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diff --git a/2944-h/2944-h.htm b/2944-h/2944-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..3993326 --- /dev/null +++ b/2944-h/2944-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,7763 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" +"http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" xml:lang="en" lang="en"> +<head> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8" /> +<meta http-equiv="Content-Style-Type" content="text/css" /> +<title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, First Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson</title> + +<style type="text/css"> + +body { margin-left: 20%; + margin-right: 20%; + text-align: justify; } + +h1, h2, h3, h4, h5 {text-align: center; font-style: normal; font-weight: +normal; line-height: 1.5; margin-top: .5em; margin-bottom: .5em;} + +h1 {font-size: 300%; + margin-top: 0.6em; + margin-bottom: 0.6em; + letter-spacing: 0.12em; + word-spacing: 0.2em; + text-indent: 0em;} +h2 {font-size: 150%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 1em;} +h3 {font-size: 130%; margin-top: 1em;} +h4 {font-size: 120%;} +h5 {font-size: 110%;} + +.no-break {page-break-before: avoid;} /* for epubs */ + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always; margin-top: 4em;} + +hr {width: 80%; margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em;} + +p {text-indent: 1em; + margin-top: 0.25em; + margin-bottom: 0.25em; } + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} + +p.poem {text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + font-size: 90%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +p.noindent {text-indent: 0% } + +p.footnote {font-size: 90%; + text-indent: 0%; + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; + margin-top: 1em; + margin-bottom: 1em; } + +sup { vertical-align: top; font-size: 0.6em; } + +a:link {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:visited {color:blue; text-decoration:none} +a:hover {color:red} + +</style> + +</head> + +<body> + +<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold;'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, First Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and +most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions +whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms +of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online +at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you +are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the +country where you are located before using this eBook. +</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Essays, First Series</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December, 2001 [eBook #2944]<br /> +[Most recently updated: February 10, 2021]</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> +<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Tony Adam and David Widger</div> +<div style='margin-top:2em;margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES ***</div> + +<h1> +ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES +</h1> + +<h2 class="no-break"> +By Ralph Waldo Emerson +</h2> + +<hr /> + +<h3> +Contents +</h3> + +<table summary="" style=""> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0001"> I. HISTORY</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0002"> II. SELF-RELIANCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0003"> III. COMPENSATION</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0004"> IV. SPIRITUAL LAWS</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0005"> V. LOVE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0006"> VI. FRIENDSHIP</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0007"> VII. PRUDENCE</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0008"> VIII. HEROISM</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0009"> IX. THE OVER-SOUL</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0010"> X. CIRCLES</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0011"> XI. INTELLECT</a></td> +</tr> + +<tr> +<td> <a href="#link2H_4_0012"> XII. ART</a></td> +</tr> + +</table> +<p> +<br /> +</p> +<table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4"> +<tbody> +<tr> +<td> + <a +href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2945/2945-h/2945-h.htm">Next +Volume</a> +</td> +</tr> +</tbody> +</table> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0001" id="link2H_4_0001"></a>I.<br /> +HISTORY</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +There is no great and no small<br /> +To the Soul that maketh all:<br /> +And where it cometh, all things are<br /> +And it cometh everywhere. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="poem"> +I am owner of the sphere,<br /> +Of the seven stars and the solar year,<br /> +Of Cæsar’s hand, and Plato’s brain,<br /> +Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakspeare’s strain. +</p> + +<h2>HISTORY</h2> + +<p> +There is one mind common to all individual men. Every man is an inlet to the +same and to all of the same. He that is once admitted to the right of reason is +made a freeman of the whole estate. What Plato has thought, he may think; what +a saint has felt, he may feel; what at any time has befallen any man, he can +understand. Who hath access to this universal mind is a party to all that is or +can be done, for this is the only and sovereign agent. +</p> + +<p> +Of the works of this mind history is the record. Its genius is illustrated by +the entire series of days. Man is explicable by nothing less than all his +history. Without hurry, without rest, the human spirit goes forth from the +beginning to embody every faculty, every thought, every emotion, which belongs +to it, in appropriate events. But the thought is always prior to the fact; all +the facts of history preexist in the mind as laws. Each law in turn is made by +circumstances predominant, and the limits of nature give power to but one at a +time. A man is the whole encyclopaedia of facts. The creation of a thousand +forests is in one acorn, and Egypt, Greece, Rome, Gaul, Britain, America, lie +folded already in the first man. Epoch after epoch, camp, kingdom, empire, +republic, democracy, are merely the application of his manifold spirit to the +manifold world. +</p> + +<p> +This human mind wrote history, and this must read it. The Sphinx must solve her +own riddle. If the whole of history is in one man, it is all to be explained +from individual experience. There is a relation between the hours of our life +and the centuries of time. As the air I breathe is drawn from the great +repositories of nature, as the light on my book is yielded by a star a hundred +millions of miles distant, as the poise of my body depends on the equilibrium +of centrifugal and centripetal forces, so the hours should be instructed by the +ages and the ages explained by the hours. Of the universal mind each individual +man is one more incarnation. All its properties consist in him. Each new fact +in his private experience flashes a light on what great bodies of men have +done, and the crises of his life refer to national crises. Every revolution was +first a thought in one man’s mind, and when the same thought occurs to +another man, it is the key to that era. Every reform was once a private +opinion, and when it shall be a private opinion again it will solve the problem +of the age. The fact narrated must correspond to something in me to be credible +or intelligible. We, as we read, must become Greeks, Romans, Turks, priest and +king, martyr and executioner; must fasten these images to some reality in our +secret experience, or we shall learn nothing rightly. What befell Asdrubal or +Cæsar Borgia is as much an illustration of the mind’s powers and +depravations as what has befallen us. Each new law and political movement has +meaning for you. Stand before each of its tablets and say, ‘Under this +mask did my Proteus nature hide itself.’ This remedies the defect of our +too great nearness to ourselves. This throws our actions into perspective; and +as crabs, goats, scorpions, the balance and the waterpot lose their meanness +when hung as signs in the zodiac, so I can see my own vices without heat in the +distant persons of Solomon, Alcibiades, and Catiline. +</p> + +<p> +It is the universal nature which gives worth to particular men and things. +Human life, as containing this, is mysterious and inviolable, and we hedge it +round with penalties and laws. All laws derive hence their ultimate reason; all +express more or less distinctly some command of this supreme, illimitable +essence. Property also holds of the soul, covers great spiritual facts, and +instinctively we at first hold to it with swords and laws and wide and complex +combinations. The obscure consciousness of this fact is the light of all our +day, the claim of claims; the plea for education, for justice, for charity; the +foundation of friendship and love and of the heroism and grandeur which belong +to acts of self-reliance. It is remarkable that involuntarily we always read as +superior beings. Universal history, the poets, the romancers, do not in their +stateliest pictures,—in the sacerdotal, the imperial palaces, in the +triumphs of will or of genius,—anywhere lose our ear, anywhere make us +feel that we intrude, that this is for better men; but rather is it true that +in their grandest strokes we feel most at home. All that Shakspeare says of the +king, yonder slip of a boy that reads in the corner feels to be true of +himself. We sympathize in the great moments of history, in the great +discoveries, the great resistances, the great prosperities of +men;—because there law was enacted, the sea was searched, the land was +found, or the blow was struck, <i>for us</i>, as we ourselves in that place +would have done or applauded. +</p> + +<p> +We have the same interest in condition and character. We honor the rich because +they have externally the freedom, power, and grace which we feel to be proper +to man, proper to us. So all that is said of the wise man by Stoic or Oriental +or modern essayist, describes to each reader his own idea, describes his +unattained but attainable self. All literature writes the character of the wise +man. Books, monuments, pictures, conversation, are portraits in which he finds +the lineaments he is forming. The silent and the eloquent praise him and accost +him, and he is stimulated wherever he moves, as by personal allusions. A true +aspirant therefore never needs look for allusions personal and laudatory in +discourse. He hears the commendation, not of himself, but, more sweet, of that +character he seeks, in every word that is said concerning character, yea +further in every fact and circumstance,—in the running river and the +rustling corn. Praise is looked, homage tendered, love flows, from mute nature, +from the mountains and the lights of the firmament. +</p> + +<p> +These hints, dropped as it were from sleep and night, let us use in broad day. +The student is to read history actively and not passively; to esteem his own +life the text, and books the commentary. Thus compelled, the Muse of history +will utter oracles, as never to those who do not respect themselves. I have no +expectation that any man will read history aright who thinks that what was done +in a remote age, by men whose names have resounded far, has any deeper sense +than what he is doing to-day. +</p> + +<p> +The world exists for the education of each man. There is no age or state of +society or mode of action in history to which there is not somewhat +corresponding in his life. Every thing tends in a wonderful manner to +abbreviate itself and yield its own virtue to him. He should see that he can +live all history in his own person. He must sit solidly at home, and not suffer +himself to be bullied by kings or empires, but know that he is greater than all +the geography and all the government of the world; he must transfer the point +of view from which history is commonly read, from Rome and Athens and London, +to himself, and not deny his conviction that he is the court, and if England or +Egypt have any thing to say to him he will try the case; if not, let them for +ever be silent. He must attain and maintain that lofty sight where facts yield +their secret sense, and poetry and annals are alike. The instinct of the mind, +the purpose of nature, betrays itself in the use we make of the signal +narrations of history. Time dissipates to shining ether the solid angularity of +facts. No anchor, no cable, no fences avail to keep a fact a fact. Babylon, +Troy, Tyre, Palestine, and even early Rome are passing already into fiction. +The Garden of Eden, the sun standing still in Gibeon, is poetry thenceforward +to all nations. Who cares what the fact was, when we have made a constellation +of it to hang in heaven an immortal sign? London and Paris and New York must go +the same way. “What is history,” said Napoleon, “but a fable +agreed upon?” This life of ours is stuck round with Egypt, Greece, Gaul, +England, War, Colonization, Church, Court and Commerce, as with so many flowers +and wild ornaments grave and gay. I will not make more account of them. I +believe in Eternity. I can find Greece, Asia, Italy, Spain and the +Islands,—the genius and creative principle of each and of all eras, in my +own mind. +</p> + +<p> +We are always coming up with the emphatic facts of history in our private +experience and verifying them here. All history becomes subjective; in other +words there is properly no history, only biography. Every mind must know the +whole lesson for itself,—must go over the whole ground. What it does not +see, what it does not live, it will not know. What the former age has +epitomized into a formula or rule for manipular convenience, it will lose all +the good of verifying for itself, by means of the wall of that rule. Somewhere, +sometime, it will demand and find compensation for that loss, by doing the work +itself. Ferguson discovered many things in astronomy which had long been known. +The better for him. +</p> + +<p> +History must be this or it is nothing. Every law which the state enacts +indicates a fact in human nature; that is all. We must in ourselves see the +necessary reason of every fact,—see how it could and must be. So stand +before every public and private work; before an oration of Burke, before a +victory of Napoleon, before a martyrdom of Sir Thomas More, of Sidney, of +Marmaduke Robinson; before a French Reign of Terror, and a Salem hanging of +witches; before a fanatic Revival and the Animal Magnetism in Paris, or in +Providence. We assume that we under like influence should be alike affected, +and should achieve the like; and we aim to master intellectually the steps and +reach the same height or the same degradation that our fellow, our proxy has +done. +</p> + +<p> +All inquiry into antiquity, all curiosity respecting the Pyramids, the +excavated cities, Stonehenge, the Ohio Circles, Mexico, Memphis,—is the +desire to do away this wild, savage, and preposterous There or Then, and +introduce in its place the Here and the Now. Belzoni digs and measures in the +mummy-pits and pyramids of Thebes, until he can see the end of the difference +between the monstrous work and himself. When he has satisfied himself, in +general and in detail, that it was made by such a person as he, so armed and so +motived, and to ends to which he himself should also have worked, the problem +is solved; his thought lives along the whole line of temples and sphinxes and +catacombs, passes through them all with satisfaction, and they live again to +the mind, or are now. +</p> + +<p> +A Gothic cathedral affirms that it was done by us and not done by us. Surely it +was by man, but we find it not in our man. But we apply ourselves to the +history of its production. We put ourselves into the place and state of the +builder. We remember the forest-dwellers, the first temples, the adherence to +the first type, and the decoration of it as the wealth of the nation increased; +the value which is given to wood by carving led to the carving over the whole +mountain of stone of a cathedral. When we have gone through this process, and +added thereto the Catholic Church, its cross, its music, its processions, its +Saints’ days and image-worship, we have as it were been the man that made +the minster; we have seen how it could and must be. We have the sufficient +reason. +</p> + +<p> +The difference between men is in their principle of association. Some men +classify objects by color and size and other accidents of appearance; others by +intrinsic likeness, or by the relation of cause and effect. The progress of the +intellect is to the clearer vision of causes, which neglects surface +differences. To the poet, to the philosopher, to the saint, all things are +friendly and sacred, all events profitable, all days holy, all men divine. For +the eye is fastened on the life, and slights the circumstance. Every chemical +substance, every plant, every animal in its growth, teaches the unity of cause, +the variety of appearance. +</p> + +<p> +Upborne and surrounded as we are by this all-creating nature, soft and fluid as +a cloud or the air, why should we be such hard pedants, and magnify a few +forms? Why should we make account of time, or of magnitude, or of figure? The +soul knows them not, and genius, obeying its law, knows how to play with them +as a young child plays with graybeards and in churches. Genius studies the +causal thought, and far back in the womb of things sees the rays parting from +one orb, that diverge, ere they fall, by infinite diameters. Genius watches the +monad through all his masks as he performs the metempsychosis of nature. Genius +detects through the fly, through the caterpillar, through the grub, through the +egg, the constant individual; through countless individuals the fixed species; +through many species the genus; through all genera the steadfast type; through +all the kingdoms of organized life the eternal unity. Nature is a mutable cloud +which is always and never the same. She casts the same thought into troops of +forms, as a poet makes twenty fables with one moral. Through the bruteness and +toughness of matter, a subtle spirit bends all things to its own will. The +adamant streams into soft but precise form before it, and whilst I look at it +its outline and texture are changed again. Nothing is so fleeting as form; yet +never does it quite deny itself. In man we still trace the remains or hints of +all that we esteem badges of servitude in the lower races; yet in him they +enhance his nobleness and grace; as Io, in Æschylus, transformed to a cow, +offends the imagination; but how changed when as Isis in Egypt she meets +Osiris-Jove, a beautiful woman with nothing of the metamorphosis left but the +lunar horns as the splendid ornament of her brows! +</p> + +<p> +The identity of history is equally intrinsic, the diversity equally obvious. +There is, at the surface, infinite variety of things; at the centre there is +simplicity of cause. How many are the acts of one man in which we recognize the +same character! Observe the sources of our information in respect to the Greek +genius. We have the <i>civil history</i> of that people, as Herodotus, +Thucydides, Xenophon, and Plutarch have given it; a very sufficient account of +what manner of persons they were and what they did. We have the same national +mind expressed for us again in their <i>literature</i>, in epic and lyric +poems, drama, and philosophy; a very complete form. Then we have it once more +in their <i>architecture</i>, a beauty as of temperance itself, limited to the +straight line and the square,—a builded geometry. Then we have it once +again in <i>sculpture</i>, the “tongue on the balance of +expression,” a multitude of forms in the utmost freedom of action and +never transgressing the ideal serenity; like votaries performing some religious +dance before the gods, and, though in convulsive pain or mortal combat, never +daring to break the figure and decorum of their dance. Thus of the genius of +one remarkable people we have a fourfold representation: and to the senses what +more unlike than an ode of Pindar, a marble centaur, the peristyle of the +Parthenon, and the last actions of Phocion? +</p> + +<p> +Every one must have observed faces and forms which, without any resembling +feature, make a like impression on the beholder. A particular picture or copy +of verses, if it do not awaken the same train of images, will yet superinduce +the same sentiment as some wild mountain walk, although the resemblance is +nowise obvious to the senses, but is occult and out of the reach of the +understanding. Nature is an endless combination and repetition of a very few +laws. She hums the old well-known air through innumerable variations. +</p> + +<p> +Nature is full of a sublime family likeness throughout her works, and delights +in startling us with resemblances in the most unexpected quarters. I have seen +the head of an old sachem of the forest which at once reminded the eye of a +bald mountain summit, and the furrows of the brow suggested the strata of the +rock. 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 art. And there are compositions of the same strain to be +found in the books of all ages. What is Guido’s Rospigliosi Aurora but a +morning thought, as the horses in it are only a morning cloud? If any one will +but take pains to observe the variety of actions to which he is equally +inclined in certain moods of mind, and those to which he is averse, he will see +how deep is the chain of affinity. +</p> + +<p> +A painter told me that nobody could draw a tree without in some sort becoming a +tree; or draw a child by studying the outlines of its form merely,—but, +by watching for a time his motions and plays, the painter enters into his +nature and can then draw him at will in every attitude. So Roos “entered +into the inmost nature of a sheep.” 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 him. In a certain state of thought +is the common origin of very diverse works. It is the spirit and not the fact +that is identical. By a deeper apprehension, and not primarily by a painful +acquisition of many manual skills, the artist attains the power of awakening +other souls to a given activity. +</p> + +<p> +It has been said that “common souls pay with what they do, nobler souls +with that which they are.” And why? Because a profound nature awakens in +us by its actions and words, by its very looks and manners, the same power and +beauty that a gallery of sculpture or of pictures addresses. +</p> + +<p> +Civil and natural history, the history of art and of literature, must be +explained from individual history, or must remain words. There is nothing but +is related to us, nothing that does not interest us,—kingdom, college, +tree, horse, or iron shoe,—the roots of all things are in man. Santa +Croce and the Dome of St. Peter’s are lame copies after a divine model. +Strasburg Cathedral is a material counterpart of the soul of Erwin of +Steinbach. The true poem is the poet’s mind; the true ship is the +ship-builder. In the man, could we lay him open, we should see the reason for +the last flourish and tendril of his work; as every spine and tint in the +sea-shell preexists in the secreting organs of the fish. The whole of heraldry +and of chivalry is in courtesy. A man of fine manners shall pronounce your name +with all the ornament that titles of nobility could ever add. +</p> + +<p> +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 heed. A lady with whom I was riding in the forest said to me that the +woods always seemed to her to wait, as if the genii who inhabit them suspended +their deeds until the wayfarer had passed onward; a thought which poetry has +celebrated in the dance of the fairies, which breaks off on the approach of +human feet. The man who has seen the rising moon break out of the clouds at +midnight, has been present like an archangel at the creation of light and of +the world. I remember one summer day in the fields my companion pointed out to +me a broad cloud, which might extend a quarter of a mile parallel to the +horizon, quite accurately in the form of a cherub as painted over +churches,—a round block in the centre, which it was easy to animate with +eyes and mouth, supported on either side by wide-stretched symmetrical wings. +What appears once in the atmosphere may appear often, and it was undoubtedly +the archetype of that familiar ornament. 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 Jove. 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 tower. +</p> + +<p> +By surrounding ourselves with the original circumstances we invent anew the +orders and the ornaments of architecture, as we see how each people merely +decorated its primitive abodes. The Doric temple preserves the semblance of the +wooden cabin in which the Dorian dwelt. The Chinese pagoda is plainly a Tartar +tent. The Indian and Egyptian temples still betray the mounds and subterranean +houses of their forefathers. “The custom of making houses and tombs in +the living rock,” says Heeren in his Researches on the Ethiopians, +“determined very naturally the principal character of the Nubian Egyptian +architecture to the colossal form which it assumed. In these caverns, already +prepared by nature, the eye was accustomed to dwell on huge shapes and masses, +so that when art came to the assistance of nature it could not move on a small +scale without degrading itself. What would statues of the usual size, or neat +porches and wings have been, associated with those gigantic halls before which +only Colossi could sit as watchmen or lean on the pillars of the +interior?” +</p> + +<p> +The Gothic church plainly originated in a rude adaptation of the forest trees, +with all their boughs, to a festal or solemn arcade; as the bands about the +cleft pillars still indicate the green withes that tied them. No one can walk +in a road cut through pine woods, without being struck with the architectural +appearance of the grove, especially in winter, when the barrenness of all other +trees shows the low arch of the Saxons. In the woods in a winter afternoon one +will see as readily the origin of the stained glass window, with which the +Gothic cathedrals are adorned, in the colors of the western sky seen through +the bare and crossing branches of the forest. Nor can any lover of nature enter +the old piles of Oxford and the English cathedrals, without feeling that the +forest overpowered the mind of the builder, and that his chisel, his saw and +plane still reproduced its ferns, its spikes of flowers, its locust, elm, oak, +pine, fir and spruce. +</p> + +<p> +The Gothic cathedral is a blossoming in stone subdued by the insatiable demand +of harmony in man. The mountain of granite blooms into an eternal flower, with +the lightness and delicate finish as well as the aerial proportions and +perspective of vegetable beauty. +</p> + +<p> +In like manner all public facts are to be individualized, all private facts are +to be generalized. Then at once History becomes fluid and true, and Biography +deep and sublime. As the Persian imitated in the slender shafts and capitals of +his architecture the stem and flower of the lotus and palm, so the Persian +court in its magnificent era never gave over the nomadism of its barbarous +tribes, but travelled from Ecbatana, where the spring was spent, to Susa in +summer and to Babylon for the winter. +</p> + +<p> +In the early history of Asia and Africa, Nomadism and Agriculture are the two +antagonist facts. The geography of Asia and of Africa necessitated a nomadic +life. But the nomads were the terror of all those whom the soil or the +advantages of a market had induced to build towns. Agriculture therefore was a +religious injunction, because of the perils of the state from nomadism. And in +these late and civil countries of England and America these propensities still +fight out the old battle, in the nation and in the individual. The nomads of +Africa were constrained to wander, by the attacks of the gad-fly, which drives +the cattle mad, and so compels the tribe to emigrate in the rainy season and to +drive off the cattle to the higher sandy regions. The nomads of Asia follow the +pasturage from month to month. In America and Europe the nomadism is of trade +and curiosity; a progress, certainly, from the gad-fly of Astaboras to the +Anglo and Italo-mania of Boston Bay. Sacred cities, to which a periodical +religious pilgrimage was enjoined, or stringent laws and customs, tending to +invigorate the national bond, were the check on the old rovers; and the +cumulative values of long residence are the restraints on the itineracy of the +present day. The antagonism of the two tendencies is not less active in +individuals, as the love of adventure or the love of repose happens to +predominate. A man of rude health and flowing spirits has the faculty of rapid +domestication, lives in his wagon and roams through all latitudes as easily as +a Calmuc. At sea, or in the forest, or in the snow, he sleeps as warm, dines +with as good appetite, and associates as happily as beside his own chimneys. Or +perhaps his facility is deeper seated, in the increased range of his faculties +of observation, which yield him points of interest wherever fresh objects meet +his eyes. The pastoral nations were needy and hungry to desperation; and this +intellectual nomadism, in its excess, bankrupts the mind through the +dissipation of power on a miscellany of objects. The home-keeping wit, on the +other hand, is that continence or content which finds all the elements of life +in its own soil; and which has its own perils of monotony and deterioration, if +not stimulated by foreign infusions. +</p> + +<p> +Every thing the individual sees without him corresponds to his states of mind, +and every thing is in turn intelligible to him, as his onward thinking leads +him into the truth to which that fact or series belongs. +</p> + +<p> +The primeval world,—the Fore-World, as the Germans say,—I can dive +to it in myself as well as grope for it with researching fingers in catacombs, +libraries, and the broken reliefs and torsos of ruined villas. +</p> + +<p> +What is the foundation of that interest all men feel in Greek history, letters, +art, and poetry, in all its periods from the Heroic or Homeric age down to the +domestic life of the Athenians and Spartans, four or five centuries later? What +but this, that every man passes personally through a Grecian period. The +Grecian state is the era of the bodily nature, the perfection of the +senses,—of the spiritual nature unfolded in strict unity with the body. +In it existed those human forms which supplied the sculptor with his models of +Hercules, Phœbus, and Jove; not like the forms abounding in the streets of +modern cities, wherein the face is a confused blur of features, but composed of +incorrupt, sharply defined and symmetrical features, 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 that, but they must turn the whole head. The +manners of that period are plain and fierce. The reverence exhibited is for +personal qualities; courage, address, self-command, justice, strength, +swiftness, a loud voice, a broad chest. Luxury and elegance are not known. A +sparse population and want make every man his own valet, cook, butcher and +soldier, and the habit of supplying his own needs educates the body to +wonderful performances. Such are the Agamemnon and Diomed of Homer, and not far +different is the picture Xenophon gives of himself and his compatriots in the +Retreat of the Ten Thousand. “After the army had crossed the river +Teleboas in Armenia, there fell much snow, and the troops lay miserably on the +ground covered with it. But Xenophon arose naked, and taking an axe, began to +split wood; whereupon others rose and did the like.” Throughout his army +exists a boundless liberty of speech. They quarrel for plunder, they wrangle +with the generals on each new order, and Xenophon is as sharp-tongued as any +and sharper-tongued than most, and so gives as good as he gets. Who does not +see that this is a gang of great boys, with such a code of honor and such lax +discipline as great boys have? +</p> + +<p> +The costly charm of the ancient tragedy, and indeed of all the old literature, +is that the persons speak simply,—speak as persons who have great good +sense without knowing it, before yet the reflective habit has become the +predominant habit of the mind. Our admiration of the antique is not admiration +of the old, but of the natural. The Greeks are not reflective, but perfect in +their senses and in their health, with the finest physical organization in the +world. Adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children. They made vases, +tragedies, and statues, such as healthy senses should,—that is, in good +taste. Such things have continued to be made in all ages, and are now, wherever +a healthy physique exists; but, as a class, from their superior organization, +they have surpassed all. They combine the energy of manhood with the engaging +unconsciousness of childhood. The attraction of these manners is that they +belong to man, and are known to every man in virtue of his being once a child; +besides that there are always individuals who retain these characteristics. A +person of childlike genius and inborn energy is still a Greek, and revives our +love of the Muse of Hellas. I admire the love of nature in the Philoctetes. In +reading those fine apostrophes to sleep, to the stars, rocks, mountains and +waves, I feel time passing away as an ebbing sea. I feel the eternity of man, +the identity of his thought. The Greek had it seems the same fellow-beings as +I. The sun and moon, water and fire, met his heart precisely as they meet mine. +Then the vaunted distinction between Greek and English, between Classic and +Romantic schools, seems superficial and pedantic. When a thought of Plato +becomes a thought to me,—when a truth that fired the soul of Pindar fires +mine, time is no more. When I feel that we two meet in a perception, that our +two souls are tinged with the same hue, and do as it were run into one, why +should I measure degrees of latitude, why should I count Egyptian years? +</p> + +<p> +The student interprets the age of chivalry by his own age of chivalry, and the +days of maritime adventure and circumnavigation by quite parallel miniature +experiences of his own. To the sacred history of the world he has the same key. +When the voice of a prophet out of the deeps of antiquity merely echoes to him +a sentiment of his infancy, a prayer of his youth, he then pierces to the truth +through all the confusion of tradition and the caricature of institutions. +</p> + +<p> +Rare, extravagant spirits come by us at intervals, who disclose to us new facts +in nature. 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 hearer. Hence +evidently the tripod, the priest, the priestess inspired by the divine +afflatus. +</p> + +<p> +Jesus astonishes and overpowers sensual people. They cannot unite him to +history, or reconcile him with themselves. As they come to revere their +intuitions and aspire to live holily, their own piety explains every fact, +every word. +</p> + +<p> +How easily these old worships of Moses, of Zoroaster, of Menu, of Socrates, +domesticate themselves in the mind. I cannot find any antiquity in them. They +are mine as much as theirs. +</p> + +<p> +I have seen the first monks and anchorets, without crossing seas or centuries. +More than once some individual has appeared to me with such negligence of labor +and such commanding contemplation, a haughty beneficiary begging in the name of +God, as made good to the nineteenth century Simeon the Stylite, the Thebais, +and the first Capuchins. +</p> + +<p> +The priestcraft of the East and West, of the Magian, Brahmin, Druid, and Inca, +is expounded in the individual’s private life. The cramping influence of +a hard formalist on a young child, in repressing his spirits and courage, +paralyzing the understanding, and that without producing indignation, but only +fear and obedience, and even much sympathy with the tyranny,—is a +familiar fact, explained to the child when he becomes a man, 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 +youth. The fact teaches him how Belus was worshipped and how the Pyramids were +built, better than the discovery by Champollion of the names of all the workmen +and the cost of every tile. He finds Assyria and the Mounds of Cholula at his +door, and himself has laid the courses. +</p> + +<p> +Again, in that protest which each considerate person makes against the +superstition of his times, he repeats step for step the part of old reformers, +and in the search after truth finds, like them, new perils to virtue. He learns +again what moral vigor is needed to supply the girdle of a superstition. A +great licentiousness treads on the heels of a reformation. 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 household! “Doctor,” said his wife to Martin +Luther, one day, “how is it that whilst subject to papacy we prayed so +often and with such fervor, whilst now we pray with the utmost coldness and +very seldom?” +</p> + +<p> +The advancing man discovers how deep a property he has in literature,—in +all fable as well as in all history. He finds that the poet was no odd fellow +who described strange and impossible situations, but that universal man wrote +by his pen a confession true for one and true for all. His own secret biography +he finds in lines wonderfully intelligible to him, dotted down before he was +born. One after another he comes up in his private adventures with every fable +of Æsop, of Homer, of Hafiz, of Ariosto, of Chaucer, of Scott, and verifies +them with his own head and hands. +</p> + +<p> +The beautiful fables of the Greeks, being proper creations of the imagination +and not of the fancy, are universal verities. What a range of meanings and what +perpetual pertinence has the story of Prometheus! Beside its primary value as +the first chapter of the history of Europe, (the mythology thinly veiling +authentic facts, the invention of the mechanic arts and the migration of +colonies,) it gives the history of religion, with some closeness to the faith +of later ages. Prometheus is the Jesus of the old mythology. He is the friend +of man; stands between the unjust “justice” of the Eternal Father +and the race of mortals, and readily suffers all things on their account. But +where it departs from the Calvinistic Christianity and exhibits him as the +defier of Jove, it represents a state of mind which readily appears wherever +the doctrine of Theism is taught in a crude, objective form, and which seems +the self-defence of man against this untruth, namely a discontent with the +believed fact that a God exists, and a feeling that the obligation of reverence +is onerous. It would steal if it could the fire of the Creator, and live apart +from him and independent of him. The Prometheus Vinctus is the romance of +skepticism. Not less true to all time are the details of that stately apologue. +Apollo kept the flocks of Admetus, said the poets. When the gods come among +men, they are not known. Jesus was not; Socrates and Shakspeare were not. +Antaeus was suffocated by the gripe of Hercules, but every time he touched his +mother earth his strength was renewed. Man is the broken giant, and in all his +weakness both his body and his mind are invigorated by habits of conversation +with nature. The power of music, the power of poetry, to unfix and as it were +clap wings to solid nature, interprets the riddle of Orpheus. The philosophical +perception of identity through endless mutations of form makes him know the +Proteus. What else am I who laughed or wept yesterday, who slept last night +like a corpse, and this morning stood and ran? And what see I on any side but +the transmigrations of Proteus? I can symbolize my thought by using the name of +any creature, of any fact, because every creature is man agent or patient. +Tantalus is but a name for you and me. Tantalus means the impossibility of +drinking the waters of thought which are always gleaming and waving within +sight of the soul. The transmigration of souls is no fable. I would it were; +but men and women are only half human. Every animal of the barn-yard, the field +and the forest, of the earth and of the waters that are under the earth, has +contrived to get a footing and to leave the print of its features and form in +some one or other of these upright, heaven-facing speakers. Ah! brother, stop +the ebb of thy soul,—ebbing downward into the forms into whose habits +thou hast now for many years slid. As near and proper to us is also that old +fable of the Sphinx, who was said to sit in the road-side and put riddles to +every passenger. If the man could not answer, she swallowed him alive. If he +could solve the riddle, the Sphinx was slain. What is our life but an endless +flight of winged facts or events? In splendid variety these changes come, all +putting questions to the human spirit. Those men who cannot answer by a +superior wisdom these facts or questions of time, serve them. Facts encumber +them, tyrannize over them, and make the men of routine, the men of +<i>sense</i>, in whom a literal obedience to facts has extinguished every spark +of that light by which man is truly man. But if the man is true to his better +instincts or sentiments, and refuses the dominion of facts, as one that comes +of a higher race; remains fast by the soul and sees the principle, then the +facts fall aptly and supple into their places; they know their master, and the +meanest of them glorifies him. +</p> + +<p> +See in Goethe’s Helena the same desire that every word should be a thing. +These figures, he would say, these Chirons, Griffins, Phorkyas, Helen and Leda, +are somewhat, and do exert a specific influence on the mind. So far then are +they eternal entities, as real to-day as in the first Olympiad. Much revolving +them he writes out freely his humor, and gives them body to his own +imagination. And although that poem be as vague and fantastic as a dream, yet +is it much more attractive than the more regular dramatic pieces of the same +author, for the reason that it operates a wonderful relief to the mind from the +routine of customary images,—awakens the reader’s invention and +fancy by the wild freedom of the design, and by the unceasing succession of +brisk shocks of surprise. +</p> + +<p> +The universal nature, too strong for the petty nature of the bard, sits on his +neck and writes through his hand; so that when he seems to vent a mere caprice +and wild romance, the issue is an exact allegory. Hence Plato said that +“poets utter great and wise things which they do not themselves +understand.” 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 achieve. Magic and all that is ascribed to it is a deep +presentiment of the powers of science. The shoes of swiftness, the sword of +sharpness, the power of subduing the elements, of using the secret virtues of +minerals, of understanding the voices of birds, are the obscure efforts of the +mind in a right direction. The preternatural prowess of the hero, the gift of +perpetual youth, and the like, are alike the endeavour of the human spirit +“to bend the shows of things to the desires of the mind.” +</p> + +<p> +In Perceforest and Amadis de Gaul a garland and a rose bloom on the head of her +who is faithful, and fade on the brow of the inconstant. 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 Venelas; and indeed all the +postulates of elfin annals,—that the fairies do not like to be named; +that their gifts are capricious and not to be trusted; that who seeks a +treasure must not speak; and the like,—I find true in Concord, however +they might be in Cornwall or Bretagne. +</p> + +<p> +Is it otherwise in the newest romance? I read the Bride of Lammermoor. Sir +William Ashton is a mask for a vulgar temptation, Ravenswood Castle a fine name +for proud poverty, and the foreign mission of state only a Bunyan disguise for +honest industry. We may all shoot a wild bull that would toss the good and +beautiful, by fighting down the unjust and sensual. Lucy Ashton is another name +for fidelity, which is always beautiful and always liable to calamity in this +world. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +But along with the civil and metaphysical history of man, another history goes +daily forward,—that of the external world,—in which he is not less +strictly implicated. He is the compend of time; he is also the correlative of +nature. His power consists in the multitude of his affinities, in the fact that +his life is intertwined with the whole chain of organic and inorganic being. In +old Rome the public roads beginning at the Forum proceeded north, south, east, +west, to the centre of every province of the empire, making each market-town of +Persia, Spain and Britain pervious to the soldiers of the capital: so out of +the human heart go as it were highways to the heart of every object in nature, +to reduce it under the dominion of man. A man is a bundle of relations, a knot +of roots, whose flower and fruitage is the world. His faculties refer to +natures out of him and predict the world he is to inhabit, as the fins of the +fish foreshow that water exists, or the wings of an eagle in the egg presuppose +air. He cannot live without a world. Put Napoleon in an island prison, let his +faculties find no men to act on, no Alps to climb, no stake to play for, and he +would beat the air, and appear stupid. Transport him to large countries, dense +population, complex interests and antagonist power, and you shall see that the +man Napoleon, bounded that is by such a profile and outline, is not the virtual +Napoleon. This is but Talbot’s shadow;— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“His substance is not here.<br /> +For what you see is but the smallest part<br /> +And least proportion of humanity;<br /> +But were the whole frame here,<br /> +It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch,<br /> +Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.”<br /> +—Henry VI. +</p> + +<p> +Columbus needs a planet to shape his course upon. Newton and Laplace need +myriads of age and thick-strewn celestial areas. One may say a gravitating +solar system is already prophesied in the nature of Newton’s mind. Not +less does the brain of Davy or of Gay-Lussac, from childhood exploring the +affinities and repulsions of particles, anticipate the laws of organization. +Does not the eye of the human embryo predict the light? the ear of Handel +predict the witchcraft of harmonic sound? Do not the constructive fingers of +Watt, Fulton, Whittemore, Arkwright, predict the fusible, hard, and temperable +texture of metals, the properties of stone, water, and wood? Do not the lovely +attributes of the maiden child predict the refinements and decorations of civil +society? Here also we are reminded of the action of man on man. 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 day. Who knows himself before he has been thrilled +with indignation at an outrage, or has heard an eloquent tongue, or has shared +the throb of thousands in a national exultation or alarm? No man can antedate +his experience, or guess what faculty or feeling a new object shall unlock, any +more than he can draw to-day the face of a person whom he shall see to-morrow +for the first time. +</p> + +<p> +I will not now go behind the general statement to explore the reason of this +correspondency. Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, +that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read +and written. +</p> + +<p> +Thus in all ways does the soul concentrate and reproduce its treasures for each +pupil. He too shall pass through the whole cycle of experience. He shall +collect into a focus the rays of nature. History no longer shall be a dull +book. It shall walk incarnate in every just and wise man. You shall not tell me +by languages and titles a catalogue of the volumes you have read. You shall +make me feel what periods you have lived. A man shall be the Temple of Fame. He +shall walk, as the poets have described that goddess, in a robe painted all +over with wonderful events and experiences;—his own form and features by +their exalted intelligence shall be that variegated vest. I shall find in him +the Foreworld; in his childhood the Age of Gold, the Apples of Knowledge, the +Argonautic Expedition, the calling of Abraham, the building of the Temple, the +Advent of Christ, Dark Ages, the Revival of Letters, the Reformation, the +discovery of new lands, the opening of new sciences and new regions in man. He +shall be the priest of Pan, and bring with him into humble cottages the +blessing of the morning stars, and all the recorded benefits of heaven and +earth. +</p> + +<p> +Is there somewhat overweening in this claim? Then I reject all I have written, +for what is the use of pretending to know what we know not? But it is the fault +of our rhetoric that we cannot strongly state one fact without seeming to belie +some other. I hold our actual knowledge very cheap. Hear the rats in the wall, +see the lizard on the fence, the fungus under foot, the lichen on the log. What +do I know sympathetically, morally, of either of these worlds of life? As old +as the Caucasian man,—perhaps older,—these creatures have kept +their counsel beside him, and there is no record of any word or sign that has +passed from one to the other. What connection do the books show between the +fifty or sixty chemical elements and the historical eras? Nay, what does +history yet record of the metaphysical annals of man? What light does it shed +on those mysteries which we hide under the names Death and Immortality? Yet +every history should be written in a wisdom which divined the range of our +affinities and looked at facts as symbols. I am ashamed to see what a shallow +village tale our so-called History is. How many times we must say Rome, and +Paris, and Constantinople! What does Rome know of rat and lizard? What are +Olympiads and Consulates to these neighboring systems of being? Nay, what food +or experience or succor have they for the Esquimaux seal-hunter, for the Kanaka +in his canoe, for the fisherman, the stevedore, the porter? +</p> + +<p> +Broader and deeper we must write our annals,—from an ethical reformation, +from an influx of the ever new, ever sanative conscience,—if we would +trulier express our central and wide-related nature, instead of this old +chronology of selfishness and pride to which we have too long lent our eyes. +Already that day exists for us, shines in on us at unawares, but the path of +science and of letters is not the way into nature. The idiot, the Indian, the +child and unschooled farmer’s boy stand nearer to the light by which +nature is to be read, than the dissector or the antiquary. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0002" id="link2H_4_0002"></a>II.<br /> +SELF-RELIANCE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Ne te quæsiveris extra.”<br /> +<br /> +“Man is his own star; and the soul that can<br /> +Render an honest and a perfect man,<br /> +Commands all light, all influence, all fate;<br /> +Nothing to him falls early or too late.<br /> +Our acts our angels are, or good or ill,<br /> +Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.”<br /> +<br /> +<i>Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune.</i> +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="poem"> +Cast the bantling on the rocks,<br /> +Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat,<br /> +Wintered with the hawk and fox.<br /> +Power and speed be hands and feet. +</p> + +<h2>SELF-RELIANCE</h2> + +<p> +I read the other day some verses written by an eminent painter which were +original and not conventional. The soul always hears an admonition in such +lines, let the subject be what it may. The sentiment they instil is of more +value than any thought they may contain. To believe your own thought, to +believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all +men,—that is genius. Speak your latent conviction, and it shall be the +universal sense; for the inmost in due time becomes the outmost, and our first +thought is rendered back to us by the trumpets of the Last Judgment. Familiar +as the voice of the mind is to each, the highest merit we ascribe to Moses, +Plato and Milton is that they set at naught books and traditions, and spoke not +what men, but what <i>they</i> thought. A man should learn to detect and watch +that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the +lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his +thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own +rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great +works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. 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 side. Else to-morrow a stranger +will say with masterly good sense precisely what we have thought and felt all +the time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from +another. +</p> + +<p> +There is a time in every man’s education when he arrives at the +conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take +himself for better for worse as his portion; that though the wide universe is +full of good, 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 till. The power which +resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he +can do, nor does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one +character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none. This +sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony. The eye was +placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of that particular ray. +We but half express ourselves, and are ashamed of that divine idea which each +of us represents. It may be safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, +so it be faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by +cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his work and +done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall give him no peace. +It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the attempt his genius deserts +him; no muse befriends; no invention, no hope. +</p> + +<p> +Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place the +divine providence has found for you, the society of your contemporaries, the +connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves +childlike to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the +absolutely trustworthy was seated at their heart, working through their hands, +predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the +highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a +protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides, +redeemers and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort and advancing on Chaos +and the Dark. +</p> + +<p> +What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text in the face and behavior of +children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel mind, that distrust of +a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed the strength and means opposed +to our purpose, these have not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet +unconquered, and when we look in their faces we are disconcerted. Infancy +conforms to nobody; all conform to it; so that one babe commonly makes four or +five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed youth and +puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and charm, and made it +enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put by, if it will stand by +itself. Do not think the youth has no force, because he cannot speak to you and +me. Hark! in the next room his voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It +seems he knows how to speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold then, he +will know how to make us seniors very unnecessary. +</p> + +<p> +The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would disdain as much as +a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is the healthy attitude of human +nature. A boy is in the parlor what the pit is in the playhouse; independent, +irresponsible, looking out from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, +he tries and sentences them on their merits, in the swift, summary way of boys, +as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He cumbers himself +never about consequences, about interests; he gives an independent, genuine +verdict. You must court him; he does not court you. But the man is as it were +clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as he has once acted or spoken +with <i>éclat</i> he is a committed person, watched by the sympathy or the +hatred of hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his account. There is +no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass again into his neutrality! Who can +thus avoid all pledges and, having observed, observe again from the same +unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence,—must always be +formidable. He would utter opinions on all passing affairs, which being seen to +be not private but necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men and put +them in fear. +</p> + +<p> +These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but they grow faint and +inaudible as we enter into the world. Society everywhere is in conspiracy +against the manhood of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock +company, in which the members agree, for the better securing of his bread to +each shareholder, to surrender the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue +in most request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves not +realities and creators, but names and customs. +</p> + +<p> +Whoso would be a man, must be a nonconformist. He who would gather immortal +palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be +goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve +you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world. 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 church. On my +saying, “What have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live +wholly from within?” my friend suggested,—“But these impulses +may be from below, not from above.” I replied, “They do not seem to +me to be such; but if I am the Devil’s child, I will live then from the +Devil.” No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad +are but names very readily transferable to that or this; the only right is what +is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it. A man is to carry +himself in the presence of all opposition as if every thing were titular and +ephemeral but he. I am ashamed to think how easily we capitulate to badges and +names, to large societies and dead institutions. Every decent and well-spoken +individual affects and sways me more than is right. I ought to go upright and +vital, and speak the rude truth in all ways. If malice and vanity wear the coat +of philanthropy, shall that pass? If an angry bigot assumes this bountiful +cause of Abolition, and comes to me with his last news from Barbadoes, why +should I not say to him, ‘Go love thy infant; love thy wood-chopper; be +good-natured and modest; have that grace; and never varnish your hard, +uncharitable ambition with this incredible tenderness for black folk a thousand +miles off. Thy love afar is spite at home.’ Rough and graceless would be +such greeting, but truth is handsomer than the affectation of love. Your +goodness must have some edge to it,—else it is none. The doctrine of +hatred must be preached, as the counteraction of the doctrine of love, when +that pules and whines. I shun father and mother and wife and brother when my +genius calls me. I would write on the lintels of the door-post, <i>Whim</i>. I +hope it is somewhat better than whim at last, but we cannot spend the day in +explanation. Expect me not to show cause why I seek or why I exclude company. +Then again, do not tell me, as a good man did to-day, of my obligation to put +all poor men in good situations. Are they <i>my</i> poor? I tell thee thou +foolish philanthropist that I grudge the dollar, the dime, the cent, I give to +such men as do not belong to me and to whom I do not belong. There is a class +of persons to whom by all spiritual affinity I am bought and sold; for them I +will go to prison if need be; but your miscellaneous popular charities; the +education at college of fools; the building of meeting-houses to the vain end +to which many now stand; alms to sots, and the thousand-fold Relief +Societies;—though I confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the +dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have the manhood to +withhold. +</p> + +<p> +Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the rule. There +is the man <i>and</i> his virtues. Men do what is called a good action, as some +piece of courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in expiation of +daily non-appearance on parade. Their works are done as an apology or +extenuation of their living in the world,—as invalids and the insane pay +a high board. Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to +live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much prefer that it +should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine and equal, than that it should be +glittering and unsteady. I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet +and bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and refuse this appeal +from the man to his actions. I know that for myself it makes no difference +whether I do or forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I cannot +consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic right. Few and mean as my +gifts may be, I actually am, and do not need for my own assurance or the +assurance of my fellows any secondary testimony. +</p> + +<p> +What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, +equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole +distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder because you will +always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know +it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy +in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of +the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude. +</p> + +<p> +The objection to conforming to usages that have become dead to you is that it +scatters your force. It loses your time and blurs the impression of your +character. If you maintain a dead church, contribute to a dead Bible-society, +vote with a great party either for the government or against it, spread your +table like base housekeepers,—under all these screens I have difficulty +to detect the precise man you are: and of course so much force is withdrawn +from your proper life. But do your work, and I shall know you. Do your work, +and you shall reinforce yourself. A man must consider what a +blindman’s-buff is this game of conformity. If I know your sect, I +anticipate your argument. I hear a preacher announce for his text and topic the +expediency of one of the institutions of his church. Do I not know beforehand +that not possibly can he say a new and spontaneous word? Do I not know that +with all this ostentation of examining the grounds of the institution he will +do no such thing? Do I not know that he is pledged to himself not to look but +at one side, the permitted side, not as a man, but as a parish minister? He is +a retained attorney, and these airs of the bench are the emptiest affectation. +Well, most men have bound their eyes with one or another handkerchief, and +attached themselves to some one of these communities of opinion. This +conformity makes them not false in a few particulars, authors of a few lies, +but false in all particulars. Their every truth is not quite true. Their two is +not the real two, their four not the real four; so that every word they say +chagrins us and we know not where to begin to set them right. Meantime nature +is not slow to equip us in the prison-uniform of the party to which we adhere. +We come to wear one cut of face and figure, and acquire by degrees the gentlest +asinine expression. There is a mortifying experience in particular, which does +not fail to wreak itself also in the general history; I mean “the foolish +face of praise,” the forced smile which we put on in company where we do +not feel at ease in answer to conversation which does not interest us. The +muscles, not spontaneously moved but moved by a low usurping wilfulness, grow +tight about the outline of the face with the most disagreeable sensation. +</p> + +<p> +For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure. And therefore a man +must know how to estimate a sour face. The by-standers look askance on him in +the public street or in the friend’s parlor. If this aversation had its +origin in contempt and resistance like his own he might well go home with a sad +countenance; but the sour faces of the multitude, like their sweet faces, have +no deep cause, but are put on and off as the wind blows and a newspaper +directs. Yet is the discontent of the multitude more formidable than that of +the senate and the college. It is easy enough for a firm man who knows the +world to brook the rage of the cultivated classes. Their rage is decorous and +prudent, for they are timid, as being very vulnerable themselves. But when to +their feminine rage the indignation of the people is added, when the ignorant +and the poor are aroused, when the unintelligent brute force that lies at the +bottom of society is made to growl and mow, it needs the habit of magnanimity +and religion to treat it godlike as a trifle of no concernment. +</p> + +<p> +The other terror that scares us from self-trust is our consistency; a reverence +for our past act or word because the eyes of others have no other data for +computing our orbit than our past acts, and we are loath to disappoint them. +</p> + +<p> +But why should you keep your head over your shoulder? Why drag about this +corpse of your memory, lest you contradict somewhat you have stated in this or +that public place? Suppose you should contradict yourself; what then? It seems +to be a rule of wisdom never to rely on your memory alone, scarcely even in +acts of pure memory, but to bring the past for judgment into the thousand-eyed +present, and live ever in a new day. In your metaphysics you have denied +personality to the Deity, yet when the devout motions of the soul come, yield +to them heart and life, though they should clothe God with shape and color. +Leave your theory, as Joseph his coat in the hand of the harlot, and flee. +</p> + +<p> +A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little +statesmen and philosophers and divines. With consistency a great soul has +simply nothing to do. He may as well concern himself with his shadow on the +wall. Speak what you think now in hard words and to-morrow speak what to-morrow +thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said +to-day.—‘Ah, so you shall be sure to be +misunderstood.’—Is it so bad then to be misunderstood? Pythagoras +was misunderstood, and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and +Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be +great is to be misunderstood. +</p> + +<p> +I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are +rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes and Himmaleh +are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge +and try him. A character is like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;—read +it forward, backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this +pleasing contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my +honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it will be +found symmetrical, though I mean it not and see it not. My book should smell of +pines and resound with the hum of insects. The swallow over my window should +interweave that thread or straw he carries in his bill into my web also. We +pass for what we are. Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they +communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that +virtue or vice emit a breath every moment. +</p> + +<p> +There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be each +honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions will be +harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost sight of at a +little distance, at a little height of thought. One tendency unites them all. +The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line of a hundred tacks. See the line +from a sufficient distance, and it straightens itself to the average tendency. +Your genuine action will explain itself and will explain your other genuine +actions. Your conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have +already done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If I +can be firm enough to-day to do right and scorn eyes, I must have done so much +right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will, do right now. Always scorn +appearances and you always may. The force of character is cumulative. All the +foregone days of virtue work their health into this. What makes the majesty of +the heroes of the senate and the field, which so fills the imagination? The +consciousness of a train of great days and victories behind. They shed an +united light on the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of +angels. That is it which throws thunder into Chatham’s voice, and dignity +into Washington’s port, and America into Adams’s eye. Honor is +venerable to us because it is no ephemera. It is always ancient virtue. We +worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it and pay it homage +because it is not a trap for our love and homage, but is self-dependent, +self-derived, and therefore of an old immaculate pedigree, even if shown in a +young person. +</p> + +<p> +I hope in these days we have heard the last of conformity and consistency. Let +the words be gazetted and ridiculous henceforward. Instead of the gong for +dinner, let us hear a whistle from the Spartan fife. Let us never bow and +apologize more. A great man is coming to eat at my house. I do not wish to +please him; I wish that he should wish to please me. I will stand here for +humanity, and though I would make it kind, I would make it true. Let us affront +and reprimand the smooth mediocrity and squalid contentment of the times, and +hurl in the face of custom and trade and office, the fact which is the upshot +of all history, that there is a great responsible Thinker and Actor working +wherever a man works; that a true man belongs to no other time or place, but is +the centre of things. Where he is, there is nature. He measures you and all men +and all events. Ordinarily, every body in society reminds us of somewhat else, +or of some other person. Character, reality, reminds you of nothing else; it +takes place of the whole creation. The man must be so much that he must make +all circumstances indifferent. Every true man is a cause, a country, and an +age; requires infinite spaces and numbers and time fully to accomplish his +design;—and posterity seem to follow his steps as a train of clients. A +man Cæsar is born, and for ages after we have a Roman Empire. Christ is born, +and millions of minds so grow and cleave to his genius that he is confounded +with virtue and the possible of man. An institution is the lengthened shadow of +one man; as, Monachism, of the Hermit Antony; the Reformation, of Luther; +Quakerism, of Fox; Methodism, of Wesley; Abolition, of Clarkson. Scipio, Milton +called “the height of Rome”; and all history resolves itself very +easily into the biography of a few stout and earnest persons. +</p> + +<p> +Let a man then know his worth, and keep things under his feet. Let him not peep +or steal, or skulk up and down with the air of a charity-boy, a bastard, or an +interloper in the world which exists for him. But the man in the street, +finding no worth in himself which corresponds to the force which built a tower +or sculptured a marble god, feels poor when he looks on these. To him a palace, +a statue, or a costly book have an alien and forbidding air, much like a gay +equipage, and seem to say like that, ‘Who are you, Sir?’ Yet they +all are his, suitors for his notice, petitioners to his faculties that they +will come out and take possession. The picture waits for my verdict; it is not +to command me, but I am to settle its claims to praise. That popular fable of +the sot who was picked up dead drunk in the street, carried to the duke’s +house, washed and dressed and laid in the duke’s bed, and, on his waking, +treated with all obsequious ceremony like the duke, and assured that he had +been insane, owes its popularity to the fact that it symbolizes so well the +state of man, who is in the world a sort of sot, but now and then wakes up, +exercises his reason and finds himself a true prince. +</p> + +<p> +Our reading is mendicant and sycophantic. In history our imagination plays us +false. Kingdom and lordship, power and estate, are a gaudier vocabulary than +private John and Edward in a small house and common day’s work; but the +things of life are the same to both; the sum total of both is the same. Why all +this deference to Alfred and Scanderbeg and Gustavus? Suppose they were +virtuous; did they wear out virtue? As great a stake depends on your private +act to-day, as followed their public and renowned steps. When private men shall +act with original views, the lustre will be transferred from the actions of +kings to those of gentlemen. +</p> + +<p> +The world has been instructed by its kings, who have so magnetized the eyes of +nations. It has been taught by this colossal symbol the mutual reverence that +is due from man to man. The joyful loyalty with which men have everywhere +suffered the king, the noble, or the great proprietor to walk among them by a +law of his own, make his own scale of men and things and reverse theirs, pay +for benefits not with money but with honor, and represent the law in his +person, was the hieroglyphic by which they obscurely signified their +consciousness of their own right and comeliness, the right of every man. +</p> + +<p> +The magnetism which all original action exerts is explained when we inquire the +reason of self-trust. Who is the Trustee? What is the aboriginal Self, on which +a universal reliance may be grounded? What is the nature and power of that +science-baffling star, without parallax, without calculable elements, which +shoots a ray of beauty even into trivial and impure actions, if the least mark +of independence appear? The inquiry leads us to that source, at once the +essence of genius, of virtue, and of life, which we call Spontaneity or +Instinct. We denote this primary wisdom as Intuition, whilst all later +teachings are tuitions. In that deep force, the last fact behind which analysis +cannot go, all things find their common origin. For the sense of being which in +calm hours rises, we know not how, in the soul, is not diverse from things, +from space, from light, from time, from man, but one with them and proceeds +obviously from the same source whence their life and being also proceed. We +first share the life by which things exist and afterwards see them as +appearances in nature and forget that we have shared their cause. Here is the +fountain of action and of thought. Here are the lungs of that inspiration which +giveth man wisdom and which cannot be denied without impiety and atheism. We +lie in the lap of immense intelligence, which makes us receivers of its truth +and organs of its activity. When we discern justice, when we discern truth, we +do nothing of ourselves, but allow a passage to its beams. If we ask whence +this comes, if we seek to pry into the soul that causes, all philosophy is at +fault. Its presence or its absence is all we can affirm. Every man +discriminates between the voluntary acts of his mind and his involuntary +perceptions, and knows that to his involuntary perceptions a perfect faith is +due. He may err in the expression of them, but he knows that these things are +so, like day and night, not to be disputed. My wilful actions and acquisitions +are but roving;—the idlest reverie, the faintest native emotion, command +my curiosity and respect. Thoughtless people contradict as readily the +statement of perceptions as of opinions, or rather much more readily; for they +do not distinguish between perception and notion. They fancy that I choose to +see this or that thing. But perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a +trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all +mankind,—although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. For my +perception of it is as much a fact as the sun. +</p> + +<p> +The relations of the soul to the divine spirit are so pure that it is profane +to seek to interpose helps. It must be that when God speaketh he should +communicate, not one thing, but all things; should fill the world with his +voice; should scatter forth light, nature, time, souls, from the centre of the +present thought; and new date and new create the whole. Whenever a mind is +simple and receives a divine wisdom, old things pass away,—means, +teachers, texts, temples fall; it lives now, and absorbs past and future into +the present hour. All things are made sacred by relation to it,—one as +much as another. All things are dissolved to their centre by their cause, and +in the universal miracle petty and particular miracles disappear. 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 country, in another world, +believe him not. Is the acorn better than the oak which is its fulness and +completion? Is the parent better than the child into whom he has cast his +ripened being? Whence then this worship of the past? The centuries are +conspirators against the sanity and authority of the soul. Time and space are +but physiological colors which the eye makes, but the soul is light: where it +is, is day; where it was, is night; and history is an impertinence and an +injury if it be any thing more than a cheerful apologue or parable of my being +and becoming. +</p> + +<p> +Man is timid and apologetic; he is no longer upright; he dares not say ‘I +think,’ ‘I am,’ but quotes some saint or sage. He is ashamed +before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. These roses under my window make +no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; +they exist with God to-day. There is no time to them. There is simply the rose; +it is perfect in every moment of its existence. Before a leaf-bud has burst, +its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless +root there is no less. Its nature is satisfied and it satisfies nature in all +moments alike. But man postpones or remembers; he does not live in the present, +but with reverted eye laments the past, or, heedless of the riches that +surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. He cannot be happy and +strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time. +</p> + +<p> +This should be plain enough. Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear +God himself unless he speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or +Jeremiah, or Paul. We shall not always set so great a price on a few texts, on +a few lives. We are like children who repeat by rote the sentences of grandames +and tutors, and, as they grow older, of the men of talents and character they +chance to see,—painfully recollecting the exact words they spoke; +afterwards, when they come into the point of view which those had who uttered +these sayings, they understand them and are willing to let the words go; for at +any time they can use words as good when occasion comes. If we live truly, we +shall see truly. It is as easy for the strong man to be strong, as it is for +the weak to be weak. When we have new perception, we shall gladly disburden the +memory of its hoarded treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his +voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. +</p> + +<p> +And now at last the highest truth on this subject remains unsaid; probably +cannot be said; for all that we say is the far-off remembering of the +intuition. That thought by what I can now nearest approach to say it, is this. +When good is near you, when you have life in yourself, it is not by any known +or accustomed way; you shall not discern the footprints of any other; you shall +not see the face of man; you shall not hear any name;—the way, the +thought, the good shall be wholly strange and new. It shall exclude example and +experience. You take the way from man, not to man. All persons that ever +existed are its forgotten ministers. Fear and hope are alike beneath it. There +is somewhat low even in hope. In the hour of vision there is nothing that can +be called gratitude, nor properly joy. The soul raised over passion beholds +identity and eternal causation, perceives the self-existence of Truth and +Right, and calms itself with knowing that all things go well. Vast spaces of +nature, the Atlantic Ocean, the South Sea; long intervals of time, years, +centuries, are of no account. This which I think and feel underlay every former +state of life and circumstances, as it does underlie my present, and what is +called life, and what is called death. +</p> + +<p> +Life only avails, not the having lived. Power ceases in the instant of repose; +it resides in the moment of transition from a past to a new state, in the +shooting of the gulf, in the darting to an aim. This one fact the world hates; +that the soul <i>becomes;</i> for that for ever degrades the past, turns all +riches to poverty, all reputation to a shame, confounds the saint with the +rogue, shoves Jesus and Judas equally aside. Why then do we prate of +self-reliance? Inasmuch as the soul is present there will be power not +confident but agent. To talk of reliance is a poor external way of speaking. +Speak rather of that which relies because it works and is. Who has more +obedience than I masters me, though he should not raise his finger. Round him I +must revolve by the gravitation of spirits. We fancy it rhetoric when we speak +of eminent virtue. We do not yet see that virtue is Height, and that a man or a +company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of nature must +overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men, poets, who are not. +</p> + +<p> +This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every topic, +the resolution of all into the ever-blessed O<small>NE</small>. Self-existence +is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of good +by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things real are so +by so much virtue as they contain. Commerce, husbandry, hunting, whaling, war, +eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and engage my respect as examples of +its presence and impure action. I see the same law working in nature for +conservation and growth. Power is, in nature, the essential measure of right. +Nature suffers nothing to remain in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The +genesis and maturation of a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree +recovering itself from the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and +vegetable, are demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying +soul. +</p> + +<p> +Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let +us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books and institutions, by +a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the invaders take the shoes from +off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our +docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune beside +our native riches. +</p> + +<p> +But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his genius +admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with the internal +ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the urns of other men. We +must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins, better than +any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each +one with a precinct or sanctuary! So let us always sit. Why should we assume +the faults of our friend, or wife, or father, or child, because they sit around +our hearth, or are said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I +have all men’s. Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even +to the extent of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be +mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world +seems to be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, +client, child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once at thy closet +door and say,—‘Come out unto us.’ But keep thy state; come +not into their confusion. The power men possess to annoy me I give them by a +weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my act. “What we love +that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.” +</p> + +<p> +If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedience and faith, let us at +least resist our temptations; let us enter into the state of war and wake Thor +and Woden, courage and constancy, in our Saxon breasts. This is to be done in +our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying +affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving +people with whom we converse. Say to them, ‘O father, O mother, O wife, O +brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. +Henceforward I am the truth’s. Be it known unto you that henceforward I +obey no law less than the eternal law. I will have no covenants but +proximities. I shall endeavour to nourish my parents, to support my family, to +be the chaste husband of one wife,—but these relations I must fill after +a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I +cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I +am, we shall be the happier. If you cannot, I will still seek to deserve that +you should. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what +is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly +rejoices me and the heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you: if you +are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are +true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek +my own. I do this not selfishly but humbly and truly. It is alike your +interest, and mine, and all men’s, however long we have dwelt in lies, to +live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is +dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth it will +bring us out safe at last.’—But so may you give these friends pain. +Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. +Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the +region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing. +</p> + +<p> +The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of +all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name +of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There +are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may +fulfil your round of duties by clearing yourself in the <i>direct</i>, or in +the <i>reflex</i> way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to +father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog; whether any of these can +upbraid you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard and absolve me to +myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect circle. It denies the name of +duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts +it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any one imagines that this +law is lax, let him keep its commandment one day. +</p> + +<p> +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 taskmaster. High be +his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be +doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as +strong as iron necessity is to others! +</p> + +<p> +If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by distinction +<i>society</i>, he will see the need of these ethics. The sinew and heart of +man seem to be drawn out, and we are become timorous, desponding whimperers. We +are afraid of truth, afraid of fortune, afraid of death and afraid of each +other. Our age yields no great and perfect persons. We want men and women who +shall renovate life and our social state, but we see that most natures are +insolvent, cannot satisfy their own wants, have an ambition out of all +proportion to their practical force and do lean and beg day and night +continually. Our housekeeping is mendicant, our arts, our occupations, our +marriages, our religion we have not chosen, but society has chosen for us. We +are parlor soldiers. We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born. +</p> + +<p> +If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all heart. If +the young merchant fails, men say he is <i>ruined</i>. 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 York, it seems to his +friends and to himself that he is right in being disheartened and in +complaining the rest of his life. A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont, +who in turn tries all the professions, who <i>teams it, farms it, peddles</i>, +keeps a school, preaches, edits a newspaper, goes to Congress, buys a township, +and so forth, in successive years, and always like a cat falls on his feet, is +worth a hundred of these city dolls. He walks abreast with his days and feels +no shame in not ‘studying a profession,’ for he does not postpone +his life, but lives already. He has not one chance, but a hundred chances. Let +a Stoic open the resources of man and tell men they are not leaning willows, +but can and must detach themselves; that with the exercise of self-trust, new +powers shall appear; that a man is the word made flesh, born to shed healing to +the nations; that he should be ashamed of our compassion, and that the moment +he acts from himself, tossing the laws, the books, idolatries and customs out +of the window, we pity him no more but thank and revere him;—and that +teacher shall restore the life of man to splendor and make his name dear to all +history. +</p> + +<p> +It is easy to see that a greater self-reliance must work a revolution in all +the offices and relations of men; in their religion; in their education; in +their pursuits; their modes of living; their association; in their property; in +their speculative views. +</p> + +<p> +1. In what prayers do men allow themselves! That which they call a holy office +is not so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks abroad and asks for some +foreign addition to come through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in +endless mazes of natural and supernatural, and mediatorial and miraculous. +Prayer that craves a particular commodity, any thing less than all good, is +vicious. Prayer is the contemplation of the facts of life from the highest +point of view. It is the soliloquy of a beholding and jubilant soul. It is the +spirit of God pronouncing his works good. But prayer as a means to effect a +private end is meanness and theft. It supposes dualism and not unity in nature +and consciousness. As soon as the man is at one with God, he will not beg. He +will then see prayer in all action. The prayer of the farmer kneeling in his +field to weed it, the prayer of the rower kneeling with the stroke of his oar, +are true prayers heard throughout nature, though for cheap ends. Caratach, in +Fletcher’s Bonduca, when admonished to inquire the mind of the god +Audate, replies,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors;<br /> +Our valors are our best gods.” +</p> + +<p> +Another sort of false prayers are our regrets. Discontent is the want of +self-reliance: it is infirmity of will. Regret calamities if you can thereby +help the sufferer; if not, attend your own work and already the evil begins to +be repaired. Our sympathy is just as base. We come to them who weep foolishly +and sit down and cry for company, instead of imparting to them truth and health +in rough electric shocks, putting them once more in communication with their +own reason. The secret of fortune is joy in our hands. Welcome evermore to gods +and men is the self-helping man. For him all doors are flung wide; him all +tongues greet, all honors crown, all eyes follow with desire. Our love goes out +to him and embraces him because he did not need it. We solicitously and +apologetically caress and celebrate him because he held on his way and scorned +our disapprobation. The gods love him because men hated him. “To the +persevering mortal,” said Zoroaster, “the blessed Immortals are +swift.” +</p> + +<p> +As men’s prayers are a disease of the will, so are their creeds a disease +of the intellect. They say with those foolish Israelites, ‘Let not God +speak to us, lest we die. Speak thou, speak any man with us, and we will +obey.’ Everywhere I am hindered of meeting God in my brother, because he +has shut his own temple doors and recites fables merely of his brother’s, +or his brother’s brother’s God. Every new mind is a new +classification. If it prove a mind of uncommon activity and power, a Locke, a +Lavoisier, a Hutton, a Bentham, a Fourier, it imposes its classification on +other men, and lo! a new system. In proportion to the depth of the thought, and +so to the number of the objects it touches and brings within reach of the +pupil, is his complacency. But chiefly is this apparent in creeds and churches, +which are also classifications of some powerful mind acting on the elemental +thought of duty, and man’s relation to the Highest. Such is Calvinism, +Quakerism, Swedenborgism. 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 thereby. It will happen for a time that the +pupil will find his intellectual power has grown by the study of his +master’s mind. But in all unbalanced minds the classification is +idolized, passes for the end and not for a speedily exhaustible means, so that +the walls of the system blend to their eye in the remote horizon with the walls +of the universe; the luminaries of heaven seem to them hung on the arch their +master built. They cannot imagine how you aliens have any right to +see,—how you can see; ‘It must be somehow that you stole the light +from us.’ They do not yet perceive that light, unsystematic, indomitable, +will break into any cabin, even into theirs. Let them chirp awhile and call it +their own. If they are honest and do well, presently their neat new pinfold +will be too strait and low, will crack, will lean, will rot and vanish, and the +immortal light, all young and joyful, million-orbed, million-colored, will beam +over the universe as on the first morning. +</p> + +<p> +2. It is for want of self-culture that the superstition of Travelling, whose +idols are Italy, England, Egypt, retains its fascination for all educated +Americans. They who made England, Italy, or Greece venerable in the imagination +did so by sticking fast where they were, like an axis of the earth. In manly +hours we feel that duty is our place. The soul is no traveller; the wise man +stays at home, and when his necessities, his duties, on any occasion call him +from his house, or into foreign lands, he is at home still and shall make men +sensible by the expression of his countenance that he goes, the missionary of +wisdom and virtue, and visits cities and men like a sovereign and not like an +interloper or a valet. +</p> + +<p> +I have no churlish objection to the circumnavigation of the globe for the +purposes of art, of study, and benevolence, so that the man is first +domesticated, or does not go abroad with the hope of finding somewhat greater +than he knows. He who travels to be amused, or to get somewhat which he does +not carry, travels away from himself, and grows old even in youth among old +things. In Thebes, in Palmyra, his will and mind have become old and +dilapidated as they. He carries ruins to ruins. +</p> + +<p> +Travelling is a fool’s paradise. Our first journeys discover to us the +indifference of places. At home I dream that at Naples, at Rome, I can be +intoxicated with beauty and lose my sadness. I pack my trunk, embrace my +friends, embark on the sea and at last wake up in Naples, and there beside me +is the stern fact, the sad self, unrelenting, identical, that I fled from. I +seek the Vatican and the palaces. I affect to be intoxicated with sights and +suggestions, but I am not intoxicated. My giant goes with me wherever I go. +</p> + +<p> +3. But the rage of travelling is a symptom of a deeper unsoundness affecting +the whole intellectual action. The intellect is vagabond, and our system of +education fosters restlessness. Our minds travel when our bodies are forced to +stay at home. We imitate; and what is imitation but the travelling of the mind? +Our houses are built with foreign taste; our shelves are garnished with foreign +ornaments; our opinions, our tastes, our faculties, lean, and follow the Past +and the Distant. The soul created the arts wherever they have flourished. It +was in his own mind that the artist sought his model. It was an application of +his own thought to the thing to be done and the conditions to be observed. And +why need we copy the Doric or the Gothic model? Beauty, convenience, grandeur +of thought and quaint expression are as near to us as to any, and if the +American artist will study with hope and love the precise thing to be done by +him, considering the climate, the soil, the length of the day, the wants of the +people, the habit and form of the government, he will create a house in which +all these will find themselves fitted, and taste and sentiment will be +satisfied also. +</p> + +<p> +Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment +with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the +adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That +which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him. No man yet knows what +it is, nor can, till that person has exhibited it. Where is the master who +could have taught Shakspeare? Where is the master who could have instructed +Franklin, or Washington, or Bacon, or Newton? Every great man is a unique. The +Scipionism of Scipio is precisely that part he could not borrow. Shakspeare +will never be made by the study of Shakspeare. Do that which is assigned you, +and you cannot hope too much or dare too much. There is at this moment for you +an utterance brave and grand as that of the colossal chisel of Phidias, or +trowel of the Egyptians, or the pen of Moses or Dante, but different from all +these. Not possibly will the soul, all rich, all eloquent, with thousand-cloven +tongue, deign to repeat itself; but if you can hear what these patriarchs say, +surely you can reply to them in the same pitch of voice; for the ear and the +tongue are two organs of one nature. Abide in the simple and noble regions of +thy life, obey thy heart and thou shalt reproduce the Foreworld again. +</p> + +<p> +4. As our Religion, our Education, our Art look abroad, so does our spirit of +society. All men plume themselves on the improvement of society, and no man +improves. +</p> + +<p> +Society never advances. It recedes as fast on one side as it gains on the +other. It undergoes continual changes; it is barbarous, it is civilized, it is +christianized, it is rich, it is scientific; but this change is not +amelioration. For every thing that is given something is taken. Society +acquires new arts and loses old instincts. What a contrast between the +well-clad, reading, writing, thinking American, with a watch, a pencil and a +bill of exchange in his pocket, and the naked New Zealander, whose property is +a club, a spear, a mat and an undivided twentieth of a shed to sleep under! But +compare the health of the two men and you shall see that the white man has lost +his aboriginal strength. If the traveller tell us truly, 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 pitch, and the same blow shall send the white to his grave. +</p> + +<p> +The civilized man has built a coach, but has lost the use of his feet. He is +supported on crutches, but lacks so much support of muscle. He has a fine +Geneva watch, but he fails of the skill to tell the hour by the sun. A +Greenwich nautical almanac he has, and so being sure of the information when he +wants it, the man in the street does not know a star in the sky. The solstice +he does not observe; the equinox he knows as little; and the whole bright +calendar of the year is without a dial in his mind. His note-books impair his +memory; his libraries overload his wit; the insurance-office increases the +number of accidents; and it may be a question whether machinery does not +encumber; whether we have not lost by refinement some energy, by a Christianity +entrenched in establishments and forms some vigor of wild virtue. For every +Stoic was a Stoic; but in Christendom where is the Christian? +</p> + +<p> +There is no more deviation in the moral standard than in the standard of height +or bulk. No greater men are now than ever were. A singular equality may be +observed between the great men of the first and of the last ages; nor can all +the science, art, religion, and philosophy of the nineteenth century avail to +educate greater men than Plutarch’s heroes, three or four and twenty +centuries ago. Not in time is the race progressive. Phocion, Socrates, +Anaxagoras, Diogenes, are great men, but they leave no class. He who is really +of their class will not be called by their name, but will be his own man, and +in his turn the founder of a sect. The arts and inventions of each period are +only its costume and do not invigorate men. The harm of the improved machinery +may compensate its good. Hudson and Behring accomplished so much in their +fishing-boats as to astonish Parry and Franklin, whose equipment exhausted the +resources of science and art. Galileo, with an opera-glass, discovered a more +splendid series of celestial phenomena than any one since. Columbus found the +New World in an undecked boat. 