201d--a great man to describe a greater. To help us,\nperhaps a volume or two of M. Sismondi\u2019s \u201cItalian Republics\u201d will be\nas good as the entire sixteen. When we come to Michel Angelo, his\nSonnets and Letters must be read, with his Life by Vasari, or, in our\nday, by Herman Grimm. For the Church, and the Feudal Institution, Mr.\nHallam\u2019s \u201cMiddle Ages\u201d will furnish, if superficial, yet readable and\nconceivable outlines.\n\nThe \u201cLife of the Emperor Charles V.,\u201d by the useful Robertson, is\nstill the key of the following age. Ximenes, Columbus, Loyola, Luther,\nErasmus, Melanchthon, Francis I., Henry VIII., Elizabeth, and Henry\nIV. of France, are his contemporaries. It is a time of seeds and\nexpansions, whereof our recent civilization is the fruit.\n\nIf now the relations of England to European affairs bring him to\nBritish ground, he is arrived at the very moment when modern history\ntakes new proportions. He can look back for the legends and mythology\nto the \u201cYounger Edda\u201d and the \u201cHeimskringla\u201d of Snorro Sturleson, to\nMallet\u2019s \u201cNorthern Antiquities,\u201d to Ellis\u2019s \u201cMetrical Romances,\u201d to\nAsser\u2019s \u201cLife of Alfred\u201d and Venerable Bede, and to the researches of\nSharon Turner and Palgrave. Hume will serve him for an intelligent\nguide, and in the Elizabethan era he is at the richest period of the\nEnglish mind, with the chief men of action and of thought which that\nnation has produced, and with a pregnant future before him. Here he has\nShakspeare, Spenser, Sidney, Raleigh, Bacon, Chapman, Jonson, Ford,\nBeaumont and Fletcher, Herbert, Donne, Herrick; and Milton, Marvell,\nand Dryden, not long after.\n\nIn reading history, he is to prefer the history of individuals. He will\nnot repent the time he gives to Bacon,--not if he read the \u201cAdvancement\nof Learning,\u201d the \u201cEssays,\u201d the \u201cNovum Organum,\u201d the \u201cHistory of\nHenry VII.,\u201d and then all the \u201cLetters\u201d (especially those to the\nEarl of Devonshire, explaining the Essex business), and all but his\n\u201cApophthegms.\u201d\n\nThe task is aided by the strong mutual light which these men shed\non each other. Thus, the works of Ben Jonson are a sort of hoop to\nbind all these fine persons together, and to the land to which they\nbelong. He has written verses to or on all his notable contemporaries;\nand what with so many occasional poems, and the portrait sketches in\nhis \u201cDiscoveries,\u201d and the gossiping record of his opinions in his\nconversations with Drummond of Hawthornden, he has really illustrated\nthe England of his time, if not to the same extent, yet much in the\nsame way, as Walter Scott has celebrated the persons and places of\nScotland. Walton, Chapman, Herrick, and Sir Henry Wotton write also to\nthe times.\n\nAmong the best books are certain _Autobiographies_: as, St. Augustine\u2019s\nConfessions; Benvenuto Cellini\u2019s Life; Montaigne\u2019s Essays; Lord\nHerbert of Cherbury\u2019s Memoirs; Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz;\nRousseau\u2019s Confessions; Linn\u00e6us\u2019s Diary; Gibbon\u2019s, Hume\u2019s, Franklin\u2019s,\nBurns\u2019s, Alfieri\u2019s, Goethe\u2019s, and Haydon\u2019s Autobiographies.\n\nAnother class of books closely allied to these, and of like interest,\nare those which may be called _Table-Talks_: of which the best are\nSaadi\u2019s Gulistan; Luther\u2019s Table-Talk; Aubrey\u2019s Lives; Spence\u2019s\nAnecdotes; Selden\u2019s Table-Talk; Boswell\u2019s Life of Johnson; Eckermann\u2019s\nConversations with Goethe; Coleridge\u2019s Table-Talk; and Hazlitt\u2019s Life\nof Northcote.\n\nThere is a class whose value I should designate as _Favorites_: such\nas Froissart\u2019s Chronicles; Southey\u2019s Chronicle of the Cid; Cervantes;\nSully\u2019s Memoirs; Rabelais; Montaigne; Izaak Walton; Evelyn; Sir Thomas\nBrowne; Aubrey; Sterne; Horace Walpole; Lord Clarendon; Doctor Johnson;\nBurke, shedding floods of light on his times; Lamb; Landor; and De\nQuincey;--a list, of course, that may easily be swelled, as dependent\non individual caprice. Many men are as tender and irritable as lovers\nin reference to these predilections. Indeed, a man\u2019s library is a sort\nof harem, and I observe that tender readers have a great pudency in\nshowing their books to a stranger.\n\nThe annals of bibliography afford many examples of the delirious\nextent to which book-fancying can go, when the legitimate delight in a\nbook is transferred to a rare edition or to a manuscript. This mania\nreached its height about the beginning of the present century. For an\nautograph of Shakspeare one hundred and fifty-five guineas were given.\nIn May, 1812, the library of the Duke of Roxburgh was sold. The sale\nlasted forty-two days,--we abridge the story from Dibdin,--and among\nthe many curiosities was a copy of Boccaccio published by Valdarfer,\nat Venice, in 1471; the only perfect copy of this edition. Among\nthe distinguished company which attended the sale were the Duke of\nDevonshire, Earl Spencer, and the Duke of Marlborough, then Marquis\nof Blandford. The bid stood at five hundred guineas. \u201cA thousand\nguineas,\u201d said Earl Spencer: \u201cAnd ten,\u201d added the Marquis. You might\nhear a pin drop. All eyes were bent on the bidders. Now they talked\napart, now ate a biscuit, now made a bet, but without the least thought\nof yielding one to the other. But to pass over some details,--the\ncontest proceeded until the Marquis said, \u201cTwo thousand pounds.\u201d The\nEarl Spencer bethought him like a prudent general of useless bloodshed\nand waste of powder, and had paused a quarter of a minute, when Lord\nAlthorp with long steps came to his side, as if to bring his father a\nfresh lance to renew the fight. Father and son whispered together, and\nEarl Spencer exclaimed, \u201cTwo thousand two hundred and fifty pounds!\u201d\nAn electric shock went through the assembly. \u201cAnd ten,\u201d quietly added\nthe Marquis. There ended the strife. Ere Evans let the hammer fall, he\npaused; the ivory instrument swept the air; the spectators stood dumb,\nwhen the hammer fell. The stroke of its fall sounded on the farthest\nshores of Italy. The tap of that hammer was heard in the libraries of\nRome, Milan, and Venice. Boccaccio stirred in his sleep of five hundred\nyears, and M. Van Praet groped in vain among the royal alcoves in\nParis, to detect a copy of the famed Valdarfer Boccaccio.\n\nAnother class I distinguish by the term _Vocabularies_. Burton\u2019s\n\u201cAnatomy of Melancholy\u201d is a book of great learning. To read it is\nlike reading in a dictionary. \u2019Tis an inventory to remind us how\nmany classes and species of facts exist, and, in observing into\nwhat strange and multiplex by-ways learning has strayed, to infer\nour opulence. Neither is a dictionary a bad book to read. There is\nno cant in Germans, it, no excess of explanation, and it is full of\nsuggestion,--the raw material of possible poems and histories. Nothing\nis wanting but a little shuffling, sorting, ligature, and cartilage.\nOut of a hundred examples, Cornelius Agrippa \u201cOn the Vanity of Arts\nand Sciences\u201d is a specimen of that scribatiousness which grew to be\nthe habit of the gluttonous readers of his time. Like the modern they\nread a literature while other mortals read a few books. They read\nvoraciously, and must disburden themselves; so they take any general\ntopic, as, Melancholy, or Praise of Science, or Praise of Folly,\nand write and quote without method or end. Now and then out of that\naffluence of their learning comes a fine sentence from Theophrastus,\nor Seneca, or Bo\u00ebthius, but no high method, no inspiring efflux. But\none cannot afford to read for a few sentences; they are good only as\nstrings of suggestive words.\n\nThere is another class, more needful to the present age, because\nthe currents of custom run now in another direction, and leave us\ndry on this side;--I mean the _Imaginative_. A right metaphysics\nshould do justice to the co-ordinate powers of Imagination, Insight,\nUnderstanding, and Will. Poetry, with its aids of Mythology and\nRomance, must be well allowed for an imaginative creature. Men are\never lapsing into a beggarly habit, wherein everything that is not\nciphering, that is, which does not serve the tyrannical animal, is\nhustled out of sight. Our orators and writers are of the same poverty,\nand, in this rag-fair, neither the Imagination, the great awakening\npower, nor the Morals, creative of genius and of men, are addressed.\nBut though orator and poet be of this hunger party, the capacities\nremain. We must have symbols. The child asks you for a story, and is\nthankful for the poorest. It is not poor to him, but radiant with\nmeaning. The man asks for a novel,--that is, asks leave for a few\nhours to be a poet, and to paint things as they ought to be. The youth\nasks for a poem. The very dunces wish to go to the theatre. What\nprivate heavens can we not open, by yielding to all the suggestion of\nrich music! We must have idolatries, mythologies,--some swing and verge\nfor the creative power lying coiled and cramped here, driving ardent\nnatures to insanity and crime if it do not find vent. Without the great\narts which speak to the sense of beauty, a man seems to me a poor,\nnaked, shivering creature. These are his becoming draperies, which warm\nand adorn him. Whilst the prudential and economical tone of society\nstarves the imagination, affronted Nature gets such indemnity as she\nmay. The novel is that allowance and frolic the imagination finds.\nEverything else pins it down, and men flee for redress to Byron, Scott,\nDisraeli, Dumas, Sand, Balzac, Dickens, Thackeray, and Reade. Their\neducation is neglected; but the circulating-library and the theatre, as\nwell as the trout-fishing, the Notch Mountains, the Adirondack country,\nthe tour to Mont Blanc, to the White Hills, and the Ghauts, make such\namends as they can.\n\nThe imagination infuses a certain volatility and intoxication. It has a\nflute which sets the atoms of our frame in a dance, like planets; and,\nonce so liberated, the whole man reeling drunk to the music, they never\nquite subside to their old stony state. But what is the imagination?\nOnly an arm or weapon of the interior energy; only the precursor of\nthe reason. And books that treat the old pedantries of the world,\nour times, places, professions, customs, opinions, histories, with a\ncertain freedom, and distribute things, not after the usages of America\nand Europe, but after the laws of right reason, and with as daring a\nfreedom as we use in dreams, put us on our feet again, enable us to\nform an original judgment of our duties, and suggest new thoughts for\nto-morrow.\n\n\u201cLucrezia Floriani,\u201d \u201cLe P\u00e9ch\u00e9 de M. Antoine,\u201d \u201cJeanne,\u201d and\n\u201cConsuelo,\u201d of George Sand, are great steps from the novel of one\ntermination, which we all read twenty years ago. Yet how far off from\nlife and manners and motives the novel still is! Life lies about us\ndumb; the day, as we know it, has not yet found a tongue. These stories\nare to the plots of real life what the figures in \u201cLa Belle Assembl\u00e9e,\u201d\nwhich represent the fashion of the month, are to portraits. But the\nnovel will find the way to our interiors one day, and will not always\nbe the novel of costume merely. I do not think it inoperative now. So\nmuch novel-reading cannot leave the young men and maidens untouched;\nand doubtless it gives some ideal dignity to the day. The young study\nnoble behavior; and as the player in \u201cConsuelo\u201d insists that he and his\ncolleagues on the boards have taught princes the fine etiquette and\nstrokes of grace and dignity which they practise with so much effect\nin their villas and among their dependents, so I often see traces\nof the Scotch or the French novel in the courtesy and brilliancy of\nyoung midshipmen, collegians, and clerks. Indeed, when one observes\nhow ill and ugly people make their loves and quarrels, \u2019tis pity they\nshould not read novels a little more, to import the fine generosities,\nand the clear, firm conduct, which are as becoming in the unions and\nseparations which love effects under shingle roofs as in palaces and\namong illustrious personages.\n\nIn novels the most serious questions are beginning to be discussed.\nWhat made the popularity of \u201cJane Eyre,\u201d but that a central question\nwas answered in some sort? The question there answered in regard to a\nvicious marriage will always be treated according to the habit of the\nparty. A person of commanding individualism will answer it as Rochester\ndoes,--as Cleopatra, as Milton, as George Sand do,--magnifying the\nexception into a rule, dwarfing the world into an exception. A person\nof less courage, that is, of less constitution, will answer as the\nheroine does,--giving way to fate, to conventionalism, to the actual\nstate and doings of men and women.\n\nFor the most part, our novel-reading is a passion for results. We\nadmire parks, and high-born beauties, and the homage of drawing-rooms,\nand parliaments. They make us sceptical, by giving prominence to\nwealth and social position.\n\nI remember when some peering eyes of boys discovered that the oranges\nhanging on the boughs of an orange-tree in a gay piazza were tied to\nthe twigs by thread. I fear \u2019tis so with the novelist\u2019s prosperities.\nNature has a magic by which she fits the man to his fortunes, by\nmaking them the fruit of his character. But the novelist plucks this\nevent here, and that fortune there, and ties them rashly to his\nfigures, to tickle the fancy of his readers with a cloying success,\nor scare them with shocks of tragedy. And so, on the whole, \u2019tis a\njuggle. We are cheated into laughter or wonder by feats which only\noddly combine acts that we do every day. There is no new element, no\npower, no furtherance. \u2019Tis only confectionery, not the raising of new\ncorn. Great is the poverty of their inventions. _She was beautiful,\nand he fell in love._ Money, and killing, and the Wandering Jew, and\npersuading the lover that his mistress is betrothed to another,--these\nare the main-springs: new names, but no new qualities in the men and\nwomen. Hence the vain endeavor to keep any bit of this fairy gold,\nwhich has rolled like a brook through our hands. A thousand thoughts\nawoke; great rainbows seemed to span the sky,--a morning among the\nmountains;--but we close the book, and not a ray remains in the memory\nof evening. But this passion for romance, and this disappointment,\nshow how much we need real elevations and pure poetry: that which shall\nshow us, in morning and night, in stars and mountains, and in all the\nplight and circumstance of men, the analogons of our own thoughts, and\na like impression made by a just book and by the face of Nature.\n\nIf our times are sterile in genius, we must cheer us with books of\nrich and believing men who had atmosphere and amplitude about them.\nEvery good fable, every mythology, every biography from a religious\nage, every passage of love, and even philosophy and science, when\nthey proceed from an intellectual integrity, and are not detached\nand critical, have the imaginative element. The Greek fables, the\nPersian history (Firdusi), the \u201cYounger Edda\u201d of the Scandinavians,\nthe \u201cChronicle of the Cid,\u201d the poem of Dante, the Sonnets of Michel\nAngelo, the English drama of Shakspeare, Beaumont and Fletcher, and\nFord, and even the prose of Bacon and Milton,--in our time, the Ode\nof Wordsworth, and the poems and the prose of Goethe, have this\nenlargement, and inspire hope and generous attempts.\n\nThere is no room left,--and yet I might as well not have begun as\nto leave out a class of books which are the best: I mean the Bibles\nof the world, or the sacred books of each nation, which express for\neach the supreme result of their experience. After the Hebrew and\nGreek Scriptures, which constitute the sacred books of Christendom,\nthese are, the Desatir of the Persians, and the Zoroastrian Oracles;\nthe Vedas and Laws of Menu; the Upanishads, the Vishnu Purana, the\nBhagvat Geeta, of the Hindoos; the books of the Buddhists; the\n\u201cChinese Classic,\u201d of four books, containing the wisdom of Confucius\nand Mencius. Also such other books as have acquired a semi-canonical\nauthority in the world, as expressing the highest sentiment and hope of\nnations. Such are the \u201cHermes Trismegistus,\u201d pretending to be Egyptian\nremains; the \u201cSentences\u201d of Epictetus; of Marcus Antoninus; the \u201cVishnu\nSarma\u201d of the Hindoos; the \u201cGulistan\u201d of Saadi; the \u201cImitation of\nChrist,\u201d of Thomas \u00e0 Kempis; and the \u201cThoughts\u201d of Pascal.\n\nAll these books are the majestic expressions of the universal\nconscience, and are more to our daily purpose than this year\u2019s almanac\nor this day\u2019s newspaper. But they are for the closet, and to be read\non the bended knee. Their communications are not to be given or\ntaken with the lips and the end of the tongue, but out of the glow\nof the cheek, and with the throbbing heart. Friendship should give\nand take, solitude and time brood and ripen, heroes absorb and enact\nthem. They are not to be held by letters printed on a page, but are\nliving characters translatable into every tongue and form of life.\nI read them on lichens and bark; I watch them on waves on the beach;\nthey fly in birds, they creep in worms; I detect them in laughter and\nblushes and eye-sparkles of men and women. These are Scriptures which\nthe missionary might well carry over prairie, desert, and ocean, to\nSiberia, Japan, Timbuctoo. Yet he will find that the spirit which is in\nthem journeys faster than he, and greets him on his arrival,--was there\nalready long before him. The missionary must be carried by it, and find\nit there, or he goes in vain. Is there any geography in these things?\nWe call them Asiatic, we call them primeval; but perhaps that is only\noptical; for Nature is always equal to herself, and there are as good\neyes and ears now in the planet as ever were. Only these ejaculations\nof the soul are uttered one or a few at a time, at long intervals, and\nit takes millenniums to make a Bible.