,,essays1 ,,first ,,series ,by ,ralph ,waldo ,emerson ,contents ,i4 ,,history ,,ii4 ,,self-,,reliance ,,iii4 ,,compensation ,,iv4 ,,spiritual ,,laws ,v4 ,,love ,,vi4 ,,friendship ,,vii4 ,,prudence ,,viii4 ,,heroism ,,ix4 ,,the ,,over-,,soul ,x4 ,,circles ,,xi4 ,,intellect ,,xii4 ,,art ,next ,volume ,i4 ,,history ,there is no great and no small ,to the ,soul that maketh all3 ,and where it cometh1 all things are ,and it cometh everywhere4 ,i am owner of the sphere1 ,of the seven stars and the solar year1 ,of ,csar's hand1 and ,plato's brain1 ,of ,lord ,christ's heart1 and ,shakspeare's strain4 ,,history ,there is one mind common to all individual men4 ,every man is an inlet to the same and to all of the same4 ,he that is once admitted to the right of reason is made a freeman of the whole estate4 ,what ,plato has thought1 he may think2 what a saint has felt1 he may feel2 what at any time has befallen any man1 he can understand4 ,who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or can be done1 for this is the only and sovereign agent4 ,of the works of this mind history is the record4 ,its genius is illustrated by the entire series of days4 ,man is explicable by nothing less than all his history4 ,without hurry1 without rest1 the human spirit goes forth from the beginning to embody every faculty1 every thought1 every emotion1 which belongs to it1 in appropriate events4 ,but the thought is always prior to the fact2 all the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws4 ,each law in turn is made by circumstances predominant1 and the limits of nature give power to but one at a time4 ,a man is the whole encyclopaedia of facts4 ,the creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn1 and ,egypt1 ,greece1 ,rome1 ,gaul1 ,britain1 ,america1 lie folded already in the first man4 ,epoch after epoch1 camp1 kingdom1 empire1 republic1 democracy1 are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the manifold world4 ,this human mind wrote history1 and this must read it4 ,the ,sphinx must solve her own riddle4 ,if the whole of history is in one man1 it is all to be explained from individual experience4 ,there is a relation between the hours of our life and the centuries of time4 ,as the air ,i breathe is drawn from the great repositories of nature1 as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred millions of miles distant1 as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium of centrifugal and centripetal forces1 so the hours should be instructed by the ages and the ages explained by the hours4 ,of the universal mind each individual man is one more incarnation4 ,all its properties consist in him4 ,each new fact in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have done1 and the crises of his life refer to national crises4 ,every revolution was first a thought in one man's mind1 and when the same thought occurs to another man1 it is the key to that era4 ,every reform was once a private opinion1 and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem of the age4 ,the fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible or intelligible4 ,we1 as we read1 must become ,greeks1 ,romans1 ,turks1 priest and king1 martyr and executioner2 must fasten these images to some reality in our secret experience1 or we shall learn nothing rightly4 ,what befell ,asdrubal or ,csar ,borgia is as much an illustration of the mind's powers and depravations as what has befallen us4 ,each new law and political movement has meaning for you4 ,stand before each of its tablets and say1 #8,under this mask did my ,proteus nature hide itself4' ,this remedies the defect of our too great nearness to ourselves4 ,this throws our actions into perspective2 and as crabs1 goats1 scorpions1 the balance and the waterpot lose their meanness when hung as signs in the zodiac1 so ,i can see my own vices without heat in the distant persons of ,solomon1 ,alcibiades1 and ,catiline4 ,it is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things4 ,human life1 as containing this1 is mysterious and inviolable1 and we hedge it round with penalties and laws4 ,all laws derive hence their ultimate reason2 all express more or less distinctly some command of this supreme1 illimitable essence4 ,property also holds of the soul1 covers great spiritual facts1 and instinctively we at first hold to it with swords and laws and wide and complex combinations4 ,the obscure consciousness of this fact is the light of all our day1 the claim of claims2 the plea for education1 for justice1 for charity2 the foundation of friendship and love and of the heroism and grandeur which belong to acts of self-reliance4 ,it is remarkable that involuntarily we always read as superior beings4 ,universal history1 the poets1 the romancers1 do not in their stateliest pictures1--in the sacerdotal1 the imperial palaces1 in the triumphs of will or of genius1--anywhere lose our ear1 anywhere make us feel that we intrude1 that this is for better men2 but rather is it true that in their grandest strokes we feel most at home4 ,all that ,shakspeare says of the king1 yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of himself4 ,we sympathize in the great moments of history1 in the great discoveries1 the great resistances1 the great prosperities of men2--because there law was enacted1 the sea was searched1 the land was found1 or the blow was struck1 for us1 as we ourselves in that place would have done or applauded4 ,we have the same interest in condition and character4 ,we honor the rich because they have externally the freedom1 power1 and grace which we feel to be proper to man1 proper to us4 ,so all that is said of the wise man by ,stoic or ,oriental or modern essayist1 describes to each reader his own idea1 describes his unattained but attainable self4 ,all literature writes the character of the wise man4 ,books1 monuments1 pictures1 conversation1 are portraits in which he finds the lineaments he is forming4 ,the silent and the eloquent praise him and accost him1 and he is stimulated wherever he moves1 as by personal allusions4 ,a true aspirant therefore never needs look for allusions personal and laudatory in discourse4 ,he hears the commendation1 not of himself1 but1 more sweet1 of that character he seeks1 in every word that is said concerning character1 yea further in every fact and circumstance1--in the running river and the rustling corn4 ,praise is looked1 homage tendered1 love flows1 from mute nature1 from the mountains and the lights of the firmament4 ,these hints1 dropped as it were from sleep and night1 let us use in broad day4 ,the student is to read history actively and not passively2 to esteem his own life the text1 and books the commentary4 ,thus compelled1 the ,muse of history will utter oracles1 as never to those who do not respect themselves4 ,i have no expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done in a remote age1 by men whose names have resounded far1 has any deeper sense than what he is doing to-day4 ,the world exists for the education of each man4 ,there is no age or state of society or mode of action in history to which there is not somewhat corresponding in his life4 ,every thing tends in a wonderful manner to abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him4 ,he should see that he can live all history in his own person4 ,he must sit solidly at home1 and not suffer himself to be bullied by kings or empires1 but know that he is greater than all the geography and all the government of the world2 he must transfer the point of view from which history is commonly read1 from ,rome and ,athens and ,london1 to himself1 and not deny his conviction that he is the court1 and if ,england or ,egypt have any thing to say to him he will try the case2 if not1 let them for ever be silent4 ,he must attain and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield their secret sense1 and poetry and annals are alike4 ,the instinct of the mind1 the purpose of nature1 betrays itself in the use we make of the signal narrations of history4 ,time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of facts4 ,no anchor1 no cable1 no fences avail to keep a fact a fact4 ,babylon1 ,troy1 ,tyre1 ,palestine1 and even early ,rome are passing already into fiction4 ,the ,garden of ,eden1 the sun standing still in ,gibeon1 is poetry thenceforward to all nations4 ,who cares what the fact was1 when we have made a constellation of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign8 ,london and ,paris and ,new ,york must go the same way4 8,what is history10 said ,napoleon1 8but a fable agreed upon80 ,this life of ours is stuck round with ,egypt1 ,greece1 ,gaul1 ,england1 ,war1 ,colonization1 ,church1 ,court and ,commerce1 as with so many flowers and wild ornaments grave and gay4 ,i will not make more account of them4 ,i believe in ,eternity4 ,i can find ,greece1 ,asia1 ,italy1 ,spain and the ,islands1--the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras1 in my own mind4 ,we are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our private experience and verifying them here4 ,all history becomes subjective2 in other words there is properly no history1 only biography4 ,every mind must know the whole lesson for itself1--must go over the whole ground4 ,what it does not see1 what it does not live1 it will not know4 ,what the former age has epitomized into a formula or rule for manipular convenience1 it will lose all the good of verifying for itself1 by means of the wall of that rule4 ,somewhere1 sometime1 it will demand and find compensation for that loss1 by doing the work itself4 ,ferguson discovered many things in astronomy which had long been known4 ,the better for him4 ,history must be this or it is nothing4 ,every law which the state enacts indicates a fact in human nature2 that is all4 ,we must in ourselves see the necessary reason of every fact1--see how it could and must be4 ,so stand before every public and private work2 before an oration of ,burke1 before a victory of ,napoleon1 before a martyrdom of ,sir ,thomas ,more1 of ,sidney1 of ,marmaduke ,robinson2 before a ,french ,reign of ,terror1 and a ,salem hanging of witches2 before a fanatic ,revival and the ,animal ,magnetism in ,paris1 or in ,providence4 ,we assume that we under like influence should be alike affected1 and should achieve the like2 and we aim to master intellectually the steps and reach the same height or the same degradation that our fellow1 our proxy has done4 ,all inquiry into antiquity1 all curiosity respecting the ,pyramids1 the excavated cities1 ,stonehenge1 the ,ohio ,circles1 ,mexico1 ,memphis1--is the desire to do away this wild1 savage1 and preposterous ,there or ,then1 and introduce in its place the ,here and the ,now4 ,belzoni digs and measures in the mummy-pits and pyramids of ,thebes1 until he can see the end of the difference between the monstrous work and himself4 ,when he has satisfied himself1 in general and in detail1 that it was made by such a person as he1 so armed and so motived1 and to ends to which he himself should also have worked1 the problem is solved2 his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and catacombs1 passes through them all with satisfaction1 and they live again to the mind1 or are now4 ,a ,gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us and not done by us4 ,surely it was by man1 but we find it not in our man4 ,but we apply ourselves to the history of its production4 ,we put ourselves into the place and state of the builder4 ,we remember the forest-dwellers1 the first temples1 the adherence to the first type1 and the decoration of it as the wealth of the nation increased2 the value which is given to wood by carving led to the carving over the whole mountain of stone of a cathedral4 ,when we have gone through this process1 and added thereto the ,catholic ,church1 its cross1 its music1 its processions1 its ,saints' days and image-worship1 we have as it were been the man that made the minster2 we have seen how it could and must be4 ,we have the sufficient reason4 ,the difference between men is in their principle of association4 ,some men classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance2 others by intrinsic likeness1 or by the relation of cause and effect4 ,the progress of the intellect is to the clearer vision of causes1 which neglects surface differences4 ,to the poet1 to the philosopher1 to the saint1 all things are friendly and sacred1 all events profitable1 all days holy1 all men divine4 ,for the eye is fastened on the life1 and slights the circumstance4 ,every chemical substance1 every plant1 every animal in its growth1 teaches the unity of cause1 the variety of appearance4 ,upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature1 soft and fluid as a cloud or the air1 why should we be such hard pedants1 and magnify a few forms8 ,why should we make account of time1 or of magnitude1 or of figure8 ,the soul knows them not1 and genius1 obeying its law1 knows how to play with them as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches4 ,genius studies the causal thought1 and far back in the womb of things sees the rays parting from one orb1 that diverge1 ere they fall1 by infinite diameters4 ,genius watches the monad through all his masks as he performs the metempsychosis of nature4 ,genius detects through the fly1 through the caterpillar1 through the grub1 through the egg1 the constant individual2 through countless individuals the fixed species2 through many species the genus2 through all genera the steadfast type2 through all the kingdoms of organized life the eternal unity4 ,nature is a mutable cloud which is always and never the same4 ,she casts the same thought into troops of forms1 as a poet makes twenty fables with one moral4 ,through the bruteness and toughness of matter1 a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will4 ,the adamant streams into soft but precise form before it1 and whilst ,i look at it its outline and texture are changed again4 ,nothing is so fleeting as form2 yet never does it quite deny itself4 ,in man we still trace the remains or hints of all that we esteem badges of servitude in the lower races2 yet in him they enhance his nobleness and grace2 as ,io1 in schylus1 transformed to a cow1 offends the imagination2 but how changed when as ,isis in ,egypt she meets ,osiris-,jove1 a beautiful woman with nothing of the metamorphosis left but the lunar horns as the splendid ornament of her brows6 ,the identity of history is equally intrinsic1 the diversity equally obvious4 ,there is1 at the surface1 infinite variety of things2 at the centre there is simplicity of cause4 ,how many are the acts of one man in which we recognize the same character6 ,observe the sources of our information in respect to the ,greek genius4 ,we have the civil history of that people1 as ,herodotus1 ,thucydides1 ,xenophon1 and ,plutarch have given it2 a very sufficient account of what manner of persons they were and what they did4 ,we have the same national mind expressed for us again in their literature1 in epic and lyric poems1 drama1 and philosophy2 a very complete form4 ,then we have it once more in their architecture1 a beauty as of temperance itself1 limited to the straight line and the square1--a builded geometry4 ,then we have it once again in sculpture1 the 8tongue on the balance of expression10 a multitude of forms in the utmost freedom of action and never transgressing the ideal serenity2 like votaries performing some religious dance before the gods1 and1 though in convulsive pain or mortal combat1 never daring to break the figure and decorum of their dance4 ,thus of the genius of one remarkable people we have a fourfold representation3 and to the senses what more unlike than an ode of ,pindar1 a marble centaur1 the peristyle of the ,parthenon1 and the last actions of ,phocion8 ,every one must have observed faces and forms which1 without any resembling feature1 make a like impression on the beholder4 ,a particular picture or copy of verses1 if it do not awaken the same train of images1 will yet superinduce the same sentiment as some wild mountain walk1 although the resemblance is nowise obvious to the senses1 but is occult and out of the reach of the understanding4 ,nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few laws4 ,she hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations4 ,nature is full of a sublime family likeness throughout her works1 and delights in startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected quarters4 ,i have seen the head of an old sachem of the forest which at once reminded the eye of a bald mountain summit1 and the furrows of the brow suggested the strata of the rock4 ,there are men whose manners have the same essential splendor as the simple and awful sculpture on the friezes of the ,parthenon and the remains of the earliest ,greek art4 ,and there are compositions of the same strain to be found in the books of all ages4 ,what is ,guido's ,rospigliosi ,aurora but a morning thought1 as the horses in it are only a morning cloud8 ,if any one will but take pains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally inclined in certain moods of mind1 and those to which he is averse1 he will see how deep is the chain of affinity4 ,a painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a tree2 or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely1--but1 by watching for a time his motions and plays1 the painter enters into his nature and can then draw him at will in every attitude4 ,so ,roos 8entered into the inmost nature of a sheep40 ,i knew a draughtsman employed in a public survey who found that he could not sketch the rocks until their geological structure was first explained to him4 ,in a certain state of thought is the common origin of very diverse works4 ,it is the spirit and not the fact that is identical4 ,by a deeper apprehension1 and not primarily by a painful acquisition of many manual skills1 the artist attains the power of awakening other souls to a given activity4 ,it has been said that 8common souls pay with what they do1 nobler souls with that which they are40 ,and why8 ,because a profound nature awakens in us by its actions and words1 by its very looks and manners1 the same power and beauty that a gallery of sculpture or of pictures addresses4 ,civil and natural history1 the history of art and of literature1 must be explained from individual history1 or must remain words4 ,there is nothing but is related to us1 nothing that does not interest us1--kingdom1 college1 tree1 horse1 or iron shoe1--the roots of all things are in man4 ,santa ,croce and the ,dome of ,st4 ,peter's are lame copies after a divine model4 ,strasburg ,cathedral is a material counterpart of the soul of ,erwin of ,steinbach4 ,the true poem is the poet's mind2 the true ship is the ship-builder4 ,in the man1 could we lay him open1 we should see the reason for the last flourish and tendril of his work2 as every spine and tint in the sea-shell preexists in the secreting organs of the fish4 ,the whole of heraldry and of chivalry is in courtesy4 ,a man of fine manners shall pronounce your name with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add4 ,the trivial experience of every day is always verifying some old prediction to us and converting into things the words and signs which we had heard and seen without heed4 ,a lady with whom ,i was riding in the forest said to me that the woods always seemed to her to wait1 as if the genii who inhabit them suspended their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward2 a thought which poetry has celebrated in the dance of the fairies1 which breaks off on the approach of human feet4 ,the man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at midnight1 has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of the world4 ,i remember one summer day in the fields my companion pointed out to me a broad cloud1 which might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to the horizon1 quite accurately in the form of a cherub as painted over churches1--a round block in the centre1 which it was easy to animate with eyes and mouth1 supported on either side by wide-stretched symmetrical wings4 ,what appears once in the atmosphere may appear often1 and it was undoubtedly the archetype of that familiar ornament4 ,i have seen in the sky a chain of summer lightning which at once showed to me that the ,greeks drew from nature when they painted the thunderbolt in the hand of ,jove4 ,i have seen a snow-drift along the sides of the stone wall which obviously gave the idea of the common architectural scroll to abut a tower4 ,by surrounding ourselves with the original circumstances we invent anew the orders and the ornaments of architecture1 as we see how each people merely decorated its primitive abodes4 ,the ,doric temple preserves the semblance of the wooden cabin in which the ,dorian dwelt4 ,the ,chinese pagoda is plainly a ,tartar tent4 ,the ,indian and ,egyptian temples still betray the mounds and subterranean houses of their forefathers4 8,the custom of making houses and tombs in the living rock10 says ,heeren in his ,researches on the ,ethiopians1 8determined very naturally the principal character of the ,nubian ,egyptian architecture to the colossal form which it assumed4 ,in these caverns1 already prepared by nature1 the eye was accustomed to dwell on huge shapes and masses1 so that when art came to the assistance of nature it could not move on a small scale without degrading itself4 ,what would statues of the usual size1 or neat porches and wings have been1 associated with those gigantic halls before which only ,colossi could sit as watchmen or lean on the pillars of the interior80 ,the ,gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees1 with all their boughs1 to a festal or solemn arcade2 as the bands about the cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that tied them4 ,no one can walk in a road cut through pine woods1 without being struck with the architectural appearance of the grove1 especially in winter1 when the barrenness of all other trees shows the low arch of the ,saxons4 ,in the woods in a winter afternoon one will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window1 with which the ,gothic cathedrals are adorned1 in the colors of the western sky seen through the bare and crossing branches of the forest4 ,nor can any lover of nature enter the old piles of ,oxford and the ,english cathedrals1 without feeling that the forest overpowered the mind of the builder1 and that his chisel1 his saw and plane still reproduced its ferns1 its spikes of flowers1 its locust1 elm1 oak1 pine1 fir and spruce4 ,the ,gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable demand of harmony in man4 ,the mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower1 with the lightness and delicate finish as well as the aerial proportions and perspective of vegetable beauty4 ,in like manner all public facts are to be individualized1 all private facts are to be generalized4 ,then at once ,history becomes fluid and true1 and ,biography deep and sublime4 ,as the ,persian imitated in the slender shafts and capitals of his architecture the stem and flower of the lotus and palm1 so the ,persian court in its magnificent era never gave over the nomadism of its barbarous tribes1 but travelled from ,ecbatana1 where the spring was spent1 to ,susa in summer and to ,babylon for the winter4 ,in the early history of ,asia and ,africa1 ,nomadism and ,agriculture are the two antagonist facts4 ,the geography of ,asia and of ,africa necessitated a nomadic life4 ,but the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the advantages of a market had induced to build towns4 ,agriculture therefore was a religious injunction1 because of the perils of the state from nomadism4 ,and in these late and civil countries of ,england and ,america these propensities still fight out the old battle1 in the nation and in the individual4 ,the nomads of ,africa were constrained to wander1 by the attacks of the gad-fly1 which drives the cattle mad1 and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy season and to drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions4 ,the nomads of ,asia follow the pasturage from month to month4 ,in ,america and ,europe the nomadism is of trade and curiosity2 a progress1 certainly1 from the gad-fly of ,astaboras to the ,anglo and ,italo-mania of ,boston ,bay4 ,sacred cities1 to which a periodical religious pilgrimage was enjoined1 or stringent laws and customs1 tending to invigorate the national bond1 were the check on the old rovers2 and the cumulative values of long residence are the restraints on the itineracy of the present day4 ,the antagonism of the two tendencies is not less active in individuals1 as the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to predominate4 ,a man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid domestication1 lives in his wagon and roams through all latitudes as easily as a ,calmuc4 ,at sea1 or in the forest1 or in the snow1 he sleeps as warm1 dines with as good appetite1 and associates as happily as beside his own chimneys4 ,or perhaps his facility is deeper seated1 in the increased range of his faculties of observation1 which yield him points of interest wherever fresh objects meet his eyes4 ,the pastoral nations were needy and hungry to desperation2 and this intellectual nomadism1 in its excess1 bankrupts the mind through the dissipation of power on a miscellany of objects4 ,the home-keeping wit1 on the other hand1 is that continence or content which finds all the elements of life in its own soil2 and which has its own perils of monotony and deterioration1 if not stimulated by foreign infusions4 ,every thing the individual sees without him corresponds to his states of mind1 and every thing is in turn intelligible to him1 as his onward thinking leads him into the truth to which that fact or series belongs4 ,the primeval world1--the ,fore-,world1 as the ,germans say1--,i can dive to it in myself as well as grope for it with researching fingers in catacombs1 libraries1 and the broken reliefs and torsos of ruined villas4 ,what is the foundation of that interest all men feel in ,greek history1 letters1 art1 and poetry1 in all its periods from the ,heroic or ,homeric age down to the domestic life of the ,athenians and ,spartans1 four or five centuries later8 ,what but this1 that every man passes personally through a ,grecian period4 ,the ,grecian state is the era of the bodily nature1 the perfection of the senses1--of the spiritual nature unfolded in strict unity with the body4 ,in it existed those human forms which supplied the sculptor with his models of ,hercules1 ,phbus1 and ,jove2 not like the forms abounding in the streets of modern cities1 wherein the face is a confused blur of features1 but composed of incorrupt1 sharply defined and symmetrical features1 whose eye-sockets are so formed that it would be impossible for such eyes to squint and take furtive glances on this side and on that1 but they must turn the whole head4 ,the manners of that period are plain and fierce4 ,the reverence exhibited is for personal qualities2 courage1 address1 self-command1 justice1 strength1 swiftness1 a loud voice1 a broad chest4 ,luxury and elegance are not known4 ,a sparse population and want make every man his own valet1 cook1 butcher and soldier1 and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to wonderful performances4 ,such are the ,agamemnon and ,diomed of ,homer1 and not far different is the picture ,xenophon gives of himself and his compatriots in the ,retreat of the ,ten ,thousand4 8,after the army had crossed the river ,teleboas in ,armenia1 there fell much snow1 and the troops lay miserably on the ground covered with it4 ,but ,xenophon arose naked1 and taking an axe1 began to split wood2 whereupon others rose and did the like40 ,throughout his army exists a boundless liberty of speech4 ,they quarrel for plunder1 they wrangle with the generals on each new order1 and ,xenophon is as sharp-tongued as any and sharper-tongued than most1 and so gives as good as he gets4 ,who does not see that this is a gang of great boys1 with such a code of honor and such lax discipline as great boys have8 ,the costly charm of the ancient tragedy1 and indeed of all the old literature1 is that the persons speak simply1--speak as persons who have great good sense without knowing it1 before yet the reflective habit has become the predominant habit of the mind4 ,our admiration of the antique is not admiration of the old1 but of the natural4 ,the ,greeks are not reflective1 but perfect in their senses and in their health1 with the finest physical organization in the world4 ,adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children4 ,they made vases1 tragedies1 and statues1 such as healthy senses should1--that is1 in good taste4 ,such things have continued to be made in all ages1 and are now1 wherever a healthy physique exists2 but1 as a class1 from their superior organization1 they have surpassed all4 ,they combine the energy of manhood with the engaging unconsciousness of childhood4 ,the attraction of these manners is that they belong to man1 and are known to every man in virtue of his being once a child2 besides that there are always individuals who retain these characteristics4 ,a person of childlike genius and inborn energy is still a ,greek1 and revives our love of the ,muse of ,hellas4 ,i admire the love of nature in the ,philoctetes4 ,in reading those fine apostrophes to sleep1 to the stars1 rocks1 mountains and waves1 ,i feel time passing away as an ebbing sea4 ,i feel the eternity of man1 the identity of his thought4 ,the ,greek had it seems the same fellow-beings as ,i4 ,the sun and moon1 water and fire1 met his heart precisely as they meet mine4 ,then the vaunted distinction between ,greek and ,english1 between ,classic and ,romantic schools1 seems superficial and pedantic4 ,when a thought of ,plato becomes a thought to me1--when a truth that fired the soul of ,pindar fires mine1 time is no more4 ,when ,i feel that we two meet in a perception1 that our two souls are tinged with the same hue1 and do as it were run into one1 why should ,i measure degrees of latitude1 why should ,i count ,egyptian years8 ,the student interprets the age of chivalry by his own age of chivalry1 and the days of maritime adventure and circumnavigation by quite parallel miniature experiences of his own4 ,to the sacred history of the world he has the same key4 ,when the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him a sentiment of his infancy1 a prayer of his youth1 he then pierces to the truth through all the confusion of tradition and the caricature of institutions4 ,rare1 extravagant spirits come by us at intervals1 who disclose to us new facts in nature4 ,i see that men of ,god have from time to time walked among men and made their commission felt in the heart and soul of the commonest hearer4 ,hence evidently the tripod1 the priest1 the priestess inspired by the divine afflatus4 ,jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people4 ,they cannot unite him to history1 or reconcile him with themselves4 ,as they come to revere their intuitions and aspire to live holily1 their own piety explains every fact1 every word4 ,how easily these old worships of ,moses1 of ,zoroaster1 of ,menu1 of ,socrates1 domesticate themselves in the mind4 ,i cannot find any antiquity in them4 ,they are mine as much as theirs4 ,i have seen the first monks and anchorets1 without crossing seas or centuries4 ,more than once some individual has appeared to me with such negligence of labor and such commanding contemplation1 a haughty beneficiary begging in the name of ,god1 as made good to the nineteenth century ,simeon the ,stylite1 the ,thebais1 and the first ,capuchins4 ,the priestcraft of the ,east and ,west1 of the ,magian1 ,brahmin1 ,druid1 and ,inca1 is expounded in the individual's private life4 ,the cramping influence of a hard formalist on a young child1 in repressing his spirits and courage1 paralyzing the understanding1 and that without producing indignation1 but only fear and obedience1 and even much sympathy with the tyranny1--is a familiar fact1 explained to the child when he becomes a man1 only by seeing that the oppressor of his youth is himself a child tyrannized over by those names and words and forms of whose influence he was merely the organ to the youth4 ,the fact teaches him how ,belus was worshipped and how the ,pyramids were built1 better than the discovery by ,champollion of the names of all the workmen and the cost of every tile4 ,he finds ,assyria and the ,mounds of ,cholula at his door1 and himself has laid the courses4 ,again1 in that protest which each considerate person makes against the superstition of his times1 he repeats step for step the part of old reformers1 and in the search after truth finds1 like them1 new perils to virtue4 ,he learns again what moral vigor is needed to supply the girdle of a superstition4 ,a great licentiousness treads on the heels of a reformation4 ,how many times in the history of the world has the ,luther of the day had to lament the decay of piety in his own household6 8,doctor10 said his wife to ,martin ,luther1 one day1 8how is it that whilst subject to papacy we prayed so often and with such fervor1 whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and very seldom80 ,the advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature1--in all fable as well as in all history4 ,he finds that the poet was no odd fellow who described strange and impossible situations1 but that universal man wrote by his pen a confession true for one and true for all4 ,his own secret biography he finds in lines wonderfully intelligible to him1 dotted down before he was born4 ,one after another he comes up in his private adventures with every fable of sop1 of ,homer1 of ,hafiz1 of ,ariosto1 of ,chaucer1 of ,scott1 and verifies them with his own head and hands4 ,the beautiful fables of the ,greeks1 being proper creations of the imagination and not of the fancy1 are universal verities4 ,what a range of meanings and what perpetual pertinence has the story of ,prometheus6 ,beside its primary value as the first chapter of the history of ,europe1 7the mythology thinly veiling authentic facts1 the invention of the mechanic arts and the migration of colonies17 it gives the history of religion1 with some closeness to the faith of later ages4 ,prometheus is the ,jesus of the old mythology4 ,he is the friend of man2 stands between the unjust 8justice0 of the ,eternal ,father and the race of mortals1 and readily suffers all things on their account4 ,but where it departs from the ,calvinistic ,christianity and exhibits him as the defier of ,jove1 it represents a state of mind which readily appears wherever the doctrine of ,theism is taught in a crude1 objective form1 and which seems the self-defence of man against this untruth1 namely a discontent with the believed fact that a ,god exists1 and a feeling that the obligation of reverence is onerous4 ,it would steal if it could the fire of the ,creator1 and live apart from him and independent of him4 ,the ,prometheus ,vinctus is the romance of skepticism4 ,not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue4 ,apollo kept the flocks of ,admetus1 said the poets4 ,when the gods come among men1 they are not known4 ,jesus was not2 ,socrates and ,shakspeare were not4 ,antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of ,hercules1 but every time he touched his mother earth his strength was renewed4 ,man is the broken giant1 and in all his weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation with nature4 ,the power of music1 the power of poetry1 to unfix and as it were clap wings to solid nature1 interprets the riddle of ,orpheus4 ,the philosophical perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the ,proteus4 ,what else am ,i who laughed or wept yesterday1 who slept last night like a corpse1 and this morning stood and ran8 ,and what see ,i on any side but the transmigrations of ,proteus8 ,i can symbolize my thought by using the name of any creature1 of any fact1 because every creature is man agent or patient4 ,tantalus is but a name for you and me4 ,tantalus means the impossibility of drinking the waters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within sight of the soul4 ,the transmigration of souls is no fable4 ,i would it were2 but men and women are only half human4 ,every animal of the barn-yard1 the field and the forest1 of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth1 has contrived to get a footing and to leave the print of its features and form in some one or other of these upright1 heaven-facing speakers4 ,ah6 brother1 stop the ebb of thy soul1--ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits thou hast now for many years slid4 ,as near and proper to us is also that old fable of the ,sphinx1 who was said to sit in the road-side and put riddles to every passenger4 ,if the man could not answer1 she swallowed him alive4 ,if he could solve the riddle1 the ,sphinx was slain4 ,what is our life but an endless flight of winged facts or events8 ,in splendid variety these changes come1 all putting questions to the human spirit4 ,those men who cannot answer by a superior wisdom these facts or questions of time1 serve them4 ,facts encumber them1 tyrannize over them1 and make the men of routine1 the men of sense1 in whom a literal obedience to facts has extinguished every spark of that light by which man is truly man4 ,but if the man is true to his better instincts or sentiments1 and refuses the dominion of facts1 as one that comes of a higher race2 remains fast by the soul and sees the principle1 then the facts fall aptly and supple into their places2 they know their master1 and the meanest of them glorifies him4 ,see in ,goethe's ,helena the same desire that every word should be a thing4 ,these figures1 he would say1 these ,chirons1 ,griffins1 ,phorkyas1 ,helen and ,leda1 are somewhat1 and do exert a specific influence on the mind4 ,so far then are they eternal entities1 as real to-day as in the first ,olympiad4 ,much revolving them he writes out freely his humor1 and gives them body to his own imagination4 ,and although that poem be as vague and fantastic as a dream1 yet is it much more attractive than the more regular dramatic pieces of the same author1 for the reason that it operates a wonderful relief to the mind from the routine of customary images1--awakens the reader's invention and fancy by the wild freedom of the design1 and by the unceasing succession of brisk shocks of surprise4 ,the universal nature1 too strong for the petty nature of the bard1 sits on his neck and writes through his hand2 so that when he seems to vent a mere caprice and wild romance1 the issue is an exact allegory4 ,hence ,plato said that 8poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves understand40 ,all the fictions of the ,middle ,age explain themselves as a masked or frolic expression of that which in grave earnest the mind of that period toiled to achieve4 ,magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep presentiment of the powers of science4 ,the shoes of swiftness1 the sword of sharpness1 the power of subduing the elements1 of using the secret virtues of minerals1 of understanding the voices of birds1 are the obscure efforts of the mind in a right direction4 ,the preternatural prowess of the hero1 the gift of perpetual youth1 and the like1 are alike the endeavour of the human spirit 8to bend the shows of things to the desires of the mind40 ,in ,perceforest and ,amadis de ,gaul a garland and a rose bloom on the head of her who is faithful1 and fade on the brow of the inconstant4 ,in the story of the ,boy and the ,mantle even a mature reader may be surprised with a glow of virtuous pleasure at the triumph of the gentle ,venelas2 and indeed all the postulates of elfin annals1--that the fairies do not like to be named2 that their gifts are capricious and not to be trusted2 that who seeks a treasure must not speak2 and the like1--,i find true in ,concord1 however they might be in ,cornwall or ,bretagne4 ,is it otherwise in the newest romance8 ,i read the ,bride of ,lammermoor4 ,sir ,william ,ashton is a mask for a vulgar temptation1 ,ravenswood ,castle a fine name for proud poverty1 and the foreign mission of state only a ,bunyan disguise for honest industry4 ,we may all shoot a wild bull that would toss the good and beautiful1 by fighting down the unjust and sensual4 ,lucy ,ashton is another name for fidelity1 which is always beautiful and always liable to calamity in this world4 ,but along with the civil and metaphysical history of man1 another history goes daily forward1--that of the external world1--in which he is not less strictly implicated4 ,he is the compend of time2 he is also the correlative of nature4 ,his power consists in the multitude of his affinities1 in the fact that his life is intertwined with the whole chain of organic and inorganic being4 ,in old ,rome the public roads beginning at the ,forum proceeded north1 south1 east1 west1 to the centre of every province of the empire1 making each market-town of ,persia1 ,spain and ,britain pervious to the soldiers of the capital3 so out of the human heart go as it were highways to the heart of every object in nature1 to reduce it under the dominion of man4 ,a man is a bundle of relations1 a knot of roots1 whose flower and fruitage is the world4 ,his faculties refer to natures out of him and predict the world he is to inhabit1 as the fins of the fish foreshow that water exists1 or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose air4 ,he cannot live without a world4 ,put ,napoleon in an island prison1 let his faculties find no men to act on1 no ,alps to climb1 no stake to play for1 and he would beat the air1 and appear stupid4 ,transport him to large countries1 dense population1 complex interests and antagonist power1 and you shall see that the man ,napoleon1 bounded that is by such a profile and outline1 is not the virtual ,napoleon4 ,this is but ,talbot's shadow2-- 8,his substance is not here4 ,for what you see is but the smallest part ,and least proportion of humanity2 ,but were the whole frame here1 ,it is of such a spacious1 lofty pitch1 ,your roof were not sufficient to contain it40 --,henry ,,vi4 ,columbus needs a planet to shape his course upon4 ,newton and ,laplace need myriads of age and thick-strewn celestial areas4 ,one may say a gravitating solar system is already prophesied in the nature of ,newton's mind4 ,not less does the brain of ,davy or of ,gay-,lussac1 from childhood exploring the affinities and repulsions of particles1 anticipate the laws of organization4 ,does not the eye of the human embryo predict the light8 the ear of ,handel predict the witchcraft of harmonic sound8 ,do not the constructive fingers of ,watt1 ,fulton1 ,whittemore1 ,arkwright1 predict the fusible1 hard1 and temperable texture of metals1 the properties of stone1 water1 and wood8 ,do not the lovely attributes of the maiden child predict the refinements and decorations of civil society8 ,here also we are reminded of the action of man on man4 ,a mind might ponder its thought for ages and not gain so much self-knowledge as the passion of love shall teach it in a day4 ,who knows himself before he has been thrilled with indignation at an outrage1 or has heard an eloquent tongue1 or has shared the throb of thousands in a national exultation or alarm8 ,no man can antedate his experience1 or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock1 any more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow for the first time4 ,i will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of this correspondency4 ,let it suffice that in the light of these two facts1 namely1 that the mind is ,one1 and that nature is its correlative1 history is to be read and written4 ,thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures for each pupil4 ,he too shall pass through the whole cycle of experience4 ,he shall collect into a focus the rays of nature4 ,history no longer shall be a dull book4 ,it shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man4 ,you shall not tell me by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read4 ,you shall make me feel what periods you have lived4 ,a man shall be the ,temple of ,fame4 ,he shall walk1 as the poets have described that goddess1 in a robe painted all over with wonderful events and experiences2--his own form and features by their exalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest4 ,i shall find in him the ,foreworld2 in his childhood the ,age of ,gold1 the ,apples of ,knowledge1 the ,argonautic ,expedition1 the calling of ,abraham1 the building of the ,temple1 the ,advent of ,christ1 ,dark ,ages1 the ,revival of ,letters1 the ,reformation1 the discovery of new lands1 the opening of new sciences and new regions in man4 ,he shall be the priest of ,pan1 and bring with him into humble cottages the blessing of the morning stars1 and all the recorded benefits of heaven and earth4 ,is there somewhat overweening in this claim8 ,then ,i reject all ,i have written1 for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not8 ,but it is the fault of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie some other4 ,i hold our actual knowledge very cheap4 ,hear the rats in the wall1 see the lizard on the fence1 the fungus under foot1 the lichen on the log4 ,what do ,i know sympathetically1 morally1 of either of these worlds of life8 ,as old as the ,caucasian man1--perhaps older1--these creatures have kept their counsel beside him1 and there is no record of any word or sign that has passed from one to the other4 ,what connection do the books show between the fifty or sixty chemical elements and the historical eras8 ,nay1 what does history yet record of the metaphysical annals of man8 ,what light does it shed on those mysteries which we hide under the names ,death and ,immortality8 ,yet every history should be written in a wisdom which divined the range of our affinities and looked at facts as symbols4 ,i am ashamed to see what a shallow village tale our so-called ,history is4 ,how many times we must say ,rome1 and ,paris1 and ,constantinople6 ,what does ,rome know of rat and lizard8 ,what are ,olympiads and ,consulates to these neighboring systems of being8 ,nay1 what food or experience or succor have they for the ,esquimaux seal-hunter1 for the ,kanaka in his canoe1 for the fisherman1 the stevedore1 the porter8 ,broader and deeper we must write our annals1--from an ethical reformation1 from an influx of the ever new1 ever sanative conscience1--if we would trulier express our central and wide-related nature1 instead of this old chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes4 ,already that day exists for us1 shines in on us at unawares1 but the path of science and of letters is not the way into nature4 ,the idiot1 the ,indian1 the child and unschooled farmer's boy stand nearer to the light by which nature is to be read1 than the dissector or the antiquary4 ,,ii4 ,,self-,,reliance 8,ne te qusiveris extra40 8,man is his own star2 and the soul that can ,render an honest and a perfect man1 ,commands all light1 all influence1 all fate2 ,nothing to him falls early or too late4 ,our acts our angels are1 or good or ill1 ,our fatal shadows that walk by us still40 ,epilogue to ,beaumont and ,fletcher's ,honest ,man's ,fortune4 ,cast the bantling on the rocks1 ,suckle him with the she-wolf's teat1 ,wintered with the hawk and fox4 ,power and speed be hands and feet4 ,,self-,,reliance ,i read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were original and not conventional4 ,the soul always hears an admonition in such lines1 let the subject be what it may4 ,the sentiment they instil is of more value than any thought they may contain4 ,to believe your own thought1 to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men1--that is genius4 ,speak your latent conviction1 and it shall be the universal sense2 for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost1 and our first thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the ,last ,judgment4 ,familiar as the voice of the mind is to each1 the highest merit we ascribe to ,moses1 ,plato and ,milton is that they set at naught books and traditions1 and spoke not what men1 but what they thought4 ,a man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within1 more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages4 ,yet he dismisses without notice his thought1 because it is his4 ,in every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts2 they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty4 ,great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this4 ,they teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side4 ,else to-morrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all the time1 and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from another4 ,there is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance2 that imitation is suicide2 that he must take himself for better for worse as his portion2 that though the wide universe is full of good1 no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till4 ,the power which resides in him is new in nature1 and none but he knows what that is which he can do1 nor does he know until he has tried4 ,not for nothing one face1 one character1 one fact1 makes much impression on him1 and another none4 ,this sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony4 ,the eye was placed where one ray should fall1 that it might testify of that particular ray4 ,we but half express ourselves1 and are ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents4 ,it may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues1 so it be faithfully imparted1 but ,god will not have his work made manifest by cowards4 ,a man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and done his best2 but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace4 ,it is a deliverance which does not deliver4 ,in the attempt his genius deserts him2 no muse befriends2 no invention1 no hope4 ,trust thyself3 every heart vibrates to that iron string4 ,accept the place the divine providence has found for you1 the society of your contemporaries1 the connection of events4 ,great men have always done so1 and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age1 betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart1 working through their hands1 predominating in all their being4 ,and we are now men1 and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny2 and not minors and invalids in a protected corner1 not cowards fleeing before a revolution1 but guides1 redeemers and benefactors1 obeying the ,almighty effort and advancing on ,chaos and the ,dark4 ,what pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of children1 babes1 and even brutes6 ,that divided and rebel mind1 that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed to our purpose1 these have not4 ,their mind being whole1 their eye is as yet unconquered1 and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted4 ,infancy conforms to nobody2 all conform to it2 so that one babe commonly makes four or five out of the adults who prattle and play to it4 ,so ,god has armed youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm1 and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by1 if it will stand by itself4 ,do