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 before. The great genius returns to essential man. We +reckoned the improvements of the art of war among the triumphs of science, and +yet Napoleon conquered Europe by the bivouac, which consisted of falling back +on naked valor and disencumbering it of all aids. The Emperor held it +impossible to make a perfect army, says Las Cases, “without abolishing +our arms, magazines, commissaries and carriages, until, in imitation of the +Roman custom, the soldier should receive his supply of corn, grind it in his +hand-mill, and bake his bread himself.” +</p> + +<p> +Society is a wave. The wave moves onward, but the water of which it is composed +does not. The same particle does not rise from the valley to the ridge. Its +unity is only phenomenal. The persons who make up a nation to-day, next year +die, and their experience with them. +</p> + +<p> +And so the reliance on Property, including the reliance on governments which +protect it, is the want of self-reliance. Men have looked away from themselves +and at things so long that they have come to esteem the religious, learned and +civil institutions as guards of property, and they deprecate assaults on these, +because they feel them to be assaults on property. They measure their esteem of +each other by what each has, and not by what each is. But a cultivated man +becomes ashamed of his property, out of new respect for his nature. Especially +he hates what he has if he see that it is accidental,—came to him by +inheritance, or gift, or crime; then he feels that it is not having; it does +not belong to him, has no root in him and merely lies there because no +revolution or no robber takes it away. But that which a man is, does always by +necessity acquire, and what the man acquires is living property, which does not +wait the beck of rulers, or mobs, or revolutions, or fire, or storm, or +bankruptcies, but perpetually renews itself wherever the man breathes. +“Thy lot or portion of life,” said the Caliph Ali, “is +seeking after thee; therefore be at rest from seeking after it.” Our +dependence on these foreign goods leads us to our slavish respect for numbers. +The political parties meet in numerous conventions; the greater the concourse +and with each new uproar of announcement, The delegation from Essex! The +Democrats from New Hampshire! The Whigs of Maine! the young patriot feels +himself stronger than before by a new thousand of eyes and arms. In like manner +the reformers summon conventions and vote and resolve in multitude. Not so, O +friends! will the God deign to enter and inhabit you, but by a method precisely +the reverse. It is only as a man puts off all foreign support and stands alone +that I see him to be strong and to prevail. He is weaker by every recruit to +his banner. Is not a man better than a town? Ask nothing of men, and, in the +endless mutation, thou only firm column must presently appear the upholder of +all that surrounds thee. He who knows that power is inborn, that he is weak +because he has looked for good out of him and elsewhere, and so perceiving, +throws himself unhesitatingly on his thought, instantly rights himself, stands +in the erect position, commands his limbs, works miracles; just as a man who +stands on his feet is stronger than a man who stands on his head. +</p> + +<p> +So use all that is called Fortune. Most men gamble with her, and gain all, and +lose all, as her wheel rolls. But do thou leave as unlawful these winnings, and +deal with Cause and Effect, the chancellors of God. In the Will work and +acquire, and thou hast chained the wheel of Chance, and shalt sit hereafter out +of fear from her rotations. A political victory, a rise of rents, the recovery +of your sick or the return of your absent friend, or some other favorable event +raises your spirits, and you think good days are preparing for you. Do not +believe it. Nothing can bring you peace but yourself. Nothing can bring you +peace but the triumph of principles. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0003" id="link2H_4_0003"></a>III.<br /> +COMPENSATION</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The wings of Time are black and white,<br /> +Pied with morning and with night.<br /> +Mountain tall and ocean deep<br /> +Trembling balance duly keep.<br /> +In changing moon, in tidal wave,<br /> +Glows the feud of Want and Have.<br /> +Gauge of more and less through space<br /> +Electric star and pencil plays.<br /> +The lonely Earth amid the balls<br /> +That hurry through the eternal halls,<br /> +A makeweight flying to the void,<br /> +Supplemental asteroid,<br /> +Or compensatory spark,<br /> +Shoots across the neutral Dark. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<p class="poem"> +Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine,<br /> +Stanch and strong the tendrils twine:<br /> +Though the frail ringlets thee deceive,<br /> +None from its stock that vine can reave.<br /> +Fear not, then, thou child infirm,<br /> +There’s no god dare wrong a worm.<br /> +Laurel crowns cleave to deserts<br /> +And power to him who power exerts;<br /> +Hast not thy share? On winged feet,<br /> +Lo! it rushes thee to meet;<br /> +And all that Nature made thy own,<br /> +Floating in air or pent in stone,<br /> +Will rive the hills and swim the sea<br /> +And, like thy shadow, follow thee. +</p> + +<h2>COMPENSATION</h2> + +<p> +Ever since I was a boy I have wished to write a discourse on Compensation; 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 taught. The documents too from +which the doctrine is to be drawn, charmed my fancy by their endless variety, +and lay always before me, even in sleep; for they are the tools in our hands, +the bread in our basket, the transactions of the street, the farm and the +dwelling-house; greetings, relations, debts and credits, the influence of +character, the nature and endowment of all men. It seemed to me also that in it +might be shown men a ray of divinity, the present action of the soul of this +world, clean from all vestige of tradition; and so the heart of man might be +bathed by an inundation of eternal love, conversing with that which he knows +was always and always must be, because it really is now. 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 us, it would be +a star in many dark hours and crooked passages in our journey, that would not +suffer us to lose our way. +</p> + +<p> +I was lately confirmed in these desires by hearing a sermon at church. The +preacher, a man esteemed for his orthodoxy, unfolded in the ordinary manner the +doctrine of the Last Judgment. He assumed that judgment is not executed in this +world; that the wicked are successful; that the good are miserable; and then +urged from reason and from Scripture a compensation to be made to both parties +in the next life. No offence appeared to be taken by the congregation at this +doctrine. As far as I could observe when the meeting broke up they separated +without remark on the sermon. +</p> + +<p> +Yet what was the import of this teaching? What did the preacher mean by saying +that the good are miserable in the present life? Was it that houses and lands, +offices, wine, horses, dress, luxury, are had by unprincipled men, whilst the +saints are poor and despised; and that a compensation is to be made to these +last hereafter, by giving them the like gratifications another +day,—bank-stock and doubloons, venison and champagne? This must be the +compensation intended; for what else? Is it that they are to have leave to pray +and praise? to love and serve men? Why, that they can do now. The legitimate +inference the disciple would draw was,—‘We are to have <i>such</i> +a good time as the sinners have now’;—or, to push it to its extreme +import,—‘You sin now; we shall sin by and by; we would sin now, if +we could; not being successful, we expect our revenge to-morrow.’ +</p> + +<p> +The fallacy lay in the immense concession that the bad are successful; that +justice is not done now. The blindness of the preacher consisted in deferring +to the base estimate of the market of what constitutes a manly success, instead +of confronting and convicting the world from the truth; announcing the presence +of the soul; the omnipotence of the will; and so establishing the standard of +good and ill, of success and falsehood. +</p> + +<p> +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 topics. I think that our popular theology has gained in decorum, and +not in principle, over the superstitions it has displaced. But men are better +than their theology. Their daily life gives it the lie. Every ingenuous and +aspiring soul leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience, and all men +feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate. For men are wiser +than they know. That which they hear in schools and pulpits without +afterthought, if said in conversation would probably be questioned in silence. +If a man dogmatize in a mixed company on Providence and the divine laws, he is +answered by a silence which conveys well enough to an observer the +dissatisfaction of the hearer, but his incapacity to make his own statement. +</p> + +<p> +I shall attempt in this and the following chapter to record some facts that +indicate the path of the law of Compensation; happy beyond my expectation if I +shall truly draw the smallest arc of this circle. +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +Polarity, or action and reaction, we meet in every part of nature; in darkness +and light; in heat and cold; in the ebb and flow of waters; in male and female; +in the inspiration and expiration of plants and animals; in the equation of +quantity and quality in the fluids of the animal body; in the systole and +diastole of the heart; in the undulations of fluids, and of sound; in the +centrifugal and centripetal gravity; in electricity, galvanism, and chemical +affinity. Superinduce magnetism at one end of a needle, the opposite magnetism +takes place at the other end. If the south attracts, the north repels. To empty +here, you must condense there. An inevitable dualism bisects nature, so that +each thing is a half, and suggests another thing to make it whole; as, spirit, +matter; man, woman; odd, even; subjective, objective; in, out; upper, under; +motion, rest; yea, nay. +</p> + +<p> +Whilst the world is thus dual, so is every one of its parts. The entire system +of things gets represented in every particle. There is somewhat that resembles +the ebb and flow of the sea, day and night, man and woman, in a single needle +of the pine, in a kernel of corn, in each individual of every animal tribe. The +reaction, so grand in the elements, is repeated within these small boundaries. +For example, in the animal kingdom the physiologist has observed that no +creatures are favorites, but a certain compensation balances every gift and +every defect. A surplusage given to one part is paid out of a reduction from +another part of the same creature. If the head and neck are enlarged, the trunk +and extremities are cut short. +</p> + +<p> +The theory of the mechanic forces is another example. What we gain in power is +lost in time, and the converse. The periodic or compensating errors of the +planets is another instance. The influences of climate and soil in political +history are another. The cold climate invigorates. The barren soil does not +breed fevers, crocodiles, tigers or scorpions. +</p> + +<p> +The same dualism underlies the nature and condition of man. Every excess causes +a defect; every defect an excess. Every sweet hath its sour; every evil its +good. Every faculty which is a receiver of pleasure has an equal penalty put on +its abuse. It is to answer for its moderation with its life. For every grain of +wit there is a grain of folly. For every thing you have missed, you have gained +something else; and for every thing you gain, you lose something. If riches +increase, they are increased that use them. If the gatherer gathers too much, +Nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate, +but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies and exceptions. The waves of the +sea do not more speedily seek a level from their loftiest tossing than the +varieties of condition tend to equalize themselves. There is always some +levelling circumstance that puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, +the fortunate, substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too +strong and fierce for society and by temper and position a bad citizen,—a +morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him?—Nature sends him a +troop of pretty sons and daughters who are getting along in the dame’s +classes at the village school, and love and fear for them smooths his grim +scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to intenerate the granite and felspar, +takes the boar out and puts the lamb in and keeps her balance true. +</p> + +<p> +The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President has paid +dear for his White House. It has commonly cost him all his peace, and the best +of his manly attributes. To preserve for a short time so conspicuous an +appearance before the world, he is content to eat dust before the real masters +who stand erect behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and +permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by force of +will or of thought is great and overlooks thousands, has the charges of that +eminence. With every influx of light comes new danger. Has he light? he must +bear witness to the light, and always outrun that sympathy which gives him such +keen satisfaction, by his fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He +must hate father and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves +and admires and covets?—he must cast behind him their admiration, and +afflict them by faithfulness to his truth, and become a byword and a hissing. +</p> + +<p> +This law writes the laws of cities and nations. It is in vain to build or plot +or combine against it. Things refuse to be mismanaged long. <i>Res nolunt diu +male administrari</i>. Though no checks to a new evil appear, the checks exist, +and will appear. If the government is cruel, the governor’s life is not +safe. If you tax too high, the revenue will yield nothing. If you make the +criminal code sanguinary, juries will not convict. If the law is too mild, +private vengeance comes in. If the government is a terrific democracy, the +pressure is resisted by an over-charge of energy in the citizen, and life glows +with a fiercer flame. 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 circumstances. Under all governments the +influence of character remains the same,—in Turkey and in New England +about alike. Under the primeval despots of Egypt, history honestly confesses +that man must have been as free as culture could make him. +</p> + +<p> +These appearances indicate the fact that the universe is represented in every +one of its particles. Every thing in nature contains all the powers of nature. +Every thing is made of one hidden stuff; as the naturalist sees one type under +every metamorphosis, and regards a horse as a running man, a fish as a swimming +man, a bird as a flying man, a tree as a rooted man. Each new form repeats not +only the main character of the type, but part for part all the details, all the +aims, furtherances, hindrances, energies and whole system of every other. Every +occupation, trade, art, transaction, is a compend of the world and a +correlative of every other. Each one is an entire emblem of human life; of its +good and ill, its trials, its enemies, its course and its end. And each one +must somehow accommodate the whole man and recite all his destiny. +</p> + +<p> +The world globes itself in a drop of dew. The microscope cannot find the +animalcule which is less perfect for being little. Eyes, ears, taste, smell, +motion, resistance, appetite, and organs of reproduction that take hold on +eternity,—all find room to consist in the small creature. So do we put +our life into every act. The true doctrine of omnipresence is that God +reappears with all his parts in every moss and cobweb. The value of the +universe contrives to throw itself into every point. If the good is there, so +is the evil; if the affinity, so the repulsion; if the force, so the +limitation. +</p> + +<p> +Thus is the universe alive. All things are moral. That soul which within us is +a sentiment, outside of us is a law. We feel its inspiration; out there in +history we can see its fatal strength. “It is in the world, and the world +was made by it.” Justice is not postponed. A perfect equity adjusts its +balance in all parts of life. Ἀεὶ γὰρ +εὖ πίπτουσιν +οἱ Διὸς +κύβοι,—The dice of God are always loaded. The +world looks like a multiplication-table, or a mathematical equation, which, +turn it how you will, balances itself. Take what figure you will, its exact +value, nor more nor less, still returns to you. Every secret is told, every +crime is punished, every virtue rewarded, every wrong redressed, in silence and +certainty. What we call retribution is the universal necessity by which the +whole appears wherever a part appears. If you see smoke, there must be fire. If +you see a hand or a limb, you know that the trunk to which it belongs is there +behind. +</p> + +<p> +Every act rewards itself, or, in other words integrates itself, in a twofold +manner; first in the thing, or in real nature; and secondly in the +circumstance, or in apparent nature. Men call the circumstance the retribution. +The causal retribution is in the thing and is seen by the soul. The retribution +in the circumstance is seen by the understanding; it is inseparable from the +thing, but is often spread over a long time and so does not become distinct +until after many years. The specific stripes may follow late after the offence, +but they follow because they accompany it. Crime and punishment grow out of one +stem. Punishment is a fruit that unsuspected ripens within the flower of the +pleasure which concealed it. Cause and effect, means and ends, seed and fruit, +cannot be severed; for the effect already blooms in the cause, the end +preexists in the means, the fruit in the seed. +</p> + +<p> +Whilst thus the world will be whole and refuses to be disparted, we seek to act +partially, to sunder, to appropriate; for example,—to gratify the senses +we sever the pleasure of the senses from the needs of the character. The +ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one +problem,—how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual +bright, etc., from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair; that is, +again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it +bottomless; to get a <i>one end</i>, without an <i>other end</i>. The soul +says, ‘Eat;’ the body would feast. The soul says, ‘The man +and woman shall be one flesh and one soul;’ the body would join the flesh +only. The soul says, ‘Have dominion over all things to the ends of +virtue;’ the body would have the power over things to its own ends. +</p> + +<p> +The soul strives amain to live and work through all things. It would be the +only fact. All things shall be added unto it,—power, pleasure, knowledge, +beauty. The particular man aims to be somebody; to set up for himself; to truck +and higgle for a private good; and, in particulars, to ride that he may ride; +to dress that he may be dressed; to eat that he may eat; and to govern, that he +may be seen. Men seek to be great; they would have offices, wealth, power, and +fame. They think that to be great is to possess one side of nature,—the +sweet, without the other side, the bitter. +</p> + +<p> +This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Up to this day it must be +owned no projector has had the smallest success. The parted water reunites +behind our hand. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of +profitable things, power out of strong things, as soon as we seek to separate +them from the whole. We can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by +itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light +without a shadow. “Drive out Nature with a fork, she comes running +back.” +</p> + +<p> +Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to dodge, +which one and another brags that he does not know, that they do not touch +him;—but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in his soul. If he +escapes them in one part they attack him in another more vital part. If he has +escaped them in form and in the appearance, it is because he has resisted his +life and fled from himself, and the retribution is so much death. So signal is +the failure of all attempts to make this separation of the good from the tax, +that the experiment would not be tried,—since to try it is to be +mad,—but for the circumstance, that when the disease began in the will, +of rebellion and separation, the intellect is at once infected, so that the man +ceases to see God whole in each object, but is able to see the sensual +allurement of an object and not see the sensual hurt; he sees the +mermaid’s head but not the dragon’s tail, and thinks he can cut off +that which he would have from that which he would not have. “How secret +art thou who dwellest in the highest heavens in silence, O thou only great God, +sprinkling with an unwearied providence certain penal blindnesses upon such as +have unbridled +desires!”<a href="#fn-3.1" name="fnref-3.1" id="fnref-3.1"><sup>[1]</sup></a> +</p> + +<p class="footnote"> +<a name="fn-3.1" id="fn-3.1"></a> <a href="#fnref-3.1">[1]</a> +St. Augustine, Confessions, B. I. +</p> + +<p> +The human soul is true to these facts in the painting of fable, of history, of +law, of proverbs, of conversation. It finds a tongue in literature unawares. +Thus the Greeks called Jupiter, Supreme Mind; but having traditionally ascribed +to him many base actions, they involuntarily made amends to reason by tying up +the hands of so bad a god. He is made as helpless as a king of England. +Prometheus knows one secret which Jove must bargain for; Minerva, another. He +cannot get his own thunders; Minerva keeps the key of them:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Of all the gods, I only know the keys<br /> +That ope the solid doors within whose vaults<br /> +His thunders sleep.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +A plain confession of the in-working of the All and of its moral aim. The +Indian mythology ends in the same ethics; and it would seem impossible for any +fable to be invented and get any currency which was not moral. Aurora forgot to +ask youth for her lover, and though Tithonus is immortal, he is old. Achilles +is not quite invulnerable; the sacred waters did not wash the heel by which +Thetis held him. Siegfried, in the Nibelungen, is not quite immortal, for a +leaf fell on his back whilst he was bathing in the dragon’s blood, and +that spot which it covered is mortal. And so it must be. There is a crack in +every thing God has made. 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 +laws,—this back-stroke, this kick of the gun, certifying that the law is +fatal; that in nature nothing can be given, all things are sold. +</p> + +<p> +This is that ancient doctrine of Nemesis, who keeps watch in the universe and +lets no offence go unchastised. The Furies they said are attendants on justice, +and if the sun in heaven should transgress his path they would punish him. The +poets related that stone walls and iron swords and leathern thongs had an +occult sympathy with the wrongs of their owners; that the belt which Ajax gave +Hector dragged the Trojan hero over the field at the wheels of the car of +Achilles, and the sword which Hector gave Ajax was that on whose point Ajax +fell. They recorded that when the Thasians erected a statue to Theagenes, a +victor in the games, one of his rivals went to it by night and endeavored to +throw it down by repeated blows, until at last he moved it from its pedestal +and was crushed to death beneath its fall. +</p> + +<p> +This voice of fable has in it somewhat divine. It came from thought above the +will of the writer. That is the best part of each writer which has nothing +private in it; that which he does not know; that which flowed out of his +constitution and not from his too active invention; that which in the study of +a single artist you might not easily find, but in the study of many you would +abstract as the spirit of them all. Phidias it is not, but the work of man in +that early Hellenic world that I would know. The name and circumstance of +Phidias, however convenient for history, embarrass when we come to the highest +criticism. We are to see that which man was tending to do in a given period, +and was hindered, or, if you will, modified in doing, by the interfering +volitions of Phidias, of Dante, of Shakspeare, the organ whereby man at the +moment wrought. +</p> + +<p> +Still more striking is the expression of this fact in the proverbs of all +nations, which are always the literature of reason, or the statements of an +absolute truth without qualification. Proverbs, like the sacred books of each +nation, are the sanctuary of the intuitions. That which the droning world, +chained to appearances, will not allow the realist to say in his own words, it +will suffer him to say in proverbs without contradiction. And this law of laws, +which the pulpit, the senate and the college deny, is hourly preached in all +markets and workshops by flights of proverbs, whose teaching is as true and as +omnipresent as that of birds and flies. +</p> + +<p> +All things are double, one against another.—Tit for tat; an eye for an +eye; a tooth for a tooth; blood for blood; measure for measure; love for +love.—Give and it shall be given you.—He that watereth shall be +watered himself.—What will you have? quoth God; pay for it and take +it.—Nothing venture, nothing have.—Thou shalt be paid exactly for +what thou hast done, no more, no less.—Who doth not work shall not +eat.—Harm watch, harm catch.—Curses always recoil on the head of +him who imprecates them.—If you put a chain around the neck of a slave, +the other end fastens itself around your own.—Bad counsel confounds the +adviser.—The Devil is an ass. +</p> + +<p> +It is thus written, because it is thus in life. Our action is overmastered and +characterized above our will by the law of nature. We aim at a petty end quite +aside from the public good, but our act arranges itself by irresistible +magnetism in a line with the poles of the world. +</p> + +<p> +A man cannot speak but he judges himself. With his will or against his will he +draws his portrait to the eye of his companions by every word. Every opinion +reacts on him who utters it. It is a thread-ball thrown at a mark, but the +other end remains in the thrower’s bag. Or rather it is a harpoon hurled +at the whale, unwinding, as it flies, a coil of cord in the boat, and, if the +harpoon is not good, or not well thrown, it will go nigh to cut the steersman +in twain or to sink the boat. +</p> + +<p> +You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong. “No man had ever a point of +pride that was not injurious to him,” said Burke. The exclusive in +fashionable life does not see that he excludes himself from enjoyment, in the +attempt to appropriate it. The exclusionist in religion does not see that he +shuts the door of heaven on himself, in striving to shut out others. Treat men +as pawns and ninepins and you shall suffer as well as they. If you leave out +their heart, you shall lose your own. The senses would make things of all +persons; of women, of children, of the poor. The vulgar proverb, “I will +get it from his purse or get it from his skin,” is sound philosophy. +</p> + +<p> +All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily +punished. They are punished by fear. Whilst I stand in simple relations to my +fellow-man, I have no displeasure in meeting him. We meet as water meets water, +or as two currents of air mix, with perfect diffusion and interpenetration of +nature. But as soon as there is any departure from simplicity, and attempt at +halfness, or good for me that is not good for him, my neighbor feels the wrong; +he shrinks from me as far as I have shrunk from him; his eyes no longer seek +mine; there is war between us; there is hate in him and fear in me. +</p> + +<p> +All the old abuses in society, universal and particular, all unjust +accumulations of property and power, are avenged in the same manner. Fear is an +instructor of great sagacity and the herald of all revolutions. One thing he +teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears. He is a carrion crow, and +though you see not well what he hovers for, there is death somewhere. Our +property is timid, our laws are timid, our cultivated classes are timid. Fear +for ages has boded and mowed and gibbered over government and property. That +obscene bird is not there for nothing. He indicates great wrongs which must be +revised. +</p> + +<p> +Of the like nature is that expectation of change which instantly follows the +suspension of our voluntary activity. The terror of cloudless noon, the emerald +of Polycrates, the awe of prosperity, the instinct which leads every generous +soul to impose on itself tasks of a noble asceticism and vicarious virtue, are +the tremblings of the balance of justice through the heart and mind of man. +</p> + +<p> +Experienced men of the world know very well that it is best to pay scot and lot +as they go along, and that a man often pays dear for a small frugality. The +borrower runs in his own debt. Has a man gained any thing who has received a +hundred favors and rendered none? Has he gained by borrowing, through indolence +or cunning, his neighbor’s wares, or horses, or money? There arises on +the deed the instant acknowledgment of benefit on the one part and of debt on +the other; that is, of superiority and inferiority. The transaction remains in +the memory of himself and his neighbor; and every new transaction alters +according to its nature their relation to each other. He may soon come to see +that he had better have broken his own bones than to have ridden in his +neighbor’s coach, and that “the highest price he can pay for a +thing is to ask for it.” +</p> + +<p> +A wise man will extend this lesson to all parts of life, and know that it is +the part of prudence to face every claimant and pay every just demand on your +time, your talents, or your heart. Always pay; for first or last you must pay +your entire debt. Persons and events may stand for a time between you and +justice, but it is only a postponement. You must pay at last your own debt. If +you are wise you will dread a prosperity which only loads you with more. +Benefit is the end of nature. But for every benefit which you receive, a tax is +levied. He is great who confers the most benefits. He is base,—and that +is the one base thing in the universe,—to receive favors and render none. +In the order of nature we cannot render benefits to those from whom we receive +them, or only seldom. But the benefit we receive must be rendered again, line +for line, deed for deed, cent for cent, to somebody. Beware of too much good +staying in your hand. It will fast corrupt and worm worms. Pay it away quickly +in some sort. +</p> + +<p> +Labor is watched over by the same pitiless laws. Cheapest, say the prudent, is +the dearest labor. What we buy in a broom, a mat, a wagon, a knife, is some +application of good sense to a common want. It is best to pay in your land a +skilful gardener, or to buy good sense applied to gardening; in your sailor, +good sense applied to navigation; in the house, good sense applied to cooking, +sewing, serving; in your agent, good sense applied to accounts and affairs. So +do you multiply your presence, or spread yourself throughout your estate. But +because of the dual constitution of things, in labor as in life there can be no +cheating. The thief steals from himself. The swindler swindles himself. For the +real price of labor is knowledge and virtue, whereof wealth and credit are +signs. These signs, like paper money, may be counterfeited or stolen, but that +which they represent, namely, knowledge and virtue, cannot be counterfeited or +stolen. These ends of labor cannot be answered but by real exertions of the +mind, and in obedience to pure motives. The cheat, the defaulter, the gambler, +cannot extort the knowledge of material and moral nature which his honest care +and pains yield to the operative. The law of nature is, Do the thing, and you +shall have the Power; but they who do not the thing have not the power. +</p> + +<p> +Human labor, through all its forms, from the sharpening of a stake to the +construction of a city or an epic, is one immense illustration of the perfect +compensation of the universe. The absolute balance of Give and Take, the +doctrine that every thing has its price,—and if that price is not paid, +not that thing but something else is obtained, and that it is impossible to get +any thing without its price,—is not less sublime in the columns of a +leger than in the budgets of states, in the laws of light and darkness, in all +the action and reaction of nature. I cannot doubt that the high laws which each +man sees implicated in those processes with which he is conversant, the stern +ethics which sparkle on his chisel-edge, which are measured out by his plumb +and foot-rule, which stand as manifest in the footing of the shop-bill as in +the history of a state,—do recommend to him his trade, and though seldom +named, exalt his business to his imagination. +</p> + +<p> +The league between virtue and nature engages all things to assume a hostile +front to vice. The beautiful laws and substances of the world persecute and +whip the traitor. He finds that things are arranged for truth and benefit, but +there is no den in the wide world to hide a rogue. Commit a crime, and the +earth is made of glass. Commit a crime, and it seems as if a coat of snow fell +on the ground, such as reveals in the woods the track of every partridge and +fox and squirrel and mole. You cannot recall the spoken word, you cannot wipe +out the foot-track, you cannot draw up the ladder, so as to leave no inlet or +clew. Some damning circumstance always transpires. The laws and substances of +nature,—water, snow, wind, gravitation,—become penalties to the +thief. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand the law holds with equal sureness for all right action. Love, +and you shall be loved. All love is mathematically just, as much as the two +sides of an algebraic equation. The good man has absolute good, which like fire +turns every thing to its own nature, so that you cannot do him any harm; but as +the royal armies sent against Napoleon, when he approached cast down their +colors and from enemies became friends, so disasters of all kinds, as sickness, +offence, poverty, prove benefactors:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Winds blow and waters roll<br /> +Strength to the brave, and power and deity,<br /> +Yet in themselves are nothing.” +</p> + +<p> +The good are befriended even by weakness and defect. As no man had ever a point +of pride that was not injurious to him, so no man had ever a defect that was +not somewhere made useful to him. The stag in the fable admired his horns and +blamed his feet, but when the hunter came, his feet saved him, and afterwards, +caught in the thicket, his horns destroyed him. Every man in his lifetime needs +to thank his faults. As no man thoroughly understands a truth until he has +contended against it, 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 same. Has he a defect of temper that unfits +him to live in society? Thereby he is driven to entertain himself alone and +acquire habits of self-help; and thus, like the wounded oyster, he mends his +shell with pearl. +</p> + +<p> +Our strength grows out of our weakness. The indignation which arms itself with +secret forces does not awaken until we are pricked and stung and sorely +assailed. A great man is always willing to be little. Whilst he sits on the +cushion of advantages, he goes to sleep. When he is pushed, tormented, +defeated, he has a chance to learn something; he has been put on his wits, on +his manhood; he has gained facts; learns his ignorance; is cured of the +insanity of conceit; has got moderation and real skill. The wise man throws +himself on the side of his assailants. It is more his interest than it is +theirs to find his weak point. The wound cicatrizes and falls off from him like +a dead skin and when they would triumph, lo! he has passed on invulnerable. +Blame is safer than praise. I hate to be defended in a newspaper. As long as +all that is said is said against me, I feel a certain assurance of success. But +as soon as honeyed words of praise are spoken for me I feel as one that lies +unprotected before his enemies. In general, every evil to which we do not +succumb is a benefactor. As the Sandwich Islander believes that the strength +and valor of the enemy he kills passes into himself, so we gain the strength of +the temptation we resist. +</p> + +<p> +The same guards which protect us from disaster, defect, and enmity, defend us, +if we will, from selfishness and fraud. Bolts and bars are not the best of our +institutions, nor is shrewdness in trade a mark of wisdom. Men suffer all their +life long under the foolish superstition that they can be cheated. But it is as +impossible for a man to be cheated by any one but himself, as for a thing to be +and not to be at the same time. There is a third silent party to all our +bargains. The nature and soul of things takes on itself the guaranty of the +fulfilment of every contract, so that honest service cannot come to loss. If +you serve an ungrateful master, serve him the more. Put God in your debt. Every +stroke shall be repaid. The longer The payment is withholden, the better for +you; for compound interest on compound interest is the rate and usage of this +exchequer. +</p> + +<p> +The history of persecution is a history of endeavors to cheat nature, to make +water run up hill, to twist a rope of sand. It makes no difference whether the +actors be many or one, a tyrant or a mob. A mob is a society of bodies +voluntarily bereaving themselves of reason and traversing its work. The mob is +man voluntarily descending to the nature of the beast. Its fit hour of activity +is night. Its actions are insane like its whole constitution. It persecutes a +principle; it would whip a right; it would tar and feather justice, by +inflicting fire and outrage upon the houses and persons of those who have +these. It resembles the prank of boys, who run with fire-engines to put out the +ruddy aurora streaming to the stars. The inviolate spirit turns their spite +against the wrongdoers. The martyr cannot be dishonored. Every lash inflicted +is a tongue of fame; every prison, a more illustrious abode; every burned book +or house enlightens the world; every suppressed or expunged word reverberates +through the earth from side to side. Hours of sanity and consideration are +always arriving to communities, as to individuals, when the truth is seen and +the martyrs are justified. +</p> + +<p> +Thus do all things preach the indifferency of circumstances. The man is all. +Every thing has two sides, a good and an evil. Every advantage has its tax. I +learn to be content. But the doctrine of compensation is not the doctrine of +indifferency. The thoughtless say, on hearing these representations,—What +boots it to do well? there is one event to good and evil; if I gain any good I +must pay for it; if I lose any good I gain some other; all actions are +indifferent. +</p> + +<p> +There is a deeper fact in the soul than compensation, to wit, its own nature. +The soul is not a compensation, but a life. The soul <i>is</i>. Under all this +running sea of circumstance, whose waters ebb and flow with perfect balance, +lies the aboriginal abyss of real Being. Essence, or God, is not a relation or +a part, but the whole. Being is the vast affirmative, excluding negation, +self-balanced, and swallowing up all relations, parts and times within itself. +Nature, truth, virtue, are the influx from thence. Vice is the absence or +departure of the same. Nothing, Falsehood, may indeed stand as the great Night +or shade on which as a background the living universe paints itself forth, but +no fact is begotten by it; it cannot work, for it is not. It cannot work any +good; it cannot work any harm. It is harm inasmuch as it is worse not to be +than to be. +</p> + +<p> +We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the criminal +adheres to his vice and contumacy and does not come to a crisis or judgment +anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense +before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he +carries the malignity and the lie with him he so far deceases from nature. In +some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding +also; but, should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the eternal +account. +</p> + +<p> +Neither can it be said, on the other hand, that the gain of rectitude must be +bought by any loss. There is no penalty to virtue; no penalty to wisdom; they +are proper additions of being. In a virtuous action I properly <i>am;</i> in a +virtuous act I add to the world; I plant into deserts conquered from Chaos and +Nothing and see the darkness receding on the limits of the horizon. There can +be no excess to love, none to knowledge, none to beauty, when these attributes +are considered in the purest sense. The soul refuses limits, and always affirms +an Optimism, never a Pessimism. +</p> + +<p> +His life is a progress, and not a station. His instinct is trust. Our instinct +uses “more” and “less” in application to man, of the +<i>presence of the soul</i>, and not of its absence, the brave man is greater +than the coward; the true, the benevolent, the wise, is more a man and not +less, than the fool and knave. There is no tax on the good of virtue, for that +is the incoming of God himself, or absolute existence, without any comparative. +Material good has its tax, and if it came without desert or sweat, has no root +in me, and the next wind will blow it away. But all the good of nature is the +soul’s, and may be had if paid for in nature’s lawful coin, that +is, by labor which the heart and the head allow. I no longer wish to meet a +good I do not earn, for example to find a pot of buried gold, knowing that it +brings with it new burdens. I do not wish more external goods,—neither +possessions, nor honors, nor powers, nor persons. The gain is apparent; the tax +is certain. But there is no tax on the knowledge that the compensation exists +and that it is not desirable to dig up treasure. Herein I rejoice with a serene +eternal peace. I contract the boundaries of possible mischief. I learn the +wisdom of St. Bernard,—“Nothing can work me damage except myself; +the harm that I sustain I carry about with me, and never am a real sufferer but +by my own fault.” +</p> + +<p> +In the nature of the soul is the compensation for the inequalities of +condition. The radical tragedy of nature seems to be the distinction of More +and Less. How can Less not feel the pain; how not feel indignation or +malevolence towards More? Look at those who have less faculty, and one feels +sad and knows not well what to make of it. He almost shuns their eye; he fears +they will upbraid God. What should they do? It seems a great injustice. But see +the facts nearly and these mountainous inequalities vanish. Love reduces them +as the sun melts the iceberg in the sea. The heart and soul of all men being +one, this bitterness of <i>His</i> and <i>Mine</i> ceases. His is mine. I am my +brother and my brother is me. If I feel overshadowed and outdone by great +neighbors, I can yet love; I can still receive; and he that loveth maketh his +own the grandeur he loves. Thereby I make the discovery that my brother is my +guardian, acting for me with the friendliest designs, and the estate I so +admired and envied is my own. It is the nature of the soul to appropriate all +things. Jesus and Shakspeare are fragments of the soul, and by love I conquer +and incorporate them in my own conscious domain. His virtue,—is not that +mine? His wit,—if it cannot be made mine, it is not wit. +</p> + +<p> +Such also is the natural history of calamity. The changes which break up at +short intervals the prosperity of men are advertisements of a nature whose law +is growth. Every soul is by this intrinsic necessity quitting its whole system +of things, its friends and home and laws and faith, as the shell-fish crawls +out of its beautiful but stony case, because it no longer admits of its growth, +and slowly forms a new house. In proportion to the vigor of the individual +these revolutions are frequent, until in some happier mind they are incessant +and all worldly relations hang very loosely about him, becoming as it were a +transparent fluid membrane through which the living form is seen, and not, as +in most men, an indurated heterogeneous fabric of many dates and of no settled +character, in which the man is imprisoned. Then there can be enlargement, and +the man of to-day scarcely recognizes the man of yesterday. And such should be +the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day +by day, as he renews his raiment day by day. But to us, in our lapsed estate, +resting, not advancing, resisting, not cooperating with the divine expansion, +this growth comes by shocks. +</p> + +<p> +We cannot part with our friends. We cannot let our angels go. We do not see +that they only go out that archangels may come in. We are idolaters of the old. +We do not believe in the riches of the soul, in its proper eternity and +omnipresence. We do not believe there is any force in to-day to rival or +recreate that beautiful yesterday. We linger in the ruins of the old tent where +once we had bread and shelter and organs, nor believe that the spirit can feed, +cover, and nerve us again. We cannot again find aught so dear, so sweet, so +graceful. But we sit and weep in vain. The voice of the Almighty saith, +‘Up and onward for evermore!’ We cannot stay amid the ruins. +Neither will we rely on the new; and so we walk ever with reverted eyes, like +those monsters who look backwards. +</p> + +<p> +And yet the compensations of calamity are made apparent to the understanding +also, after long intervals of time. A fever, a mutilation, a cruel +disappointment, a loss of wealth, a loss of friends, seems at the moment unpaid +loss, and unpayable. But the sure years reveal the deep remedial force that +underlies all facts. The death of a dear friend, wife, brother, lover, which +seemed nothing but privation, somewhat later assumes the aspect of a guide or +genius; for it commonly operates revolutions in our way of life, terminates an +epoch of infancy or of youth which was waiting to be closed, breaks up a wonted +occupation, or a household, or style of living, and allows the formation of new +ones more friendly to the growth of character. It permits or constrains the +formation of new acquaintances and the reception of new influences that prove +of the first importance to the next years; and the man or woman who would have +remained a sunny garden-flower, with no room for its roots and too much +sunshine for its head, by the falling of the walls and the neglect of the +gardener is made the banian of the forest, yielding shade and fruit to wide +neighborhoods of men. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0004" id="link2H_4_0004"></a>IV.<br /> +SPIRITUAL LAWS</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +The living Heaven thy prayers respect,<br /> +House at once and architect,<br /> +Quarrying man’s rejected hours,<br /> +Builds therewith eternal towers;<br /> +Sole and self-commanded works,<br /> +Fears not undermining days,<br /> +Grows by decays,<br /> +And, by the famous might that lurks<br /> +In reaction and recoil,<br /> +Makes flame to freeze, and ice to boil;<br /> +Forging, through swart arms of Offence,<br /> +The silver seat of Innocence. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>SPIRITUAL LAWS</h2> + +<p> +When the act of reflection takes place in the mind, when we look at ourselves +in the light of thought, we discover that our life is embosomed in beauty. +Behind us, as we go, all things assume pleasing forms, as clouds do far off. +Not only things familiar and stale, but even the tragic and terrible are comely +as they take their place in the pictures of memory. The river-bank, the weed at +the water-side, the old house, the foolish person, however neglected in the +passing, have a grace in the past. Even the corpse that has lain in the +chambers has added a solemn ornament to the house. The soul will not know +either deformity or pain. If in the hours of clear reason we should speak the +severest truth, we should say that we had never made a sacrifice. In these +hours the mind seems so great that nothing can be taken from us that seems +much. All loss, all pain, is particular; the universe remains to the heart +unhurt. Neither vexations nor calamities abate our trust. No man ever stated +his griefs as lightly as he might. Allow for exaggeration in the most patient +and sorely ridden hack that ever was driven. For it is only the finite that has +wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose. +</p> + +<p> +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 his. No +man need be perplexed in his speculations. Let him do and say what strictly +belongs to him, and though very ignorant of books, his nature shall not yield +him any intellectual obstructions and doubts. Our young people are diseased +with the theological problems of original sin, origin of evil, predestination +and the like. These never presented a practical difficulty to any +man,—never darkened across any man’s road who did not go out of his +way to seek them. These are the soul’s mumps and measles and +whooping-coughs, and those who have not caught them cannot describe their +health or prescribe the cure. A simple mind will not know these enemies. 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 freedom. This requires rare +gifts. Yet without this self-knowledge there may be a sylvan strength and +integrity in that which he is. “A few strong instincts and a few plain +rules” suffice us. +</p> + +<p> +My will never gave the images in my mind the rank they now take. The regular +course of studies, the years of academical and professional education have not +yielded me better facts than some idle books under the bench at the Latin +School. What we do not call education is more precious than that which we call +so. We form no guess, at the time of receiving a thought, of its comparative +value. And education often wastes its effort in attempts to thwart and balk +this natural magnetism, which is sure to select what belongs to it. +</p> + +<p> +In like manner our moral nature is vitiated by any interference of our will. +People represent virtue as a struggle, and take to themselves great airs upon +their attainments, and the question is everywhere vexed when a noble nature is +commended, whether the man is not better who strives with temptation. But there +is no merit in the matter. Either God is there or he is not there. We love +characters in proportion as they are impulsive and spontaneous. The less a man +thinks or knows about his virtues the better we like him. Timoleon’s +victories are the best victories, which ran and flowed like Homer’s +verses, Plutarch said. When we see a soul whose acts are all regal, graceful +and pleasant as roses, we must thank God that such things can be and are, and +not turn sourly on the angel and say ‘Crump is a better man with his +grunting resistance to all his native devils.’ +</p> + +<p> +Not less conspicuous is the preponderance of nature over will in all practical +life. There is less intention in history than we ascribe to it. We impute +deep-laid far-sighted plans to Cæsar and Napoleon; but the best of their power +was in nature, not in them. Men of an extraordinary success, in their honest +moments, have always sung, ‘Not unto us, not unto us.’ According to +the faith of their times they have built altars to Fortune, or to Destiny, or +to St. Julian. Their success lay in their parallelism to the course of thought, +which found in them an unobstructed channel; and the wonders of which they were +the visible conductors seemed to the eye their deed. Did the wires generate the +galvanism? It is even true that there was less in them on which they could +reflect than in another; as the virtue of a pipe is to be smooth and hollow. +That which externally seemed will and immovableness was willingness and +self-annihilation. Could Shakspeare give a theory of Shakspeare? Could ever a +man of prodigious mathematical genius convey to others any insight into his +methods? If he could communicate that secret it would instantly lose its +exaggerated value, blending with the daylight and the vital energy the power to +stand and to go. +</p> + +<p> +The lesson is forcibly taught by these observations that our life might be much +easier and simpler than we make it; that the world might be a happier place +than it is; that there is no need of struggles, convulsions, and despairs, of +the wringing of the hands and the gnashing of the teeth; that we miscreate our +own evils. We interfere with the optimism of nature; for whenever we get this +vantage-ground of the past, or of a wiser mind in the present, we are able to +discern that we are begirt with laws which execute themselves. +</p> + +<p> +The face of external nature teaches the same lesson. Nature will not have us +fret and fume. She does not like our benevolence or our learning much better +than she likes our frauds and wars. When we come out of the caucus, or the +bank, or the Abolition-convention, or the Temperance-meeting, or the +Transcendental club into the fields and woods, she says to us, ‘So hot? +my little Sir.’ +</p> + +<p> +We are full of mechanical actions. We must needs intermeddle and have things in +our own way, until the sacrifices and virtues of society are odious. Love +should make joy; but our benevolence is unhappy. Our Sunday-schools and +churches and pauper-societies are yokes to the neck. We pain ourselves to +please nobody. There are natural ways of arriving at the same ends at which +these aim, but do not arrive. Why should all virtue work in one and the same +way? Why should all give dollars? It is very inconvenient to us country folk, +and we do not think any good will come of it. We have not dollars; merchants +have; let them give them. Farmers will give corn; poets will sing; women will +sew; laborers will lend a hand; the children will bring flowers. And why drag +this dead weight of a Sunday-school over the whole Christendom? It is natural +and beautiful that childhood should inquire and maturity should teach; but it +is time enough to answer questions when they are asked. 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 will. +</p> + +<p> +If we look wider, things are all alike; laws and letters and creeds and modes +of living seem a travesty of truth. Our society is encumbered by ponderous +machinery, 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 source. It is a Chinese wall which any nimble Tartar +can leap over. It is a standing army, not so good as a peace. It is a +graduated, titled, richly appointed empire, quite superfluous when +town-meetings are found to answer just as well. +</p> + +<p> +Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the +fruit is ripe, it falls. When the fruit is despatched, the leaf falls. The +circuit of the waters is mere falling. The walking of man and all animals is a +falling forward. All our manual labor and works of strength, as prying, +splitting, digging, rowing and so forth, are done by dint of continual falling, +and the globe, earth, moon, comet, sun, star, fall for ever and ever. +</p> + +<p> +The simplicity of the universe is very different from the simplicity of a +machine. He who sees moral nature out and out and thoroughly knows how +knowledge is acquired and character formed, is a pedant. The simplicity of +nature is not that which may easily be read, but is inexhaustible. The last +analysis can no wise be made. We judge of a man’s wisdom by his hope, +knowing that the perception of the inexhaustibleness of nature is an immortal +youth. The wild fertility of nature is felt in comparing our rigid names and +reputations with our fluid consciousness. We pass in the world for sects and +schools, for erudition and piety, and we are all the time jejune babes. One +sees very well how Pyrrhonism grew up. Every man sees that he is that middle +point whereof every thing may be affirmed and denied with equal reason. He is +old, he is young, he is very wise, he is altogether ignorant. He hears and +feels what you say of the seraphim, and of the tin-peddler. There is no +permanent wise man except in the figment of the Stoics. We side with the hero, +as we read or paint, against the coward and the robber; but we have been +ourselves that coward and robber, and shall be again,—not in the low +circumstance, but in comparison with the grandeurs possible to the soul. +</p> + +<p> +A little consideration of what takes place around us every day would show us +that a higher law than that of our will regulates events; that our painful +labors are unnecessary and fruitless; that only in our easy, simple, +spontaneous action are we strong, and by contenting ourselves with obedience we +become divine. Belief and love,—a believing love will relieve us of a +vast load of care. O my brothers, God exists. There is a soul at the centre of +nature and over the will of every man, so that none of us can wrong the +universe. It has so infused its strong enchantment into nature that we prosper +when we accept its advice, and when we struggle to wound its creatures our +hands are glued to our sides, or they beat our own breasts. The whole course of +things goes to teach us faith. We need only obey. There is guidance for each of +us, and by lowly listening we shall hear the right word. Why need you choose so +painfully your place and occupation and associates and modes of action and of +entertainment? Certainly there is a possible right for you that precludes the +need of balance and wilful election. For you there is a reality, a fit place +and congenial duties. Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and +wisdom which animates all whom it floats, and you are without effort impelled +to truth, to right and a perfect contentment. Then you put all gainsayers in +the wrong. Then you are the world, the measure of right, of truth, of beauty. +If we will not be mar-plots with our miserable interferences, the work, the +society, letters, arts, science, religion of men would go on far better than +now, and the heaven predicted from the beginning of the world, and still +predicted from the bottom of the heart, would organize itself, as do now the +rose and the air and the sun. +</p> + +<p> +I say, <i>do not choose;</i> but that is a figure of speech by which I would +distinguish what is commonly called <i>choice</i> among men, and which is a +partial act, the choice of the hands, of the eyes, of the appetites, and not a +whole act of the man. But that which I call right or goodness, is the choice of +my constitution; and that which I call heaven, and inwardly aspire after, is +the state or circumstance desirable to my constitution; and the action which I +in all my years tend to do, is the work for my faculties. We must hold a man +amenable to reason for the choice of his daily craft or profession. It is not +an excuse any longer for his deeds that they are the custom of his trade. What +business has he with an evil trade? Has he not a <i>calling</i> in his +character? +</p> + +<p> +Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction +in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him +thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against +obstructions on every side but one, on that side all obstruction is taken away +and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This +talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the +general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is +easy to him and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no +rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will +his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly +proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the +breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat +unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a +summons by name and personal election and outward “signs that mark him +extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men,” is fanaticism, and +betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, +and no respect of persons therein. +</p> + +<p> +By doing his work he makes the need felt which he can supply, and creates the +taste by which he is enjoyed. By doing his own work he unfolds himself. It is +the vice of our public speaking that it has not abandonment. Somewhere, not +only every orator but every man should let out all the length of all the reins; +should find or make a frank and hearty expression of what force and meaning is +in him. 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 into, and tends it as a +dog turns a spit. Then is he a part of the machine he moves; the man is lost. +Until he can manage to communicate himself to others in his full stature and +proportion, he does not yet find his vocation. He must find in that an outlet +for his character, so that he may justify his work to their eyes. If the labor +is mean, let him by his thinking and character make it liberal. Whatever he +knows and thinks, whatever in his apprehension is worth doing, that let him +communicate, or men will never know and honor him aright. Foolish, whenever you +take the meanness and formality of that thing you do, instead of converting it +into the obedient spiracle of your character and aims. +</p> + +<p> +We like only such actions as have already long had the praise of men, and do +not perceive that any thing man can do may be divinely done. We think greatness +entailed or organized in some places or duties, in certain offices or +occasions, and do not see that Paganini can extract rapture from a catgut, and +Eulenstein from a jews-harp, and a nimble-fingered lad out of shreds of paper +with his scissors, and Landseer out of swine, and the hero out of the pitiful +habitation and company in which he was hidden. What we call obscure condition +or vulgar society is that condition and society whose poetry is not yet +written, but which you shall presently make as enviable and renowned as any. In +our estimates let us take a lesson from kings. The parts of hospitality, the +connection of families, the impressiveness of death, and a thousand other +things, royalty makes its own estimate of, and a royal mind will. To make +habitually a new estimate,—that is elevation. +</p> + +<p> +What a man does, that he has. What has he to do with hope or fear? In himself +is his might. 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 exists. The goods of fortune may +come and go like summer leaves; let him scatter them on every wind as the +momentary signs of his infinite productiveness. +</p> + +<p> +He may have his own. A man’s genius, the quality that differences him +from every other, the susceptibility to one class of influences, the selection +of what is fit for him, the rejection of what is unfit, determines for him the +character of the universe. A man is a method, a progressive arrangement; a +selecting principle, gathering his like to him wherever he goes. He takes only +his own out of the multiplicity that sweeps and circles round him. He is like +one of those booms which are set out from the shore on rivers to catch +drift-wood, or like the loadstone amongst splinters of steel. Those facts, +words, persons, which dwell in his memory without his being able to say why, +remain because they have a relation to him not less real for being as yet +unapprehended. 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 minds. What attracts my attention shall have it, as I +will go to the man who knocks at my door, whilst a thousand persons as worthy +go by it, to whom I give no regard. It is enough that these particulars speak +to me. A few anecdotes, a few traits of character, manners, face, a few +incidents, have an emphasis in your memory out of all proportion to their +apparent significance if you measure them by the ordinary standards. They +relate to your gift. Let them have their weight, and do not reject them and +cast about for illustration and facts more usual in literature. What your heart +thinks great is great. The soul’s emphasis is always right. +</p> + +<p> +Over all things that are agreeable to his nature and genius the man has the +highest right. Everywhere he may take what belongs to his spiritual estate, nor +can he take any thing else though all doors were open, nor can all the force of +men hinder him from taking so much. It is vain to attempt to keep a secret from +one who has a right to know it. It will tell itself. That mood into which a +friend can bring us is his dominion over us. To the thoughts of that state of +mind he has a right. All the secrets of that state of mind he can compel. This +is a law which statesmen use in practice. All the terrors of the French +Republic, which held Austria in awe, were unable to command her diplomacy. But +Napoleon sent to Vienna M. de Narbonne, one of the old noblesse, with the +morals, manners and name of that interest, saying that it was indispensable to +send to the old aristocracy of Europe men of the same connection, which, in +fact, constitutes a sort of free-masonry. M. de Narbonne in less than a +fortnight penetrated all the secrets of the imperial cabinet. +</p> + +<p> +Nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood. Yet a man may come to +find <i>that</i> the strongest of defences and of ties,—that he has been +understood; and he who has received an opinion may come to find it the most +inconvenient of bonds. +</p> + +<p> +If a teacher have any opinion which he wishes to conceal, his pupils will +become as fully indoctrinated into that as into any which he publishes. If you +pour water into a vessel twisted into coils and angles, it is vain to say, I +will pour it only into this or that;—it will find its level in all. Men +feel and act the consequences of your doctrine without being able to show how +they follow. Show us an arc of the curve, and a good mathematician will find +out the whole figure. We are always reasoning from the seen to the unseen. +Hence the perfect intelligence that subsists between wise men of remote ages. A +man cannot bury his meanings so deep in his book but time and like-minded men +will find them. Plato had a secret doctrine, had he? What secret can he conceal +from the eyes of Bacon? of Montaigne? of Kant? Therefore, Aristotle said of his +works, “They are published and not published.” +</p> + +<p> +No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning, however near to his +eyes is the object. A chemist may tell his most precious secrets to a +carpenter, and he shall be never the wiser,—the secrets he would not +utter to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from premature ideas. +Our eyes are holden that we cannot see things that stare us in the face, until +the hour arrives when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the time +when we saw them not is like a dream. +</p> + +<p> +Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth he sees. The world is very +empty, and is indebted to this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. +“Earth fills her lap with splendors” <i>not</i> her own. The vale +of Tempe, Tivoli and Rome are earth and water, rocks and sky. There are as good +earth and water in a thousand places, yet how unaffecting! +</p> + +<p> +People are not the better for the sun and moon, the horizon and the trees; as +it is not observed that the keepers of Roman galleries or the valets of +painters have any elevation of thought, or that librarians are wiser men than +others. There are graces in the demeanor of a polished and noble person which +are lost upon the eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has not +yet reached us. +</p> + +<p> +He may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of our waking knowledge. +The visions of the night bear some proportion to the visions of the day. +Hideous dreams are exaggerations of the sins of the day. We see our evil +affections embodied in bad physiognomies. On the Alps the traveller sometimes +beholds his own shadow magnified to a giant, so that every gesture of his hand +is terrific. “My children,” said an old man to his boys scared by a +figure in the dark entry, “my children, you will never see any thing +worse than yourselves.” As in dreams, so in the scarcely less fluid +events of the world every man sees himself in colossal, without knowing that it +is himself. The good, compared to the evil which he sees, is as his own good to +his own evil. Every quality of his mind is magnified in some one acquaintance, +and every emotion of his heart in some one. He is like a quincunx of trees, +which counts five,—east, west, north, or south; or an initial, medial, +and terminal acrostic. And why not? He cleaves to one person and avoids +another, according to their likeness or unlikeness to himself, truly seeking +himself in his associates and moreover in his trade and habits and gestures and +meats and drinks, and comes at last to be faithfully represented by every view +you take of his circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +He may read what he writes. What can we see or acquire but what we are? You +have observed a skilful man reading Virgil. Well, that author is a thousand +books to a thousand persons. Take the book into your two hands and read your +eyes out, you will never find what I find. If any ingenious reader would have a +monopoly of the wisdom or delight he gets, he is as secure now the book is +Englished, as if it were imprisoned in the Pelews’ tongue. It is with a +good book as it is with good company. Introduce a base person among gentlemen, +it is all to no purpose; he is not their fellow. Every society protects itself. +The company is perfectly safe, and he is not one of them, though his body is in +the room. +</p> + +<p> +What avails it to fight with the eternal laws of mind, which adjust the +relation of all persons to each other by the mathematical measure of their +havings and beings? Gertrude is enamored of Guy; how high, how aristocratic, +how Roman his mien and manners! to live with him were life indeed, and no +purchase is too great; and heaven and earth are moved to that end. Well, +Gertrude has Guy; but what now avails how high, how aristocratic, how Roman his +mien and manners, if his heart and aims are in the senate, in the theatre and +in the billiard-room, and she has no aims, no conversation that can enchant her +graceful lord? +</p> + +<p> +He shall have his own society. We can love nothing but nature. The most +wonderful talents, the most meritorious exertions really avail very little with +us; but nearness or likeness of nature,—how beautiful is the ease of its +victory! Persons approach us, famous for their beauty, for their +accomplishments, worthy of all wonder for their charms and gifts; they dedicate +their whole skill to the hour and the company,—with very imperfect +result. To be sure it would be ungrateful in us not to praise them loudly. +Then, when all is done, a person of related mind, a brother or sister by +nature, comes to us so softly and easily, so nearly and intimately, as if it +were the blood in our proper veins, that we feel as if some one was gone, +instead of another having come; we are utterly relieved and refreshed; it is a +sort of joyful solitude. We foolishly think in our days of sin that we must +court friends by compliance to the customs of society, to its dress, its +breeding, and its estimates. But only that soul can be my friend which I +encounter on the line of my own march, that soul to which I do not decline and +which does not decline to me, but, native of the same celestial latitude, +repeats in its own all my experience. The scholar forgets himself and apes the +customs and costumes of the man of the world to deserve the smile of beauty, +and follows some giddy girl, not yet taught by religious passion to know the +noble woman with all that is serene, oracular and beautiful in her soul. Let +him be great, and love shall follow him. Nothing is more deeply punished than +the neglect of the affinities by which alone society should be formed, and the +insane levity of choosing associates by others’ eyes. +</p> + +<p> +He may set his own rate. It is a maxim worthy of all acceptation that a man may +have that allowance he takes. Take the place and attitude which belong to you, +and all men acquiesce. The world must be just. It leaves every man, with +profound unconcern, to set his own rate. Hero or driveller, it meddles not in +the matter. It will certainly accept your own measure of your doing and being, +whether you sneak about and deny your own name, or whether you see your work +produced to the concave sphere of the heavens, one with the revolution of the +stars. +</p> + +<p> +The same reality pervades all teaching. The man may teach by doing, and not +otherwise. If he can communicate himself he can teach, but not by words. He +teaches who gives, and he learns who receives. There is no teaching until the +pupil is brought into the same state or principle in which you are; a +transfusion takes place; he is you and you are he; then is a teaching, and by +no unfriendly chance or bad company can he ever quite lose the benefit. But +your propositions run out of one ear as they ran in at the other. We see it +advertised that Mr. Grand will deliver an oration on the Fourth of July, and +Mr. Hand before the Mechanics’ Association, and we do not go thither, +because we know that these gentlemen will not communicate their own character +and experience to the company. If we had reason to expect such a confidence we +should go through all inconvenience and opposition. The sick would be carried +in litters. But a public oration is an escapade, a non-committal, an apology, a +gag, and not a communication, not a speech, not a man. +</p> + +<p> +A like Nemesis presides over all intellectual works. We have yet to learn that +the thing uttered in words is not therefore affirmed. It must affirm itself, or +no forms of logic or of oath can give it evidence. The sentence must also +contain its own apology for being spoken. +</p> + +<p> +The effect of any writing on the public mind is mathematically measurable by +its depth of thought. How much water does it draw? If it awaken you to think, +if it lift you from your feet with the great voice of eloquence, then the +effect is to be wide, slow, permanent, over the minds of men; if the pages +instruct you not, they will die like flies in the hour. The way to speak and +write what shall not go out of fashion is to speak and write sincerely. The +argument which has not power to reach my own practice, I may well doubt will +fail to reach yours. But take Sidney’s maxim:—“Look in thy +heart, and write.” He that writes to himself writes to an eternal public. +That statement only is fit to be made public which you have come at in +attempting to satisfy your own curiosity. The writer who takes his subject from +his ear and not from his heart, should know that he has lost as much as he +seems to have gained, and when the empty book has gathered all its praise, and +half the people say, ‘What poetry! what genius!’ it still needs +fuel to make fire. That only profits which is profitable. Life alone can impart +life; and though we should burst we can only be valued as we make ourselves +valuable. There is no luck in literary reputation. They who make up the final +verdict upon every book are not the partial and noisy readers of the hour when +it appears, but a court as of angels, a public not to be bribed, not to be +entreated and not to be overawed, decides upon every man’s title to fame. +Only those books come down which deserve to last. Gilt edges, vellum and +morocco, and presentation-copies to all the libraries will not preserve a book +in circulation beyond its intrinsic date. It must go with all Walpole’s +Noble and Royal Authors to its fate. Blackmore, Kotzebue, or Pollok may endure +for a night, but Moses and Homer stand for ever. There are not in the world at +any one time more than a dozen persons who read and understand +Plato,—never enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every +generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few persons, as if God +brought them in his hand. “No book,” said Bentley, “was ever +written down by any but itself.” The permanence of all books is fixed by +no effort, friendly or hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the +intrinsic importance of their contents to the constant mind of man. “Do +not trouble yourself too much about the light on your statue,” said +Michael Angelo to the young sculptor; “the light of the public square +will test its value.” +</p> + +<p> +In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the +sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It +took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did because he +must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the +circumstances of the moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting +of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-related, and is called +an institution. +</p> + +<p> +These are the demonstrations in a few particulars of the genius of nature; they +show the direction of the stream. But the stream is blood; every drop is alive. +Truth has not single victories; all things are its organs,—not only dust +and stones, but errors and lies. The laws of disease, physicians say, are as +beautiful as the laws of health. Our philosophy is affirmative and readily +accepts the testimony of negative facts, as every shadow points to the sun. By +a divine necessity every fact in nature is constrained to offer its testimony. +</p> + +<p> +Human character evermore publishes itself. The most fugitive deed and word, the +mere air of doing a thing, the intimated purpose, expresses character. If you +act you show character; if you sit still, if you sleep, you show it. You think +because you have spoken nothing when others spoke, and have given no opinion on +the times, on the church, on slavery, on marriage, on socialism, on secret +societies, on the college, on parties and persons, that your verdict is still +expected with curiosity as a reserved wisdom. Far otherwise; your silence +answers very loud. You have no oracle to utter, and your fellow-men have +learned that you cannot help them; for oracles speak. Doth not Wisdom cry and +Understanding put forth her voice? +</p> + +<p> +Dreadful limits are set in nature to the powers of dissimulation. Truth +tyrannizes over the unwilling members of the body. Faces never lie, it is said. +No man need be deceived who will study the changes of expression. When a man +speaks the truth in the spirit of truth, his eye is as clear as the heavens. +When he has base ends and speaks falsely, the eye is muddy and sometimes +asquint. +</p> + +<p> +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 verdict. If he does not believe it his unbelief will appear to the jury, +despite all his protestations, and will become their unbelief. This is that law +whereby a work of art, of whatever kind, sets us in the same state of mind +wherein the artist was when he made it. That which we do not believe we cannot +adequately say, though we may repeat the words never so often. 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 believe; but they could not, though they twisted and folded their lips +even to indignation. +</p> + +<p> +A man passes for that he is worth. Very idle is all curiosity concerning other +people’s estimate of us, and all fear of remaining unknown is not less +so. If a man know that he can do any thing,—that he can do it better than +any one else,—he has a pledge of the acknowledgment of that fact by all +persons. The world is full of judgment-days, and into every assembly that a man +enters, in every action he attempts, he is gauged and stamped. In every troop +of boys that whoop and run in each yard and square, a new-comer is as well and +accurately weighed in the course of a few days and stamped with his right +number, as if he had undergone a formal trial of his strength, speed and +temper. A stranger comes from a distant school, with better dress, with +trinkets in his pockets, with airs and pretensions; an older boy says to +himself, ‘It’s of no use; we shall find him out to-morrow.’ +‘What has he done?’ is the divine question which searches men and +transpierces every false reputation. A fop may sit in any chair of the world +nor be distinguished for his hour from Homer and Washington; but there need +never be any doubt concerning the respective ability of human beings. +Pretension may sit still, but cannot act. Pretension never feigned an act of +real greatness. Pretension never wrote an Iliad, nor drove back Xerxes, nor +christianized the world, nor abolished slavery. +</p> + +<p> +As much virtue as there is, so much appears; as much goodness as there is, so +much reverence it commands. All the devils respect virtue. The high, the +generous, the self-devoted sect will always instruct and command mankind. Never +was a sincere word utterly lost. Never a magnanimity fell to the ground, but +there is some heart to greet and accept it unexpectedly. A man passes for that +he is worth. What he is engraves itself on his face, on his form, on his +fortunes, in letters of light. Concealment avails him nothing, boasting +nothing. There is confession in the glances of our eyes, in our smiles, in +salutations, and the grasp of hands. His sin bedaubs him, mars all his good +impression. Men know not why they do not trust him, but they do not trust him. +His vice glasses his eye, cuts lines of mean expression in his cheek, pinches +the nose, sets the mark of the beast on the back of the head, and writes O +fool! fool! on the forehead of a king. +</p> + +<p> +If you would not be known to do any thing, never do it. A man may play the fool +in the drifts of a desert, but every grain of sand shall seem to see. He may be +a solitary eater, but he cannot keep his foolish counsel. A broken complexion, +a swinish look, ungenerous acts and the want of due knowledge,—all blab. +Can a cook, a Chiffinch, an Iachimo be mistaken for Zeno or Paul? Confucius +exclaimed,—“How can a man be concealed? How can a man be +concealed?” +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, the hero fears not that if he withhold the avowal of a just +and brave act it will go unwitnessed and unloved. One knows +it,—himself,—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 incident. Virtue is the adherence in action to the nature +of things, and the nature of things makes it prevalent. It consists in a +perpetual substitution of being for seeming, and with sublime propriety God is +described as saying, I AM. +</p> + +<p> +The lesson which these observations convey is, Be, and not seem. Let us +acquiesce. Let us take our bloated nothingness out of the path of the divine +circuits. Let us unlearn our wisdom of the world. Let us lie low in the +Lord’s power and learn that truth alone makes rich and great. +</p> + +<p> +If you visit your friend, why need you apologize for not having visited him, +and waste his time and deface your own act? Visit him now. Let him feel that +the highest love has come to see him, in thee its lowest organ. 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 heretofore? Be a +gift and a benediction. Shine with real light and not with the borrowed +reflection of gifts. Common men are apologies for men; they bow the head, +excuse themselves with prolix reasons, and accumulate appearances because the +substance is not. +</p> + +<p> +We are full of these superstitions of sense, the worship of magnitude. We call +the poet inactive, because he is not a president, a merchant, or a porter. We +adore an institution, and do not see that it is founded on a thought which we +have. But real action is in silent moments. The epochs of our life are not in +the visible facts of our choice of a calling, our marriage, our acquisition of +an office, and the like, but in a silent thought by the way-side as we walk; in +a thought which revises our entire manner of life and says,—‘Thus +hast thou done, but it were better thus.’ And all our after years, like +menials, serve and wait on this, and according to their ability execute its +will. This revisal or correction is a constant force, which, as a tendency, +reaches through our lifetime. The object of the man, the aim of these moments, +is to make daylight shine through him, to suffer the law to traverse his whole +being without obstruction, so that on what point soever of his doing your eye +falls it shall report truly of his character, whether it be his diet, his +house, his religious forms, his society, his mirth, his vote, his opposition. +Now he is not homogeneous, but heterogeneous, and the ray does not traverse; +there are no thorough lights, but the eye of the beholder is puzzled, detecting +many unlike tendencies and a life not yet at one. +</p> + +<p> +Why should we make it a point with our false modesty to disparage that man we +are and that form of being assigned to us? A good man is contented. I love and +honor Epaminondas, but I do not wish to be Epaminondas. I hold it more just to +love the world of this hour than the world of his hour. Nor can you, if I am +true, excite me to the least uneasiness by saying, ‘He acted and thou +sittest still.’ I see action to be good, when the need is, and sitting +still to be also good. Epaminondas, if he was the man I take him for, would +have sat still with joy and peace, if his lot had been mine. Heaven is large, +and affords space for all modes of love and fortitude. Why should we be +busybodies and superserviceable? Action and inaction are alike to the true. One +piece of the tree is cut for a weathercock and one for the sleeper of a bridge; +the virtue of the wood is apparent in both. +</p> + +<p> +I desire not to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly shows me +that the soul had need of an organ here. Shall I not assume the post? Shall I +skulk and dodge and duck with my unseasonable apologies and vain modesty and +imagine my being here impertinent? less pertinent than Epaminondas or Homer +being there? and that the soul did not know its own needs? Besides, without any +reasoning on the matter, I have no discontent. The good soul nourishes me and +unlocks new magazines of power and enjoyment to me every day. I will not meanly +decline the immensity of good, because I have heard that it has come to others +in another shape. +</p> + +<p> +Besides, why should we be cowed by the name of Action? ’Tis a trick of +the senses,—no more. We know that the ancestor of every action is a +thought. The poor mind does not seem to itself to be any thing unless it have +an outside badge,—some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or Calvinistic +prayer-meeting, or philanthropic society, or a great donation, or a high +office, or, any how, some wild contrasting action to testify that it is +somewhat. The rich mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature. To think is +to act. +</p> + +<p> +Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so. All action is of an +infinite elasticity, and the least admits of being inflated with the celestial +air until it eclipses the sun and moon. Let us seek one peace by fidelity. Let +me heed my duties. Why need I go gadding into the scenes and philosophy of +Greek and Italian history before I have justified myself to my benefactors? How +dare I read Washington’s campaigns when I have not answered the letters +of my own correspondents? Is not that a just objection to much of our reading? +It is a pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our neighbors. It is +peeping. Byron says of Jack Bunting,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“He knew not what to say, and so he swore.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +I may say it of our preposterous use of books,—He knew not what to do, +and so <i>he read</i>. I can think of nothing to fill my time with, and I find +the Life of Brant. It is a very extravagant compliment to pay to Brant, or to +General Schuyler, or to General Washington. My time should be as good as their +time,—my facts, my net of relations, as good as theirs, or either of +theirs. 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 +best. +</p> + +<p> +This over-estimate of the possibilities of Paul and Pericles, this +under-estimate of our own, comes from a neglect of the fact of an identical +nature. Bonaparte knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same way the +good soldier, the good astronomer, the good poet, the good player. The poet +uses the names of Cæsar, of Tamerlane, of Bonduca, of Belisarius; the painter +uses the conventional story of the Virgin Mary, of Paul, of Peter. He does not +therefore defer to the nature of these accidental men, of these stock heroes. +If the poet write a true drama, then he is Cæsar, and not the player of Cæsar; +then the selfsame strain of thought, emotion as pure, wit as subtle, motions as +swift, mounting, extravagant, and a heart as great, self-sufficing, dauntless, +which on the waves of its love and hope can uplift all that is reckoned solid +and precious in the world,—palaces, gardens, money, navies, +kingdoms,—marking its own incomparable worth by the slight it casts on +these gauds of men;—these all are his, and by the power of these he +rouses the nations. Let a man believe in God, and not in names and places and +persons. Let the great soul incarnated in some woman’s form, poor and sad +and single, in some Dolly or Joan, go out to service, and sweep chambers and +scour floors, and its effulgent daybeams cannot be muffled or hid, but to sweep +and scour will instantly appear supreme and beautiful actions, the top and +radiance of human life, and all people will get mops and brooms; until, lo! +suddenly the great soul has enshrined itself in some other form and done some +other deed, and that is now the flower and head of all living nature. +</p> + +<p> +We are the photometers, we the irritable goldleaf and tinfoil that measure the +accumulations of the subtle element. We know the authentic effects of the true +fire through every one of its million disguises. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0005" id="link2H_4_0005"></a>V. <br /> +LOVE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“I was as a gem concealed;<br /> +Me my burning ray revealed.”<br /> + <i>Koran</i>. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>LOVE</h2> + +<p> +Every promise of the soul has innumerable fulfilments; each of its joys ripens +into a new want. Nature, uncontainable, flowing, forelooking, in the first +sentiment of kindness anticipates already a benevolence which shall lose all +particular regards in its general light. The introduction to this felicity is +in a private and tender relation of one to one, which is the enchantment of +human life; which, like a certain divine rage and enthusiasm, seizes on man at +one period and works a revolution in his mind and body; unites him to his race, +pledges him to the domestic and civic relations, carries him with new sympathy +into nature, enhances the power of the senses, opens the imagination, adds to +his character heroic and sacred attributes, establishes marriage, and gives +permanence to human society. +</p> + +<p> +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 tints, which every youth +and maid should confess to be true to their throbbing experience, one must not +be too old. The delicious fancies of youth reject the least savor of a mature +philosophy, as chilling with age and pedantry their purple bloom. And therefore +I know I incur the imputation of unnecessary hardness and stoicism from those +who compose the Court and Parliament of Love. But from these formidable censors +I shall appeal to my seniors. For it is to be considered that this passion of +which we speak, though it begin with the young, yet forsakes not the old, or +rather suffers no one who is truly its servant to grow old, but makes the aged +participators of it not less than the tender maiden, though in a different and +nobler sort. For it is a fire that kindling its first embers in the narrow nook +of a private bosom, caught from a wandering spark out of another private heart, +glows and enlarges until it warms and beams upon multitudes of men and women, +upon the universal heart of all, and so lights up the whole world and all +nature with its generous flames. It matters not therefore whether we attempt to +describe the passion at twenty, at thirty, or at eighty years. He who paints it +at the first period will lose some of its later, he who paints it at the last, +some of its earlier traits. 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 beautiful, so central that it shall commend +itself to the eye, at whatever angle beholden. +</p> + +<p> +And the first condition is, that we must leave a too close and lingering +adherence to facts, and study the sentiment as it appeared in hope and not in +history. For each man sees his own life defaced and disfigured, as the life of +man is not, to his imagination. Each man sees over his own experience a certain +stain of error, whilst that of other men looks fair and ideal. Let any man go +back to those delicious relations which make the beauty of his life, which have +given him sincerest instruction and nourishment, he will shrink and moan. Alas! +I know not why, but infinite compunctions embitter in mature life the +remembrances of budding joy and cover every beloved name. Every thing is +beautiful seen from the point of the intellect, or as truth. But all is sour, +if seen as experience. Details are melancholy; the plan is seemly and noble. In +the actual world—the painful kingdom of time and place—dwell care, +and canker, and fear. With thought, with the ideal, is immortal hilarity, the +rose of joy. Round it all the Muses sing. But grief cleaves to names, and +persons, and the partial interests of to-day and yesterday. +</p> + +<p> +The strong bent of nature is seen in the proportion which this topic of +personal relations usurps in the conversation of society. What do we wish to +know of any worthy person so much, as how he has sped in the history of this +sentiment? What books in the circulating libraries circulate? How we glow over +these novels of passion, when the story is told with any spark of truth and +nature! And what fastens attention, in the intercourse of life, like any +passage betraying affection between two parties? Perhaps we never saw them +before, and never shall meet them again. But we see them exchange a glance, or +betray a deep emotion, and we are no longer strangers. We understand them, and +take the warmest interest in the development of the romance. All mankind love a +lover. The earliest demonstrations of complacency and kindness are +nature’s most winning pictures. It is the dawn of civility and grace in +the coarse and rustic. The rude village boy teases the girls about the +school-house door;—but to-day he comes running into the entry, and meets +one fair child disposing her satchel; he holds her books to help her, and +instantly it seems to him as if she removed herself from him infinitely, and +was a sacred precinct. Among the throng of girls he runs rudely enough, but one +alone distances him; and these two little neighbors, that were so close just +now, have learned to respect each other’s personality. Or who can avert +his eyes from the engaging, half-artful, half-artless ways of school-girls who +go into the country shops to buy a skein of silk or a sheet of paper, and talk +half an hour about nothing with the broad-faced, good-natured shop-boy. In the +village they are on a perfect equality, which love delights in, and without any +coquetry the happy, affectionate nature of woman flows out in this pretty +gossip. The girls may have little beauty, yet plainly do they establish between +them and the good boy the most agreeable, confiding relations, what with their +fun and their earnest, about Edgar and Jonas and Almira, and who was invited to +the party, and who danced at the dancing-school, and when the singing-school +would begin, and other nothings concerning which the parties cooed. By and by +that boy wants a wife, and very truly and heartily will he know where to find a +sincere and sweet mate, without any risk such as Milton deplores as incident to +scholars and great men. +</p> + +<p> +I have been told that in some public discourses of mine my reverence for the +intellect has made me unjustly cold to the personal relations. But now I almost +shrink at the remembrance of such disparaging words. For persons are +love’s world, and the coldest philosopher cannot recount the debt of the +young soul wandering here in nature to the power of love, without being tempted +to unsay, as treasonable to nature, aught derogatory to the social instincts. +For though the celestial rapture falling out of heaven seizes only upon those +of tender age, and although a beauty overpowering all analysis or comparison +and putting us quite beside ourselves we can seldom see after thirty years, yet +the remembrance of these visions outlasts all other remembrances, and is a +wreath of flowers on the oldest brows. But here is a strange fact; it may seem +to many men, in revising their experience, that they have no fairer page in +their life’s book than the delicious memory of some passages wherein +affection contrived to give a witchcraft, surpassing the deep attraction of its +own truth, to a parcel of accidental and trivial circumstances. 