\n\nThese are a few of the books which the old and the later times have\nyielded us, which will reward the time spent on them. In comparing the\nnumber of good books with the shortness of life, many might well be\nread by proxy, if we had good proxies; and it would be well for sincere\nyoung men to borrow a hint from the French Institute and the British\nAssociation, and, as they divide the whole body into sections, each of\nwhich sits upon and reports of certain matters confided to it, so let\neach scholar associate himself to such persons as he can rely on, in\na literary club, in which each shall undertake a single work or series\nfor which he is qualified. For example, how attractive is the whole\nliterature of the \u201cRoman de la Rose,\u201d the \u201cFabliaux,\u201d and the _gaie\nscience_ of the French Troubadours! Yet who in Boston has time for\nthat? But one of our company shall undertake it, shall study and master\nit, and shall report on it, as under oath; shall give us the sincere\nresult, as it lies in his mind, adding nothing, keeping nothing back.\nAnother member, meantime, shall as honestly search, sift, and as truly\nreport, on British mythology, the Round Table, the histories of Brut,\nMerlin, and Welsh poetry; a third on the Saxon Chronicles, Robert of\nGloucester, and William of Malmesbury; a fourth, on Mysteries, Early\nDrama, \u201cGesta Romanorum,\u201d Collier, and Dyce, and the Camden Society.\nEach shall give us his grains of gold, after the washing; and every\nother shall then decide whether this is a book indispensable to him\nalso.\n\n\n\n\nCLUBS.\n\n\n\n\nCLUBS.\n\n\nWe are delicate machines, and require nice treatment to get from us\nthe maximum of power and pleasure. We need tonics, but must have those\nthat cost little or no reaction. The flame of life burns too fast in\npure oxygen, and nature has tempered the air with nitrogen. So thought\nis the native air of the mind, yet pure it is a poison to our mixed\nconstitution, and soon burns up the bone-house of man, unless tempered\nwith affection and coarse practice in the material world. Varied\nfoods, climates, beautiful objects,--and especially the alternation of\na large variety of objects--are the necessity of this exigent system\nof ours. But our tonics, our luxuries, are force-pumps which exhaust\nthe strength they pretend to supply; and of all the cordials known to\nus, the best, safest, and most exhilarating, with the least harm, is\nsociety; and every healthy and efficient mind passes a large part of\nlife in the company most easy to him.\n\nWe seek society with very different aims, and the staple of\nconversation is widely unlike in its circles. Sometimes it is\nfacts,--running from those of daily necessity to the last results of\nscience,--and has all degrees of importance; sometimes it is love, and\nmakes the balm of our early and of our latest days; sometimes it is\nthought, as from a person who is a mind only; sometimes a singing, as\nif the heart poured out all like a bird; sometimes experience. With\nsome men it is a debate; at the approach of a dispute they neigh like\nhorses. Unless there be an argument, they think nothing is doing.\nSome talkers excel in the precision with which they formulate their\nthoughts, so that you get from them somewhat to remember; others lay\ncriticism asleep by a charm. Especially women use words that are not\nwords,--as steps in a dance are not steps,--but reproduce the genius\nof that they speak of; as the sound of some bells makes us think of\nthe bell merely, whilst the church-chimes in the distance bring the\nchurch and its serious memories before us. Opinions are accidental in\npeople,--have a poverty-stricken air. A man valuing himself as the\norgan of this or that dogma is a dull companion enough; but opinion\nnative to the speaker is sweet and refreshing, and inseparable from his\nimage. Neither do we by any means always go to people for conversation.\nHow often to say nothing,--and yet must go; as a child will long for\nhis companions, but among them plays by himself. \u2019Tis only presence\nwhich we want. But one thing is certain,--at some rate, intercourse we\nmust have. The experience of retired men is positive,--that we lose our\ndays and are barren of thought for want of some person to talk with.\nThe understanding can no more empty itself by its own action than can a\ndeal box.\n\nThe clergyman walks from house to house all day all the year to give\npeople the comfort of good talk. The physician helps them mainly in the\nsame way, by healthy talk giving a right tone to the patient\u2019s mind.\nThe dinner, the walk, the fireside, all have that for their main end.\n\nSee how Nature has secured the communication of knowledge. \u2019Tis certain\nthat money does not more burn in a boy\u2019s pocket than a piece of news\nburns in our memory until we can tell it. And, in higher activity of\nmind, every new perception is attended with a thrill of pleasure, and\nthe imparting of it to others is also attended with pleasure. Thought\nis the child of the intellect, and this child is conceived with joy and\nborn with joy.\n\nConversation is the laboratory and workshop of the student. The\naffection or sympathy helps. The wish to speak to the want of another\nmind assists to clear your own. A certain truth possesses us, which we\nin all ways strive to utter. Every time we say a thing in conversation,\nwe get a mechanical advantage in detaching it well and delivery. I\nprize the mechanics of conversation. \u2019Tis pulley and lever and screw.\nTo fairly disengage the mass, and send it jingling down, a good\nboulder,--a block of quartz and gold, to be worked up at leisure in the\nuseful arts of life,--is a wonderful relief.\n\nWhat are the best days in memory? Those in which we met a companion who\nwas truly such. How sweet those hours when the day was not long enough\nto communicate and compare our intellectual jewels,--the favorite\npassages of each book, the proud anecdotes of our heroes, the delicious\nverses we had hoarded! What a motive had then our solitary days! How\nthe countenance of our friend still left some light after he had gone!\nWe remember the time when the best gift we could ask of fortune was\nto fall in with a valuable companion in a ship\u2019s cabin, or on a long\njourney in the old stage-coach, where, each passenger being forced\nto know every other, and other employments being out of question,\nconversation naturally flowed, people became rapidly acquainted, and,\nif well adapted, more intimate in a day than if they had been neighbors\nfor years.\n\nIn youth, in the fury of curiosity and acquisition, the day is too\nshort for books and the crowd of thoughts, and we are impatient of\ninterruption. Later, when books tire, thought has a more languid flow;\nand the days come when we are alarmed, and say there are no thoughts.\n\u2018What a barren-witted pate is mine!\u2019 the student says; \u2018I will go and\nlearn whether I have lost my reason.\u2019 He seeks intelligent persons,\nwhether more wise or less wise than he, who give him provocation,\nand at once and easily the old motion begins in his brain: thoughts,\nfancies, humors flow; the cloud lifts; the horizon broadens; and\nthe infinite opulence of things is again shown him. But the right\nconditions must be observed. Mainly he must have leave to be himself.\nSancho Panza blessed the man who invented sleep. So I prize the good\ninvention whereby everybody is provided with somebody who is glad to\nsee him.\n\nIf men are less when together than they are alone, they are also in\nsome respects enlarged. They kindle each other; and such is the power\nof suggestion, that each sprightly story calls out more; and sometimes\na fact that had long slept in the recesses of memory hears the voice,\nis welcomed to daylight, and proves of rare value. Every metaphysician\nmust have observed, not only that no thought is alone, but that\nthoughts commonly go in pairs; though the related thoughts first\nappeared in his mind at long distances of time. Things are in pairs:\na natural fact has only half its value, until a fact in moral nature,\nits counterpart, is stated. Then they confirm and adorn each other; a\nstory is matched by another story. And that may be the reason why, when\na gentleman has told a good thing, he immediately tells it again.\n\nNothing seems so cheap as the benefit of conversation: nothing is more\nrare. \u2019Tis wonderful how you are balked and baffled. There is plenty\nof intelligence, reading, curiosity; but serious, happy discourse,\navoiding personalities, dealing with results, is rare: and I seldom\nmeet with a reading and thoughtful person but he tells me, as if it\nwere his exceptional mishap, that he has no companion.\n\nSuppose such a one to go out exploring different circles in search\nof this wise and genial counterpart,--he might inquire far and\nwide. Conversation in society is found to be on a platform so low\nas to exclude science, the saint, and the poet. Amidst all the gay\nbanter, sentiment cannot profane itself and venture out. The reply\nof old Isocrates comes so often to mind,--\u201cThe things which are now\nseasonable I cannot say; and for the things which I can say it is not\nnow the time.\u201d Besides, who can resist the charm of talent? The lover\nof letters loves power too. Among the men of wit and learning, he\ncould not withhold his homage from the gayety, grasp of memory, luck,\nsplendor, and speed; such exploits of discourse, such feats of society!\nWhat new powers, what mines of wealth! But when he came home, his brave\nsequins were dry leaves. He found either that the fact they had thus\ndizened and adorned was of no value, or that he already knew all and\nmore than all they had told him. He could not find that he was helped\nby so much as one thought or principle, one solid fact, one commanding\nimpulse: great was the dazzle, but the gain was small. He uses his\noccasions; he seeks the company of those who have convivial talent. But\nthe moment they meet, to be sure they begin to be something else than\nthey were; they play pranks, dance jigs, run on each other, pun, tell\nstories, try many fantastic tricks, under some superstition that there\nmust be excitement and elevation;--and they kill conversation at once.\nI know well the rusticity of the shy hermit. No doubt he does not make\nallowance enough for men of more active blood and habit. But it is only\non natural ground that conversation can be rich. It must not begin with\nuproar and violence. Let it keep the ground, let it feel the connection\nwith the battery. Men must not be off their centres.\n\nSome men love only to talk where they are masters. They like to go to\nschool-girls, or to boys, or into the shops where the sauntering people\ngladly lend an ear to any one. On these terms they give information,\nand please themselves by sallies and chat which are admired by the\nidlers; and the talker is at his ease and jolly, for he can walk out\nwithout ceremony when he pleases. They go rarely to their equals, and\nthen as for their own convenience simply, making too much haste to\nintroduce and impart their new whim or discovery; listen badly, or\ndo not listen to the comment or to the thought by which the company\nstrive to repay them; rather, as soon as their own speech is done,\nthey take their hats. Then there are the gladiators, to whom it is\nalways a battle; \u2019tis no matter on which side, they fight for victory;\nthen the heady men, the egotists, the monotones, the steriles, and the\nimpracticables.\n\nIt does not help that you find as good or a better man than yourself,\nif he is not timed and fitted to you. The greatest sufferers are\noften those who have the most to say,--men of a delicate sympathy,\nwho are dumb in mixed company. Able people, if they do not know how\nto make allowance for them, paralyze them. One of those conceited\nprigs who value nature only as it feeds and exhibits them is equally\na pest with the roysterers. There must be large reception as well\nas giving. How delightful after these disturbers is the radiant,\nplayful wit of--one whom I need not name,--for in every society there\nis his representative. Good-nature is stronger than tomahawks. His\nconversation is all pictures: he can reproduce whatever he has seen;\nhe tells the best story in the county, and is of such genial temper\nthat he disposes all others irresistibly to good-humor and discourse.\nDiderot said of the Abb\u00e9 Galiani: \u201cHe was a treasure in rainy days; and\nif the cabinet-makers made such things, everybody would have one in the\ncountry.\u201d\n\nOne lesson we learn early,--that, in spite of seeming difference, men\nare all of one pattern. We readily assume this with our mates, and are\ndisappointed and angry if we find that we are premature, and that their\nwatches are slower than ours. In fact, the only sin which we never\nforgive in each other is difference of opinion. We know beforehand that\nyonder man must think as we do. Has he not two hands,--two feet,--hair\nand nails? Does he not eat,--bleed,--laugh,--cry? His dissent from\nme is the veriest affectation. This conclusion is at once the logic\nof persecution and of love. And the ground of our indignation is our\nconviction that his dissent is some wilfulness he practises on himself.\nHe checks the flow of his opinion, as the cross cow holds up her milk.\nYes, and we look into his eye, and see that he knows it and hides his\neye from ours.\n\nBut to come a little nearer to my mark, I am to say that there may\neasily be obstacles in the way of finding the pure article we are in\nsearch of; but when we find it, it is worth the pursuit, for beside\nits comfort as medicine and cordial, once in the right company, new\nand vast values do not fail to appear. All that man can do for man is\nto be found in that market. There are great prizes in this game. Our\nfortunes in the world are as our mental equipment for this competition\nis. Yonder is a man who can answer the questions which I cannot. Is\nit so? Hence comes to me boundless curiosity to know his experiences\nand his wit. Hence competition for the stakes dearest to man. What is\na match at whist, or draughts, or billiards, or chess, to a match of\nmother-wit, of knowledge, and of resources? However courteously we\nconceal it, it is social rank and spiritual power that are compared;\nwhether in the parlor, the courts, the caucus, the senate, or the\nchamber of science,--which are only less or larger theatres for this\ncompetition.\n\nHe that can define, he that can answer a question so as to admit of no\nfurther answer, is the best man. This was the meaning of the story of\nthe Sphinx. In the old time conundrums were sent from king to king by\nambassadors. The seven wise masters at Periander\u2019s banquet spent their\ntime in answering them. The life of Socrates is a propounding and a\nsolution of these. So, in the hagiology of each nation, the lawgiver\nwas in each case some man of eloquent tongue, whose sympathy brought\nhim face to face with the extremes of society. Jesus, Menu, the first\nBuddhist, Mahomet, Zertusht, Pythagoras, are examples.\n\nJesus spent his life in discoursing with humble people on life and\nduty, in giving wise answers, showing that he saw at a larger angle\nof vision, and at least silencing those who were not generous enough\nto accept his thoughts. Luther spent his life so; and it is not his\ntheologic works,--his \u201cCommentary on the Galatians,\u201d and the rest,\nbut his \u201cTable-Talk\u201d which is still read by men. Dr. Johnson was\na man of no profound mind,--full of English limitations, English\npolitics, English Church, Oxford philosophy; yet having a large heart,\nmother-wit, and good sense, which impatiently overleaped his customary\nbounds, his conversation as reported by Boswell has a lasting charm.\nConversation is the vent of character as well as of thought; and Dr.\nJohnson impresses his company, not only by the point of the remark, but\nalso, when the point fails, because _he_ makes it. His obvious religion\nor superstition, his deep wish that they should think so or so, weighs\nwith them,--so rare is depth of feeling, or a constitutional value for\na thought or opinion, among the light-minded men and women who make up\nsociety; and though they know that there is in the speaker a degree\nof shortcoming, of insincerity, and of talking for victory, yet the\nexistence of character, and habitual reverence for principles over\ntalent or learning, is felt by the frivolous.\n\nOne of the best records of the great German master, who towered over\nall his contemporaries in the first thirty years of this century, is\nhis conversations as recorded by Eckermann; and the \u201cTable-Talk\u201d of\nColeridge is one of the best remains of his genius.\n\nIn the Norse legends, the gods of Valhalla, when they meet the Jotuns,\nconverse on the perilous terms that he who cannot answer the other\u2019s\nquestions forfeits his own life. Odin comes to the threshold of the\nJotun Waftrhudnir in disguise, calling himself Gangrader; is invited\ninto the hall, and told that he cannot go out thence unless he can\nanswer every question Waftrhudnir shall put. Waftrhudnir asks him the\nname of the god of the sun, and of the god who brings the night; what\nriver separates the dwellings of the sons of the giants from those of\nthe gods; what plain lies between the gods and Surtur, their adversary,\netc.; all which the disguised Odin answers satisfactorily. Then it is\nhis turn to interrogate, and he is answered well for a time by the\nJotun. At last he puts a question which none but himself could answer:\n\u201cWhat did Odin whisper in the ear of his son Balder, when Balder\nmounted the funeral pile?\u201d The startled giant replies: \u201cNone of the\ngods knows what in the old time THOU saidst in the ear of thy son: with\ndeath on my mouth have I spoken the fate-words of the generation of the\n\u00c6sir; with Odin contended I in wise words. Thou must ever the wisest\nbe.\u201d\n\nAnd still the gods and giants are so known, and still they play the\nsame game in all the million mansions of heaven and of earth; at all\ntables, clubs, and _t\u00eate-\u00e0-t\u00eates_, the lawyers in the court-house,\nthe senators in the capitol, the doctors in the academy, the wits in\nthe hotel. Best is he who gives an answer that cannot be answered\nagain. _Omnis definitio periculosa est_, and only wit has the secret.\nThe same thing took place when Leibnitz came to visit Newton; when\nSchiller came to Goethe; when France, in the person of Madame de Sta\u00ebl,\nvisited Goethe and Schiller; when Hegel was the guest of Victor Cousin\nin Paris; when Linn\u00e6us was the guest of Jussieu. It happened many\nyears ago, that an American chemist carried a letter of introduction\nto Dr. Dalton of Manchester, England, the author of the theory of\natomic proportions, and was coolly enough received by the Doctor in the\nlaboratory where he was engaged. Only Dr. Dalton scratched a formula\non a scrap of paper and pushed it towards the guest,--\u201cHad he seen\nthat?