not think the youth has no force1 because he cannot speak to you and me4 ,hark6 in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic4 ,it seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries4 ,bashful or bold then1 he will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary4 ,the nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner1 and would disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one1 is the healthy attitude of human nature4 ,a boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse2 independent1 irresponsible1 looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by1 he tries and sentences them on their merits1 in the swift1 summary way of boys1 as good1 bad1 interesting1 silly1 eloquent1 troublesome4 ,he cumbers himself never about consequences1 about interests2 he gives an independent1 genuine verdict4 ,you must court him2 he does not court you4 ,but the man is as it were clapped into jail by his consciousness4 ,as soon as he has once acted or spoken with clat he is a committed person1 watched by the sympathy or the hatred of hundreds1 whose affections must now enter into his account4 ,there is no ,lethe for this4 ,ah1 that he could pass again into his neutrality6 ,who can thus avoid all pledges and1 having observed1 observe again from the same unaffected1 unbiased1 unbribable1 unaffrighted innocence1--must always be formidable4 ,he would utter opinions on all passing affairs1 which being seen to be not private but necessary1 would sink like darts into the ear of men and put them in fear4 ,these are the voices which we hear in solitude1 but they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world4 ,society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood of every one of its members4 ,society is a joint-stock company1 in which the members agree1 for the better securing of his bread to each shareholder1 to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater4 ,the virtue in most request is conformity4 ,self-reliance is its aversion4 ,it loves not realities and creators1 but names and customs4 ,whoso would be a man1 must be a nonconformist4 ,he who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness1 but must explore if it be goodness4 ,nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind4 ,absolve you to yourself1 and you shall have the suffrage of the world4 ,i remember an answer which when quite young ,i was prompted to make to a valued adviser who was wont to importune me with the dear old doctrines of the church4 ,on my saying1 8,what have ,i to do with the sacredness of traditions1 if ,i live wholly from within80 my friend suggested1--8,but these impulses may be from below1 not from above40 ,i replied1 8,they do not seem to me to be such2 but if ,i am the ,devil's child1 ,i will live then from the ,devil40 ,no law can be sacred to me but that of my nature4 ,good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this2 the only right is what is after my constitution2 the only wrong what is against it4 ,a man is to carry himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and ephemeral but he4 ,i am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and names1 to large societies and dead institutions4 ,every decent and well-spoken individual affects and sways me more than is right4 ,i ought to go upright and vital1 and speak the rude truth in all ways4 ,if malice and vanity wear the coat of philanthropy1 shall that pass8 ,if an angry bigot assumes this bountiful cause of ,abolition1 and comes to me with his last news from ,barbadoes1 why should ,i not say to him1 #8,go love thy infant2 love thy wood-chopper2 be good-natured and modest2 have that grace2 and never varnish your hard1 uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand miles off4 ,thy love afar is spite at home4' ,rough and graceless would be such greeting1 but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love4 ,your goodness must have some edge to it1--else it is none4 ,the doctrine of hatred must be preached1 as the counteraction of the doctrine of love1 when that pules and whines4 ,i shun father and mother and wife and brother when my genius calls me4 ,i would write on the lintels of the door-post1 ,whim4 ,i hope it is somewhat better than whim at last1 but we cannot spend the day in explanation4 ,expect me not to show cause why ,i seek or why ,i exclude company4 ,then again1 do not tell me1 as a good man did to-day1 of my obligation to put all poor men in good situations4 ,are they my poor8 ,i tell thee thou foolish philanthropist that ,i grudge the dollar1 the dime1 the cent1 ,i give to such men as do not belong to me and to whom ,i do not belong4 ,there is a class of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity ,i am bought and sold2 for them ,i will go to prison if need be2 but your miscellaneous popular charities2 the education at college of fools2 the building of meeting-houses to the vain end to which many now stand2 alms to sots1 and the thousand-fold ,relief ,societies2--though ,i confess with shame ,i sometimes succumb and give the dollar1 it is a wicked dollar which by and by ,i shall have the manhood to withhold4 ,virtues are1 in the popular estimate1 rather the exception than the rule4 ,there is the man and his virtues4 ,men do what is called a good action1 as some piece of courage or charity1 much as they would pay a fine in expiation of daily non-appearance on parade4 ,their works are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the world1--as invalids and the insane pay a high board4 ,their virtues are penances4 ,i do not wish to expiate1 but to live4 ,my life is for itself and not for a spectacle4 ,i much prefer that it should be of a lower strain1 so it be genuine and equal1 than that it should be glittering and unsteady4 ,i wish it to be sound and sweet1 and not to need diet and bleeding4 ,i ask primary evidence that you are a man1 and refuse this appeal from the man to his actions4 ,i know that for myself it makes no difference whether ,i do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent4 ,i cannot consent to pay for a privilege where ,i have intrinsic right4 ,few and mean as my gifts may be1 ,i actually am1 and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony4 ,what ,i must do is all that concerns me1 not what the people think4 ,this rule1 equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life1 may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness4 ,it is the harder because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it4 ,it is easy in the world to live after the world's opinion2 it is easy in solitude to live after our own2 but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude4 ,the objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it scatters your force4 ,it loses your time and blurs the impression of your character4 ,if you maintain a dead church1 contribute to a dead ,bible-society1 vote with a great party either for the government or against it1 spread your table like base housekeepers1--under all these screens ,i have difficulty to detect the precise man you are3 and of course so much force is withdrawn from your proper life4 ,but do your work1 and ,i shall know you4 ,do your work1 and you shall reinforce yourself4 ,a man must consider what a blindman's-buff is this game of conformity4 ,if ,i know your sect1 ,i anticipate your argument4 ,i hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the expediency of one of the institutions of his church4 ,do ,i not know beforehand that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word8 ,do ,i not know that with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will do no such thing8 ,do ,i not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but at one side1 the permitted side1 not as a man1 but as a parish minister8 ,he is a retained attorney1 and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation4 ,well1 most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief1 and attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion4 ,this conformity makes them not false in a few particulars1 authors of a few lies1 but false in all particulars4 ,their every truth is not quite true4 ,their two is not the real two1 their four not the real four2 so that every word they say chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right4 ,meantime nature is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere4 ,we come to wear one cut of face and figure1 and acquire by degrees the gentlest asinine expression4 ,there is a mortifying experience in particular1 which does not fail to wreak itself also in the general history2 ,i mean 8the foolish face of praise10 the forced smile which we put on in company where we do not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us4 ,the muscles1 not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping wilfulness1 grow tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation4 ,for nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure4 ,and therefore a man must know how to estimate a sour face4 ,the by-standers look askance on him in the public street or in the friend's parlor4 ,if this aversation had its origin in contempt and resistance like his own he might well go home with a sad countenance2 but the sour faces of the multitude1 like their sweet faces1 have no deep cause1 but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper directs4 ,yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of the senate and the college4 ,it is easy enough for a firm man who knows the world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes4 ,their rage is decorous and prudent1 for they are timid1 as being very vulnerable themselves4 ,but when to their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added1 when the ignorant and the poor are aroused1 when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the bottom of society is made to growl and mow1 it needs the habit of magnanimity and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment4 ,the other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency2 a reverence for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for computing our orbit than our past acts1 and we are loath to disappoint them4 ,but why should you keep your head over your shoulder8 ,why drag about this corpse of your memory1 lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or that public place8 ,suppose you should contradict yourself2 what then8 ,it seems to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone1 scarcely even in acts of pure memory1 but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed present1 and live ever in a new day4 ,in your metaphysics you have denied personality to the ,deity1 yet when the devout motions of the soul come1 yield to them heart and life1 though they should clothe ,god with shape and color4 ,leave your theory1 as ,joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot1 and flee4 ,a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds1 adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines4 ,with consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do4 ,he may as well concern himself with his shadow on the wall4 ,speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again1 though it contradict every thing you said to-day4--#8,ah1 so you shall be sure to be misunderstood4'--,is it so bad then to be misunderstood8 ,pythagoras was misunderstood1 and ,socrates1 and ,jesus1 and ,luther1 and ,copernicus1 and ,galileo1 and ,newton1 and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh4 ,to be great is to be misunderstood4 ,i suppose no man can violate his nature4 ,all the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being1 as the inequalities of ,andes and ,himmaleh are insignificant in the curve of the sphere4 ,nor does it matter how you gauge and try him4 ,a character is like an acrostic or ,alexandrian stanza2--read it forward1 backward1 or across1 it still spells the same thing4 ,in this pleasing contrite wood-life which ,god allows me1 let me record day by day my honest thought without prospect or retrospect1 and1 ,i cannot doubt1 it will be found symmetrical1 though ,i mean it not and see it not4 ,my book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects4 ,the swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also4 ,we pass for what we are4 ,character teaches above our wills4 ,men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions1 and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment4 ,there will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions1 so they be each honest and natural in their hour4 ,for of one will1 the actions will be harmonious1 however unlike they seem4 ,these varieties are lost sight of at a little distance1 at a little height of thought4 ,one tendency unites them all4 ,the voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks4 ,see the line from a sufficient distance1 and it straightens itself to the average tendency4 ,your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine actions4 ,your conformity explains nothing4 ,act singly1 and what you have already done singly will justify you now4 ,greatness appeals to the future4 ,if ,i can be firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes1 ,i must have done so much right before as to defend me now4 ,be it how it will1 do right now4 ,always scorn appearances and you always may4 ,the force of character is cumulative4 ,all the foregone days of virtue work their health into this4 ,what makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate and the field1 which so fills the imagination8 ,the consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind4 ,they shed an united light on the advancing actor4 ,he is attended as by a visible escort of angels4 ,that is it which throws thunder into ,chatham's voice1 and dignity into ,washington's port1 and ,america into ,adams's eye4 ,honor is venerable to us because it is no ephemera4 ,it is always ancient virtue4 ,we worship it to-day because it is not of to-day4 ,we love it and pay it homage because it is not a trap for our love and homage1 but is self-dependent1 self-derived1 and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree1 even if shown in a young person4 ,i hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency4 ,let the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward4 ,instead of the gong for dinner1 let us hear a whistle from the ,spartan fife4 ,let us never bow and apologize more4 ,a great man is coming to eat at my house4 ,i do not wish to please him2 ,i wish that he should wish to please me4 ,i will stand here for humanity1 and though ,i would make it kind1 ,i would make it true4 ,let us affront and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times1 and hurl in the face of custom and trade and office1 the fact which is the upshot of all history1 that there is a great responsible ,thinker and ,actor working wherever a man works2 that a true man belongs to no other time or place1 but is the centre of things4 ,where he is1 there is nature4 ,he measures you and all men and all events4 ,ordinarily1 every body in society reminds us of somewhat else1 or of some other person4 ,character1 reality1 reminds you of nothing else2 it takes place of the whole creation4 ,the man must be so much that he must make all circumstances indifferent4 ,every true man is a cause1 a country1 and an age2 requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his design2--and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients4 ,a man ,csar is born1 and for ages after we have a ,roman ,empire4 ,christ is born1 and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius that he is confounded with virtue and the possible of man4 ,an institution is the lengthened shadow of one man2 as1 ,monachism1 of the ,hermit ,antony2 the ,reformation1 of ,luther2 ,quakerism1 of ,fox2 ,methodism1 of ,wesley2 ,abolition1 of ,clarkson4 ,scipio1 ,milton called 8the height of ,rome02 and all history resolves itself very easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons4 ,let a man then know his worth1 and keep things under his feet4 ,let him not peep or steal1 or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy1 a bastard1 or an interloper in the world which exists for him4 ,but the man in the street1 finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower or sculptured a marble god1 feels poor when he looks on these4 ,to him a palace1 a statue1 or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air1 much like a gay equipage1 and seem to say like that1 #8,who are you1 ,sir8' ,yet they all are his1 suitors for his notice1 petitioners to his faculties that they will come out and take possession4 ,the picture waits for my verdict2 it is not to command me1 but ,i am to settle its claims to praise4 ,that popular fable of the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street1 carried to the duke's house1 washed and dressed and laid in the duke's bed1 and1 on his waking1 treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke1 and assured that he had been insane1 owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the state of man1 who is in the world a sort of sot1 but now and then wakes up1 exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince4 ,our reading is mendicant and sycophantic4 ,in history our imagination plays us false4 ,kingdom and lordship1 power and estate1 are a gaudier vocabulary than private ,john and ,edward in a small house and common day's work2 but the things of life are the same to both2 the sum total of both is the same4 ,why all this deference to ,alfred and ,scanderbeg and ,gustavus8 ,suppose they were virtuous2 did they wear out virtue8 ,as great a stake depends on your private act to-day1 as followed their public and renowned steps4 ,when private men shall act with original views1 the lustre will be transferred from the actions of kings to those of gentlemen4 ,the world has been instructed by its kings1 who have so magnetized the eyes of nations4 ,it has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual reverence that is due from man to man4 ,the joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere suffered the king1 the noble1 or the great proprietor to walk among them by a law of his own1 make his own scale of men and things and reverse theirs1 pay for benefits not with money but with honor1 and represent the law in his person1 was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their consciousness of their own right and comeliness1 the right of every man4 ,the magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the reason of self-trust4 ,who is the ,trustee8 ,what is the aboriginal ,self1 on which a universal reliance may be grounded8 ,what is the nature and power of that science-baffling star1 without parallax1 without calculable elements1 which shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions1 if the least mark of independence appear8 ,the inquiry leads us to that source1 at once the essence of genius1 of virtue1 and of life1 which we call ,spontaneity or ,instinct4 ,we denote this primary wisdom as ,intuition1 whilst all later teachings are tuitions4 ,in that deep force1 the last fact behind which analysis cannot go1 all things find their common origin4 ,for the sense of being which in calm hours rises1 we know not how1 in the soul1 is not diverse from things1 from space1 from light1 from time1 from man1 but one with them and proceeds obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed4 ,we first share the life by which things exist and afterwards see them as appearances in nature and forget that we have shared their cause4 ,here is the fountain of action and of thought4 ,here are the lungs of that inspiration which giveth man wisdom and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism4 ,we lie in the lap of immense intelligence1 which makes us receivers of its truth and organs of its activity4 ,when we discern justice1 when we discern truth1 we do nothing of ourselves1 but allow a passage to its beams4 ,if we ask whence this comes1 if we seek to pry into the soul that causes1 all philosophy is at fault4 ,its presence or its absence is all we can affirm4 ,every man discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary perceptions1 and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is due4 ,he may err in the expression of them1 but he knows that these things are so1 like day and night1 not to be disputed4 ,my wilful actions and acquisitions are but roving2--the idlest reverie1 the faintest native emotion1 command my curiosity and respect4 ,thoughtless people contradict as readily the statement of perceptions as of opinions1 or rather much more readily2 for they do not distinguish between perception and notion4 ,they fancy that ,i choose to see this or that thing4 ,but perception is not whimsical1 but fatal4 ,if ,i see a trait1 my children will see it after me1 and in course of time all mankind1--although it may chance that no one has seen it before me4 ,for my perception of it is as much a fact as the sun4 ,the relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps4 ,it must be that when ,god speaketh he should communicate1 not one thing1 but all things2 should fill the world with his voice2 should scatter forth light1 nature1 time1 souls1 from the centre of the present thought2 and new date and new create the whole4 ,whenever a mind is simple and receives a divine wisdom1 old things pass away1--means1 teachers1 texts1 temples fall2 it lives now1 and absorbs past and future into the present hour4 ,all things are made sacred by relation to it1--one as much as another4 ,all things are dissolved to their centre by their cause1 and in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear4 ,if therefore a man claims to know and speak of ,god and carries you backward to the phraseology of some old mouldered nation in another country1 in another world1 believe him not4 ,is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and completion8 ,is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his ripened being8 ,whence then this worship of the past8 ,the centuries are conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul4 ,time and space are but physiological colors which the eye makes1 but the soul is light3 where it is1 is day2 where it was1 is night2 and history is an impertinence and an injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being and becoming4 ,man is timid and apologetic2 he is no longer upright2 he dares not say #8,i think1' #8,i am1' but quotes some saint or sage4 ,he is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose4 ,these roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones2 they are for what they are2 they exist with ,god to-day4 ,there is no time to them4 ,there is simply the rose2 it is perfect in every moment of its existence4 ,before a leaf-bud has burst1 its whole life acts2 in the full-blown flower there is no more2 in the leafless root there is no less4 ,its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all moments alike4 ,but man postpones or remembers2 he does not live in the present1 but with reverted eye laments the past1 or1 heedless of the riches that surround him1 stands on tiptoe to foresee the future4 ,he cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present1 above time4 ,this should be plain enough4 ,yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear ,god himself unless he speak the phraseology of ,i know not what ,david1 or ,jeremiah1 or ,paul4 ,we shall not always set so great a price on a few texts1 on a few lives4 ,we are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames and tutors1 and1 as they grow older1 of the men of talents and character they chance to see1--painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke2 afterwards1 when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered these sayings1 they understand them and are willing to let the words go2 for at any time they can use words as good when occasion comes4 ,if we live truly1 we shall see truly4 ,it is as easy for the strong man to be strong1 as it is for the weak to be weak4 ,when we have new perception1 we shall gladly disburden the memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish4 ,when a man lives with ,god1 his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn4 ,and now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid2 probably cannot be said2 for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the intuition4 ,that thought by what ,i can now nearest approach to say it1 is this4 ,when good is near you1 when you have life in yourself1 it is not by any known or accustomed way2 you shall not discern the footprints of any other2 you shall not see the face of man2 you shall not hear any name2--the way1 the thought1 the good shall be wholly strange and new4 ,it shall exclude example and experience4 ,you take the way from man1 not to man4 ,all persons that ever existed are its forgotten ministers4 ,fear and hope are alike beneath it4 ,there is somewhat low even in hope4 ,in the hour of vision there is nothing that can be called gratitude1 nor properly joy4 ,the soul raised over passion beholds identity and eternal causation1 perceives the self-existence of ,truth and ,right1 and calms itself with knowing that all things go well4 ,vast spaces of nature1 the ,atlantic ,ocean1 the ,south ,sea2 long intervals of time1 years1 centuries1 are of no account4 ,this which ,i think and feel underlay every former state of life and circumstances1 as it does underlie my present1 and what is called life1 and what is called death4 ,life only avails1 not the having lived4 ,power ceases in the instant of repose2 it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state1 in the shooting of the gulf1 in the darting to an aim4 ,this one fact the world hates2 that the soul becomes2 for that for ever degrades the past1 turns all riches to poverty1 all reputation to a shame1 confounds the saint with the rogue1 shoves ,jesus and ,judas equally aside4 ,why then do we prate of self-reliance8 ,inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not confident but agent4 ,to talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking4 ,speak rather of that which relies because it works and is4 ,who has more obedience than ,i masters me1 though he should not raise his finger4 ,round him ,i must revolve by the gravitation of spirits4 ,we fancy it rhetoric when we speak of eminent virtue4 ,we do not yet see that virtue is ,height1 and that a man or a company of men1 plastic and permeable to principles1 by the law of nature must overpower and ride all cities1 nations1 kings1 rich men1 poets1 who are not4 ,this is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this1 as on every topic1 the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ,,one4 ,self-existence is the attribute of the ,supreme ,cause1 and it constitutes the measure of good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms4 ,all things real are so by so much virtue as they contain4 ,commerce1 husbandry1 hunting1 whaling1 war1 eloquence1 personal weight1 are somewhat1 and engage my respect as examples of its presence and impure action4 ,i see the same law working in nature for conservation and growth4 ,power is1 in nature1 the essential measure of right4 ,nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself4 ,the genesis and maturation of a planet1 its poise and orbit1 the bended tree recovering itself from the strong wind1 the vital resources of every animal and vegetable1 are demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul4 ,thus all concentrates3 let us not rove2 let us sit at home with the cause4 ,let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions1 by a simple declaration of the divine fact4 ,bid the invaders take the shoes from off their feet1 for ,god is here within4 ,let our simplicity judge them1 and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches4 ,but now we are a mob4 ,man does not stand in awe of man1 nor is his genius admonished to stay at home1 to put itself in communication with the internal ocean1 but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men4 ,we must go alone4 ,i like the silent church before the service begins1 better than any preaching4 ,how far off1 how cool1 how chaste the persons look1 begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary6 ,so let us always sit4 ,why should we assume the faults of our friend1 or wife1 or father1 or child1 because they sit around our hearth1 or are said to have the same blood8 ,all men have my blood and ,i have all men's4 ,not for that will ,i adopt their petulance or folly1 even to the extent of being ashamed of it4 ,but your isolation must not be mechanical1 but spiritual1 that is1 must be elevation4 ,at times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles4 ,friend1 client1 child1 sickness1 fear1 want1 charity1 all knock at once at thy closet door and say1--#8,come out unto us4' ,but keep thy state2 come not into their confusion4 ,the power men possess to annoy me ,i give them by a weak curiosity4 ,no man can come near me but through my act4 8,what we love that we have1 but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love40 ,if we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith1 let us at least resist our temptations2 let us enter into the state of war and wake ,thor and ,woden1 courage and constancy1 in our ,saxon breasts4 ,this is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth4 ,check this lying hospitality and lying affection4 ,live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse4 ,say to them1 #8,o father1 ,o mother1 ,o wife1 ,o brother1 ,o friend1 ,i have lived with you after appearances hitherto4 ,henceforward ,i am the truth's4 ,be it known unto you that henceforward ,i obey no law less than the eternal law4 ,i will have no covenants but proximities4 ,i shall endeavour to nourish my parents1 to support my family1 to be the chaste husband of one wife1--but these relations ,i must fill after a new and unprecedented way4 ,i appeal from your customs4 ,i must be myself4 ,i cannot break myself any longer for you1 or you4 ,if you can love me for what ,i am1 we shall be the happier4 ,if you cannot1 ,i will still seek to deserve that you should4 ,i will not hide my tastes or aversions4 ,i will so trust that what is deep is holy1 that ,i will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and the heart appoints4 ,if you are noble1 ,i will love you3 if you are not1 ,i will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions4 ,if you are true1 but not in the same truth with me1 cleave to your companions2 ,i will seek my own4 ,i do this not selfishly but humbly and truly4 ,it is alike your interest1 and mine1 and all men's1 however long we have dwelt in lies1 to live in truth4 ,does this sound harsh to-day8 ,you will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine1 and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last4'--,but so may you give these friends pain4 ,yes1 but ,i cannot sell my liberty and my power1 to save their sensibility4 ,besides1 all persons have their moments of reason1 when they look out into the region of absolute truth2 then will they justify me and do the same thing4 ,the populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard1 and mere antinomianism2 and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes4 ,but the law of consciousness abides4 ,there are two confessionals1 in one or the other of which we must be shriven4 ,you may fulfil your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct1 or in the reflex way4 ,consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father1 mother1 cousin1 neighbor1 town1 cat1 and dog2 whether any of these can upbraid you4 ,but ,i may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to myself4 ,i have my own stern claims and perfect circle4 ,it denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties4 ,but if ,i can discharge its debts it enables me to dispense with the popular code4 ,if any one imagines that this law is lax1 let him keep its commandment one day4 ,and truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster4 ,high be his heart1 faithful his will1 clear his sight1 that he may in good earnest be doctrine1 society1 law1 to himself1 that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others6 ,if any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction society1 he will see the need of these ethics4 ,the sinew and heart of man seem to be drawn out1 and we are become timorous1 desponding whimperers4 ,we are afraid of truth1 afraid of fortune1 afraid of death and afraid of each other4 ,our age yields no great and perfect persons4 ,we want men and women who shall renovate life and our social state1 but we see that most natures are insolvent1 cannot satisfy their own wants1 have an ambition out of all proportion to their practical force and do lean and beg day and night continually4 ,our housekeeping is mendicant1 our arts1 our occupations1 our marriages1 our religion we have not chosen1 but society has chosen for us4 ,we are parlor soldiers4 ,we shun the rugged battle of fate1 where strength is born4 ,if our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all heart4 ,if the young merchant fails1 men say he is ruined4 ,if the finest genius studies at one of our colleges and is not installed in an office within one year afterwards in the cities or suburbs of ,boston or ,new ,york1 it seems to his friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened and in complaining the rest of his life4 ,a sturdy lad from ,new ,hampshire or ,vermont1 who in turn tries all the professions1 who teams it1 farms it1 peddles1 keeps a school1 preaches1 edits a newspaper1 goes to ,congress1 buys a township1 and so forth1 in successive years1 and always like a cat falls on his feet1 is worth a hundred of these city dolls4 ,he walks abreast with his days and feels no shame in not #8studying a profession1' for he does not postpone his life1 but lives already4 ,he has not one chance1 but a hundred chances4 ,let a ,stoic open the resources of man and tell men they are not leaning willows1 but can and must detach themselves2 that with the exercise of self-trust1 new powers shall appear2 that a man is the word made flesh1 born to shed healing to the nations2 that he should be ashamed of our compassion1 and that the moment he acts from himself1 tossing the laws1 the books1 idolatries and customs out of the window1 we pity him no more but thank and revere him2--and that teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all history4 ,it is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all the offices and relations of men2 in their religion2 in their education2 in their pursuits2 their modes of living2 their association2 in their property2 in their speculative views4 #a4 ,in what prayers do men allow themselves6 ,that which they call a holy office is not so much as brave and manly4 ,prayer looks abroad and asks for some foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue1 and loses itself in endless mazes of natural and supernatural1 and mediatorial and miraculous4 ,prayer that craves a particular commodity1 any thing less than all good1 is vicious4 ,prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest point of view4 ,it is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul4 ,it is the spirit of ,god pronouncing his works good4 ,but prayer as a means to effect a private end is meanness and theft4 ,it supposes dualism and not unity in nature and consciousness4 ,as soon as the man is at one with ,god1 he will not beg4 ,he will then see prayer in all action4 ,the prayer of the farmer kneeling in his field to weed it1 the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar1 are true prayers heard throughout nature1 though for cheap ends4 ,caratach1 in ,fletcher's ,bonduca1 when admonished to inquire the mind of the god ,audate1 replies1-- 8,his hidden meaning lies in our endeavors2 ,our valors are our best gods40 ,another sort of false prayers are our regrets4 ,discontent is the want of self-reliance3 it is infirmity of will4 ,regret calamities if you can thereby help the sufferer2 if not1 attend your own work and already the evil begins to be repaired4 ,our sympathy is just as base4 ,we come to them who weep foolishly and sit down and cry for company1 instead of imparting to them truth and health in rough electric shocks1 putting them once more in communication with their own reason4 ,the secret of fortune is joy in our hands4 ,welcome evermore to gods and men is the self-helping man4 ,for him all doors are flung wide2 him all tongues greet1 all honors crown1 all eyes follow with desire4 ,our love goes out to him and embraces him because he did not need it4 ,we solicitously and apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and scorned our disapprobation4 ,the gods love him because men hated him4 8,to the persevering mortal10 said ,zoroaster1 8the blessed ,immortals are swift40 ,as men's prayers are a disease of the will1 so are their creeds a disease of the intellect4 ,they say with those foolish ,israelites1 #8,let not ,god speak to us1 lest we die4 ,speak thou1 speak any man with us1 and we will obey4' ,everywhere ,i am hindered of meeting ,god in my brother1 because he has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother's1 or his brother's brother's ,god4 ,every new mind is a new classification4 ,if it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power1 a ,locke1 a ,lavoisier1 a ,hutton1 a ,bentham1 a ,fourier1 it imposes its classification on other men1 and lo6 a new system4 ,in proportion to the depth of the thought1 and so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the pupil1 is his complacency4 ,but chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches1 which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental thought of duty1 and man's relation to the ,highest4 ,such is ,calvinism1 ,quakerism1 ,swedenborgism4 ,the pupil takes the same delight in subordinating every thing to the new terminology as a girl who has just learned botany in seeing a new earth and new seasons thereby4 ,it will happen for a time that the pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his master's mind4 ,but in all unbalanced minds the classification is idolized1 passes for the end and not for a speedily exhaustible means1 so that the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls of the universe2 the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their master built4 ,they cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to see1--how you can see2 #8,it must be somehow that you stole the light from us4' ,they do not yet perceive that light1 unsystematic1 indomitable1 will break into any cabin1 even into theirs4 ,let them chirp awhile and call it their own4 ,if they are honest and do well1 presently their neat new pinfold will be too strait and low1 will crack1 will lean1 will rot and vanish1 and the immortal light1 all young and joyful1 million-orbed1 million-colored1 will beam over the universe as on the first morning4 #b4 ,it is for want of self-culture that the superstition of ,travelling1 whose idols are ,italy1 ,england1 ,egypt1 retains its fascination for all educated ,americans4 ,they who made ,england1 ,italy1 or ,greece venerable in the imagination did so by sticking fast where they were1 like an axis of the earth4 ,in manly hours we feel that duty is our place4 ,the soul is no traveller2 the wise man stays at home1 and when his necessities1 his duties1 on any occasion call him from his house1 or into foreign lands1 he is at home still and shall make men sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes1 the missionary of wisdom and virtue1 and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like an interloper or a valet4 ,i have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the purposes of art1 of study1 and benevolence1 so that the man is first domesticated1 or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater than he knows4 ,he who travels to be amused1 or to get somewhat which he does not carry1 travels away from himself1 and grows old even in youth among old things4 ,in ,thebes1 in ,palmyra1 his will and mind have become old and dilapidated as they4 ,he carries ruins to ruins4 ,travelling is a fool's paradise4 ,our first journeys discover to us the indifference of places4 ,at home ,i dream that at ,naples1 at ,rome1 ,i can be intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness4 ,i pack my trunk1 embrace my friends1 embark on the sea and at last wake up in ,naples1 and there beside me is the stern fact1 the sad self1 unrelenting1 identical1 that ,i fled from4 ,i seek the ,vatican and the palaces4 ,i affect to be intoxicated with sights and suggestions1 but ,i am not intoxicated4 ,my giant goes with me wherever ,i go4 #c4 ,but the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting the whole intellectual action4 ,the intellect is vagabond1 and our system of education fosters restlessness4 ,our minds travel when our bodies are forced to stay at home4 ,we imitate2 and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind8 ,our houses are built with foreign taste2 our shelves are garnished with foreign ornaments2 our opinions1 our tastes1 our faculties1 lean1 and follow the ,past and the ,distant4 ,the soul created the arts wherever they have flourished4 ,it was in his own mind that the artist sought his model4 ,it was an application of his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed4 ,and why need we copy the ,doric or the ,gothic model8 ,beauty1 convenience1 grandeur of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any1 and if the ,american artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by him1 considering the climate1 the soil1 the length of the day1 the wants of the people1 the habit and form of the government1 he will create a house in which all these will find themselves fitted1 and taste and sentiment will be satisfied also4 ,insist on yourself2 never imitate4 ,your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life's cultivation2 but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession4 ,that which each can do best1 none but his ,maker can teach him4 ,no man yet knows what it is1 nor can1 till that person has exhibited it4 ,where is the master who could have taught ,shakspeare8 ,where is the master who could have instructed ,franklin1 or ,washington1 or ,bacon1 or ,newton8 ,every great man is a unique4 ,the ,scipionism of ,scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow4 ,shakspeare will never be made by the study of ,shakspeare4 ,do that which is assigned you1 and you cannot hope too much or dare too much4 ,there is at this moment for you an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of ,phidias1 or trowel of the ,egyptians1 or the pen of ,moses or ,dante1 but different from all these4 ,not possibly will the soul1 all rich1 all eloquent1 with thousand-cloven tongue1 deign to repeat itself2 but if you can hear what these patriarchs say1 surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice2 for the ear and the tongue are two organs of one nature4 ,abide in the simple and noble regions of thy life1 obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the ,foreworld again4 #d4 ,as our ,religion1 our ,education1 our ,art look abroad1 so does our spirit of society4 ,all men plume themselves on the improvement of society1 and no man improves4 ,society never advances4 ,it recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the other4 ,it undergoes continual changes2 it is barbarous1 it is civilized1 it is christianized1 it is rich1 it is scientific2 but this change is not amelioration4 ,for every thing that is given something is taken4 ,society acquires new arts and loses old instincts4 ,what a contrast between the well-clad1 reading1 writing1 thinking ,american1 with a watch1 a pencil and a bill of exchange in his pocket1 and the naked ,new ,zealander1 whose property is a club1 a spear1 a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under6 ,but compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost his aboriginal strength4 ,if the traveller tell us truly1 strike the savage with a broad axe and in a day or two the flesh shall unite and heal as if you struck the blow into soft pitch1 and the same blow shall send the white to his grave4 ,the civilized man has built a coach1 but has lost the use of his feet4 ,he is supported on crutches1 but lacks so much support of muscle4 ,he has a fine ,geneva watch1 but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun4 ,a ,greenwich nautical almanac he has1 and so being sure of the information when he wants it1 the man in the street does not know a star in the sky4 ,the solstice he does not observe2 the equinox he knows as little2 and the whole bright calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind4 ,his note-books impair his memory2 his libraries overload his wit2 the insurance-office increases the number of accidents2 and it may be a question whether machinery does not encumber2 whether we have not lost by refinement some energy1 by a ,christianity entrenched in establishments and forms some vigor of wild virtue4 ,for every ,stoic was a ,stoic2 but in ,christendom where is the ,christian8 ,there is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height or bulk4 ,no greater men are now than ever were4 ,a singular equality may be observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages2 nor can all the science1 art1 religion1 and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to educate greater men than ,plutarch's heroes1 three or four and twenty centuries ago4 ,not in time is the race progressive4 ,phocion1 ,socrates1 ,anaxagoras1 ,diogenes1 are great men1 but they leave no class4 ,he who is really of their class will not be called by their name1 but will be his own man1 and in his turn the founder of a sect4 ,the arts and inventions of each period are only its costume and do not invigorate men4 ,the harm of the improved machinery may compensate its good4 ,hudson and ,behring accomplished so much in their fishing-boats as to astonish ,parry and ,franklin1 whose equipment exhausted the resources of science and art4 ,galileo1 with an opera-glass1 discovered a more splendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since4 ,columbus found the ,new ,world in an undecked boat4 ,it is curious to see the periodical disuse and perishing of means and machinery which were introduced with loud laudation a few years or centuries before4 ,the great genius returns to essential man4 ,we reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science1 and yet ,napoleon conquered ,europe by the bivouac1 which consisted of falling back on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids4 ,the ,emperor held it impossible to make a perfect army1 says ,las ,cases1 8without abolishing our arms1 magazines1 commissaries and carriages1 until1 in imitation of the ,roman custom1 the soldier should receive his supply of corn1 grind it in his hand-mill1 and bake his bread himself40 ,society is a wave4 ,the wave moves onward1 but the water of which it is composed does not4 ,the same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge4 ,its unity is only phenomenal4 ,the persons who make up a nation to-day1 next year die1 and their experience with them4 ,and so the reliance on ,property1 including the reliance on governments which protect it1 is the want of self-reliance4 ,men have looked away from themselves and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious1 learned and civil institutions as guards of property1 and they deprecate assaults on these1 because they feel them to be assaults on property4 ,they measure their esteem of each other by what each has1 and not by what each is4 ,but a cultivated man becomes ashamed of his property1 out of new respect for his nature4 ,especially he hates what he has if he see that it is accidental1--came to him by inheritance1 or gift1 or crime2 then he feels that it is not having2 it does not belong to him1 has no root in him and merely lies there because no revolution or no robber takes it away4 ,but that which a man is1 does always by necessity acquire1 and what the man acquires is living property1 which does not wait the beck of rulers1 or mobs1 or revolutions1 or fire1 or storm1 or bankruptcies1 but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes4 8,thy lot or portion of life10 said the ,caliph ,ali1 8is seeking after thee2 therefore be at rest from seeking after it40 ,our dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers4 ,the political parties meet in numerous conventions2 the greater the concourse and with each new uproar of announcement1 ,the delegation from ,essex6 ,the ,democrats from ,new ,hampshire6 ,the ,whigs of ,maine6 the young patriot feels himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms4 ,in like manner the reformers summon conventions and vote and resolve in multitude4 ,not so1 ,o friends6 will the ,god deign to enter and inhabit you1 but by a method precisely the reverse4 ,it is only as a man puts off all foreign support and stands alone that ,i see him to be strong and to prevail4 ,he is weaker by every recruit to his banner4 ,is not a man better than a town8 ,ask nothing of men1 and1 in the endless mutation1 thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of all that surrounds thee4 ,he who knows that power is inborn1 that he is weak because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere1 and so perceiving1 throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought1 instantly rights himself1 stands in the erect position1 commands his limbs1 works miracles2 just as a man who stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head4 ,so use all that is called ,fortune4 ,most men gamble with her1 and gain all1 and lose all1 as her wheel rolls4 ,but do thou leave as unlawful these winnings1 and deal with ,cause and ,effect1 the chancellors of ,god4 ,in the ,will work and acquire1 and thou hast chained the wheel of ,chance1 and shalt sit hereafter out of fear from her rotations4 ,a political victory1 a rise of rents1 the recovery of your sick or the return of your absent friend1 or some other favorable event raises your spirits1 and you think good days are preparing for you4 ,do not believe it4 ,nothing can bring you peace but yourself4 ,nothing can bring you peace but the triumph of principles4 ,,iii4 ,,compensation ,the wings of ,time are black and white1 ,pied with morning and with night4 ,mountain tall and ocean deep ,trembling balance duly keep4 ,in changing moon1 in tidal wave1 ,glows the feud of ,want and ,have4 ,gauge of more and less through space ,electric star and pencil plays4 ,the lonely ,earth amid the balls ,that hurry through the eternal halls1 ,a makeweight flying to the void1 ,supplemental asteroid1 ,or compensatory spark1 ,shoots across the neutral ,dark4 ,man's the elm1 and ,wealth the vine1 ,stanch and strong the tendrils twine3 ,though the frail ringlets thee deceive1 ,none from its stock that vine can reave4 ,fear not1 then1 thou child infirm1 ,there's no god dare wrong a worm4 ,laurel crowns cleave to deserts ,and power to him who power exerts2 ,hast not thy share8 ,on winged feet1 ,lo6 it rushes thee to meet2 ,and all that ,nature made thy own1 ,floating