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 them. But +be our experience in particulars what it may, no man ever forgot the +visitations of that power to his heart and brain, which created all things +anew; which was the dawn in him of music, poetry, and art; which made the face +of nature radiant with purple light, the morning and the night varied +enchantments; when a single tone of one voice could make the heart bound, and +the most trivial circumstance associated with one form is put in the amber of +memory; when he became all eye when one was present, and all memory when one +was gone; when the youth becomes a watcher of windows and studious of a glove, +a veil, a ribbon, or the wheels of a carriage; when no place is too solitary +and none too silent, for him who has richer company and sweeter conversation in +his new thoughts than any old friends, though best and purest, can give him; +for the figures, the motions, the words of the beloved object are not like +other images written in water, but, as Plutarch said, “enamelled in +fire,” and make the study of midnight:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Thou art not gone being gone, where’er thou art,<br /> +Thou leav’st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In the noon and the afternoon of life we still throb at the recollection of +days when happiness was not happy enough, but must be drugged with the relish +of pain and fear; for he touched the secret of the matter who said of +love,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“All other pleasures are not worth its pains:” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +and when the day was not long enough, but the night too must be consumed in +keen recollections; when the head boiled all night on the pillow with the +generous deed it resolved on; when the moonlight was a pleasing fever and the +stars were letters and the flowers ciphers and the air was coined into song; +when all business seemed an impertinence, and all the men and women running to +and fro in the streets, mere pictures. +</p> + +<p> +The passion rebuilds the world for the youth. It makes all things alive and +significant. Nature grows conscious. Every bird on the boughs of the tree sings +now to his heart and soul. The notes are almost articulate. The clouds have +faces as he looks on them. The trees of the forest, the waving grass and the +peeping flowers have grown intelligent; and he almost fears to trust them with +the secret which they seem to invite. Yet nature soothes and sympathizes. In +the green solitude he finds a dearer home than with men:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Fountain-heads and pathless groves,<br /> +Places which pale passion loves,<br /> +Moonlight walks, when all the fowls<br /> +Are safely housed, save bats and owls,<br /> +A midnight bell, a passing groan,—<br /> +These are the sounds we feed upon.” +</p> + +<p> +Behold there in the wood the fine madman! He is a palace of sweet sounds and +sights; he dilates; he is twice a man; he walks with arms akimbo; he +soliloquizes; he accosts the grass and the trees; he feels the blood of the +violet, the clover and the lily in his veins; and he talks with the brook that +wets his foot. +</p> + +<p> +The heats that have opened his perceptions of natural beauty have made him love +music and verse. It is a fact often observed, that men have written good verses +under the inspiration of passion, who cannot write well under any other +circumstances. +</p> + +<p> +The like force has the passion over all his nature. It expands the sentiment; +it makes the clown gentle and gives the coward heart. Into the most pitiful and +abject it will infuse a heart and courage to defy the world, so only it have +the countenance of the beloved object. In giving him to another it still more +gives him to himself. He is a new man, with new perceptions, new and keener +purposes, and a religious solemnity of character and aims. He does not longer +appertain to his family and society; <i>he</i> is somewhat; <i>he</i> is a +person; <i>he</i> is a soul. +</p> + +<p> +And here let us examine a little nearer the nature of that influence which is +thus potent over the human youth. Beauty, whose revelation to man we now +celebrate, welcome as the sun wherever it pleases to shine, which pleases +everybody with it and with themselves, seems sufficient to itself. The lover +cannot paint his maiden to his fancy poor and solitary. Like a tree in flower, +so much soft, budding, informing loveliness is society for itself; and she +teaches his eye why Beauty was pictured with Loves and Graces attending her +steps. Her existence makes the world rich. Though she extrudes all other +persons from his attention as cheap and unworthy, she indemnifies him by +carrying out her own being into somewhat impersonal, large, mundane, so that +the maiden stands to him for a representative of all select things and virtues. +For that reason the lover never sees personal resemblances in his mistress to +her kindred or to others. His friends find in her a likeness to her mother, or +her sisters, or to persons not of her blood. The lover sees no resemblance +except to summer evenings and diamond mornings, to rainbows and the song of +birds. +</p> + +<p> +The ancients called beauty the flowering of virtue. Who can analyze the +nameless charm which glances from one and another face and form? We are touched +with emotions of tenderness and complacency, but we cannot find whereat this +dainty emotion, this wandering gleam, points. It is destroyed for the +imagination by any attempt to refer it to organization. Nor does it point to +any relations of friendship or love known and described in society, but, as it +seems to me, to a quite other and unattainable sphere, to relations of +transcendent delicacy and sweetness, to what roses and violets hint and +foreshow. We cannot approach beauty. Its nature is like opaline +doves’-neck lustres, hovering and evanescent. Herein it resembles the +most excellent things, which all have this rainbow character, defying all +attempts at appropriation and use. What else did Jean Paul Richter signify, +when he said to music, “Away! away! thou speakest to me of things which +in all my endless life I have not found, and shall not find.” The same +fluency may be observed in every work of the plastic arts. The statue is then +beautiful when it begins to be incomprehensible, when it is passing out of +criticism and can no longer be defined by compass and measuring-wand, but +demands an active imagination to go with it and to say what it is in the act of +doing. The god or hero of the sculptor is always represented in a transition +<i>from</i> that which is representable to the senses, <i>to</i> that which is +not. Then first it ceases to be a stone. The same remark holds of painting. And +of poetry the success is not attained when it lulls and satisfies, but when it +astonishes and fires us with new endeavors after the unattainable. Concerning +it Landor inquires “whether it is not to be referred to some purer state +of sensation and existence.” +</p> + +<p> +In like manner, personal beauty is then first charming and itself when it +dissatisfies us with any end; when it becomes a story without an end; when it +suggests gleams and visions and not earthly satisfactions; when it makes the +beholder feel his unworthiness; when he cannot feel his right to it, though he +were Cæsar; he cannot feel more right to it than to the firmament and the +splendors of a sunset. +</p> + +<p> +Hence arose the saying, “If I love you, what is that to you?” We +say so because we feel that what we love is not in your will, but above it. It +is not you, but your radiance. It is that which you know not in yourself and +can never know. +</p> + +<p> +This agrees well with that high philosophy of Beauty which the ancient writers +delighted in; for they said that the soul of man, embodied here on earth, went +roaming up and down in quest of that other world of its own out of which it +came into this, but was soon stupefied by the light of the natural sun, and +unable to see any other objects than those of this world, which are but shadows +of real things. Therefore the Deity sends the glory of youth before the soul, +that it may avail itself of beautiful bodies as aids to its recollection of the +celestial good and fair; and the man beholding such a person in the female sex +runs to her and finds the highest joy in contemplating the form, movement, and +intelligence of this person, because it suggests to him the presence of that +which indeed is within the beauty, and the cause of the beauty. +</p> + +<p> +If however, from too much conversing with material objects, the soul was gross, +and misplaced its satisfaction in the body, it reaped nothing but sorrow; body +being unable to fulfil the promise which beauty holds out; but if, accepting +the hint of these visions and suggestions which beauty makes to his mind, the +soul passes through the body and falls to admire strokes of character, and the +lovers contemplate one another in their discourses and their actions, then they +pass to the true palace of beauty, more and more inflame their love of it, and +by this love extinguishing the base affection, as the sun puts out the fire by +shining on the hearth, they become pure and hallowed. By conversation with that +which is in itself excellent, magnanimous, lowly, and just, the lover comes to +a warmer love of these nobilities, and a quicker apprehension of them. Then he +passes from loving them in one to loving them in all, and so is the one +beautiful soul only the door through which he enters to the society of all true +and pure souls. In the particular society of his mate he attains a clearer +sight of any spot, any taint which her beauty has contracted from this world, +and is able to point it out, and this with mutual joy that they are now able, +without offence, to indicate blemishes and hindrances in each other, and give +to each all help and comfort in curing the same. And beholding in many souls +the traits of the divine beauty, and separating in each soul that which is +divine from the taint which it has contracted in the world, the lover ascends +to the highest beauty, to the love and knowledge of the Divinity, by steps on +this ladder of created souls. +</p> + +<p> +Somewhat like this have the truly wise told us of love in all ages. The +doctrine is not old, nor is it new. If Plato, Plutarch and Apuleius taught it, +so have Petrarch, Angelo and Milton. 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 world, whilst one eye is prowling in the cellar; so +that its gravest discourse has a savor of hams and powdering-tubs. Worst, when +this sensualism intrudes into the education of young women, and withers the +hope and affection of human nature by teaching that marriage signifies nothing +but a housewife’s thrift, and that woman’s life has no other aim. +</p> + +<p> +But this dream of love, though beautiful, is only one scene in our play. In the +procession of the soul from within outward, it enlarges its circles ever, like +the pebble thrown into the pond, or the light proceeding from an orb. The rays +of the soul alight first on things nearest, on every utensil and toy, on nurses +and domestics, on the house and yard and passengers, on the circle of household +acquaintance, on politics and geography and history. But things are ever +grouping themselves according to higher or more interior laws. Neighborhood, +size, numbers, habits, persons, lose by degrees their power over us. Cause and +effect, real affinities, the longing for harmony between the soul and the +circumstance, the progressive, idealizing instinct, predominate later, and the +step backward from the higher to the lower relations is impossible. Thus even +love, which is the deification of persons, must become more impersonal every +day. Of this at first it gives no hint. Little think the youth and maiden who +are glancing at each other across crowded rooms with eyes so full of mutual +intelligence, of the precious fruit long hereafter to proceed from this new, +quite external stimulus. The work of vegetation begins first in the +irritability of the bark and leaf-buds. From exchanging glances, they advance +to acts of courtesy, of gallantry, then to fiery passion, to plighting troth +and marriage. Passion beholds its object as a perfect unit. The soul is wholly +embodied, and the body is wholly ensouled:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Her pure and eloquent blood<br /> +Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought,<br /> +That one might almost say her body thought.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +Romeo, if dead, should be cut up into little stars to make the heavens fine. +Life, with this pair, has no other aim, asks no more, than Juliet,—than +Romeo. Night, day, studies, talents, kingdoms, religion, are all contained in +this form full of soul, in this soul which is all form. The lovers delight in +endearments, in avowals of love, in comparisons of their regards. When alone, +they solace themselves with the remembered image of the other. Does that other +see the same star, the same melting cloud, read the same book, feel the same +emotion, that now delight me? They try and weigh their affection, and adding up +costly advantages, friends, opportunities, properties, exult in discovering +that willingly, joyfully, they would give all as a ransom for the beautiful, +the beloved head, not one hair of which shall be harmed. But the lot of +humanity is on these children. Danger, sorrow, and pain arrive to them, as to +all. Love prays. It makes covenants with Eternal Power in behalf of this dear +mate. 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 ray, and bathes the soul in a new and sweeter +element—is yet a temporary state. Not always can flowers, pearls, poetry, +protestations, nor even home in another heart, content the awful soul that +dwells in clay. It arouses itself at last from these endearments, as toys, and +puts on the harness and aspires to vast and universal aims. The soul which is +in the soul of each, craving a perfect beatitude, detects incongruities, +defects and disproportion in the behavior of the other. Hence arise surprise, +expostulation and pain. Yet that which drew them to each other was signs of +loveliness, signs of virtue; and these virtues are there, however eclipsed. +They appear and reappear and continue to attract; but the regard changes, quits +the sign and attaches to the substance. This repairs the wounded affection. +Meantime, as life wears on, it proves a game of permutation and combination of +all possible positions of the parties, to employ all the resources of each and +acquaint each with the strength and weakness of the other. For it is the nature +and end of this relation, that they should represent the human race to each +other. All that is in the world, which is or ought to be known, is cunningly +wrought into the texture of man, of woman:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The person love does to us fit,<br /> +Like manna, has the taste of all in it.” +</p> + +<p> +The world rolls; the circumstances vary every hour. The angels that inhabit +this temple of the body appear at the windows, and the gnomes and vices also. +By all the virtues they are united. If there be virtue, all the vices are known +as such; they confess and flee. Their once flaming regard is sobered by time in +either breast, and losing in violence what it gains in extent, it becomes a +thorough good understanding. They resign each other without complaint to the +good offices which man and woman are severally appointed to discharge in time, +and exchange the passion which once could not lose sight of its object, for a +cheerful, disengaged furtherance, whether present or absent, of each +other’s designs. At last they discover that all which at first drew them +together,—those once sacred features, that magical play of +charms,—was deciduous, had a prospective end, like the scaffolding by +which the house was built; and the purification of the intellect and the heart +from year to year is the real marriage, foreseen and prepared from the first, +and wholly above their consciousness. Looking at these aims with which two +persons, a man and a woman, so variously and correlatively gifted, are shut up +in one house to spend in the nuptial society forty or fifty years, I do not +wonder at the emphasis with which the heart prophesies this crisis from early +infancy, at the profuse beauty with which the instincts deck the nuptial bower, +and nature and intellect and art emulate each other in the gifts and the melody +they bring to the epithalamium. +</p> + +<p> +Thus are we put in training for a love which knows not sex, nor person, nor +partiality, but which seeks virtue and wisdom everywhere, to the end of +increasing virtue and wisdom. We are by nature observers, and thereby learners. +That is our permanent state. But we are often made to feel that our affections +are but tents of a night. Though slowly and with pain, the objects of the +affections change, as the objects of thought do. There are moments when the +affections rule and absorb the man and make his happiness dependent on a person +or persons. But in health the mind is presently seen again,—its +overarching vault, bright with galaxies of immutable lights, and the warm loves +and fears that swept over us as clouds must lose their finite character and +blend with God, to attain their own perfection. But we need not fear that we +can lose any thing by the progress of the soul. The soul may be trusted to the +end. That which is so beautiful and attractive as these relations, must be +succeeded and supplanted only by what is more beautiful, and so on for ever. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0006" id="link2H_4_0006"></a>VI.<br /> +FRIENDSHIP</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +A ruddy drop of manly blood<br /> +The surging sea outweighs;<br /> +The world uncertain comes and goes,<br /> +The lover rooted stays.<br /> +I fancied he was fled,<br /> +And, after many a year,<br /> +Glowed unexhausted kindliness<br /> +Like daily sunrise there.<br /> +My careful heart was free again,—<br /> +O friend, my bosom said,<br /> +Through thee alone the sky is arched,<br /> +Through thee the rose is red,<br /> +All things through thee take nobler form<br /> +And look beyond the earth,<br /> +The mill-round of our fate appears<br /> +A sun-path in thy worth.<br /> +Me too thy nobleness has taught<br /> +To master my despair;<br /> +The fountains of my hidden life<br /> +Are through thy friendship fair. +</p> + +<h2>FRIENDSHIP</h2> + +<p> +We have a great deal more kindness than is ever spoken. Maugre all the +selfishness that chills like east winds the world, the whole human family is +bathed with an element of love like a fine ether. How many persons we meet in +houses, whom we scarcely speak to, whom yet we honor, and who honor us! How +many we see in the street, or sit with in church, whom, though silently, we +warmly rejoice to be with! Read the language of these wandering eye-beams. The +heart knoweth. +</p> + +<p> +The effect of the indulgence of this human affection is a certain cordial +exhilaration. In poetry and in common speech, the emotions of benevolence and +complacency which are felt towards others are likened to the material effects +of fire; so swift, or much more swift, more active, more cheering, are these +fine inward irradiations. From the highest degree of passionate love to the +lowest degree of good-will, they make the sweetness of life. +</p> + +<p> +Our intellectual and active powers increase with our affection. The scholar +sits down to write, and all his years of meditation do not furnish him with one +good thought or happy expression; but it is necessary to write a letter to a +friend,—and forthwith troops of gentle thoughts invest themselves, on +every hand, with chosen words. See, in any house where virtue and self-respect +abide, the palpitation which the approach of a stranger causes. A commended +stranger is expected and announced, and an uneasiness betwixt pleasure and pain +invades all the hearts of a household. His arrival almost brings fear to the +good hearts that would welcome him. The house is dusted, all things fly into +their places, the old coat is exchanged for the new, and they must get up a +dinner if they can. Of a commended stranger, only the good report is told by +others, only the good and new is heard by us. He stands to us for humanity. He +is what we wish. Having imagined and invested him, we ask how we should stand +related in conversation and action with such a man, and are uneasy with fear. +The same idea exalts conversation with him. We talk better than we are wont. We +have the nimblest fancy, a richer memory, and our dumb devil has taken leave +for the time. For long hours we can continue a series of sincere, graceful, +rich communications, drawn from the oldest, secretest experience, so that they +who sit by, of our own kinsfolk and acquaintance, shall feel a lively surprise +at our unusual powers. But as soon as the stranger begins to intrude his +partialities, his definitions, his defects, into the conversation, it is all +over. He has heard the first, the last and best he will ever hear from us. He +is no stranger now. Vulgarity, ignorance, misapprehension are old +acquaintances. Now, when he comes, he may get the order, the dress and the +dinner,—but the throbbing of the heart and the communications of the +soul, no more. +</p> + +<p> +What is so pleasant as these jets of affection which make a young world for me +again? What so delicious as a just and firm encounter of two, in a thought, in +a feeling? How beautiful, on their approach to this beating heart, the steps +and forms of the gifted and the true! The moment we indulge our affections, the +earth is metamorphosed; there is no winter and no night; all tragedies, all +ennuis vanish,—all duties even; nothing fills the proceeding eternity but +the forms all radiant of beloved persons. Let the soul be assured that +somewhere in the universe it should rejoin its friend, and it would be content +and cheerful alone for a thousand years. +</p> + +<p> +I awoke this morning with devout thanksgiving for my friends, the old and the +new. Shall I not call God the Beautiful, who daily showeth himself so to me in +his gifts? I chide society, I embrace solitude, and yet I am not so ungrateful +as not to see the wise, the lovely and the noble-minded, as from time to time +they pass my gate. Who hears me, who understands me, becomes mine,—a +possession for all time. Nor is Nature so poor but she gives me this joy +several times, and thus we weave social threads of our own, a new web of +relations; and, as many thoughts in succession substantiate themselves, we +shall by and by stand in a new world of our own creation, and no longer +strangers and pilgrims in a traditionary globe. My friends have come to me +unsought. The great God gave them to me. By oldest right, by the divine +affinity of virtue with itself, I find them, or rather not I but the Deity in +me and in them derides and cancels the thick walls of individual character, +relation, age, sex, circumstance, at which he usually connives, and now makes +many one. High thanks I owe you, excellent lovers, who carry out the world for +me to new and noble depths, and enlarge the meaning of all my thoughts. These +are new poetry of the first Bard,—poetry without stop,—hymn, ode +and epic, poetry still flowing, Apollo and the Muses chanting still. Will these +too separate themselves from me again, or some of them? I know not, but I fear +it not; for my relation to them is so pure, that we hold by simple affinity, +and the Genius of my life being thus social, the same affinity will exert its +energy on whomsoever is as noble as these men and women, wherever I may be. +</p> + +<p> +I confess to an extreme tenderness of nature on this point. It is almost +dangerous to me to “crush the sweet poison of misused wine” of the +affections. A new person is to me a great event and hinders me from sleep. I +have often had fine fancies about persons which have given me delicious hours; +but the joy ends in the day; it yields no fruit. Thought is not born of it; my +action is very little modified. I must feel pride in my friend’s +accomplishments as if they were mine, and a property in his virtues. I feel as +warmly when he is praised, as the lover when he hears applause of his engaged +maiden. We over-estimate the conscience of our friend. His goodness seems +better than our goodness, his nature finer, his temptations less. Every thing +that is his,—his name, his form, his dress, books and +instruments,—fancy enhances. Our own thought sounds new and larger from +his mouth. +</p> + +<p> +Yet the systole and diastole of the heart are not without their analogy in the +ebb and flow of love. Friendship, like the immortality of the soul, is too good +to be believed. The lover, beholding his maiden, half knows that she is not +verily that which he worships; and in the golden hour of friendship we are +surprised with shades of suspicion and unbelief. We doubt that we bestow on our +hero the virtues in which he shines, and afterwards worship the form to which +we have ascribed this divine inhabitation. In strictness, the soul does not +respect men as it respects itself. In strict science all persons underlie the +same condition of an infinite remoteness. Shall we fear to cool our love by +mining for the metaphysical foundation of this Elysian temple? Shall I not be +as real as the things I see? If I am, I shall not fear to know them for what +they are. Their essence is not less beautiful than their appearance, though it +needs finer organs for its apprehension. The root of the plant is not unsightly +to science, though for chaplets and festoons we cut the stem short. And I must +hazard the production of the bald fact amidst these pleasing reveries, though +it should prove an Egyptian skull at our banquet. A man who stands united with +his thought conceives magnificently of himself. He is conscious of a universal +success, even though bought by uniform particular failures. No advantages, no +powers, no gold or force, can be any match for him. I cannot choose but rely on +my own poverty more than on your wealth. I cannot make your consciousness +tantamount to mine. Only the star dazzles; the planet has a faint, moon-like +ray. I hear what you say of the admirable parts and tried temper of the party +you praise, but I see well that for all his purple cloaks I shall not like him, +unless he is at last a poor Greek like me. I cannot deny it, O friend, that the +vast shadow of the Phenomenal includes thee also in its pied and painted +immensity,—thee also, compared with whom all else is shadow. Thou art not +Being, as Truth is, as Justice is,—thou art not my soul, but a picture +and effigy of that. Thou hast come to me lately, and already thou art seizing +thy hat and cloak. Is it not that the soul puts forth friends as the tree puts +forth leaves, and presently, by the germination of new buds, extrudes the old +leaf? The law of nature is alternation for evermore. Each electrical state +superinduces the opposite. The soul environs itself with friends that it may +enter into a grander self-acquaintance or solitude; and it goes alone for a +season, that it may exalt its conversation or society. This method betrays +itself along the whole history of our personal relations. The instinct of +affection revives the hope of union with our mates, and the returning sense of +insulation recalls us from the chase. Thus every man passes his life in the +search after friendship, and if he should record his true sentiment, he might +write a letter like this to each new candidate for his love:— +</p> + +<p class="p2"> +D<small>EAR</small> F<small>RIEND</small>, +</p> + +<p> +If I was sure of thee, sure of thy capacity, sure to match my mood with thine, +I should never think again of trifles in relation to thy comings and goings. I +am not very wise; my moods are quite attainable, and I respect thy genius; it +is to me as yet unfathomed; yet dare I not presume in thee a perfect +intelligence of me, and so thou art to me a delicious torment. Thine ever, or +never. +</p> + +<p> +Yet these uneasy pleasures and fine pains are for curiosity and not for life. +They are not to be indulged. This is to weave cobweb, and not cloth. Our +friendships hurry to short and poor conclusions, because we have made them a +texture of wine and dreams, instead of the tough fibre of the human heart. The +laws of friendship are austere and eternal, of one web with the laws of nature +and of morals. But we have aimed at a swift and petty benefit, to suck a sudden +sweetness. We snatch at the slowest fruit in the whole garden of God, which +many summers and many winters must ripen. We seek our friend not sacredly, but +with an adulterate passion which would appropriate him to ourselves. In vain. +We are armed all over with subtle antagonisms, which, as soon as we meet, begin +to play, and translate all poetry into stale prose. Almost all people descend +to meet. All association must be a compromise, and, what is worst, the very +flower and aroma of the flower of each of the beautiful natures disappears as +they approach each other. What a perpetual disappointment is actual society, +even of the virtuous and gifted! After interviews have been compassed with long +foresight we must be tormented presently by baffled blows, by sudden, +unseasonable apathies, by epilepsies of wit and of animal spirits, in the +heyday of friendship and thought. Our faculties do not play us true, and both +parties are relieved by solitude. +</p> + +<p> +I ought to be equal to every relation. It makes no difference how many friends +I have and what content I can find in conversing with each, if there be one to +whom I am not equal. If I have shrunk unequal from one contest, the joy I find +in all the rest becomes mean and cowardly. I should hate myself, if then I made +my other friends my asylum:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“The valiant warrior famoused for fight,<br /> +After a hundred victories, once foiled,<br /> +Is from the book of honor razed quite,<br /> +And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.” +</p> + +<p> +Our impatience is thus sharply rebuked. Bashfulness and apathy are a tough husk +in which a delicate organization is protected from premature ripening. It would +be lost if it knew itself before any of the best souls were yet ripe enough to +know and own it. Respect the <i>naturlangsamkeit</i> which hardens the ruby in +a million years, and works in duration in which Alps and Andes come and go as +rainbows. The good spirit of our life has no heaven which is the price of +rashness. Love, which is the essence of God, is not for levity, but for the +total worth of man. Let us not have this childish luxury in our regards, but +the austerest worth; let us approach our friend with an audacious trust in the +truth of his heart, in the breadth, impossible to be overturned, of his +foundations. +</p> + +<p> +The attractions of this subject are not to be resisted, and I leave, for the +time, all account of subordinate social benefit, to speak of that select and +sacred relation which is a kind of absolute, and which even leaves the language +of love suspicious and common, so much is this purer, and nothing is so much +divine. +</p> + +<p> +I do not wish to treat friendships daintily, but with roughest courage. When +they are real, they are not glass threads or frostwork, but the solidest thing +we know. For now, after so many ages of experience, what do we know of nature +or of ourselves? Not one step has man taken toward the solution of the problem +of his destiny. In one condemnation of folly stand the whole universe of men. +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 shell. Happy is the house that shelters a friend! It might +well be built, like a festal bower or arch, to entertain him a single day. +Happier, if he know the solemnity of that relation and honor its law! He who +offers himself a candidate for that covenant comes up, like an Olympian, to the +great games where the first-born of the world are the competitors. He proposes +himself for contests where Time, Want, Danger, are in the lists, 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 these. The gifts of fortune may be +present or absent, but all the speed in that contest depends on intrinsic +nobleness and the contempt of trifles. There are two elements that go to the +composition of friendship, each so sovereign that I can detect no superiority +in either, no reason why either should be first named. One is truth. A friend +is a person with whom I may be sincere. Before him I may think aloud. I am +arrived at last in the presence of a man so real and equal that I may drop even +those undermost garments of dissimulation, courtesy, and second thought, which +men never put off, and may deal with him with the simplicity and wholeness with +which one chemical atom meets another. Sincerity is the luxury allowed, like +diadems and authority, only to the highest rank; <i>that</i> being permitted to +speak truth, as having none above it to court or conform unto. Every man alone +is sincere. At the entrance of a second person, hypocrisy begins. We parry and +fend the approach of our fellow-man by compliments, by gossip, by amusements, +by affairs. We cover up our thought from him under a hundred folds. I knew a +man who under a certain religious frenzy cast off this drapery, and omitting +all compliment and commonplace, spoke to the conscience of every person he +encountered, and that with great insight and beauty. At first he was resisted, +and all men agreed he was mad. But persisting—as indeed he could not help +doing—for some time in this course, he attained to the advantage of +bringing every man of his acquaintance into true relations with him. No man +would think of speaking falsely with him, or of putting him off with any chat +of markets or reading-rooms. But every man was constrained by so much sincerity +to the like plaindealing, and what love of nature, what poetry, what symbol of +truth he had, he did certainly show him. But to most of us society shows not +its face and eye, but its side and its back. To stand in true relations with +men in a false age is worth a fit of insanity, is it not? We can seldom go +erect. Almost every man we meet requires some civility,—requires to be +humored; he has some fame, some talent, some whim of religion or philanthropy +in his head that is not to be questioned, and which spoils all conversation +with him. But a friend is a sane man who exercises not my ingenuity, but me. My +friend gives me entertainment without requiring any stipulation on my part. A +friend therefore is a sort of paradox in nature. I who alone am, I who see +nothing in nature whose existence I can affirm with equal evidence to my own, +behold now the semblance of my being, in all its height, variety, and +curiosity, reiterated in a foreign form; so that a friend may well be reckoned +the masterpiece of nature. +</p> + +<p> +The other element of friendship is tenderness. We are holden to men by every +sort of tie, by blood, by pride, by fear, by hope, by lucre, by lust, by hate, +by admiration, by every circumstance and badge and trifle,—but we can +scarce believe that so much character can subsist in another as to draw us by +love. Can another be so blessed and we so pure that we can offer him +tenderness? When a man becomes dear to me I have touched the goal of fortune. I +find very little written directly to the heart of this matter in books. And yet +I have one text which I cannot choose but remember. My author +says,—“I offer myself faintly and bluntly to those whose I +effectually am, and tender myself least to him to whom I am the most +devoted.” I wish that friendship should have feet, as well as eyes and +eloquence. It must plant itself on the ground, before it vaults over the moon. +I wish it to be a little of a citizen, before it is quite a cherub. We chide +the citizen because he makes love a commodity. It is an exchange of gifts, of +useful loans; it is good neighborhood; it watches with the sick; it holds the +pall at the funeral; and quite loses sight of the delicacies and nobility of +the relation. But though we cannot find the god under this disguise of a +sutler, 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 +justice, punctuality, fidelity and pity. I hate the prostitution of the name of +friendship to signify modish and worldly alliances. 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 display, by rides in a curricle +and dinners at the best taverns. The end of friendship is a commerce the most +strict and homely that can be joined; more strict than any of which we have +experience. It is for aid and comfort through all the relations and passages of +life and death. It is fit for serene days and graceful gifts and country +rambles, but also for rough roads and hard fare, shipwreck, poverty, and +persecution. It keeps company with the sallies of the wit and the trances of +religion. We are to dignify to each other the daily needs and offices of +man’s life, and embellish it by courage, wisdom and unity. It should +never fall into something usual and settled, but should be alert and inventive +and add rhyme and reason to what was drudgery. +</p> + +<p> +Friendship may be said to require natures so rare and costly, each so well +tempered and so happily adapted, and withal so circumstanced (for even in that +particular, a poet says, love demands that the parties be altogether paired), +that its satisfaction can very seldom be assured. It cannot subsist in its +perfection, say some of those who are learned in this warm lore of the heart, +betwixt more than two. I am not quite so strict in my terms, perhaps because I +have never known so high a fellowship as others. I please my imagination more +with a circle of godlike men and women variously related to each other and +between whom subsists a lofty intelligence. But I find this law of <i>one to +one</i> peremptory for conversation, which is the practice and consummation of +friendship. Do not mix waters too much. The best mix as ill as good and bad. +You shall have very useful and cheering discourse at several times with two +several men, but let all three of you come together and you shall not have one +new and hearty word. Two may talk and one may hear, but three cannot take part +in a conversation of the most sincere and searching sort. In good company there +is never such discourse between two, across the table, as takes place when you +leave them alone. In good company the individuals merge their egotism into a +social soul exactly co-extensive with the several consciousnesses there +present. No partialities of friend to friend, no fondnesses of brother to +sister, of wife to husband, are there pertinent, but quite otherwise. Only he +may then speak who can sail on the common thought of the party, and not poorly +limited to his own. Now this convention, which good sense demands, destroys the +high freedom of great conversation, which requires an absolute running of two +souls into one. +</p> + +<p> +No two men but being left alone with each other enter into simpler relations. +Yet it is affinity that determines <i>which</i> two shall converse. Unrelated +men give little joy to each other, will never suspect the latent powers of +each. We talk sometimes of a great talent for conversation, as if it were a +permanent property in some individuals. Conversation is an evanescent +relation,—no more. A man is reputed to have thought and eloquence; he +cannot, for all that, say a word to his cousin or his uncle. They accuse his +silence with as much reason as they would blame the insignificance of a dial in +the shade. In the sun it will mark the hour. Among those who enjoy his thought +he will regain his tongue. +</p> + +<p> +Friendship requires that rare mean betwixt likeness and unlikeness that piques +each with the presence of power and of consent in the other party. Let me be +alone to the end of the world, rather than that my friend should overstep, by a +word or a look, his real sympathy. I am equally balked by antagonism and by +compliance. Let him not cease an instant to be himself. The only joy I have in +his being mine, is that the <i>not mine</i> is <i>mine</i>. I hate, where I +looked for a manly furtherance, or at least a manly resistance, to find a mush +of concession. Better be a nettle in the side of your friend than his echo. The +condition which high friendship demands is ability to do without it. That high +office requires great and sublime parts. There must be very two, before there +can be very one. Let it be an alliance of two large, formidable natures, +mutually beheld, mutually feared, before yet they recognize the deep identity +which, beneath these disparities, unites them. +</p> + +<p> +He only is fit for this society who is magnanimous; who is sure that greatness +and goodness are always economy; who is not swift to intermeddle with his +fortunes. Let him not intermeddle with this. Leave to the diamond its ages to +grow, nor expect to accelerate the births of the eternal. Friendship demands a +religious treatment. We talk of choosing our friends, but friends are +self-elected. Reverence is a great part of it. Treat your friend as a +spectacle. Of course he has merits that are not yours, and that you cannot +honor if you must needs hold him close to your person. Stand aside; give those +merits room; let them mount and expand. Are you the friend of your +friend’s buttons, or of his thought? To a great heart he will still be a +stranger in a thousand particulars, that he may come near in the holiest +ground. Leave it to girls and boys to regard a friend as property, and to suck +a short and all-confounding pleasure, instead of the noblest benefit. +</p> + +<p> +Let us buy our entrance to this guild by a long probation. Why should we +desecrate noble and beautiful souls by intruding on them? Why insist on rash +personal relations with your friend? Why go to his house, or know his mother +and brother and sisters? Why be visited by him at your own? Are these things +material to our covenant? Leave this touching and clawing. Let him be to me a +spirit. A message, a thought, a sincerity, a glance from him, I want, but not +news, nor pottage. I can get politics and chat and neighborly conveniences from +cheaper companions. Should not the society of my friend be to me poetic, pure, +universal and great as nature itself? Ought I to feel that our tie is profane +in comparison with yonder bar of cloud that sleeps on the horizon, or that +clump of waving grass that divides the brook? Let us not vilify, but raise it +to that standard. That great defying eye, that scornful beauty of his mien and +action, do not pique yourself on reducing, but rather fortify and enhance. +Worship his superiorities; wish him not less by a thought, but hoard and tell +them all. Guard him as thy counterpart. Let him be to thee for ever a sort of +beautiful enemy, untamable, devoutly revered, and not a trivial conveniency to +be soon outgrown and cast aside. The hues of the opal, the light of the +diamond, are not to be seen if the eye is too near. To my friend I write a +letter and from him I receive a letter. That seems to you a little. It suffices +me. It is a spiritual gift worthy of him to give and of me to receive. It +profanes nobody. In these warm lines the heart will trust itself, as it will +not to the tongue, and pour out the prophecy of a godlier existence than all +the annals of heroism have yet made good. +</p> + +<p> +Respect so far the holy laws of this fellowship as not to prejudice its perfect +flower by your impatience for its opening. We must be our own before we can be +another’s. There is at least this satisfaction in crime, according to the +Latin proverb;—you can speak to your accomplice on even terms. <i>Crimen +quos inquinat, æquat</i>. To those whom we admire and love, at first we cannot. +Yet the least defect of self-possession vitiates, in my judgment, the entire +relation. There can never be deep peace between two spirits, never mutual +respect, until in their dialogue each stands for the whole world. +</p> + +<p> +What is so great as friendship, let us carry with what grandeur of spirit we +can. Let us be silent,—so we may hear the whisper of the gods. Let us not +interfere. Who set you to cast about what you should say to the select souls, +or how to say any thing to such? No matter how ingenious, no matter how +graceful and bland. There are innumerable degrees of folly and wisdom, and for +you to say aught is to be frivolous. Wait, and thy heart shall speak. Wait +until the necessary and everlasting overpowers you, until day and night avail +themselves of your lips. The only reward of virtue is virtue; the only way to +have a friend is to be one. You shall not come nearer a man by getting into his +house. If unlike, his soul only flees the faster from you, and you shall never +catch a true glance of his eye. We see the noble afar off and they repel us; +why should we intrude? Late,—very late,—we perceive that no +arrangements, no introductions, no consuetudes or habits of society would be of +any avail to establish us in such relations with them as we desire,—but +solely the uprise of nature in us to the same degree it is in them; then shall +we meet as water with water; and if we should not meet them then, we shall not +want them, for we are already they. In the last analysis, love is only the +reflection of a man’s own worthiness from other men. Men have sometimes +exchanged names with their friends, as if they would signify that in their +friend each loved his own soul. +</p> + +<p> +The higher the style we demand of friendship, of course the less easy to +establish it with flesh and blood. We walk alone in the world. Friends such as +we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful +heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now +acting, enduring, and daring, which can love us and which we can love. We may +congratulate ourselves that the period of nonage, of follies, of blunders and +of shame, is passed in solitude, and when we are finished men we shall grasp +heroic hands in heroic hands. Only be admonished by what you already see, not +to strike leagues of friendship with cheap persons, where no friendship can be. +Our impatience betrays us into rash and foolish alliances which no god attends. +By persisting in your path, though you forfeit the little you gain the great. +You demonstrate yourself, so as to put yourself out of the reach of false +relations, and you draw to you the first-born of the world,—those rare +pilgrims whereof only one or two wander in nature at once, and before whom the +vulgar great show as spectres and shadows merely. +</p> + +<p> +It is foolish to be afraid of making our ties too spiritual, as if so we could +lose any genuine love. Whatever correction of our popular views we make from +insight, nature will be sure to bear us out in, and though it seem to rob us of +some joy, will repay us with a greater. Let us feel if we will the absolute +insulation of man. We are sure that we have all in us. We go to Europe, or we +pursue persons, or we read books, in the instinctive faith that these will call +it out and reveal us to ourselves. Beggars all. The persons are such as we; the +Europe, an old faded garment of dead persons; the books, their ghosts. Let us +drop this idolatry. Let us give over this mendicancy. Let us even bid our +dearest friends farewell, and defy them, saying, ‘Who are you? Unhand me: +I will be dependent no more.’ Ah! seest thou not, O brother, that thus we +part only to meet again on a higher platform, and only be more each +other’s because we are more our own? A friend is Janus-faced; he looks to +the past and the future. He is the child of all my foregoing hours, the prophet +of those to come, and the harbinger of a greater friend. +</p> + +<p> +I do then with my friends as I do with my books. I would have them where I can +find them, but I seldom use them. We must have society on our own terms, and +admit or exclude it on the slightest cause. I cannot afford to speak much with +my friend. If he is great he makes me so great that I cannot descend to +converse. In the great days, presentiments hover before me in the firmament. I +ought then to dedicate myself to them. I go in that I may seize them, I go out +that I may seize them. I fear only that I may lose them receding into the sky +in which now they are only a patch of brighter light. Then, though I prize my +friends, I cannot afford to talk with them and study their visions, lest I lose +my own. It would indeed give me a certain household joy to quit this lofty +seeking, this spiritual astronomy or search of stars, and come down to warm +sympathies with you; but then I know well I shall mourn always the vanishing of +my mighty gods. It is true, next week I shall have languid moods, when I can +well afford to occupy myself with foreign objects; then I shall regret the lost +literature of your mind, and wish you were by my side again. But if you come, +perhaps you will fill my mind only with new visions; not with yourself but with +your lustres, and I shall not be able any more than now to converse with you. +So I will owe to my friends this evanescent intercourse. I will receive from +them not what they have but what they are. They shall give me that which +properly they cannot give, but which emanates from them. But they shall not +hold me by any relations less subtile and pure. We will meet as though we met +not, and part as though we parted not. +</p> + +<p> +It has seemed to me lately more possible than I knew, to carry a friendship +greatly, on one side, without due correspondence on the other. Why should I +cumber myself with regrets that the receiver is not capacious? It never +troubles the sun that some of his rays fall wide and vain into ungrateful +space, and only a small part on the reflecting planet. Let your greatness +educate the crude and cold companion. If he is unequal he will presently pass +away; but thou art enlarged by thy own shining, and no longer a mate for frogs +and worms, dost soar and burn with the gods of the empyrean. It is thought a +disgrace to love unrequited. But the great will see that true love cannot be +unrequited. True love transcends the unworthy object and dwells and broods on +the eternal, and when the poor interposed mask crumbles, it is not sad, but +feels rid of so much earth and feels its independency the surer. Yet these +things may hardly be said without a sort of treachery to the relation. The +essence of friendship is entireness, a total magnanimity and trust. It must not +surmise or provide for infirmity. It treats its object as a god, that it may +deify both. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0007" id="link2H_4_0007"></a>VII.<br /> +PRUDENCE</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Theme no poet gladly sung,<br /> +Fair to old and foul to young;<br /> +Scorn not thou the love of parts,<br /> +And the articles of arts.<br /> +Grandeur of the perfect sphere<br /> +Thanks the atoms that cohere. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>PRUDENCE</h2> + +<p> +What right have I to write on Prudence, whereof I have Little, and that of the +negative sort? My prudence consists in avoiding and going without, not in the +inventing of means and methods, not in adroit steering, not in gentle +repairing. I have no skill to make money spend well, no genius in my economy, +and whoever sees my garden discovers that I must have some other garden. Yet I +love facts, and hate lubricity and people without perception. Then I have the +same title to write on prudence that I have to write on poetry or holiness. We +write from aspiration and antagonism, as well as from experience. We paint +those qualities which we do not possess. The poet admires the man of energy and +tactics; the merchant breeds his son for the church or the bar; and where a man +is not vain and egotistic you shall find what he has not by his praise. +Moreover it would be hardly honest in me not to balance these fine lyric words +of Love and Friendship with words of coarser sound, and whilst my debt to my +senses is real and constant, not to own it in passing. +</p> + +<p> +Prudence is the virtue of the senses. It is the science of appearances. It is +the outmost action of the inward life. It is God taking thought for oxen. It +moves matter after the laws of matter. It is content to seek health of body by +complying with physical conditions, and health of mind by the laws of the +intellect. +</p> + +<p> +The world of the senses is a world of shows; it does not exist for itself, but +has a symbolic character; and a true prudence or law of shows recognizes the +co-presence of other laws and knows that its own office is subaltern; knows +that it is surface and not centre where it works. Prudence is false when +detached. It is legitimate when it is the Natural History of the soul +incarnate, when it unfolds the beauty of laws within the narrow scope of the +senses. +</p> + +<p> +There are all degrees of proficiency in knowledge of the world. It is +sufficient to our present purpose to indicate three. One class live to the +utility of the symbol, esteeming health and wealth a final good. Another class +live above this mark to the beauty of the symbol, as the poet and artist and +the naturalist and man of science. A third class live above the beauty of the +symbol to the beauty of the thing signified; these are wise men. The first +class have common sense; the second, taste; and the third, spiritual +perception. Once in a long time, a man traverses the whole scale, and sees and +enjoys the symbol solidly, then also has a clear eye for its beauty, and +lastly, whilst he pitches his tent on this sacred volcanic isle of nature, does +not offer to build houses and barns thereon,—reverencing the splendor of +the God which he sees bursting through each chink and cranny. +</p> + +<p> +The world is filled with the proverbs and acts and winkings of a base prudence, +which is a devotion to matter, as if we possessed no other faculties than the +palate, the nose, the touch, the eye and ear; a prudence which adores the Rule +of Three, which never subscribes, which never gives, which seldom lends, and +asks but one question of any project,—Will it bake bread? This is a +disease like a thickening of the skin until the vital organs are destroyed. But +culture, revealing the high origin of the apparent world and aiming at the +perfection of the man as the end, degrades every thing else, as health and +bodily life, into means. It sees prudence not to be a several faculty, but a +name for wisdom and virtue conversing with the body and its wants. Cultivated +men always feel and speak so, as if a great fortune, the achievement of a civil +or social measure, great personal influence, a graceful and commanding address, +had their value as proofs of the energy of the spirit. If a man lose his +balance and immerse himself in any trades or pleasures for their own sake, he +may be a good wheel or pin, but he is not a cultivated man. +</p> + +<p> +The spurious prudence, making the senses final, is the god of sots and cowards, +and is the subject of all comedy. It is nature’s joke, and therefore +literature’s. The true prudence limits this sensualism by admitting the +knowledge of an internal and real world. This recognition once made, the order +of the world and the distribution of affairs and times, being studied with the +co-perception of their subordinate place, will reward any degree of attention. +For our existence, thus apparently attached in nature to the sun and the +returning moon and the periods which they mark,—so susceptible to climate +and to country, so alive to social good and evil, so fond of splendor and so +tender to hunger and cold and debt,—reads all its primary lessons out of +these books. +</p> + +<p> +Prudence does not go behind nature and ask whence it is. It takes the laws of +the world whereby man’s being is conditioned, as they are, and keeps +these laws that it may enjoy their proper good. It respects space and time, +climate, want, sleep, the law of polarity, growth and death. There revolve, to +give bound and period to his being on all sides, the sun and moon, the great +formalists in the sky: here lies stubborn matter, and will not swerve from its +chemical routine. Here is a planted globe, pierced and belted with natural laws +and fenced and distributed externally with civil partitions and properties +which impose new restraints on the young inhabitant. +</p> + +<p> +We eat of the bread which grows in the field. We live by the air which blows +around us and we are poisoned by the air that is too cold or too hot, too dry +or too wet. Time, which shows so vacant, indivisible and divine in its coming, +is slit and peddled into trifles and tatters. A door is to be painted, a lock +to be repaired. I want wood or oil, or meal or salt; the house smokes, or I +have a headache; then the tax, and an affair to be transacted with a man +without heart or brains, and the stinging recollection of an injurious or very +awkward word,—these eat up the hours. Do what we can, summer will have +its flies; if we walk in the woods we must feed mosquitos; if we go a-fishing +we must expect a wet coat. Then climate is a great impediment to idle persons; +we often resolve to give up the care of the weather, but still we regard the +clouds and the rain. +</p> + +<p> +We are instructed by these petty experiences which usurp the hours and years. +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 tropics. The islander may ramble all day at will. At night he may sleep on +a mat under the moon, and wherever a wild date-tree grows, nature has, without +a prayer even, spread a table for his morning meal. The northerner is perforce +a householder. He must brew, bake, salt and preserve his food, and pile wood +and coal. But as it happens that not one stroke can labor lay to without some +new acquaintance with nature, and as nature is inexhaustibly significant, the +inhabitants of these climates have always excelled the southerner in force. +Such is the value of these matters that a man who knows other things can never +know too much of these. Let him have accurate perceptions. Let him, if he have +hands, handle; if eyes, measure and discriminate; let him accept and hive every +fact of chemistry, natural history and economics; the more he has, the less is +he willing to spare any one. Time is always bringing the occasions that +disclose their value. Some wisdom comes out of every natural and innocent +action. The domestic man, who loves no music so well as his kitchen clock and +the airs which the logs sing to him as they burn on the hearth, has solaces +which others never dream of. 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 war. The good husband finds method as efficient in the packing of +fire-wood in a shed or in the harvesting of fruits in the cellar, as in +Peninsular campaigns or the files of the Department of State. In the rainy day +he builds a work-bench, or gets his tool-box set in the corner of the +barn-chamber, and stored with nails, gimlet, pincers, screwdriver and chisel. +Herein he tastes an old joy of youth and childhood, the cat-like love of +garrets, presses and corn-chambers, and of the conveniences of long +housekeeping. His garden or his poultry-yard tells him many pleasant anecdotes. +One might find argument for optimism in the abundant flow of this saccharine +element of pleasure in every suburb and extremity of the good world. Let a man +keep the law,—any law,—and his way will be strown with +satisfactions. There is more difference in the quality of our pleasures than in +the amount. +</p> + +<p> +On the other hand, nature punishes any neglect of prudence. If you think the +senses final, obey their law. If you believe in the soul, do not clutch at +sensual sweetness before it is ripe on the slow tree of cause and effect. It is +vinegar to the eyes to deal with men of loose and imperfect perception. Dr. +Johnson is reported to have said,—“If the child says he looked out +of this window, when he looked out of that,—whip him.” Our American +character is marked by a more than average delight in accurate perception, +which is shown by the currency of the byword, “No mistake.” But the +discomfort of unpunctuality, of confusion of thought about facts, of +inattention to the wants of to-morrow, is of no nation. The beautiful laws of +time and space, once dislocated by our inaptitude, are holes and dens. If the +hive be disturbed by rash and stupid hands, instead of honey it will yield us +bees. Our words and actions to be fair must be timely. A gay and pleasant sound +is the whetting of the scythe in the mornings of June, 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 hay? Scatter-brained and +“afternoon” men spoil much more than their own affair in spoiling +the temper of those who deal with them. I have seen a criticism on some +paintings, of which I am reminded when I see the shiftless and unhappy men who +are not true to their senses. The last Grand Duke of Weimar, a man of superior +understanding, said,—“I have sometimes remarked in the presence of +great works of art, and just now especially in Dresden, how much a certain +property contributes to the effect which gives life to the figures, and to the +life an irresistible truth. This property is the hitting, in all the figures we +draw, the right centre of gravity. I mean the placing the figures firm upon +their feet, making the hands grasp, and fastening the eyes on the spot where +they should look. Even lifeless figures, 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 gravity, and have a certain swimming and +oscillating appearance. The Raphael in the Dresden gallery (the only greatly +affecting picture which I have seen) is the quietest and most passionless piece +you can imagine; a couple of saints who worship the Virgin and Child. +Nevertheless, it awakens a deeper impression than the contortions of ten +crucified martyrs. For beside all the resistless beauty of form, it possesses +in the highest degree the property of the perpendicularity of all the +figures.” This perpendicularity we demand of all the figures in this +picture of life. Let them stand on their feet, and not float and swing. Let us +know where to find them. Let them discriminate between what they remember and +what they dreamed, call a spade a spade, give us facts, and honor their own +senses with trust. +</p> + +<p> +But what man shall dare tax another with imprudence? Who is prudent? The men we +call greatest are least in this kingdom. There is a certain fatal dislocation +in our relation to nature, distorting our modes of living and making every law +our enemy, which seems at last to have aroused all the wit and virtue in the +world to ponder the question of Reform. We must call the highest prudence to +counsel, and ask why health and beauty and genius should now be the exception +rather than the rule of human nature? We do not know the properties of plants +and animals and the laws of nature, through our sympathy with the same; but +this remains the dream of poets. Poetry and prudence should be coincident. +Poets should be lawgivers; that is, the boldest lyric inspiration should not +chide and insult, but should announce and lead the civil code and the +day’s work. But now the two things seem irreconcilably parted. We have +violated law upon law until we stand amidst ruins, and when by chance we espy a +coincidence between reason and the phenomena, we are surprised. Beauty should +be the dowry of every man and woman, as invariably as sensation; but it is +rare. Health or sound organization should be universal. Genius should be the +child of genius and every child should be inspired; but now it is not to be +predicted of any child, and nowhere is it pure. We call partial half-lights, by +courtesy, genius; talent which converts itself to money; talent which glitters +to-day that it may dine and sleep well to-morrow; and society is officered by +<i>men of parts</i>, as they are properly called, and not by divine men. These +use their gifts to refine luxury, not to abolish it. Genius is always ascetic, +and piety, and love. Appetite shows to the finer souls as a disease, and they +find beauty in rites and bounds that resist it. +</p> + +<p> +We have found out fine names to cover our sensuality withal, but no gifts can +raise intemperance. 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 art. His art never taught him lewdness, nor the love of wine, +nor the wish to reap where he had not sowed. His art is less for every +deduction from his holiness, and less for every defect of common sense. On him +who scorned the world as he said, the scorned world wreaks its revenge. He that +despiseth small things will perish by little and little. Goethe’s Tasso +is very likely to be a pretty fair historical portrait, and that is true +tragedy. It does not seem to me so genuine grief when some tyrannous Richard +the Third oppresses and slays a score of innocent persons, as when Antonio and +Tasso, both apparently right, wrong each other. One living after the maxims of +this world and consistent and true to them, the other fired with all divine +sentiments, yet grasping also at the pleasures of sense, without submitting to +their law. That is a grief we all feel, a knot we cannot untie. Tasso’s +is no infrequent case in modern biography. A man of genius, of an ardent +temperament, reckless of physical laws, self-indulgent, becomes presently +unfortunate, querulous, a “discomfortable cousin,” a thorn to +himself and to others. +</p> + +<p> +The scholar shames us by his bifold life. Whilst something higher than prudence +is active, he is admirable; when common sense is wanted, he is an encumbrance. +Yesterday, Cæsar was not so great; to-day, the felon at the gallows’ foot +is not more miserable. Yesterday, radiant with the light of an ideal world in +which he lives, the first of men; and now oppressed by wants and by sickness, +for which he must thank himself. He resembles the pitiful drivellers whom +travellers describe as frequenting the bazaars of Constantinople, who skulk +about all day, yellow, emaciated, ragged, sneaking; and at evening, when the +bazaars are open, slink to the opium-shop, swallow their morsel and become +tranquil and glorified seers. And who has not seen the tragedy of imprudent +genius struggling for years with paltry pecuniary difficulties, at last +sinking, chilled, exhausted and fruitless, like a giant slaughtered by pins? +</p> + +<p> +Is it not better that a man should accept the first pains and mortifications of +this sort, which nature is not slack in sending him, as hints that he must +expect no other good than the just fruit of his own labor and self-denial? +Health, bread, climate, social position, have their importance, and he will +give them their due. Let him esteem Nature a perpetual counsellor, and her +perfections the exact measure of our deviations. Let him make the night night, +and the day day. Let him control the habit of expense. Let him see that as much +wisdom may be expended on a private economy as on an empire, and as much wisdom +may be drawn from it. The laws of the world are written out for him on every +piece of money in his hand. There is nothing he will not be the better for +knowing, were it only the wisdom of Poor Richard, or the State-Street prudence +of buying by the acre to sell by the foot; or the thrift of the agriculturist, +to stick a tree between whiles, because it will grow whilst he sleeps; or the +prudence which consists in husbanding little strokes of the tool, little +portions of time, particles of stock and small gains. The eye of prudence may +never shut. Iron, if kept at the ironmonger’s, will rust; beer, if not +brewed in the right state of the atmosphere, will sour; timber of ships will +rot at sea, or if laid up high and dry, will strain, warp and dry-rot; money, +if kept by us, yields no rent and is liable to loss; if invested, is liable to +depreciation of the particular kind of stock. Strike, says the smith, the iron +is white; keep the rake, says the haymaker, as nigh the scythe as you can, and +the cart as nigh the rake. Our Yankee trade is reputed to be very much on the +extreme of this prudence. It takes bank-notes, good, bad, clean, ragged, and +saves itself by the speed with which it passes them off. Iron cannot rust, nor +beer sour, nor timber rot, nor calicoes go out of fashion, nor money stocks +depreciate, in the few swift moments in which the Yankee suffers any one of +them to remain in his possession. In skating over thin ice our safety is in our +speed. +</p> + +<p> +Let him learn a prudence of a higher strain. Let him learn that every thing in +nature, even motes and feathers, go by law and not by luck, and that what he +sows he reaps. By diligence and self-command let him put the bread he eats at +his own disposal, that he may not stand in bitter and false relations to other +men; for the best good of wealth is freedom. Let him practise the minor +virtues. How much of human life is lost in waiting! let him not make his +fellow-creatures wait. How many words and promises are promises of +conversation! Let his be words of fate. 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 written, amidst a swarming population, let him likewise feel the +admonition to integrate his being across all these distracting forces, and keep +a slender human word among the storms, distances and accidents that drive us +hither and thither, and, by persistency, make the paltry force of one man +reappear to redeem its pledge after months and years in the most distant +climates. +</p> + +<p> +We must not try to write the laws of any one virtue, looking at that only. +Human nature loves no contradictions, but is symmetrical. The prudence which +secures an outward well-being is not to be studied by one set of men, whilst +heroism and holiness are studied by another, but they are reconcilable. +Prudence concerns the present time, persons, property and existing forms. But +as every fact hath its roots in the soul, and if the soul were changed, would +cease to be, or would become some other thing,—the proper administration +of outward things will always rest on a just apprehension of their cause and +origin; that is, the good man will be the wise man, and the single-hearted the +politic man. Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the +liar, but is a stab at the health of human society. On the most profitable lie +the course of events presently lays a destructive tax; whilst frankness invites +frankness, puts the parties on a convenient footing and makes their business a +friendship. Trust men and they will be true to you; treat them greatly and they +will show themselves great, though they make an exception in your favor to all +their rules of trade. +</p> + +<p> +So, in regard to disagreeable and formidable things, prudence does not consist +in evasion or in flight, but in courage. He who wishes to walk in the most +peaceful parts of life with any serenity must screw himself up to resolution. +Let him front the object of his worst apprehension, and his stoutness will +commonly make his fear groundless. The Latin proverb says, “In battles +the eye is first overcome.” Entire self-possession may make a battle very +little more dangerous to life than a match at foils or at football. Examples +are cited by soldiers of men who have seen the cannon pointed and the fire +given to it, and who have stepped aside from the path of the ball. The terrors +of the storm are chiefly confined to the parlor and the cabin. The drover, the +sailor, buffets it all day, and his health renews itself at as vigorous a pulse +under the sleet as under the sun of June. +</p> + +<p> +In the occurrence of unpleasant things among neighbors, fear comes readily to +heart and magnifies the consequence of the other party; but it is a bad +counsellor. Every man is actually weak and apparently strong. To himself he +seems weak; to others, formidable. You are afraid of Grim; but Grim also is +afraid of you. You are solicitous of the good-will of the meanest person, +uneasy at his ill-will. But the sturdiest offender of your peace and of the +neighborhood, if you rip up <i>his</i> claims, is as thin and timid as any, and +the peace of society is often kept, because, as children say, one is afraid, +and the other dares not. Far off, men swell, bully and threaten; bring them +hand to hand, and they are a feeble folk. +</p> + +<p> +It is a proverb that ‘courtesy costs nothing’; but calculation +might come to value love for its profit. Love is fabled to be blind, but +kindness is necessary to perception; love is not a hood, but an eye-water. If +you meet a sectary or a hostile partisan, never recognize the dividing lines, +but meet on what common ground remains,—if only that the sun shines and +the rain rains for both; the area will widen very fast, and ere you know it, +the boundary mountains on which the eye had fastened have melted into air. If +they set out to contend, Saint Paul will lie and Saint John will hate. What +low, poor, paltry, hypocritical people an argument on religion will make of the +pure and chosen souls! They will shuffle and crow, crook and hide, feign to +confess here, only that they may brag and conquer there, and not a thought has +enriched either party, and not an emotion of bravery, modesty, or hope. So +neither should you put yourself in a false position with your contemporaries by +indulging a vein of hostility and bitterness. Though your views are in straight +antagonism to theirs, assume an identity of sentiment, assume that you are +saying precisely that which all think, and in the flow of wit and love roll out +your paradoxes in solid column, with not the infirmity of a doubt. So at least +shall you get an adequate deliverance. The natural motions of the soul are so +much better than the voluntary ones that you will never do yourself justice in +dispute. The thought is not then taken hold of by the right handle, does not +show itself proportioned and in its true bearings, but bears extorted, hoarse, +and half witness. But assume a consent and it shall presently be granted, since +really and underneath their external diversities, all men are of one heart and +mind. +</p> + +<p> +Wisdom will never let us stand with any man or men on an unfriendly footing. We +refuse sympathy and intimacy with people, as if we waited for some better +sympathy and intimacy to come. But whence and when? To-morrow will be like +to-day. Life wastes itself whilst we are preparing to live. Our friends and +fellow-workers die off from us. Scarcely can we say we see new men, new women, +approaching us. We are too old to regard fashion, too old to expect patronage +of any greater or more powerful. Let us suck the sweetness of those affections +and consuetudes that grow near us. These old shoes are easy to the feet. +Undoubtedly we can easily pick faults in our company, can easily whisper names +prouder, and that tickle the fancy more. Every man’s imagination hath its +friends; and life would be dearer with such companions. But if you cannot have +them on good mutual terms, you cannot have them. If not the Deity but our +ambition hews and shapes the new relations, their virtue escapes, as +strawberries lose their flavor in garden-beds. +</p> + +<p> +Thus truth, frankness, courage, love, humility and all the virtues range +themselves on the side of prudence, or the art of securing a present +well-being. I do not know if all matter will be found to be made of one +element, as oxygen or hydrogen, at last, but the world of manners and actions +is wrought of one stuff, and begin where we will we are pretty sure in a short +space to be mumbling our ten commandments. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0008" id="link2H_4_0008"></a>VIII.<br /> +HEROISM</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“Paradise is under the shadow of swords.”<br /> + <i>Mahomet.</i><br /> +<br /> +Ruby wine is drunk by knaves,<br /> +Sugar spends to fatten slaves,<br /> +Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons;<br /> +Thunderclouds are Jove’s festoons,<br /> +Drooping oft in wreaths of dread<br /> +Lightning-knotted round his head;<br /> +The hero is not fed on sweets,<br /> +Daily his own heart he eats;<br /> +Chambers of the great are jails,<br /> +And head-winds right for royal sails. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>HEROISM</h2> + +<p> +In the elder English dramatists, and mainly in the plays Of Beaumont and +Fletcher, there is a constant recognition of gentility, as if a noble behavior +were as easily marked in the society of their age as color is in our American +population. When any Rodrigo, Pedro or Valerio enters, though he be a stranger, +the duke or governor exclaims, ‘This is a gentleman,—and proffers +civilities without end; but all the rest are slag and refuse. In harmony with +this delight in personal advantages there is in their plays a certain heroic +cast of character and dialogue,—as in Bonduca, Sophocles, the Mad Lover, +the Double Marriage,—wherein the speaker is so earnest and cordial and on +such deep grounds of character, that the dialogue, on the slightest additional +incident in the plot, rises naturally into poetry. Among many texts take the +following. The Roman Martius has conquered Athens,—all but the invincible +spirits of Sophocles, the duke of Athens, and Dorigen, his wife. The beauty of +the latter inflames Martius, and he seeks to save her husband; but Sophocles +will not ask his life, although assured that a word will save him, and the +execution of both proceeds:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Valerius</i>. Bid thy wife farewell.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sophocles</i>. No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen,<br /> +Yonder, above, ’bout Ariadne’s crown,<br /> +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Dorigen</i>. Stay, Sophocles,—with this tie up my sight;<br /> +Let not soft nature so transformed be,<br /> +And lose her gentler sexed humanity,<br /> +To make me see my lord bleed. So, ’tis well;<br /> +Never one object underneath the sun<br /> +Will I behold before my Sophocles:<br /> +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Martius</i>. Dost know what ’t is to die?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sophocles</i>. Thou dost not, Martius,<br /> +And, therefore, not what ’tis to live; to die<br /> +Is to begin to live. It is to end<br /> +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence<br /> +A newer and a better. ’Tis to leave<br /> +Deceitful knaves for the society<br /> +Of gods and goodness. Thou thyself must part<br /> +At last from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs,<br /> +And prove thy fortitude what then ’t will do.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Valerius</i>. But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sophocles</i>. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent<br /> +To them I ever loved best? Now I’ll kneel,<br /> +But with my back toward thee; ’tis the last duty<br /> +This trunk can do the gods.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Martius</i>. Strike, strike, Valerius,<br /> +Or Martius’ heart will leap out at his mouth.<br /> +This is a man, a woman. Kiss thy lord,<br /> +And live with all the freedom you were wont.<br /> +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me<br /> +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart,<br /> +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn,<br /> +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Valerius</i>. What ails my brother?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Sophocles</i>. Martius, O Martius,<br /> +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me.<br /> +<br /> +<i>Dorigen</i>. O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak<br /> +Fit words to follow such a deed as this?<br /> +<br /> +<i>Martius</i>. This admirable duke, Valerius,<br /> +With his disdain of fortune and of death,<br /> +Captived himself, has captivated me,<br /> +And though my arm hath ta’en his body here,<br /> +His soul hath subjugated Martius’ soul.<br /> +By Romulus, he is all soul, I think;<br /> +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved;<br /> +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free,<br /> +And Martius walks now in captivity.<br /> +</p> + +<p> +I do not readily remember any poem, play, sermon, novel, or oration that our +press vents in the last few years, which goes to the same tune. We have a great +many flutes and flageolets, but not often the sound of any fife. Yet, +Wordsworth’s “Laodamia,” and the ode of “Dion,” +and some sonnets, have a certain noble music; and Scott will sometimes draw a +stroke like the portrait of Lord Evandale given by Balfour of Burley. Thomas +Carlyle, with his natural taste for what is manly and daring in character, has +suffered no heroic trait in his favorites to drop from his biographical and +historical pictures. Earlier, Robert Burns has given us a song or two. In the +Harleian Miscellanies there is an account of the battle of Lutzen which +deserves to be read. And Simon Ockley’s History of the Saracens recounts +the prodigies of individual valor, 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 abhorrence. But if we explore the +literature of Heroism we shall quickly come to Plutarch, who is its Doctor and +historian. To him we owe the Brasidas, the Dion, the Epaminondas, the Scipio of +old, and I must think we are more deeply indebted to him than to all the +ancient writers. Each of his “Lives” is a refutation to the +despondency and cowardice of our religious and political theorists. A wild +courage, a Stoicism not of the schools but of the blood, shines in every +anecdote, and has given that book its immense fame. +</p> + +<p> +We need books of this tart cathartic virtue more than books of political +science or of private economy. Life is a festival only to the wise. Seen from +the nook and chimney-side of prudence, it wears a ragged and dangerous front. +The violations of the laws of nature by our predecessors and our contemporaries +are punished in us also. The disease and deformity around us certify the +infraction of natural, intellectual, and moral laws, and often violation on +violation to breed such compound misery. A lock-jaw that bends a man’s +head back to his heels; hydrophobia that makes him bark at his wife and babes; +insanity that makes him eat grass; war, plague, cholera, famine, indicate a +certain ferocity in nature, which, as it had its inlet by human crime, must +have its outlet by human suffering. Unhappily no man exists who has not in his +own person become to some amount a stockholder in the sin, and so made himself +liable to a share in the expiation. +</p> + +<p> +Our culture therefore must not omit the arming of the man. Let him hear in +season that he is born into the state of war, and that the commonwealth and his +own well-being require that he should not go dancing in the weeds of peace, but +warned, self-collected and neither defying nor dreading the thunder, let him +take both reputation and life in his hand, and, with perfect urbanity dare the +gibbet and the mob by the absolute truth of his speech and the rectitude of his +behavior. +</p> + +<p> +Towards all this external evil the man within the breast assumes a warlike +attitude, and affirms his ability to cope single-handed with the infinite army +of enemies. To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism. +Its rudest form is the contempt for safety and ease, which makes the +attractiveness of war. It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of +prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may +suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his +will, but pleasantly and as it were merrily he advances to his own music, alike +in frightful alarms and in the tipsy mirth of universal dissoluteness. There is +somewhat not philosophical in heroism; there is somewhat not holy in it; it +seems not to know that other souls are of one texture with it; it has pride; it +is the extreme of individual nature. Nevertheless we must profoundly revere it. +There is somewhat in great actions which does not allow us to go behind them. +Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right; and although a +different breeding, different religion and greater intellectual activity would +have modified or even reversed the particular action, yet for the hero that +thing he does is the highest deed, and is not open to the censure of +philosophers or divines. It is the avowal of the unschooled man that he finds a +quality in him that is negligent of expense, of health, of life, of danger, of +hatred, of reproach, and knows that his will is higher and more excellent than +all actual and all possible antagonists. +</p> + +<p> +Heroism works in contradiction to the voice of mankind and in contradiction, +for a time, to the voice of the great and good. Heroism is an obedience to a +secret impulse of an individual’s character. Now to no other man can its +wisdom appear as it does to him, for every man must be supposed to see a little +farther on his own proper path than any one else. Therefore just and wise men +take umbrage at his act, until after some little time be past: then they see it +to be in unison with their acts. All prudent men see that the action is clean +contrary to a sensual prosperity; for every heroic act measures itself by its +contempt of some external good. But it finds its own success at last, and then +the prudent also extol. +</p> + +<p> +Self-trust is the essence of heroism. It is the state of the soul at war, and +its ultimate objects are the last defiance of falsehood and wrong, and the +power to bear all that can be inflicted by evil agents. It speaks the truth and +it is just, generous, hospitable, temperate, scornful of petty calculations and +scornful of being scorned. It persists; it is of an undaunted boldness and of a +fortitude not to be wearied out. Its jest is the littleness of common life. +That false prudence which dotes on health and wealth is the butt and merriment +of heroism. Heroism, like Plotinus, is almost ashamed of its body. What shall +it say then to the sugar-plums and cats’-cradles, to the toilet, +compliments, quarrels, cards and custard, which rack the wit of all society? +What joys has kind nature provided for us dear creatures! There seems to be no +interval between greatness and meanness. When the spirit is not master of the +world, then it is its dupe. Yet the little man takes the great hoax so +innocently, works in it so headlong and believing, is born red, and dies gray, +arranging his toilet, attending on his own health, laying traps for sweet food +and strong wine, setting his heart on a horse or a rifle, made happy with a +little gossip or a little praise, that the great soul cannot choose but laugh +at such earnest nonsense. “Indeed, these humble considerations make me +out of love with greatness. What a disgrace is it to me to take note how many +pairs of silk stockings thou hast, namely, these and those that were the +peach-colored ones; or to bear the inventory of thy shirts, as one for +superfluity, and one other for use!” +</p> + +<p> +Citizens, thinking after the laws of arithmetic, consider the inconvenience of +receiving strangers at their fireside, reckon narrowly the loss of time and the +unusual display; the soul of a better quality thrusts back the unseasonable +economy into the vaults of life, and says, I will obey the God, and the +sacrifice and the fire he will provide. Ibn Hankal, the Arabian geographer, +describes a heroic extreme in the hospitality of Sogd, in Bukharia. “When +I was in Sogd I saw a great building, like a palace, the gates of which were +open and fixed back to the wall with large nails. I asked the reason, and was +told that the house had not been shut, night or day, for a hundred years. +Strangers may present themselves at any hour and in whatever number; the master +has amply provided for the reception of the men and their animals, and is never +happier than when they tarry for some time. Nothing of the kind have I seen in +any other country.” The magnanimous know very well that they who give +time, or money, or shelter, to the stranger,—so it be done for love and +not for ostentation,—do, as it were, put God under obligation to them, so +perfect are the compensations of the universe. In some way the time they seem +to lose is redeemed and the pains they seem to take remunerate themselves. +These men fan the flame of human love and raise the standard of civil virtue +among mankind. But hospitality must be for service and not for show, or it +pulls down the host. The brave soul rates itself too high to value itself by +the splendor of its table and draperies. It gives what it hath, and all it +hath, but its own majesty can lend a better grace to bannocks and fair water +than belong to city feasts. +</p> + +<p> +The temperance of the hero proceeds from the same wish to do no dishonor to the +worthiness he has. But he loves it for its elegancy, not for its austerity. It +seems not worth his while to be solemn and denounce with bitterness +flesh-eating or wine-drinking, the use of tobacco, or opium, or tea, or silk, +or gold. A great man scarcely knows how he dines, how he dresses; but without +railing or precision his living is natural and poetic. John Eliot, the Indian +Apostle, drank water, and said of wine,—“It is a noble, generous +liquor and we should be humbly thankful for it, but, as I remember, water was +made before it.” Better still is the temperance of King David, who poured +out on the ground unto the Lord the water which three of his warriors had +brought him to drink, at the peril of their lives. +</p> + +<p> +It is told of Brutus, that when he fell on his sword after the battle of +Philippi, he quoted a line of Euripides,—“O Virtue! I have followed +thee through life, and I find thee at last but a shade.” I doubt not the +hero is slandered by this report. The heroic soul does not sell its justice and +its nobleness. It does not ask to dine nicely and to sleep warm. The essence of +greatness is the perception that virtue is enough. Poverty is its ornament. It +does not need plenty, and can very well abide its loss. +</p> + +<p> +But that which takes my fancy most in the heroic class, is the good-humor and +hilarity they exhibit. It is a height to which common duty can very well +attain, to suffer and to dare with solemnity. But these rare souls set opinion, +success, and life at so cheap a rate that they will not soothe their enemies by +petitions, or the show of sorrow, but wear their own habitual greatness. +Scipio, charged with peculation, refuses to do himself so great a disgrace as +to wait for justification, though he had the scroll of his accounts in his +hands, but tears it to pieces before the tribunes. Socrates’s +condemnation of himself to be maintained in all honor in the Prytaneum, during +his life, and Sir Thomas More’s playfulness at the scaffold, are of the +same strain. In Beaumont and Fletcher’s “Sea Voyage,” Juletta +tells the stout captain and his company,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +<i>Juletta</i>. Why, slaves, ’tis in our power to hang ye.<br /> +<i>Master</i>. Very likely,<br /> +’Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +These replies are sound and whole. Sport is the bloom and glow of a perfect +health. The great will not condescend to take any thing seriously; all must be +as gay as the song of a canary, 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 years. Simple hearts put all the history and customs of +this world behind them, and play their own game in innocent defiance of the +Blue-Laws of the world; and such would appear, could we see the human race +assembled in vision, like little children frolicking together, though to the +eyes of mankind at large they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and +influences. +</p> + +<p> +The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a romance over the +boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school, our delight in the +hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All these great and transcendent +properties are ours. If we dilate in beholding the Greek energy, the Roman +pride, it is that we are already domesticating the same sentiment. Let us find +room for this great guest in our small houses. The first step of worthiness +will be to disabuse us of our superstitious associations with places and times, +with number and size. Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia and +England, so tingle in the ear? Where the heart is, there the muses, there the +gods sojourn, and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut +River and Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of +foreign and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we will tarry a +little, we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is +here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the Supreme Being +shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest. Epaminondas, brave and +affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus to die upon, nor the Syrian +sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The Jerseys were handsome ground +enough for Washington to tread, and London streets for the feet of Milton. A +great man makes his climate genial in the imagination of men, and its air the +beloved element of all delicate spirits. That country is the fairest which is +inhabited by the noblest minds. The pictures which fill the imagination in +reading the actions of Pericles, Xenophon, Columbus, Bayard, Sidney, Hampden, +teach us how needlessly mean our life is; that we, by the depth of our living, +should deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on principles +that should interest man and nature in the length of our days. +</p> + +<p> +We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men who never ripened, or +whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. When we see their air +and mien, when we hear them speak of society, of books, of religion, we admire +their superiority; they seem to throw contempt on our entire polity and social +state; theirs is the tone of a youthful giant who is sent to work revolutions. +But they enter an active profession and the forming Colossus shrinks to the +common size of man. The magic they used was the ideal tendencies, which always +make the Actual ridiculous; but the tough world had its revenge the moment they +put their horses of the sun to plough in its furrow. They found no example and +no companion, and their heart fainted. What then? The lesson they gave in their +first aspirations is yet true; and a better valor and a purer truth shall one +day organize their belief. Or why should a woman liken herself to any +historical woman, and think, because Sappho, or Sévigné, or De Staël, or the +cloistered souls who have had genius and cultivation do not satisfy the +imagination and the serene Themis, none can,—certainly not she? Why not? +She has a new and unattempted problem to solve, perchance that of the happiest +nature that ever bloomed. Let the maiden, with erect soul, walk serenely on her +way, accept the hint of each new experience, search in turn all the objects +that solicit her eye, that she may learn the power and the charm of her +new-born being, which is the kindling of a new dawn in the recesses of space. +The fair girl who repels interference by a decided and proud choice of +influences, so careless of pleasing, so wilful and lofty, inspires every +beholder with somewhat of her own nobleness. The silent heart encourages her; O +friend, never strike sail to a fear! Come into port greatly, or sail with God +the seas. Not in vain you live, for every passing eye is cheered and refined by +the vision. +</p> + +<p> +The characteristic of heroism is its persistency. All men have wandering +impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have chosen your part, +abide by it, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The +heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic. 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 justice. If you would serve +your brother, because it is fit for you to serve him, do not take back your +words when you find that prudent people do not commend you. Adhere to your own +act, and congratulate yourself if you have done something strange and +extravagant and broken the monotony of a decorous age. It was a high counsel +that I once heard given to a young person,—“Always do what you are +afraid to do.” A simple manly character need never make an apology, but +should regard its past action with the calmness of Phocion, when he admitted +that the event of the battle was happy, yet did not regret his dissuasion from +the battle. +</p> + +<p> +There is no weakness or exposure for which we cannot find consolation in the +thought—this is a part of my constitution, part of my relation and office +to my fellow-creature. Has nature covenanted with me that I should never appear +to disadvantage, never make a ridiculous figure? Let us be generous of our +dignity as well as of our money. Greatness once and for ever has done with +opinion. We tell our charities, not because we wish to be praised for them, not +because we think they have great merit, but for our justification. It is a +capital blunder; as you discover when another man recites his charities. +</p> + +<p> +To speak the truth, even with some austerity, to live with some rigor of +temperance, or some extremes of generosity, seems to be an asceticism which +common good-nature would appoint to those who are at ease and in plenty, in +sign that they feel a brotherhood with the great multitude of suffering men. +And not only need we breathe and exercise the soul by assuming the penalties of +abstinence, of debt, of solitude, of unpopularity,—but it behooves the +wise man to look with a bold eye into those rarer dangers which sometimes +invade men, and to familiarize himself with disgusting forms of disease, with +sounds of execration, and the vision of violent death. +</p> + +<p> +Times of heroism are generally times of terror, but the day never shines in +which this element may not work. The circumstances of man, we say, are +historically somewhat better in this country and at this hour than perhaps ever +before. More freedom exists for culture. It will not now run against an axe at +the first step out of the beaten track of opinion. But whoso is heroic will +always find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and +martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds. It is but the other day +that the brave Lovejoy gave his breast to the bullets of a mob, for the rights +of free speech and opinion, and died when it was better not to live. +</p> + +<p> +I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk, but after the counsel +of his own bosom. Let him quit too much association, let him go home much, and +stablish himself in those courses he approves. The unremitting retention of +simple and high sentiments in obscure duties is hardening the character to that +temper which will work with honor, if need be in the tumult, or on the +scaffold. Whatever outrages have happened to men may befall a man again; and +very easily in a republic, if there appear any signs of a decay of religion. +Coarse slander, fire, tar and feathers and the gibbet, the youth may freely +bring home to his mind and with what sweetness of temper he can, and inquire +how fast he can fix his sense of duty, braving such penalties, whenever it may +please the next newspaper and a sufficient number of his neighbors to pronounce +his opinions incendiary. +</p> + +<p> +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 malice. We rapidly +approach a brink over which no enemy can follow us:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Let them rave:<br /> +Thou art quiet in thy grave.” +</p> + +<p class="noindent"> +In the gloom of our ignorance of what shall be, in the hour when we are deaf to +the higher voices, who does not envy those who have seen safely to an end their +manful endeavor? Who that sees the meanness of our politics but inly +congratulates Washington that he is long already wrapped in his shroud, and for +ever safe; that he was laid sweet in his grave, the hope of humanity not yet +subjugated in him? Who does not sometimes envy the good and brave who are no +more to suffer from the tumults of the natural world, and await with curious +complacency the speedy term of his own conversation with finite nature? And yet +the love that will be annihilated sooner than treacherous has already made +death impossible, and affirms itself no mortal but a native of the deeps of +absolute and inextinguishable being. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0009" id="link2H_4_0009"></a>IX.<br /> +THE OVER-SOUL</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +“But souls that of his own good life partake,<br /> +He loves as his own self; dear as his eye<br /> +They are to Him: He’ll never them forsake:<br /> +When they shall die, then God himself shall die:<br /> +They live, they live in blest eternity.”<br /> + <i>Henry More</i>.<br /> +<br /> +Space is ample, east and west,<br /> +But two cannot go abreast,<br /> +Cannot travel in it two:<br /> +Yonder masterful cuckoo<br /> +Crowds every egg out of the nest,<br /> +Quick or dead, except its own;<br /> +A spell is laid on sod and stone,<br /> +Night and Day ’ve been tampered with,<br /> +Every quality and pith<br /> +Surcharged and sultry with a power<br /> +That works its will on age and hour. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>THE OVER-SOUL</h2> + +<p> +There is a difference between one and another hour of life in their authority +and subsequent effect. Our faith comes in moments; our vice is habitual. Yet +there is a depth in those brief moments which constrains us to ascribe more +reality to them than to all other experiences. For this reason the argument +which is always forthcoming to silence those who conceive extraordinary hopes +of man, namely the appeal to experience, is for ever invalid and vain. We give +up the past to the objector, and yet we hope. He must explain this hope. We +grant that human life is mean, but how did we find out that it was mean? What +is the ground of this uneasiness of ours; of this old discontent? What is the +universal sense of want and ignorance, but the fine innuendo by which the soul +makes its enormous claim? Why do men feel that the natural history of man has +never been written, but he is always leaving behind what you have said of him, +and it becomes old, and books of metaphysics worthless? The philosophy of six +thousand years has not searched the chambers and magazines of the soul. In its +experiments there has always remained, in the last analysis, a residuum it +could not resolve. Man is a stream whose source is hidden. Our being is +descending into us from we know not whence. The most exact calculator has no +prescience that somewhat incalculable may not balk the very next moment. I am +constrained every moment to acknowledge a higher origin for events than the +will I call mine. +</p> + +<p> +As with events, so is it with thoughts. When I watch that flowing river, which, +out of regions I see not, pours for a season its streams into me, I see that I +am a pensioner; not a cause, but a surprised spectator of this ethereal water; +that I desire and look up and put myself in the attitude of reception, but from +some alien energy the visions come. +</p> + +<p> +The Supreme Critic on the errors of the past and the present, and the only +prophet of that which must be, is that great nature in which we rest as the +earth lies in the soft arms of the atmosphere; that Unity, that Over-soul, +within which every man’s particular being is contained and made one with +all other; that common heart of which all sincere conversation is the worship, +to which all right action is submission; that overpowering reality which +confutes our tricks and talents, and constrains every one to pass for what he +is, and to speak from his character and not from his tongue, and which evermore +tends to pass into our thought and hand and become wisdom and virtue and power +and beauty. We live in succession, in division, in parts, in particles. +Meantime within man is the soul of the whole; the wise silence; the universal +beauty, to which every part and particle is equally related; the eternal ONE. +And this deep power in which we exist and whose beatitude is all accessible to +us, is not only self-sufficing and perfect in every hour, but the act of seeing +and the thing seen, the seer and the spectacle, the subject and the object, are +one. We see the world piece by piece, as the sun, the moon, the animal, the +tree; but the whole, of which these are the shining parts, is the soul. Only by +the vision of that Wisdom can the horoscope of the ages be read, and by falling +back on our better thoughts, by yielding to the spirit of prophecy which is +innate in every man, we can know what it saith. 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 part. I dare not speak for it. My words do not carry its +august sense; they fall short and cold. Only itself can inspire whom it will, +and behold! their speech shall be lyrical, and sweet, and universal as the +rising of the wind. Yet I desire, even by profane words, if I may not use +sacred, to indicate the heaven of this deity and to report what hints I have +collected of the transcendent simplicity and energy of the Highest Law. +</p> + +<p> +If we consider what happens in conversation, in reveries, in remorse, in times +of passion, in surprises, in the instructions of dreams, wherein often we see +ourselves in masquerade,—the droll disguises only magnifying and +enhancing a real element and forcing it on our distinct notice,—we shall +catch many hints that will broaden and lighten into knowledge of the secret of +nature. All goes to show that the soul in man is not an organ, but animates and +exercises all the organs; is not a function, like the power of memory, of +calculation, of comparison, but uses these as hands and feet; is not a faculty, +but a light; is not the intellect or the will, but the master of the intellect +and the will; is the background of our being, in which they lie,—an +immensity not possessed and that cannot be possessed. From within or from +behind, a light shines through us upon things and makes us aware that we are +nothing, but the light is all. A man is the facade of a temple wherein all +wisdom and all good abide. What we commonly call man, the eating, drinking, +planting, counting man, does not, as we know him, represent himself, but +misrepresents himself. Him we do not respect, but the soul, whose organ he is, +would he let it appear through his action, would make our knees bend. When it +breathes through his intellect, it is genius; when it breathes through his +will, it is virtue; when it flows through his affection, it is love. And the +blindness of the intellect begins when it would be something of itself. The +weakness of the will begins when the individual would be something of himself. +All reform aims in some one particular to let the soul have its way through us; +in other words, to engage us to obey. +</p> + +<p> +Of this pure nature every man is at some time sensible. Language cannot paint +it with his colors. It is too subtile. It is undefinable, unmeasurable; but we +know that it pervades and contains us. We know that all spiritual being is in +man. A wise old proverb says, “God comes to see us without bell;” +that is, as there is no screen or ceiling between our heads and the infinite +heavens, so is there no bar or wall in the soul where man, the effect, ceases, +and God, the cause, begins. The walls are taken away. We lie open on one side +to the deeps of spiritual nature, to the attributes of God. Justice we see and +know, Love, Freedom, Power. These natures no man ever got above, but they tower +over us, and most in the moment when our interests tempt us to wound them. +</p> + +<p> +The sovereignty of this nature whereof we speak is made known by its +independency of those limitations which circumscribe us on every hand. The soul +circumscribes all things. As I have said, it contradicts all experience. In +like manner it abolishes time and space. 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 insurmountable; and to speak with levity of these +limits is, in the world, the sign of insanity. Yet time and space are but +inverse measures of the force of the soul. The spirit sports with time,— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Can crowd eternity into an hour,<br /> +Or stretch an hour to eternity.” +</p> + +<p> +We are often made to feel that there is another youth and age than that which +is measured from the year of our natural birth. Some thoughts always find us +young, and keep us so. Such a thought is the love of the universal and eternal +beauty. Every man parts from that contemplation with the feeling that it rather +belongs to ages than to mortal life. The least activity of the intellectual +powers redeems us in a degree from the conditions of time. In sickness, in +languor, give us a strain of poetry or a profound sentence, and we are +refreshed; or produce a volume of Plato or Shakspeare, or remind us of their +names, and instantly we come into a feeling of longevity. See how the deep +divine thought reduces centuries and millenniums and makes itself present +through all ages. Is the teaching of Christ less effective now than it was when +first his mouth was opened? The emphasis of facts and persons in my thought has +nothing to do with time. And so always the soul’s scale is one, the scale +of the senses and the understanding is another. Before the revelations of the +soul, Time, Space and Nature shrink away. In common speech we refer all things +to time, as we habitually refer the immensely sundered stars to one concave +sphere. And so we say that the Judgment is distant or near, that the Millennium +approaches, that a day of certain political, moral, social reforms is at hand, +and the like, when we mean that in the nature of things one of the facts we +contemplate is external and fugitive, and the other is permanent and connate +with the soul. The things we now esteem fixed shall, one by one, detach +themselves like ripe fruit from our experience, and fall. The wind shall blow +them none knows whither. The landscape, the figures, Boston, London, are facts +as fugitive as any institution past, or any whiff of mist or smoke, and so is +society, and so is the world. The soul looketh steadily forwards, creating a +world before her, leaving worlds behind her. She has no dates, nor rites, nor +persons, nor specialties nor men. The soul knows only the soul; the web of +events is the flowing robe in which she is clothed. +</p> + +<p> +After its own law and not by arithmetic is the rate of its progress to be +computed. The soul’s advances are not made by gradation, such as can be +represented by motion in a straight line, but rather by ascension of state, +such as can be represented by metamorphosis,—from the egg to the worm, +from the worm to the fly. The growths of genius are of a certain <i>total</i> +character, that does not advance the elect individual first over John, then +Adam, then Richard, and give to each the pain of discovered +inferiority,—but by every throe of growth the man expands there where he +works, passing, at each pulsation, classes, populations, of men. With each +divine impulse the mind rends the thin rinds of the visible and finite, and +comes out into eternity, and inspires and expires its air. It converses with +truths that have always been spoken in the world, and becomes conscious of a +closer sympathy with Zeno and Arrian than with persons in the house. +</p> + +<p> +This is the law of moral and of mental gain. The simple rise as by specific +levity not into a particular virtue, but into the region of all the virtues. +They are in the spirit which contains them all. The soul requires purity, but +purity is not it; requires justice, but justice is not that; requires +beneficence, but is somewhat better; so that there is a kind of descent and +accommodation felt when we leave speaking of moral nature to urge a virtue +which it enjoins. To the well-born child all the virtues are natural, and not +painfully acquired. Speak to his heart, and the man becomes suddenly virtuous. +</p> + +<p> +Within the same sentiment is the germ of intellectual growth, which obeys the +same law. Those who are capable of humility, of justice, of love, of +aspiration, stand already on a platform that commands the sciences and arts, +speech and poetry, action and grace. For whoso dwells in this moral beatitude +already anticipates those special powers which men prize so highly. The lover +has no talent, no skill, which passes for quite nothing with his enamoured +maiden, however little she may possess of related faculty; and the heart which +abandons itself to the Supreme Mind finds itself related to all its works, and +will travel a royal road to particular knowledges and powers. In ascending to +this primary and aboriginal sentiment we have come from our remote station on +the circumference instantaneously to the centre of the world, where, as in the +closet of God, we see causes, and anticipate the universe, which is but a slow +effect. +</p> + +<p> +One mode of the divine teaching is the incarnation of the spirit in a +form,—in forms, like my own. I live in society, with persons who answer +to thoughts in my own mind, or express a certain obedience to the great +instincts to which I live. I see its presence to them. I am certified of a +common nature; and these other souls, these separated selves, draw me as +nothing else can. They stir in me the new emotions we call passion; of love, +hatred, fear, admiration, pity; thence come conversation, competition, +persuasion, cities and war. Persons are supplementary to the primary teaching +of the soul. In youth we are mad for persons. Childhood and youth see all the +world in them. But the larger experience of man discovers the identical nature +appearing through them all. Persons themselves acquaint us with the impersonal. +In all conversation between two persons tacit reference is made, as to a third +party, to a common nature. That third party or common nature is not social; it +is impersonal; is God. And so in groups where debate is earnest, and especially +on high questions, the company become aware that the thought rises to an equal +level in all bosoms, that all have a spiritual property in what was said, as +well as the sayer. They all become wiser than they were. It arches over them +like a temple, this unity of thought in which every heart beats with nobler +sense of power and duty, and thinks and acts with unusual solemnity. All are +conscious of attaining to a higher self-possession. It shines for all. There is +a certain wisdom of humanity which is common to the greatest men with the +lowest, and which our ordinary education often labors to silence and obstruct. +The mind is one, and the best minds, who love truth for its own sake, think +much less of property in truth. They accept it thankfully everywhere, and do +not label or stamp it with any man’s name, for it is theirs long +beforehand, and from eternity. The learned and the studious of thought have no +monopoly of wisdom. Their violence of direction in some degree disqualifies +them to think truly. We owe many valuable observations to people who are not +very acute or profound, and who say the thing without effort which we want and +have long been hunting in vain. The action of the soul is oftener in that which +is felt and left unsaid than in that which is said in any conversation. It +broods over every society, and they unconsciously seek for it in each other. We +know better than we do. We do not yet possess ourselves, and we know at the +same time that we are much more. I feel the same truth how often in my trivial +conversation with my neighbors, that somewhat higher in each of us overlooks +this by-play, and Jove nods to Jove from behind each of us. +</p> + +<p> +Men descend to meet. In their habitual and mean service to the world, for which +they forsake their native nobleness, they resemble those Arabian sheiks who +dwell in mean houses and affect an external poverty, to escape the rapacity of +the Pacha, and reserve all their display of wealth for their interior and +guarded retirements. +</p> + +<p> +As it is present in all persons, so it is in every period of life. It is adult +already in the infant man. In my dealing with my child, my Latin and Greek, my +accomplishments and my money stead me nothing; but as much soul as I have +avails. If I am wilful, he sets his will against mine, one for one, and leaves +me, if I please, the degradation of beating him by my superiority of strength. +But if I renounce my will and act for the soul, setting that up as umpire +between us two, out of his young eyes looks the same soul; he reveres and loves +with me. +</p> + +<p> +The soul is the perceiver and revealer of truth. We know truth when we see it, +let skeptic and scoffer say what they choose. Foolish people ask you, when you +have spoken what they do not wish to hear, ‘How do you know it is truth, +and not an error of your own?’ We know truth when we see it, from +opinion, as we know when we are awake that we are awake. It was a grand +sentence of Emanuel Swedenborg, which would alone indicate the greatness of +that man’s perception,—“It is no proof of a man’s +understanding to be able to confirm whatever he pleases; but to be able to +discern that what is true is true, and that what is false is false,—this +is the mark and character of intelligence.” In the book I read, the good +thought returns to me, as every truth will, the image of the whole soul. To the +bad thought which I find in it, the same soul becomes a discerning, separating +sword, and lops it away. We are wiser than we know. If we will not interfere +with our thought, but will act entirely, or see how the thing stands in God, we +know the particular thing, and every thing, and every man. For the Maker of all +things and all persons stands behind us and casts his dread omniscience through +us over things. +</p> + +<p> +But beyond this recognition of its own in particular passages of the +individual’s experience, it also reveals truth. And here we should seek +to reinforce ourselves by its very presence, and to speak with a worthier, +loftier strain of that advent. For the soul’s communication of truth is +the highest event in nature, since it then does not give somewhat from itself, +but it gives itself, or passes into and becomes that man whom it enlightens; +or, in proportion to that truth he receives, it takes him to itself. +</p> + +<p> +We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its own +nature, by the term <i>Revelation</i>. These are always attended by the emotion +of the sublime. For this communication is an influx of the Divine mind into our +mind. It is an ebb of the individual rivulet before the flowing surges of the +sea of life. Every distinct apprehension of this central commandment agitates +men with awe and delight. A thrill passes through all men at the reception of +new truth, or at the performance of a great action, which comes out of the +heart of nature. In these communications the power to see is not separated from +the will to do, but the insight proceeds from obedience, and the obedience +proceeds from a joyful perception. Every moment when the individual feels +himself invaded by it is memorable. By the necessity of our constitution a +certain enthusiasm attends the individual’s consciousness of that divine +presence. The character and duration of this enthusiasm varies with the state +of the individual, from an ecstasy and trance and prophetic +inspiration,—which is its rarer appearance,—to the faintest glow of +virtuous emotion, in which form it warms, like our household fires, all the +families and associations of men, and makes society possible. A certain +tendency to insanity has always attended the opening of the religious sense in +men, as if they had been “blasted with excess of light.” The +trances of Socrates, the “union” of Plotinus, the vision of +Porphyry, the conversion of Paul, the aurora of Behmen, the convulsions of +George Fox and his Quakers, the illumination of Swedenborg, are of this kind. +What was in the case of these remarkable persons a ravishment, has, in +innumerable instances in common life, been exhibited in less striking manner. +Everywhere the history of religion betrays a tendency to enthusiasm. The +rapture of the Moravian and Quietist; the opening of the internal sense of the +Word, in the language of the New Jerusalem Church; the <i>revival</i> of the +Calvinistic churches; the <i>experiences</i> of the Methodists, are varying +forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul always +mingles with the universal soul. +</p> + +<p> +The nature of these revelations is the same; they are perceptions of the +absolute law. They are solutions of the soul’s own questions. They do not +answer the questions which the understanding asks. The soul answers never by +words, but by the thing itself that is inquired after. +</p> + +<p> +Revelation is the disclosure of the soul. The popular notion of a revelation is +that it is a telling of fortunes. In past oracles of the soul the understanding +seeks to find answers to sensual questions, and undertakes to tell from God how +long men shall exist, what their hands shall do and who shall be their company, +adding names and dates and places. But we must pick no locks. We must check +this low curiosity. An answer in words is delusive; it is really no answer to +the questions you ask. Do not require a description of the countries towards +which you sail. The description does not describe them to you, and to-morrow +you arrive there and know them by inhabiting them. Men ask concerning the +immortality of the soul, the employments of heaven, the state of the sinner, +and so forth. They even dream that Jesus has left replies to precisely these +interrogatories. Never a moment did that sublime spirit speak in their +<i>patois</i>. To truth, justice, love, the attributes of the soul, the idea of +immutableness is essentially associated. Jesus, living in these moral +sentiments, heedless of sensual fortunes, heeding only the manifestations of +these, never made the separation of the idea of duration from the essence of +these attributes, nor uttered a syllable concerning the duration of the soul. +It was left to his disciples to sever duration from the moral elements, and to +teach the immortality of the soul as a doctrine, and maintain it by evidences. +The moment the doctrine of the immortality is separately taught, man is already +fallen. In the flowing of love, in the adoration of humility, there is no +question of continuance. No inspired man ever asks this question or condescends +to these evidences. For the soul is true to itself, and the man in whom it is +shed abroad cannot wander from the present, which is infinite, to a future +which would be finite. +</p> + +<p> +These questions which we lust to ask about the future are a confession of sin. +God has no answer for them. No answer in words can reply to a question of +things. It is not in an arbitrary “decree of God,” but in the +nature of man, that a veil shuts down on the facts of to-morrow; for the soul +will not have us read any other cipher than that of cause and effect. By this +veil which curtains events it instructs the children of men to live in to-day. +The only mode of obtaining an answer to these questions of the senses is to +forego all low curiosity, and, accepting the tide of being which floats us into +the secret of nature, work and live, work and live, and all unawares the +advancing soul has built and forged for itself a new condition, and the +question and the answer are one. +</p> + +<p> +By the same fire, vital, consecrating, celestial, which burns until it shall +dissolve all things into the waves and surges of an ocean of light, we see and +know each other, and what spirit each is of. Who can tell the grounds of his +knowledge of the character of the several individuals in his circle of friends? +No man. Yet their acts and words do not disappoint him. In that man, though he +knew no ill of him, he put no trust. In that other, though they had seldom met, +authentic signs had yet passed, to signify that he might be trusted as one who +had an interest in his own character. We know each other very well,—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 also. +</p> + +<p> +We are all discerners of spirits. That diagnosis lies aloft in our life or +unconscious power. The intercourse of society, its trade, its religion, its +friendships, its quarrels, is one wide, judicial investigation of character. In +full court, or in small committee, or confronted face to face, accuser and +accused, men offer themselves to be judged. Against their will they exhibit +those decisive trifles by which character is read. But who judges? and what? +Not our understanding. We do not read them by learning or craft. No; the wisdom +of the wise man consists herein, that he does not judge them; he lets them +judge themselves and merely reads and records their own verdict. +</p> + +<p> +By virtue of this inevitable nature, private will is overpowered, and, maugre +our efforts or our imperfections, your genius will speak from you, and mine +from me. That which we are, we shall teach, not voluntarily but involuntarily. +Thoughts come into our minds by avenues which we never left open, and thoughts +go out of our minds through avenues which we never voluntarily opened. +Character teaches over our head. The infallible index of true progress is found +in the tone the man takes. Neither his age, nor his breeding, nor company, nor +books, nor actions, nor talents, nor all together can hinder him from being +deferential to a higher spirit than his own. If he have not found his home in +God, his manners, his forms of speech, the turn of his sentences, the build, +shall I say, of all his opinions will involuntarily confess it, let him brave +it out how he will. If he have found his centre, the Deity will shine through +him, through all the disguises of ignorance, of ungenial temperament, of +unfavorable circumstance. The tone of seeking is one, and the tone of having is +another. +</p> + +<p> +The great distinction between teachers sacred or literary,—between poets +like Herbert, and poets like Pope,—between philosophers like Spinoza, +Kant and Coleridge, and philosophers like Locke, Paley, Mackintosh and +Stewart,—between men of the world who are reckoned accomplished talkers, +and here and there a fervent mystic, prophesying half insane under the +infinitude of his thought,—is that one class speak <i>from within</i>, or +from experience, as parties and possessors of the fact; and the other class +<i>from without</i>, as spectators merely, or perhaps as acquainted with the +fact on the evidence of third persons. It is of no use to preach to me from +without. I can do that too easily myself. Jesus speaks always from within, and +in a degree that transcends all others. In that is the miracle. I believe +beforehand that it ought so to be. All men stand continually in the expectation +of the appearance of such a teacher. But if a man do not speak from within the +veil, where the word is one with that it tells of, let him lowly confess it. +</p> + +<p> +The same Omniscience flows into the intellect, and makes what we call genius. +Much of the wisdom of the world is not wisdom, and the most illuminated class +of men are no doubt superior to literary fame, and are not writers. Among the +multitude of scholars and authors, we feel no hallowing presence; we are +sensible of a knack and skill rather than of inspiration; they have a light and +know not whence it comes and call it their own; their talent is some +exaggerated faculty, some overgrown member, so that their strength is a +disease. In these instances the intellectual gifts do not make the impression +of virtue, but almost of vice; and we feel that a man’s talents stand in +the way of his advancement in truth. But genius is religious. It is a larger +imbibing of the common heart. It is not anomalous, but more like and not less +like other men. There is in all great poets a wisdom of humanity which is +superior to any talents they exercise. The author, the wit, the partisan, the +fine gentleman, does not take place of the man. Humanity shines in Homer, in +Chaucer, in Spenser, in Shakspeare, in Milton. They are content with truth. +They use the positive degree. They seem frigid and phlegmatic to those who have +been spiced with the frantic passion and violent coloring of inferior but +popular writers. For they are poets by the free course which they allow to the +informing soul, which through their eyes beholds again and blesses the things +which it hath made. The soul is superior to its knowledge, wiser than any of +its works. The great poet makes us feel our own wealth, and then we think less +of his compositions. His best communication to our mind is to teach us to +despise all he has done. Shakspeare carries us to such a lofty strain of +intelligent activity as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then +feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we +extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature +than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which +uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day +for ever. Why then should I make account of Hamlet and Lear, as if we had not +the soul from which they fell as syllables from the tongue? +</p> + +<p> +This energy does not descend into individual life on any other condition than +entire possession. It comes to the lowly and simple; it comes to whomsoever +will put off what is foreign and proud; it comes as insight; it comes as +serenity and grandeur. When we see those whom it inhabits, we are apprised of +new degrees of greatness. From that inspiration the man comes back with a +changed tone. He does not talk with men with an eye to their opinion. He tries +them. It requires of us to be plain and true. The vain traveller attempts to +embellish his life by quoting my lord and the prince and the countess, who thus +said or did to <i>him</i>. The ambitious vulgar show you their spoons and +brooches and rings, and preserve their cards and compliments. The more +cultivated, in their account of their own experience, cull out the pleasing, +poetic circumstance,—the visit to Rome, the man of genius they saw, the +brilliant friend They know; still further on perhaps the gorgeous landscape, +the mountain lights, the mountain thoughts they enjoyed yesterday,—and so +seek to throw a romantic color over their life. But the soul that ascends to +worship the great God is plain and true; has no rose-color, no fine friends, no +chivalry, no adventures; does not want admiration; dwells in the hour that now +is, in the earnest experience of the common day,—by reason of the present +moment and the mere trifle having become porous to thought and bibulous of the +sea of light. +</p> + +<p> +Converse with a mind that is grandly simple, and literature looks like +word-catching. The simplest utterances are worthiest to be written, yet are +they so cheap and so things of course, that in the infinite riches of the soul +it is like gathering a few pebbles off the ground, or bottling a little air in +a phial, when the whole earth and the whole atmosphere are ours. Nothing can +pass there, or make you one of the circle, but the casting aside your +trappings, and dealing man to man in naked truth, plain confession, and +omniscient affirmation. +</p> + +<p> +Souls such as these treat you as gods would, walk as gods in the earth, +accepting without any admiration your wit, your bounty, your virtue +even,—say rather your act of duty, for your virtue they own as their +proper blood, royal as themselves, and over-royal, and the father of the gods. +But what rebuke their plain fraternal bearing casts on the mutual flattery with +which authors solace each other and wound themselves! These flatter not. I do +not wonder that these men go to see Cromwell and Christina and Charles the +Second and James the First and the Grand Turk. For they are, in their own +elevation, the fellows of kings, and must feel the servile tone of conversation +in the world. They must always be a godsend to princes, for they confront them, +a king to a king, without ducking or concession, and give a high nature the +refreshment and satisfaction of resistance, of plain humanity, of even +companionship and of new ideas. They leave them wiser and superior men. Souls +like these make us feel that sincerity is more excellent than flattery. Deal so +plainly with man and woman as to constrain the utmost sincerity and destroy all +hope of trifling with you. It is the highest compliment you can pay. Their +“highest praising,” said Milton, “is not flattery, and their +plainest advice is a kind of praising.” +</p> + +<p> +Ineffable is the union of man and God in every act of the soul. The simplest +person who in his integrity worships God, becomes God; yet for ever and ever +the influx of this better and universal self is new and unsearchable. It +inspires awe and astonishment. How dear, how soothing to man, arises the idea +of God, peopling the lonely place, effacing the scars of our mistakes and +disappointments! When we have broken our god of tradition and ceased from our +god of rhetoric, then may God fire the heart with his presence. It is the +doubling of the heart itself, nay, the infinite enlargement of the heart with a +power of growth to a new infinity on every side. It inspires in man an +infallible trust. He has not the conviction, but the sight, that the best is +the true, and may in that thought easily dismiss all particular uncertainties +and fears, and adjourn to the sure revelation of time the solution of his +private riddles. He is sure that his welfare is dear to the heart of being. 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 flood. He believes that he cannot escape from his good. The +things that are really for thee gravitate to thee. You are running to seek your +friend. Let your feet run, but your mind need not. If you do not find him, will +you not acquiesce that it is best you should not find him? for there is a +power, which, as it is in you, is in him also, and could therefore very well +bring you together, if it were for the best. You are preparing with eagerness +to go and render a service to which your talent and your taste invite you, the +love of men and the hope of fame. Has it not occurred to you that you have no +right to go, unless you are equally willing to be prevented from going? O, +believe, as thou livest, that every sound that is spoken over the round world, +which thou oughtest to hear, will vibrate on thine ear! Every proverb, every +book, every byword that belongs to thee for aid or comfort, shall surely come +home through open or winding passages. Every friend whom not thy fantastic will +but the great and tender heart in thee craveth, shall lock thee in his embrace. +And this because the heart in thee is the heart of all; not a valve, not a +wall, not an intersection is there anywhere in nature, but one blood rolls +uninterruptedly an endless circulation through all men, as the water of the +globe is all one sea, and, truly seen, its tide is one. +</p> + +<p> +Let man then learn the revelation of all nature and all thought to his heart; +this, namely; that the Highest dwells with him; that the sources of nature are +in his own mind, if the sentiment of duty is there. But if he would know what +the great God speaketh, he must ‘go into his closet and shut the +door,’ as Jesus said. God will not make himself manifest to cowards. He +must greatly listen to himself, withdrawing himself from all the accents of +other men’s devotion. Even their prayers are hurtful to him, until he +have made his own. Our religion vulgarly stands on numbers of believers. +Whenever the appeal is made,—no matter how indirectly,—to numbers, +proclamation is then and there made that religion is not. He that finds God a +sweet enveloping thought to him never counts his company. When I sit in that +presence, who shall dare to come in? When I rest in perfect humility, when I +burn with pure love, what can Calvin or Swedenborg say? +</p> + +<p> +It makes no difference whether the appeal is to numbers or to one. The faith +that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the +decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. The position men have given to +Jesus, now for many centuries of history, is a position of authority. It +characterizes themselves. It cannot alter the eternal facts. Great is the soul, +and plain. It is no flatterer, it is no follower; it never appeals from itself. +It believes in itself. Before the immense possibilities of man all mere +experience, all past biography, however spotless and sainted, shrinks away. +Before that heaven which our presentiments foreshow us, we cannot easily praise +any form of life we have seen or read of. We not only affirm that we have few +great men, but, absolutely speaking, that we have none; that we have no +history, no record of any character or mode of living that entirely contents +us. The saints and demigods whom history worships we are constrained to accept +with a grain of allowance. Though in our lonely hours we draw a new strength +out of their memory, yet, pressed on our attention, as they are by the +thoughtless and customary, they fatigue and invade. The soul gives itself, +alone, original and pure, to the Lonely, Original and Pure, who, on that +condition, gladly inhabits, leads and speaks through it. Then is it glad, young +and nimble. It is not wise, but it sees through all things. It is not called +religious, but it is innocent. It calls the light its own, and feels that the +grass grows and the stone falls by a law inferior to, and dependent on, its +nature. Behold, it saith, I am born into the great, the universal mind. I, the +imperfect, adore my own Perfect. I am somehow receptive of the great soul, and +thereby I do Overlook the sun and the stars and feel them to be the fair +accidents and effects which change and pass. More and more the surges of +everlasting nature enter into me, and I become public and human in my regards +and actions. So come I to live in thoughts and act with energies which are +immortal. Thus revering the soul, and learning, as the ancient said, that +“its beauty is immense,” man will come to see that the world is the +perennial miracle which the soul worketh, and be less astonished at particular +wonders; he will learn that there is no profane history; that all history is +sacred; that the universe is represented in an atom, in a moment of time. He +will weave no longer a spotted life of shreds and patches, but he will live +with a divine unity. He will cease from what is base and frivolous in his life +and be content with all places and with any service he can render. 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 heart. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0010" id="link2H_4_0010"></a>X.<br /> +CIRCLES</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Nature centres into balls,<br /> +And her proud ephemerals,<br /> +Fast to surface and outside,<br /> +Scan the profile of the sphere;<br /> +Knew they what that signified,<br /> +A new genesis were here. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>CIRCLES</h2> + +<p> +The eye is the first circle; the horizon which it forms is the second; and +throughout nature this primary figure is repeated without end. It is the +highest emblem in the cipher of the world. St. Augustine described the nature +of God as a circle whose centre was everywhere and its circumference nowhere. +We are all our lifetime reading the copious sense of this first of forms. One +moral we have already deduced, in considering the circular or compensatory +character of every human action. Another analogy we shall now trace, that every +action admits of being outdone. Our life is an apprenticeship to the truth that +around every circle another can be drawn; that there is no end in nature, but +every end is a beginning; that there is always another dawn risen on mid-noon, +and under every deep a lower deep opens. +</p> + +<p> +This fact, as far as it symbolizes the moral fact of the Unattainable, the +flying Perfect, around which the hands of man can never meet, at once the +inspirer and the condemner of every success, may conveniently serve us to +connect many illustrations of human power in every department. +</p> + +<p> +There are no fixtures in nature. The universe is fluid and volatile. Permanence +is but a word of degrees. Our globe seen by God is a transparent law, not a +mass of facts. The law dissolves the fact and holds it fluid. Our culture is +the predominance of an idea which draws after it this train of cities and +institutions. Let us rise into another idea: they will disappear. The Greek +sculpture is all melted away, as if it had been statues of ice; here and there +a solitary figure or fragment remaining, as we see flecks and scraps of snow +left in cold dells and mountain clefts in June and July. For the genius that +created it creates now somewhat else. The Greek letters last a little longer, +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 old. The +new continents are built out of the ruins of an old planet; the new races fed +out of the decomposition of the foregoing. New arts destroy the old. See the +investment of capital in aqueducts made useless by hydraulics; fortifications, +by gunpowder; roads and canals, by railways; sails, by steam; steam by +electricity. +</p> + +<p> +You admire this tower of granite, weathering the hurts of so many ages. Yet a +little waving hand built this huge wall, and that which builds is better than +that which is built. The hand that built can topple it down much faster. Better +than the hand and nimbler was the invisible thought which wrought through it; +and thus ever, behind the coarse effect, is a fine cause, which, being narrowly +seen, is itself the effect of a finer cause. Every thing looks permanent until +its secret is known. A rich estate appears to women a firm and lasting fact; to +a merchant, one easily created out of any materials, and easily lost. An +orchard, good tillage, good grounds, seem a fixture, like a gold mine, or a +river, to a citizen; but to a large farmer, not much more fixed than the state +of the crop. Nature looks provokingly stable and secular, but it has a cause +like all the rest; and when once I comprehend that, will these fields stretch +so immovably wide, these leaves hang so individually considerable? Permanence +is a word of degrees. Every thing is medial. Moons are no more bounds to +spiritual power than bat-balls. +</p> + +<p> +The key to every man is his thought. Sturdy and defying though he look, he has +a helm which he obeys, which is the idea after which all his facts are +classified. He can only be reformed by showing him a new idea which commands +his own. The life of man is a self-evolving circle, which, from a ring +imperceptibly small, rushes on all sides outwards to new and larger circles, +and that without end. The extent to which this generation of circles, wheel +without wheel, will go, depends on the force or truth of the individual soul. +For it is the inert effort of each thought, having formed itself into a +circular wave of circumstance,—as for instance an empire, rules of an +art, a local usage, a religious rite,—to heap itself on that ridge and to +solidify and hem in the life. But if the soul is quick and strong it bursts +over that boundary on all sides and expands another orbit on the great deep, +which also runs up into a high wave, with attempt again to stop and to bind. +But the heart refuses to be imprisoned; in its first and narrowest pulses, it +already tends outward with a vast force and to immense and innumerable +expansions. +</p> + +<p> +Every ultimate fact is only the first of a new series. Every general law only a +particular fact of some more general law presently to disclose itself. There is +no outside, no inclosing wall, no circumference to us. The man finishes his +story,—how good! how final! how it puts a new face on all things! He +fills the sky. Lo! on the other side rises also a man and draws a circle around +the circle we had just pronounced the outline of the sphere. Then already is +our first speaker not man, but only a first speaker. His only redress is +forthwith to draw a circle outside of his antagonist. And so men do by +themselves. The result of to-day, which haunts the mind and cannot be escaped, +will presently be abridged into a word, and the principle that seemed to +explain nature will itself be included as one example of a bolder +generalization. In the thought of to-morrow there is a power to upheave all thy +creed, all the creeds, all the literatures of the nations, and marshal thee to +a heaven which no epic dream has yet depicted. Every man is not so much a +workman in the world as he is a suggestion of that he should be. Men walk as +prophecies of the next age. +</p> + +<p> +Step by step we scale this mysterious ladder: the steps are actions; the new +prospect is power. Every several result is threatened and judged by that which +follows. Every one seems to be contradicted by the new; it is only limited by +the new. The new statement is always hated by the old, and, to those dwelling +in the old, comes like an abyss of scepticism. But the eye soon gets wonted to +it, for the eye and it are effects of one cause; then its innocency and benefit +appear, and presently, all its energy spent, it pales and dwindles before the +revelation of the new hour. +</p> + +<p> +Fear not the new generalization. Does the fact look crass and material, +threatening to degrade thy theory of spirit? Resist it not; it goes to refine +and raise thy theory of matter just as much. +</p> + +<p> +There are no fixtures to men, if we appeal to consciousness. Every man supposes +himself not to be fully understood; and if there is any truth in him, if he +rests at last on the divine soul, I see not how it can be otherwise. The last +chamber, the last closet, he must feel was never opened; there is always a +residuum unknown, unanalyzable. That is, every man believes that he has a +greater possibility. +</p> + +<p> +Our moods do not believe in each other. To-day I am full of thoughts and can +write what I please. I see no reason why I should not have the same thought, +the same power of expression, to-morrow. What I write, whilst I write it, seems +the most natural thing in the world; but yesterday I saw a dreary vacuity in +this direction in which now I see so much; and a month hence, I doubt not, I +shall wonder who he was that wrote so many continuous pages. Alas for this +infirm faith, this will not strenuous, this vast ebb of a vast flow! I am God +in nature; I am a weed by the wall. +</p> + +<p> +The continual effort to raise himself above himself, to work a pitch above his +last height, betrays itself in a man’s relations. We thirst for +approbation, yet cannot forgive the approver. The sweet of nature is love; yet, +if I have a friend I am tormented by my imperfections. The love of me accuses +the other party. If he were high enough to slight me, then could I love him, +and rise by my affection to new heights. A man’s growth is seen in the +successive choirs of his friends. For every friend whom he loses for truth, he +gains a better. I thought as I walked in the woods and mused on my friends, why +should I play with them this game of idolatry? I know and see too well, when +not voluntarily blind, the speedy limits of persons called high and worthy. +Rich, noble and great they are by the liberality of our speech, but truth is +sad. O blessed Spirit, whom I forsake for these, they are not thou! Every +personal consideration that we allow costs us heavenly state. We sell the +thrones of angels for a short and turbulent pleasure. +</p> + +<p> +How often must we learn this lesson? Men cease to interest us when we find +their limitations. The only sin is limitation. As soon as you once come up with +a man’s limitations, it is all over with him. Has he talents? has he +enterprise? has he knowledge? It boots not. Infinitely alluring and attractive +was he to you yesterday, a great hope, a sea to swim in; now, you have found +his shores, found it a pond, and you care not if you never see it again. +</p> + +<p> +Each new step we take in thought reconciles twenty seemingly discordant facts, +as expressions of one law. Aristotle and Plato are reckoned the respective +heads of two schools. A wise man will see that Aristotle platonizes. By going +one step farther back in thought, discordant opinions are reconciled by being +seen to be two extremes of one principle, and we can never go so far back as to +preclude a still higher vision. +</p> + +<p> +Beware when the great God lets loose a thinker on this planet. Then all things +are at risk. It is as when a conflagration has broken out in a great city, and +no man knows what is safe, or where it will end. There is not a piece of +science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; there is not any literary +reputation, not the so-called eternal names of fame, that may not be revised +and condemned. The very hopes of man, the thoughts of his heart, the religion +of nations, the manners and morals of mankind are all at the mercy of a new +generalization. Generalization is always a new influx of the divinity into the +mind. Hence the thrill that attends it. +</p> + +<p> +Valor consists in the power of self-recovery, so that a man cannot have his +flank turned, cannot be out-generalled, but put him where you will, he stands. +This can only be by his preferring truth to his past apprehension of truth, and +his alert acceptance of it from whatever quarter; the intrepid conviction that +his laws, his relations to society, his Christianity, his world, may at any +time be superseded and decease. +</p> + +<p> +There are degrees in idealism. We learn first to play with it academically, as +the magnet was once a toy. Then we see in the heyday of youth and poetry that +it may be true, that it is true in gleams and fragments. Then its countenance +waxes stern and grand, and we see that it must be true. It now shows itself +ethical and practical. We learn that God is; that he is in me; and that all +things are shadows of him. The idealism of Berkeley is only a crude statement +of the idealism of Jesus, and that again is a crude statement of the fact that +all nature is the rapid efflux of goodness executing and organizing itself. +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 men. The things which are dear to men at this hour are so on account +of the ideas which have emerged on their mental horizon, and