\u201d The visitor scratched on another paper a formula describing\nsome results of his own with sulphuric acid, and pushed it across the\ntable,--\u201cHad he seen that?\u201d The attention of the English chemist was\ninstantly arrested, and they became rapidly acquainted. To answer a\nquestion so as to admit of no reply, is the test of a man,--to touch\nbottom every time. Hyde, Earl of Rochester, asked Lord-Keeper Guilford,\n\u201cDo you not think I could understand any business in England in a\nmonth?\u201d \u201cYes, my Lord,\u201d replied the other, \u201cbut I think you would\nunderstand it better in two months.\u201d When Edward I. claimed to be\nacknowledged by the Scotch (1292) as lord paramount, the nobles of\nScotland replied, \u201cNo answer can be made while the throne is vacant.\u201d\nWhen Henry III. (1217) plead duress against his people demanding\nconfirmation and execution of the Charter, the reply was: \u201cIf this were\nadmitted, civil wars could never close but by the extirpation of one of\nthe contending parties.\u201d\n\nWhat can you do with one of these sharp respondents? What can you do\nwith an eloquent man? No rules of debate, no contempt of court, no\nexclusions, no gag-laws can be contrived, that his first syllable will\nnot set aside or overstep and annul. You can shut out the light, it may\nbe; but can you shut out gravitation? You may condemn his book; but\ncan you fight against his thought? That is always too nimble for you,\nanticipates you, and breaks out victorious in some other quarter. Can\nyou stop the motions of good sense? What can you do with Beaumarchais,\nwho converts the censor whom the court has appointed to stifle his\nplay into an ardent advocate? The court appoints another censor, who\nshall crush it this time. Beaumarchais persuades him to defend it. The\ncourt successively appoints three more severe inquisitors; Beaumarchais\nconverts them all into triumphant vindicators of the play which is\nto bring in the Revolution. Who can stop the mouth of Luther,--of\nNewton?--of Franklin,--of Mirabeau,--of Talleyrand?\n\nThese masters can make good their own place, and need no patron. Every\nvariety of gift--science, religion, politics, letters, art, prudence,\nwar, or love--has its vent and exchange in conversation. Conversation\nis the Olympic games whither every superior gift resorts to assert\nand approve itself,--and, of course, the inspirations of powerful\nand public men, with the rest. But it is not this class,--whom the\nsplendor of their accomplishment almost inevitably guides into the\nvortex of ambition, makes them chancellors and commanders of council\nand of action, and makes them at last fatalists,--not these whom we\nnow consider. We consider those who are interested in thoughts, their\nown and other men\u2019s, and who delight in comparing them, who think it\nthe highest compliment they can pay a man, to deal with him as an\nintellect, to expose to him the grand and cheerful secrets perhaps\nnever opened to their daily companions, to share with him the sphere of\nfreedom and the simplicity of truth.\n\nBut the best conversation is rare. Society seems to have agreed to\ntreat fictions as realities, and realities as fictions; and the simple\nlover of truth, especially if on very high grounds,--as a religious or\nintellectual seeker,--finds himself a stranger and alien.\n\nIt is possible that the best conversation is between two persons who\ncan talk only to each other. Even Montesquieu confessed that, in\nconversation, if he perceived he was listened to by a third person,\nit seemed to him from that moment the whole question vanished from\nhis mind. I have known persons of rare ability who were heavy company\nto good, social men who knew well enough how to draw out others of\nretiring habit; and, moreover, were heavy to intellectual men who ought\nto have known them. And does it never occur that we, perhaps, live with\npeople too superior to be seen,--as there are musical notes too high\nfor the scale of most ears? There are men who are great only to one or\ntwo companions of more opportunity, or more adapted.\n\nIt was to meet these wants that in all civil nations attempts have been\nmade to organize conversation by bringing together cultivated people\nunder the most favorable conditions. \u2019Tis certain there was liberal\nand refined conversation in the Greek, in the Roman, and in the Middle\nAge. There was a time when in France a revolution occurred in domestic\narchitecture; when the houses of the nobility, which, up to that time,\nhad been constructed on feudal necessities, in a hollow square,--the\nground-floor being resigned to offices and stables, and the floors\nabove to rooms of state and to lodging-rooms,--were rebuilt with new\npurpose. It was the Marchioness of Rambouillet who first got the horses\nout of and the scholars into the palaces, having constructed her\n_h\u00f4tel_ with a view to society, with superb suites of drawing-rooms\non the same floor, and broke through the _morgue_ of etiquette by\ninviting to her house men of wit and learning as well as men of rank,\nand piqued the emulation of Cardinal Richelieu to rival assemblies,\nand so to the founding of the French Academy. The history of the H\u00f4tel\nRambouillet and its brilliant circles makes an important date in French\ncivilization. And a history of clubs from early antiquity, tracing the\nefforts to secure liberal and refined conversation, through the Greek\nand Roman to the Middle Age, and thence down through French, English,\nand German memoirs, tracing the clubs and coteries in each country,\nwould be an important chapter in history. We know well the Mermaid\nClub, in London, of Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Chapman, Herrick, Selden,\nBeaumont and Fletcher; its \u201cRules\u201d are preserved, and many allusions\nto their suppers are found in Jonson, Herrick, and in Aubrey. Anthony\nWood has many details of Harrington\u2019s Club. Dr. Bentley\u2019s Club held\nNewton, Wren, Evelyn, and Locke; and we owe to Boswell our knowledge of\nthe club of Dr. Johnson, Goldsmith, Burke, Gibbon, Reynolds, Garrick,\nBeauclerk, and Percy. And we have records of the brilliant society that\nEdinburgh boasted in the first decade of this century. Such societies\nare possible only in great cities, and are the compensation which these\ncan make to their dwellers for depriving them of the free intercourse\nwith Nature. Every scholar is surrounded by wiser men than he--if they\ncannot write as well. Cannot they meet and exchange results to their\nmutual benefit and delight? It was a pathetic experience when a genial\nand accomplished person said to me, looking from his country home to\nthe capital of New England, \u201cThere is a town of two hundred thousand\npeople, and not a chair in it for me.\u201d If he were sure to find at No.\n2000 Tremont Street what scholars were abroad after the morning studies\nwere ended, Boston would shine as the New Jerusalem to his eyes.\n\nNow this want of adapted society is mutual. The man of thought, the man\nof letters, the man of science, the administrator skilful in affairs,\nthe man of manners and culture, whom you so much wish to find,--each\nof these is wishing to be found. Each wishes to open his thought,\nhis knowledge, his social skill to the daylight in your company and\naffection, and to exchange his gifts for yours; and the first hint of a\nselect and intelligent company is welcome.\n\nBut the club must be self-protecting, and obstacles arise at the\noutset. There are people who cannot well be cultivated, whom you must\nkeep down and quiet if you can. There are those who have the instinct\nof a bat to fly against any lighted candle and put it out,--marplots\nand contradictors. There are those who go only to talk, and those\nwho go only to hear: both are bad. A right rule for a club would\nbe,--Admit no man whose presence excludes any one topic. It requires\npeople who are not surprised and shocked, who do and let do, and let\nbe, who sink trifles, and know solid values, and who take a great deal\nfor granted.\n\nIt is always a practical difficulty with clubs to regulate the laws\nof election so as to exclude peremptorily every social nuisance.\nNobody wishes bad manners. We must have loyalty and character. The\npoet Marvell was wont to say \u201cthat he would not drink wine with any\none with whom he could not trust his life.\u201d But neither can we afford\nto be superfine. A man of irreproachable behavior and excellent sense\npreferred on his travels taking his chance at a hotel for company, to\nthe charging himself with too many select letters of introduction. He\nconfessed he liked low company. He said the fact was incontestable,\nthat the society of gypsies was more attractive than that of bishops.\nThe girl deserts the parlor for the kitchen; the boy, for the wharf.\nTutors and parents cannot interest him like the uproarious conversation\nhe finds in the market or the dock. I knew a scholar, of some\nexperience in camps, who said that he liked, in a bar-room, to tell a\nfew coon stories, and put himself on a good footing with the company;\nthen he could be as silent as he chose. A scholar does not wish to be\nalways pumping his brains: he wants gossips. The black-coats are good\ncompany only for black-coats; but when the manufacturers, merchants,\nand ship-masters meet, see how much they have to say, and how long the\nconversation lasts! They have come from many zones; they have traversed\nwide countries; they know each his own arts, and the cunning artisans\nof his craft; they have seen the best and the worst of men. Their\nknowledge contradicts the popular opinion and your own on many points.\nThings which you fancy wrong they know to be right and profitable;\nthings which you reckon superstitious they know to be true. They have\nfound virtue in the strangest homes; and in the rich store of their\nadventures are instances and examples which you have been seeking in\nvain for years, and which they suddenly and unwittingly offer you.\n\nI remember a social experiment in this direction, wherein it appeared\nthat each of the members fancied he was in need of society, but himself\nunpresentable. On trial they all found that they could be tolerated\nby, and could tolerate, each other. Nay, the tendency to extreme\nself-respect which hesitated to join in a club was running rapidly down\nto abject admiration of each other, when the club was broken up by new\ncombinations.\n\nThe use of the hospitality of the club hardly needs explanation. Men\nare unbent and social at table; and I remember it was explained to me,\nin a Southern city, that it was impossible to set any public charity\non foot unless through a tavern dinner. I do not think our metropolitan\ncharities would plead the same necessity; but to a club met for\nconversation a supper is a good basis, as it disarms all parties, and\nputs pedantry and business to the door. All are in good-humor and at\nleisure, which are the first conditions of discourse; the ordinary\nreserves are thrown off, experienced men meet with the freedom of boys,\nand, sooner or later, impart all that is singular in their experience.\n\nThe hospitalities of clubs are easily exaggerated. No doubt the suppers\nof wits and philosophers acquire much lustre by time and renown.\nPlutarch, Xenophon, and Plato, who have celebrated each a banquet of\ntheir set, have given us next to no data of the viands; and it is to\nbe believed that an indifferent tavern dinner in such society was more\nrelished by the _convives_ than a much better one in worse company.\nHerrick\u2019s verses to Ben Jonson no doubt paint the fact:--\n\n  \u201cWhen we such clusters had\n  As made us nobly wild, not mad;\n  And yet, each verse of thine\n  Outdid the meat, outdid the frolic wine.\u201d\n\nSuch friends make the feast satisfying; and I notice that it was when\nthings went prosperously, and the company was full of honor, at the\nbanquet of the Cid, that \u201cthe guests all were joyful, and agreed in one\nthing,--that they had not eaten better for three years.\u201d\n\nI need only hint the value of the club for bringing masters in\ntheir several arts to compare and expand their views, to come to an\nunderstanding on these points, and so that their united opinion shall\nhave its just influence on public questions of education and politics.\n\u2019Tis agreed that in the sections of the British Association more\ninformation is mutually and effectually communicated, in a few hours,\nthan in many months of ordinary correspondence, and the printing and\ntransmission of ponderous reports. We know that _l\u2019homme de lettres_\nis a little wary, and not fond of giving away his seed-corn; but there\nis an infallible way to draw him out, namely, by having as good as\nhe. If you have Tuscaroora and he Canada, he may exchange kernel for\nkernel. If his discretion is incurable, and he dare not speak of fairy\ngold, he will yet tell what new books he has found, what old ones\nrecovered, what men write and read abroad. A principal purpose also is\nthe hospitality of the club, as a means of receiving a worthy foreigner\nwith mutual advantage.\n\nEvery man brings into society some partial thought and local culture.\nWe need range and alternation of topics, and variety of minds. One\nlikes in a companion a phlegm which it is a triumph to disturb, and,\nnot less, to make in an old acquaintance unexpected discoveries of\nscope and power through the advantage of an inspiring subject. Wisdom\nis like electricity. There is no permanently wise man, but men capable\nof wisdom, who, being put into certain company, or other favorable\nconditions, become wise for a short time, as glasses rubbed acquire\nelectric power for a while. But, while we look complacently at these\nobvious pleasures and values of good companions, I do not forget that\nNature is always very much in earnest, and that her great gifts have\nsomething serious and stern. When we look for the highest benefits\nof conversation, the Spartan rule of one to one is usually enforced.\nDiscourse, when it rises highest and searches deepest, when it lifts us\ninto that mood out of which thoughts come that remain as stars in our\nfirmament, is between two.\n\n\n\n\nCOURAGE.\n\n\n\n\nCOURAGE.\n\n\nI observe that there are three qualities which conspicuously attract\nthe wonder and reverence of mankind:--\n\n1. Disinterestedness, as shown in indifference to the ordinary bribes\nand influences of conduct,--a purpose so sincere and generous that it\ncannot be tempted aside by any prospects of wealth or other private\nadvantage. Self-love is, in almost all men, such an overweight, that\nthey are incredulous of a man\u2019s habitual preference of the general good\nto his own; but when they see it proved by sacrifices of ease, wealth,\nrank, and of life itself, there is no limit to their admiration. This\nhas made the power of the saints of the East and West, who have led\nthe religion of great nations. Self-sacrifice is the real miracle out\nof which all the reported miracles grew. This makes the renown of the\nheroes of Greece and Rome,--of Socrates, Aristides, and Phocion; of\nQuintus Curtius, Cato, and Regulus; of Hatem Tai\u2019s hospitality; of\nChatham, whose scornful magnanimity gave him immense popularity; of\nWashington, giving his service to the public without salary or reward.\n\n2. Practical power. Men admire the man who can organize their wishes\nand thoughts in stone and wood and steel and brass,--the man who can\nbuild the boat, who has the impiety to make the rivers run the way\nhe wants them, who can lead his telegraph through the ocean from\nshore to shore; who, sitting in his closet, can lay out the plans of\na campaign,--sea-war and land-war; such that the best generals and\nadmirals, when all is done, see that they must thank him for success;\nthe power of better combination and foresight, however exhibited,\nwhich, whether it only plays a game of chess, or whether, more loftily,\na cunning mathematician, penetrating the cubic weights of stars,\npredicts the planet which eyes had never seen; or whether, exploring\nthe chemical elements whereof we and the world are made, and seeing\ntheir secret, Franklin draws off the lightning in his hand, suggesting\nthat one day a wiser geology shall make the earthquake harmless and\nthe volcano an agricultural resource. Or here is one who, seeing the\nwishes of men, knows how to come at their end; whispers to this friend,\nargues down that adversary, moulds society to his purpose, and looks at\nall men as wax for his hands,--takes command of them as the wind does\nof clouds, as the mother does of the child, or the man that knows more\ndoes of the man that knows less; and leads them in glad surprise to the\nvery point where they would be: this man is followed with acclamation.\n\n3. The third excellence is courage, the perfect will, which no terrors\ncan shake, which is attracted by frowns or threats or hostile armies,\nnay, needs these to awake and fan its reserved energies into a pure\nflame, and is never quite itself until the hazard is extreme; then\nit is serene and fertile, and all its powers play well. There is a\nHercules, an Achilles, a Rustem, an Arthur, or a Cid in the mythology\nof every nation; and in authentic history, a Leonidas, a Scipio, a\nC\u00e6sar, a Richard C\u0153ur de Lion, a Cromwell, a Nelson, a Great Cond\u00e9, a\nBertrand du Guesclin, a Doge Dandolo, a Napoleon, a Massena, and Ney.\n\u2019Tis said courage is common, but the immense esteem in which it is\nheld proves it to be rare. Animal resistance, the instinct of the male\nanimal when cornered, is no doubt common; but the pure article, courage\nwith eyes, courage with conduct, self-possession at the cannon\u2019s mouth,\ncheerfulness in lonely adherence to the right, is the endowment of\nelevated characters. I need not show how much it is esteemed, for the\npeople give it the first rank. They forgive everything to it. What an\nado we make through two thousand years about Thermopyl\u00e6 and Salamis!\nWhat a memory of Poitiers and Crecy, and Bunker Hill, and Washington\u2019s\nendurance! And any man who puts his life in peril in a cause which\nis esteemed becomes the darling of all men. The very nursery-books,\nthe ballads which delight boys, the romances which delight men, the\nfavorite topics of eloquence, the thunderous emphasis which orators\ngive to every martial defiance and passage of arms, and which the\npeople greet, may testify. How short a time since this whole nation\nrose every morning to read or to hear the traits of courage of its sons\nand brothers in the field, and was never weary of the theme! We have\nhad examples of men who, for showing effective courage on a single\noccasion, have become a favorite spectacle to nations, and must be\nbrought in chariots to every mass meeting.