in air or pent in stone1 ,will rive the hills and swim the sea ,and1 like thy shadow1 follow thee4 ,,compensation ,ever since ,i was a boy ,i have wished to write a discourse on ,compensation2 for it seemed to me when very young that on this subject life was ahead of theology and the people knew more than the preachers taught4 ,the documents too from which the doctrine is to be drawn1 charmed my fancy by their endless variety1 and lay always before me1 even in sleep2 for they are the tools in our hands1 the bread in our basket1 the transactions of the street1 the farm and the dwelling-house2 greetings1 relations1 debts and credits1 the influence of character1 the nature and endowment of all men4 ,it seemed to me also that in it might be shown men a ray of divinity1 the present action of the soul of this world1 clean from all vestige of tradition2 and so the heart of man might be bathed by an inundation of eternal love1 conversing with that which he knows was always and always must be1 because it really is now4 ,it appeared moreover that if this doctrine could be stated in terms with any resemblance to those bright intuitions in which this truth is sometimes revealed to us1 it would be a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey1 that would not suffer us to lose our way4 ,i was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church4 ,the preacher1 a man esteemed for his orthodoxy1 unfolded in the ordinary manner the doctrine of the ,last ,judgment4 ,he assumed that judgment is not executed in this world2 that the wicked are successful2 that the good are miserable2 and then urged from reason and from ,scripture a compensation to be made to both parties in the next life4 ,no offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this doctrine4 ,as far as ,i could observe when the meeting broke up they separated without remark on the sermon4 ,yet what was the import of this teaching8 ,what did the preacher mean by saying that the good are miserable in the present life8 ,was it that houses and lands1 offices1 wine1 horses1 dress1 luxury1 are had by unprincipled men1 whilst the saints are poor and despised2 and that a compensation is to be made to these last hereafter1 by giving them the like gratifications another day1--bank-stock and doubloons1 venison and champagne8 ,this must be the compensation intended2 for what else8 ,is it that they are to have leave to pray and praise8 to love and serve men8 ,why1 that they can do now4 ,the legitimate inference the disciple would draw was1--#8,we are to have such a good time as the sinners have now'2--or1 to push it to its extreme import1--#8,you sin now2 we shall sin by and by2 we would sin now1 if we could2 not being successful1 we expect our revenge to-morrow4' ,the fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful2 that justice is not done now4 ,the blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly success1 instead of confronting and convicting the world from the truth2 announcing the presence of the soul2 the omnipotence of the will2 and so establishing the standard of good and ill1 of success and falsehood4 ,i find a similar base tone in the popular religious works of the day and the same doctrines assumed by the literary men when occasionally they treat the related topics4 ,i think that our popular theology has gained in decorum1 and not in principle1 over the superstitions it has displaced4 ,but men are better than their theology4 ,their daily life gives it the lie4 ,every ingenuous and aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience1 and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate4 ,for men are wiser than they know4 ,that which they hear in schools and pulpits without afterthought1 if said in conversation would probably be questioned in silence4 ,if a man dogmatize in a mixed company on ,providence and the divine laws1 he is answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the dissatisfaction of the hearer1 but his incapacity to make his own statement4 ,i shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts that indicate the path of the law of ,compensation2 happy beyond my expectation if ,i shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle4 ,polarity1 or action and reaction1 we meet in every part of nature2 in darkness and light2 in heat and cold2 in the ebb and flow of waters2 in male and female2 in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals2 in the equation of quantity and quality in the fluids of the animal body2 in the systole and diastole of the heart2 in the undulations of fluids1 and of sound2 in the centrifugal and centripetal gravity2 in electricity1 galvanism1 and chemical affinity4 ,superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle1 the opposite magnetism takes place at the other end4 ,if the south attracts1 the north repels4 ,to empty here1 you must condense there4 ,an inevitable dualism bisects nature1 so that each thing is a half1 and suggests another thing to make it whole2 as1 spirit1 matter2 man1 woman2 odd1 even2 subjective1 objective2 in1 out2 upper1 under2 motion1 rest2 yea1 nay4 ,whilst the world is thus dual1 so is every one of its parts4 ,the entire system of things gets represented in every particle4 ,there is somewhat that resembles the ebb and flow of the sea1 day and night1 man and woman1 in a single needle of the pine1 in a kernel of corn1 in each individual of every animal tribe4 ,the reaction1 so grand in the elements1 is repeated within these small boundaries4 ,for example1 in the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no creatures are favorites1 but a certain compensation balances every gift and every defect4 ,a surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from another part of the same creature4 ,if the head and neck are enlarged1 the trunk and extremities are cut short4 ,the theory of the mechanic forces is another example4 ,what we gain in power is lost in time1 and the converse4 ,the periodic or compensating errors of the planets is another instance4 ,the influences of climate and soil in political history are another4 ,the cold climate invigorates4 ,the barren soil does not breed fevers1 crocodiles1 tigers or scorpions4 ,the same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man4 ,every excess causes a defect2 every defect an excess4 ,every sweet hath its sour2 every evil its good4 ,every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on its abuse4 ,it is to answer for its moderation with its life4 ,for every grain of wit there is a grain of folly4 ,for every thing you have missed1 you have gained something else2 and for every thing you gain1 you lose something4 ,if riches increase1 they are increased that use them4 ,if the gatherer gathers too much1 ,nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest2 swells the estate1 but kills the owner4 ,nature hates monopolies and exceptions4 ,the waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing than the varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves4 ,there is always some levelling circumstance that puts down the overbearing1 the strong1 the rich1 the fortunate1 substantially on the same ground with all others4 ,is a man too strong and fierce for society and by temper and position a bad citizen1--a morose ruffian1 with a dash of the pirate in him8--,nature sends him a troop of pretty sons and daughters who are getting along in the dame's classes at the village school1 and love and fear for them smooths his grim scowl to courtesy4 ,thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar1 takes the boar out and puts the lamb in and keeps her balance true4 ,the farmer imagines power and place are fine things4 ,but the ,president has paid dear for his ,white ,house4 ,it has commonly cost him all his peace1 and the best of his manly attributes4 ,to preserve for a short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world1 he is content to eat dust before the real masters who stand erect behind the throne4 ,or1 do men desire the more substantial and permanent grandeur of genius8 ,neither has this an immunity4 ,he who by force of will or of thought is great and overlooks thousands1 has the charges of that eminence4 ,with every influx of light comes new danger4 ,has he light8 he must bear witness to the light1 and always outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction1 by his fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul4 ,he must hate father and mother1 wife and child4 ,has he all that the world loves and admires and covets8--he must cast behind him their admiration1 and afflict them by faithfulness to his truth1 and become a byword and a hissing4 ,this law writes the laws of cities and nations4 ,it is in vain to build or plot or combine against it4 ,things refuse to be mismanaged long4 ,res nolunt diu male administrari4 ,though no checks to a new evil appear1 the checks exist1 and will appear4 ,if the government is cruel1 the governor's life is not safe4 ,if you tax too high1 the revenue will yield nothing4 ,if you make the criminal code sanguinary1 juries will not convict4 ,if the law is too mild1 private vengeance comes in4 ,if the government is a terrific democracy1 the pressure is resisted by an over-charge of energy in the citizen1 and life glows with a fiercer flame4 ,the true life and satisfactions of man seem to elude the utmost rigors or felicities of condition and to establish themselves with great indifferency under all varieties of circumstances4 ,under all governments the influence of character remains the same1--in ,turkey and in ,new ,england about alike4 ,under the primeval despots of ,egypt1 history honestly confesses that man must have been as free as culture could make him4 ,these appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in every one of its particles4 ,every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature4 ,every thing is made of one hidden stuff2 as the naturalist sees one type under every metamorphosis1 and regards a horse as a running man1 a fish as a swimming man1 a bird as a flying man1 a tree as a rooted man4 ,each new form repeats not only the main character of the type1 but part for part all the details1 all the aims1 furtherances1 hindrances1 energies and whole system of every other4 ,every occupation1 trade1 art1 transaction1 is a compend of the world and a correlative of every other4 ,each one is an entire emblem of human life2 of its good and ill1 its trials1 its enemies1 its course and its end4 ,and each one must somehow accommodate the whole man and recite all his destiny4 ,the world globes itself in a drop of dew4 ,the microscope cannot find the animalcule which is less perfect for being little4 ,eyes1 ears1 taste1 smell1 motion1 resistance1 appetite1 and organs of reproduction that take hold on eternity1--all find room to consist in the small creature4 ,so do we put our life into every act4 ,the true doctrine of omnipresence is that ,god reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb4 ,the value of the universe contrives to throw itself into every point4 ,if the good is there1 so is the evil2 if the affinity1 so the repulsion2 if the force1 so the limitation4 ,thus is the universe alive4 ,all things are moral4 ,that soul which within us is a sentiment1 outside of us is a law4 ,we feel its inspiration2 out there in history we can see its fatal strength4 8,it is in the world1 and the world was made by it40 ,justice is not postponed4 ,a perfect equity adjusts its balance in all parts of life4 1--,the dice of ,god are always loaded4 ,the world looks like a multiplication-table1 or a mathematical equation1 which1 turn it how you will1 balances itself4 ,take what figure you will1 its exact value1 nor more nor less1 still returns to you4 ,every secret is told1 every crime is punished1 every virtue rewarded1 every wrong redressed1 in silence and certainty4 ,what we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the whole appears wherever a part appears4 ,if you see smoke1 there must be fire4 ,if you see a hand or a limb1 you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there behind4 ,every act rewards itself1 or1 in other words integrates itself1 in a twofold manner2 first in the thing1 or in real nature2 and secondly in the circumstance1 or in apparent nature4 ,men call the circumstance the retribution4 ,the causal retribution is in the thing and is seen by the soul4 ,the retribution in the circumstance is seen by the understanding2 it is inseparable from the thing1 but is often spread over a long time and so does not become distinct until after many years4 ,the specific stripes may follow late after the offence1 but they follow because they accompany it4 ,crime and punishment grow out of one stem4 ,punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the pleasure which concealed it4 ,cause and effect1 means and ends1 seed and fruit1 cannot be severed2 for the effect already blooms in the cause1 the end preexists in the means1 the fruit in the seed4 ,whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be disparted1 we seek to act partially1 to sunder1 to appropriate2 for example1--to gratify the senses we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs of the character4 ,the ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem1--how to detach the sensual sweet1 the sensual strong1 the sensual bright1 etc41 from the moral sweet1 the moral deep1 the moral fair2 that is1 again1 to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless2 to get a one end1 without an other end4 ,the soul says1 #8,eat2' the body would feast4 ,the soul says1 #8,the man and woman shall be one flesh and one soul2' the body would join the flesh only4 ,the soul says1 #8,have dominion over all things to the ends of virtue2' the body would have the power over things to its own ends4 ,the soul strives amain to live and work through all things4 ,it would be the only fact4 ,all things shall be added unto it1--power1 pleasure1 knowledge1 beauty4 ,the particular man aims to be somebody2 to set up for himself2 to truck and higgle for a private good2 and1 in particulars1 to ride that he may ride2 to dress that he may be dressed2 to eat that he may eat2 and to govern1 that he may be seen4 ,men seek to be great2 they would have offices1 wealth1 power1 and fame4 ,they think that to be great is to possess one side of nature1--the sweet1 without the other side1 the bitter4 ,this dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted4 ,up to this day it must be owned no projector has had the smallest success4 ,the parted water reunites behind our hand4 ,pleasure is taken out of pleasant things1 profit out of profitable things1 power out of strong things1 as soon as we seek to separate them from the whole4 ,we can no more halve things and get the sensual good1 by itself1 than we can get an inside that shall have no outside1 or a light without a shadow4 8,drive out ,nature with a fork1 she comes running back40 ,life invests itself with inevitable conditions1 which the unwise seek to dodge1 which one and another brags that he does not know1 that they do not touch him2--but the brag is on his lips1 the conditions are in his soul4 ,if he escapes them in one part they attack him in another more vital part4 ,if he has escaped them in form and in the appearance1 it is because he has resisted his life and fled from himself1 and the retribution is so much death4 ,so signal is the failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the tax1 that the experiment would not be tried1--since to try it is to be mad1--but for the circumstance1 that when the disease began in the will1 of rebellion and separation1 the intellect is at once infected1 so that the man ceases to see ,god whole in each object1 but is able to see the sensual allurement of an object and not see the sensual hurt2 he sees the mermaid's head but not the dragon's tail1 and thinks he can cut off that which he would have from that which he would not have4 8,how secret art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence1 ,o thou only great ,god1 sprinkling with an unwearied providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as have unbridled desires60#a #a ,st4 ,augustine1 ,confessions1 ,b4 ,i4 ,the human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable1 of history1 of law1 of proverbs1 of conversation4 ,it finds a tongue in literature unawares4 ,thus the ,greeks called ,jupiter1 ,supreme ,mind2 but having traditionally ascribed to him many base actions1 they involuntarily made amends to reason by tying up the hands of so bad a god4 ,he is made as helpless as a king of ,england4 ,prometheus knows one secret which ,jove must bargain for2 ,minerva1 another4 ,he cannot get his own thunders2 ,minerva keeps the key of them3-- 8,of all the gods1 ,i only know the keys ,that ope the solid doors within whose vaults ,his thunders sleep40 ,a plain confession of the in-working of the ,all and of its moral aim4 ,the ,indian mythology ends in the same ethics2 and it would seem impossible for any fable to be invented and get any currency which was not moral4 ,aurora forgot to ask youth for her lover1 and though ,tithonus is immortal1 he is old4 ,achilles is not quite invulnerable2 the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which ,thetis held him4 ,siegfried1 in the ,nibelungen1 is not quite immortal1 for a leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon's blood1 and that spot which it covered is mortal4 ,and so it must be4 ,there is a crack in every thing ,god has made4 ,it would seem there is always this vindictive circumstance stealing in at unawares even into the wild poesy in which the human fancy attempted to make bold holiday and to shake itself free of the old laws1--this back-stroke1 this kick of the gun1 certifying that the law is fatal2 that in nature nothing can be given1 all things are sold4 ,this is that ancient doctrine of ,nemesis1 who keeps watch in the universe and lets no offence go unchastised4 ,the ,furies they said are attendants on justice1 and if the sun in heaven should transgress his path they would punish him4 ,the poets related that stone walls and iron swords and leathern thongs had an occult sympathy with the wrongs of their owners2 that the belt which ,ajax gave ,hector dragged the ,trojan hero over the field at the wheels of the car of ,achilles1 and the sword which ,hector gave ,ajax was that on whose point ,ajax fell4 ,they recorded that when the ,thasians erected a statue to ,theagenes1 a victor in the games1 one of his rivals went to it by night and endeavored to throw it down by repeated blows1 until at last he moved it from its pedestal and was crushed to death beneath its fall4 ,this voice of fable has in it somewhat divine4 ,it came from thought above the will of the writer4 ,that is the best part of each writer which has nothing private in it2 that which he does not know2 that which flowed out of his constitution and not from his too active invention2 that which in the study of a single artist you might not easily find1 but in the study of many you would abstract as the spirit of them all4 ,phidias it is not1 but the work of man in that early ,hellenic world that ,i would know4 ,the name and circumstance of ,phidias1 however convenient for history1 embarrass when we come to the highest criticism4 ,we are to see that which man was tending to do in a given period1 and was hindered1 or1 if you will1 modified in doing1 by the interfering volitions of ,phidias1 of ,dante1 of ,shakspeare1 the organ whereby man at the moment wrought4 ,still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of all nations1 which are always the literature of reason1 or the statements of an absolute truth without qualification4 ,proverbs1 like the sacred books of each nation1 are the sanctuary of the intuitions4 ,that which the droning world1 chained to appearances1 will not allow the realist to say in his own words1 it will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction4 ,and this law of laws1 which the pulpit1 the senate and the college deny1 is hourly preached in all markets and workshops by flights of proverbs1 whose teaching is as true and as omnipresent as that of birds and flies4 ,all things are double1 one against another4--,tit for tat2 an eye for an eye2 a tooth for a tooth2 blood for blood2 measure for measure2 love for love4--,give and it shall be given you4--,he that watereth shall be watered himself4--,what will you have8 quoth ,god2 pay for it and take it4--,nothing venture1 nothing have4--,thou shalt be paid exactly for what thou hast done1 no more1 no less4--,who doth not work shall not eat4--,harm watch1 harm catch4--,curses always recoil on the head of him who imprecates them4--,if you put a chain around the neck of a slave1 the other end fastens itself around your own4--,bad counsel confounds the adviser4--,the ,devil is an ass4 ,it is thus written1 because it is thus in life4 ,our action is overmastered and characterized above our will by the law of nature4 ,we aim at a petty end quite aside from the public good1 but our act arranges itself by irresistible magnetism in a line with the poles of the world4 ,a man cannot speak but he judges himself4 ,with his will or against his will he draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word4 ,every opinion reacts on him who utters it4 ,it is a thread-ball thrown at a mark1 but the other end remains in the thrower's bag4 ,or rather it is a harpoon hurled at the whale1 unwinding1 as it flies1 a coil of cord in the boat1 and1 if the harpoon is not good1 or not well thrown1 it will go nigh to cut the steersman in twain or to sink the boat4 ,you cannot do wrong without suffering wrong4 8,no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him10 said ,burke4 ,the exclusive in fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment1 in the attempt to appropriate it4 ,the exclusionist in religion does not see that he shuts the door of heaven on himself1 in striving to shut out others4 ,treat men as pawns and ninepins and you shall suffer as well as they4 ,if you leave out their heart1 you shall lose your own4 ,the senses would make things of all persons2 of women1 of children1 of the poor4 ,the vulgar proverb1 8,i will get it from his purse or get it from his skin10 is sound philosophy4 ,all infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished4 ,they are punished by fear4 ,whilst ,i stand in simple relations to my fellow-man1 ,i have no displeasure in meeting him4 ,we meet as water meets water1 or as two currents of air mix1 with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of nature4 ,but as soon as there is any departure from simplicity1 and attempt at halfness1 or good for me that is not good for him1 my neighbor feels the wrong2 he shrinks from me as far as ,i have shrunk from him2 his eyes no longer seek mine2 there is war between us2 there is hate in him and fear in me4 ,all the old abuses in society1 universal and particular1 all unjust accumulations of property and power1 are avenged in the same manner4 ,fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions4 ,one thing he teaches1 that there is rottenness where he appears4 ,he is a carrion crow1 and though you see not well what he hovers for1 there is death somewhere4 ,our property is timid1 our laws are timid1 our cultivated classes are timid4 ,fear for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over government and property4 ,that obscene bird is not there for nothing4 ,he indicates great wrongs which must be revised4 ,of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly follows the suspension of our voluntary activity4 ,the terror of cloudless noon1 the emerald of ,polycrates1 the awe of prosperity1 the instinct which leads every generous soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue1 are the tremblings of the balance of justice through the heart and mind of man4 ,experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot and lot as they go along1 and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality4 ,the borrower runs in his own debt4 ,has a man gained any thing who has received a hundred favors and rendered none8 ,has he gained by borrowing1 through indolence or cunning1 his neighbor's wares1 or horses1 or money8 ,there arises on the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on the other2 that is1 of superiority and inferiority4 ,the transaction remains in the memory of himself and his neighbor2 and every new transaction alters according to its nature their relation to each other4 ,he may soon come to see that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden in his neighbor's coach1 and that 8the highest price he can pay for a thing is to ask for it40 ,a wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life1 and know that it is the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand on your time1 your talents1 or your heart4 ,always pay2 for first or last you must pay your entire debt4 ,persons and events may stand for a time between you and justice1 but it is only a postponement4 ,you must pay at last your own debt4 ,if you are wise you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more4 ,benefit is the end of nature4 ,but for every benefit which you receive1 a tax is levied4 ,he is great who confers the most benefits4 ,he is base1--and that is the one base thing in the universe1--to receive favors and render none4 ,in the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive them1 or only seldom4 ,but the benefit we receive must be rendered again1 line for line1 deed for deed1 cent for cent1 to somebody4 ,beware of too much good staying in your hand4 ,it will fast corrupt and worm worms4 ,pay it away quickly in some sort4 ,labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws4 ,cheapest1 say the prudent1 is the dearest labor4 ,what we buy in a broom1 a mat1 a wagon1 a knife1 is some application of good sense to a common want4 ,it is best to pay in your land a skilful gardener1 or to buy good sense applied to gardening2 in your sailor1 good sense applied to navigation2 in the house1 good sense applied to cooking1 sewing1 serving2 in your agent1 good sense applied to accounts and affairs4 ,so do you multiply your presence1 or spread yourself throughout your estate4 ,but because of the dual constitution of things1 in labor as in life there can be no cheating4 ,the thief steals from himself4 ,the swindler swindles himself4 ,for the real price of labor is knowledge and virtue1 whereof wealth and credit are signs4 ,these signs1 like paper money1 may be counterfeited or stolen1 but that which they represent1 namely1 knowledge and virtue1 cannot be counterfeited or stolen4 ,these ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the mind1 and in obedience to pure motives4 ,the cheat1 the defaulter1 the gambler1 cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care and pains yield to the operative4 ,the law of nature is1 ,do the thing1 and you shall have the ,power2 but they who do not the thing have not the power4 ,human labor1 through all its forms1 from the sharpening of a stake to the construction of a city or an epic1 is one immense illustration of the perfect compensation of the universe4 ,the absolute balance of ,give and ,take1 the doctrine that every thing has its price1--and if that price is not paid1 not that thing but something else is obtained1 and that it is impossible to get any thing without its price1--is not less sublime in the columns of a leger than in the budgets of states1 in the laws of light and darkness1 in all the action and reaction of nature4 ,i cannot doubt that the high laws which each man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant1 the stern ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge1 which are measured out by his plumb and foot-rule1 which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in the history of a state1--do recommend to him his trade1 and though seldom named1 exalt his business to his imagination4 ,the league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a hostile front to vice4 ,the beautiful laws and substances of the world persecute and whip the traitor4 ,he finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit1 but there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue4 ,commit a crime1 and the earth is made of glass4 ,commit a crime1 and it seems as if a coat of snow fell on the ground1 such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and fox and squirrel and mole4 ,you cannot recall the spoken word1 you cannot wipe out the foot-track1 you cannot draw up the ladder1 so as to leave no inlet or clew4 ,some damning circumstance always transpires4 ,the laws and substances of nature1--water1 snow1 wind1 gravitation1--become penalties to the thief4 ,on the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right action4 ,love1 and you shall be loved4 ,all love is mathematically just1 as much as the two sides of an algebraic equation4 ,the good man has absolute good1 which like fire turns every thing to its own nature1 so that you cannot do him any harm2 but as the royal armies sent against ,napoleon1 when he approached cast down their colors and from enemies became friends1 so disasters of all kinds1 as sickness1 offence1 poverty1 prove benefactors3-- 8,winds blow and waters roll ,strength to the brave1 and power and deity1 ,yet in themselves are nothing40 ,the good are befriended even by weakness and defect4 ,as no man had ever a point of pride that was not injurious to him1 so no man had ever a defect that was not somewhere made useful to him4 ,the stag in the fable admired his horns and blamed his feet1 but when the hunter came1 his feet saved him1 and afterwards1 caught in the thicket1 his horns destroyed him4 ,every man in his lifetime needs to thank his faults4 ,as no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it1 so no man has a thorough acquaintance with the hindrances or talents of men until he has suffered from the one and seen the triumph of the other over his own want of the same4 ,has he a defect of temper that unfits him to live in society8 ,thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone and acquire habits of self-help2 and thus1 like the wounded oyster1 he mends his shell with pearl4 ,our strength grows out of our weakness4 ,the indignation which arms itself with secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely assailed4 ,a great man is always willing to be little4 ,whilst he sits on the cushion of advantages1 he goes to sleep4 ,when he is pushed1 tormented1 defeated1 he has a chance to learn something2 he has been put on his wits1 on his manhood2 he has gained facts2 learns his ignorance2 is cured of the insanity of conceit2 has got moderation and real skill4 ,the wise man throws himself on the side of his assailants4 ,it is more his interest than it is theirs to find his weak point4 ,the wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like a dead skin and when they would triumph1 lo6 he has passed on invulnerable4 ,blame is safer than praise4 ,i hate to be defended in a newspaper4 ,as long as all that is said is said against me1 ,i feel a certain assurance of success4 ,but as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me ,i feel as one that lies unprotected before his enemies4 ,in general1 every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor4 ,as the ,sandwich ,islander believes that the strength and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself1 so we gain the strength of the temptation we resist4 ,the same guards which protect us from disaster1 defect1 and enmity1 defend us1 if we will1 from selfishness and fraud4 ,bolts and bars are not the best of our institutions1 nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom4 ,men suffer all their life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated4 ,but it is as impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself1 as for a thing to be and not to be at the same time4 ,there is a third silent party to all our bargains4 ,the nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the fulfilment of every contract1 so that honest service cannot come to loss4 ,if you serve an ungrateful master1 serve him the more4 ,put ,god in your debt4 ,every stroke shall be repaid4 ,the longer ,the payment is withholden1 the better for you2 for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this exchequer4 ,the history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature1 to make water run up hill1 to twist a rope of sand4 ,it makes no difference whether the actors be many or one1 a tyrant or a mob4 ,a mob is a society of bodies voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its work4 ,the mob is man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast4 ,its fit hour of activity is night4 ,its actions are insane like its whole constitution4 ,it persecutes a principle2 it would whip a right2 it would tar and feather justice1 by inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have these4 ,it resembles the prank of boys1 who run with fire-engines to put out the ruddy aurora streaming to the stars4 ,the inviolate spirit turns their spite against the wrongdoers4 ,the martyr cannot be dishonored4 ,every lash inflicted is a tongue of fame2 every prison1 a more illustrious abode2 every burned book or house enlightens the world2 every suppressed or expunged word reverberates through the earth from side to side4 ,hours of sanity and consideration are always arriving to communities1 as to individuals1 when the truth is seen and the martyrs are justified4 ,thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances4 ,the man is all4 ,every thing has two sides1 a good and an evil4 ,every advantage has its tax4 ,i learn to be content4 ,but the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of indifferency4 ,the thoughtless say1 on hearing these representations1--,what boots it to do well8 there is one event to good and evil2 if ,i gain any good ,i must pay for it2 if ,i lose any good ,i gain some other2 all actions are indifferent4 ,there is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation1 to wit1 its own nature4 ,the soul is not a compensation1 but a life4 ,the soul is4 ,under all this running sea of circumstance1 whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance1 lies the aboriginal abyss of real ,being4 ,essence1 or ,god1 is not a relation or a part1 but the whole4 ,being is the vast affirmative1 excluding negation1 self-balanced1 and swallowing up all relations1 parts and times within itself4 ,nature1 truth1 virtue1 are the influx from thence4 ,vice is the absence or departure of the same4 ,nothing1 ,falsehood1 may indeed stand as the great ,night or shade on which as a background the living universe paints itself forth1 but no fact is begotten by it2 it cannot work1 for it is not4 ,it cannot work any good2 it cannot work any harm4 ,it is harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be than to be4 ,we feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts1 because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature4 ,there is no stunning confutation of his nonsense before men and angels4 ,has he therefore outwitted the law8 ,inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him he so far deceases from nature4 ,in some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also2 but1 should we not see it1 this deadly deduction makes square the eternal account4 ,neither can it be said1 on the other hand1 that the gain of rectitude must be bought by any loss4 ,there is no penalty to virtue2 no penalty to wisdom2 they are proper additions of being4 ,in a virtuous action ,i properly am2 in a virtuous act ,i add to the world2 ,i plant into deserts conquered from ,chaos and ,nothing and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon4 ,there can be no excess to love1 none to knowledge1 none to beauty1 when these attributes are considered in the purest sense4 ,the soul refuses limits1 and always affirms an ,optimism1 never a ,pessimism4 ,his life is a progress1 and not a station4 ,his instinct is trust4 ,our instinct uses 8more0 and 8less0 in application to man1 of the presence of the soul1 and not of its absence1 the brave man is greater than the coward2 the true1 the benevolent1 the wise1 is more a man and not less1 than the fool and knave4 ,there is no tax on the good of virtue1 for that is the incoming of ,god himself1 or absolute existence1 without any comparative4 ,material good has its tax1 and if it came without desert or sweat1 has no root in me1 and the next wind will blow it away4 ,but all the good of nature is the soul's1 and may be had if paid for in nature's lawful coin1 that is1 by labor which the heart and the head allow4 ,i no longer wish to meet a good ,i do not earn1 for example to find a pot of buried gold1 knowing that it brings with it new burdens4 ,i do not wish more external goods1--neither possessions1 nor honors1 nor powers1 nor persons4 ,the gain is apparent2 the tax is certain4 ,but there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure4 ,herein ,i rejoice with a serene eternal peace4 ,i contract the boundaries of possible mischief4 ,i learn the wisdom of ,st4 ,bernard1--8,nothing can work me damage except myself2 the harm that ,i sustain ,i carry about with me1 and never am a real sufferer but by my own fault40 ,in the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of condition4 ,the radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of ,more and ,less4 ,how can ,less not feel the pain2 how not feel indignation or malevolence towards ,more8 ,look at those who have less faculty1 and one feels sad and knows not well what to make of it4 ,he almost shuns their eye2 he fears they will upbraid ,god4 ,what should they do8 ,it seems a great injustice4 ,but see the facts nearly and these mountainous inequalities vanish4 ,love reduces them as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea4 ,the heart and soul of all men being one1 this bitterness of ,his and ,mine ceases4 ,his is mine4 ,i am my brother and my brother is me4 ,if ,i feel overshadowed and outdone by great neighbors1 ,i can yet love2 ,i can still receive2 and he that loveth maketh his own the grandeur he loves4 ,thereby ,i make the discovery that my brother is my guardian1 acting for me with the friendliest designs1 and the estate ,i so admired and envied is my own4 ,it is the nature of the soul to appropriate all things4 ,jesus and ,shakspeare are fragments of the soul1 and by love ,i conquer and incorporate them in my own conscious domain4 ,his virtue1--is not that mine8 ,his wit1--if it cannot be made mine1 it is not wit4 ,such also is the natural history of calamity4 ,the changes which break up at short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of a nature whose law is growth4 ,every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system of things1 its friends and home and laws and faith1 as the shell-fish crawls out of its beautiful but stony case1 because it no longer admits of its growth1 and slowly forms a new house4 ,in proportion to the vigor of the individual these revolutions are frequent1 until in some happier mind they are incessant and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him1 becoming as it were a transparent fluid membrane through which the living form is seen1 and not1 as in most men1 an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates and of no settled character1 in which the man is imprisoned4 ,then there can be enlargement1 and the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday4 ,and such should be the outward biography of man in time1 a putting off of dead circumstances day by day1 as he renews his raiment day by day4 ,but to us1 in our lapsed estate1 resting1 not advancing1 resisting1 not cooperating with the divine expansion1 this growth comes by shocks4 ,we cannot part with our friends4 ,we cannot let our angels go4 ,we do not see that they only go out that archangels may come in4 ,we are idolaters of the old4 ,we do not believe in the riches of the soul1 in its proper eternity and omnipresence4 ,we do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or recreate that beautiful yesterday4 ,we linger in the ruins of the old tent where once we had bread and shelter and organs1 nor believe that the spirit can feed1 cover1 and nerve us again4 ,we cannot again find aught so dear1 so sweet1 so graceful4 ,but we sit and weep in vain4 ,the voice of the ,almighty saith1 #8,up and onward for evermore6' ,we cannot stay amid the ruins4 ,neither will we rely on the new2 and so we walk ever with reverted eyes1 like those monsters who look backwards4 ,and yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding also1 after long intervals of time4 ,a fever1 a mutilation1 a cruel disappointment1 a loss of wealth1 a loss of friends1 seems at the moment unpaid loss1 and unpayable4 ,but the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that underlies all facts4 ,the death of a dear friend1 wife1 brother1 lover1 which seemed nothing but privation1 somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or genius2 for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life1 terminates an epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed1 breaks up a wonted occupation1 or a household1 or style of living1 and allows the formation of new ones more friendly to the growth of character4 ,it permits or constrains the formation of new acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove of the first importance to the next years2 and the man or woman who would have remained a sunny garden-flower1 with no room for its roots and too much sunshine for its head1 by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the gardener is made the banian of the forest1 yielding shade and fruit to wide neighborhoods of men4 ,,iv4 ,,spiritual ,,laws ,the living ,heaven thy prayers respect1 ,house at once and architect1 ,quarrying man's rejected hours1 ,builds therewith eternal towers2 ,sole and self-commanded works1 ,fears not undermining days1 ,grows by decays1 ,and1 by the famous might that lurks ,in reaction and recoil1 ,makes flame to freeze1 and ice to boil2 ,forging1 through swart arms of ,offence1 ,the silver seat of ,innocence4 ,,spiritual ,,laws ,when the act of reflection takes place in the mind1 when we look at ourselves in the light of thought1 we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty4 ,behind us1 as we go1 all things assume pleasing forms1 as clouds do far off4 ,not only things familiar and stale1 but even the tragic and terrible are comely as they take their place in the pictures of memory4 ,the river-bank1 the weed at the water-side1 the old house1 the foolish person1 however neglected in the passing1 have a grace in the past4 ,even the corpse that has lain in the chambers has added a solemn ornament to the house4 ,the soul will not know either deformity or pain4 ,if in the hours of clear reason we should speak the severest truth1 we should say that we had never made a sacrifice4 ,in these hours the mind seems so great that nothing can be taken from us that seems much4 ,all loss1 all pain1 is particular2 the universe remains to the heart unhurt4 ,neither vexations nor calamities abate our trust4 ,no man ever stated his griefs as lightly as he might4 ,allow for exaggeration in the most patient and sorely ridden hack that ever was driven4 ,for it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered2 the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose4 ,the intellectual life may be kept clean and healthful if man will live the life of nature and not import into his mind difficulties which are none of his4 ,no man need be perplexed in his speculations4 ,let him do and say what strictly belongs to him1 and though very ignorant of books1 his nature shall not yield him any intellectual obstructions and doubts4 ,our young people are diseased with the theological problems of original sin1 origin of evil1 predestination and the like4 ,these never presented a practical difficulty to any man1--never darkened across any man's road who did not go out of his way to seek them4 ,these are the soul's mumps and measles and whooping-coughs1 and those who have not caught them cannot describe their health or prescribe the cure4 ,a simple mind will not know these enemies4 ,it is quite another thing that he should be able to give account of his faith and expound to another the theory of his self-union and freedom4 ,this requires rare gifts4 ,yet without this self-knowledge there may be a sylvan strength and integrity in that which he is4 8,a few strong instincts and a few plain rules0 suffice us4 ,my will never gave the images in my mind the rank they now take4 ,the regular course of studies1 the years of academical and professional education have not yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the ,latin ,school4 ,what we do not call education is more precious than that which we call so4 ,we form no guess1 at the time of receiving a thought1 of its comparative value4 ,and education often wastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk this natural magnetism1 which is sure to select what belongs to it4 ,in like manner our moral nature is vitiated by any interference of our will4 ,people represent virtue as a struggle1 and take to themselves great airs upon their attainments1 and the question is everywhere vexed when a noble nature is commended1 whether the man is not better who strives with temptation4 ,but there is no merit in the matter4 ,either ,god is there or he is not there4 ,we love characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous4 ,the less a man thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him4 ,timoleon's victories are the best victories1 which ran and flowed like ,homer's verses1 ,plutarch said4 ,when we see a soul whose acts are all regal1 graceful and pleasant as roses1 we must thank ,god that such things can be and are1 and not turn sourly on the angel and say #8,crump is a better man with his grunting resistance to all his native devils4' ,not less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all practical life4 ,there is less intention in history than we ascribe to it4 ,we impute deep-laid far-sighted plans to ,csar and ,napoleon2 but the best of their power was in nature1 not in them4 ,men of an extraordinary success1 in their honest moments1 have always sung1 #8,not unto us1 not unto us4' ,according to the faith of their times they have built altars to ,fortune1 or to ,destiny1 or to ,st4 ,julian4 ,their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought1 which found in them an unobstructed channel2 and the wonders of which they were the visible conductors seemed to the eye their deed4 ,did the wires generate the galvanism8 ,it is even true that there was less in them on which they could reflect than in another2 as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth and hollow4 ,that which externally seemed will and immovableness was willingness and self-annihilation4 ,could ,shakspeare give a theory of ,shakspeare8 ,could ever a man of prodigious mathematical genius convey to others any insight into his methods8 ,if he could communicate that secret it would instantly lose its exaggerated value1 blending with the daylight and the vital energy the power to stand and to go4 ,the lesson is forcibly taught by these observations that our life might be much easier and simpler than we make it2 that the world might be a happier place than it is2 that there is no need of struggles1 convulsions1 and despairs1 of the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth2 that we miscreate our own evils4 ,we interfere with the optimism of nature2 for whenever we get this vantage-ground of the past1 or of a wiser mind in the present1 we are able to discern that we are begirt with laws which execute themselves4 ,the face of external nature teaches the same lesson4 ,nature will not have us fret and fume4 ,she does not like our benevolence or our learning much better than she likes our frauds and wars4 ,when we come out of the caucus1 or the bank1 or the ,abolition-convention1 or the ,temperance-meeting1 or the ,transcendental club into the fields and woods1 she says to us1 #8,so hot8 my little ,sir4' ,we are full of mechanical actions4 ,we must needs intermeddle and have things in our own way1 until the sacrifices and virtues of society are odious4 ,love should make joy2 but our benevolence is unhappy4 ,our ,sunday-schools and churches and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck4 ,we pain ourselves to please nobody4 ,there are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which these aim1 but do not arrive4 ,why should all virtue work in one and the same way8 ,why should all give dollars8 ,it is very inconvenient to us country folk1 and we do not think any good will come of it4 ,we have not dollars2 merchants have2 let them give them4 ,farmers will give corn2 poets will sing2 women will sew2 laborers will lend a hand2 the children will bring flowers4 ,and why drag this dead weight of a ,sunday-school over the whole ,christendom8 ,it is natural and beautiful that childhood should inquire and maturity should teach2 but it is time enough to answer questions when they are asked4 ,do not shut up the young people against their will in a pew and force the children to ask them questions for an hour against their will4 ,if we look wider1 things are all alike2 laws and letters and creeds and modes of living seem a travesty of truth4 ,our society is encumbered by ponderous machinery1 which resembles the endless aqueducts which the ,romans built over hill and dale and which are superseded by the discovery of the law that water rises to the level of its source4 ,it is a ,chinese wall which any nimble ,tartar can leap over4 ,it is a standing army1 not so good as a peace4 ,it is a graduated1 titled1 richly appointed empire1 quite superfluous when town-meetings are found to answer just as well4 ,let us draw a lesson from nature1 which always works by short ways4 ,when the fruit is ripe1 it falls4 ,when the fruit is despatched1 the leaf falls4 ,the circuit of the waters is mere falling4 ,the walking of man and all animals is a falling forward4 ,all our manual labor and works of strength1 as prying1 splitting1 digging1 rowing and so forth1 are done by dint of continual falling1 and the globe1 earth1 moon1 comet1 sun1 star1 fall for ever and ever4 ,the simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a machine4 ,he who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how knowledge is acquired and character formed1 is a pedant4 ,the simplicity of nature is not that which may easily be read1 but is inexhaustible4 ,the last analysis can no wise be made4 ,we judge of a man's wisdom by his hope1 knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal youth4 ,the wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and reputations with our fluid consciousness4 ,we pass in the world for sects and schools1 for erudition and piety1 and we are all the time jejune babes4 ,one sees very well how ,pyrrhonism grew up4 ,every man sees that he is that middle point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason4 ,he is old1 he is young1 he is very wise1 he is altogether ignorant4 ,he hears and feels what you say of the seraphim1 and of the tin-peddler4 ,there is no permanent wise man except in the figment of the ,stoics4 ,we side with the