\n\nMen are so charmed with valor, that they have pleased themselves with\nbeing called lions, leopards, eagles, and dragons, from the animals\ncontemporary with us in the geologic formations. But the animals have\ngreat advantage of us in precocity. Touch the snapping-turtle with a\nstick, and he seizes it with his teeth. Cut off his head, and the teeth\nwill not let go the stick. Break the egg of the young, and the little\nembryo, before yet the eyes are open, bites fiercely; these vivacious\ncreatures contriving,--shall we say?--not only to bite after they are\ndead, but also to bite before they are born.\n\nBut man begins life helpless. The babe is in paroxysms of fear the\nmoment its nurse leaves it alone, and it comes so slowly to any power\nof self-protection, that mothers say the salvation of the life and\nhealth of a young child is a perpetual miracle. The terrors of the\nchild are quite reasonable, and add to his loveliness; for his utter\nignorance and weakness, and his enchanting indignation on such a small\nbasis of capital, compel every by-stander to take his part. Every\nmoment, as long as he is awake, he studies the use of his eyes, ears,\nhands, and feet, learning how to meet and avoid his dangers, and thus\nevery hour loses one terror more. But this education stops too soon.\nA large majority of men being bred in families, and beginning early\nto be occupied day by day with some routine of safe industry, never\ncome to the rough experiences that make the Indian, the soldier, or\nthe frontiersman self-subsistent and fearless. Hence the high price\nof courage indicates the general timidity. \u201cMankind,\u201d said Franklin,\n\u201care dastardly when they meet with opposition.\u201d In war even, generals\nare seldom found eager to give battle. Lord Wellington said, \u201cUniforms\nwere often masks\u201d; and again, \u201cWhen my journal appears, many statues\nmust come down.\u201d The Norse Sagas relate that when Bishop Magne reproved\nKing Sigurd for his wicked divorce, the priest who attended the bishop,\nexpecting every moment when the savage king would burst with rage\nand slay his superior, said \u201cthat he saw the sky no bigger than a\ncalf-skin.\u201d And I remember when a pair of Irish girls, who had been run\naway with in a wagon by a skittish horse, said that, when he began to\nrear, they were so frightened that they could not see the horse.\n\nCowardice shuts the eyes till the sky is not larger than a calf-skin;\nshuts the eyes so that we cannot see the horse that is running away\nwith us; worse, shuts the eyes of the mind and chills the heart. Fear\nis cruel and mean. The political reigns of terror have been reigns\nof madness and malignity,--a total perversion of opinion; society is\nupside down, and its best men are thought too bad to live. Then the\nprotection which a house, a family, neighborhood and property, even\nthe first accumulation of savings, gives go in all times to generate\nthis taint of the respectable classes. Voltaire said, \u201cOne of the\nchief misfortunes of honest people is that they are cowardly.\u201d Those\npolitical parties which gather-in the well-disposed portion of the\ncommunity,--how infirm and ignoble! what white lips they have! always\non the defensive, as if the lead were intrusted to the journals, often\nwritten in great part by women and boys, who, without strength, wish\nto keep up the appearance of strength. They can do the hurras, the\nplacarding, the flags,--and the voting, if it is a fair day; but the\naggressive attitude of men who will have right done, will no longer be\nbothered with burglars and ruffians in the streets, counterfeiters in\npublic offices, and thieves on the bench; that part, the part of the\nleader and soul of the vigilance committee, must be taken by stout and\nsincere men who are really angry and determined. In ordinary, we have\na snappish criticism which watches and contradicts the opposite party.\nWe want the will which advances and dictates. When we get an advantage,\nas in Congress the other day, it is because our adversary has committed\na fault, not that we have taken the initiative and given the law.\nNature has made up her mind that what cannot defend itself shall not be\ndefended. Complaining never so loud, and with never so much reason, is\nof no use. One heard much cant of peace-parties long ago in Kansas and\nelsewhere, that their strength lay in the greatness of their wrongs,\nand dissuading all resistance, as if to make this strength greater. But\nwere their wrongs greater than the negro\u2019s? and what kind of strength\ndid they ever give him? It was always invitation to the tyrant, and\nbred disgust in those who would protect the victim. What cannot stand\nmust fall; and the measure of our sincerity, and therefore of the\nrespect of men, is the amount of health and wealth we will hazard in\nthe defence of our right. An old farmer, my neighbor across the fence,\nwhen I ask him if he is not going to town-meeting, says: \u201cNo; \u2019tis no\nuse balloting, for it will not stay; but what you do with the gun will\nstay so.\u201d Nature has charged every one with his own defence as with\nhis own support, and the only title I can have to your help is when I\nhave manfully put forth all the means I possess to keep me, and, being\noverborne by odds, the by-standers have a natural wish to interfere\nand see fair play.\n\nBut with this pacific education, we have no readiness for bad times.\nI am much mistaken if every man who went to the army in the late war\nhad not a lively curiosity to know how he should behave in action.\nTender, amiable boys, who had never encountered any rougher play than\na base-ball match or a fishing excursion, were suddenly drawn up to\nface a bayonet charge or capture a battery. Of course, they must each\ngo into that action with a certain despair. Each whispers to himself:\n\u201cMy exertions must be of small account to the result; only will the\nbenignant Heaven save me from disgracing myself and my friends and my\nState. Die! O yes, I can well die; but I cannot afford to misbehave;\nand I do not know how I shall feel.\u201d So great a soldier as the old\nFrench Marshal Montluc acknowledges that he has often trembled with\nfear, and recovered courage when he had said a prayer for the occasion.\nI knew a young soldier who died in the early campaign, who confided to\nhis sister that he had made up his mind to volunteer for the war. \u201cI\nhave not,\u201d he said, \u201cany proper courage, but I shall never let any one\nfind it out.\u201d And he had accustomed himself always to go into whatever\nplace of danger, and do whatever he was afraid to do, setting a dogged\nresolution to resist this natural infirmity. Coleridge has preserved\nan anecdote of an officer in the British Navy, who told him that when\nhe, in his first boat expedition, a midshipman in his fourteenth year,\naccompanied Sir Alexander Ball, \u201cas we were rowing up to the vessel we\nwere to attack, amid a discharge of musketry, I was overpowered with\nfear, my knees shook, and I was ready to faint away. Lieutenant Ball\nseeing me, placed himself close beside me, took hold of my hand and\nwhispered, \u2018Courage, my dear boy! you will recover in a minute or so; I\nwas just the same when I first went out in this way.\u2019 It was as if an\nangel spoke to me. From that moment I was as fearless and as forward\nas the oldest of the boat\u2019s crew. But I dare not think what would have\nbecome of me, if, at that moment, he had scoffed and exposed me.\u201d\n\nKnowledge is the antidote to fear,--Knowledge, Use, and Reason, with\nits higher aids. The child is as much in danger from a staircase,\nor the fire-grate, or a bath-tub, or a cat, as the soldier from a\ncannon or an ambush. Each surmounts the fear as fast as he precisely\nunderstands the peril, and learns the means of resistance. Each is\nliable to panic, which is, exactly, the terror of ignorance surrendered\nto the imagination. Knowledge is the encourager, knowledge that takes\nfear out of the heart, knowledge and use, which is knowledge in\npractice. They can conquer who believe they can. It is he who has done\nthe deed once who does not shrink from attempting it again. It is the\ngroom who knows the jumping horse well who can safely ride him. It is\nthe veteran soldier, who, seeing the flash of the cannon, can step\naside from the path of the ball. Use makes a better soldier than the\nmost urgent considerations of duty,--familiarity with danger enabling\nhim to estimate the danger. He sees how much is the risk, and is not\nafflicted with imagination; knows practically Marshal Saxe\u2019s rule, that\nevery soldier killed costs the enemy his weight in lead.\n\nThe sailor loses fear as fast as he acquires command of sails and\nspars and steam; the frontiersman, when he has a perfect rifle and has\nacquired a sure aim. To the sailor\u2019s experience every new circumstance\nsuggests what he must do. The terrific chances which make the hours\nand the minutes long to the passenger, he whiles away by incessant\napplication of expedients and repairs. To him a leak, a hurricane, or\na water-spout is so much work--no more. The hunter is not alarmed by\nbears, catamounts, or wolves, nor the grazier by his bull, nor the\ndog-breeder by his bloodhound, nor an Arab by the simoom, nor a farmer\nby a fire in the woods. The forest on fire looks discouraging enough\nto a citizen: the farmer is skilful to fight it. The neighbors run\ntogether; with pine boughs they can mop out the flame, and, by raking\nwith the hoe a long but little trench, confine to a patch the fire\nwhich would easily spread over a hundred acres.\n\nIn short, courage consists in equality to the problem before us. The\nschool-boy is daunted before his tutor by a question of arithmetic,\nbecause he does not yet command the simple steps of the solution which\nthe boy beside him has mastered. These once seen, he is as cool as\nArchimedes, and cheerily proceeds a step farther. Courage is equality\nto the problem, in affairs, in science, in trade, in council, or in\naction; consists in the conviction that the agents with whom you\ncontend are not superior in strength or resources or spirit to you.\nThe general must stimulate the mind of his soldiers to the perception\nthat they are men, and the enemy is no more. Knowledge, yes; for the\ndanger of dangers is illusion. The eye is easily daunted; and the\ndrums, flags, shining helmets, beard, and mustache of the soldier have\nconquered you long before his sword or bayonet reaches you.\n\nBut we do not exhaust the subject in the slight analysis; we must not\nforget the variety of temperaments, each of which qualifies this power\nof resistance. It is observed that men with little imagination are\nless fearful; they wait till they feel pain, whilst others of more\nsensibility anticipate it, and suffer in the fear of the pang more\nacutely than in the pang. \u2019Tis certain that the threat is sometimes\nmore formidable than the stroke, and \u2019tis possible that the beholders\nsuffer more keenly than the victims. Bodily pain is superficial, seated\nusually in the skin and the extremities, for the sake of giving us\nwarning to put us on our guard; not in the vitals, where the rupture\nthat produces death is perhaps not felt, and the victim never knew what\nhurt him. Pain is superficial, and therefore fear is. The torments\nof martyrdoms are probably most keenly felt by the by-standers. The\ntorments are illusory. The first suffering is the last suffering, the\nlater hurts being lost on insensibility. Our affections and wishes for\nthe external welfare of the hero tumultuously rush to expression in\ntears and outcries; but we, like him, subside into indifferency and\ndefiance, when we perceive how short is the longest arm of malice, how\nserene is the sufferer.\n\nIt is plain that there is no separate essence called courage, no cup\nor cell in the brain, no vessel in the heart containing drops or atoms\nthat make or give this virtue; but it is the right or healthy state of\nevery man, when he is free to do that which is constitutional to him to\ndo. It is directness,--the instant performing of that which he ought.\nThe thoughtful man says, you differ from me in opinion and methods; but\ndo you not see that I cannot think or act otherwise than I do? that my\nway of living is organic? And to be really strong we must adhere to\nour own means. On organic action all strength depends. Hear what women\nsay of doing a task by sheer force of will: it costs them a fit of\nsickness. Plutarch relates that the Pythoness who tried to prophesy\nwithout command in the Temple at Delphi, though she performed the\nusual rites, and inhaled the air of the cavern standing on the tripod,\nfell into convulsions, and died. Undoubtedly there is a temperamental\ncourage, a warlike blood, which loves a fight, does not feel itself\nexcept in a quarrel, as one sees in wasps, or ants, or cocks, or cats.\nThe like vein appears in certain races of men and in individuals of\nevery race. In every school there are certain fighting boys; in every\nsociety, the contradicting men; in every town, bravoes and bullies,\nbetter or worse dressed, fancy-men, patrons of the cock-pit and the\nring. Courage is temperamental, scientific, ideal. Swedenborg has left\nthis record of his king: \u201cCharles XII., of Sweden, did not know what\nthat was which others called fear, nor what that spurious valor and\ndaring that is excited by inebriating draughts, for he never tasted\nany liquid but pure water. Of him we may say, that he led a life more\nremote from death, and in fact lived more, than any other man.\u201d It was\ntold of the Prince of Cond\u00e9, \u201cthat there not being a more furious man\nin the world, danger in fight never disturbs him more than just to make\nhim civil, and to command in words of great obligation to his officers\nand men, and without any the least disturbance to his judgment or\nspirit.\u201d Each has his own courage, as his own talent; but the courage\nof the tiger is one, and of the horse another. The dog that scorns to\nfight, will fight for his master. The llama that will carry a load if\nyou caress him, will refuse food and die if he is scourged. The fury\nof onset is one, and of calm endurance another. There is a courage of\nthe cabinet as well as a courage of the field; a courage of manners in\nprivate assemblies, and another in public assemblies; a courage which\nenables one man to speak masterly to a hostile company, whilst another\nman who can easily face a cannon\u2019s mouth dares not open his own.\n\nThere is a courage of a merchant in dealing with his trade, by which\ndangerous turns of affairs are met and prevailed over. Merchants\nrecognize as much gallantry, well judged too, in the conduct of a wise\nand upright man of business, in difficult times, as soldiers in a\nsoldier.\n\nThere is a courage in the treatment of every art by a master in\narchitecture, in sculpture, in painting, or in poetry, each cheering\nthe mind of the spectator or receiver as by true strokes of genius,\nwhich yet nowise implies the presence of physical valor in the artist.\nThis is the courage of genius, in every kind. A certain quantity of\npower belongs to a certain quantity of faculty. The beautiful voice at\nchurch goes sounding on, and covers up in its volume, as in a cloak,\nall the defects of the choir. The singers, I observe, all yield to it,\nand so the fair singer indulges her instinct, and dares, and dares,\nbecause she knows she can.\n\nIt gives the cutting edge to every profession. The judge puts his\nmind to the tangle of contradictions in the case, squarely accosts\nthe question, and, by not being afraid of it, by dealing with it as\nbusiness which must be disposed of, he sees presently that common\narithmetic and common methods apply to this affair. Perseverance\nstrips it of all peculiarity, and ranges it on the same ground as\nother business. Morphy played a daring game in chess: the daring was\nonly an illusion of the spectator, for the player sees his move to be\nwell fortified and safe. You may see the same dealing in criticism;\na new book astonishes for a few days, takes itself out of common\njurisdiction, and nobody knows what to say of it: but the scholar is\nnot deceived. The old principles which books exist to express are more\nbeautiful than any book; and out of love of the reality he is an expert\njudge how far the book has approached it and where it has come short.\nIn all applications \u2019tis the same power,--the habit of reference to\none\u2019s own mind, as the home of all truth and counsel, and which can\neasily dispose of any book because it can very well do without all\nbooks. When a confident man comes into a company magnifying this or\nthat author he has freshly read, the company grow silent and ashamed of\ntheir ignorance. But I remember the old professor, whose searching mind\nengraved every word he spoke on the memory of the class, when we asked\nif he had read this or that shining novelty, \u201cNo, I have never read\nthat book\u201d; instantly the book lost credit, and was not to be heard of\nagain.\n\nEvery creature has a courage of his constitution fit for his\nduties:--Archimedes, the courage of a geometer to stick to his diagram,\nheedless of the siege and sack of the city; and the Roman soldier his\nfaculty to strike at Archimedes. Each is strong, relying on his own,\nand each is betrayed when he seeks in himself the courage of others.\n\nCaptain John Brown, the hero of Kansas, said to me in conversation,\nthat \u201cfor a settler in a new country, one good, believing,\nstrong-minded man is worth a hundred, nay, a thousand men without\ncharacter; and that the right men will give a permanent direction to\nthe fortunes of a state. As for the bullying drunkards, of which armies\nare usually made up, he thought cholera, small-pox, and consumption as\nvaluable recruits.\u201d He held the belief that courage and chastity are\nsilent concerning themselves. He said, \u201cAs soon as I hear one of my men\nsay, \u2018Ah, let me only get my eye on such a man, I\u2019ll bring him down,\u2019\nI don\u2019t expect much aid in the fight from that talker. \u2019Tis the quiet,\npeaceable men, the men of principle, that make the best soldiers.\u201d\n\n  \u201c\u2019Tis still observed those men most valiant are\n  Who are most modest ere they came to war.\u201d\n\nTrue courage is not ostentatious; men who wish to inspire terror seem\nthereby to confess themselves cowards. Why do they rely on it, but\nbecause they know how potent it is with themselves?\n\nThe true temper has genial influences. It makes a bond of union\nbetween enemies. Governor Wise of Virginia, in the record of his\nfirst interviews with his prisoner, appeared to great advantage. If\nGovernor Wise is a superior man, or inasmuch as he is a superior man,\nhe distinguishes John Brown. As they confer, they understand each other\nswiftly; each respects the other. If opportunity allowed, they would\nprefer each other\u2019s society and desert their former companions. Enemies\nwould become affectionate. Hector and Achilles, Richard and Saladin,\nWellington and Soult, General Daumas and Abdel Kader, become aware that\nthey are nearer and more alike than any other two, and, if their nation\nand circumstance did not keep them apart, would run into each other\u2019s\narms.\n\nSee too what good contagion belongs to it. Everywhere it finds its\nown with magnetic affinity. Courage of the soldier awakes the courage\nof woman. Florence Nightingale brings lint and the blessing of her\nshadow. Heroic women offer themselves as nurses of the brave veteran.\nThe troop of Virginian infantry that had marched to guard the prison\nof John Brown ask leave to pay their respects to the prisoner. Poetry\nand eloquence catch the hint, and soar to a pitch unknown before.\nEverything feels the new breath, except the old doting, nigh-dead\npoliticians, whose heart the trumpet of resurrection could not wake.\n\nThe charm of the best courages is that they are inventions,\ninspirations, flashes of genius. The hero could not have done the\nfeat at another hour, in a lower mood. The best act of the marvellous\ngenius of Greece was its first act; not in the statue or the Parthenon,\nbut in the instinct which, at Thermopyl\u00e6, held Asia at bay, kept Asia\nout of Europe,--Asia with its antiquities and organic slavery,--from\ncorrupting the hope and new morning of the West. The statue, the\narchitecture, were the later and inferior creation of the same\ngenius. In view of this moment of history, we recognize a certain\nprophetic instinct better than wisdom. Napoleon said well, \u201cMy hand\nis immediately connected with my head\u201d; but the _sacred_ courage is\nconnected with the heart. The head is a half, a fraction, until it is\nenlarged and inspired by the moral sentiment. For it is not the means\non which we draw, as health or wealth, practical skill or dexterous\ntalent, or multitudes of followers, that count, but the aims only. The\naim reacts back on the means. A great aim aggrandizes the means. The\nmeal and water that are the commissariat of the _forlorn hope_ that\nstake their lives to defend the pass are sacred as the Holy Grail, or\nas if one had eyes to see in chemistry the fuel that is rushing to feed\nthe sun.\n\nThere is a persuasion in the soul of man that he is here for cause,\nthat he was put down in this place by the Creator to do the work for\nwhich he inspires him, that thus he is an overmatch for all antagonists\nthat could combine against him. The pious Mrs. Hutchinson says of some\npassages in the defence of Nottingham against the Cavaliers, \u201cIt was a\ngreat instruction that the best and highest courages are beams of the\nAlmighty.\u201d And whenever the religious sentiment is adequately affirmed,\nit must be with dazzling courage. As long as it is cowardly insinuated,\nas with the wish to succor some partial and temporary interest, or to\nmake it affirm some pragmatical tenet which our parish church receives\nto-day, it is not imparted, and cannot inspire or create. For it is\nalways new, leads and surprises, and practice never comes up with it.\nThere are ever appearing in the world men who, almost as soon as they\nare born, take a bee-line to the rack of the inquisitor, the axe of the\ntyrant, like Jordano Bruno, Vanini, Huss, Paul, Jesus, and Socrates.\nLook at Fox\u2019s Lives of the Martyrs, Sewel\u2019s History of the Quakers,\nSouthey\u2019s Book of the Church, at the folios of the Brothers Bollandi,\nwho collected the lives of twenty-five thousand martyrs, confessors,\nascetics, and self-tormentors. There is much of fable, but a broad\nbasis of fact. The tender skin does not shrink from bayonets, the timid\nwoman is not scared by fagots; the rack is not frightful, nor the rope\nignominious. The poor Puritan, Antony Parsons, at the stake, tied straw\non his head, when the fire approached him, and said, \u201cThis is God\u2019s\nhat.\u201d Sacred courage indicates that a man loves an idea better than all\nthings in the world; that he is aiming neither at pelf or comfort, but\nwill venture all to put in act the invisible thought in his mind. He\nis everywhere a liberator, but of a freedom that is ideal; not seeking\nto have land or money or conveniences, but to have no other limitation\nthan that which his own constitution imposes. He is free to speak\ntruth; he is not free to lie. He wishes to break every yoke all over\nthe world which hinders his brother from acting after his thought.\n\nThere are degrees of courage, and each step upward makes us acquainted\nwith a higher virtue. Let us say then frankly that the education of\nthe will is the object of our existence. Poverty, the prison, the\nrack, the fire, the hatred and execrations of our fellow-men, appear\ntrials beyond the endurance of common humanity; but to the hero whose\nintellect is aggrandized by the soul, and so measures these penalties\nagainst the good which his thought surveys, these terrors vanish as\ndarkness at sunrise.\n\nWe have little right in piping times of peace to pronounce on these\nrare heights of character; but there is no assurance of security. In\nthe most private life, difficult duty is never far off. Therefore\nwe must think with courage. Scholars and thinkers are prone to an\neffeminate habit, and shrink if a coarser shout comes up from the\nstreet, or a brutal act is recorded in the journals. The Medical\nCollege piles up in its museum its grim monsters of morbid anatomy,\nand there are melancholy sceptics with a taste for carrion who batten\non the hideous facts in history,--persecutions, inquisitions, St.\nBartholomew massacres, devilish lives, Nero, C\u00e6sar, Borgia, Marat,\nLopez,--men in whom every ray of humanity was extinguished, parricides,\nmatricides, and whatever moral monsters. These are not cheerful facts,\nbut they do not disturb a healthy mind; they require of us a patience\nas robust as the energy that attacks us, and an unresting exploration\nof final causes. Wolf, snake, and crocodile are not inharmonious in\nnature, but are made useful as checks, scavengers, and pioneers; and\nwe must have a scope as large as Nature\u2019s to deal with beast-like men,\ndetect what scullion function is assigned them, and foresee in the\nsecular melioration of the planet how these will become unnecessary,\nand will die out.\n\nHe has not learned the lesson of life who does not every day surmount\na fear. I do not wish to put myself or any man into a theatrical\nposition, or urge him to ape the courage of his comrade. Have the\ncourage not to adopt another\u2019s courage. There is scope and cause and\nresistance enough for us in our proper work and circumstance. And\nthere is no creed of an honest man, be he Christian, Turk, or Gentoo,\nwhich does not equally preach it. If you have no faith in beneficent\npower above you, but see only an adamantine fate coiling its folds\nabout nature and man, then reflect that the best use of fate is to\nteach us courage, if only because baseness cannot change the appointed\nevent. If you accept your thoughts as inspirations from the Supreme\nIntelligence, obey them when they prescribe difficult duties, because\nthey come only so long as they are used; or, if your scepticism reaches\nto the last verge, and you have no confidence in any foreign mind, then\nbe brave, because there is one good opinion which must always be of\nconsequence to you, namely, your own.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nI am permitted to enrich my chapter by adding an anecdote of pure\ncourage from real life, as narrated in a ballad by a lady to whom all\nthe particulars of the fact are exactly known.\n\n\nGEORGE NIDIVER.\n\n  Men have done brave deeds,\n    And bards have sung them well:\n  I of good George Nidiver\n    Now the tale will tell.\n\n  In Californian mountains\n    A hunter bold was he:\n  Keen his eye and sure his aim\n    As any you should see.\n\n  A little Indian boy\n    Followed him everywhere,\n  Eager to share the hunter\u2019s joy,\n    The hunter\u2019s meal to share.\n\n  And when the bird or deer\n    Fell by the hunter\u2019s skill,\n  The boy was always near\n    To help with right good-will.\n\n  One day as through the cleft\n    Between two mountains steep,\n  Shut in both right and left,\n    Their questing way they keep,\n\n  They see two grizzly bears\n    With hunger fierce and fell\n  Rush at them unawares\n    Right down the narrow dell.\n\n  The boy turned round with screams,\n    And ran with terror wild;\n  One of the pair of savage beasts\n    Pursued the shrieking child.\n\n  The hunter raised his gun,--\n    He knew _one_ charge was all,--\n  And through the boy\u2019s pursuing foe\n    He sent his only ball.\n\n  The other on George Nidiver\n    Came on with dreadful pace:\n  The hunter stood unarmed,\n    And met him face to face.\n\n  I say _unarmed_ he stood.\n    Against those frightful paws\n  The rifle but, or club of wood,\n    Could stand no more than straws.\n\n  George Nidiver stood still\n    And looked him in the face;\n  The wild beast stopped amazed,\n    Then came with slackening pace.\n\n  Still firm the hunter stood,\n    Although his heart beat high;\n  Again the creature stopped,\n    And gazed with wondering eye.\n\n  The hunter met his gaze,\n    Nor yet an inch gave way;\n  The bear turned slowly round,\n    And slowly moved away.\n\n  What thoughts were in his mind\n    It would be hard to spell:\n  What thoughts were in George Nidiver\n    I rather guess than tell.\n\n  But sure that rifle\u2019s aim,\n    Swift choice of generous part,\n  Showed in its passing gleam\n    The depths of a brave heart.\n\n\n\n\nSUCCESS.\n\n\n\n\nSUCCESS.\n\n\nOur American people cannot be taxed with slowness in performance or\nin praising their performance. The earth is shaken by our engineries.\nWe are feeling our youth and nerve and bone. We have the power of\nterritory and of sea-coast, and know the use of these. We count our\ncensus, we read our growing valuations, we survey our map, which\nbecomes old in a year or two. Our eyes run approvingly along the\nlengthened lines of railroad and telegraph. We have gone nearest to\nthe Pole. We have discovered the Antarctic continent. We interfere in\nCentral and South America, at Canton, and in Japan; we are adding to an\nalready enormous territory. Our political constitution is the hope of\nthe world, and we value ourselves on all these feats.\n\n\u2019Tis the way of the world; \u2019tis the law of youth, and of unfolding\nstrength. Men are made each with some triumphant superiority, which,\nthrough some adaptation of fingers, or ear, or eye, or ciphering, or\npugilistic or musical or literary craft, enriches the community with a\nnew art; and not only we, but all men of European stock value these\ncertificates. Giotto could draw a perfect circle; Erwin of Steinbach\ncould build a minster; Olaf, king of Norway, could run round his\ngalley on the blades of the oars of the rowers, when the ship was in\nmotion; Ojeda could run out swiftly on a plank projected from the top\nof a tower, turn round swiftly, and come back; Evelyn writes from\nRome: \u201cBernini, the Florentine sculptor, architect, painter, and poet,\na little before my coming to Rome, gave a public opera, wherein he\npainted the scenes, cut the statues, invented the engines, composed the\nmusic, writ the comedy, and built the theatre.\u201d\n\n\u201cThere is nothing in war,\u201d said Napoleon, \u201cwhich I cannot do by my\nown hands. If there is nobody to make gunpowder, I can manufacture\nit. The gun-carriages I know how to construct. If it is necessary to\nmake cannons at the forge, I can make them. The details of working\nthem in battle, if it is necessary to teach, I shall teach them. In\nadministration, it is I alone who have arranged the finances, as you\nknow.\u201d\n\nIt is recorded of Linn\u00e6us, among many proofs of his beneficent skill,\nthat when the timber in the shipyards of Sweden was ruined by rot,\nLinn\u00e6us was desired by the government to find a remedy. He studied the\ninsects that infested the timber, and found that they laid their eggs\nin the logs within certain days in April, and he directed that during\nten days at that season the logs should be immersed under water in the\ndocks; which being done the timber was found to be uninjured.\n\nColumbus at Veragua found plenty of gold; but leaving the coast, the\nship full of one hundred and fifty skilful seamen,--some of them old\npilots, and with too much experience of their craft and treachery to\nhim,--the wise admiral kept his private record of his homeward path.\nAnd when he reached Spain, he told the King and Queen, \u201cthat they may\nask all the pilots who came with him, where is Veragua. Let them answer\nand say, if they know where Veragua lies. I assert that they can give\nno other account than that they went to lands where there was abundance\nof gold, but they do not know the way to return thither, but would be\nobliged to go on a voyage of discovery as much as if they had never\nbeen there before. There is a mode of reckoning,\u201d he proudly adds,\n\u201cderived from astronomy, which is sure and safe to any who understands\nit.\u201d\n\nHippocrates in Greece knew how to stay the devouring plague which\nravaged Athens in his time, and his skill died with him. Dr. Benjamin\nRush, in Philadelphia, carried that city heroically through the yellow\nfever of the year 1793. Leverrier carries the Copernican system in\nhis head, and knew where to look for the new planet. We have seen an\nAmerican woman write a novel of which a million copies were sold in\nall languages, and which had one merit, of speaking to the universal\nheart, and was read with equal interest to three audiences, namely,\nin the parlor, in the kitchen, and in the nursery of every house. We\nhave seen women who could institute hospitals and schools in armies.\nWe have seen a woman who by pure song could melt the souls of whole\npopulations. And there is no limit to these varieties of talent.\n\nThese are arts to be thankful for,--each one as it is a new direction\nof human power. We cannot choose but respect them. Our civilization\nis made up of a million contributions of this kind. For success, to\nbe sure, we esteem it a test in other people, since we do first in\nourselves. We respect ourselves more if we have succeeded. Neither do\nwe grudge to each of these benefactors the praise or the profit which\naccrues from his industry.\n\nHere are already quite different degrees of moral merit in these\nexamples. I don\u2019t know but we and our race elsewhere set a higher value\non wealth, victory, and coarse superiority of all kinds, than other\nmen,--have less tranquillity of mind, are less easily contented. The\nSaxon is taught from his infancy to wish to be first. The Norseman\nwas a restless rider, fighter, freebooter. The ancient Norse ballads\ndescribe him as afflicted with this inextinguishable thirst of victory.\nThe mother says to her son:--\n\n  \u201cSuccess shall be in thy courser tall,\n  Success in thyself, which is best of all,\n  Success in thy hand, success in thy foot,\n  In struggle with man, in battle with brute:--\n  The holy God and Saint Drothin dear\n  Shall never shut eyes on thy career;\n        Look out, look out, Svend Vonved!\u201d\n\nThese feats that we extol do not signify so much as we say. These\nboasted arts are of very recent origin. They are local conveniences,\nbut do not really add to our stature. The greatest men of the world\nhave managed not to want them. Newton was a great man, without\ntelegraph, or gas, or steam-coach, or rubber-shoes, or lucifer-matches,\nor ether for his pain; so was Shakspeare, and Alfred, and Scipio, and\nSocrates. These are local conveniences, but how easy to go now to parts\nof the world where not only all these arts are wanting, but where they\nare despised. The Arabian sheiks, the most dignified people in the\nplanet, do not want them; yet have as much self-respect as the English,\nand are easily able to impress the Frenchman or the American who visits\nthem with the respect due to a brave and sufficient man.\n\nThese feats have, to be sure, great difference of merit and some of\nthem involve power of a high kind. But the public values the invention\nmore than the inventor does. The inventor knows there is much more and\nbetter where this came from. The public sees in it a lucrative secret.\nMen see the reward which the inventor enjoys, and they think, \u2018How\nshall we win that?\u2019 Cause and effect are a little tedious; how to\nleap to the result by short or by false means? We are not scrupulous.\nWhat we ask is victory, without regard to the cause; after the Rob\nRoy rule, after the Napoleon rule, to be the strongest to-day,--the\nway of the Talleyrands,--prudent people, whose watches go faster than\ntheir neighbors\u2019, and who detect the first moment of decline, and\nthrow themselves on the instant on the winning side. I have heard that\nNelson used to say, \u201cNever mind the justice or the impudence, only let\nme succeed.\u201d Lord Brougham\u2019s single duty of counsel is, \u201cto get the\nprisoner clear.\u201d Fuller says \u2019tis a maxim of lawyers, \u201cthat a crown\nonce worn cleareth all defects of the wearer thereof.\u201d _Rien ne r\u00e9ussit\nmieux que le succ\u00e8s._ And we Americans are tainted with this insanity,\nas our bankruptcies and our reckless politics may show. We are great by\nexclusion, grasping, and egotism. Our success takes from all what it\ngives to one. \u2019Tis a haggard, malignant, careworn running for luck.\n\nEgotism is a kind of buckram that gives momentary strength and\nconcentration to men, and seems to be much used in nature for fabrics\nin which local and spasmodic energy is required. I could point to men\nin this country of indispensable importance to the carrying on of\nAmerican life, of this humor, whom we could ill spare; any one of them\nwould be a national loss. But it spoils conversation. They will not\ntry conclusions with you. They are ever thrusting this pampered self\nbetween you and them. It is plain they have a long education to undergo\nto reach simplicity and plain-dealing, which are what a wise man mainly\ncares for in his companion. Nature knows how to convert evil to good;\nNature utilizes misers, fanatics, show-men, egotists, to accomplish her\nends; but we must not think better of the foible for that. The passion\nfor sudden success is rude and puerile, just as war, cannons, and\nexecutions are used to clear the ground of bad, lumpish, irreclaimable\nsavages, but always to the damage of the conquerors.