hero1 as we read or paint1 against the coward and the robber2 but we have been ourselves that coward and robber1 and shall be again1--not in the low circumstance1 but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul4 ,a little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us that a higher law than that of our will regulates events2 that our painful labors are unnecessary and fruitless2 that only in our easy1 simple1 spontaneous action are we strong1 and by contenting ourselves with obedience we become divine4 ,belief and love1--a believing love will relieve us of a vast load of care4 ,o my brothers1 ,god exists4 ,there is a soul at the centre of nature and over the will of every man1 so that none of us can wrong the universe4 ,it has so infused its strong enchantment into nature that we prosper when we accept its advice1 and when we struggle to wound its creatures our hands are glued to our sides1 or they beat our own breasts4 ,the whole course of things goes to teach us faith4 ,we need only obey4 ,there is guidance for each of us1 and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word4 ,why need you choose so painfully your place and occupation and associates and modes of action and of entertainment8 ,certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the need of balance and wilful election4 ,for you there is a reality1 a fit place and congenial duties4 ,place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which animates all whom it floats1 and you are without effort impelled to truth1 to right and a perfect contentment4 ,then you put all gainsayers in the wrong4 ,then you are the world1 the measure of right1 of truth1 of beauty4 ,if we will not be mar-plots with our miserable interferences1 the work1 the society1 letters1 arts1 science1 religion of men would go on far better than now1 and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the world1 and still predicted from the bottom of the heart1 would organize itself1 as do now the rose and the air and the sun4 ,i say1 do not choose2 but that is a figure of speech by which ,i would distinguish what is commonly called choice among men1 and which is a partial act1 the choice of the hands1 of the eyes1 of the appetites1 and not a whole act of the man4 ,but that which ,i call right or goodness1 is the choice of my constitution2 and that which ,i call heaven1 and inwardly aspire after1 is the state or circumstance desirable to my constitution2 and the action which ,i in all my years tend to do1 is the work for my faculties4 ,we must hold a man amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession4 ,it is not an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade4 ,what business has he with an evil trade8 ,has he not a calling in his character8 ,each man has his own vocation4 ,the talent is the call4 ,there is one direction in which all space is open to him4 ,he has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion4 ,he is like a ship in a river2 he runs against obstructions on every side but one1 on that side all obstruction is taken away and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea4 ,this talent and this call depend on his organization1 or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him4 ,he inclines to do something which is easy to him and good when it is done1 but which no other man can do4 ,he has no rival4 ,for the more truly he consults his own powers1 the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other4 ,his ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers4 ,the height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base4 ,every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique1 and no man has any other call4 ,the pretence that he has another call1 a summons by name and personal election and outward 8signs that mark him extraordinary1 and not in the roll of common men10 is fanaticism1 and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals1 and no respect of persons therein4 ,by doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply1 and creates the taste by which he is enjoyed4 ,by doing his own work he unfolds himself4 ,it is the vice of our public speaking that it has not abandonment4 ,somewhere1 not only every orator but every man should let out all the length of all the reins2 should find or make a frank and hearty expression of what force and meaning is in him4 ,the common experience is that the man fits himself as well as he can to the customary details of that work or trade he falls into1 and tends it as a dog turns a spit4 ,then is he a part of the machine he moves2 the man is lost4 ,until he can manage to communicate himself to others in his full stature and proportion1 he does not yet find his vocation4 ,he must find in that an outlet for his character1 so that he may justify his work to their eyes4 ,if the labor is mean1 let him by his thinking and character make it liberal4 ,whatever he knows and thinks1 whatever in his apprehension is worth doing1 that let him communicate1 or men will never know and honor him aright4 ,foolish1 whenever you take the meanness and formality of that thing you do1 instead of converting it into the obedient spiracle of your character and aims4 ,we like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men1 and do not perceive that any thing man can do may be divinely done4 ,we think greatness entailed or organized in some places or duties1 in certain offices or occasions1 and do not see that ,paganini can extract rapture from a catgut1 and ,eulenstein from a jews-harp1 and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper with his scissors1 and ,landseer out of swine1 and the hero out of the pitiful habitation and company in which he was hidden4 ,what we call obscure condition or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet written1 but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any4 ,in our estimates let us take a lesson from kings4 ,the parts of hospitality1 the connection of families1 the impressiveness of death1 and a thousand other things1 royalty makes its own estimate of1 and a royal mind will4 ,to make habitually a new estimate1--that is elevation4 ,what a man does1 that he has4 ,what has he to do with hope or fear8 ,in himself is his might4 ,let him regard no good as solid but that which is in his nature and which must grow out of him as long as he exists4 ,the goods of fortune may come and go like summer leaves2 let him scatter them on every wind as the momentary signs of his infinite productiveness4 ,he may have his own4 ,a man's genius1 the quality that differences him from every other1 the susceptibility to one class of influences1 the selection of what is fit for him1 the rejection of what is unfit1 determines for him the character of the universe4 ,a man is a method1 a progressive arrangement2 a selecting principle1 gathering his like to him wherever he goes4 ,he takes only his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles round him4 ,he is like one of those booms which are set out from the shore on rivers to catch drift-wood1 or like the loadstone amongst splinters of steel4 ,those facts1 words1 persons1 which dwell in his memory without his being able to say why1 remain because they have a relation to him not less real for being as yet unapprehended4 ,they are symbols of value to him as they can interpret parts of his consciousness which he would vainly seek words for in the conventional images of books and other minds4 ,what attracts my attention shall have it1 as ,i will go to the man who knocks at my door1 whilst a thousand persons as worthy go by it1 to whom ,i give no regard4 ,it is enough that these particulars speak to me4 ,a few anecdotes1 a few traits of character1 manners1 face1 a few incidents1 have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their apparent significance if you measure them by the ordinary standards4 ,they relate to your gift4 ,let them have their weight1 and do not reject them and cast about for illustration and facts more usual in literature4 ,what your heart thinks great is great4 ,the soul's emphasis is always right4 ,over all things that are agreeable to his nature and genius the man has the highest right4 ,everywhere he may take what belongs to his spiritual estate1 nor can he take any thing else though all doors were open1 nor can all the force of men hinder him from taking so much4 ,it is vain to attempt to keep a secret from one who has a right to know it4 ,it will tell itself4 ,that mood into which a friend can bring us is his dominion over us4 ,to the thoughts of that state of mind he has a right4 ,all the secrets of that state of mind he can compel4 ,this is a law which statesmen use in practice4 ,all the terrors of the ,french ,republic1 which held ,austria in awe1 were unable to command her diplomacy4 ,but ,napoleon sent to ,vienna ,m4 de ,narbonne1 one of the old noblesse1 with the morals1 manners and name of that interest1 saying that it was indispensable to send to the old aristocracy of ,europe men of the same connection1 which1 in fact1 constitutes a sort of free-masonry4 ,m4 de ,narbonne in less than a fortnight penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet4 ,nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood4 ,yet a man may come to find that the strongest of defences and of ties1--that he has been understood2 and he who has received an opinion may come to find it the most inconvenient of bonds4 ,if a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal1 his pupils will become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes4 ,if you pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and angles1 it is vain to say1 ,i will pour it only into this or that2--it will find its level in all4 ,men feel and act the consequences of your doctrine without being able to show how they follow4 ,show us an arc of the curve1 and a good mathematician will find out the whole figure4 ,we are always reasoning from the seen to the unseen4 ,hence the perfect intelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages4 ,a man cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book but time and like-minded men will find them4 ,plato had a secret doctrine1 had he8 ,what secret can he conceal from the eyes of ,bacon8 of ,montaigne8 of ,kant8 ,therefore1 ,aristotle said of his works1 8,they are published and not published40 ,no man can learn what he has not preparation for learning1 however near to his eyes is the object4 ,a chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter1 and he shall be never the wiser1--the secrets he would not utter to a chemist for an estate4 ,god screens us evermore from premature ideas4 ,our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face1 until the hour arrives when the mind is ripened2 then we behold them1 and the time when we saw them not is like a dream4 ,not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees4 ,the world is very empty1 and is indebted to this gilding1 exalting soul for all its pride4 8,earth fills her lap with splendors0 not her own4 ,the vale of ,tempe1 ,tivoli and ,rome are earth and water1 rocks and sky4 ,there are as good earth and water in a thousand places1 yet how unaffecting6 ,people are not the better for the sun and moon1 the horizon and the trees2 as it is not observed that the keepers of ,roman galleries or the valets of painters have any elevation of thought1 or that librarians are wiser men than others4 ,there are graces in the demeanor of a polished and noble person which are lost upon the eye of a churl4 ,these are like the stars whose light has not yet reached us4 ,he may see what he maketh4 ,our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge4 ,the visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions of the day4 ,hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day4 ,we see our evil affections embodied in bad physiognomies4 ,on the ,alps the traveller sometimes beholds his own shadow magnified to a giant1 so that every gesture of his hand is terrific4 8,my children10 said an old man to his boys scared by a figure in the dark entry1 8my children1 you will never see any thing worse than yourselves40 ,as in dreams1 so in the scarcely less fluid events of the world every man sees himself in colossal1 without knowing that it is himself4 ,the good1 compared to the evil which he sees1 is as his own good to his own evil4 ,every quality of his mind is magnified in some one acquaintance1 and every emotion of his heart in some one4 ,he is like a quincunx of trees1 which counts five1--east1 west1 north1 or south2 or an initial1 medial1 and terminal acrostic4 ,and why not8 ,he cleaves to one person and avoids another1 according to their likeness or unlikeness to himself1 truly seeking himself in his associates and moreover in his trade and habits and gestures and meats and drinks1 and comes at last to be faithfully represented by every view you take of his circumstances4 ,he may read what he writes4 ,what can we see or acquire but what we are8 ,you have observed a skilful man reading ,virgil4 ,well1 that author is a thousand books to a thousand persons4 ,take the book into your two hands and read your eyes out1 you will never find what ,i find4 ,if any ingenious reader would have a monopoly of the wisdom or delight he gets1 he is as secure now the book is ,englished1 as if it were imprisoned in the ,pelews' tongue4 ,it is with a good book as it is with good company4 ,introduce a base person among gentlemen1 it is all to no purpose2 he is not their fellow4 ,every society protects itself4 ,the company is perfectly safe1 and he is not one of them1 though his body is in the room4 ,what avails it to fight with the eternal laws of mind1 which adjust the relation of all persons to each other by the mathematical measure of their havings and beings8 ,gertrude is enamored of ,guy2 how high1 how aristocratic1 how ,roman his mien and manners6 to live with him were life indeed1 and no purchase is too great2 and heaven and earth are moved to that end4 ,well1 ,gertrude has ,guy2 but what now avails how high1 how aristocratic1 how ,roman his mien and manners1 if his heart and aims are in the senate1 in the theatre and in the billiard-room1 and she has no aims1 no conversation that can enchant her graceful lord8 ,he shall have his own society4 ,we can love nothing but nature4 ,the most wonderful talents1 the most meritorious exertions really avail very little with us2 but nearness or likeness of nature1--how beautiful is the ease of its victory6 ,persons approach us1 famous for their beauty1 for their accomplishments1 worthy of all wonder for their charms and gifts2 they dedicate their whole skill to the hour and the company1--with very imperfect result4 ,to be sure it would be ungrateful in us not to praise them loudly4 ,then1 when all is done1 a person of related mind1 a brother or sister by nature1 comes to us so softly and easily1 so nearly and intimately1 as if it were the blood in our proper veins1 that we feel as if some one was gone1 instead of another having come2 we are utterly relieved and refreshed2 it is a sort of joyful solitude4 ,we foolishly think in our days of sin that we must court friends by compliance to the customs of society1 to its dress1 its breeding1 and its estimates4 ,but only that soul can be my friend which ,i encounter on the line of my own march1 that soul to which ,i do not decline and which does not decline to me1 but1 native of the same celestial latitude1 repeats in its own all my experience4 ,the scholar forgets himself and apes the customs and costumes of the man of the world to deserve the smile of beauty1 and follows some giddy girl1 not yet taught by religious passion to know the noble woman with all that is serene1 oracular and beautiful in her soul4 ,let him be great1 and love shall follow him4 ,nothing is more deeply punished than the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed1 and the insane levity of choosing associates by others' eyes4 ,he may set his own rate4 ,it is a maxim worthy of all acceptation that a man may have that allowance he takes4 ,take the place and attitude which belong to you1 and all men acquiesce4 ,the world must be just4 ,it leaves every man1 with profound unconcern1 to set his own rate4 ,hero or driveller1 it meddles not in the matter4 ,it will certainly accept your own measure of your doing and being1 whether you sneak about and deny your own name1 or whether you see your work produced to the concave sphere of the heavens1 one with the revolution of the stars4 ,the same reality pervades all teaching4 ,the man may teach by doing1 and not otherwise4 ,if he can communicate himself he can teach1 but not by words4 ,he teaches who gives1 and he learns who receives4 ,there is no teaching until the pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are2 a transfusion takes place2 he is you and you are he2 then is a teaching1 and by no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit4 ,but your propositions run out of one ear as they ran in at the other4 ,we see it advertised that ,mr4 ,grand will deliver an oration on the ,fourth of ,july1 and ,mr4 ,hand before the ,mechanics' ,association1 and we do not go thither1 because we know that these gentlemen will not communicate their own character and experience to the company4 ,if we had reason to expect such a confidence we should go through all inconvenience and opposition4 ,the sick would be carried in litters4 ,but a public oration is an escapade1 a non-committal1 an apology1 a gag1 and not a communication1 not a speech1 not a man4 ,a like ,nemesis presides over all intellectual works4 ,we have yet to learn that the thing uttered in words is not therefore affirmed4 ,it must affirm itself1 or no forms of logic or of oath can give it evidence4 ,the sentence must also contain its own apology for being spoken4 ,the effect of any writing on the public mind is mathematically measurable by its depth of thought4 ,how much water does it draw8 ,if it awaken you to think1 if it lift you from your feet with the great voice of eloquence1 then the effect is to be wide1 slow1 permanent1 over the minds of men2 if the pages instruct you not1 they will die like flies in the hour4 ,the way to speak and write what shall not go out of fashion is to speak and write sincerely4 ,the argument which has not power to reach my own practice1 ,i may well doubt will fail to reach yours4 ,but take ,sidney's maxim3--8,look in thy heart1 and write40 ,he that writes to himself writes to an eternal public4 ,that statement only is fit to be made public which you have come at in attempting to satisfy your own curiosity4 ,the writer who takes his subject from his ear and not from his heart1 should know that he has lost as much as he seems to have gained1 and when the empty book has gathered all its praise1 and half the people say1 #8,what poetry6 what genius6' it still needs fuel to make fire4 ,that only profits which is profitable4 ,life alone can impart life2 and though we should burst we can only be valued as we make ourselves valuable4 ,there is no luck in literary reputation4 ,they who make up the final verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when it appears1 but a court as of angels1 a public not to be bribed1 not to be entreated and not to be overawed1 decides upon every man's title to fame4 ,only those books come down which deserve to last4 ,gilt edges1 vellum and morocco1 and presentation-copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book in circulation beyond its intrinsic date4 ,it must go with all ,walpole's ,noble and ,royal ,authors to its fate4 ,blackmore1 ,kotzebue1 or ,pollok may endure for a night1 but ,moses and ,homer stand for ever4 ,there are not in the world at any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand ,plato1--never enough to pay for an edition of his works2 yet to every generation these come duly down1 for the sake of those few persons1 as if ,god brought them in his hand4 8,no book10 said ,bentley1 8was ever written down by any but itself40 ,the permanence of all books is fixed by no effort1 friendly or hostile1 but by their own specific gravity1 or the intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man4 8,do not trouble yourself too much about the light on your statue10 said ,michael ,angelo to the young sculptor2 8the light of the public square will test its value40 ,in like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds4 ,the great man knew not that he was great4 ,it took a century or two for that fact to appear4 ,what he did1 he did because he must2 it was the most natural thing in the world1 and grew out of the circumstances of the moment4 ,but now1 every thing he did1 even to the lifting of his finger or the eating of bread1 looks large1 all-related1 and is called an institution4 ,these are the demonstrations in a few particulars of the genius of nature2 they show the direction of the stream4 ,but the stream is blood2 every drop is alive4 ,truth has not single victories2 all things are its organs1--not only dust and stones1 but errors and lies4 ,the laws of disease1 physicians say1 are as beautiful as the laws of health4 ,our philosophy is affirmative and readily accepts the testimony of negative facts1 as every shadow points to the sun4 ,by a divine necessity every fact in nature is constrained to offer its testimony4 ,human character evermore publishes itself4 ,the most fugitive deed and word1 the mere air of doing a thing1 the intimated purpose1 expresses character4 ,if you act you show character2 if you sit still1 if you sleep1 you show it4 ,you think because you have spoken nothing when others spoke1 and have given no opinion on the times1 on the church1 on slavery1 on marriage1 on socialism1 on secret societies1 on the college1 on parties and persons1 that your verdict is still expected with curiosity as a reserved wisdom4 ,far otherwise2 your silence answers very loud4 ,you have no oracle to utter1 and your fellow-men have learned that you cannot help them2 for oracles speak4 ,doth not ,wisdom cry and ,understanding put forth her voice8 ,dreadful limits are set in nature to the powers of dissimulation4 ,truth tyrannizes over the unwilling members of the body4 ,faces never lie1 it is said4 ,no man need be deceived who will study the changes of expression4 ,when a man speaks the truth in the spirit of truth1 his eye is as clear as the heavens4 ,when he has base ends and speaks falsely1 the eye is muddy and sometimes asquint4 ,i have heard an experienced counsellor say that he never feared the effect upon a jury of a lawyer who does not believe in his heart that his client ought to have a verdict4 ,if he does not believe it his unbelief will appear to the jury1 despite all his protestations1 and will become their unbelief4 ,this is that law whereby a work of art1 of whatever kind1 sets us in the same state of mind wherein the artist was when he made it4 ,that which we do not believe we cannot adequately say1 though we may repeat the words never so often4 ,it was this conviction which ,swedenborg expressed when he described a group of persons in the spiritual world endeavoring in vain to articulate a proposition which they did not believe2 but they could not1 though they twisted and folded their lips even to indignation4 ,a man passes for that he is worth4 ,very idle is all curiosity concerning other people's estimate of us1 and all fear of remaining unknown is not less so4 ,if a man know that he can do any thing1--that he can do it better than any one else1--he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all persons4 ,the world is full of judgment-days1 and into every assembly that a man enters1 in every action he attempts1 he is gauged and stamped4 ,in every troop of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square1 a new-comer is as well and accurately weighed in the course of a few days and stamped with his right number1 as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength1 speed and temper4 ,a stranger comes from a distant school1 with better dress1 with trinkets in his pockets1 with airs and pretensions2 an older boy says to himself1 #8,it's of no use2 we shall find him out to-morrow4' #8,what has he done8' is the divine question which searches men and transpierces every false reputation4 ,a fop may sit in any chair of the world nor be distinguished for his hour from ,homer and ,washington2 but there need never be any doubt concerning the respective ability of human beings4 ,pretension may sit still1 but cannot act4 ,pretension never feigned an act of real greatness4 ,pretension never wrote an ,iliad1 nor drove back ,xerxes1 nor christianized the world1 nor abolished slavery4 ,as much virtue as there is1 so much appears2 as much goodness as there is1 so much reverence it commands4 ,all the devils respect virtue4 ,the high1 the generous1 the self-devoted sect will always instruct and command mankind4 ,never was a sincere word utterly lost4 ,never a magnanimity fell to the ground1 but there is some heart to greet and accept it unexpectedly4 ,a man passes for that he is worth4 ,what he is engraves itself on his face1 on his form1 on his fortunes1 in letters of light4 ,concealment avails him nothing1 boasting nothing4 ,there is confession in the glances of our eyes1 in our smiles1 in salutations1 and the grasp of hands4 ,his sin bedaubs him1 mars all his good impression4 ,men know not why they do not trust him1 but they do not trust him4 ,his vice glasses his eye1 cuts lines of mean expression in his cheek1 pinches the nose1 sets the mark of the beast on the back of the head1 and writes ,o fool6 fool6 on the forehead of a king4 ,if you would not be known to do any thing1 never do it4 ,a man may play the fool in the drifts of a desert1 but every grain of sand shall seem to see4 ,he may be a solitary eater1 but he cannot keep his foolish counsel4 ,a broken complexion1 a swinish look1 ungenerous acts and the want of due knowledge1--all blab4 ,can a cook1 a ,chiffinch1 an ,iachimo be mistaken for ,zeno or ,paul8 ,confucius exclaimed1--8,how can a man be concealed8 ,how can a man be concealed80 ,on the other hand1 the hero fears not that if he withhold the avowal of a just and brave act it will go unwitnessed and unloved4 ,one knows it1--himself1--and is pledged by it to sweetness of peace and to nobleness of aim which will prove in the end a better proclamation of it than the relating of the incident4 ,virtue is the adherence in action to the nature of things1 and the nature of things makes it prevalent4 ,it consists in a perpetual substitution of being for seeming1 and with sublime propriety ,god is described as saying1 ,i ,,am4 ,the lesson which these observations convey is1 ,be1 and not seem4 ,let us acquiesce4 ,let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the divine circuits4 ,let us unlearn our wisdom of the world4 ,let us lie low in the ,lord's power and learn that truth alone makes rich and great4 ,if you visit your friend1 why need you apologize for not having visited him1 and waste his time and deface your own act8 ,visit him now4 ,let him feel that the highest love has come to see him1 in thee its lowest organ4 ,or why need you torment yourself and friend by secret self-reproaches that you have not assisted him or complimented him with gifts and salutations heretofore8 ,be a gift and a benediction4 ,shine with real light and not with the borrowed reflection of gifts4 ,common men are apologies for men2 they bow the head1 excuse themselves with prolix reasons1 and accumulate appearances because the substance is not4 ,we are full of these superstitions of sense1 the worship of magnitude4 ,we call the poet inactive1 because he is not a president1 a merchant1 or a porter4 ,we adore an institution1 and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we have4 ,but real action is in silent moments4 ,the epochs of our life are not in the visible facts of our choice of a calling1 our marriage1 our acquisition of an office1 and the like1 but in a silent thought by the way-side as we walk2 in a thought which revises our entire manner of life and says1--#8,thus hast thou done1 but it were better thus4' ,and all our after years1 like menials1 serve and wait on this1 and according to their ability execute its will4 ,this revisal or correction is a constant force1 which1 as a tendency1 reaches through our lifetime4 ,the object of the man1 the aim of these moments1 is to make daylight shine through him1 to suffer the law to traverse his whole being without obstruction1 so that on what point soever of his doing your eye falls it shall report truly of his character1 whether it be his diet1 his house1 his religious forms1 his society1 his mirth1 his vote1 his opposition4 ,now he is not homogeneous1 but heterogeneous1 and the ray does not traverse2 there are no thorough lights1 but the eye of the beholder is puzzled1 detecting many unlike tendencies and a life not yet at one4 ,why should we make it a point with our false modesty to disparage that man we are and that form of being assigned to us8 ,a good man is contented4 ,i love and honor ,epaminondas1 but ,i do not wish to be ,epaminondas4 ,i hold it more just to love the world of this hour than the world of his hour4 ,nor can you1 if ,i am true1 excite me to the least uneasiness by saying1 #8,he acted and thou sittest still4' ,i see action to be good1 when the need is1 and sitting still to be also good4 ,epaminondas1 if he was the man ,i take him for1 would have sat still with joy and peace1 if his lot had been mine4 ,heaven is large1 and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude4 ,why should we be busybodies and superserviceable8 ,action and inaction are alike to the true4 ,one piece of the tree is cut for a weathercock and one for the sleeper of a bridge2 the virtue of the wood is apparent in both4 ,i desire not to disgrace the soul4 ,the fact that ,i am here certainly shows me that the soul had need of an organ here4 ,shall ,i not assume the post8 ,shall ,i skulk and dodge and duck with my unseasonable apologies and vain modesty and imagine my being here impertinent8 less pertinent than ,epaminondas or ,homer being there8 and that the soul did not know its own needs8 ,besides1 without any reasoning on the matter1 ,i have no discontent4 ,the good soul nourishes me and unlocks new magazines of power and enjoyment to me every day4 ,i will not meanly decline the immensity of good1 because ,i have heard that it has come to others in another shape4 ,besides1 why should we be cowed by the name of ,action8 ',tis a trick of the senses1--no more4 ,we know that the ancestor of every action is a thought4 ,the poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing unless it have an outside badge1--some ,gentoo diet1 or ,quaker coat1 or ,calvinistic prayer-meeting1 or philanthropic society1 or a great donation1 or a high office1 or1 any how1 some wild contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat4 ,the rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps1 and is ,nature4 ,to think is to act4 ,let us1 if we must have great actions1 make our own so4 ,all action is of an infinite elasticity1 and the least admits of being inflated with the celestial air until it eclipses the sun and moon4 ,let us seek one peace by fidelity4 ,let me heed my duties4 ,why need ,i go gadding into the scenes and philosophy of ,greek and ,italian history before ,i have justified myself to my benefactors8 ,how dare ,i read ,washington's campaigns when ,i have not answered the letters of my own correspondents8 ,is not that a just objection to much of our reading8 ,it is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbors4 ,it is peeping4 ,byron says of ,jack ,bunting1-- 8,he knew not what to say1 and so he swore40 ,i may say it of our preposterous use of books1--,he knew not what to do1 and so he read4 ,i can think of nothing to fill my time with1 and ,i find the ,life of ,brant4 ,it is a very extravagant compliment to pay to ,brant1 or to ,general ,schuyler1 or to ,general ,washington4 ,my time should be as good as their time1--my facts1 my net of relations1 as good as theirs1 or either of theirs4 ,rather let me do my work so well that other idlers if they choose may compare my texture with the texture of these and find it identical with the best4 ,this over-estimate of the possibilities of ,paul and ,pericles1 this under-estimate of our own1 comes from a neglect of the fact of an identical nature4 ,bonaparte knew but one merit1 and rewarded in one and the same way the good soldier1 the good astronomer1 the good poet1 the good player4 ,the poet uses the names of ,csar1 of ,tamerlane1 of ,bonduca1 of ,belisarius2 the painter uses the conventional story of the ,virgin ,mary1 of ,paul1 of ,peter4 ,he does not therefore defer to the nature of these accidental men1 of these stock heroes4 ,if the poet write a true drama1 then he is ,csar1 and not the player of ,csar2 then the selfsame strain of thought1 emotion as pure1 wit as subtle1 motions as swift1 mounting1 extravagant1 and a heart as great1 self-sufficing1 dauntless1 which on the waves of its love and hope can uplift all that is reckoned solid and precious in the world1--palaces1 gardens1 money1 navies1 kingdoms1--marking its own incomparable worth by the slight it casts on these gauds of men2--these all are his1 and by the power of these he rouses the nations4 ,let a man believe in ,god1 and not in names and places and persons4 ,let the great soul incarnated in some woman's form1 poor and sad and single1 in some ,dolly or ,joan1 go out to service1 and sweep chambers and scour floors1 and its effulgent daybeams cannot be muffled or hid1 but to sweep and scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions1 the top and radiance of human life1 and all people will get mops and brooms2 until1 lo6 suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and done some other deed1 and that is now the flower and head of all living nature4 ,we are the photometers1 we the irritable goldleaf and tinfoil that measure the accumulations of the subtle element4 ,we know the authentic effects of the true fire through every one of its million disguises4 ,v4 ,,love 8,i was as a gem concealed2 ,me my burning ray revealed40 ,koran4 ,,love ,every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments2 each of its joys ripens into a new want4 ,nature1 uncontainable1 flowing1 forelooking1 in the first sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all particular regards in its general light4 ,the introduction to this felicity is in a private and tender relation of one to one1 which is the enchantment of human life2 which1 like a certain divine rage and enthusiasm1 seizes on man at one period and works a revolution in his mind and body2 unites him to his race1 pledges him to the domestic and civic relations1 carries him with new sympathy into nature1 enhances the power of the senses1 opens the imagination1 adds to his character heroic and sacred attributes1 establishes marriage1 and gives permanence to human society4 ,the natural association of the sentiment of love with the heyday of the blood seems to require that in order to portray it in vivid tints1 which every youth and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing experience1 one must not be too old4 ,the delicious fancies of youth reject the least savor of a mature philosophy1 as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom4 ,and therefore ,i know ,i incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those who compose the ,court and ,parliament of ,love4 ,but from these formidable censors ,i shall appeal to my seniors4 ,for it is to be considered that this passion of which we speak1 though it begin with the young1 yet forsakes not the old1 or rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old1 but makes the aged participators of it not less than the tender maiden1 though in a different and nobler sort4 ,for it is a fire that kindling its first embers in the narrow nook of a private bosom1 caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart1 glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women1 upon the universal heart of all1 and so lights up the whole world and all nature with its generous flames4 ,it matters not therefore whether we attempt to describe the passion at twenty1 at thirty1 or at eighty years4 ,he who paints it at the first period will lose some of its later1 he who paints it at the last1 some of its earlier traits4 ,only it is to be hoped that by patience and the ,muses' aid we may attain to that inward view of the law which shall describe a truth ever young and beautiful1 so central that it shall commend itself to the eye1 at whatever angle beholden4 ,and the first condition is1 that we must leave a too close and lingering adherence to facts1 and study the sentiment as it appeared in hope and not in history4 ,for each man sees his own life defaced and disfigured1 as the life of man is not1 to his imagination4 ,each man sees over his own experience a certain stain of error1 whilst that of other men looks fair and ideal4 ,let any man go back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life1 which have given him sincerest instruction and nourishment1 he will shrink and moan4 ,alas6 ,i know not why1 but infinite compunctions embitter in mature life the remembrances of budding joy and cover every beloved name4 ,every thing is beautiful seen from the point of the intellect1 or as truth4 ,but all is sour1 if seen as experience4 ,details are melancholy2 the plan is seemly and noble4 ,in the actual world--the painful kingdom of time and place--dwell care1 and canker1 and fear4 ,with thought1 with the ideal1 is immortal hilarity1 the rose of joy4 ,round it all the ,muses sing4 ,but grief cleaves to names1 and persons1 and the partial interests of to-day and yesterday4 ,the strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of personal relations usurps in the conversation of society4 ,what do we wish to know of any worthy person so much1 as how he has sped in the history of this sentiment8 ,what books in the circulating libraries circulate8 ,how we glow over these novels of passion1 when the story is told with any spark of truth and nature6 ,and what fastens attention1 in the intercourse of life1 like any passage betraying affection between two parties8 ,perhaps we never saw them before1 and never shall meet them again4 ,but we see them exchange a glance1 or betray a deep emotion1 and we are no longer strangers4 ,we understand them1 and take the warmest interest in the development of the romance4 ,all mankind love a lover4 ,the earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are nature's most winning pictures4 ,it is the dawn of civility and grace in the coarse and rustic4 ,the rude village boy teases the girls about the school-house door2--but to-day he comes running into the entry1 and meets one fair child disposing her satchel2 he holds her books to help her1 and instantly it seems to him as if she removed herself from him infinitely1 and was a sacred precinct4 ,among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough1 but one alone distances him2 and these two little neighbors1 that were so close just now1 have learned to respect each other's personality4 ,or who can avert his eyes from the engaging1 half-artful1 half-artless ways of school-girls who go into the country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of paper1 and talk half an hour about nothing with the broad-faced1 good-natured shop-boy4 ,in the village they are on a perfect equality1 which love delights in1 and without any coquetry the happy1 affectionate nature of woman flows out in this pretty gossip4 ,the girls may have little beauty1 yet plainly do they establish between them and the good boy the most agreeable1 confiding relations1 what with their fun and their earnest1 about ,edgar and ,jonas and ,almira1 and who was invited to the party1 and who danced at the dancing-school1 and when the singing-school would begin1 and other nothings concerning which the parties cooed4 ,by and by that boy wants a wife1 and very truly and heartily will he know where to find a sincere and sweet mate1 without any risk such as ,milton deplores as incident to scholars and great men4 ,i have been told that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations4 ,but now ,i almost shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words4 ,for persons are love's world1 and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love1 without being tempted to unsay1 as treasonable to nature1 aught derogatory to the social instincts4 ,for though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those of tender age1 and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or comparison and putting us quite beside ourselves we can seldom see after thirty years1 yet the remembrance of these visions outlasts all other remembrances1 and is a wreath of flowers on the oldest brows4 ,but here is a strange fact2 it may seem to many men1 in revising their experience1 that they have no fairer page in their life's book than the delicious memory of some passages wherein affection contrived to give a witchcraft1 surpassing the deep attraction of its own truth1 to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances4 ,in looking backward they may find that several things which were not the charm have more reality to this groping memory than the charm itself which embalmed them4 ,but be our experience in particulars what it may1 no man ever forgot the visitations of that power to his heart and brain1 which created all things anew2 which was the dawn in him of music1 poetry1 and art2 which made the face of nature radiant with purple light1 the morning and the night varied enchantments2 when a single tone of one voice could make the heart bound1 and the most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber of memory2 when he became all eye when one was present1 and all memory when one was gone2 when the youth becomes a watcher of windows and studious of a glove1 a veil1 a ribbon1 or the wheels of a carriage2 when no place is too solitary and none too silent1 for him who has richer company and sweeter conversation in his new thoughts than any old friends1 though best and purest1 can give him2 for the figures1 the motions1 the words of the beloved object are not like other images written in water1 but1 as ,plutarch said1 8enamelled in fire10 and make the study of midnight3-- 8,thou art not gone being gone1 where'er thou art1 ,thou leav'st in him thy watchful eyes1 in him thy loving heart40 ,in the noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of days when happiness was not happy enough1 but must be drugged with the relish of pain and fear2 for he touched the secret of the matter who said of love1-- 8,all other pleasures are not worth its pains30 and when the day was not long enough1 but the night too must be consumed in keen recollections2 when the head boiled all night on the pillow with the generous deed it resolved on2 when the moonlight was a pleasing fever and the stars were letters and the flowers ciphers and the air was coined into song2 when all business seemed an impertinence1 and all the men and women running to and fro in the streets1 mere pictures4 ,the passion rebuilds the world for the youth4 ,it makes all things alive and significant4 ,nature grows conscious4 ,every bird on the boughs of the tree sings now to his heart and soul4 ,the notes are almost articulate4 ,the clouds have faces as he looks on them4 ,the trees of the forest1 the waving grass and the peeping flowers have grown intelligent2 and he almost fears to trust them with the secret which they seem to invite4 ,yet nature soothes and sympathizes4 ,in the green solitude he finds a dearer home than with men3-- 8,fountain-heads and pathless groves1 ,places which pale passion loves1 ,moonlight walks1 when all the fowls ,are safely housed1 save bats and owls1 ,a midnight bell1 a passing groan1-- ,these are the sounds we feed upon40 ,behold there in the wood the fine madman6 ,he is a palace of sweet sounds and sights2 he dilates2 he is twice a man2 he walks with arms akimbo2 he soliloquizes2 he accosts the grass and the trees2 he feels the blood of the violet1 the clover and the lily in his veins2 and he talks with the brook that wets his foot4 ,the heats that have opened his perceptions of natural beauty have made him love music and verse4 ,it is a fact often observed1 that men have written good verses under the inspiration of passion1 who cannot write well under any other circumstances4 ,the like force has the passion over all his nature4 ,it expands the sentiment2 it makes the clown gentle and gives the coward heart4 ,into the most pitiful and abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world1 so only it have the countenance of the beloved object4 ,in giving him to another it still more gives him to himself4 ,he is a new man1 with new perceptions1 new and keener purposes1 and a religious solemnity of character and aims4 ,he does not longer appertain to his family and society2 he is somewhat2 he is a person2 he is a soul4 ,and here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that influence which is thus potent over the human youth4 ,beauty1 whose revelation to man we now celebrate1 welcome as the sun wherever it pleases to shine1 which pleases everybody with it and with themselves1 seems sufficient to itself4 ,the lover cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and solitary4 ,like a tree in flower1 so much soft1 budding1 informing loveliness is society for itself2 and she teaches his eye why ,beauty was pictured with ,loves and ,graces attending her steps4 ,her existence makes the world rich4 ,though she extrudes all other persons from his attention as cheap and unworthy1 she indemnifies him by carrying out her own being into somewhat impersonal1 large1 mundane1 so that the maiden stands to him for a representative of all select things and virtues4 ,for that reason the lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to her kindred or to others4 ,his friends find in her a likeness to her mother1 or her sisters1 or to persons not of her blood4 ,the lover sees no resemblance except to summer evenings and diamond mornings1 to rainbows and the song of birds4 ,the ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue4 ,who can analyze the nameless charm which glances from one and another face and form8 ,we are touched with emotions of tenderness and complacency1 but we cannot find whereat this dainty emotion1 this wandering gleam1 points4 ,it is destroyed for the imagination by any attempt to refer it to organization4 ,nor does it point to any relations of friendship or love known and described in society1 but1 as it seems to me1 to a quite other and unattainable sphere1 to relations of transcendent delicacy and sweetness1 to what roses and violets hint and foreshow4 ,we cannot approach beauty4 ,its nature is like opaline doves'-neck lustres1 hovering and evanescent4 ,herein it resembles the most excellent things1 which all have this rainbow character1 defying all attempts at appropriation and use4 ,what else did ,jean ,paul ,richter signify1 when he said to music1 8,away6 away6 thou speakest to me of things which in all my endless life ,i have not found1 and shall not find40 ,the same fluency may be observed in every work of the plastic arts4 ,the statue is then beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible1 when it is passing out of criticism and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand1 but demands an active imagination to go with it and to say what it is in the act of doing4 ,the god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition from that which is representable to the senses1 to that which is not4 ,then first it ceases to be a stone4 ,the same remark holds of painting4 ,and of poetry the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies1 but when it astonishes and fires us with new endeavors after the unattainable4 ,concerning it ,landor inquires 8whether it is not to be referred to some purer state of sensation and existence40 ,in like manner1 personal beauty is then first charming and itself when it dissatisfies us with any end2 when it becomes a story without an end2 when it suggests gleams and visions and not earthly satisfactions2 when it makes the beholder feel his unworthiness2 when he cannot feel his right to it1 though he were ,csar2 he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the splendors of a sunset4 ,hence arose the saying1 8,if ,i love you1 what is that to you80 ,we say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will1 but above it4 ,it is not you1 but your radiance4 ,it is that which you know not in yourself and can never know4 ,this agrees well with that high philosophy of ,beauty which the ancient writers delighted in2 for they said that the soul of man1 embodied here on earth1 went roaming up and down in quest of that other world of its own out of which it came into this1 but was soon stupefied by the light of the natural sun1 and unable to see any other objects than those of this world1 which are but shadows of real things4 ,therefore the ,deity sends the glory of youth before the soul1 that it may avail itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of the celestial good and fair2 and the man beholding such a person in the female sex runs to her and finds the highest joy in contemplating the form1 movement1 and intelligence of this person1 because it suggests to him the presence of that which indeed is within the beauty1 and the cause of the beauty4 ,if however1 from too much conversing with material objects1 the soul was gross1 and misplaced its satisfaction in the body1 it reaped nothing but sorrow2 body being unable to fulfil the promise which beauty holds out2 but if1 accepting the hint of these visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind1 the soul passes through the body and falls to admire strokes of character1 and the lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their actions1 then they pass to the true palace of beauty1 more and more inflame their love of it1 and by this love extinguishing the base affection1 as the sun puts out the fire by shining on the hearth1 they become pure and hallowed4 ,by conversation with that which is in itself excellent1 magnanimous1 lowly1 and just1 the lover comes to a warmer love of these nobilities1 and a quicker apprehension of them4 ,then he passes from loving them in one to loving them in all1 and so is the one beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the society of all true and pure souls4 ,in the particular society of his mate he attains a clearer sight of any spot1 any taint which her beauty has contracted from this world1 and is able to point it out1 and this with mutual joy that they are now able1 without offence1 to indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other1 and give to each all help and comfort in curing the same4 ,and beholding in many souls the traits of the divine beauty1 and separating in each soul that which is divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world1 the lover ascends to the highest beauty1 to the love and knowledge of the ,divinity1 by steps on this ladder of created souls4 ,somewhat like this have the truly wise told us of love in all ages4 ,the doctrine is not old1 nor is it new4 ,if ,plato1 ,plutarch and ,apuleius taught it1 so have ,petrarch1 ,angelo and ,milton4 ,it awaits a truer unfolding in opposition and rebuke to that subterranean prudence which presides at marriages with words that take hold of the upper world1 whilst one eye is prowling in the cellar2 so that its gravest discourse has a savor of hams and powdering-tubs4 ,worst1 when this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women1 and withers the hope and affection of human nature by teaching that marriage signifies nothing but a housewife's thrift1 and that woman's life has no other aim4 ,but this dream of love1 though beautiful1 is only one scene in our play4 ,in the procession of the soul from within outward1 it enlarges its circles ever1 like the pebble thrown into the pond1 or the light proceeding from an orb4 ,the rays of the soul alight first on things nearest1 on every utensil and toy1 on nurses and domestics1 on the house and yard and passengers1 on the circle of household acquaintance1 on politics and geography and history4 ,but things are ever grouping themselves according to higher or more interior laws4 ,neighborhood1 size1 numbers1 habits1 persons1 lose by degrees their power over us4 ,cause and effect1 real affinities1 the longing for harmony between the soul and the circumstance1 the progressive1 idealizing instinct1 predominate later1 and the step backward from the higher to the lower relations is impossible4 ,thus even love1 which is the deification of persons1 must become more impersonal every day4 ,of this at first it gives no hint4 ,little think the youth and maiden who are glancing at each other across crowded rooms with eyes so full of mutual intelligence1 of the precious fruit long hereafter to proceed from this new1 quite external stimulus4 ,the work of vegetation begins first in the irritability of the bark and leaf-buds4 ,from exchanging glances1 they advance to acts of courtesy1 of gallantry1 then to fiery passion1 to plighting troth and marriage4 ,passion beholds its object as a perfect unit4 ,the soul is wholly embodied1 and the body is wholly ensouled3-- 8,her pure and eloquent blood ,spoke in her cheeks1 and so distinctly wrought1 ,that one might almost say her body thought40 ,romeo1 if dead1 should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine4 ,life1 with this pair1 has no other aim1 asks no more1 than ,juliet1--than ,romeo4 ,night1 day1 studies1 talents1 kingdoms1 religion1 are all contained in this form full of soul1 in this soul which is all form4 ,the lovers delight in endearments1 in avowals of love1 in comparisons of their regards4 ,when alone1 they solace themselves with the remembered image of the other4 ,does that other see the same star1 the same melting cloud1 read the same book1 feel the same emotion1 that now delight me8 ,they try and weigh their affection1 and adding up costly advantages1 friends1 opportunities1 properties1 exult in discovering that willingly1 joyfully1 they would give all as a ransom for the beautiful1 the beloved head1 not one hair of which shall be harmed4 ,but the lot of humanity is on these children4 ,danger1 sorrow1 and pain arrive to them1 as to all4 ,love prays4 ,it makes covenants with ,eternal ,power in behalf of this dear mate4 ,the union which is thus effected and which adds a new value to every atom in nature--for it transmutes every thread throughout the whole web of relation into a golden ray1 and bathes the soul in a new and sweeter element--is yet a temporary state4 ,not always can flowers1 pearls1 poetry1 protestations1 nor even home in another heart1 content the awful soul that dwells in clay4 ,it arouses itself at last from these endearments1 as toys1 and puts on the harness and aspires to vast and universal aims4 ,the soul which is in the soul of each1 craving a perfect beatitude1 detects incongruities1 defects and disproportion in the behavior of the other4 ,hence arise surprise1 expostulation and pain4 ,yet that which drew them to each other was signs of loveliness1 signs of virtue2 and these virtues are there1 however eclipsed4 ,they appear and reappear and continue to attract2 but the regard changes1 quits the sign and attaches to the substance4 ,this repairs the wounded affection4 ,meantime1 as life wears on1 it proves a game of permutation and combination of all possible positions of the parties1 to employ all the resources of each and acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other4 ,for it is the nature and end of this relation1 that they should represent the human race to each other4 ,all that is in the world1 which is or ought to be known1 is cunningly wrought into the texture of man1 of woman3-- 8,the person love does to us fit1 ,like manna1 has the taste of all in it40 ,the world rolls2 the circumstances vary every hour4 ,the angels that inhabit this temple of the body appear at the windows1 and the gnomes and vices also4 ,by all the virtues they are united4 ,if there be virtue1 all the vices are known as such2 they confess and flee4 ,their once flaming regard is sobered by time in either breast1 and losing in violence what it gains in extent1 it becomes a thorough good understanding4 ,they resign each other without complaint to the good offices which man and woman are severally appointed to discharge in time1 and exchange the passion which once could not lose sight of its object1 for a cheerful1 disengaged furtherance1 whether present or absent1 of each other's designs4 ,at last they discover that all which at first drew them together1--those once sacred features1 that magical play of charms1--was deciduous1 had a prospective end1 like the scaffolding by which the house was built2 and the purification of the intellect and the heart from year to year is the real marriage1 foreseen and prepared from the first1 and wholly above their consciousness4 ,looking at these aims with which two persons1 a man and a woman1 so variously and correlatively gifted1 are shut up in one house to spend in the nuptial society forty or fifty years1 ,i do not wonder at the emphasis with which the heart prophesies this crisis from early infancy1 at the profuse beauty with which the instincts deck the nuptial bower1 and nature and intellect and art emulate each other in the gifts and the melody they bring to the epithalamium4 ,thus are we put in training for a love which knows not sex1 nor person1 nor partiality1 but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere1 to the end of increasing virtue and wisdom4 ,we are by nature observers1 and thereby learners4 ,that is our permanent state4 ,but we are often made to feel that our affections are but tents of a night4 ,though slowly and with pain1 the objects of the affections change1 as the objects of thought do4 ,there are moments when the affections rule and absorb the man and make his happiness dependent on a person or persons4 ,but in health the mind is presently seen again1--its overarching vault1 bright with galaxies of immutable lights1 and the warm loves and fears that swept over us as clouds must lose their finite character and blend with ,god1 to attain their own perfection4 ,but we need not fear that we can lose any thing by the progress of the soul4 ,the soul may be trusted to the end4 ,that which is so beautiful and attractive as these relations1 must be succeeded and supplanted only by what is more beautiful1 and so on for ever4 ,,vi4 ,,friendship ,a ruddy drop of manly blood ,the surging sea outweighs2 ,the world uncertain comes and goes1 ,the lover rooted stays4 ,i fancied he was fled1 ,and1 after many a year1 ,glowed unexhausted kindliness ,like daily sunrise there4 ,my careful heart was free again1-- ,o friend1 my bosom said1 ,through thee alone the sky is arched1 ,through thee the rose is red1 ,all things through thee take nobler form ,and look beyond the earth1 ,the mill-round of our fate appears ,a sun-path in thy worth4 ,me too thy nobleness has taught ,to master my despair2 ,the fountains of my hidden life ,are through thy friendship fair4 ,,friendship ,we have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken4 ,maugre all the selfishness that chills like east winds the world1 the whole human family is bathed with an element of love like a fine ether4 ,how many persons we meet in houses1 whom we scarcely speak to1 whom yet we honor1 and who honor us6 ,how many we see in the street1 or sit with in church1 whom1 though silently1 we warmly rejoice to be with6 ,read the language of these wandering eye-beams4 ,the heart knoweth4 ,the effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial exhilaration4 ,in poetry and in common speech1 the emotions of benevolence and complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects of fire2 so swift1 or much more swift1 more active1 more cheering1 are these fine inward irradiations4 ,from the highest degree of passionate love to the lowest degree of good-will1 they make the sweetness of life4 ,our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection4 ,the scholar sits down to write1 and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one good thought or happy expression2 but it is necessary to write a letter to a friend1--and forthwith troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves1 on every hand1 with chosen words4 ,see1 in any house where virtue and self-respect abide1 the palpitation which the approach of a stranger causes4 ,a commended stranger is expected and announced1 and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain invades all the hearts of a household4 ,his arrival almost brings fear to the good hearts that would welcome him4 ,the house is dusted1 all things fly into their places1 the old coat is exchanged for the new1 and they must get up a dinner if they can4 ,of a commended stranger1 only the good report is told by others1 only the good and new is heard by us4 ,he stands to us for humanity4 ,he is what we wish4 ,having imagined and invested him1 we ask how we should stand related in conversation and action with such a man1 and are uneasy with fear4 ,the same idea exalts conversation with him4 ,we talk better than we are wont4 ,we have the nimblest fancy1 a richer memory1 and our dumb devil has taken leave for the time4 ,for long hours we can continue a series of sincere1 graceful1 rich communications1 drawn from the oldest1 secretest experience1 so that they who sit by1 of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance1 shall feel a lively surprise at our unusual powers4 ,but as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his partialities1 his definitions1 his defects1 into the conversation1 it is all over4 ,he has heard the first1 the last and best he will ever hear from us4 ,he is no stranger now4 ,vulgarity1 ignorance1 misapprehension are old acquaintances4 ,now1 when he comes1 he may get the order1 the dress and the dinner1--but the throbbing of the heart and the communications of the soul1 no more4 ,what is so pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me again8 ,what so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two1 in a thought1 in a feeling8 ,how beautiful1 on their approach to this beating heart1 the steps and forms of the gifted and the true6 ,the moment we indulge our affections1 the earth is metamorphosed2 there is no winter and no night2 all tragedies1 all ennuis vanish1--all duties even2 nothing fills the proceeding eternity but the forms all radiant of beloved persons4 ,let the soul be assured that somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend1 and it would be content and cheerful alone for a thousand years4 ,i awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends1 the old and the new4 ,shall ,i not call ,god the ,beautiful1 who daily showeth himself so to me in his gifts8 ,i chide society1 ,i embrace solitude1 and yet ,i am not so ungrateful as not to see the wise1 the lovely and the noble-minded1 as from time to time they pass my gate4 ,who hears me1 who understands me1 becomes mine1--a possession for all time4 ,nor is ,nature so poor but she gives me this joy several times1 and thus we weave social threads of our own1 a new web of relations2 and1 as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves1 we shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation1 and no longer strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe4 ,my friends have come to me unsought4 ,the great ,god gave them to me4 ,by oldest right1 by the divine affinity of virtue with itself1 ,i find them1 or rather not ,i but the ,deity in me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character1 relation1 age1 sex1 circumstance1 at which he usually connives1 and now makes many one4 ,high thanks ,i owe you1 excellent lovers1 who carry out the world for me to new and noble depths1 and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts4 ,these are new poetry of the first ,bard1--poetry without stop1--hymn1 ode and epic1 poetry still flowing1 ,apollo and the ,muses chanting still4 ,will these too separate themselves from me again1 or some of them8 ,i know not1 but ,i fear it not2 for my relation to them is so pure1 that we hold by simple affinity1 and the ,genius of my life being thus social1 the same affinity will exert its energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women1 wherever ,i may be4 ,i confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point4 ,it is almost dangerous to me to 8crush the sweet poison of misused wine0 of the affections4 ,a new person is to me a great event and hinders me from sleep4 ,i have often had fine fancies about persons which have given me delicious hours2 but the joy ends in the day2 it yields no fruit4 ,thought is not born of it2 my action is very little modified4 ,i must feel pride in my friend's accomplishments as if they were mine1 and a property in his virtues4 ,i feel as warmly when he is praised1 as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged maiden4 ,we over-estimate the conscience of our friend4 ,his goodness seems better than our goodness1 his nature finer1 his temptations less4 ,every thing that is his1--his name1 his form1 his dress1 books and instruments1--fancy enhances4 ,our own thought sounds new and larger from his mouth4 ,yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without their analogy in the ebb and flow of love4 ,friendship1 like the immortality of the soul1 is too good to be believed4 ,the lover1 beholding his maiden1 half knows that she is not verily that which he worships2 and in the golden hour of friendship we are surprised with shades of suspicion and unbelief4 ,we doubt that we bestow on our hero the virtues in which he shines1 and afterwards worship the form to which we have ascribed this divine inhabitation4 ,in strictness1 the soul does not respect men as it respects itself4 ,in strict science all persons underlie the same condition of an infinite remoteness4 ,shall we fear to cool our love by mining for the metaphysical foundation of this ,elysian temple8 ,shall ,i not be as real as the things ,i see8 ,if ,i am1 ,i shall not fear to know them for what they are4 ,their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance1 though it needs finer organs for its apprehension4 ,the root of the plant is not unsightly to science1 though for chaplets and festoons we cut the stem short4 ,and ,i must hazard the production of the bald fact amidst these pleasing reveries1 though it should prove an ,egyptian skull at our banquet4 ,a man who stands united with his thought conceives magnificently of himself4 ,he is conscious of a universal success1 even though bought by uniform particular failures4 ,no advantages1 no powers1 no gold or force1 can be any match for him4 ,i cannot choose but rely on my own poverty more than on your wealth4 ,i cannot make your consciousness tantamount to mine4 ,only the star dazzles2 the planet has a faint1 moon-like ray4 ,i hear what you say of the admirable parts and tried temper of the party you praise1 but ,i see well that for all his purple cloaks ,i shall not like him1 unless he is at last a poor ,greek like me4 ,i cannot deny it1 ,o friend1 that the vast shadow of the ,phenomenal includes thee also in its pied and painted immensity1--thee also1 compared with whom all else is shadow4 ,thou art not ,being1 as ,truth is1 as ,justice is1--thou art not my soul1 but a picture and effigy of that4 ,thou hast come to me lately1 and already thou art seizing thy hat and cloak4 ,is it not that the soul puts forth friends as the tree puts forth leaves1 and presently1 by the germination of new buds1 extrudes the old leaf8 ,the law of nature is alternation for evermore4 ,each electrical state superinduces the opposite4 ,the soul environs itself with friends that it may enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude2 and it goes alone for a season1 that it may exalt its conversation or society4 ,this method betrays itself along the whole history of our personal relations4 ,the instinct of affection revives the hope of union with our mates1 and the returning sense of insulation recalls us from the chase4 ,thus every man passes his life in the search after friendship1 and if he should record his true sentiment1 he might write a letter like this to each new candidate for his love3-- ,,dear ,,friend1 ,if ,i was sure of thee1 sure of thy capacity1 sure to match my mood with thine1 ,i should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings and goings4 ,i am not very wise2 my moods are quite attainable1 and ,i respect thy genius2 it is to me as yet unfathomed2 yet dare ,i not presume in thee a perfect intelligence of me1 and so thou art to me a delicious torment4 ,thine ever1 or never4 ,yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity and not for life4 ,they are not to be indulged4 ,this is to weave cobweb1 and not cloth4 ,our friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions1 because we have made them a texture of wine and dreams1 instead of the tough fibre of the human heart4 ,the laws of friendship are austere and eternal1 of one web with the laws of nature and of morals4 ,but we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit1 to suck a sudden sweetness4 ,we snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of ,god1 which many summers and many winters must ripen4 ,we seek our friend not sacredly1 but with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves4 ,in vain4 ,we are armed all over with subtle antagonisms1 which1 as soon as we meet1 begin to play1 and translate all poetry into stale prose4 ,almost all people descend to meet4 ,all association must be a compromise1 and1 what is worst1 the very flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as they approach each other4 ,what a perpetual disappointment is actual society1 even of the virtuous and gifted6 ,after interviews have been compassed with long foresight we must be tormented presently by baffled blows1 by sudden1 unseasonable apathies1 by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits1 in the heyday of friendship and thought4 ,our faculties do not play us true1 and both parties are relieved by solitude4 ,i ought to be equal to every relation4 ,it makes no difference how many friends ,i have and what content ,i can find in conversing with each1 if there be one to whom ,i am not equal4 ,if ,i have shrunk unequal from one contest1 the joy ,i find in all the rest becomes mean and cowardly4 ,i should hate myself1 if then ,i made my other friends my asylum3-- 8,the valiant warrior famoused for fight1 ,after a hundred victories1 once foiled1 ,is from the book of honor razed quite1 ,and all the rest forgot for which he toiled40 ,our impatience is thus sharply rebuked4 ,bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening4 ,it would be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to know and own it4 ,respect the naturlangsamkeit which hardens the ruby in a million years1 and works in duration in which ,alps and ,andes come and go as rainbows4 ,the good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price of rashness4 ,love1 which is the essence of ,god1 is not for levity1 but for the total worth of man4 ,let us not have this childish luxury in our regards1 but the austerest worth2 let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the truth of his heart1 in the breadth1 impossible to be overturned1 of his foundations4 ,the attractions of this subject are not to be resisted1 and ,i leave1 for the time1 all account of subordinate social benefit1 to speak of that select and sacred relation which is a kind of absolute1 and which even leaves the language of love suspicious and common1 so much is this purer1 and nothing is so much divine4 ,i do not wish to treat friendships daintily1 but with roughest courage4 ,when they are real1 they are not glass threads or frostwork1 but the solidest thing we know4 ,for now1 after so many ages of experience1 what do we know of nature or of ourselves8 ,not one step has man taken toward the solution of the problem of his destiny4 ,in one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men4 ,but the sweet sincerity of joy and peace which ,i draw from this alliance with my brother's soul is the nut itself whereof all nature and all thought is but the husk and shell4 ,happy is the house that shelters a friend6 ,it might well be built1 like a festal bower or arch1 to entertain him a single day4 ,happier1 if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law6 ,he who offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up1 like an ,olympian1 to the great games where the first-born of the world are the competitors4 ,he proposes himself for contests where ,time1 ,want1 ,danger1 are in the lists1 and he alone is victor who has truth enough in his constitution to preserve the delicacy of his beauty from the wear and tear of all these4 ,the gifts of fortune may be present or absent1 but all the speed in that contest depends on intrinsic nobleness and the contempt of trifles4 ,there are two elements that go to the composition of friendship1 each so sovereign that ,i can detect no superiority in either1 no reason why either should be first named4 ,one is truth4 ,a friend is a person with whom ,i may be sincere4 ,before him ,i may think aloud4 ,i am arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that ,i may drop even those undermost garments of dissimulation1 courtesy1 and second thought1 which men never put off1 and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with which one chemical atom meets another4 ,sincerity is the luxury allowed1 like diadems and authority1 only to the highest rank2 that being permitted to speak truth1 as having none above it to court or conform unto4 ,every man alone is sincere4 ,at the entrance of a second person1 hypocrisy begins4 ,we parry and fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments1 by gossip1 by amusements1 by affairs4 ,we cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds4 ,i knew a man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery1 and omitting all compliment and commonplace1 spoke to the conscience of every person he encountered1 and that with great insight and beauty4 ,at first he was resisted1 and all men agreed he was mad4 ,but persisting--as indeed he could not help doing--for some time in this course1 he attained to the advantage of bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him4 ,no man would think of speaking falsely with him1 or of putting him off with any chat of markets or reading-rooms4 ,but every man was constrained by so much sincerity to the like plaindealing1 and what love of nature1 what poetry1 what symbol of truth he had1 he did certainly show him4 ,but to most of us society shows not its face and eye1 but its side and its back4 ,to stand in true relations with men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity1 is it not8 ,we can seldom go erect4 ,almost every man we meet requires some civility1--requires to be humored2 he has some fame1 some talent1 some whim of religion or philanthropy in his head that is not to be questioned1 and which spoils all conversation with him4 ,but a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity1 but me4 ,my friend gives me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part4 ,a friend therefore is a sort of paradox in nature4 ,i who alone am1 ,i who see nothing in nature whose existence ,i can affirm with equal evidence to my own1 behold now the semblance of my being1 in all its height1 variety1 and curiosity1 reiterated in a foreign form2 so that a friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature4 ,the other element of friendship is tenderness4 ,we are holden to men by every sort of tie1 by blood1 by pride1 by fear1 by hope1 by lucre1 by lust1 by hate1 by admiration1 by every circumstance and badge and trifle1--but we can scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by love4 ,can another be so blessed and we so pure that we can offer him tenderness8 ,when a man becomes dear to me ,i have touched the goal of fortune4 ,i find very little written directly to the heart of this matter in books4 ,and yet ,i have one text which ,i cannot choose but remember4 ,my author says1--8,i offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose ,i effectually am1 and tender myself least to him to whom ,i am the most devoted40 ,i wish that friendship should have feet1 as well as eyes and eloquence4 ,it must plant itself on the ground1 before it vaults over the moon4 ,i wish it to be a little of a citizen1 before it is quite a cherub4 ,we chide the citizen because he makes love a commodity4 ,it is an exchange of gifts1 of useful loans2 it is good neighborhood2 it watches with the sick2 it holds the pall at the funeral2 and quite loses sight of the delicacies and nobility of the relation4 ,but though we cannot find the god under this disguise of a sutler1 yet on the other hand we cannot forgive the poet if he spins his thread too fine and does not substantiate his romance by the municipal virtues of justice1 punctuality1 fidelity and pity4 ,i hate the prostitution of the name of friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances4 ,i much prefer the company of ploughboys and tin-peddlers to the silken and perfumed amity which celebrates its days of encounter by a frivolous display1 by rides in a curricle and dinners at the best taverns4 ,the end of friendship is a commerce the most strict and homely that can be joined2 more strict than any of which we have experience4 ,it is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of life and death4 ,it is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country rambles1 but also for rough roads and hard fare1 shipwreck1 poverty1 and persecution4 ,it keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of religion4 ,we are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of man's life1 and embellish it by courage1 wisdom and unity4 ,it should never fall into something usual and settled1 but should be alert and inventive and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery4 ,friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly1 each so well tempered and so happily adapted1 and withal so circumstanced 7for even in that particular1 a poet says1 love demands that the parties be altogether paired71 that its satisfaction can very seldom be assured4 ,it cannot subsist in its perfection1 say some of those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart1 betwixt more than two4 ,i am not quite so strict in my terms1 perhaps because ,i have never known so high a fellowship as others4 ,i please my imagination more with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each other and between whom subsists a lofty intelligence4 ,but ,i find this law of one to one peremptory for conversation1 which is the practice and consummation of friendship4 ,do not mix waters too much4 ,the best mix as ill as good and bad4 ,you shall have very useful and cheering discourse at several times with two several men1 but let all three of you come together and you shall not have one new and hearty word4 ,two may talk and one may hear1 but three cannot take part in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort4 ,in good company there is never such discourse between two1 across the table1 as takes place when you leave them alone4 ,in good company the individuals merge their egotism into a social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there present4 ,no partialities of friend to friend1 no fondnesses of brother to sister1 of wife to husband1 are there pertinent1 but quite otherwise4 ,only he may then speak who can sail on the common thought of the party1 and not poorly limited to his own4 ,now this convention1 which good sense demands1 destroys the high freedom of great conversation1 which requires an absolute running of two souls into one4 ,no two men but being left alone with each other enter into simpler relations4 ,yet it is affinity that determines which two shall converse4 ,unrelated men give little joy to each other1 will never suspect the latent powers of each4 ,we talk sometimes of a great talent for conversation1 as if it were a permanent property in some individuals4 ,conversation is an evanescent relation1--no more4 ,a man is reputed to have thought and eloquence2 he cannot1 for all that1 say a word to his cousin or his uncle4 ,they accuse his silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in the shade4 ,in the sun it will mark the hour4 ,among those who enjoy his thought he will regain his tongue4 ,friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party4 ,let me be alone to the end of the world1 rather than that my friend should overstep1 by a word or a look1 his real sympathy4 ,i am equally balked by antagonism and by compliance4 ,let him not cease an instant to be himself4 ,the only joy ,i have in his being mine1 is that the not mine is mine4 ,i hate1 where ,i looked for a manly furtherance1 or at least a manly resistance1 to find a mush of concession4 ,better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo4 ,the condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it4 ,that high office requires great and sublime parts4 ,there must be very two1 before there can be very one4 ,let it be an alliance of two large1 formidable natures1 mutually beheld1 mutually feared1 before yet they recognize the deep identity which1 beneath these disparities1 unites them4 ,he only is fit for this society who is magnanimous2 who is sure that greatness and goodness are always economy2 who is not swift to intermeddle with his fortunes4 ,let him not intermeddle with this4 ,leave to the diamond its ages to grow1 nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal4 ,friendship demands a religious treatment4 ,we talk of choosing our friends1 but friends are self-elected4 ,reverence is a great part of it4 ,treat your friend as a spectacle4 ,of course he has merits that are not yours1 and that you cannot honor if you must needs hold him close to your person4 ,stand aside2 give those merits room2 let them mount and expand4 ,are you the friend of your friend's buttons1 or of his thought8 ,to a great heart he will still be a stranger in a thousand particulars1 that he may come near in the holiest ground4 ,leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property1 and to suck a short and all-confounding pleasure1 instead of the noblest benefit4 ,let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation4 ,why should we desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them8 ,why insist on rash personal relations with your friend8 ,why go to his house1 or know his mother and brother and sisters8 ,why be visited by him at your own8 ,are these things material to our covenant8 ,leave this touching and clawing4 ,let him be to me a spirit4 ,a message1 a thought1 a sincerity1 a glance from him1 ,i want1 but not news1 nor pottage4 ,i can get politics and chat and neighborly conveniences from cheaper companions4 ,should not the society of my friend be to me poetic1 pure1 universal and great as nature itself8 ,ought ,i to feel that our tie is profane in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon1 or that clump of waving grass that divides the brook8 ,let us not vilify1 but raise it to that standard4 ,that great defying eye1 that scornful beauty of his mien and action1 do not pique yourself on reducing1 but rather fortify and enhance4 ,worship his superiorities2 wish him not less by a thought1 but hoard and tell them all4 ,guard him as thy counterpart4 ,let him be to thee for ever a sort of beautiful enemy1 untamable1 devoutly revered1 and not a trivial conveniency to be soon outgrown and cast aside4 ,the hues of the opal1 the light of the diamond1 are not to be seen if the eye is too near4 ,to my friend ,i write a letter and from him ,i receive a letter4 ,that seems to you a little4 ,it suffices me4 ,it is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give and of me to receive4 ,it profanes nobody4 ,in these warm lines the heart will trust itself1 as it will not to the tongue1 and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all the annals of heroism have yet made good4 ,respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to prejudice its perfect flower by your impatience for its opening4 ,we must be our own before we can be another's4 ,there is at least this satisfaction in crime1 according to the ,latin proverb2--you can speak to your accomplice on even terms4 ,crimen quos inquinat1 quat4 ,to those whom we admire and love1 at first we cannot4 ,yet the least defect of self-possession vitiates1 in my judgment1 the entire relation4 ,there can never be deep peace between two spirits1 never mutual respect1 until in their dialogue each stands for the whole world4 ,what is so great as friendship1 let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we can4 ,let us be silent1--so we may hear the whisper of the gods4 ,let us not interfere4 ,who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls1 or how to say any thing to such8 ,no matter how ingenious1 no matter how graceful and bland4 ,there are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom1 and for you to say aught is to be frivolous4 ,wait1 and thy heart shall speak4 ,wait until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you1 until day and night avail themselves of your lips4 ,the only reward of virtue is virtue2 the only way to have a friend is to be one4 ,you shall not come nearer a man by getting into his house4 ,if unlike1 his soul only flees the faster from you1 and you shall never catch a true glance of his eye4 ,we see the noble afar off and they repel us2 why should we intrude8 ,late1--very late1--we perceive that no arrangements1 no introductions1 no consuetudes or habits of society would be of any avail to establish us in such relations with them as we desire1--but solely the uprise of nature in us to the same degree it is in them2 then shall we meet as water with water2 and if we should not meet them then1 we shall not want them1 for we are already they4 ,in the last analysis1 love is only the reflection of a man's own worthiness from other men4 ,men have sometimes exchanged names with their friends1 as if they would signify that in their friend each loved his own soul4 ,the higher the style we demand of friendship1 of course the less easy to establish it with flesh and blood4 ,we walk alone in the world4 ,friends such as we desire are dreams and fables4 ,but a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart1 that elsewhere1 in other regions of the universal power1 souls are now acting1 enduring1 and daring1 which can love us and which we can love4 ,we may congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage1 of follies1 of blunders and of shame1 is passed in solitude1 and when we are finished men we shall grasp heroic hands in heroic hands4 ,only be admonished by what you already see1 not to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons1 where no friendship can be4 ,our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no god attends4 ,by persisting in your path1 though you forfeit the little you gain the great4 ,you demonstrate yourself1 so as to put yourself out of the reach of false relations1 and you draw to you the first-born of the world1--those rare pilgrims whereof only one or two wander in nature at once1 and before whom the vulgar great show as spectres and shadows merely4 ,it is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual1 as if so we could lose any genuine love4 ,whatever correction of our popular views we make from insight1 nature will be sure to bear us out in1 and though it seem to rob us of some joy1 will repay us with a greater4 ,let us feel if we will the absolute insulation of man4 ,we are sure that we have all in us4 ,we go to ,europe1 or we pursue persons1 or we read books1 in the instinctive faith that these will call it out and reveal us to ourselves4 ,beggars all4 ,the persons are such as we2 the ,europe1 an old faded garment of dead persons2 the books1 their ghosts4 ,let us drop this idolatry4 ,let us give over this mendicancy4 ,let us even bid our dearest friends farewell1 and defy them1 saying1 #8,who are you8 ,unhand me3 ,i will be dependent no more4' ,ah6 seest thou not1 ,o brother1 that thus we part only to meet again on a higher platform1 and only be more each other's because we are more our own8 ,a friend is ,janus-faced2 he looks to the past and the future4 ,he is the child of all my foregoing hours1 the prophet of those to come1 and the harbinger of a greater friend4 ,i do then with my friends as ,i do with my books4 ,i would have them where ,i can find them1 but ,i seldom use them4 ,we must have society on our own terms1 and admit or exclude it on the slightest cause4 ,i cannot afford to speak much with my friend4 ,if he is great he makes me so great that ,i cannot descend to converse4 ,in the great days1 presentiments hover before me in the firmament4 ,i ought then to dedicate myself to them4 ,i go in that ,i may seize them1 ,i go out that ,i may seize them4 ,i fear only that ,i may lose them receding into the sky in which now they are only a patch of brighter light4 ,then1 though ,i prize my friends1 ,i cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions1 lest ,i lose my own4 ,it would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty seeking1 this spiritual astronomy or search of stars1 and come down to warm sympathies with you2 but then ,i know well ,i shall mourn always the vanishing of my mighty gods4 ,it is true1 next week ,i shall have languid moods1 when ,i can well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects2 then ,i shall regret the lost literature of your mind1 and wish you were by my side again4 ,but if you come1 perhaps you will fill my mind only with new visions2 not with yourself but with your lustres1 and ,i shall not be able any more than now to converse with you4 ,so ,i will owe to my friends this evanescent intercourse4 ,i will receive from them not what they have but what they are4 ,they shall give me that which properly they cannot give1 but which emanates from them4 ,but they shall not hold me by any relations less subtile and pure4 ,we will meet as though we met not1 and part as though we parted not4 ,it has seemed to me lately more possible than ,i knew1 to carry a friendship greatly1 on one side1 without due correspondence on the other4 ,why should ,i cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious8 ,it never troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful space1 and only a small part on the reflecting planet4 ,let your greatness educate the crude and cold companion4 ,if he is unequal he will presently pass away2 but thou art enlarged by thy own shining1 and no longer a mate for frogs and worms1 dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean4 ,it is thought a disgrace to love unrequited4 ,but the great will see that true love cannot be unrequited4 ,true love transcends the unworthy object and dwells and broods on the eternal1 and when the poor interposed mask crumbles1 it is not sad1 but feels rid of so much earth and feels its independency the surer4 ,yet these things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation4 ,the essence of friendship is entireness1 a total magnanimity and trust4 ,it must not surmise or provide for infirmity4 ,it treats its object as a god1 that it may deify both4 ,,vii4 ,,prudence ,theme no poet gladly sung1 ,fair to old and foul to young2 ,scorn not thou the love of parts1 ,and the articles of arts4 ,grandeur of the perfect sphere ,thanks the atoms that cohere4 ,,prudence ,what right have ,i to write on ,prudence1 whereof ,i have ,little1 and that of the negative sort8 ,my prudence consists in avoiding and going without1 not in the inventing of means and methods1 not in adroit steering1 not in gentle repairing4 ,i have no skill to make money spend well1 no genius in my economy1 and whoever sees my garden discovers that ,i must have some other garden4 ,yet ,i love facts1 and hate lubricity and people without perception4 ,then ,i have the same title to write on prudence that ,i have to write on poetry or holiness4 ,we write from aspiration and antagonism1 as well as from experience4 ,we paint those qualities which we do not possess4 ,the poet admires the man of energy and tactics2 the merchant breeds his son for the church or the bar2 and where a man is not vain and egotistic you shall find what he has not by his praise4 ,moreover it would be hardly honest in me not to balance these fine lyric words of ,love and ,friendship with words of coarser sound1 and whilst my debt to my senses is real and constant1 not to own it in passing4 ,prudence is the virtue of the senses4 ,it is the science of appearances4 ,it is the outmost action of the inward life4 ,it is ,god taking thought for oxen4 ,it moves matter after the laws of matter4 ,it is content to seek health of body by complying with physical conditions1 and health of mind by the laws of the intellect4 ,the world of the senses is a world of shows2 it does not exist for itself1 but has a symbolic character2 and a true prudence or law of shows recognizes the co-presence of other laws and knows that its own office is subaltern2 knows that it is surface and not centre where it works4 ,prudence is false when detached4 ,it is legitimate when it is the ,natural ,history of the soul incarnate1 when it unfolds the beauty of laws within the narrow scope of the senses4 ,there are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world4 ,it is sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three4 ,one class live to the utility of the symbol1 esteeming health and wealth a final good4 ,another class live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol1 as the poet and artist and the naturalist and man of science4 ,a third class live above the beauty of the symbol to the beauty of the thing signified2 these are wise men4 ,the first class have common sense2 the second1 taste2 and the third1 spiritual perception4 ,once in a long time1 a man traverses the whole scale1 and sees and enjoys the symbol solidly1 then also has a clear eye for its beauty1 and lastly1 whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature1 does not offer to build houses and barns thereon1--reverencing the splendor of the ,god which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny4 ,the world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence1 which is a devotion to matter1 as if we possessed no other faculties than the palate1 the nose1 the touch1 the eye and ear2 a prudence which adores the ,rule of ,three1 which never subscribes1 which never gives1 which seldom lends1 and asks but one question of any project1--,will it bake bread8 ,this is a disease like a thickening of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed4 ,but culture1 revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the perfection of the man as the end1 degrades every thing else1 as health and bodily life1 into means4 ,it sees prudence not to be a several faculty1 but a name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and its wants4 ,cultivated men always feel and speak so1 as if a great fortune1 the achievement of a civil or social measure1 great personal influence1 a graceful and commanding address1 had their value as proofs of the energy of the spirit4 ,if a man lose his balance and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake1 he may be a good wheel or pin1 but he is not a cultivated man4 ,the spurious prudence1 making the senses final1 is the god of sots and cowards1 and is the subject of all comedy4 ,it is nature's joke1 and therefore literature's4 ,the true prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the knowledge of an internal and real world4 ,this recognition once made1 the order of the world and the distribution of affairs and times1 being studied with the co-perception of their subordinate place1 will reward any degree of attention4 ,for our existence1 thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the returning moon and the periods which they mark1--so susceptible to climate and to country1 so alive to social good and evil1 so fond of splendor and so tender to hunger and cold and debt1--reads all its primary lessons out of these books4 ,prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is4 ,it takes the laws of the world whereby man's being is conditioned1 as they are1 and keeps these laws that it may enjoy their proper good4 ,it respects space and time1 climate1 want1 sleep1 the law of polarity1 growth and death4 ,there revolve1 to give bound and period to his being on all sides1 the sun and moon1 the great formalists in the sky3 here lies stubborn matter1 and will not swerve from its chemical routine4 ,here is a planted globe1 pierced and belted with natural laws and fenced and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties which impose new restraints on the young inhabitant4 ,we eat of the bread which grows in the field4 ,we live by the air which blows around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too hot1 too dry or too wet4 ,time1 which shows so vacant1 indivisible and divine in its coming1 is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters4 ,a door is to be painted1 a lock to be repaired4 ,i want wood or oil1 or meal or salt2 the house smokes1 or ,i have a headache2 then the tax1 and an affair to be transacted with a man without heart or brains1 and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very awkward word1--these eat up the hours4 ,do what we can1 summer will have its flies2 if we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitos2 if we go a-fishing we must expect a wet coat4 ,then climate is a great impediment to idle persons2 we often resolve to give up the care of the weather1 but still we regard the clouds and the rain4 ,we are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and years4 ,the hard soil and four months of snow make the inhabitant of the northern temperate zone wiser and abler than his fellow who enjoys the fixed smile of the tropics4 ,the islander may ramble all day at will4 ,at night he may sleep on a mat under the moon1 and wherever a wild date-tree grows1 nature has1 without a prayer even1 spread a table for his morning meal4 ,the northerner is perforce a householder4 ,he must brew1 bake1 salt and preserve his food1 and pile wood and coal4 ,but as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some new acquaintance with nature1 and as nature is inexhaustibly significant1 the inhabitants of these climates have always excelled the southerner in force4 ,such is the value of these matters that a man who knows other things can never know too much of these4 ,let him have accurate perceptions4 ,let him1 if he have hands1 handle2 if eyes1 measure and discriminate2 let him accept and hive every fact of chemistry1 natural history and economics2 the more he has1 the less is he willing to spare any one4 ,time is always bringing the occasions that disclose their value4 ,some wisdom comes out of every natural and innocent action4 ,the domestic man1 who loves no music so well as his kitchen clock and the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth1 has solaces which others never dream of4 ,the application of means to ends insures victory and the songs of victory not less in a farm or a shop than in the tactics of party or of war4 ,the good husband finds method as efficient in the packing of fire-wood in a shed or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar1 as in ,peninsular campaigns or the files of the ,department of ,state4 ,in the rainy day he builds a work-bench1 or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the barn-chamber1 and stored with nails1 gimlet1 pincers1 screwdriver and chisel4 ,herein he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood1 the cat-like love of garrets1 presses and corn-chambers1 and of the conveniences of long housekeeping4 ,his garden or his poultry-yard tells him many pleasant anecdotes4 ,one might find argument for optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine element of pleasure in every suburb and extremity of the good world4 ,let a man keep the law1--any law1--and his way will be strown with satisfactions4 ,there is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in the amount4 ,on the other hand1 nature punishes any neglect of prudence4 ,if you think the senses final1 obey their law4 ,if you believe in the soul1 do not clutch at sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of cause and effect4 ,it is vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose and imperfect perception4 ,dr4 ,johnson is reported to have said1--8,if the child says he looked out of this window1 when he looked out of that1--whip him40 ,our ,american character is marked by a more than average delight in accurate perception1 which is shown by the currency of the byword1 8,no mistake40 ,but the discomfort of unpunctuality1 of confusion of thought about facts1 of inattention to the wants of to-morrow1 is of no nation4 ,the beautiful laws of time and space1 once dislocated by our inaptitude1 are holes and dens4 ,if the hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands1 instead of honey it will yield us bees4 ,our words and actions to be fair must be timely4 ,a gay and pleasant sound is the whetting of the scythe in the mornings of ,june1 yet what is more lonesome and sad than the sound of a whetstone or mower's rifle when it is too late in the season to make hay8 ,scatter-brained and 8afternoon0 men spoil much more than their own affair in spoiling the temper of those who deal with them4 ,i have seen a criticism on some paintings1 of which ,i am reminded when ,i see the shiftless and unhappy men who are not true to their senses4 ,the last ,grand ,duke of ,weimar1 a man of superior understanding1 said1--8,i have sometimes remarked in the presence of great works of art1 and just now especially in ,dresden1 how much a certain property contributes to the effect which gives life to the figures1 and to the life an irresistible truth4 ,this property is the hitting1 in all the figures we draw1 the right centre of gravity4 ,i mean the placing the figures firm upon their feet1 making the hands grasp1 and fastening the eyes on the spot where they should look4 ,even lifeless figures1 as vessels and stools--let them be drawn ever so correctly--lose all effect so soon as they lack the resting upon their centre of gravity1 and have a certain