\n\nI hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit,\nto get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of\nthe mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without\napprenticeship, or the sale of goods through pretending that they sell,\nor power through making believe you are powerful, or through a packed\njury or caucus, bribery and \u201crepeating\u201d votes, or wealth by fraud.\nThey think they have got it, but they have got something else,--a\ncrime which calls for another crime, and another devil behind that;\nthese are steps to suicide, infamy, and the harming of mankind. We\ncountenance each other in this life of show, puffing, advertisement,\nand manufacture of public opinion; and excellence is lost sight of in\nthe hunger for sudden performance and praise.\n\nThere was a wise man, an Italian artist, Michel Angelo, who writes thus\nof himself: \u201cMeanwhile the Cardinal Ippolito, in whom all my best hopes\nwere placed, being dead, I began to understand that the promises of\nthis world are, for the most part, vain phantoms, and that to confide\nin one\u2019s self, and become something of worth and value, is the best and\nsafest course.\u201d Now, though I am by no means sure that the reader will\nassent to all my propositions, yet I think we shall agree in my first\nrule for success,--that we shall drop the brag and the advertisement,\nand take Michel Angelo\u2019s course, \u201cto confide in one\u2019s self, and be\nsomething of worth and value.\u201d\n\nEach man has an aptitude born with him to do easily some feat\nimpossible to any other. Do your work. I have to say this often, but\nnature says it oftener. \u2019Tis clownish to insist on doing all with\none\u2019s own hands, as if every man should build his own clumsy house,\nforge his hammer, and bake his dough; but he is to dare to do what\nhe can do best; not help others as they would direct him, but as he\nknows his helpful power to be. To do otherwise is to neutralize all\nthose extraordinary special talents distributed among men. Yet, whilst\nthis self-truth is essential to the exhibition of the world and to the\ngrowth and glory of each mind, it is rare to find a man who believes\nhis own thought or who speaks that which he was created to say. As\nnothing astonishes men so much as common sense and plain-dealing, so\nnothing is more rare in any man than an act of his own. Any work looks\nwonderful to him, except that which he can do. We do not believe our\nown thought; we must serve somebody; we must quote somebody; we dote\non the old and the distant; we are tickled by great names; we import\nthe religion of other nations; we quote their opinions; we cite their\nlaws. The gravest and learnedest courts in this country shudder to face\na new question, and will wait months and years for a case to occur that\ncan be tortured into a precedent, and thus throw on a bolder party the\n_onus_ of an initiative. Thus we do not carry a counsel in our breasts,\nor do not know it; and because we cannot shake off from our shoes this\ndust of Europe and Asia, the world seems to be born old, society is\nunder a spell, every man is a borrower and a mimic, life is theatrical,\nand literature a quotation; and hence that depression of spirits, that\nfurrow of care, said to mark every American brow.\n\nSelf-trust is the first secret of success, the belief that, if you are\nhere, the authorities of the universe put you here, and for cause, or\nwith some task strictly appointed you in your constitution, and so\nlong as you work at that you are well and successful. It by no means\nconsists in rushing prematurely to a showy feat that shall catch the\neye and satisfy spectators. It is enough if you work in the right\ndirection. So far from the performance being the real success, it is\nclear that the success was much earlier than that, namely, when all the\nfeats that make our civility were the thoughts of good heads. The fame\nof each discovery rightly attaches to the mind that made the formula\nwhich contains all the details, and not to the manufacturers who now\nmake their gain by it; although the mob uniformly cheers the publisher,\nand not the inventor. It is the dulness of the multitude that they\ncannot see the house, in the ground-plan; the working, in the model of\nthe projector. Whilst it is a thought, though it were a new fuel, or\na new food, or the creation of agriculture, it is cried down; it is a\nchimera: but when it is a fact, and comes in the shape of eight per\ncent, ten per cent, a hundred per cent, they cry, \u2018It is the voice of\nGod.\u2019 Horatio Greenough, the sculptor, said to me of Robert Fulton\u2019s\nvisit to Paris: \u201cFulton knocked at the door of Napoleon with steam,\nand was rejected; and Napoleon lived long enough to know that he had\nexcluded a greater power than his own.\u201d\n\nIs there no loving of knowledge, and of art, and of our design, for\nitself alone? Cannot we please ourselves with performing our work, or\ngaining truth and power, without being praised for it? I gain my point,\nI gain all points, if I can reach my companion with any statement\nwhich teaches him his own worth. The sum of wisdom is, that the time\nis never lost that is devoted to work. The good workman never says,\n\u2018There, that will do\u2019; but, \u2018There, that is it: try it, and come again,\nit will last always.\u2019 If the artist, in whatever art, is well at work\non his own design, it signifies little that he does not yet find orders\nor customers. I pronounce that young man happy who is content with\nhaving acquired the skill which he had aimed at, and waits willingly\nwhen the occasion of making it appreciated shall arrive, knowing well\nthat it will not loiter. The time your rival spends in dressing up his\nwork for effect, hastily, and for the market, you spend in study and\nexperiments towards real knowledge and efficiency. He has thereby sold\nhis picture or machine, or won the prize, or got the appointment; but\nyou have raised yourself into a higher school of art, and a few years\nwill show the advantage of the real master over the short popularity of\nthe showman. I know it is a nice point to discriminate this self-trust,\nwhich is the pledge of all mental vigor and performance, from the\ndisease to which it is allied,--the exaggeration of the part which we\ncan play;--yet they are two things. But it is sanity to know, that,\nover my talent or knack, and a million times better than any talent,\nis the central intelligence which subordinates and uses all talents;\nand it is only as a door into this, that any talent or the knowledge it\ngives is of value. He only who comes into this central intelligence,\nin which no egotism or exaggeration can be, comes into self-possession.\n\nMy next point is that, in the scale of powers, it is not talent, but\nsensibility, which is best: talent confines, but the central life\nputs us in relation to all. How often it seems the chief good to be\nborn with a cheerful temper, and well adjusted to the tone of the\nhuman race. Such a man feels himself in harmony, and conscious by\nhis receptivity of an infinite strength. Like Alfred, \u201cgood fortune\naccompanies him like a gift of God.\u201d Feel yourself, and be not daunted\nby things. \u2019Tis the fulness of man that runs over into objects, and\nmakes his Bibles and Shakspeares and Homers so great. The joyful reader\nborrows of his own ideas to fill their faulty outline, and knows not\nthat he borrows and gives.\n\nThere is something of poverty in our criticism. We assume that there\nare few great men, all the rest are little; that there is but one\nHomer, but one Shakspeare, one Newton, one Socrates. But the soul in\nher beaming hour does not acknowledge these usurpations. We should know\nhow to praise Socrates, or Plato, or Saint John, without impoverishing\nus. In good hours we do not find Shakspeare or Homer over-great,--only\nto have been translators of the happy present,--and every man and woman\ndivine possibilities. \u2019Tis the good reader that makes the good book; a\ngood head cannot read amiss: in every book he finds passages which seem\nconfidences or asides hidden from all else and unmistakably meant for\nhis ear.\n\nThe light by which we see in this world comes out from the soul of\nthe observer. Wherever any noble sentiment dwelt, it made the faces\nand houses around to shine. Nay, the powers of this busy brain are\nmiraculous and illimitable. Therein are the rules and formulas by which\nthe whole empire of matter is worked. There is no prosperity, trade,\nart, city, or great material wealth of any kind, but if you trace it\nhome, you will find it rooted in a thought of some individual man.\n\nIs all life a surface affair? \u2019Tis curious, but our difference of wit\nappears to be only a difference of impressionability, or power to\nappreciate faint, fainter, and infinitely faintest voices and visions.\nWhen the scholar or the writer has pumped his brain for thoughts and\nverses, and then comes abroad into Nature, has he never found that\nthere is a better poetry hinted in a boy\u2019s whistle of a tune, or in\nthe piping of a sparrow, than in all his literary results? We call\nit health. What is so admirable as the health of youth?--with his\nlong days because his eyes are good, and brisk circulations keep him\nwarm in cold rooms, and he loves books that speak to the imagination;\nand he can read Plato, covered to his chin with a cloak in a cold\nupper chamber, though he should associate the Dialogues ever after\nwith a woollen smell. \u2019Tis the bane of life that natural effects are\ncontinually crowded out, and artificial arrangements substituted.\nWe remember when, in early youth, the earth spoke and the heavens\nglowed; when an evening, any evening, grim and wintry, sleet and snow,\nwas enough for us; the houses were in the air. Now it costs a rare\ncombination of clouds and lights to overcome the common and mean. What\nis it we look for in the landscape, in sunsets and sunrises, in the sea\nand the firmament? what but a compensation for the cramp and pettiness\nof human performances? We bask in the day, and the mind finds somewhat\nas great as itself. In Nature, all is large, massive repose. Remember\nwhat befalls a city boy who goes for the first time into the October\nwoods. He is suddenly initiated into a pomp and glory that brings to\npass for him the dreams of romance. He is the king he dreamed he was;\nhe walks through tents of gold, through bowers of crimson, porphyry,\nand topaz, pavilion on pavilion, garlanded with vines, flowers, and\nsunbeams, with incense and music, with so many hints to his astonished\nsenses; the leaves twinkle and pique and flatter him, and his eye and\nstep are tempted on by what hazy distances to happier solitudes. All\nthis happiness he owes only to his finer perception. The owner of the\nwood-lot finds only a number of discolored trees, and says, \u2018They\nought to come down; they aren\u2019t growing any better; they should be cut\nand corded before spring.\u2019\n\nWordsworth writes of the delights of the boy in Nature:--\n\n  \u201cFor never will come back the hour\n  Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower.\u201d\n\nBut I have just seen a man, well knowing what he spoke of, who told me\nthat the verse was not true for him; that his eyes opened as he grew\nolder, and that every spring was more beautiful to him than the last.\n\nWe live among gods of our own creation. Does that deep-toned bell,\nwhich has shortened many a night of ill nerves, render to you nothing\nbut acoustic vibrations? Is the old church, which gave you the first\nlessons of religious life, or the village school, or the college where\nyou first knew the dreams of fancy and joys of thought, only boards or\nbrick and mortar? Is the house in which you were born, or the house\nin which your dearest friend lived, only a piece of real estate whose\nvalue is covered by the Hartford insurance? You walk on the beach and\nenjoy the animation of the picture. Scoop up a little water in the\nhollow of your palm, take up a handful of shore sand; well, these are\nthe elements. What is the beach but acres of sand? What is the ocean\nbut cubic miles of water? a little more or less signifies nothing.\nNo, it is that this brute matter is part of somewhat not brute. It is\nthat the sand floor is held by spheral gravity, and bent to be a part\nof the round globe, under the optical sky,--part of the astonishing\nastronomy, and existing, at last, to moral ends and from moral causes.\n\nThe world is not made up to the eye of figures, that is, only half; it\nis also made of color. How that element washes the universe with its\nenchanting waves! The sculptor had ended his work, and behold a new\nworld of dream-like glory. \u2019Tis the last stroke of Nature; beyond color\nshe cannot go. In like manner, life is made up, not of knowledge only,\nbut of love also. If thought is form, sentiment is color. It clothes\nthe skeleton world with space, variety, and glow. The hues of sunset\nmake life great; so the affections make some little web of cottage and\nfireside populous, important, and filling the main space in our history.\n\nThe fundamental fact in our metaphysic constitution is the\ncorrespondence of man to the world, so that every change in that\nwrites a record in the mind. The mind yields sympathetically to the\ntendencies or law which stream through things, and make the order of\nnature; and in the perfection of this correspondence or expressiveness,\nthe health and force of man consist. If we follow this hint into our\nintellectual education, we shall find that it is not propositions, not\nnew dogmas and a logical exposition of the world, that are our first\nneed; but to watch and tenderly cherish the intellectual and moral\nsensibilities, those fountains of right thought, and woo them to stay\nand make their home with us. Whilst they abide with us, we shall not\nthink amiss. Our perception far outruns our talent. We bring a welcome\nto the highest lessons of religion and of poetry out of all proportion\nbeyond our skill to teach. And, further, the great hearing and sympathy\nof men is more true and wise than their speaking is wont to be. A deep\nsympathy is what we require for any student of the mind; for the chief\ndifference between man and man is a difference of impressionability.\nAristotle, or Bacon, or Kant propound some maxim which is the key-note\nof philosophy thenceforward. But I am more interested to know, that,\nwhen at last they have hurled out their grand word, it is only some\nfamiliar experience of every man in the street. If it be not, it will\nnever be heard of again.\n\nAh! if one could keep this sensibility, and live in the happy sufficing\npresent, and find the day and its cheap means contenting, which\nonly ask receptivity in you, and no strained exertion and cankering\nambition, overstimulating to be at the head of your class and the head\nof society, and to have distinction and laurels and consumption! We are\nnot strong by our power to penetrate, but by our relatedness. The world\nis enlarged for us, not by new objects, but by finding more affinities\nand potencies in those we have.\n\nThis sensibility appears in the homage to beauty which exalts the\nfaculties of youth, in the power which form and color exert upon\nthe soul; when we see eyes that are a compliment to the human race,\nfeatures that explain the Phidian sculpture. Fontenelle said: \u201cThere\nare three things about which I have curiosity, though I know nothing of\nthem,--music, poetry, and love.\u201d The great doctors of this science are\nthe greatest men,--Dante, Petrarch, Michel Angelo, and Shakspeare. The\nwise Socrates treats this matter with a certain archness, yet with very\nmarked expressions. \u201cI am always,\u201d he says, \u201casserting that I happen to\nknow, I may say, nothing but a mere trifle relating to matters of love;\nyet in that kind of learning I lay claim to being more skilled than\nany one man of the past or present time.\u201d They may well speak in this\nuncertain manner of their knowledge, and in this confident manner of\ntheir will, for the secret of it is hard to detect, so deep it is; and\nyet genius is measured by its skill in this science.\n\nWho is he in youth, or in maturity, or even in old age, who does not\nlike to hear of those sensibilities which turn curled heads round at\nchurch, and send wonderful eye-beams across assemblies, from one to\none, never missing in the thickest crowd. The keen statist reckons by\ntens and hundreds; the genial man is interested in every slipper that\ncomes into the assembly. The passion, alike everywhere, creeps under\nthe snows of Scandinavia, under the fires of the equator, and swims in\nthe seas of Polynesia. Lofn is as puissant a divinity in the Norse Edda\nas Camadeva in the red vault of India, Eros in the Greek, or Cupid in\nthe Latin heaven. And what is specially true of love is, that it is a\nstate of extreme impressionability; the lover has more senses and finer\nsenses than others; his eye and ear are telegraphs; he reads omens on\nthe flower, and cloud, and face, and form, and gesture, and reads them\naright. In his surprise at the sudden and entire understanding that is\nbetween him and the beloved person, it occurs to him that they might\nsomehow meet independently of time and place. How delicious the belief\nthat he could elude all guards, precautions, ceremonies, means, and\ndelays, and hold instant and sempiternal communication! In solitude, in\nbanishment, the hope returned, and the experiment was eagerly tried.\nThe supernal powers seem to take his part. What was on his lips to say\nis uttered by his friend. When he went abroad, he met, by wonderful\ncasualties, the one person he sought. If in his walk he chanced to look\nback, his friend was walking behind him. And it has happened that the\nartist has often drawn in his pictures the face of the future wife whom\nhe had not yet seen.\n\nBut also in complacences, nowise so strict as this of the passion, the\nman of sensibility counts it a delight only to hear a child\u2019s voice\nfully addressed to him, or to see the beautiful manners of the youth\nof either sex. When the event is past and remote, how insignificant\nthe greatest compared with the piquancy of the present! To-day at the\nschool examination the professor interrogates Sylvina in the history\nclass about Odoacer and Alaric. Sylvina can\u2019t remember, but suggests\nthat Odoacer was defeated; and the professor tartly replies, \u201cNo, he\ndefeated the Romans.\u201d But \u2019tis plain to the visitor, that \u2019tis of no\nimportance at all about Odoacer, and \u2019tis a great deal of importance\nabout Sylvina; and if she says he was defeated, why he had better,\na great deal, have been defeated, than give her a moment\u2019s annoy.\nOdoacer, if there was a particle of the gentleman in him, would have\nsaid, Let me be defeated a thousand times.\n\nAnd as our tenderness for youth and beauty gives a new and just\nimportance to their fresh and manifold claims, so the like sensibility\ngives welcome to all excellence, has eyes and hospitality for merit in\ncorners. An Englishman of marked character and talent, who had brought\nwith him hither one or two friends and a library of mystics, assured me\nthat nobody and nothing of possible interest was left in England,--he\nhad brought all that was alive away. I was forced to reply: \u201cNo, next\ndoor to you, probably, on the other side of the partition in the same\nhouse, was a greater man than any you had seen.\u201d Every man has a\nhistory worth knowing, if he could tell it, or if we could draw it from\nhim. Character and wit have their own magnetism. Send a deep man into\nany town, and he will find another deep man there, unknown hitherto\nto his neighbors. That is the great happiness of life,--to add to our\nhigh acquaintances. The very law of averages might have assured you\nthat there will be in every hundred heads, say ten or five good heads.\nMorals are generated as the atmosphere is. \u2019Tis a secret, the genesis\nof either; but the springs of justice and courage do not fail any more\nthan salt or sulphur springs.\n\nThe world is always opulent, the oracles are never silent; but\nthe receiver must by a happy temperance be brought to that top of\ncondition, that frolic health, that he can easily take and give these\nfine communications. Health is the condition of wisdom, and the sign\nis cheerfulness,--an open and noble temper. There was never poet who\nhad not the heart in the right place. The old trouveur, Pons Capdueil,\nwrote,--\n\n  \u201cOft have I heard, and deem the witness true,\n  Whom man delights in, God delights in too.\u201d\n\nAll beauty warms the heart, is a sign of health, prosperity, and the\nfavor of God. Everything lasting and fit for men, the Divine Power\nhas marked with this stamp. What delights, what emancipates, not what\nscares and pains us, is wise and good in speech and in the arts. For,\ntruly, the heart at the centre of the universe with every throb hurls\nthe flood of happiness into every artery, vein, and veinlet, so that\nthe whole system is inundated with the tides of joy. The plenty of the\npoorest place is too great: the harvest cannot be gathered. Every sound\nends in music. The edge of every surface is tinged with prismatic rays.\n\nOne more trait of true success. The good mind chooses what is positive,\nwhat is advancing,--embraces the affirmative. Our system is one of\npoverty. \u2019Tis presumed, as I said, there is but one Shakspeare, one\nHomer, one Jesus,--not that all are or shall be inspired. But we must\nbegin by affirming. Truth and goodness subsist forevermore. It is true\nthere is evil and good, night and day: but these are not equal. The day\nis great and final. The night is for the day, but the day is not for\nthe night. What is this immortal demand for more, which belongs to our\nconstitution? this enormous ideal? There is no such critic and beggar\nas this terrible Soul. No historical person begins to content us. We\nknow the satisfactoriness of justice, the sufficiency of truth. We\nknow the answer that leaves nothing to ask. We know the Spirit by its\nvictorious tone. The searching tests to apply to every new pretender\nare amount and quality,--what does he add? and what is the state of\nmind he leaves me in? Your theory is unimportant; but what new stock\nyou can add to humanity, or how high you can carry life? A man is a man\nonly as he makes life and nature happier to us.\n\nI fear the popular notion of success stands in direct opposition in all\npoints to the real and wholesome success. One adores public opinion,\nthe other private opinion; one fame, the other desert; one feats, the\nother humility; one lucre, the other love; one monopoly, and the other\nhospitality of mind.\n\nWe may apply this affirmative law to letters, to manners, to art,\nto the decorations of our houses, etc. I do not find executions or\ntortures or lazar-houses, or grisly photographs of the field on the day\nafter the battle fit subjects for cabinet pictures. I think that some\nso-called \u201csacred subjects\u201d must be treated with more genius than I\nhave seen in the masters of Italian or Spanish art to be right pictures\nfor houses and churches. Nature does not invite such exhibition. Nature\nlays the ground-plan of each creature accurately,--sternly fit for\nall his functions; then veils it scrupulously. See how carefully she\ncovers up the skeleton. The eye shall not see it: the sun shall not\nshine on it. She weaves her tissues and integuments of flesh and skin\nand hair and beautiful colors of the day over it, and forces death down\nunderground, and makes haste to cover it up with leaves and vines, and\nwipes carefully out every trace by new creation. Who and what are you\nthat would lay the ghastly anatomy bare?\n\nDon\u2019t hang a dismal picture on the wall, and do not daub with sables\nand glooms in your conversation. Don\u2019t be a cynic and disconsolate\npreacher. Don\u2019t bewail and bemoan. Omit the negative propositions.\nNerve us with incessant affirmatives. Don\u2019t waste yourself in\nrejection, nor bark against the bad, but chant the beauty of the good.\nWhen that is spoken which has a right to be spoken, the chatter and the\ncriticism will stop. Set down nothing that will not help somebody;\n\n  \u201cFor every gift of noble origin\n  Is breathed upon by Hope\u2019s perpetual breath.\u201d\n\nThe affirmative of affirmatives is love. As much love, so much\nperception. As caloric to matter, so is love to mind; so it enlarges,\nand so it empowers it. Good-will makes insight, as one finds his way\nto the sea by embarking on a river. I have seen scores of people who\ncan silence me, but I seek one who shall make me forget or overcome the\nfrigidities and imbecilities into which I fall. The painter Giotto,\nVasari tells us, renewed art, because he put more goodness into his\nheads. To awake in man and to raise the sense of worth, to educate his\nfeeling and judgment so that he shall scorn himself for a bad action,\nthat is the only aim.\n\n\u2019Tis cheap and easy to destroy. There is not a joyful boy or an\ninnocent girl buoyant with fine purposes of duty, in all the street\nfull of eager and rosy faces, but a cynic can chill and dishearten with\na single word. Despondency comes readily enough to the most sanguine.\nThe cynic has only to follow their hint with his bitter confirmation,\nand they check that eager courageous pace and go home with heavier step\nand premature age. They will themselves quickly enough give the hint he\nwants to the cold wretch. Which of them has not failed to please where\nthey most wished it? or blundered where they were most ambitious of\nsuccess? or found themselves awkward or tedious or incapable of study,\nthought, or heroism, and only hoped by good sense and fidelity to do\nwhat they could and pass unblamed? And this witty malefactor makes\ntheir little hope less with satire and scepticism, and slackens the\nsprings of endeavor. Yes, this is easy; but to help the young soul, add\nenergy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem\ndefeat by new thought, by firm action, that is not easy, that is the\nwork of divine men.\n\nWe live on different planes or platforms. There is an external life,\nwhich is educated at school, taught to read, write, cipher, and trade;\ntaught to grasp all the boy can get, urging him to put himself forward,\nto make himself useful and agreeable in the world, to ride, run, argue,\nand contend, unfold his talents, shine, conquer, and possess.\n\nBut the inner life sits at home, and does not learn to do things, nor\nvalue these feats at all. \u2019Tis a quiet, wise perception. It loves\ntruth, because it is itself real; it loves right, it knows nothing\nelse; but it makes no progress; was as wise in our first memory of\nit as now; is just the same now in maturity and hereafter in age, it\nwas in youth. We have grown to manhood and womanhood; we have powers,\nconnection, children, reputations, professions: this makes no account\nof them all. It lives in the great present; it makes the present great.\nThis tranquil, well-founded, wide-seeing soul is no express-rider, no\nattorney, no magistrate: it lies in the sun, and broods on the world.\nA person of this temper once said to a man of much activity, \u201cI will\npardon you that you do so much, and you me that I do nothing.\u201d And\nEuripides says that \u201cZeus hates busybodies and those who do too much.\u201d\n\n\n\n\nOLD AGE.\n\n\n\n\nOLD AGE.\n\n\nOn the anniversary of the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, in 1861,\nthe venerable President Quincy, senior member of the Society, as well\nas senior alumnus of the University, was received at the dinner with\npeculiar demonstrations of respect. He replied to these compliments\nin a speech, and, gracefully claiming the privileges of a literary\nsociety, entered at some length into an Apology for Old Age, and,\naiding himself by notes in his hand, made a sort of running commentary\non Cicero\u2019s chapter \u201cDe Senectute.\u201d The character of the speaker, the\ntransparent good faith of his praise and blame, and the _na\u00efvet\u00e9_ of\nhis eager preference of Cicero\u2019s opinions to King David\u2019s, gave unusual\ninterest to the College festival. It was a discourse full of dignity,\nhonoring him who spoke and those who heard.\n\nThe speech led me to look over at home--an easy task--Cicero\u2019s famous\nessay, charming by its uniform rhetorical merit; heroic with Stoical\nprecepts; with a Roman eye to the claims of the State; happiest,\nperhaps, in his praise of life on the farm; and rising at the\nconclusion to a lofty strain. But he does not exhaust the subject;\nrather invites the attempt to add traits to the picture from our\nbroader modern life.\n\nCicero makes no reference to the illusions which cling to the element\nof time, and in which Nature delights. Wellington, in speaking of\nmilitary men, said, \u201cWhat masks are these uniforms to hide cowards!\u201d\nI have often detected the like deception in the cloth shoe, wadded\npelisse, wig, spectacles, and padded chair of Age. Nature lends herself\nto these illusions, and adds dim sight, deafness, cracked voice, snowy\nhair, short memory and sleep. These also are masks, and all is not Age\nthat wears them. Whilst we yet call ourselves young, and our mates\nare yet youths with even boyish remains, one good fellow in the set\nprematurely sports a gray or a bald head, which does not impose on\nus who know how innocent of sanctity or of Platonism he is, but does\ndeceive his juniors and the public, who presently distinguish him with\na most amusing respect: and this lets us into the secret, that the\nvenerable forms that so awed our childhood were just such impostors.\nNature is full of freaks, and now puts an old head on young shoulders,\nand then a young heart beating under fourscore winters.\n\nFor if the essence of age is not present, these signs, whether of Art\nor Nature, are counterfeit and ridiculous: and the essence of age is\nintellect. Wherever that appears, we call it old. If we look into the\neyes of the youngest person, we sometimes discover that here is one who\nknows already what you would go about with much pains to teach him;\nthere is that in him which is the ancestor of all around him: which\nfact the Indian Vedas express when they say, \u201cHe that can discriminate\nis the father of his father.\u201d And in our old British legends of Arthur\nand the Round Table, his friend and counsellor, Merlin the Wise, is a\nbabe found exposed in a basket by the river-side, and, though an infant\nof only a few days, speaks articulately to those who discover him,\ntells his name and history, and presently foretells the fate of the\nby-standers. Wherever there is power, there is age. Don\u2019t be deceived\nby dimples and curls. I tell you that babe is a thousand years old.\n\nTime is, indeed, the theatre and seat of illusion: nothing is so\nductile and elastic. The mind stretches an hour to a century, and\ndwarfs an age to an hour. Saadi found in a mosque at Damascus an old\nPersian of a hundred and fifty years who was dying, and was saying to\nhimself, \u201cI said, coming into the world by birth, \u2018I will enjoy myself\nfor a few moments.\u2019 Alas! at the variegated table of life I partook\nof a few mouthfuls, and the Fates said, \u2018_Enough!_\u2019\u201d That which does\nnot decay is so central and controlling in us, that, as long as one\nis alone by himself, he is not sensible of the inroads of time, which\nalways begin at the surface-edges. If, on a winter day, you should\nstand within a bell-glass, the face and color of the afternoon clouds\nwould not indicate whether it were June or January; and if we did not\nfind the reflection of ourselves in the eyes of the young people, we\ncould not know that the century-clock had struck seventy instead of\ntwenty. How many men habitually believe that each chance passenger with\nwhom they converse is of their own age, and presently find it was his\nfather, and not his brother, whom they knew!\n\nBut not to press too hard on these deceits and illusions of Nature,\nwhich are inseparable from our condition, and looking at age under\nan aspect more conformed to the common sense, if the question be\nthe felicity of age, I fear the first popular judgments will be\nunfavorable. From the point of sensuous experience, seen from the\nstreets and markets and the haunts of pleasure and gain, the estimate\nof age is low, melancholy, and sceptical. Frankly face the facts,\nand see the result. Tobacco, coffee, alcohol, hashish, prussic acid,\nstrychnine, are weak dilutions: the surest poison is time. This cup,\nwhich Nature puts to our lips, has a wonderful virtue, surpassing\nthat of any other draught. It opens the senses, adds power, fills us\nwith exalted dreams, which we call hope, love, ambition, science:\nespecially, it creates a craving for larger draughts of itself.\nBut they who take the larger draughts are drunk with it, lose their\nstature, strength, beauty, and senses, and end in folly and delirium.\nWe postpone our literary work until we have more ripeness and skill to\nwrite, and we one day discover that our literary talent was a youthful\neffervescence which we have now lost. We had a judge in Massachusetts\nwho at sixty proposed to resign, alleging that he perceived a certain,\ndecay in his faculties; he was dissuaded by his friends, on account\nof the public convenience at that time. At seventy it was hinted to\nhim that it was time to retire; but he now replied, that he thought\nhis judgment as robust, and all his faculties as good as ever they\nwere. But besides the self-deception, the strong and hasty laborers of\nthe street do not work well with the chronic valetudinarian. Youth is\neverywhere in place. Age, like woman, requires fit surroundings. Age\nis comely in coaches, in churches, in chairs of state, and ceremony,\nin council-chambers, in courts of justice, and historical societies.\nAge is becoming in the country. But in the rush and uproar of Broadway,\nif you look into the faces of the passengers, there is dejection or\nindignation in the seniors, a certain concealed sense of injury,\nand the lip made up with a heroic determination not to mind it. Few\nenvy the consideration enjoyed by the oldest inhabitant. We do not\ncount a man\u2019s years, until he has nothing else to count. The vast\ninconvenience of animal immortality was told in the fable of Tithonus.\nIn short, the creed of the street is, Old Age is not disgraceful, but\nimmensely disadvantageous. Life is well enough, but we shall all be\nglad to get out of it, and they will all be glad to have us.\n\nThis is odious on the face of it. Universal convictions are not to\nbe shaken by the whimseys of overfed butchers and firemen, or by the\nsentimental fears of girls who would keep the infantile bloom on their\ncheeks. We know the value of experience. Life and art are cumulative;\nand he who has accomplished something in any department alone deserves\nto be heard on that subject. A man of great employments and excellent\nperformance used to assure me that he did not think a man worth\nanything until he was sixty; although this smacks a little of the\nresolution of a certain \u201cYoung Men\u2019s Republican Club,\u201d that all men\nshould be held eligible who were under seventy. But in all governments,\nthe councils of power were held by the old; and patricians or _patres_,\nsenate or _senes_, _seigneurs_ or seniors, _gerousia_, the senate of\nSparta, the presbytery of the Church, and the like, all signify simply\nold men.\n\nThe cynical creed or lampoon of the market is refuted by the universal\nprayer for long life, which is the verdict of Nature, and justified by\nall history. We have, it is true, examples of an accelerated pace by\nwhich young men achieved grand works; as in the Macedonian Alexander,\nin Raffaelle, Shakspeare, Pascal, Burns, and Byron; but these are rare\nexceptions. Nature, in the main, vindicates her law. Skill to do comes\nof doing; knowledge comes by eyes always open, and working hands; and\nthere is no knowledge that is not power. B\u00e9ranger said, \u201cAlmost all\nthe good workmen live long.