swimming and oscillating appearance4 ,the ,raphael in the ,dresden gallery 7the only greatly affecting picture which ,i have seen7 is the quietest and most passionless piece you can imagine2 a couple of saints who worship the ,virgin and ,child4 ,nevertheless1 it awakens a deeper impression than the contortions of ten crucified martyrs4 ,for beside all the resistless beauty of form1 it possesses in the highest degree the property of the perpendicularity of all the figures40 ,this perpendicularity we demand of all the figures in this picture of life4 ,let them stand on their feet1 and not float and swing4 ,let us know where to find them4 ,let them discriminate between what they remember and what they dreamed1 call a spade a spade1 give us facts1 and honor their own senses with trust4 ,but what man shall dare tax another with imprudence8 ,who is prudent8 ,the men we call greatest are least in this kingdom4 ,there is a certain fatal dislocation in our relation to nature1 distorting our modes of living and making every law our enemy1 which seems at last to have aroused all the wit and virtue in the world to ponder the question of ,reform4 ,we must call the highest prudence to counsel1 and ask why health and beauty and genius should now be the exception rather than the rule of human nature8 ,we do not know the properties of plants and animals and the laws of nature1 through our sympathy with the same2 but this remains the dream of poets4 ,poetry and prudence should be coincident4 ,poets should be lawgivers2 that is1 the boldest lyric inspiration should not chide and insult1 but should announce and lead the civil code and the day's work4 ,but now the two things seem irreconcilably parted4 ,we have violated law upon law until we stand amidst ruins1 and when by chance we espy a coincidence between reason and the phenomena1 we are surprised4 ,beauty should be the dowry of every man and woman1 as invariably as sensation2 but it is rare4 ,health or sound organization should be universal4 ,genius should be the child of genius and every child should be inspired2 but now it is not to be predicted of any child1 and nowhere is it pure4 ,we call partial half-lights1 by courtesy1 genius2 talent which converts itself to money2 talent which glitters to-day that it may dine and sleep well to-morrow2 and society is officered by men of parts1 as they are properly called1 and not by divine men4 ,these use their gifts to refine luxury1 not to abolish it4 ,genius is always ascetic1 and piety1 and love4 ,appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease1 and they find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it4 ,we have found out fine names to cover our sensuality withal1 but no gifts can raise intemperance4 ,the man of talent affects to call his transgressions of the laws of the senses trivial and to count them nothing considered with his devotion to his art4 ,his art never taught him lewdness1 nor the love of wine1 nor the wish to reap where he had not sowed4 ,his art is less for every deduction from his holiness1 and less for every defect of common sense4 ,on him who scorned the world as he said1 the scorned world wreaks its revenge4 ,he that despiseth small things will perish by little and little4 ,goethe's ,tasso is very likely to be a pretty fair historical portrait1 and that is true tragedy4 ,it does not seem to me so genuine grief when some tyrannous ,richard the ,third oppresses and slays a score of innocent persons1 as when ,antonio and ,tasso1 both apparently right1 wrong each other4 ,one living after the maxims of this world and consistent and true to them1 the other fired with all divine sentiments1 yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense1 without submitting to their law4 ,that is a grief we all feel1 a knot we cannot untie4 ,tasso's is no infrequent case in modern biography4 ,a man of genius1 of an ardent temperament1 reckless of physical laws1 self-indulgent1 becomes presently unfortunate1 querulous1 a 8discomfortable cousin10 a thorn to himself and to others4 ,the scholar shames us by his bifold life4 ,whilst something higher than prudence is active1 he is admirable2 when common sense is wanted1 he is an encumbrance4 ,yesterday1 ,csar was not so great2 to-day1 the felon at the gallows' foot is not more miserable4 ,yesterday1 radiant with the light of an ideal world in which he lives1 the first of men2 and now oppressed by wants and by sickness1 for which he must thank himself4 ,he resembles the pitiful drivellers whom travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of ,constantinople1 who skulk about all day1 yellow1 emaciated1 ragged1 sneaking2 and at evening1 when the bazaars are open1 slink to the opium-shop1 swallow their morsel and become tranquil and glorified seers4 ,and who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties1 at last sinking1 chilled1 exhausted and fruitless1 like a giant slaughtered by pins8 ,is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of this sort1 which nature is not slack in sending him1 as hints that he must expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial8 ,health1 bread1 climate1 social position1 have their importance1 and he will give them their due4 ,let him esteem ,nature a perpetual counsellor1 and her perfections the exact measure of our deviations4 ,let him make the night night1 and the day day4 ,let him control the habit of expense4 ,let him see that as much wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire1 and as much wisdom may be drawn from it4 ,the laws of the world are written out for him on every piece of money in his hand4 ,there is nothing he will not be the better for knowing1 were it only the wisdom of ,poor ,richard1 or the ,state-,street prudence of buying by the acre to sell by the foot2 or the thrift of the agriculturist1 to stick a tree between whiles1 because it will grow whilst he sleeps2 or the prudence which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool1 little portions of time1 particles of stock and small gains4 ,the eye of prudence may never shut4 ,iron1 if kept at the ironmonger's1 will rust2 beer1 if not brewed in the right state of the atmosphere1 will sour2 timber of ships will rot at sea1 or if laid up high and dry1 will strain1 warp and dry-rot2 money1 if kept by us1 yields no rent and is liable to loss2 if invested1 is liable to depreciation of the particular kind of stock4 ,strike1 says the smith1 the iron is white2 keep the rake1 says the haymaker1 as nigh the scythe as you can1 and the cart as nigh the rake4 ,our ,yankee trade is reputed to be very much on the extreme of this prudence4 ,it takes bank-notes1 good1 bad1 clean1 ragged1 and saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off4 ,iron cannot rust1 nor beer sour1 nor timber rot1 nor calicoes go out of fashion1 nor money stocks depreciate1 in the few swift moments in which the ,yankee suffers any one of them to remain in his possession4 ,in skating over thin ice our safety is in our speed4 ,let him learn a prudence of a higher strain4 ,let him learn that every thing in nature1 even motes and feathers1 go by law and not by luck1 and that what he sows he reaps4 ,by diligence and self-command let him put the bread he eats at his own disposal1 that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other men2 for the best good of wealth is freedom4 ,let him practise the minor virtues4 ,how much of human life is lost in waiting6 let him not make his fellow-creatures wait4 ,how many words and promises are promises of conversation6 ,let his be words of fate4 ,when he sees a folded and sealed scrap of paper float round the globe in a pine ship and come safe to the eye for which it was written1 amidst a swarming population1 let him likewise feel the admonition to integrate his being across all these distracting forces1 and keep a slender human word among the storms1 distances and accidents that drive us hither and thither1 and1 by persistency1 make the paltry force of one man reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most distant climates4 ,we must not try to write the laws of any one virtue1 looking at that only4 ,human nature loves no contradictions1 but is symmetrical4 ,the prudence which secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by one set of men1 whilst heroism and holiness are studied by another1 but they are reconcilable4 ,prudence concerns the present time1 persons1 property and existing forms4 ,but as every fact hath its roots in the soul1 and if the soul were changed1 would cease to be1 or would become some other thing1--the proper administration of outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause and origin2 that is1 the good man will be the wise man1 and the single-hearted the politic man4 ,every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar1 but is a stab at the health of human society4 ,on the most profitable lie the course of events presently lays a destructive tax2 whilst frankness invites frankness1 puts the parties on a convenient footing and makes their business a friendship4 ,trust men and they will be true to you2 treat them greatly and they will show themselves great1 though they make an exception in your favor to all their rules of trade4 ,so1 in regard to disagreeable and formidable things1 prudence does not consist in evasion or in flight1 but in courage4 ,he who wishes to walk in the most peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution4 ,let him front the object of his worst apprehension1 and his stoutness will commonly make his fear groundless4 ,the ,latin proverb says1 8,in battles the eye is first overcome40 ,entire self-possession may make a battle very little more dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football4 ,examples are cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire given to it1 and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball4 ,the terrors of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin4 ,the drover1 the sailor1 buffets it all day1 and his health renews itself at as vigorous a pulse under the sleet as under the sun of ,june4 ,in the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors1 fear comes readily to heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party2 but it is a bad counsellor4 ,every man is actually weak and apparently strong4 ,to himself he seems weak2 to others1 formidable4 ,you are afraid of ,grim2 but ,grim also is afraid of you4 ,you are solicitous of the good-will of the meanest person1 uneasy at his ill-will4 ,but the sturdiest offender of your peace and of the neighborhood1 if you rip up his claims1 is as thin and timid as any1 and the peace of society is often kept1 because1 as children say1 one is afraid1 and the other dares not4 ,far off1 men swell1 bully and threaten2 bring them hand to hand1 and they are a feeble folk4 ,it is a proverb that #8courtesy costs nothing'2 but calculation might come to value love for its profit4 ,love is fabled to be blind1 but kindness is necessary to perception2 love is not a hood1 but an eye-water4 ,if you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan1 never recognize the dividing lines1 but meet on what common ground remains1--if only that the sun shines and the rain rains for both2 the area will widen very fast1 and ere you know it1 the boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air4 ,if they set out to contend1 ,saint ,paul will lie and ,saint ,john will hate4 ,what low1 poor1 paltry1 hypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the pure and chosen souls6 ,they will shuffle and crow1 crook and hide1 feign to confess here1 only that they may brag and conquer there1 and not a thought has enriched either party1 and not an emotion of bravery1 modesty1 or hope4 ,so neither should you put yourself in a false position with your contemporaries by indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness4 ,though your views are in straight antagonism to theirs1 assume an identity of sentiment1 assume that you are saying precisely that which all think1 and in the flow of wit and love roll out your paradoxes in solid column1 with not the infirmity of a doubt4 ,so at least shall you get an adequate deliverance4 ,the natural motions of the soul are so much better than the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in dispute4 ,the thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle1 does not show itself proportioned and in its true bearings1 but bears extorted1 hoarse1 and half witness4 ,but assume a consent and it shall presently be granted1 since really and underneath their external diversities1 all men are of one heart and mind4 ,wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly footing4 ,we refuse sympathy and intimacy with people1 as if we waited for some better sympathy and intimacy to come4 ,but whence and when8 ,to-morrow will be like to-day4 ,life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live4 ,our friends and fellow-workers die off from us4 ,scarcely can we say we see new men1 new women1 approaching us4 ,we are too old to regard fashion1 too old to expect patronage of any greater or more powerful4 ,let us suck the sweetness of those affections and consuetudes that grow near us4 ,these old shoes are easy to the feet4 ,undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company1 can easily whisper names prouder1 and that tickle the fancy more4 ,every man's imagination hath its friends2 and life would be dearer with such companions4 ,but if you cannot have them on good mutual terms1 you cannot have them4 ,if not the ,deity but our ambition hews and shapes the new relations1 their virtue escapes1 as strawberries lose their flavor in garden-beds4 ,thus truth1 frankness1 courage1 love1 humility and all the virtues range themselves on the side of prudence1 or the art of securing a present well-being4 ,i do not know if all matter will be found to be made of one element1 as oxygen or hydrogen1 at last1 but the world of manners and actions is wrought of one stuff1 and begin where we will we are pretty sure in a short space to be mumbling our ten commandments4 ,,viii4 ,,heroism 8,paradise is under the shadow of swords40 ,mahomet4 ,ruby wine is drunk by knaves1 ,sugar spends to fatten slaves1 ,rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons2 ,thunderclouds are ,jove's festoons1 ,drooping oft in wreaths of dread ,lightning-knotted round his head2 ,the hero is not fed on sweets1 ,daily his own heart he eats2 ,chambers of the great are jails1 ,and head-winds right for royal sails4 ,,heroism ,in the elder ,english dramatists1 and mainly in the plays ,of ,beaumont and ,fletcher1 there is a constant recognition of gentility1 as if a noble behavior were as easily marked in the society of their age as color is in our ,american population4 ,when any ,rodrigo1 ,pedro or ,valerio enters1 though he be a stranger1 the duke or governor exclaims1 #8,this is a gentleman1--and proffers civilities without end2 but all the rest are slag and refuse4 ,in harmony with this delight in personal advantages there is in their plays a certain heroic cast of character and dialogue1--as in ,bonduca1 ,sophocles1 the ,mad ,lover1 the ,double ,marriage1--wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial and on such deep grounds of character1 that the dialogue1 on the slightest additional incident in the plot1 rises naturally into poetry4 ,among many texts take the following4 ,the ,roman ,martius has conquered ,athens1--all but the invincible spirits of ,sophocles1 the duke of ,athens1 and ,dorigen1 his wife4 ,the beauty of the latter inflames ,martius1 and he seeks to save her husband2 but ,sophocles will not ask his life1 although assured that a word will save him1 and the execution of both proceeds3-- ,valerius4 ,bid thy wife farewell4 ,sophocles4 ,no1 ,i will take no leave4 ,my ,dorigen1 ,yonder1 above1 'bout ,ariadne's crown1 ,my spirit shall hover for thee4 ,prithee1 haste4 ,dorigen4 ,stay1 ,sophocles1--with this tie up my sight2 ,let not soft nature so transformed be1 ,and lose her gentler sexed humanity1 ,to make me see my lord bleed4 ,so1 'tis well2 ,never one object underneath the sun ,will ,i behold before my ,sophocles3 ,farewell2 now teach the ,romans how to die4 ,martius4 ,dost know what 't is to die8 ,sophocles4 ,thou dost not1 ,martius1 ,and1 therefore1 not what 'tis to live2 to die ,is to begin to live4 ,it is to end ,an old1 stale1 weary work1 and to commence ,a newer and a better4 ',tis to leave ,deceitful knaves for the society ,of gods and goodness4 ,thou thyself must part ,at last from all thy garlands1 pleasures1 triumphs1 ,and prove thy fortitude what then 't will do4 ,valerius4 ,but art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus8 ,sophocles4 ,why should ,i grieve or vex for being sent ,to them ,i ever loved best8 ,now ,i'll kneel1 ,but with my back toward thee2 'tis the last duty ,this trunk can do the gods4 ,martius4 ,strike1 strike1 ,valerius1 ,or ,martius' heart will leap out at his mouth4 ,this is a man1 a woman4 ,kiss thy lord1 ,and live with all the freedom you were wont4 ,o love6 thou doubly hast afflicted me ,with virtue and with beauty4 ,treacherous heart1 ,my hand shall cast thee quick into my urn1 ,ere thou transgress this knot of piety4 ,valerius4 ,what ails my brother8 ,sophocles4 ,martius1 ,o ,martius1 ,thou now hast found a way to conquer me4 ,dorigen4 ,o star of ,rome6 what gratitude can speak ,fit words to follow such a deed as this8 ,martius4 ,this admirable duke1 ,valerius1 ,with his disdain of fortune and of death1 ,captived himself1 has captivated me1 ,and though my arm hath ta'en his body here1 ,his soul hath subjugated ,martius' soul4 ,by ,romulus1 he is all soul1 ,i think2 ,he hath no flesh1 and spirit cannot be gyved2 ,then we have vanquished nothing2 he is free1 ,and ,martius walks now in captivity4 ,i do not readily remember any poem1 play1 sermon1 novel1 or oration that our press vents in the last few years1 which goes to the same tune4 ,we have a great many flutes and flageolets1 but not often the sound of any fife4 ,yet1 ,wordsworth's 8,laodamia10 and the ode of 8,dion10 and some sonnets1 have a certain noble music2 and ,scott will sometimes draw a stroke like the portrait of ,lord ,evandale given by ,balfour of ,burley4 ,thomas ,carlyle1 with his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character1 has suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his biographical and historical pictures4 ,earlier1 ,robert ,burns has given us a song or two4 ,in the ,harleian ,miscellanies there is an account of the battle of ,lutzen which deserves to be read4 ,and ,simon ,ockley's ,history of the ,saracens recounts the prodigies of individual valor1 with admiration all the more evident on the part of the narrator that he seems to think that his place in ,christian ,oxford requires of him some proper protestations of abhorrence4 ,but if we explore the literature of ,heroism we shall quickly come to ,plutarch1 who is its ,doctor and historian4 ,to him we owe the ,brasidas1 the ,dion1 the ,epaminondas1 the ,scipio of old1 and ,i must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the ancient writers4 ,each of his 8,lives0 is a refutation to the despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists4 ,a wild courage1 a ,stoicism not of the schools but of the blood1 shines in every anecdote1 and has given that book its immense fame4 ,we need books of this tart cathartic virtue more than books of political science or of private economy4 ,life is a festival only to the wise4 ,seen from the nook and chimney-side of prudence1 it wears a ragged and dangerous front4 ,the violations of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our contemporaries are punished in us also4 ,the disease and deformity around us certify the infraction of natural1 intellectual1 and moral laws1 and often violation on violation to breed such compound misery4 ,a lock-jaw that bends a man's head back to his heels2 hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes2 insanity that makes him eat grass2 war1 plague1 cholera1 famine1 indicate a certain ferocity in nature1 which1 as it had its inlet by human crime1 must have its outlet by human suffering4 ,unhappily no man exists who has not in his own person become to some amount a stockholder in the sin1 and so made himself liable to a share in the expiation4 ,our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man4 ,let him hear in season that he is born into the state of war1 and that the commonwealth and his own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace1 but warned1 self-collected and neither defying nor dreading the thunder1 let him take both reputation and life in his hand1 and1 with perfect urbanity dare the gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his behavior4 ,towards all this external evil the man within the breast assumes a warlike attitude1 and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army of enemies4 ,to this military attitude of the soul we give the name of ,heroism4 ,its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease1 which makes the attractiveness of war4 ,it is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence1 in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer4 ,the hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will1 but pleasantly and as it were merrily he advances to his own music1 alike in frightful alarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness4 ,there is somewhat not philosophical in heroism2 there is somewhat not holy in it2 it seems not to know that other souls are of one texture with it2 it has pride2 it is the extreme of individual nature4 ,nevertheless we must profoundly revere it4 ,there is somewhat in great actions which does not allow us to go behind them4 ,heroism feels and never reasons1 and therefore is always right2 and although a different breeding1 different religion and greater intellectual activity would have modified or even reversed the particular action1 yet for the hero that thing he does is the highest deed1 and is not open to the censure of philosophers or divines4 ,it is the avowal of the unschooled man that he finds a quality in him that is negligent of expense1 of health1 of life1 of danger1 of hatred1 of reproach1 and knows that his will is higher and more excellent than all actual and all possible antagonists4 ,heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction1 for a time1 to the voice of the great and good4 ,heroism is an obedience to a secret impulse of an individual's character4 ,now to no other man can its wisdom appear as it does to him1 for every man must be supposed to see a little farther on his own proper path than any one else4 ,therefore just and wise men take umbrage at his act1 until after some little time be past3 then they see it to be in unison with their acts4 ,all prudent men see that the action is clean contrary to a sensual prosperity2 for every heroic act measures itself by its contempt of some external good4 ,but it finds its own success at last1 and then the prudent also extol4 ,self-trust is the essence of heroism4 ,it is the state of the soul at war1 and its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong1 and the power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents4 ,it speaks the truth and it is just1 generous1 hospitable1 temperate1 scornful of petty calculations and scornful of being scorned4 ,it persists2 it is of an undaunted boldness and of a fortitude not to be wearied out4 ,its jest is the littleness of common life4 ,that false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment of heroism4 ,heroism1 like ,plotinus1 is almost ashamed of its body4 ,what shall it say then to the sugar-plums and cats'-cradles1 to the toilet1 compliments1 quarrels1 cards and custard1 which rack the wit of all society8 ,what joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures6 ,there seems to be no interval between greatness and meanness4 ,when the spirit is not master of the world1 then it is its dupe4 ,yet the little man takes the great hoax so innocently1 works in it so headlong and believing1 is born red1 and dies gray1 arranging his toilet1 attending on his own health1 laying traps for sweet food and strong wine1 setting his heart on a horse or a rifle1 made happy with a little gossip or a little praise1 that the great soul cannot choose but laugh at such earnest nonsense4 8,indeed1 these humble considerations make me out of love with greatness4 ,what a disgrace is it to me to take note how many pairs of silk stockings thou hast1 namely1 these and those that were the peach-colored ones2 or to bear the inventory of thy shirts1 as one for superfluity1 and one other for use60 ,citizens1 thinking after the laws of arithmetic1 consider the inconvenience of receiving strangers at their fireside1 reckon narrowly the loss of time and the unusual display2 the soul of a better quality thrusts back the unseasonable economy into the vaults of life1 and says1 ,i will obey the ,god1 and the sacrifice and the fire he will provide4 ,ibn ,hankal1 the ,arabian geographer1 describes a heroic extreme in the hospitality of ,sogd1 in ,bukharia4 8,when ,i was in ,sogd ,i saw a great building1 like a palace1 the gates of which were open and fixed back to the wall with large nails4 ,i asked the reason1 and was told that the house had not been shut1 night or day1 for a hundred years4 ,strangers may present themselves at any hour and in whatever number2 the master has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals1 and is never happier than when they tarry for some time4 ,nothing of the kind have ,i seen in any other country40 ,the magnanimous know very well that they who give time1 or money1 or shelter1 to the stranger1--so it be done for love and not for ostentation1--do1 as it were1 put ,god under obligation to them1 so perfect are the compensations of the universe4 ,in some way the time they seem to lose is redeemed and the pains they seem to take remunerate themselves4 ,these men fan the flame of human love and raise the standard of civil virtue among mankind4 ,but hospitality must be for service and not for show1 or it pulls down the host4 ,the brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by the splendor of its table and draperies4 ,it gives what it hath1 and all it hath1 but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water than belong to city feasts4 ,the temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no dishonor to the worthiness he has4 ,but he loves it for its elegancy1 not for its austerity4 ,it seems not worth his while to be solemn and denounce with bitterness flesh-eating or wine-drinking1 the use of tobacco1 or opium1 or tea1 or silk1 or gold4 ,a great man scarcely knows how he dines1 how he dresses2 but without railing or precision his living is natural and poetic4 ,john ,eliot1 the ,indian ,apostle1 drank water1 and said of wine1--8,it is a noble1 generous liquor and we should be humbly thankful for it1 but1 as ,i remember1 water was made before it40 ,better still is the temperance of ,king ,david1 who poured out on the ground unto the ,lord the water which three of his warriors had brought him to drink1 at the peril of their lives4 ,it is told of ,brutus1 that when he fell on his sword after the battle of ,philippi1 he quoted a line of ,euripides1--8,o ,virtue6 ,i have followed thee through life1 and ,i find thee at last but a shade40 ,i doubt not the hero is slandered by this report4 ,the heroic soul does not sell its justice and its nobleness4 ,it does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm4 ,the essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough4 ,poverty is its ornament4 ,it does not need plenty1 and can very well abide its loss4 ,but that which takes my fancy most in the heroic class1 is the good-humor and hilarity they exhibit4 ,it is a height to which common duty can very well attain1 to suffer and to dare with solemnity4 ,but these rare souls set opinion1 success1 and life at so cheap a rate that they will not soothe their enemies by petitions1 or the show of sorrow1 but wear their own habitual greatness4 ,scipio1 charged with peculation1 refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as to wait for justification1 though he had the scroll of his accounts in his hands1 but tears it to pieces before the tribunes4 ,socrates's condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the ,prytaneum1 during his life1 and ,sir ,thomas ,more's playfulness at the scaffold1 are of the same strain4 ,in ,beaumont and ,fletcher's 8,sea ,voyage10 ,juletta tells the stout captain and his company1-- ,juletta4 ,why1 slaves1 'tis in our power to hang ye4 ,master4 ,very likely1 ',tis in our powers1 then1 to be hanged1 and scorn ye4 ,these replies are sound and whole4 ,sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect health4 ,the great will not condescend to take any thing seriously2 all must be as gay as the song of a canary1 though it were the building of cities or the eradication of old and foolish churches and nations which have cumbered the earth long thousands of years4 ,simple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind them1 and play their own game in innocent defiance of the ,blue-,laws of the world2 and such would appear1 could we see the human race assembled in vision1 like little children frolicking together1 though to the eyes of mankind at large they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and influences4 ,the interest these fine stories have for us1 the power of a romance over the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school1 our delight in the hero1 is the main fact to our purpose4 ,all these great and transcendent properties are ours4 ,if we dilate in beholding the ,greek energy1 the ,roman pride1 it is that we are already domesticating the same sentiment4 ,let us find room for this great guest in our small houses4 ,the first step of worthiness will be to disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times1 with number and size4 ,why should these words1 ,athenian1 ,roman1 ,asia and ,england1 so tingle in the ear8 ,where the heart is1 there the muses1 there the gods sojourn1 and not in any geography of fame4 ,massachusetts1 ,connecticut ,river and ,boston ,bay you think paltry places1 and the ear loves names of foreign and classic topography4 ,but here we are2 and1 if we will tarry a little1 we may come to learn that here is best4 ,see to it only that thyself is here1 and art and nature1 hope and fate1 friends1 angels and the ,supreme ,being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest4 ,epaminondas1 brave and affectionate1 does not seem to us to need ,olympus to die upon1 nor the ,syrian sunshine4 ,he lies very well where he is4 ,the ,jerseys were handsome ground enough for ,washington to tread1 and ,london streets for the feet of ,milton4 ,a great man makes his climate genial in the imagination of men1 and its air the beloved element of all delicate spirits4 ,that country is the fairest which is inhabited by the noblest minds4 ,the pictures which fill the imagination in reading the actions of ,pericles1 ,xenophon1 ,columbus1 ,bayard1 ,sidney1 ,hampden1 teach us how needlessly mean our life is2 that we1 by the depth of our living1 should deck it with more than regal or national splendor1 and act on principles that should interest man and nature in the length of our days4 ,we have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men who never ripened1 or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary4 ,when we see their air and mien1 when we hear them speak of society1 of books1 of religion1 we admire their superiority2 they seem to throw contempt on our entire polity and social state2 theirs is the tone of a youthful giant who is sent to work revolutions4 ,but they enter an active profession and the forming ,colossus shrinks to the common size of man4 ,the magic they used was the ideal tendencies1 which always make the ,actual ridiculous2 but the tough world had its revenge the moment they put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow4 ,they found no example and no companion1 and their heart fainted4 ,what then8 ,the lesson they gave in their first aspirations is yet true2 and a better valor and a purer truth shall one day organize their belief4 ,or why should a woman liken herself to any historical woman1 and think1 because ,sappho1 or ,svign1 or ,de ,stal1 or the cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation do not satisfy the imagination and the serene ,themis1 none can1--certainly not she8 ,why not8 ,she has a new and unattempted problem to solve1 perchance that of the happiest nature that ever bloomed4 ,let the maiden1 with erect soul1 walk serenely on her way1 accept the hint of each new experience1 search in turn all the objects that solicit her eye1 that she may learn the power and the charm of her new-born being1 which is the kindling of a new dawn in the recesses of space4 ,the fair girl who repels interference by a decided and proud choice of influences1 so careless of pleasing1 so wilful and lofty1 inspires every beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness4 ,the silent heart encourages her2 ,o friend1 never strike sail to a fear6 ,come into port greatly1 or sail with ,god the seas4 ,not in vain you live1 for every passing eye is cheered and refined by the vision4 ,the characteristic of heroism is its persistency4 ,all men have wandering impulses1 fits and starts of generosity4 ,but when you have chosen your part1 abide by it1 and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world4 ,the heroic cannot be the common1 nor the common the heroic4 ,yet we have the weakness to expect the sympathy of people in those actions whose excellence is that they outrun sympathy and appeal to a tardy justice4 ,if you would serve your brother1 because it is fit for you to serve him1 do not take back your words when you find that prudent people do not commend you4 ,adhere to your own act1 and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age4 ,it was a high counsel that ,i once heard given to a young person1--8,always do what you are afraid to do40 ,a simple manly character need never make an apology1 but should regard its past action with the calmness of ,phocion1 when he admitted that the event of the battle was happy1 yet did not regret his dissuasion from the battle4 ,there is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation in the thought--this is a part of my constitution1 part of my relation and office to my fellow-creature4 ,has nature covenanted with me that ,i should never appear to disadvantage1 never make a ridiculous figure8 ,let us be generous of our dignity as well as of our money4 ,greatness once and for ever has done with opinion4 ,we tell our charities1 not because we wish to be praised for them1 not because we think they have great merit1 but for our justification4 ,it is a capital blunder2 as you discover when another man recites his charities4 ,to speak the truth1 even with some austerity1 to live with some rigor of temperance1 or some extremes of generosity1 seems to be an asceticism which common good-nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty1 in sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men4 ,and not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of abstinence1 of debt1 of solitude1 of unpopularity1--but it behooves the wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes invade men1 and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease1 with sounds of execration1 and the vision of violent death4 ,times of heroism are generally times of terror1 but the day never shines in which this element may not work4 ,the circumstances of man1 we say1 are historically somewhat better in this country and at this hour than perhaps ever before4 ,more freedom exists for culture4 ,it will not now run against an axe at the first step out of the beaten track of opinion4 ,but whoso is heroic will always find crises to try his edge4 ,human virtue demands her champions and martyrs1 and the trial of persecution always proceeds4 ,it is but the other day that the brave ,lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob1 for the rights of free speech and opinion1 and died when it was better not to live4 ,i see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk1 but after the counsel of his own bosom4 ,let him quit too much association1 let him go home much1 and stablish himself in those courses he approves4 ,the unremitting retention of simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is hardening the character to that temper which will work with honor1 if need be in the tumult1 or on the scaffold4 ,whatever outrages have happened to men may befall a man again2 and very easily in a republic1 if there appear any signs of a decay of religion4 ,coarse slander1 fire1 tar and feathers and the gibbet1 the youth may freely bring home to his mind and with what sweetness of temper he can1 and inquire how fast he can fix his sense of duty1 braving such penalties1 whenever it may please the next newspaper and a sufficient number of his neighbors to pronounce his opinions incendiary4 ,it may calm the apprehension of calamity in the most susceptible heart to see how quick a bound ,nature has set to the utmost infliction of malice4 ,we rapidly approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us3-- 8,let them rave3 ,thou art quiet in thy grave40 ,in the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be1 in the hour when we are deaf to the higher voices1 who does not envy those who have seen safely to an end their manful endeavor8 ,who that sees the meanness of our politics but inly congratulates ,washington that he is long already wrapped in his shroud1 and for ever safe2 that he was laid sweet in his grave1 the hope of humanity not yet subjugated in him8 ,who does not sometimes envy the good and brave who are no more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world1 and await with curious complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature8 ,and yet the love that will be annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made death impossible1 and affirms itself no mortal but a native of the deeps of absolute and inextinguishable being4 ,,ix4 ,,the ,,over-,,soul 8,but souls that of his own good life partake1 ,he loves as his own self2 dear as his eye ,they are to ,him3 ,he'll never them forsake3 ,when they shall die1 then ,god himself shall die3 ,they live1 they live in blest eternity40 ,henry ,more4 ,space is ample1 east and west1 ,but two cannot go abreast1 ,cannot travel in it two3 ,yonder masterful cuckoo ,crowds every egg out of the nest1 ,quick or dead1 except its own2 ,a spell is laid on sod and stone1 ,night and ,day 've been tampered with1 ,every quality and pith ,surcharged and sultry with a power ,that works its will on age and hour4 ,,the ,,over-,,soul ,there is a difference between one and another hour of life in their authority and subsequent effect4 ,our faith comes in moments2 our vice is habitual4 ,yet there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more reality to them than to all other experiences4 ,for this reason the argument which is always forthcoming to silence those who conceive extraordinary hopes of man1 namely the appeal to experience1 is for ever invalid and vain4 ,we give up the past to the objector1 and yet we hope4 ,he must explain this hope4 ,we grant that human life is mean1 but how did we find out that it was mean8 ,what is the ground of this uneasiness of ours2 of this old discontent8 ,what is the universal sense of want and ignorance1 but the fine innuendo by which the soul makes its enormous claim8 ,why do men feel that the natural history of man has never been written1 but he is always leaving behind what you have said of him1 and it becomes old1 and books of metaphysics worthless8 ,the philosophy of six thousand years has not searched the chambers and magazines of the soul4 ,in its experiments there has always remained1 in the last analysis1 a residuum it could not resolve4 ,man is a stream whose source is hidden4 ,our being is descending into us from we know not whence4 ,the most exact calculator has no prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment4 ,i am constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the will ,i call mine4 ,as with events1 so is it with thoughts4 ,when ,i watch that flowing river1 which1 out of regions ,i see not1 pours for a season its streams into me1 ,i see that ,i am a pensioner2 not a cause1 but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water2 that ,i desire and look up and put myself in the attitude of reception1 but from some alien energy the visions come4 ,the ,supreme ,critic on the errors of the past and the present1 and the only prophet of that which must be1 is that great nature in which we rest as the earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere2 that ,unity1 that ,over-soul1 within which every man's particular being is contained and made one with all other2 that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship1 to which all right action is submission2 that overpowering reality which confutes our tricks and talents1 and constrains every one to pass for what he is1 and to speak from his character and not from his tongue1 and which evermore tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power and beauty4 ,we live in succession1 in division1 in parts1 in particles4 ,meantime within man is the soul of the whole2 the wise silence2 the universal beauty1 to which every part and particle is equally related2 the eternal ,,one4 ,and this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to us1 is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour1 but the act of seeing and the thing seen1 the seer and the spectacle1 the subject and the object1 are one4 ,we see the world piece by piece1 as the sun1 the moon1 the animal1 the tree2 but the whole1 of which these are the shining parts1 is the soul4 ,only by the vision of that ,wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read1 and by falling back on our better thoughts1 by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is innate in every man1 we can know what it saith4 ,every man's words who speaks from that life must sound vain to those who do not dwell in the same thought on their own part4 ,i dare not speak for it4 ,my words do not carry its august sense2 they fall short and cold4 ,only itself can inspire whom it will1 and behold6 their speech shall be lyrical1 and sweet1 and universal as the rising of the wind4 ,yet ,i desire1 even by profane words1 if ,i may not use sacred1 to indicate the heaven of this deity and to report what hints ,i have collected of the transcendent simplicity and energy of the ,highest ,law4 ,if we consider what happens in conversation1 in reveries1 in remorse1 in times of passion1 in surprises1 in the instructions of dreams1 wherein often we see ourselves in masquerade1--the droll disguises only magnifying and enhancing a real element and forcing it on our distinct notice1--we shall catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of nature4 ,all goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ1 but animates and exercises all the organs2 is not a function1 like the power of memory1 of calculation1 of comparison1 but uses these as hands and feet2 is not a faculty1 but a light2 is not the intellect or the will1 but the master of the intellect and the will2 is the background of our being1 in which they lie1--an immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed4 ,from within or from behind1 a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are nothing1 but the light is all4 ,a man is the facade of a temple wherein all wisdom and all good abide4 ,what we commonly call man1 the eating1 drinking1 planting1 counting man1 does not1 as we know him1 represent himself1 but misrepresents himself4 ,him we do not respect1 but the soul1 whose organ he is1 would he let it appear through his action1 would make our knees bend4 ,when it breathes through his intellect1 it is genius2 when it breathes through his will1 it is virtue2 when it flows through his affection1 it is love4 ,and the blindness of the intellect begins when it would be something of itself4 ,the weakness of the will begins when the individual would be something of himself4 ,all reform aims in some one particular to let the soul have its way through us2 in other words1 to engage us to obey4 ,of this pure nature every man is at some time sensible4 ,language cannot paint it with his colors4 ,it is too subtile4 ,it is undefinable1 unmeasurable2 but we know that it pervades and contains us4 ,we know that all spiritual being is in man4 ,a wise old proverb says1 8,god comes to see us without bell20 that is1 as there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite heavens1 so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man1 the effect1 ceases1 and ,god1 the cause1 begins4 ,the walls are taken away4 ,we lie open on one side to the deeps of spiritual nature1 to the attributes of ,god4 ,justice we see and know1 ,love1 ,freedom1 ,power4 ,these natures no man ever got above1 but they tower over us1 and most in the moment when our interests tempt us to wound them4 ,the sovereignty of this nature whereof we speak is made known by its independency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand4 ,the soul circumscribes all things4 ,as ,i have said1 it contradicts all experience4 ,in like manner it abolishes time and space4 ,the influence of the senses has in most men overpowered the mind to that degree that the walls of time and space have come to look real and insurmountable2 and to speak with levity of these limits is1 in the world1 the sign of insanity4 ,yet time and space are but inverse measures of the force of the soul4 ,the spirit sports with time1-- 8,can crowd eternity into an hour1 ,or stretch an hour to eternity40 ,we are often made to feel that there is another youth and age than that which is measured from the year of our natural birth4 ,some thoughts always find us young1 and keep us so4 ,such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal beauty4 ,every man parts from that contemplation with the feeling that it rather belongs to ages than to mortal life4 ,the least activity of the intellectual powers redeems us in a degree from the conditions of time4 ,in sickness1 in languor1 give us a strain of poetry or a profound sentence1 and we are refreshed2 or produce a volume of ,plato or ,shakspeare1 or remind us of their names1 and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity4 ,see how the deep divine thought reduces centuries and millenniums and makes itself present through all ages4 ,is the teaching of ,christ less effective now than it was when first his mouth was opened8 ,the emphasis of facts and persons in my thought has nothing to do with time4 ,and so always the soul's scale is one1 the scale of the senses and the understanding is another4 ,before the revelations of the soul1 ,time1 ,space and ,nature shrink away4 ,in common speech we refer all things to time1 as we habitually refer the immensely sundered stars to one concave sphere4 ,and so we say that the ,judgment is distant or near1 that the ,millennium approaches1 that a day of certain political1 moral1 social reforms is at hand1 and the like1 when we mean that in the nature of things one of the facts we contemplate is external and fugitive1 and the other is permanent and connate with the soul4 ,the things we now esteem fixed shall1 one by one1 detach themselves like ripe fruit from our experience1 and fall4 ,the wind shall blow them none knows whither4 ,the landscape1 the figures1 ,boston1 ,london1 are facts as fugitive as any institution past1 or any whiff of mist or smoke1 and so is society1 and so is the world4 ,the soul looketh steadily forwards1 creating a world before her1 leaving worlds behind her4 ,she has no dates1 nor rites1 nor persons1 nor specialties nor men4 ,the soul knows only the soul2 the web of events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed4 ,after its own law and not by arithmetic is the rate of its progress to be computed4 ,the soul's advances are not made by gradation1 such as can be represented by motion in a straight line1 but rather by ascension of state1 such as can be represented by metamorphosis1--from the egg to the worm1 from the worm to the fly4 ,the growths of genius are of a certain total character1 that does not advance the elect individual first over ,john1 then ,adam1 then ,richard1 and give to each the pain of discovered inferiority1--but by every throe of growth the man expands there where he works1 passing1 at each pulsation1 classes1 populations1 of men4 ,with each divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite1 and comes out into eternity1 and inspires and expires its air4 ,it converses with truths that have always been spoken in the world1 and becomes conscious of a closer sympathy with ,zeno and ,arrian than with persons in the house4 ,this is the law of moral and of mental gain4 ,the simple rise as by specific levity not into a particular virtue1 but into the region of all the virtues4 ,they are in the spirit which contains them all4 ,the soul requires purity1 but purity is not it2 requires justice1 but justice is not that2 requires beneficence1 but is somewhat better2 so that there is a kind of descent and accommodation felt when we leave speaking of moral nature to urge a virtue which it enjoins4 ,to the well-born child all the virtues are natural1 and not painfully acquired4 ,speak to his heart1 and the man becomes suddenly virtuous4 ,within the same sentiment is the germ of intellectual growth1 which obeys the same law4 ,those who are capable of humility1 of justice1 of love1 of aspiration1 stand already on a platform that commands the sciences and arts1 speech and poetry1 action and grace4 ,for whoso dwells in this moral beatitude already anticipates those special powers which men prize so highly4 ,the lover has no talent1 no skill1 which passes for quite nothing with his enamoured maiden1 however little she may possess of related faculty2 and the heart which abandons itself to the ,supreme ,mind finds itself related to all its works1 and will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers4 ,in ascending to this primary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from our remote station on the circumference instantaneously to the centre of the world1 where1 as in the closet of ,god1 we see causes1 and anticipate the universe1 which is but a slow effect4 ,one mode of the divine teaching is the incarnation of the spirit in a form1--in forms1 like my own4 ,i live in society1 with persons who answer to thoughts in my own mind1 or express a certain obedience to the great instincts to which ,i live4 ,i see its presence to them4 ,i am certified of a common nature2 and these other souls1 these separated selves1 draw me as nothing else can4 ,they stir in me the new emotions we call passion2 of love1 hatred1 fear1 admiration1 pity2 thence come conversation1 competition1 persuasion1 cities and war4 ,persons are supplementary to the primary teaching of the soul4 ,in youth we are mad for persons4 ,childhood and youth see all the world in them4 ,but the larger experience of man discovers the identical nature appearing through them all4 ,persons themselves acquaint