\u201d And if the life be true and noble, we\nhave quite another sort of seniors than the frowzy, timorous, peevish\ndotards who are falsely old,--namely, the men who fear no city, but\nby whom cities stand; who appearing in any street, the people empty\ntheir houses to gaze at and obey them: as at \u201cMy Cid, with the fleecy\nbeard,\u201d in Toledo; or Bruce, as Barbour reports him; as blind old\nDandolo, elected Doge at eighty-four years, storming Constantinople\nat ninety-four, and after the revolt again victorious, and elected at\nthe age of ninety-six to the throne of the Eastern Empire, which he\ndeclined, and died Doge at ninety-seven. We still feel the force of\nSocrates, \u201cwhom well-advised the oracle pronounced wisest of men\u201d; of\nArchimedes, holding Syracuse against the Romans by his wit, and himself\nbetter than all their nation; of Michel Angelo, wearing the four crowns\nof architecture, sculpture, painting, and poetry; of Galileo, of whose\nblindness Castelli said, \u201cThe noblest eye is darkened that Nature ever\nmade,--an eye that hath seen more than all that went before him, and\nhath opened the eyes of all that shall come after him\u201d; of Newton, who\nmade an important discovery for every one of his eighty-five years;\nof Bacon, who \u201ctook all knowledge to be his province\u201d; of Fontenelle,\n\u201cthat precious porcelain vase laid up in the centre of France to\nbe guarded with the utmost care for a hundred years\u201d; of Franklin,\nJefferson, and Adams, the wise and heroic statesmen; of Washington, the\nperfect citizen; of Wellington, the perfect soldier; of Goethe, the\nall-knowing poet; of Humboldt, the encyclop\u00e6dia of science.\n\nUnder the general assertion of the well-being of age, we can easily\ncount particular benefits of that condition. It has weathered the\nperilous capes and shoals in the sea whereon we sail, and the chief\nevil of life is taken away in removing the grounds of fear. The\ninsurance of a ship expires as she enters the harbor at home. It were\nstrange, if a man should turn his sixtieth year without a feeling of\nimmense relief from the number of dangers he has escaped. When the\nold wife says, \u2018Take care of that tumor in your shoulder, perhaps it\nis cancerous,\u2019--he replies, \u2018I am yielding to a surer decomposition.\u2019\nThe humorous thief who drank a pot of beer at the gallows blew off the\nfroth because he had heard it was unhealthy; but it will not add a\npang to the prisoner marched out to be shot, to assure him that the\npain in his knee threatens mortification. When the pleuro-pneumonia\nof the cows raged, the butchers said, that, though the acute degree\nwas novel, there never was a time when this disease did not occur\namong cattle. All men carry seeds of all distempers through life\nlatent, and we die without developing them; such is the affirmative\nforce of the constitution; but if you are enfeebled by any cause,\nsome of these sleeping seeds start and open. Meantime, at every stage\nwe lose a foe. At fifty years, \u2019tis said, afflicted citizens lose\ntheir sick-headaches. I hope this _hegira_ is not as movable a feast\nas that one I annually look for, when the horticulturists assure me\nthat the rosebugs in our gardens disappear on the tenth of July;\nthey stay a fortnight later in mine. But be it as it may with the\nsick-headache,--\u2019tis certain that graver headaches and heart-aches are\nlulled once for all, as we come up with certain goals of time. The\npassions have answered their purpose: that slight but dread overweight,\nwith which, in each instance, Nature secures the execution of her\naim, drops off. To keep man in the planet, she impresses the terror\nof death. To perfect the commissariat, she implants in each a certain\nrapacity to get the supply, and a little oversupply, of his wants. To\ninsure the existence of the race, she reinforces the sexual instinct,\nat the risk of disorder, grief, and pain. To secure strength, she\nplants cruel hunger and thirst, which so easily overdo their office,\nand invite disease. But these temporary stays and shifts for the\nprotection of the young animal are shed as fast as they can be replaced\nby nobler resources. We live in youth amidst this rabble of passions,\nquite too tender, quite too hungry and irritable. Later, the interiors\nof mind and heart open, and supply grander motives. We learn the fatal\ncompensations that wait on every act. Then,--one after another,--this\nriotous time-destroying crew disappear.\n\nI count it another capital advantage of age, this, that a success more\nor less signifies nothing. Little by little, it has amassed such a\nfund of merit, that it can very well afford to go on its credit when\nit will. When I chanced to meet the poet Wordsworth, then sixty-three\nyears old, he told me, \u201cthat he had just had a fall and lost a tooth,\nand, when his companions were much concerned for the mischance, he had\nreplied, that he was glad it had not happened forty years before.\u201d\nWell, Nature takes care that we shall not lose our organs forty years\ntoo soon. A lawyer argued a cause yesterday in the Supreme Court, and\nI was struck with a certain air of levity and defiance which vastly\nbecame him. Thirty years ago it was a serious concern to him whether\nhis pleading was good and effective. Now it is of importance to his\nclient, but of none to himself. It has been long already fixed what he\ncan do and cannot do, and his reputation does not gain or suffer from\none or a dozen new performances. If he should, on a new occasion, rise\nquite beyond his mark, and achieve somewhat great and extraordinary,\nthat, of course, would instantly tell; but he may go below his mark\nwith impunity, and people will say, \u2018O, he had headache,\u2019 or, \u2018He lost\nhis sleep for two nights.\u2019 What a lust of appearance, what a load of\nanxieties that once degraded him, he is thus rid of! Every one is\nsensible of this cumulative advantage in living. All the good days\nbehind him are sponsors, who speak for him when he is silent, pay for\nhim when he has no money, introduce him where he has no letters, and\nwork for him when he sleeps.\n\nA third felicity of age is, that it has found expression. The youth\nsuffers not only from ungratified desires, but from powers untried, and\nfrom a picture in his mind of a career which has, as yet, no outward\nreality. He is tormented with the want of correspondence between things\nand thoughts. Michel Angelo\u2019s head is full of masculine and gigantic\nfigures as gods walking, which make him savage until his furious chisel\ncan render them into marble; and of architectural dreams, until a\nhundred stone-masons can lay them in courses of travertine. There is\nthe like tempest in every good head in which some great benefit for\nthe world is planted. The throes continue until the child is born.\nEvery faculty new to each man thus goads him and drives him out into\ndoleful deserts, until it finds proper vent. All the functions of\nhuman duty irritate and lash him forward, bemoaning and chiding, until\nthey are performed. He wants friends, employment, knowledge, power,\nhouse and land, wife and children, honor and fame; he has religious\nwants, \u00e6sthetic wants, domestic, civil, humane wants. One by one,\nday after day, he learns to coin his wishes into facts. He has his\ncalling, homestead, social connection, and personal power, and thus,\nat the end of fifty years, his soul is appeased by seeing some sort\nof correspondence between his wish and his possession. This makes the\nvalue of age, the satisfaction it slowly offers to every craving. He\nis serene who does not feel himself pinched and wronged, but whose\ncondition, in particular and in general, allows the utterance of his\nmind. In old persons, when thus fully expressed, we often observe a\nfair, plump, perennial, waxen complexion, which indicates that all\nthe ferment of earlier days has subsided into serenity of thought and\nbehavior.\n\nThe compensations of Nature play in age as in youth. In a world so\ncharged and sparkling with power, a man does not live long and actively\nwithout costly additions of experience, which, though not spoken, are\nrecorded in his mind. What to the youth is only a guess or a hope, is\nin the veteran a digested statute. He beholds the feats of the juniors\nwith complacency, but as one who, having long ago known these games,\nhas refined them into results and morals. The Indian Red Jacket, when\nthe young braves were boasting their deeds, said, \u201cBut the sixties have\nall the twenties and forties in them.\u201d\n\nFor a fourth benefit, age sets its house in order, and finishes its\nworks, which to every artist is a supreme pleasure. Youth has an excess\nof sensibility, before which every object glitters and attracts. We\nleave one pursuit for another, and the young man\u2019s year is a heap of\nbeginnings. At the end of a twelvemonth, he has nothing to show for\nit,--not one completed work. But the time is not lost. Our instincts\ndrove us to hive innumerable experiences, that are yet of no visible\nvalue, and which we may keep for twice seven years before they shall\nbe wanted. The best things are of secular growth. The instinct of\nclassifying marks the wise and healthy mind. Linn\u00e6us projects his\nsystem, and lays out his twenty-four classes of plants, before yet he\nhas found in Nature a single plant to justify certain of his classes.\nHis seventh class has not one. In process of time, he finds with\ndelight the little white _Trientalis_, the only plant with seven petals\nand sometimes seven stamens, which constitutes a seventh class in\nconformity with his system. The conchologist builds his cabinet whilst\nas yet he has few shells. He labels shelves for classes, cells for\nspecies: all but a few are empty. But every year fills some blanks, and\nwith accelerating speed as he becomes knowing and known. An old scholar\nfinds keen delight in verifying the impressive anecdotes and citations\nhe has met with in miscellaneous reading and hearing, in all the years\nof youth. We carry in memory important anecdotes, and have lost all\nclew to the author from whom we had them. We have a heroic speech from\nRome or Greece, but cannot fix it on the man who said it. We have an\nadmirable line worthy of Horace, ever and anon resounding in our mind\u2019s\near, but have searched all probable and improbable books for it in\nvain. We consult the reading men: but, strangely enough, they who know\neverything know not this. But especially we have a certain insulated\nthought, which haunts us, but remains insulated and barren. Well,\nthere is nothing for all this but patience and time. Time, yes, that\nis the finder, the unweariable explorer, not subject to casualties,\nomniscient at last. The day comes when the hidden author of our story\nis found; when the brave speech returns straight to the hero who\nsaid it; when the admirable verse finds the poet to whom it belongs;\nand best of all, when the lonely thought, which seemed so wise, yet\nhalf-wise, half-thought, because it cast no light abroad, is suddenly\nmatched in our mind by its twin, by its sequence, or next related\nanalogy, which gives it instantly radiating power, and justifies the\nsuperstitious instinct with which we have hoarded it. We remember our\nold Greek Professor at Cambridge, an ancient bachelor, amid his folios,\npossessed by this hope of completing a task, with nothing to break his\nleisure after the three hours of his daily classes, yet ever restlessly\nstroking his leg, and assuring himself \u201che should retire from the\nUniversity and read the authors.\u201d In Goethe\u2019s Romance, Makaria,\nthe central figure for wisdom and influence, pleases herself with\nwithdrawing into solitude to astronomy and epistolary correspondence.\nGoethe himself carried this completion of studies to the highest point.\nMany of his works hung on the easel from youth to age, and received\na stroke in every month or year. A literary astrologer, he never\napplied himself to any task but at the happy moment when all the stars\nconsented. Bentley thought himself likely to live till fourscore,--long\nenough to read everything that was worth reading,--\u201c_Et tunc magna\nmei sub terris ibit imago._\u201d Much wider is spread the pleasure which\nold men take in completing their secular affairs, the inventor his\ninventions, the agriculturist his experiments, and all old men in\nfinishing their houses, rounding their estates, clearing their titles,\nreducing tangled interests to order, reconciling enmities, and leaving\nall in the best posture for the future. It must be believed that there\nis a proportion between the designs of a man and the length of his\nlife: there is a calendar of his years, so of his performances.\n\nAmerica is the country of young men, and too full of work hitherto for\nleisure and tranquillity; yet we have had robust centenarians, and\nexamples of dignity and wisdom. I have lately found in an old note-book\na record of a visit to ex-President John Adams, in 1825, soon after the\nelection of his son to the Presidency. It is but a sketch, and nothing\nimportant passed in the conversation; but it reports a moment in the\nlife of a heroic person, who, in extreme old age, appeared still erect\nand worthy of his fame.\n\n  _----, Feb., 1825._ To-day, at Quincy, with my brother, by\n  invitation of Mr. Adams\u2019s family. The old President sat in a large\n  stuffed arm-chair, dressed in a blue coat, black small-clothes,\n  white stockings; a cotton cap covered his bald head. We made our\n  compliment, told him he must let us join our congratulations to those\n  of the nation on the happiness of his house. He thanked us, and said:\n  \u201cI am rejoiced, because the nation is happy. The time of gratulation\n  and congratulations is nearly over with me: I am astonished that I\n  have lived to see and know of this event. I have lived now nearly a\n  century; [he was ninety in the following October:] a long, harassed,\n  and distracted life.\u201d--I said, \u201cThe world thinks a good deal of joy\n  has been mixed with it.\u201d--\u201cThe world does not know,\u201d he replied, \u201chow\n  much toil, anxiety, and sorrow I have suffered.\u201d--I asked if Mr.\n  Adams\u2019s letter of acceptance had been read to him.--\u201cYes,\u201d he said,\n  and, added, \u201cMy son has more political prudence than any man that\n  I know who has existed in my time; he never was put off his guard:\n  and I hope he will continue such; but what effect age may work in\n  diminishing the power of his mind, I do not know; it has been very\n  much on the stretch, ever since he was born. He has always been\n  laborious, child and man, from infancy.\u201d--When Mr. J. Q. Adams\u2019s age\n  was mentioned, he said, \u201cHe is now fifty-eight, or will be in July\u201d;\n  and remarked that \u201call the Presidents were of the same age: General\n  Washington was about fifty-eight, and I was about fifty-eight, and\n  Mr. Jefferson, and Mr. Madison, and Mr. Monroe.\u201d--We inquired when he\n  expected to see Mr. Adams.--He said: \u201cNever: Mr. Adams will not come\n  to Quincy but to my funeral. It would be a great satisfaction to me\n  to see him, but I don\u2019t wish him to come on my account.\u201d--He spoke of\n  Mr. Lechmere, whom he \u201cwell remembered to have seen come down daily,\n  at a great age, to walk in the old town-house,\u201d--adding, \u201cAnd I wish\n  I could walk as well as he did. He was Collector of the Customs\n  for many years under the Royal Government.\u201d--E. said: \u201cI suppose,\n  sir, you would not have taken his place, even to walk as well as\n  he.\u201d--\u201cNo,\u201d he replied, \u201cthat was not what I wanted.\u201d--He talked of\n  Whitefield, and \u201cremembered when he was a Freshman in College, to\n  have come into town to the _Old South_ church, [I think,] to hear\n  him, but could not get into the house;--I however, saw him,\u201d he said,\n  \u201cthrough a window, and distinctly heard all. He had a voice such as\n  I never heard before or since. He cast it out so that you might hear\n  it at the meeting-house, [pointing towards the Quincy meeting-house,]\n  and he had the grace of a dancing-master, of an actor of plays.\n  His voice and manner helped him more than his sermons. I went with\n  Jonathan Sewall.\u201d--\u201cAnd you were pleased with him, sir?\u201d--\u201cPleased!\n  I was delighted beyond measure.\u201d--We asked if at Whitefield\u2019s return\n  the same popularity continued.--\u201cNot the same fury,\u201d he said, \u201cnot\n  the same wild enthusiasm as before, but a greater esteem, as he\n  became more known. He did not terrify, but was admired.\u201d\n\nWe spent about an hour in his room. He speaks very distinctly for so\nold a man, enters bravely into long sentences, which are interrupted by\nwant of breath, but carries them invariably to a conclusion, without\ncorrecting a word.\n\nHe spoke of the new novels of Cooper, and \u201cPeep at the Pilgrims,\u201d\nand \u201cSaratoga,\u201d with praise, and named with accuracy the characters\nin them. He likes to have a person always reading to him, or company\ntalking in his room, and is better the next day after having visitors\nin his chamber from morning to night.\n\nHe received a premature report of his son\u2019s election, on Sunday\nafternoon, without any excitement, and told the reporter he had\nbeen hoaxed, for it was not yet time for any news to arrive. The\ninformer, something damped in his heart, insisted on repairing to the\nmeeting-house, and proclaimed it aloud to the congregation, who were\nso overjoyed that they rose in their seats and cheered thrice. The\nReverend Mr. Whitney dismissed them immediately.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWhen life has been well spent, age is a loss of what it can well\nspare,--muscular strength, organic instincts, gross bulk, and works\nthat belong to these. But the central wisdom, which was old in infancy,\nis young in fourscore years, and, dropping off obstructions, leaves in\nhappy subjects the mind purified and wise. I have heard that whoever\nloves is in no condition old. I have heard, that, whenever the name of\nman is spoken, the doctrine of immortality is announced; it cleaves\nto his constitution. The mode of it baffles our wit, and no whisper\ncomes to us from the other side. But the inference from the working\nof intellect, hiving knowledge, hiving skill,--at the end of life just\nready to be born,--affirms the inspirations of affection and of the\nmoral sentiment.\n\n\nTHE END.\n\n\nCambridge: Printed by Welch, Bigelow, and Company.\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES:\n\n\n[A] Dr. Thomas Brown.\n\n[B] Iliad, III. 191.\n\n[C] Diary, I. 169.\n\n\n\n\nTRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES:\n\n\n  Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.\n\n  Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.\n\n  Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.\n\n  Archaic or variant spelling has been retained.\n\n  The cover image for this eBook was created by the transcriber using\n    the original cover and is entered into the public domain.","title":"Society and solitude: Twelve chapters","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":65352}