us with the impersonal4 ,in all conversation between two persons tacit reference is made1 as to a third party1 to a common nature4 ,that third party or common nature is not social2 it is impersonal2 is ,god4 ,and so in groups where debate is earnest1 and especially on high questions1 the company become aware that the thought rises to an equal level in all bosoms1 that all have a spiritual property in what was said1 as well as the sayer4 ,they all become wiser than they were4 ,it arches over them like a temple1 this unity of thought in which every heart beats with nobler sense of power and duty1 and thinks and acts with unusual solemnity4 ,all are conscious of attaining to a higher self-possession4 ,it shines for all4 ,there is a certain wisdom of humanity which is common to the greatest men with the lowest1 and which our ordinary education often labors to silence and obstruct4 ,the mind is one1 and the best minds1 who love truth for its own sake1 think much less of property in truth4 ,they accept it thankfully everywhere1 and do not label or stamp it with any man's name1 for it is theirs long beforehand1 and from eternity4 ,the learned and the studious of thought have no monopoly of wisdom4 ,their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies them to think truly4 ,we owe many valuable observations to people who are not very acute or profound1 and who say the thing without effort which we want and have long been hunting in vain4 ,the action of the soul is oftener in that which is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation4 ,it broods over every society1 and they unconsciously seek for it in each other4 ,we know better than we do4 ,we do not yet possess ourselves1 and we know at the same time that we are much more4 ,i feel the same truth how often in my trivial conversation with my neighbors1 that somewhat higher in each of us overlooks this by-play1 and ,jove nods to ,jove from behind each of us4 ,men descend to meet4 ,in their habitual and mean service to the world1 for which they forsake their native nobleness1 they resemble those ,arabian sheiks who dwell in mean houses and affect an external poverty1 to escape the rapacity of the ,pacha1 and reserve all their display of wealth for their interior and guarded retirements4 ,as it is present in all persons1 so it is in every period of life4 ,it is adult already in the infant man4 ,in my dealing with my child1 my ,latin and ,greek1 my accomplishments and my money stead me nothing2 but as much soul as ,i have avails4 ,if ,i am wilful1 he sets his will against mine1 one for one1 and leaves me1 if ,i please1 the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength4 ,but if ,i renounce my will and act for the soul1 setting that up as umpire between us two1 out of his young eyes looks the same soul2 he reveres and loves with me4 ,the soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth4 ,we know truth when we see it1 let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose4 ,foolish people ask you1 when you have spoken what they do not wish to hear1 #8,how do you know it is truth1 and not an error of your own8' ,we know truth when we see it1 from opinion1 as we know when we are awake that we are awake4 ,it was a grand sentence of ,emanuel ,swedenborg1 which would alone indicate the greatness of that man's perception1--8,it is no proof of a man's understanding to be able to confirm whatever he pleases2 but to be able to discern that what is true is true1 and that what is false is false1--this is the mark and character of intelligence40 ,in the book ,i read1 the good thought returns to me1 as every truth will1 the image of the whole soul4 ,to the bad thought which ,i find in it1 the same soul becomes a discerning1 separating sword1 and lops it away4 ,we are wiser than we know4 ,if we will not interfere with our thought1 but will act entirely1 or see how the thing stands in ,god1 we know the particular thing1 and every thing1 and every man4 ,for the ,maker of all things and all persons stands behind us and casts his dread omniscience through us over things4 ,but beyond this recognition of its own in particular passages of the individual's experience1 it also reveals truth4 ,and here we should seek to reinforce ourselves by its very presence1 and to speak with a worthier1 loftier strain of that advent4 ,for the soul's communication of truth is the highest event in nature1 since it then does not give somewhat from itself1 but it gives itself1 or passes into and becomes that man whom it enlightens2 or1 in proportion to that truth he receives1 it takes him to itself4 ,we distinguish the announcements of the soul1 its manifestations of its own nature1 by the term ,revelation4 ,these are always attended by the emotion of the sublime4 ,for this communication is an influx of the ,divine mind into our mind4 ,it is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the sea of life4 ,every distinct apprehension of this central commandment agitates men with awe and delight4 ,a thrill passes through all men at the reception of new truth1 or at the performance of a great action1 which comes out of the heart of nature4 ,in these communications the power to see is not separated from the will to do1 but the insight proceeds from obedience1 and the obedience proceeds from a joyful perception4 ,every moment when the individual feels himself invaded by it is memorable4 ,by the necessity of our constitution a certain enthusiasm attends the individual's consciousness of that divine presence4 ,the character and duration of this enthusiasm varies with the state of the individual1 from an ecstasy and trance and prophetic inspiration1--which is its rarer appearance1--to the faintest glow of virtuous emotion1 in which form it warms1 like our household fires1 all the families and associations of men1 and makes society possible4 ,a certain tendency to insanity has always attended the opening of the religious sense in men1 as if they had been 8blasted with excess of light40 ,the trances of ,socrates1 the 8union0 of ,plotinus1 the vision of ,porphyry1 the conversion of ,paul1 the aurora of ,behmen1 the convulsions of ,george ,fox and his ,quakers1 the illumination of ,swedenborg1 are of this kind4 ,what was in the case of these remarkable persons a ravishment1 has1 in innumerable instances in common life1 been exhibited in less striking manner4 ,everywhere the history of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm4 ,the rapture of the ,moravian and ,quietist2 the opening of the internal sense of the ,word1 in the language of the ,new ,jerusalem ,church2 the revival of the ,calvinistic churches2 the experiences of the ,methodists1 are varying forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always mingles with the universal soul4 ,the nature of these revelations is the same2 they are perceptions of the absolute law4 ,they are solutions of the soul's own questions4 ,they do not answer the questions which the understanding asks4 ,the soul answers never by words1 but by the thing itself that is inquired after4 ,revelation is the disclosure of the soul4 ,the popular notion of a revelation is that it is a telling of fortunes4 ,in past oracles of the soul the understanding seeks to find answers to sensual questions1 and undertakes to tell from ,god how long men shall exist1 what their hands shall do and who shall be their company1 adding names and dates and places4 ,but we must pick no locks4 ,we must check this low curiosity4 ,an answer in words is delusive2 it is really no answer to the questions you ask4 ,do not require a description of the countries towards which you sail4 ,the description does not describe them to you1 and to-morrow you arrive there and know them by inhabiting them4 ,men ask concerning the immortality of the soul1 the employments of heaven1 the state of the sinner1 and so forth4 ,they even dream that ,jesus has left replies to precisely these interrogatories4 ,never a moment did that sublime spirit speak in their patois4 ,to truth1 justice1 love1 the attributes of the soul1 the idea of immutableness is essentially associated4 ,jesus1 living in these moral sentiments1 heedless of sensual fortunes1 heeding only the manifestations of these1 never made the separation of the idea of duration from the essence of these attributes1 nor uttered a syllable concerning the duration of the soul4 ,it was left to his disciples to sever duration from the moral elements1 and to teach the immortality of the soul as a doctrine1 and maintain it by evidences4 ,the moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught1 man is already fallen4 ,in the flowing of love1 in the adoration of humility1 there is no question of continuance4 ,no inspired man ever asks this question or condescends to these evidences4 ,for the soul is true to itself1 and the man in whom it is shed abroad cannot wander from the present1 which is infinite1 to a future which would be finite4 ,these questions which we lust to ask about the future are a confession of sin4 ,god has no answer for them4 ,no answer in words can reply to a question of things4 ,it is not in an arbitrary 8decree of ,god10 but in the nature of man1 that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow2 for the soul will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect4 ,by this veil which curtains events it instructs the children of men to live in to-day4 ,the only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to forego all low curiosity1 and1 accepting the tide of being which floats us into the secret of nature1 work and live1 work and live1 and all unawares the advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition1 and the question and the answer are one4 ,by the same fire1 vital1 consecrating1 celestial1 which burns until it shall dissolve all things into the waves and surges of an ocean of light1 we see and know each other1 and what spirit each is of4 ,who can tell the grounds of his knowledge of the character of the several individuals in his circle of friends8 ,no man4 ,yet their acts and words do not disappoint him4 ,in that man1 though he knew no ill of him1 he put no trust4 ,in that other1 though they had seldom met1 authentic signs had yet passed1 to signify that he might be trusted as one who had an interest in his own character4 ,we know each other very well1--which of us has been just to himself and whether that which we teach or behold is only an aspiration or is our honest effort also4 ,we are all discerners of spirits4 ,that diagnosis lies aloft in our life or unconscious power4 ,the intercourse of society1 its trade1 its religion1 its friendships1 its quarrels1 is one wide1 judicial investigation of character4 ,in full court1 or in small committee1 or confronted face to face1 accuser and accused1 men offer themselves to be judged4 ,against their will they exhibit those decisive trifles by which character is read4 ,but who judges8 and what8 ,not our understanding4 ,we do not read them by learning or craft4 ,no2 the wisdom of the wise man consists herein1 that he does not judge them2 he lets them judge themselves and merely reads and records their own verdict4 ,by virtue of this inevitable nature1 private will is overpowered1 and1 maugre our efforts or our imperfections1 your genius will speak from you1 and mine from me4 ,that which we are1 we shall teach1 not voluntarily but involuntarily4 ,thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open1 and thoughts go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened4 ,character teaches over our head4 ,the infallible index of true progress is found in the tone the man takes4 ,neither his age1 nor his breeding1 nor company1 nor books1 nor actions1 nor talents1 nor all together can hinder him from being deferential to a higher spirit than his own4 ,if he have not found his home in ,god1 his manners1 his forms of speech1 the turn of his sentences1 the build1 shall ,i say1 of all his opinions will involuntarily confess it1 let him brave it out how he will4 ,if he have found his centre1 the ,deity will shine through him1 through all the disguises of ignorance1 of ungenial temperament1 of unfavorable circumstance4 ,the tone of seeking is one1 and the tone of having is another4 ,the great distinction between teachers sacred or literary1--between poets like ,herbert1 and poets like ,pope1--between philosophers like ,spinoza1 ,kant and ,coleridge1 and philosophers like ,locke1 ,paley1 ,mackintosh and ,stewart1--between men of the world who are reckoned accomplished talkers1 and here and there a fervent mystic1 prophesying half insane under the infinitude of his thought1--is that one class speak from within1 or from experience1 as parties and possessors of the fact2 and the other class from without1 as spectators merely1 or perhaps as acquainted with the fact on the evidence of third persons4 ,it is of no use to preach to me from without4 ,i can do that too easily myself4 ,jesus speaks always from within1 and in a degree that transcends all others4 ,in that is the miracle4 ,i believe beforehand that it ought so to be4 ,all men stand continually in the expectation of the appearance of such a teacher4 ,but if a man do not speak from within the veil1 where the word is one with that it tells of1 let him lowly confess it4 ,the same ,omniscience flows into the intellect1 and makes what we call genius4 ,much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom1 and the most illuminated class of men are no doubt superior to literary fame1 and are not writers4 ,among the multitude of scholars and authors1 we feel no hallowing presence2 we are sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration2 they have a light and know not whence it comes and call it their own2 their talent is some exaggerated faculty1 some overgrown member1 so that their strength is a disease4 ,in these instances the intellectual gifts do not make the impression of virtue1 but almost of vice2 and we feel that a man's talents stand in the way of his advancement in truth4 ,but genius is religious4 ,it is a larger imbibing of the common heart4 ,it is not anomalous1 but more like and not less like other men4 ,there is in all great poets a wisdom of humanity which is superior to any talents they exercise4 ,the author1 the wit1 the partisan1 the fine gentleman1 does not take place of the man4 ,humanity shines in ,homer1 in ,chaucer1 in ,spenser1 in ,shakspeare1 in ,milton4 ,they are content with truth4 ,they use the positive degree4 ,they seem frigid and phlegmatic to those who have been spiced with the frantic passion and violent coloring of inferior but popular writers4 ,for they are poets by the free course which they allow to the informing soul1 which through their eyes beholds again and blesses the things which it hath made4 ,the soul is superior to its knowledge1 wiser than any of its works4 ,the great poet makes us feel our own wealth1 and then we think less of his compositions4 ,his best communication to our mind is to teach us to despise all he has done4 ,shakspeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own2 and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created1 and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry1 take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock4 ,the inspiration which uttered itself in ,hamlet and ,lear could utter things as good from day to day for ever4 ,why then should ,i make account of ,hamlet and ,lear1 as if we had not the soul from which they fell as syllables from the tongue8 ,this energy does not descend into individual life on any other condition than entire possession4 ,it comes to the lowly and simple2 it comes to whomsoever will put off what is foreign and proud2 it comes as insight2 it comes as serenity and grandeur4 ,when we see those whom it inhabits1 we are apprised of new degrees of greatness4 ,from that inspiration the man comes back with a changed tone4 ,he does not talk with men with an eye to their opinion4 ,he tries them4 ,it requires of us to be plain and true4 ,the vain traveller attempts to embellish his life by quoting my lord and the prince and the countess1 who thus said or did to him4 ,the ambitious vulgar show you their spoons and brooches and rings1 and preserve their cards and compliments4 ,the more cultivated1 in their account of their own experience1 cull out the pleasing1 poetic circumstance1--the visit to ,rome1 the man of genius they saw1 the brilliant friend ,they know2 still further on perhaps the gorgeous landscape1 the mountain lights1 the mountain thoughts they enjoyed yesterday1--and so seek to throw a romantic color over their life4 ,but the soul that ascends to worship the great ,god is plain and true2 has no rose-color1 no fine friends1 no chivalry1 no adventures2 does not want admiration2 dwells in the hour that now is1 in the earnest experience of the common day1--by reason of the present moment and the mere trifle having become porous to thought and bibulous of the sea of light4 ,converse with a mind that is grandly simple1 and literature looks like word-catching4 ,the simplest utterances are worthiest to be written1 yet are they so cheap and so things of course1 that in the infinite riches of the soul it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground1 or bottling a little air in a phial1 when the whole earth and the whole atmosphere are ours4 ,nothing can pass there1 or make you one of the circle1 but the casting aside your trappings1 and dealing man to man in naked truth1 plain confession1 and omniscient affirmation4 ,souls such as these treat you as gods would1 walk as gods in the earth1 accepting without any admiration your wit1 your bounty1 your virtue even1--say rather your act of duty1 for your virtue they own as their proper blood1 royal as themselves1 and over-royal1 and the father of the gods4 ,but what rebuke their plain fraternal bearing casts on the mutual flattery with which authors solace each other and wound themselves6 ,these flatter not4 ,i do not wonder that these men go to see ,cromwell and ,christina and ,charles the ,second and ,james the ,first and the ,grand ,turk4 ,for they are1 in their own elevation1 the fellows of kings1 and must feel the servile tone of conversation in the world4 ,they must always be a godsend to princes1 for they confront them1 a king to a king1 without ducking or concession1 and give a high nature the refreshment and satisfaction of resistance1 of plain humanity1 of even companionship and of new ideas4 ,they leave them wiser and superior men4 ,souls like these make us feel that sincerity is more excellent than flattery4 ,deal so plainly with man and woman as to constrain the utmost sincerity and destroy all hope of trifling with you4 ,it is the highest compliment you can pay4 ,their 8highest praising10 said ,milton1 8is not flattery1 and their plainest advice is a kind of praising40 ,ineffable is the union of man and ,god in every act of the soul4 ,the simplest person who in his integrity worships ,god1 becomes ,god2 yet for ever and ever the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable4 ,it inspires awe and astonishment4 ,how dear1 how soothing to man1 arises the idea of ,god1 peopling the lonely place1 effacing the scars of our mistakes and disappointments6 ,when we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our god of rhetoric1 then may ,god fire the heart with his presence4 ,it is the doubling of the heart itself1 nay1 the infinite enlargement of the heart with a power of growth to a new infinity on every side4 ,it inspires in man an infallible trust4 ,he has not the conviction1 but the sight1 that the best is the true1 and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties and fears1 and adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his private riddles4 ,he is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being4 ,in the presence of law to his mind he is overflowed with a reliance so universal that it sweeps away all cherished hopes and the most stable projects of mortal condition in its flood4 ,he believes that he cannot escape from his good4 ,the things that are really for thee gravitate to thee4 ,you are running to seek your friend4 ,let your feet run1 but your mind need not4 ,if you do not find him1 will you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him8 for there is a power1 which1 as it is in you1 is in him also1 and could therefore very well bring you together1 if it were for the best4 ,you are preparing with eagerness to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you1 the love of men and the hope of fame4 ,has it not occurred to you that you have no right to go1 unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going8 ,o1 believe1 as thou livest1 that every sound that is spoken over the round world1 which thou oughtest to hear1 will vibrate on thine ear6 ,every proverb1 every book1 every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort1 shall surely come home through open or winding passages4 ,every friend whom not thy fantastic will but the great and tender heart in thee craveth1 shall lock thee in his embrace4 ,and this because the heart in thee is the heart of all2 not a valve1 not a wall1 not an intersection is there anywhere in nature1 but one blood rolls uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men1 as the water of the globe is all one sea1 and1 truly seen1 its tide is one4 ,let man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart2 this1 namely2 that the ,highest dwells with him2 that the sources of nature are in his own mind1 if the sentiment of duty is there4 ,but if he would know what the great ,god speaketh1 he must #8go into his closet and shut the door1' as ,jesus said4 ,god will not make himself manifest to cowards4 ,he must greatly listen to himself1 withdrawing himself from all the accents of other men's devotion4 ,even their prayers are hurtful to him1 until he have made his own4 ,our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers4 ,whenever the appeal is made1--no matter how indirectly1--to numbers1 proclamation is then and there made that religion is not4 ,he that finds ,god a sweet enveloping thought to him never counts his company4 ,when ,i sit in that presence1 who shall dare to come in8 ,when ,i rest in perfect humility1 when ,i burn with pure love1 what can ,calvin or ,swedenborg say8 ,it makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one4 ,the faith that stands on authority is not faith4 ,the reliance on authority measures the decline of religion1 the withdrawal of the soul4 ,the position men have given to ,jesus1 now for many centuries of history1 is a position of authority4 ,it characterizes themselves4 ,it cannot alter the eternal facts4 ,great is the soul1 and plain4 ,it is no flatterer1 it is no follower2 it never appeals from itself4 ,it believes in itself4 ,before the immense possibilities of man all mere experience1 all past biography1 however spotless and sainted1 shrinks away4 ,before that heaven which our presentiments foreshow us1 we cannot easily praise any form of life we have seen or read of4 ,we not only affirm that we have few great men1 but1 absolutely speaking1 that we have none2 that we have no history1 no record of any character or mode of living that entirely contents us4 ,the saints and demigods whom history worships we are constrained to accept with a grain of allowance4 ,though in our lonely hours we draw a new strength out of their memory1 yet1 pressed on our attention1 as they are by the thoughtless and customary1 they fatigue and invade4 ,the soul gives itself1 alone1 original and pure1 to the ,lonely1 ,original and ,pure1 who1 on that condition1 gladly inhabits1 leads and speaks through it4 ,then is it glad1 young and nimble4 ,it is not wise1 but it sees through all things4 ,it is not called religious1 but it is innocent4 ,it calls the light its own1 and feels that the grass grows and the stone falls by a law inferior to1 and dependent on1 its nature4 ,behold1 it saith1 ,i am born into the great1 the universal mind4 ,i1 the imperfect1 adore my own ,perfect4 ,i am somehow receptive of the great soul1 and thereby ,i do ,overlook the sun and the stars and feel them to be the fair accidents and effects which change and pass4 ,more and more the surges of everlasting nature enter into me1 and ,i become public and human in my regards and actions4 ,so come ,i to live in thoughts and act with energies which are immortal4 ,thus revering the soul1 and learning1 as the ancient said1 that 8its beauty is immense10 man will come to see that the world is the perennial miracle which the soul worketh1 and be less astonished at particular wonders2 he will learn that there is no profane history2 that all history is sacred2 that the universe is represented in an atom1 in a moment of time4 ,he will weave no longer a spotted life of shreds and patches1 but he will live with a divine unity4 ,he will cease from what is base and frivolous in his life and be content with all places and with any service he can render4 ,he will calmly front the morrow in the negligency of that trust which carries ,god with it and so hath already the whole future in the bottom of the heart4 ,x4 ,,circles ,nature centres into balls1 ,and her proud ephemerals1 ,fast to surface and outside1 ,scan the profile of the sphere2 ,knew they what that signified1 ,a new genesis were here4 ,,circles ,the eye is the first circle2 the horizon which it forms is the second2 and throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end4 ,it is the highest emblem in the cipher of the world4 ,st4 ,augustine described the nature of ,god as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere4 ,we are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms4 ,one moral we have already deduced1 in considering the circular or compensatory character of every human action4 ,another analogy we shall now trace1 that every action admits of being outdone4 ,our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that around every circle another can be drawn2 that there is no end in nature1 but every end is a beginning2 that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon1 and under every deep a lower deep opens4 ,this fact1 as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the ,unattainable1 the flying ,perfect1 around which the hands of man can never meet1 at once the inspirer and the condemner of every success1 may conveniently serve us to connect many illustrations of human power in every department4 ,there are no fixtures in nature4 ,the universe is fluid and volatile4 ,permanence is but a word of degrees4 ,our globe seen by ,god is a transparent law1 not a mass of facts4 ,the law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid4 ,our culture is the predominance of an idea which draws after it this train of cities and institutions4 ,let us rise into another idea3 they will disappear4 ,the ,greek sculpture is all melted away1 as if it had been statues of ice2 here and there a solitary figure or fragment remaining1 as we see flecks and scraps of snow left in cold dells and mountain clefts in ,june and ,july4 ,for the genius that created it creates now somewhat else4 ,the ,greek letters last a little longer1 but are already passing under the same sentence and tumbling into the inevitable pit which the creation of new thought opens for all that is old4 ,the new continents are built out of the ruins of an old planet2 the new races fed out of the decomposition of the foregoing4 ,new arts destroy the old4 ,see the investment of capital in aqueducts made useless by hydraulics2 fortifications1 by gunpowder2 roads and canals1 by railways2 sails1 by steam2 steam by electricity4 ,you admire this tower of granite1 weathering the hurts of so many ages4 ,yet a little waving hand built this huge wall1 and that which builds is better than that which is built4 ,the hand that built can topple it down much faster4 ,better than the hand and nimbler was the invisible thought which wrought through it2 and thus ever1 behind the coarse effect1 is a fine cause1 which1 being narrowly seen1 is itself the effect of a finer cause4 ,every thing looks permanent until its secret is known4 ,a rich estate appears to women a firm and lasting fact2 to a merchant1 one easily created out of any materials1 and easily lost4 ,an orchard1 good tillage1 good grounds1 seem a fixture1 like a gold mine1 or a river1 to a citizen2 but to a large farmer1 not much more fixed than the state of the crop4 ,nature looks provokingly stable and secular1 but it has a cause like all the rest2 and when once ,i comprehend that1 will these fields stretch so immovably wide1 these leaves hang so individually considerable8 ,permanence is a word of degrees4 ,every thing is medial4 ,moons are no more bounds to spiritual power than bat-balls4 ,the key to every man is his thought4 ,sturdy and defying though he look1 he has a helm which he obeys1 which is the idea after which all his facts are classified4 ,he can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands his own4 ,the life of man is a self-evolving circle1 which1 from a ring imperceptibly small1 rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles1 and that without end4 ,the extent to which this generation of circles1 wheel without wheel1 will go1 depends on the force or truth of the individual soul4 ,for it is the inert effort of each thought1 having formed itself into a circular wave of circumstance1--as for instance an empire1 rules of an art1 a local usage1 a religious rite1--to heap itself on that ridge and to solidify and hem in the life4 ,but if the soul is quick and strong it bursts over that boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on the great deep1 which also runs up into a high wave1 with attempt again to stop and to bind4 ,but the heart refuses to be imprisoned2 in its first and narrowest pulses1 it already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable expansions4 ,every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series4 ,every general law only a particular fact of some more general law presently to disclose itself4 ,there is no outside1 no inclosing wall1 no circumference to us4 ,the man finishes his story1--how good6 how final6 how it puts a new face on all things6 ,he fills the sky4 ,lo6 on the other side rises also a man and draws a circle around the circle we had just pronounced the outline of the sphere4 ,then already is our first speaker not man1 but only a first speaker4 ,his only redress is forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist4 ,and so men do by themselves4 ,the result of to-day1 which haunts the mind and cannot be escaped1 will presently be abridged into a word1 and the principle that seemed to explain nature will itself be included as one example of a bolder generalization4 ,in the thought of to-morrow there is a power to upheave all thy creed1 all the creeds1 all the literatures of the nations1 and marshal thee to a heaven which no epic dream has yet depicted4 ,every man is not so much a workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be4 ,men walk as prophecies of the next age4 ,step by step we scale this mysterious ladder3 the steps are actions2 the new prospect is power4 ,every several result is threatened and judged by that which follows4 ,every one seems to be contradicted by the new2 it is only limited by the new4 ,the new statement is always hated by the old1 and1 to those dwelling in the old1 comes like an abyss of scepticism4 ,but the eye soon gets wonted to it1 for the eye and it are effects of one cause2 then its innocency and benefit appear1 and presently1 all its energy spent1 it pales and dwindles before the revelation of the new hour4 ,fear not the new generalization4 ,does the fact look crass and material1 threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit8 ,resist it not2 it goes to refine and raise thy theory of matter just as much4 ,there are no fixtures to men1 if we appeal to consciousness4 ,every man supposes himself not to be fully understood2 and if there is any truth in him1 if he rests at last on the divine soul1 ,i see not how it can be otherwise4 ,the last chamber1 the last closet1 he must feel was never opened2 there is always a residuum unknown1 unanalyzable4 ,that is1 every man believes that he has a greater possibility4 ,our moods do not believe in each other4 ,to-day ,i am full of thoughts and can write what ,i please4 ,i see no reason why ,i should not have the same thought1 the same power of expression1 to-morrow4 ,what ,i write1 whilst ,i write it1 seems the most natural thing in the world2 but yesterday ,i saw a dreary vacuity in this direction in which now ,i see so much2 and a month hence1 ,i doubt not1 ,i shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages4 ,alas for this infirm faith1 this will not strenuous1 this vast ebb of a vast flow6 ,i am ,god in nature2 ,i am a weed by the wall4 ,the continual effort to raise himself above himself1 to work a pitch above his last height1 betrays itself in a man's relations4 ,we thirst for approbation1 yet cannot forgive the approver4 ,the sweet of nature is love2 yet1 if ,i have a friend ,i am tormented by my imperfections4 ,the love of me accuses the other party4 ,if he were high enough to slight me1 then could ,i love him1 and rise by my affection to new heights4 ,a man's growth is seen in the successive choirs of his friends4 ,for every friend whom he loses for truth1 he gains a better4 ,i thought as ,i walked in the woods and mused on my friends1 why should ,i play with them this game of idolatry8 ,i know and see too well1 when not voluntarily blind1 the speedy limits of persons called high and worthy4 ,rich1 noble and great they are by the liberality of our speech1 but truth is sad4 ,o blessed ,spirit1 whom ,i forsake for these1 they are not thou6 ,every personal consideration that we allow costs us heavenly state4 ,we sell the thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure4 ,how often must we learn this lesson8 ,men cease to interest us when we find their limitations4 ,the only sin is limitation4 ,as soon as you once come up with a man's limitations1 it is all over with him4 ,has he talents8 has he enterprise8 has he knowledge8 ,it boots not4 ,infinitely alluring and attractive was he to you yesterday1 a great hope1 a sea to swim in2 now1 you have found his shores1 found it a pond1 and you care not if you never see it again4 ,each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly discordant facts1 as expressions of one law4 ,aristotle and ,plato are reckoned the respective heads of two schools4 ,a wise man will see that ,aristotle platonizes4 ,by going one step farther back in thought1 discordant opinions are reconciled by being seen to be two extremes of one principle1 and we can never go so far back as to preclude a still higher vision4 ,beware when the great ,god lets loose a thinker on this planet4 ,then all things are at risk4 ,it is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city1 and no man knows what is safe1 or where it will end4 ,there is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow2 there is not any literary reputation1 not the so-called eternal names of fame1 that may not be revised and condemned4 ,the very hopes of man1 the thoughts of his heart1 the religion of nations1 the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new generalization4 ,generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the mind4 ,hence the thrill that attends it4 ,valor consists in the power of self-recovery1 so that a man cannot have his flank turned1 cannot be out-generalled1 but put him where you will1 he stands4 ,this can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth1 and his alert acceptance of it from whatever quarter2 the intrepid conviction that his laws1 his relations to society1 his ,christianity1 his world1 may at any time be superseded and decease4 ,there are degrees in idealism4 ,we learn first to play with it academically1 as the magnet was once a toy4 ,then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that it may be true1 that it is true in gleams and fragments4 ,then its countenance waxes stern and grand1 and we see that it must be true4 ,it now shows itself ethical and practical4 ,we learn that ,god is2 that he is in me2 and that all things are shadows of him4 ,the idealism of ,berkeley is only a crude statement of the idealism of ,jesus1 and that again is a crude statement of the fact that all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself4 ,much more obviously is history and the state of the world at any one time directly dependent on the intellectual classification then existing in the minds of men4 ,the things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon1 and which cause the present order of things1 as a tree bears its apples4 ,a new degree of culture would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits4 ,conversation is a game of circles4 ,in conversation we pluck up the termini which bound the common of silence on every side4 ,the parties are not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under this ,pentecost4 ,to-morrow they will have receded from this high-water mark4 ,to-morrow you shall find them stooping under the old pack-saddles4 ,yet let us enjoy the cloven flame whilst it glows on our walls4 ,when each new speaker strikes a new light1 emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker1 to oppress us with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought1 then yields us to another redeemer1 we seem to recover our rights1 to become men4 ,o1 what truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs1 are supposed in the announcement of every truth6 ,in common hours1 society sits cold and statuesque4 ,we all stand waiting1 empty1--knowing1 possibly1 that we can be full1 surrounded by mighty symbols which are not symbols to us1 but prose and trivial toys4 ,then cometh the god and converts the statues into fiery men1 and by a flash of his eye burns up the veil which shrouded all things1 and the meaning of the very furniture1 of cup and saucer1 of chair and clock and tester1 is manifest4 ,the facts which loomed so large in the fogs of yesterday1--property1 climate1 breeding1 personal beauty and the like1 have strangely changed their proportions4 ,all that we reckoned settled shakes and rattles2 and literatures1 cities1 climates1 religions1 leave their foundations and dance before our eyes4 ,and yet here again see the swift circumspection6 ,good as is discourse1 silence is better1 and shames it4 ,the length of the discourse indicates the distance of thought betwixt the speaker and the hearer4 ,if they were at a perfect understanding in any part1 no words would be necessary thereon4 ,if at one in all parts1 no words would be suffered4 ,literature is a point outside of our hodiernal circle through which a new one may be described4 ,the use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we may command a view of our present life1 a purchase by which we may move it4 ,we fill ourselves with ancient learning1 install ourselves the best we can in ,greek1 in ,punic1 in ,roman houses1 only that we may wiselier see ,french1 ,english and ,american houses and modes of living4 ,in like manner we see literature best from the midst of wild nature1 or from the din of affairs1 or from a high religion4 ,the field cannot be well seen from within the field4 ,the astronomer must have his diameter of the earth's orbit as a base to find the parallax of any star4 ,therefore we value the poet4 ,all the argument and all the wisdom is not in the encyclopaedia1 or the treatise on metaphysics1 or the ,body of ,divinity1 but in the sonnet or the play4 ,in my daily work ,i incline to repeat my old steps1 and do not believe in remedial force1 in the power of change and reform4 ,but some ,petrarch or ,ariosto1 filled with the new wine of his imagination1 writes me an ode or a brisk romance1 full of daring thought and action4 ,he smites and arouses me with his shrill tones1 breaks up my whole chain of habits1 and ,i open my eye on my own possibilities4 ,he claps wings to the sides of all the solid old lumber of the world1 and ,i am capable once more of choosing a straight path in theory and practice4 ,we have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world4 ,we can never see ,christianity from the catechism3--from the pastures1 from a boat in the pond1 from amidst the songs of wood-birds we possibly may4 ,cleansed by the elemental light and wind1 steeped in the sea of beautiful forms which the field offers us1 we may chance to cast a right glance back upon biography4 ,christianity is rightly dear to the best of mankind2 yet was there never a young philosopher whose breeding had fallen into the ,christian church by whom that brave text of ,paul's was not specially prized3--8,then shall also the ,son be subject unto ,him who put all things under him1 that ,god may be all in all40 ,let the claims and virtues of persons be never so great and welcome1 the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal and illimitable1 and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of bigots with this generous word out of the book itself4 ,the natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric circles1 and we now and then detect in nature slight dislocations which apprise us that this surface on which we now stand is not fixed1 but sliding4 ,these manifold tenacious qualities1 this chemistry and vegetation1 these metals and animals1 which seem to stand there for their own sake1 are means and methods only1--are words of ,god1 and as fugitive as other words4 ,has the naturalist or chemist learned his craft1 who has explored the gravity of atoms and the elective affinities1 who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof this is only a partial or approximate statement1 namely that like draws to like1 and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need not be pursued with pains and cost8 ,yet is that statement approximate also1 and not final4 ,omnipresence is a higher fact4 ,not through subtle subterranean channels need friend and fact be drawn to their counterpart1 but1 rightly considered1 these things proceed from the eternal generation of the soul4 ,cause and effect are two sides of one fact4 ,the same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the virtues1 and extinguishes each in the light of a better4 ,the great man will not be prudent in the popular sense2 all his prudence will be so much deduction from his grandeur4 ,but it behooves each to see1 when he sacrifices prudence1 to what god he devotes it2 if to ease and pleasure1 he had better be prudent still2 if to a great trust1 he can well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot instead4 ,geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods1 that his feet may be safer from the bite of snakes2 ,aaron never thinks of such a peril4 ,in many years neither is harmed by such an accident4 ,yet it seems to me that with every precaution you take against such an evil you put yourself into the power of the evil4 ,i suppose that the highest prudence is the lowest prudence4 ,is this too sudden a rushing from the centre to the verge of our orbit8 ,think how many times we shall fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest in the great sentiment1 or make the verge of to-day the new centre4 ,besides1 your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men4 ,the poor and the low have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you4 8,blessed be nothing0 and 8,the worse things are1 the better they are0 are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of common life4 ,one man's justice is another's injustice2 one man's beauty another's ugliness2 one man's wisdom another's folly2 as one beholds the same objects from a higher point4 ,one man thinks justice consists in paying debts1 and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously4 ,but that second man has his own way of looking at things2 asks himself ,which debt must ,i pay first1 the debt to the rich1 or the debt to the poor8 the debt of money1 or the debt of thought to mankind1 of genius to nature8 ,for you1 ,o broker1 there is no other principle but arithmetic4 ,for me1 commerce is of trivial import2 love1 faith1 truth of character1 the aspiration of man1 these are sacred2 nor can ,i detach one duty1 like you1 from all other duties1 and concentrate my forces mechanically on the payment of moneys4 ,let me live onward2 you shall find that1 though slower1 the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts without injustice to higher claims4 ,if a man should dedicate himself to the payment of notes1 would not this be injustice8 ,does he owe no debt but money8 ,and are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord's or a banker's8 ,there is no virtue which is final2 all are initial4 ,the virtues of society are vices of the saint4 ,the terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast away our virtues1 or what we have always esteemed such1 into the same pit that has consumed our grosser vices3-- 8,forgive his crimes1 forgive his virtues too1 ,those smaller faults1 half converts to the right40 ,it is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our contritions also4 ,i accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by day2 but when these waves of ,god flow into me ,i no longer reckon lost time4 ,i no longer poorly compute my possible achievement by what remains to me of the month or the year2 for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks nothing of duration1 but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with the work to be done1 without time4 ,and thus1 ,o circular philosopher1 ,i hear some reader exclaim1 you have arrived at a fine ,pyrrhonism1 at an equivalence and indifferency of all actions1 and would fain teach us that if we are true1 forsooth1 our crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall construct the temple of the true ,god6 ,i am not careful to justify myself4 ,i own ,i am gladdened by seeing the predominance of the saccharine principle throughout vegetable nature1 and not less by beholding in morals that unrestrained inundation of the principle of good into every chink and hole that selfishness has left open1 yea into selfishness and sin itself2 so that no evil is pure1 nor hell itself without its extreme satisfactions4 ,but lest ,i should mislead any when ,i have my own head and obey my whims1 let me remind the reader that ,i am only an experimenter4 ,do not set the least value on what ,i do1 or the least discredit on what ,i do not1 as if ,i pretended to settle any thing as true or false4 ,i unsettle all things4 ,no facts are to me sacred2 none are profane2 ,i simply experiment1 an endless seeker with no ,past at my back4 ,yet this incessant movement and progression which all things partake could never become sensible to us but by contrast to some principle of fixture or stability in the soul4 ,whilst the eternal generation of circles proceeds1 the eternal generator abides4 ,that central life is somewhat superior to creation1 superior to knowledge and thought1 and contains all its circles4 ,for ever it labors to create a life and thought as ,large and excellent as itself1 but in vain1 for that which is made instructs how to make a better4 ,thus there is no sleep1 no pause1 no preservation1 but all things renew1 germinate and spring4 ,why should we import rags and relics into the new hour8 ,nature abhors the old1 and old age seems the only disease2 all others run into this one4 ,we call it by many names1--fever1 intemperance1 insanity1 stupidity and crime2 they are all forms of old age2 they are rest1 conservatism1 appropriation1 inertia2 not newness1 not the way onward4 ,we grizzle every day4 ,i see no need of it4 ,whilst we converse with what is above us1 we do not grow old1 but grow young4 ,infancy1 youth1 receptive1 aspiring1 with religious eye looking upward1 counts itself nothing and abandons itself to the instruction flowing from all sides4 ,but the man and woman of seventy assume to know all1 they have outlived their hope1 they renounce aspiration1 accept the actual for the necessary and talk down to the young4 ,let them1 then1 become organs of the ,holy ,ghost2 let them be lovers2 let them behold truth2 and their eyes are uplifted1 their wrinkles smoothed1 they are perfumed again with hope and power4 ,this old age ought not to creep on a human mind4 ,in nature every moment is new2 the past is always swallowed and forgotten2 the coming only is sacred4 ,nothing is secure but life1 transition1 the energizing spirit4 ,no love can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love4 ,no truth so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts4 ,people wish to be settled2 only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for them4 ,life is a series of surprises4 ,we do not guess to-day the mood1 the pleasure1 the power of to-morrow1 when we are building up our being4 ,of lower states1 of acts of routine and sense1 we can tell somewhat2 but the masterpieces of ,god1 the total growths and universal movements of the soul1 he hideth2 they are incalculable4 ,i can know that truth is divine and helpful2 but how it shall help me ,i can have no guess1 for so to be is the sole inlet of so to know4 ,the new position of the advancing man has all the powers of the old1 yet has them all new4 ,it carries in its bosom all the energies of the past1 yet is itself an exhalation of the morning4 ,i cast away in this new moment all my once hoarded knowledge1 as vacant and vain4 ,now1 for the first time seem ,i to know any thing rightly4 ,the simplest words1--we do not know what they mean except when we love and aspire4 ,the difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the old and trodden round1 and power and courage to make a new road to new and better goals4 ,character makes an overpowering present2 a cheerful1 determined hour1 which fortifies all the company by making them see that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of4 ,character dulls the impression of particular events4 ,when we see the conqueror we do not think much of any one battle or success4 ,we see that we had exaggerated the difficulty4 ,it was easy to him4 ,the great man is not convulsible or tormentable2 events pass over him without much impression4 ,people say sometimes1 #8,see what ,i have overcome2 see how cheerful ,i am2 see how completely ,i have triumphed over these black events4' ,not if they still remind me of the black event4 ,true conquest is the causing the calamity to fade and disappear as an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and advancing4 ,the one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves1 to be surprised out of our propriety1 to lose our sempiternal memory and to do something without knowing how or why2 in short to draw a new circle4 ,nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm4 ,the way of life is wonderful2 it is by abandonment4 ,the great moments of history are the facilities of performance through the strength of ideas1 as the works of genius and religion4 8,a man10 said ,oliver ,cromwell1 8never rises so high as when he knows not whither he is going40 ,dreams and drunkenness1 the use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius1 and hence their dangerous attraction for men4 ,for the like reason they ask the aid of wild passions1 as in gaming and war1 to ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart4 ,,xi4 ,,intellect ,go1 speed the stars of ,thought ,on to their shining goals2-- ,the sower scatters broad his seed1 ,the wheat thou strew'st be souls4 ,,intellect ,every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the chemical tables1 positively to that which stands below it4 ,water dissolves wood and iron and salt2 air dissolves water2 electric fire dissolves air1 but the intellect dissolves fire1 gravity1 laws1 method1 and the subtlest unnamed relations of nature in its resistless menstruum4 ,intellect lies behind genius1 which is intellect constructive4 ,intellect is the simple power anterior to all action or construction4 ,gladly would ,i unfold in calm degrees a natural history of the intellect1 but what man has yet been able to mark the steps and boundaries of that transparent essence8 ,the first questions are always to be asked1 and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child4 ,how can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions1 as of its knowledge1 of its ethics1 of its works1 and so forth1 since it melts will into perception1 knowledge into act8 ,each becomes the other4 ,itself alone is4 ,its vision is not like the vision of the eye1 but is union with the things known4 ,intellect and intellection signify to the common ear consideration of abstract truth4 ,the considerations of time and place1 of you and me1 of profit and hurt tyrannize over most men's minds4 ,intellect separates the fact considered1 from you1 from all local and personal reference1 and discerns it as if it existed for its own sake4 ,heraclitus looked upon the affections as dense and colored mists4 ,in the fog of good and evil affections it is hard for man to walk forward in a straight line4 ,intellect is void of affection and sees an object as it stands in the light of science1 cool and disengaged4 ,the intellect goes out of the individual1 floats over its own personality1 and regards it as a fact1 and not as ,i and mine4 ,he who is immersed in what concerns person or place cannot see the problem of existence4 ,this the intellect always ponders4 ,nature shows all things formed and bound4 ,the intellect pierces the form1 overleaps the wall1 detects intrinsic likeness between remote things and reduces all things into a few principles4 ,the making a fact the subject of thought raises it4 ,all that mass of mental and moral phenomena which we do not make objects of voluntary thought1 come within the power of fortune2 they constitute the circumstance of daily life2 they are subject to change1 to fear1 and hope4 ,every man beholds his human condition with a degree of melancholy4 ,as a ship aground is battered by the waves1 so man1 imprisoned in mortal life1 lies open to the mercy of coming events4 ,but a truth1 separated by the intellect1 is no longer a subject of destiny4 ,we behold it as a god upraised above care and fear4 ,and so any fact in our life1 or any record of our fancies or reflections1 disentangled from the web of our unconsciousness1 becomes an object impersonal and immortal4 ,it is the past restored1 but embalmed4 ,a better art than that of ,egypt has taken fear and corruption out of it4 ,it is eviscerated of care4 ,it is offered for science4 ,what is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us but makes us intellectual beings4 ,the growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion4 ,the mind that grows could not predict the times1 the means1 the mode of that spontaneity4 ,god enters by a private door into every individual4 ,long prior to the age of reflection is the thinking of the mind4 ,out of darkness it came insensibly into the marvellous light of to-day4 ,in the period of infancy it accepted and disposed of all impressions from the surrounding creation after its own way4 ,whatever any mind doth or saith is after a law2 and this native law remains over it after it has come to reflection or conscious thought4 ,in the most worn1 pedantic1 introverted self-tormenter's life1 the greatest part is incalculable by him1 unforeseen1 unimaginable1 and must be1 until he can take himself up by his own ears4 ,what am ,i8 ,what has my will done to make me that ,i am8 ,nothing4 ,i have been floated into this thought1 this hour1 this connection of events1 by secret currents of might and mind1 and my ingenuity and wilfulness have not thwarted1 have not aided to an appreciable degree4 ,our spontaneous action is always the best4 ,you cannot with your best deliberation and heed come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance shall bring you1 whilst you rise from your bed1 or walk abroad in the morning after meditating the matter before sleep on the previous night4 ,our thinking is a pious reception4 ,our truth of thought is therefore vitiated as much by too violent direction given by our will1 as by too great negligence4 ,we do not determine what we will think4 ,we only open our senses1 clear away as we can all obstruction from the fact1 and suffer the intellect to see4 ,we have little control over our thoughts4 ,we are the prisoners of ideas4 ,they catch us up for moments into their heaven and so fully engage us that we take no thought for the morrow1 gaze like children1 without an effort to make them our own4 ,by and by we fall out of that rapture1 bethink us where we have been1 what we have seen1 and repeat as truly as we can what we have beheld4 ,as far as we can recall these ecstasies we carry away in the ineffaceable memory the result1 and all men and all the ages confirm it4 ,it is called ,truth4 ,but the moment we cease to report and attempt to correct and contrive1 it is not truth4 ,if we consider what persons have stimulated and profited us1 we shall perceive the superiority of the spontaneous or intuitive principle over the arithmetical or logical4 ,the first contains the second1 but virtual and latent4 ,we want in every man a long logic2 we cannot pardon the absence of it1 but it must not be spoken4 ,logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition2 but its virtue is as silent method2 the moment it would appear as propositions and have a separate value it is worthless4 ,in every man's mind1 some images1 words and facts remain1 without effort on his part to imprint them1 which others forget1 and afterwards these illustrate to him important laws4 ,all our progress is an unfolding1 like the vegetable bud4 ,you have first an instinct1 then an opinion1 then a knowledge1 as the plant has root1 bud and fruit4 ,trust the instinct to the end1 though you can render no reason4 ,it is vain to hurry it4 ,by trusting it to the end1 it shall ripen into truth and you shall know why you believe4 ,each mind has its own method4 ,a true man never acquires after college rules4 ,what you have aggregated in a natural manner surprises and delights when it is produced4 ,for we cannot oversee each other's secret4 ,and hence the differences between men in natural endowment are insignificant in comparison with their common wealth4 ,do you think the porter and the cook have no anecdotes1 no experiences1 no wonders for you8 ,every body knows as much as the savant4 ,the walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with facts1 with thoughts4 ,they shall one day bring a lantern and read the inscriptions4 ,every man1 in the degree in which he has wit and culture1 finds his curiosity inflamed concerning the modes of living and thinking of other men1 and especially of those classes whose minds have not been subdued by the drill of school education4 ,this instinctive action never ceases in a healthy mind1 but becomes richer and more frequent in its informations through all states of culture4 ,at last comes the era of reflection1 when we not only observe1 but take pains to observe2 when we of set purpose sit down to consider an abstract truth2 when we keep the mind's eye open whilst we converse1 whilst we read1 whilst we act1 intent to learn the secret law of some class of facts4 ,what is the hardest task in the world8 ,to think4 ,i would put myself in the attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth1 and ,i cannot4 ,i blench and withdraw on this side and on that4 ,i seem to know what he meant who said1 ,no man can see ,god face to face and live4 ,for example1 a man explores the basis of civil government4 ,let him intend his mind without respite1 without rest1 in one direction4 ,his best heed long time avails him nothing4 ,yet thoughts are flitting before him4 ,we all but apprehend1 we dimly forebode the truth4 ,we say ,i will walk abroad1 and the truth will take form and clearness to me4 ,we go forth1 but cannot find it4 ,it seems as if we needed only the stillness and composed attitude of the library to seize the thought4 ,but we come in1 and are as far from it as at first4 ,then1 in a moment1 and unannounced1 the truth appears4 ,a certain wandering light appears1 and is the distinction1 the principle1 we wanted4 ,but the oracle comes because we had previously laid siege to the shrine4 ,it seems as if the law of the intellect resembled that law of nature by which we now inspire1 now expire the breath2 by which the heart now draws in1 then hurls out the blood1--the law of undulation4 ,so now you must labor with your brains1 and now you must forbear your activity and see what the great ,soul showeth4 ,the immortality of man is as legitimately preached from the intellections as from the moral volitions4 ,every intellection is mainly prospective4 ,its present value is its least4 ,inspect what delights you in ,plutarch1 in ,shakspeare1 in ,cervantes4 ,each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern1 which he turns full on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind1 and behold1 all the mats and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious4 ,every trivial fact in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle1 revisits the day1 and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm4 ,men say1 ,where did he get this8 and think there was something divine in his life4 ,but no2 they have myriads of facts just as good1 would they only get a lamp to ransack their attics withal4 ,we are all wise4 ,the difference between persons is not in wisdom but in art4 ,i knew1 in an academical club1 a person who always deferred to me2 who1 seeing my whim for writing1 fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior2 whilst ,i saw that his experiences were as good as mine4 ,give them to me and ,i would make the same use of them4 ,he held the old2 he holds the new2 ,i had the habit of tacking together the old and the new which he did not use to exercise4 ,this may hold in the great examples4 ,perhaps if we should meet ,shakspeare we should not be conscious of any steep inferiority2 no1 but of a great equality1--only that he possessed a strange skill of using1 of classifying1 his facts1 which we lacked4 ,for notwithstanding our utter incapacity to produce anything like ,hamlet and ,othello1 see the perfect reception this wit and immense knowledge of life and liquid eloquence find in us all4 ,if you gather apples in the sunshine1 or make hay1 or hoe corn1 and then retire within doors and shut your eyes and press them with your hand1 you shall still see apples hanging in the bright light with boughs and leaves thereto1 or the tasselled grass1 or the corn-flags1 and this for five or six hours afterwards4 ,there lie the impressions on the retentive organ1 though you knew it not4 ,so lies the whole series of natural images with which your life has made you acquainted1 in your memory1 though you know it not2 and a thrill of passion flashes light on their dark chamber1 and the active power seizes instantly the fit image1 as the word of its momentary thought4 ,it is long ere we discover how rich we are4 ,our history1 we are sure1 is quite tame3 we have nothing to write1 nothing to infer4 ,but our wiser years still run back to the despised recollections of childhood1 and always we are fishing up some wonderful article out of that pond2 until by and by we begin to suspect that the biography of the one foolish person we know is1 in reality1 nothing less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the ,universal ,history4 ,in the intellect constructive1 which we popularly designate by the word ,genius1 we observe the same balance of two elements as in intellect receptive4 ,the constructive intellect produces thoughts1 sentences1 poems1 plans1 designs1 systems4 ,it is the generation of the mind1 the marriage of thought with nature4 ,to genius must always go two gifts1 the thought and the publication4 ,the first is revelation1 always a miracle1 which no frequency of occurrence or incessant study can ever familiarize1 but which must always leave the inquirer stupid with wonder4 ,it is the advent of truth into the world1 a form of thought now for the first time bursting into the universe1 a child of the old eternal soul1 a piece of genuine and immeasurable greatness4 ,it seems1 for the time1 to inherit all that has yet existed and to dictate to the unborn4 ,it affects every thought of man and goes to fashion every institution4 ,but to make it available it needs a vehicle or art by which it is conveyed to men4 ,to be communicable it must become picture or sensible object4 ,we must learn the language of facts4 ,the most wonderful inspirations die with their subject if he has no hand to paint them to the senses4 ,the ray of light passes invisible through space and only when it falls on an object is it seen4 ,when the spiritual energy is directed on something outward1 then it is a thought4 ,the relation between it and you first makes you1 the value of you1 apparent to me4 ,the rich inventive genius of the painter must be smothered and lost for want of the power of drawing1 and in our happy hours we should be inexhaustible poets if once we could break through the silence into adequate rhyme4 ,as all men have some access to primary truth1 so all have some art or power of communication in their head1 but only in the artist does it descend into the hand4 ,there is an inequality1 whose laws we do not yet know1 between two men and between two moments of the same man1 in respect to this faculty4 ,in common hours we have the same facts as in the uncommon or inspired1 but they do not sit for their portraits2 they are not detached1 but lie in a web4 ,the thought of genius is spontaneous2 but the power of picture or expression1 in the most enriched and flowing nature1 implies a mixture of will1 a certain control over the spontaneous states1 without which no production is possible4 ,it is a conversion of all nature into the rhetoric of thought1 under the eye of judgment1 with a strenuous exercise of choice4 ,and yet the imaginative vocabulary seems to be spontaneous also4 ,it does not flow from experience only or mainly1 but from a richer source4 ,not by any conscious imitation of particular forms are the grand strokes of the painter executed1 but by repairing to the fountain-head of all forms in his mind4 ,who is the first drawing-master8 ,without instruction we know very well the ideal of the human form4 ,a child knows if an arm or a leg be distorted in a picture2 if the attitude be natural or grand or mean2 though he has never received any instruction in drawing or heard any conversation on the subject1 nor can himself draw with correctness a single feature4 ,a good form strikes all eyes pleasantly1 long before they have any science on the subject1 and a beautiful face sets twenty hearts in palpitation1 prior to all consideration of the mechanical proportions of the features and head4 ,we may owe to dreams some light on the fountain of this skill2 for as soon as we let our will go and let the unconscious states ensue1 see what cunning draughtsmen we are6 ,we entertain ourselves with wonderful forms of men1 of women1 of animals1 of gardens1 of woods and of monsters1 and the mystic pencil wherewith we then draw has no awkwardness or inexperience1 no meagreness or poverty2 it can design well and group well2 its composition is full of art1 its colors are well laid on and the whole canvas which it paints is lifelike and apt to touch us with terror1 with tenderness1 with desire and with grief4 ,neither are the artist's copies from experience ever mere copies1 but always touched and softened by tints from this ideal domain4 ,the conditions essential to a constructive mind do not appear to be so often combined but that a good sentence or verse remains fresh and memorable for a long time4 ,yet when we write with ease and come out into the free air of thought1 we seem to be assured that nothing is easier than to continue this communication at pleasure4 ,up1 down1 around1 the kingdom of thought has no inclosures1 but the ,muse makes us free of her city4 ,well1 the world has a million writers4 ,one would think then that good thought would be as familiar as air and water1 and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last4 ,yet we can count all our good books2 nay1 ,i remember any beautiful verse for twenty years4 ,it is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in advance of the creative1 so that there are many competent judges of the best book1 and few writers of the best books4 ,but some of the conditions of intellectual construction are of rare occurrence4 ,the intellect is a whole and demands integrity in every work4 ,this is resisted equally by a man's devotion to a single thought and by his ambition to combine too many4 ,truth is our element of life1 yet if a man fasten his attention on a single aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time1 the truth becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood2 herein resembling the air1 which is our natural element1 and the breath of our nostrils1 but if a stream of the same be directed on the body for a time1 it causes cold1 fever1 and even death4 ,how wearisome the grammarian1 the phrenologist1 the political or religious fanatic1 or indeed any possessed mortal whose balance is lost by the exaggeration of a single topic4 ,it is incipient insanity4 ,every thought is a prison also4 ,i cannot see what you see1 because ,i am caught up by a strong wind and blown so far in one direction that ,i am out of the hoop of your horizon4 ,is it any better if the student1 to avoid this offence1 and to liberalize himself1 aims to make a mechanical whole of history1 or science1 or philosophy1 by a numerical addition of all the facts that fall within his vision8 ,the world refuses to be analyzed by addition and subtraction4 ,when we are young we spend much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of ,religion1 ,love1 ,poetry1 ,politics1 ,art1 in the hope that in the course of a few years we shall have condensed into our encyclopaedia the net value of all the theories at which the world has yet arrived4 ,but year after year our tables get no completeness1 and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola1 whose arcs will never meet4 ,neither by detachment neither by aggregation is the integrity of the intellect transmitted to its works1 but by a vigilance which brings the intellect in its greatness and best state to operate every moment4 ,it must have the same wholeness which nature has4 ,although no diligence can rebuild the universe in a model by the best accumulation or disposition of details1 yet does the world reappear in miniature in every event1 so that all the laws of nature may be read in the smallest fact4 ,the intellect must have the like perfection in its apprehension and in its works4 ,for this reason1 an index or mercury of intellectual proficiency is the perception of identity4 ,we talk with accomplished persons who appear to be strangers in nature4 ,the cloud1 the tree1 the turf1 the bird are not theirs1 have nothing of them2 the world is only their lodging and table4 ,but the poet1 whose verses are to be spheral and complete1 is one whom ,nature cannot deceive1 whatsoever face of strangeness she may put on4 ,he feels a strict consanguinity1 and detects more likeness than variety in all her changes4 ,we are stung by the desire for new thought2 but when we receive a new thought it is only the old thought with a new face1 and though we make it our own we instantly crave another2 we are not really enriched4 ,for the truth was in us before it was reflected to us from natural objects2 and the profound genius will cast the likeness of all creatures into every product of his wit4 ,but if the constructive powers are rare and it is given to few men to be poets1 yet every man is a receiver of this descending holy ghost1 and may well study the laws of its influx4 ,exactly parallel is the whole rule of intellectual duty to the rule of moral duty4 ,a self-denial no less austere than the saint's is demanded of the scholar4 ,he must worship truth1 and forego all things for that1 and choose defeat and pain1 so that his treasure in thought is thereby augmented4 ,god offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose4 ,take which you please1--you can never have both4 ,between these1 as a pendulum1 man oscillates4 ,he in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first creed1 the first philosophy1 the first political party he meets1--most likely his father's4 ,he gets rest1 commodity1 and reputation2 but he shuts the door of truth4 ,he in whom the love of truth predominates will keep himself aloof from all moorings1 and afloat4 ,he will abstain from dogmatism1 and recognize all the opposite negations between which1 as walls1 his being is swung4 ,he submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion1 but he is a candidate for truth1 as the other is not1 and respects the highest law of his being4 ,the circle of the green earth he must measure with his shoes to find the man who can yield him truth4 ,he shall then know that there is somewhat more blessed and great in hearing than in speaking4 ,happy is the hearing man2 unhappy the speaking man4 ,as long as ,i hear truth ,i am bathed by a beautiful element and am not conscious of any limits to my nature4 ,the suggestions are thousandfold that ,i hear and see4 ,the waters of the great deep have ingress and egress to the soul4 ,but if ,i speak1 ,i define1 ,i confine and am less4 ,when ,socrates speaks1 ,lysis and ,menexenus are afflicted by no shame that they do not speak4 ,they also are good4 ,he likewise defers to them1 loves them1 whilst he speaks4 ,because a true and natural man contains and is the same truth which an eloquent man articulates2 but in the eloquent man1 because he can articulate it1 it seems something the less to reside1 and he turns to these silent beautiful with the more inclination and respect4 ,the ancient sentence said1 ,let us be silent1 for so are the gods4 ,silence is a solvent that destroys personality1 and gives us leave to be great and universal4 ,every man's progress is through a succession of teachers1 each of whom seems at the time to have a superlative influence1 but it at last gives place to a new4 ,frankly let him accept it all4 ,jesus says1 ,leave father1 mother1 house and lands1 and follow me4 ,who leaves all1 receives more4 ,this is as true intellectually as morally4 ,each new mind we approach seems to require an abdication of all our past and present possessions4 ,a new doctrine seems at first a subversion of all our opinions1 tastes1 and manner of living4 ,such has ,swedenborg1 such has ,kant1 such has ,coleridge1 such has ,hegel or his interpreter ,cousin seemed to many young men in this country4 ,take thankfully and heartily all they can give4 ,exhaust them1 wrestle with them1 let them not go until their blessing be won1 and after a short season the dismay will be overpast1 the excess of influence withdrawn1 and they will be no longer an alarming meteor1 but one more bright star shining serenely in your heaven and blending its light with all your day4 ,but whilst he gives himself up unreservedly to that which draws him1 because that is his own1 he is to refuse himself to that which draws him not1 whatsoever fame and authority may attend it1 because it is not his own4 ,entire self-reliance belongs to the intellect4 ,one soul is a counterpoise of all souls1 as a capillary column of water is a balance for the sea4 ,it must treat things and books and sovereign genius as itself also a sovereign4 ,if schylus be that man he is taken for1 he has not yet done his office when he has educated the learned of ,europe for a thousand years4 ,he is now to approve himself a master of delight to me also4 ,if he cannot do that1 all his fame shall avail him nothing with me4 ,i were a fool not to sacrifice a thousand schyluses to my intellectual integrity4 ,especially take the same ground in regard to abstract truth1 the science of the mind4 ,the ,bacon1 the ,spinoza1 the ,hume1 ,schelling1 ,kant1 or whosoever propounds to you a philosophy of the mind1 is only a more or less awkward translator of things in your consciousness which you have also your way of seeing1 perhaps of denominating4 ,say then1 instead of too timidly poring into his obscure sense1 that he has not succeeded in rendering back to you your consciousness4 ,he has not succeeded2 now let another try4 ,if ,plato cannot1 perhaps ,spinoza will4 ,if ,spinoza cannot1 then perhaps ,kant4 ,anyhow1 when at last it is done1 you will find it is no recondite1 but a simple1 natural1 common state which the writer restores to you4 ,but let us end these didactics4 ,i will not1 though the subject might provoke it1 speak to the open question between ,truth and ,love4 ,i shall not presume to interfere in the old politics of the skies2--8,the cherubim know most2 the seraphim love most40 ,the gods shall settle their own quarrels4 ,but ,i cannot recite1 even thus rudely1 laws of the intellect1 without remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets and oracles1 the high-priesthood of the pure reason1 the ,trismegisti1 the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age4 ,when at long intervals we turn over their abstruse pages1 wonderful seems the calm and grand air of these few1 these great spiritual lords who have walked in the world1--these of the old religion1--dwelling in a worship which makes the sanctities of ,christianity look parvenues and popular2 for 8persuasion is in soul1 but necessity is in intellect40 ,this band of grandees1 ,hermes1 ,heraclitus1 ,empedocles1 ,plato1 ,plotinus1 ,olympiodorus1 ,proclus1 ,synesius and the rest1 have somewhat so vast in their logic1 so primary in their thinking1 that it seems antecedent to all the ordinary distinctions of rhetoric and literature1 and to be at once poetry and music and dancing and astronomy and mathematics4 ,i am present at the sowing of the seed of the world4 ,with a geometry of sunbeams the soul lays the foundations of nature4 ,the truth and grandeur of their thought is proved by its scope and applicability1 for it commands the entire schedule and inventory of things for its illustration4 ,but what marks its elevation and has even a comic look to us1 is the innocent serenity with which these babe-like ,jupiters sit in their clouds1 and from age to age prattle to each other and to no contemporary4 ,well assured that their speech is intelligible and the most natural thing in the world1 they add thesis to thesis1 without a moment's heed of the universal astonishment of the human race below1 who do not comprehend their plainest argument2 nor do they ever relent so much as to insert a popular or explaining sentence1 nor testify the least displeasure or petulance at the dulness of their amazed auditory4 ,the angels are so enamored of the language that is spoken in heaven that they will not distort their lips with the hissing and unmusical dialects of men1 but speak their own1 whether there be any who understand it or not4 ,,xii4 ,,art ,give to barrows trays and pans ,grace and glimmer of romance1 ,bring the moonlight into noon ,hid in gleaming piles of stone2 ,on the city's paved street ,plant gardens lined with lilac sweet1 ,let spouting fountains cool the air1 ,singing in the sun-baked square4 ,let statue1 picture1 park and hall1 ,ballad1 flag and festival1 ,the past restore1 the day adorn ,and make each morrow a new morn ,so shall the drudge in dusty frock ,spy behind the city clock ,retinues of airy kings1 ,skirts of angels1 starry wings1 ,his fathers shining in bright fables1 ,his children fed at heavenly tables4 ',tis the privilege of ,art ,thus to play its cheerful part1 ,man in ,earth to acclimate ,and bend the exile to his fate1 ,and1 moulded of one element ,with the days and firmament1 ,teach him on these as stairs to climb ,and live on even terms with ,time2 ,whilst upper life the slender rill ,of human sense doth overfill4 ,,art ,because the soul is progressive1 it never quite repeats itself1 but in every act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole4 ,this appears in works both of the useful and the fine arts1 if we employ the popular distinction of works according to their aim either at use or beauty4 ,thus in our fine arts1 not imitation but creation is the aim4 ,in landscapes the painter should give the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know4 ,the details1 the prose of nature he should omit and give us only the spirit and splendor4 ,he should know that the landscape has beauty for his eye because it expresses a thought which is to him good2 and this because the same power which sees through his eyes is seen in that spectacle2 and he will come to value the expression of nature and not nature itself1 and so exalt in his copy the features that please him4 ,he will give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine4 ,in a portrait he must inscribe the character and not the features1 and must esteem the man who sits to him as himself only an imperfect picture or likeness of the aspiring original within4 ,what is that abridgment and selection we observe in all spiritual activity1 but itself the creative impulse8 for it is the inlet of that higher illumination which teaches to convey a larger sense by simpler symbols4 ,what is a man but nature's finer success in self-explication8 ,what is a man but a finer and compacter landscape than the horizon figures1--nature's eclecticism8 and what is his speech1 his love of painting1 love of nature1 but a still finer success1--all the weary miles and tons of space and bulk left out1 and the spirit or moral of it contracted into a musical word1 or the most cunning stroke of the pencil8 ,but the artist must employ the symbols in use in his day and nation to convey his enlarged sense to his fellow-men4 ,thus the new in art is always formed out of the old4 ,the ,genius of the ,hour sets his ineffaceable seal on the work and gives it an inexpressible charm for the imagination4 ,as far as the spiritual character of the period overpowers the artist and finds expression in his work1 so far it will retain a certain grandeur1 and will represent to future beholders the ,unknown1 the ,inevitable1 the ,divine4 ,no man can quite exclude this element of ,necessity from his labor4 ,no man can quite emancipate himself from his age and country1 or produce a model in which the education1 the religion1 the politics1 usages and arts of his times shall have no share4 ,though he were never so original1 never so wilful and fantastic1 he cannot wipe out of his work every trace of the thoughts amidst which it grew4 ,the very avoidance betrays the usage he avoids4 ,above his will and out of his sight he is necessitated by the air he breathes and the idea on which he and his contemporaries live and toil1 to share the manner of his times1 without knowing what that manner is4 ,now that which is inevitable in the work has a higher charm than individual talent can ever give1 inasmuch as the artist's pen or chisel seems to have been held and guided by a gigantic hand to inscribe a line in the history of the human race4 ,this circumstance gives a value to the ,egyptian hieroglyphics1 to the ,indian1 ,chinese and ,mexican idols1 however gross and shapeless4 ,they denote the height of the human soul in that hour1 and were not fantastic1 but sprung from a necessity as deep as the world4 ,shall ,i now add that the whole extant product of the plastic arts has herein its highest value1 as history2 as a stroke drawn in the portrait of that fate1 perfect and beautiful1 according to whose ordinations all beings advance to their beatitude8 ,thus1 historically viewed1 it has been the office of art to educate the perception of beauty4 ,we are immersed in beauty1 but our eyes have no clear vision4 ,it needs1 by the exhibition of single traits1 to assist and lead the dormant taste4 ,we carve and paint1 or we behold what is carved and painted1 as students of the mystery of ,form4 ,the virtue of art lies in detachment1 in sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety4 ,until one thing comes out from the connection of things1 there can be enjoyment1 contemplation1 but no thought4 ,our happiness and unhappiness are unproductive4 ,the infant lies in a pleasing trance1 but his individual character and his practical power depend on his daily progress in the separation of things1 and dealing with one at a time4 ,love and all the passions concentrate all existence around a single form4 ,it is the habit of certain minds to give an all-excluding fulness to the object1 the thought1 the word1 they alight upon1 and to make that for the time the deputy of the world4 ,these are the artists1 the orators1 the leaders of society4 ,the power to detach and to magnify by detaching is the essence of rhetoric in the hands of the orator and the poet4 ,this rhetoric1 or power to fix the momentary eminency of an object1--so remarkable in ,burke1 in ,byron1 in ,carlyle1--the painter and sculptor exhibit in color and in stone4 ,the power depends on the depth of the artist's insight of that object he contemplates4 ,for every object has its roots in central nature1 and may of course be so exhibited to us as to represent the world4 ,therefore each work of genius is the tyrant of the hour and concentrates attention on itself4 ,for the time1 it is the only thing worth naming to do that1--be it a sonnet1 an opera1 a landscape1 a statue1 an oration1 the plan of a temple1 of a campaign1 or of a voyage of discovery4 ,presently we pass to some other object1 which rounds itself into a whole as did the first2 for example a well-laid garden2 and nothing seems worth doing but the laying out of gardens4 ,i should think fire the best thing in the world1 if ,i were not acquainted with air1 and water1 and earth4 ,for it is the right and property of all natural objects1 of all genuine talents1 of all native properties whatsoever1 to be for their moment the top of the world4 ,a squirrel leaping from bough to bough and making the ,wood but one wide tree for his pleasure1 fills the eye not less than a lion1--is beautiful1 self-sufficing1 and stands then and there for nature4 ,a good ballad draws my ear and heart whilst ,i listen1 as much as an epic has done before4 ,a dog1 drawn by a master1 or a litter of pigs1 satisfies and is a reality not less than the frescoes of ,angelo4 ,from this succession of excellent objects we learn at last the immensity of the world1 the opulence of human nature1 which can run out to infinitude in any direction4 ,but ,i also learn that what astonished and fascinated me in the first work astonished me in the second work also2 that excellence of all things is one4 ,the office of painting and sculpture seems to be merely initial4 ,the best pictures can easily tell us their last secret4 ,the best pictures are rude draughts of a few of the miraculous dots and lines and dyes which make up the ever-changing 8landscape with figures0 amidst which we dwell4 ,painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs4 ,when that has educated the frame to self-possession1 to nimbleness1 to grace1 the steps of the dancing-master are better forgotten2 so painting teaches me the splendor of color and the expression of form1 and as ,i see many pictures and higher genius in the art1 ,i see the boundless opulence of the pencil1 the indifferency in which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms4 ,if he can draw every thing1 why draw any thing8 and then is my eye opened to the eternal picture which nature paints in the street1 with moving men and children1 beggars and fine ladies1 draped in red and green and blue and gray2 long-haired1 grizzled1 white-faced1 black-faced1 wrinkled1 giant1 dwarf1 expanded1 elfish1--capped and based by heaven1 earth and sea4 ,a gallery of sculpture teaches more austerely the same lesson4 ,as picture teaches the coloring1 so sculpture the anatomy of form4 ,when ,i have seen fine statues and afterwards enter a public assembly1 ,i understand well what he meant who said1 8,when ,i have been reading ,homer1 all men look like giants40 ,i too see that painting and sculpture are gymnastics of the eye1 its training to the niceties and curiosities of its function4 ,there is no statue like this living man1 with his infinite advantage over all ideal sculpture1 of perpetual variety4 ,what a gallery of art have ,i here6 ,no mannerist made these varied groups and diverse original single figures4 ,here is the artist himself improvising1 grim and glad1 at his block4 ,now one thought strikes him1 now another1 and with each moment he alters the whole air1 attitude and expression of his clay4 ,away with your nonsense of oil and easels1 of marble and chisels2 except to open your eyes to the masteries of eternal art1 they are hypocritical rubbish4 ,the reference of all production at last to an aboriginal ,power explains the traits common to all works of the highest art1--that they are universally intelligible2 that they restore to us the simplest states of mind1 and are religious4 ,since what skill is therein shown is the reappearance of the original soul1 a jet of pure light1 it should produce a similar impression to that made by natural objects4 ,in happy hours1 nature appears to us one with art2 art perfected1--the work of genius4 ,and the individual1 in whom simple tastes and susceptibility to all the great human influences overpower the accidents of a local and special culture1 is the best critic of art4 ,though we travel the world over to find the beautiful1 we must carry it with us1 or we find it not4 ,the best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces1 in outlines1 or rules of art can ever teach1 namely a radiation from the work of art of human character1--a wonderful expression through stone1 or canvas1 or musical sound1 of the deepest and simplest attributes of our nature1 and therefore most intelligible at last to those souls which have these attributes4 ,in the sculptures of the ,greeks1 in the masonry of the ,romans1 and in the pictures of the ,tuscan and ,venetian masters1 the highest charm is the universal language they speak4 ,a confession of moral nature1 of purity1 love1 and hope1 breathes from them all4 ,that which we carry to them1 the same we bring back more fairly illustrated in the memory4 ,the traveller who visits the ,vatican1 and passes from chamber to chamber through galleries of statues1 vases1 sarcophagi and candelabra1 through all forms of beauty cut in the richest materials1 is in danger of forgetting the simplicity of the principles out of which they all sprung1 and that they had their origin from thoughts and laws in his own breast4 ,he studies the technical rules on these wonderful remains1 but forgets that these works were not always thus constellated2 that they are the contributions of many ages and many countries2 that each came out of the solitary workshop of one artist1 who toiled perhaps in ignorance of the existence of other sculpture1 created his work without other model save life1 household life1 and the sweet and smart of personal relations1 of beating hearts1 and meeting eyes2 of poverty and necessity and hope and fear4 ,these were his inspirations1 and these are the effects he carries home to your heart and mind4 ,in proportion to his force1 the artist will find in his work an outlet for his proper character4 ,he must not be in any manner pinched or hindered by his material1 but through his necessity of imparting himself the adamant will be wax in his hands1 and will allow an adequate communication of himself1 in his full stature and proportion4 ,he need not cumber himself with a conventional nature and culture1 nor ask what is the mode in ,rome or in ,paris1 but that house and weather and manner of living which poverty and the fate of birth have made at once so odious and so dear1 in the gray unpainted wood cabin1 on the corner of a ,new ,hampshire farm1 or in the log-hut of the backwoods1 or in the narrow lodging where he has endured the constraints and seeming of a city poverty1 will serve as well as any other condition as the symbol of a thought which pours itself indifferently through all4 ,i remember when in my younger days ,i had heard of the wonders of ,italian painting1 ,i fancied the great pictures would be great strangers2 some surprising combination of color and form2 a foreign wonder1 barbaric pearl and gold1 like the spontoons and standards of the militia1 which play such pranks in the eyes and imaginations of school-boys4 ,i was to see and acquire ,i knew not what4 ,when ,i came at last to ,rome and saw with eyes the pictures1 ,i found that genius left to novices the gay and fantastic and ostentatious1 and itself pierced directly to the simple and true2 that it was familiar and sincere2 that it was the old1 eternal fact ,i had met already in so many forms1--unto which ,i lived2 that it was the plain you and me ,i knew so well1--had left at home in so many conversations4 ,i had the same experience already in a church at ,naples4 ,there ,i saw that nothing was changed with me but the place1 and said to myself--#8,thou foolish child1 hast thou come out hither1 over four thousand miles of salt water1 to find that which was perfect to thee there at home8' ,that fact ,i saw again in the ,academmia at ,naples1 in the chambers of sculpture1 and yet again when ,i came to ,rome and to the paintings of ,raphael1 ,angelo1 ,sacchi1 ,titian1 and ,leonardo da ,vinci4 8,what1 old mole6 workest thou in the earth so fast80 ,it had travelled by my side2 that which ,i fancied ,i had left in ,boston was here in the ,vatican1 and again at ,milan and at ,paris1 and made all travelling ridiculous as a treadmill4 ,i now require this of all pictures1 that they domesticate me1 not that they dazzle me4 ,pictures must not be too picturesque4 ,nothing astonishes men so much as common-sense and plain dealing4 ,all great actions have been simple1 and all great pictures are4 ,the ,transfiguration1 by ,raphael1 is an eminent example of this peculiar merit4 ,a calm benignant beauty shines over all this picture1 and goes directly to the heart4 ,it seems almost to call you by name4 ,the sweet and sublime face of ,jesus is beyond praise1 yet how it disappoints all florid expectations6 ,this familiar1 simple1 home-speaking countenance is as if one should meet a friend4 ,the knowledge of picture-dealers has its value1 but listen not to their criticism when your heart is touched by genius4 ,it was not painted for them1 it was painted for you2 for such as had eyes capable of being touched by simplicity and lofty emotions4 ,yet when we have said all our fine things about the arts1 we must end with a frank confession1 that the arts1 as we know them1 are but initial4 ,our best praise is given to what they aimed and promised1 not to the actual result4 ,he has conceived meanly of the resources of man1 who believes that the best age of production is past4 ,the real value of the ,iliad or the ,transfiguration is as signs of power2 billows or ripples they are of the stream of tendency2 tokens of the everlasting effort to produce1 which even in its worst estate the soul betrays4 ,art has not yet come to its maturity if it do not put itself abreast with the most potent influences of the world1 if it is not practical and moral1 if it do not stand in connection with the conscience1 if it do not make the poor and uncultivated feel that it addresses them with a voice of lofty cheer4 ,there is higher work for ,art than the arts4 ,they are abortive births of an imperfect or vitiated instinct4 ,art is the need to create2 but in its essence1 immense and universal1 it is impatient of working with lame or tied hands1 and of making cripples and monsters1 such as all pictures and statues are4 ,nothing less than the creation of man and nature is its end4 ,a man should find in it an outlet for his whole energy4 ,he may paint and carve only as long as he can do that4 ,art should exhilarate1 and throw down the walls of circumstance on every side1 awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal relation and power which the work evinced in the artist1 and its highest effect is to make new artists4 ,already ,history is old enough to witness the old age and disappearance of particular arts4 ,the art of sculpture is long ago perished to any real effect4 ,it was originally a useful art1 a mode of writing1 a savage's record of gratitude or devotion1 and among a people possessed of a wonderful perception of form this childish carving was refined to the utmost splendor of effect4 ,but it is the game of a rude and youthful people1 and not the manly labor of a wise and spiritual nation4 ,under an oak-tree loaded with leaves and nuts1 under a sky full of eternal eyes1 ,i stand in a thoroughfare2 but in the works of our plastic arts and especially of sculpture1 creation is driven into a corner4 ,i cannot hide from myself that there is a certain appearance of paltriness1 as of toys and the trumpery of a theatre1 in sculpture4 ,nature transcends all our moods of thought1 and its secret we do not yet find4 ,but the gallery stands at the mercy of our moods1 and there is a moment when it becomes frivolous4 ,i do not wonder that ,newton1 with an attention habitually engaged on the paths of planets and suns1 should have wondered what the ,earl of ,pembroke found to admire in 8stone dolls40 ,sculpture may serve to teach the pupil how deep is the secret of form1 how purely the spirit can translate its meanings into that eloquent dialect4 ,but the statue will look cold and false before that new activity which needs to roll through all things1 and is impatient of counterfeits and things not alive4 ,picture and sculpture are the celebrations and festivities of form4 ,but true art is never fixed1 but always flowing4 ,the sweetest music is not in the oratorio1 but in the human voice when it speaks from its instant life tones of tenderness1 truth1 or courage4 ,the oratorio has already lost its relation to the morning1 to the sun1 and the earth1 but that persuading voice is in tune with these4 ,all works of art should not be detached1 but extempore performances4 ,a great man is a new statue in every attitude and action4 ,a beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders nobly mad4 ,life may be lyric or epic1 as well as a poem or a romance4 ,a true announcement of the law of creation1 if a man were found worthy to declare it1 would carry art up into the kingdom of nature1 and destroy its separate and contrasted existence4 ,the fountains of invention and beauty in modern society are all but dried up4 ,a popular novel1 a theatre1 or a ball-room makes us feel that we are all paupers in the alms-house of this world1 without dignity1 without skill or industry4 ,art is as poor and low4 ,the old tragic ,necessity1 which lowers on the brows even of the ,venuses and the ,cupids of the antique1 and furnishes the sole apology for the intrusion of such anomalous figures into nature1--namely1 that they were inevitable2 that the artist was drunk with a passion for form which he could not resist1 and which vented itself in these fine extravagances1--no longer dignifies the chisel or the pencil4 ,but the artist and the connoisseur now seek in art the exhibition of their talent1 or an asylum from the evils of life4 ,men are not well pleased with the figure they make in their own imaginations1 and they flee to art1 and convey their better sense in an oratorio1 a statue1 or a picture4 ,art makes the same effort which a sensual prosperity makes2 namely to detach the beautiful from the useful1 to do up the work as unavoidable1 and1 hating it1 pass on to enjoyment4 ,these solaces and compensations1 this division of beauty from use1 the laws of nature do not permit4 ,as soon as beauty is sought1 not from religion and love but for pleasure1 it degrades the seeker4 ,high beauty is no longer attainable by him in canvas or in stone1 in sound1 or in lyrical construction2 an effeminate1 prudent1 sickly beauty1 which is not beauty1 is all that can be formed2 for the hand can never execute any thing higher than the character can inspire4 ,the art that thus separates is itself first separated4 ,art must not be a superficial talent1 but must begin farther back in man4 ,now men do not see nature to be beautiful1 and they go to make a statue which shall be4 ,they abhor men as tasteless1 dull1 and inconvertible1 and console themselves with color-bags and blocks of marble4 ,they reject life as prosaic1 and create a death which they call poetic4 ,they despatch the day's weary chores1 and fly to voluptuous reveries4 ,they eat and drink1 that they may afterwards execute the ideal4 ,thus is art vilified2 the name conveys to the mind its secondary and bad senses2 it stands in the imagination as somewhat contrary to nature1 and struck with death from the first4 ,would it not be better to begin higher up1--to serve the ideal before they eat and drink2 to serve the ideal in eating and drinking1 in drawing the breath1 and in the functions of life8 ,beauty must come back to the useful arts1 and the distinction between the fine and the useful arts be forgotten4 ,if history were truly told1 if life were nobly spent1 it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish the one from the other4 ,in nature1 all is useful1 all is beautiful4 ,it is therefore beautiful because it is alive1 moving1 reproductive2 it is therefore useful because it is symmetrical and fair4 ,beauty will not come at the call of a legislature1 nor will it repeat in ,england or ,america its history in ,greece4 ,it will come1 as always1 unannounced1 and spring up between the feet of brave and earnest men4 ,it is in vain that we look for genius to reiterate its miracles in the old arts2 it is its instinct to find beauty and holiness in new and necessary facts1 in the field and road-side1 in the shop and mill4 ,proceeding from a religious heart it will raise to a divine use the railroad1 the insurance office1 the joint-stock company2 our law1 our primary assemblies1 our commerce1 the galvanic battery1 the electric jar1 the prism1 and the chemist's retort2 in which we seek now only an economical use4 ,is not the selfish and even cruel aspect which belongs to our great mechanical works1 to mills1 railways1 and machinery1 the effect of the mercenary impulses which these works obey8 ,when its errands are noble and adequate1 a steamboat bridging the ,atlantic between ,old and ,new ,england and arriving at its ports with the punctuality of a planet1 is a step of man into harmony with nature4 ,the boat at ,st4 ,petersburg1 which plies along the ,lena by magnetism1 needs little to make it sublime4 ,when science is learned in love1 and its powers are wielded by love1 they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material creation4 ,next ,volume