which cause the +present order of things, as a tree bears its apples. A new degree of culture +would instantly revolutionize the entire system of human pursuits. +</p> + +<p> +Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +<i>termini</i> which bound the common of silence on every side. The parties are +not to be judged by the spirit they partake and even express under this +Pentecost. To-morrow they will have receded from this high-water mark. +To-morrow you shall find them stooping under the old pack-saddles. Yet let us +enjoy the cloven flame whilst it glows on our walls. When each new speaker +strikes a new light, emancipates us from the oppression of the last speaker, to +oppress us with the greatness and exclusiveness of his own thought, then yields +us to another redeemer, we seem to recover our rights, to become men. O, what +truths profound and executable only in ages and orbs, are supposed in the +announcement of every truth! In common hours, society sits cold and statuesque. +We all stand waiting, empty,—knowing, possibly, that we can be full, +surrounded by mighty symbols which are not symbols to us, but prose and trivial +toys. Then cometh the god and converts the statues into fiery men, and by a +flash of his eye burns up the veil which shrouded all things, and the meaning +of the very furniture, of cup and saucer, of chair and clock and tester, is +manifest. The facts which loomed so large in the fogs of +yesterday,—property, climate, breeding, personal beauty and the like, +have strangely changed their proportions. All that we reckoned settled shakes +and rattles; and literatures, cities, climates, religions, leave their +foundations and dance before our eyes. And yet here again see the swift +circumspection! Good as is discourse, silence is better, and shames it. The +length of the discourse indicates the distance of thought betwixt the speaker +and the hearer. If they were at a perfect understanding in any part, no words +would be necessary thereon. If at one in all parts, no words would be suffered. +</p> + +<p> +Literature is a point outside of our hodiernal circle through which a new one +may be described. The use of literature is to afford us a platform whence we +may command a view of our present life, a purchase by which we may move it. We +fill ourselves with ancient learning, install ourselves the best we can in +Greek, in Punic, in Roman houses, only that we may wiselier see French, English +and American houses and modes of living. In like manner we see literature best +from the midst of wild nature, or from the din of affairs, or from a high +religion. The field cannot be well seen from within the field. The astronomer +must have his diameter of the earth’s orbit as a base to find the +parallax of any star. +</p> + +<p> +Therefore we value the poet. All the argument and all the wisdom is not in the +encyclopaedia, or the treatise on metaphysics, or the Body of Divinity, but in +the sonnet or the play. In my daily work I incline to repeat my old steps, and +do not believe in remedial force, in the power of change and reform. But some +Petrarch or Ariosto, filled with the new wine of his imagination, writes me an +ode or a brisk romance, full of daring thought and action. He smites and +arouses me with his shrill tones, breaks up my whole chain of habits, and I +open my eye on my own possibilities. He claps wings to the sides of all the +solid old lumber of the world, and I am capable once more of choosing a +straight path in theory and practice. +</p> + +<p> +We have the same need to command a view of the religion of the world. We can +never see Christianity from the catechism:—from the pastures, from a boat +in the pond, from amidst the songs of wood-birds we possibly may. Cleansed by +the elemental light and wind, steeped in the sea of beautiful forms which the +field offers us, we may chance to cast a right glance back upon biography. +Christianity is rightly dear to the best of mankind; 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 prized:—“Then +shall also the Son be subject unto Him who put all things under him, that God +may be all in all.” Let the claims and virtues of persons be never so +great and welcome, the instinct of man presses eagerly onward to the impersonal +and illimitable, and gladly arms itself against the dogmatism of bigots with +this generous word out of the book itself. +</p> + +<p> +The natural world may be conceived of as a system of concentric circles, and we +now and then detect in nature slight dislocations which apprise us that this +surface on which we now stand is not fixed, but sliding. These manifold +tenacious qualities, this chemistry and vegetation, these metals and animals, +which seem to stand there for their own sake, are means and methods +only,—are words of God, and as fugitive as other words. Has the +naturalist or chemist learned his craft, who has explored the gravity of atoms +and the elective affinities, who has not yet discerned the deeper law whereof +this is only a partial or approximate statement, namely that like draws to +like, and that the goods which belong to you gravitate to you and need not be +pursued with pains and cost? Yet is that statement approximate also, and not +final. Omnipresence is a higher fact. Not through subtle subterranean channels +need friend and fact be drawn to their counterpart, but, rightly considered, +these things proceed from the eternal generation of the soul. Cause and effect +are two sides of one fact. +</p> + +<p> +The same law of eternal procession ranges all that we call the virtues, and +extinguishes each in the light of a better. The great man will not be prudent +in the popular sense; all his prudence will be so much deduction from his +grandeur. But it behooves each to see, when he sacrifices prudence, to what god +he devotes it; if to ease and pleasure, he had better be prudent still; if to a +great trust, he can well spare his mule and panniers who has a winged chariot +instead. Geoffrey draws on his boots to go through the woods, that his feet may +be safer from the bite of snakes; Aaron never thinks of such a peril. In many +years neither is harmed by such an accident. Yet it seems to me that with every +precaution you take against such an evil you put yourself into the power of the +evil. I suppose that the highest prudence is the lowest prudence. Is this too +sudden a rushing from the centre to the verge of our orbit? Think how many +times we shall fall back into pitiful calculations before we take up our rest +in the great sentiment, or make the verge of to-day the new centre. Besides, +your bravest sentiment is familiar to the humblest men. The poor and the low +have their way of expressing the last facts of philosophy as well as you. +“Blessed be nothing” and “The worse things are, the better +they are” are proverbs which express the transcendentalism of common +life. +</p> + +<p> +One man’s justice is another’s injustice; one man’s beauty +another’s ugliness; one man’s wisdom another’s folly; as one +beholds the same objects from a higher point. One man thinks justice consists +in paying debts, and has no measure in his abhorrence of another who is very +remiss in this duty and makes the creditor wait tediously. But that second man +has his own way of looking at things; asks himself Which debt must I pay first, +the debt to the rich, or the debt to the poor? the debt of money, or the debt +of thought to mankind, of genius to nature? For you, O broker, there is no +other principle but arithmetic. For me, commerce is of trivial import; love, +faith, truth of character, the aspiration of man, these are sacred; nor can I +detach one duty, like you, from all other duties, and concentrate my forces +mechanically on the payment of moneys. Let me live onward; you shall find that, +though slower, the progress of my character will liquidate all these debts +without injustice to higher claims. If a man should dedicate himself to the +payment of notes, would not this be injustice? Does he owe no debt but money? +And are all claims on him to be postponed to a landlord’s or a +banker’s? +</p> + +<p> +There is no virtue which is final; all are initial. The virtues of society are +vices of the saint. The terror of reform is the discovery that we must cast +away our virtues, or what we have always esteemed such, into the same pit that +has consumed our grosser vices:— +</p> + +<p class="poem"> +“Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too,<br /> +Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.” +</p> + +<p> +It is the highest power of divine moments that they abolish our contritions +also. I accuse myself of sloth and unprofitableness day by day; but when these +waves of God flow into me I no longer reckon lost time. I no longer poorly +compute my possible achievement by what remains to me of the month or the year; +for these moments confer a sort of omnipresence and omnipotence which asks +nothing of duration, but sees that the energy of the mind is commensurate with +the work to be done, without time. +</p> + +<p> +And thus, O circular philosopher, I hear some reader exclaim, you have arrived +at a fine Pyrrhonism, at an equivalence and indifferency of all actions, and +would fain teach us that <i>if we are true</i>, forsooth, our crimes may be +lively stones out of which we shall construct the temple of the true God! +</p> + +<p> +I am not careful to justify myself. I own I am gladdened by seeing the +predominance of the saccharine principle throughout vegetable nature, and not +less by beholding in morals that unrestrained inundation of the principle of +good into every chink and hole that selfishness has left open, yea into +selfishness and sin itself; so that no evil is pure, nor hell itself without +its extreme satisfactions. But lest I should mislead any when I have my own +head and obey my whims, let me remind the reader that I am only an +experimenter. Do not set the least value on what I do, or the least discredit +on what I do not, as if I pretended to settle any thing as true or false. I +unsettle all things. No facts are to me sacred; none are profane; I simply +experiment, an endless seeker with no Past at my back. +</p> + +<p> +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 soul. Whilst the eternal generation of circles proceeds, the +eternal generator abides. That central life is somewhat superior to creation, +superior to knowledge and thought, and contains all its circles. For ever it +labors to create a life and thought as Large and excellent as itself, but in +vain, for that which is made instructs how to make a better. +</p> + +<p> +Thus there is no sleep, no pause, no preservation, but all things renew, +germinate and spring. Why should we import rags and relics into the new hour? +Nature abhors the old, and old age seems the only disease; all others run into +this one. We call it by many names,—fever, intemperance, insanity, +stupidity and crime; they are all forms of old age; they are rest, +conservatism, appropriation, inertia; not newness, not the way onward. We +grizzle every day. I see no need of it. Whilst we converse with what is above +us, we do not grow old, but grow young. Infancy, youth, receptive, aspiring, +with religious eye looking upward, counts itself nothing and abandons itself to +the instruction flowing from all sides. But the man and woman of seventy assume +to know all, they have outlived their hope, they renounce aspiration, accept +the actual for the necessary and talk down to the young. Let them, then, become +organs of the Holy Ghost; let them be lovers; let them behold truth; and their +eyes are uplifted, their wrinkles smoothed, they are perfumed again with hope +and power. This old age ought not to creep on a human mind. In nature every +moment is new; the past is always swallowed and forgotten; the coming only is +sacred. Nothing is secure but life, transition, the energizing spirit. No love +can be bound by oath or covenant to secure it against a higher love. No truth +so sublime but it may be trivial to-morrow in the light of new thoughts. People +wish to be settled; only as far as they are unsettled is there any hope for +them. +</p> + +<p> +Life is a series of surprises. We do not guess to-day the mood, the pleasure, +the power of to-morrow, when we are building up our being. Of lower states, of +acts of routine and sense, we can tell somewhat; but the masterpieces of God, +the total growths and universal movements of the soul, he hideth; they are +incalculable. I can know that truth is divine and helpful; but how it shall +help me I can have no guess, for <i>so to be</i> is the sole inlet of <i>so to +know</i>. The new position of the advancing man has all the powers of the old, +yet has them all new. It carries in its bosom all the energies of the past, yet +is itself an exhalation of the morning. I cast away in this new moment all my +once hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now, for the first time seem I to +know any thing rightly. The simplest words,—we do not know what they mean +except when we love and aspire. +</p> + +<p> +The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the old and +trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new and better +goals. Character makes an overpowering present; a cheerful, determined hour, +which fortifies all the company by making them see that much is possible and +excellent that was not thought of. Character dulls the impression of particular +events. When we see the conqueror we do not think much of any one battle or +success. We see that we had exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The +great man is not convulsible or tormentable; events pass over him without much +impression. People say sometimes, ‘See what I have overcome; see how +cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed over these black +events.’ Not if they still remind me of the black event. True conquest is +the causing the calamity to fade and disappear as an early cloud of +insignificant result in a history so large and advancing. +</p> + +<p> +The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget ourselves, to +be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our sempiternal memory and to do +something without knowing how or why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing +great was ever achieved without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful; it is +by abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of performance +through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and religion. “A +man,” said Oliver Cromwell, “never rises so high as when he knows +not whither he is going.” Dreams and drunkenness, the use of opium and +alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this oracular genius, and hence +their dangerous attraction for men. For the like reason they ask the aid of +wild passions, as in gaming and war, to ape in some manner these flames and +generosities of the heart. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0011" id="link2H_4_0011"></a>XI.<br /> +INTELLECT</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Go, speed the stars of Thought<br /> +On to their shining goals;—<br /> +The sower scatters broad his seed,<br /> +The wheat thou strew’st be souls. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>INTELLECT</h2> + +<p> +Every substance is negatively electric to that which stands above it in the +chemical tables, positively to that which stands below it. Water dissolves wood +and iron and salt; air dissolves water; electric fire dissolves air, but the +intellect dissolves fire, gravity, laws, method, and the subtlest unnamed +relations of nature in its resistless menstruum. Intellect lies behind genius, +which is intellect constructive. Intellect is the simple power anterior to all +action or construction. Gladly would I unfold in calm degrees a natural history +of the intellect, but what man has yet been able to mark the steps and +boundaries of that transparent essence? The first questions are always to be +asked, and the wisest doctor is gravelled by the inquisitiveness of a child. +How can we speak of the action of the mind under any divisions, as of its +knowledge, of its ethics, of its works, and so forth, since it melts will into +perception, knowledge into act? Each becomes the other. Itself alone is. Its +vision is not like the vision of the eye, but is union with the things known. +</p> + +<p> +Intellect and intellection signify to the common ear consideration of abstract +truth. The considerations of time and place, of you and me, of profit and hurt +tyrannize over most men’s minds. Intellect separates the fact considered, +from you, from all local and personal reference, and discerns it as if it +existed for its own sake. Heraclitus looked upon the affections as dense and +colored mists. In the fog of good and evil affections it is hard for man to +walk forward in a straight line. Intellect is void of affection and sees an +object as it stands in the light of science, cool and disengaged. The intellect +goes out of the individual, floats over its own personality, and regards it as +a fact, and not as <i>I</i> and <i>mine</i>. He who is immersed in what +concerns person or place cannot see the problem of existence. This the +intellect always ponders. Nature shows all things formed and bound. The +intellect pierces the form, overleaps the wall, detects intrinsic likeness +between remote things and reduces all things into a few principles. +</p> + +<p> +The making a fact the subject of thought raises it. All that mass of mental and +moral phenomena which we do not make objects of voluntary thought, come within +the power of fortune; they constitute the circumstance of daily life; they are +subject to change, to fear, and hope. Every man beholds his human condition +with a degree of melancholy. As a ship aground is battered by the waves, so +man, imprisoned in mortal life, lies open to the mercy of coming events. But a +truth, separated by the intellect, is no longer a subject of destiny. We behold +it as a god upraised above care and fear. And so any fact in our life, or any +record of our fancies or reflections, disentangled from the web of our +unconsciousness, becomes an object impersonal and immortal. It is the past +restored, but embalmed. A better art than that of Egypt has taken fear and +corruption out of it. It is eviscerated of care. It is offered for science. +What is addressed to us for contemplation does not threaten us but makes us +intellectual beings. +</p> + +<p> +The growth of the intellect is spontaneous in every expansion. The mind that +grows could not predict the times, the means, the mode of that spontaneity. God +enters by a private door into every individual. Long prior to the age of +reflection is the thinking of the mind. Out of darkness it came insensibly into +the marvellous light of to-day. In the period of infancy it accepted and +disposed of all impressions from the surrounding creation after its own way. +Whatever any mind doth or saith is after a law; and this native law remains +over it after it has come to reflection or conscious thought. In the most worn, +pedantic, introverted self-tormenter’s life, the greatest part is +incalculable by him, unforeseen, unimaginable, and must be, until he can take +himself up by his own ears. What am I? What has my will done to make me that I +am? Nothing. I have been floated into this thought, this hour, this connection +of events, by secret currents of might and mind, and my ingenuity and +wilfulness have not thwarted, have not aided to an appreciable degree. +</p> + +<p> +Our spontaneous action is always the best. You cannot with your best +deliberation and heed come so close to any question as your spontaneous glance +shall bring you, whilst you rise from your bed, or walk abroad in the morning +after meditating the matter before sleep on the previous night. Our thinking is +a pious reception. Our truth of thought is therefore vitiated as much by too +violent direction given by our will, as by too great negligence. We do not +determine what we will think. We only open our senses, clear away as we can all +obstruction from the fact, and suffer the intellect to see. We have little +control over our thoughts. We are the prisoners of ideas. They catch us up for +moments into their heaven and so fully engage us that we take no thought for +the morrow, gaze like children, without an effort to make them our own. By and +by we fall out of that rapture, bethink us where we have been, what we have +seen, and repeat as truly as we can what we have beheld. As far as we can +recall these ecstasies we carry away in the ineffaceable memory the result, and +all men and all the ages confirm it. It is called Truth. But the moment we +cease to report and attempt to correct and contrive, it is not truth. +</p> + +<p> +If we consider what persons have stimulated and profited us, we shall perceive +the superiority of the spontaneous or intuitive principle over the arithmetical +or logical. The first contains the second, but virtual and latent. We want in +every man a long logic; we cannot pardon the absence of it, but it must not be +spoken. Logic is the procession or proportionate unfolding of the intuition; +but its virtue is as silent method; the moment it would appear as propositions +and have a separate value it is worthless. +</p> + +<p> +In every man’s mind, some images, words and facts remain, without effort +on his part to imprint them, which others forget, and afterwards these +illustrate to him important laws. All our progress is an unfolding, like the +vegetable bud. You have first an instinct, then an opinion, then a knowledge, +as the plant has root, bud and fruit. Trust the instinct to the end, though you +can render no reason. It is vain to hurry it. By trusting it to the end, it +shall ripen into truth and you shall know why you believe. +</p> + +<p> +Each mind has its own method. A true man never acquires after college rules. +What you have aggregated in a natural manner surprises and delights when it is +produced. For we cannot oversee each other’s secret. And hence the +differences between men in natural endowment are insignificant in comparison +with their common wealth. Do you think the porter and the cook have no +anecdotes, no experiences, no wonders for you? Every body knows as much as the +savant. The walls of rude minds are scrawled all over with facts, with +thoughts. They shall one day bring a lantern and read the inscriptions. Every +man, in the degree in which he has wit and culture, finds his curiosity +inflamed concerning the modes of living and thinking of other men, and +especially of those classes whose minds have not been subdued by the drill of +school education. +</p> + +<p> +This instinctive action never ceases in a healthy mind, but becomes richer and +more frequent in its informations through all states of culture. At last comes +the era of reflection, when we not only observe, but take pains to observe; +when we of set purpose sit down to consider an abstract truth; when we keep the +mind’s eye open whilst we converse, whilst we read, whilst we act, intent +to learn the secret law of some class of facts. +</p> + +<p> +What is the hardest task in the world? To think. I would put myself in the +attitude to look in the eye an abstract truth, and I cannot. I blench and +withdraw on this side and on that. I seem to know what he meant who said, No +man can see God face to face and live. For example, a man explores the basis of +civil government. Let him intend his mind without respite, without rest, in one +direction. His best heed long time avails him nothing. Yet thoughts are +flitting before him. We all but apprehend, we dimly forebode the truth. We say +I will walk abroad, and the truth will take form and clearness to me. We go +forth, but cannot find it. It seems as if we needed only the stillness and +composed attitude of the library to seize the thought. But we come in, and are +as far from it as at first. Then, in a moment, and unannounced, the truth +appears. A certain wandering light appears, and is the distinction, the +principle, we wanted. But the oracle comes because we had previously laid siege +to the shrine. It seems as if the law of the intellect resembled that law of +nature by which we now inspire, now expire the breath; by which the heart now +draws in, then hurls out the blood,—the law of undulation. So now you +must labor with your brains, and now you must forbear your activity and see +what the great Soul showeth. +</p> + +<p> +The immortality of man is as legitimately preached from the intellections as +from the moral volitions. Every intellection is mainly prospective. Its present +value is its least. Inspect what delights you in Plutarch, in Shakspeare, in +Cervantes. Each truth that a writer acquires is a lantern, which he turns full +on what facts and thoughts lay already in his mind, and behold, all the mats +and rubbish which had littered his garret become precious. Every trivial fact +in his private biography becomes an illustration of this new principle, +revisits the day, and delights all men by its piquancy and new charm. Men say, +Where did he get this? and think there was something divine in his life. But +no; they have myriads of facts just as good, would they only get a lamp to +ransack their attics withal. +</p> + +<p> +We are all wise. The difference between persons is not in wisdom but in art. I +knew, in an academical club, a person who always deferred to me; who, seeing my +whim for writing, fancied that my experiences had somewhat superior; whilst I +saw that his experiences were as good as mine. Give them to me and I would make +the same use of them. He held the old; he holds the new; I had the habit of +tacking together the old and the new which he did not use to exercise. This may +hold in the great examples. Perhaps if we should meet Shakspeare we should not +be conscious of any steep inferiority; no, but of a great equality,—only +that he possessed a strange skill of using, of classifying, his facts, which we +lacked. For notwithstanding our utter incapacity to produce anything like +Hamlet and Othello, see the perfect reception this wit and immense knowledge of +life and liquid eloquence find in us all. +</p> + +<p> +If you gather apples in the sunshine, or make hay, or hoe corn, and then retire +within doors and shut your eyes and press them with your hand, you shall still +see apples hanging in the bright light with boughs and leaves thereto, or the +tasselled grass, or the corn-flags, and this for five or six hours afterwards. +There lie the impressions on the retentive organ, though you knew it not. So +lies the whole series of natural images with which your life has made you +acquainted, in your memory, though you know it not; and a thrill of passion +flashes light on their dark chamber, and the active power seizes instantly the +fit image, as the word of its momentary thought. +</p> + +<p> +It is long ere we discover how rich we are. Our history, we are sure, is quite +tame: we have nothing to write, nothing to infer. But our wiser years still run +back to the despised recollections of childhood, and always we are fishing up +some wonderful article out of that pond; until by and by we begin to suspect +that the biography of the one foolish person we know is, in reality, nothing +less than the miniature paraphrase of the hundred volumes of the Universal +History. +</p> + +<p> +In the intellect constructive, which we popularly designate by the word Genius, +we observe the same balance of two elements as in intellect receptive. The +constructive intellect produces thoughts, sentences, poems, plans, designs, +systems. It is the generation of the mind, the marriage of thought with nature. +To genius must always go two gifts, the thought and the publication. The first +is revelation, always a miracle, which no frequency of occurrence or incessant +study can ever familiarize, but which must always leave the inquirer stupid +with wonder. It is the advent of truth into the world, a form of thought now +for the first time bursting into the universe, a child of the old eternal soul, +a piece of genuine and immeasurable greatness. It seems, for the time, to +inherit all that has yet existed and to dictate to the unborn. It affects every +thought of man and goes to fashion every institution. But to make it available +it needs a vehicle or art by which it is conveyed to men. To be communicable it +must become picture or sensible object. We must learn the language of facts. +The most wonderful inspirations die with their subject if he has no hand to +paint them to the senses. The ray of light passes invisible through space and +only when it falls on an object is it seen. When the spiritual energy is +directed on something outward, then it is a thought. The relation between it +and you first makes you, the value of you, apparent to me. The rich inventive +genius of the painter must be smothered and lost for want of the power of +drawing, and in our happy hours we should be inexhaustible poets if once we +could break through the silence into adequate rhyme. As all men have some +access to primary truth, so all have some art or power of communication in +their head, but only in the artist does it descend into the hand. There is an +inequality, whose laws we do not yet know, between two men and between two +moments of the same man, in respect to this faculty. In common hours we have +the same facts as in the uncommon or inspired, but they do not sit for their +portraits; they are not detached, but lie in a web. The thought of genius is +spontaneous; but the power of picture or expression, in the most enriched and +flowing nature, implies a mixture of will, a certain control over the +spontaneous states, without which no production is possible. It is a conversion +of all nature into the rhetoric of thought, under the eye of judgment, with a +strenuous exercise of choice. And yet the imaginative vocabulary seems to be +spontaneous also. It does not flow from experience only or mainly, but from a +richer source. Not by any conscious imitation of particular forms are the grand +strokes of the painter executed, but by repairing to the fountain-head of all +forms in his mind. Who is the first drawing-master? Without instruction we know +very well the ideal of the human form. A child knows if an arm or a leg be +distorted in a picture; if the attitude be natural or grand or mean; though he +has never received any instruction in drawing or heard any conversation on the +subject, nor can himself draw with correctness a single feature. A good form +strikes all eyes pleasantly, long before they have any science on the subject, +and a beautiful face sets twenty hearts in palpitation, prior to all +consideration of the mechanical proportions of the features and head. We may +owe to dreams some light on the fountain of this skill; for as soon as we let +our will go and let the unconscious states ensue, see what cunning draughtsmen +we are! We entertain ourselves with wonderful forms of men, of women, of +animals, of gardens, of woods and of monsters, and the mystic pencil wherewith +we then draw has no awkwardness or inexperience, no meagreness or poverty; it +can design well and group well; its composition is full of art, its colors are +well laid on and the whole canvas which it paints is lifelike and apt to touch +us with terror, with tenderness, with desire and with grief. Neither are the +artist’s copies from experience ever mere copies, but always touched and +softened by tints from this ideal domain. +</p> + +<p> +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 time. Yet when we write with ease and come out into the free air of +thought, we seem to be assured that nothing is easier than to continue this +communication at pleasure. Up, down, around, the kingdom of thought has no +inclosures, but the Muse makes us free of her city. Well, the world has a +million writers. One would think then that good thought would be as familiar as +air and water, and the gifts of each new hour would exclude the last. Yet we +can count all our good books; nay, I remember any beautiful verse for twenty +years. It is true that the discerning intellect of the world is always much in +advance of the creative, so that there are many competent judges of the best +book, and few writers of the best books. But some of the conditions of +intellectual construction are of rare occurrence. The intellect is a whole and +demands integrity in every work. This is resisted equally by a man’s +devotion to a single thought and by his ambition to combine too many. +</p> + +<p> +Truth is our element of life, yet if a man fasten his attention on a single +aspect of truth and apply himself to that alone for a long time, the truth +becomes distorted and not itself but falsehood; herein resembling the air, +which is our natural element, and the breath of our nostrils, but if a stream +of the same be directed on the body for a time, it causes cold, fever, and even +death. How wearisome the grammarian, the phrenologist, the political or +religious fanatic, or indeed any possessed mortal whose balance is lost by the +exaggeration of a single topic. It is incipient insanity. Every thought is a +prison also. I cannot see what you see, 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 horizon. +</p> + +<p> +Is it any better if the student, to avoid this offence, and to liberalize +himself, aims to make a mechanical whole of history, or science, or philosophy, +by a numerical addition of all the facts that fall within his vision? The world +refuses to be analyzed by addition and subtraction. When we are young we spend +much time and pains in filling our note-books with all definitions of Religion, +Love, Poetry, Politics, Art, 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 arrived. But year after year our tables get no +completeness, and at last we discover that our curve is a parabola, whose arcs +will never meet. +</p> + +<p> +Neither by detachment neither by aggregation is the integrity of the intellect +transmitted to its works, but by a vigilance which brings the intellect in its +greatness and best state to operate every moment. It must have the same +wholeness which nature has. Although no diligence can rebuild the universe in a +model by the best accumulation or disposition of details, yet does the world +reappear in miniature in every event, so that all the laws of nature may be +read in the smallest fact. The intellect must have the like perfection in its +apprehension and in its works. For this reason, an index or mercury of +intellectual proficiency is the perception of identity. We talk with +accomplished persons who appear to be strangers in nature. The cloud, the tree, +the turf, the bird are not theirs, have nothing of them; the world is only +their lodging and table. But the poet, whose verses are to be spheral and +complete, is one whom Nature cannot deceive, whatsoever face of strangeness she +may put on. He feels a strict consanguinity, and detects more likeness than +variety in all her changes. We are stung by the desire for new thought; but +when we receive a new thought it is only the old thought with a new face, and +though we make it our own we instantly crave another; we are not really +enriched. For the truth was in us before it was reflected to us from natural +objects; and the profound genius will cast the likeness of all creatures into +every product of his wit. +</p> + +<p> +But if the constructive powers are rare and it is given to few men to be poets, +yet every man is a receiver of this descending holy ghost, and may well study +the laws of its influx. Exactly parallel is the whole rule of intellectual duty +to the rule of moral duty. A self-denial no less austere than the saint’s +is demanded of the scholar. He must worship truth, and forego all things for +that, and choose defeat and pain, so that his treasure in thought is thereby +augmented. +</p> + +<p> +God offers to every mind its choice between truth and repose. Take which you +please,—you can never have both. Between these, as a pendulum, man +oscillates. He in whom the love of repose predominates will accept the first +creed, the first philosophy, the first political party he meets,—most +likely his father’s. He gets rest, commodity, and reputation; but he +shuts the door of truth. He in whom the love of truth predominates will keep +himself aloof from all moorings, and afloat. He will abstain from dogmatism, +and recognize all the opposite negations between which, as walls, his being is +swung. He submits to the inconvenience of suspense and imperfect opinion, but +he is a candidate for truth, as the other is not, and respects the highest law +of his being. +</p> + +<p> +The circle of the green earth he must measure with his shoes to find the man +who can yield him truth. He shall then know that there is somewhat more blessed +and great in hearing than in speaking. Happy is the hearing man; unhappy the +speaking man. As long as I hear truth I am bathed by a beautiful element and am +not conscious of any limits to my nature. The suggestions are thousandfold that +I hear and see. The waters of the great deep have ingress and egress to the +soul. But if I speak, I define, I confine and am less. When Socrates speaks, +Lysis and Menexenus are afflicted by no shame that they do not speak. They also +are good. He likewise defers to them, loves them, whilst he speaks. Because a +true and natural man contains and is the same truth which an eloquent man +articulates; but in the eloquent man, because he can articulate it, it seems +something the less to reside, and he turns to these silent beautiful with the +more inclination and respect. The ancient sentence said, Let us be silent, for +so are the gods. Silence is a solvent that destroys personality, and gives us +leave to be great and universal. Every man’s progress is through a +succession of teachers, each of whom seems at the time to have a superlative +influence, but it at last gives place to a new. Frankly let him accept it all. +Jesus says, Leave father, mother, house and lands, and follow me. Who leaves +all, receives more. This is as true intellectually as morally. Each new mind we +approach seems to require an abdication of all our past and present +possessions. A new doctrine seems at first a subversion of all our opinions, +tastes, and manner of living. Such has Swedenborg, such has Kant, such has +Coleridge, such has Hegel or his interpreter Cousin seemed to many young men in +this country. Take thankfully and heartily all they can give. Exhaust them, +wrestle with them, let them not go until their blessing be won, and after a +short season the dismay will be overpast, the excess of influence withdrawn, +and they will be no longer an alarming meteor, but one more bright star shining +serenely in your heaven and blending its light with all your day. +</p> + +<p> +But whilst he gives himself up unreservedly to that which draws him, because +that is his own, he is to refuse himself to that which draws him not, +whatsoever fame and authority may attend it, because it is not his own. Entire +self-reliance belongs to the intellect. One soul is a counterpoise of all +souls, as a capillary column of water is a balance for the sea. It must treat +things and books and sovereign genius as itself also a sovereign. If Æschylus +be that man he is taken for, he has not yet done his office when he has +educated the learned of Europe for a thousand years. He is now to approve +himself a master of delight to me also. If he cannot do that, all his fame +shall avail him nothing with me. I were a fool not to sacrifice a thousand +Æschyluses to my intellectual integrity. Especially take the same ground in +regard to abstract truth, the science of the mind. The Bacon, the Spinoza, the +Hume, Schelling, Kant, or whosoever propounds to you a philosophy of the mind, +is only a more or less awkward translator of things in your consciousness which +you have also your way of seeing, perhaps of denominating. Say then, instead of +too timidly poring into his obscure sense, that he has not succeeded in +rendering back to you your consciousness. He has not succeeded; now let another +try. If Plato cannot, perhaps Spinoza will. If Spinoza cannot, then perhaps +Kant. Anyhow, when at last it is done, you will find it is no recondite, but a +simple, natural, common state which the writer restores to you. +</p> + +<p> +But let us end these didactics. I will not, though the subject might provoke +it, speak to the open question between Truth and Love. I shall not presume to +interfere in the old politics of the skies;—“The cherubim know +most; the seraphim love most.” The gods shall settle their own quarrels. +But I cannot recite, even thus rudely, laws of the intellect, without +remembering that lofty and sequestered class of men who have been its prophets +and oracles, the high-priesthood of the pure reason, the <i>Trismegisti</i>, +the expounders of the principles of thought from age to age. When at long +intervals we turn over their abstruse pages, wonderful seems the calm and grand +air of these few, these great spiritual lords who have walked in the +world,—these of the old religion,—dwelling in a worship which makes +the sanctities of Christianity look <i>parvenues</i> and popular; for +“persuasion is in soul, but necessity is in intellect.” This band +of grandees, Hermes, Heraclitus, Empedocles, Plato, Plotinus, Olympiodorus, +Proclus, Synesius and the rest, have somewhat so vast in their logic, so +primary in their thinking, that it seems antecedent to all the ordinary +distinctions of rhetoric and literature, and to be at once poetry and music and +dancing and astronomy and mathematics. I am present at the sowing of the seed +of the world. With a geometry of sunbeams the soul lays the foundations of +nature. The truth and grandeur of their thought is proved by its scope and +applicability, for it commands the entire schedule and inventory of things for +its illustration. But what marks its elevation and has even a comic look to us, +is the innocent serenity with which these babe-like Jupiters sit in their +clouds, and from age to age prattle to each other and to no contemporary. Well +assured that their speech is intelligible and the most natural thing in the +world, they add thesis to thesis, without a moment’s heed of the +universal astonishment of the human race below, who do not comprehend their +plainest argument; nor do they ever relent so much as to insert a popular or +explaining sentence, nor testify the least displeasure or petulance at the +dulness of their amazed auditory. 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 men, but speak their own, whether there be any who +understand it or not. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2><a name="link2H_4_0012" id="link2H_4_0012"></a>XII.<br /> +ART</h2> + +<p class="poem"> +Give to barrows trays and pans<br /> +Grace and glimmer of romance,<br /> +Bring the moonlight into noon<br /> +Hid in gleaming piles of stone;<br /> +On the city’s paved street<br /> +Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet,<br /> +Let spouting fountains cool the air,<br /> +Singing in the sun-baked square.<br /> +Let statue, picture, park and hall,<br /> +Ballad, flag and festival,<br /> +The past restore, the day adorn<br /> +And make each morrow a new morn<br /> +So shall the drudge in dusty frock<br /> +Spy behind the city clock<br /> +Retinues of airy kings,<br /> +Skirts of angels, starry wings,<br /> +His fathers shining in bright fables,<br /> +His children fed at heavenly tables.<br /> +’Tis the privilege of Art<br /> +Thus to play its cheerful part,<br /> +Man in Earth to acclimate<br /> +And bend the exile to his fate,<br /> +And, moulded of one element<br /> +With the days and firmament,<br /> +Teach him on these as stairs to climb<br /> +And live on even terms with Time;<br /> +Whilst upper life the slender rill<br /> +Of human sense doth overfill. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + +<div class="chapter"> + +<h2>ART</h2> + +<p> +Because the soul is progressive, it never quite repeats itself, but in every +act attempts the production of a new and fairer whole. This appears in works +both of the useful and the fine arts, if we employ the popular distinction of +works according to their aim either at use or beauty. Thus in our fine arts, +not imitation but creation is the aim. In landscapes the painter should give +the suggestion of a fairer creation than we know. The details, the prose of +nature he should omit and give us only the spirit and splendor. He should know +that the landscape has beauty for his eye because it expresses a thought which +is to him good; and this because the same power which sees through his eyes is +seen in that spectacle; and he will come to value the expression of nature and +not nature itself, and so exalt in his copy the features that please him. He +will give the gloom of gloom and the sunshine of sunshine. In a portrait he +must inscribe the character and not the features, and must esteem the man who +sits to him as himself only an imperfect picture or likeness of the aspiring +original within. +</p> + +<p> +What is that abridgment and selection we observe in all spiritual activity, but +itself the creative impulse? for it is the inlet of that higher illumination +which teaches to convey a larger sense by simpler symbols. What is a man but +nature’s finer success in self-explication? What is a man but a finer and +compacter landscape than the horizon figures,—nature’s eclecticism? +and what is his speech, his love of painting, love of nature, but a still finer +success,—all the weary miles and tons of space and bulk left out, and the +spirit or moral of it contracted into a musical word, or the most cunning +stroke of the pencil? +</p> + +<p> +But the artist must employ the symbols in use in his day and nation to convey +his enlarged sense to his fellow-men. Thus the new in art is always formed out +of the old. The Genius of the Hour sets his ineffaceable seal on the work and +gives it an inexpressible charm for the imagination. As far as the spiritual +character of the period overpowers the artist and finds expression in his work, +so far it will retain a certain grandeur, and will represent to future +beholders the Unknown, the Inevitable, the Divine. No man can quite exclude +this element of Necessity from his labor. No man can quite emancipate himself +from his age and country, or produce a model in which the education, the +religion, the politics, usages and arts of his times shall have no share. +Though he were never so original, never so wilful and fantastic, he cannot wipe +out of his work every trace of the thoughts amidst which it grew. The very +avoidance betrays the usage he avoids. 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 toil, to share the manner of his times, without knowing +what that manner is. Now that which is inevitable in the work has a higher +charm than individual talent can ever give, 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 race. This circumstance gives a value to the +Egyptian hieroglyphics, to the Indian, Chinese and Mexican idols, however gross +and shapeless. They denote the height of the human soul in that hour, and were +not fantastic, but sprung from a necessity as deep as the world. Shall I now +add that the whole extant product of the plastic arts has herein its highest +value, <i>as history;</i> as a stroke drawn in the portrait of that fate, +perfect and beautiful, according to whose ordinations all beings advance to +their beatitude? +</p> + +<p> +Thus, historically viewed, it has been the office of art to educate the +perception of beauty. We are immersed in beauty, but our eyes have no clear +vision. It needs, by the exhibition of single traits, to assist and lead the +dormant taste. We carve and paint, or we behold what is carved and painted, as +students of the mystery of Form. The virtue of art lies in detachment, in +sequestering one object from the embarrassing variety. Until one thing comes +out from the connection of things, there can be enjoyment, contemplation, but +no thought. Our happiness and unhappiness are unproductive. The infant lies in +a pleasing trance, but his individual character and his practical power depend +on his daily progress in the separation of things, and dealing with one at a +time. Love and all the passions concentrate all existence around a single form. +It is the habit of certain minds to give an all-excluding fulness to the +object, the thought, the word, they alight upon, and to make that for the time +the deputy of the world. These are the artists, the orators, the leaders of +society. The power to detach and to magnify by detaching is the essence of +rhetoric in the hands of the orator and the poet. This rhetoric, or power to +fix the momentary eminency of an object,—so remarkable in Burke, in +Byron, in Carlyle,—the painter and sculptor exhibit in color and in +stone. The power depends on the depth of the artist’s insight of that +object he contemplates. For every object has its roots in central nature, and +may of course be so exhibited to us as to represent the world. Therefore each +work of genius is the tyrant of the hour and concentrates attention on itself. +For the time, it is the only thing worth naming to do that,—be it a +sonnet, an opera, a landscape, a statue, an oration, the plan of a temple, of a +campaign, or of a voyage of discovery. Presently we pass to some other object, +which rounds itself into a whole as did the first; for example a well-laid +garden; and nothing seems worth doing but the laying out of gardens. I should +think fire the best thing in the world, if I were not acquainted with air, and +water, and earth. For it is the right and property of all natural objects, of +all genuine talents, of all native properties whatsoever, to be for their +moment the top of the world. A squirrel leaping from bough to bough and making +the Wood but one wide tree for his pleasure, fills the eye not less than a +lion,—is beautiful, self-sufficing, and stands then and there for nature. +A good ballad draws my ear and heart whilst I listen, as much as an epic has +done before. A dog, drawn by a master, or a litter of pigs, satisfies and is a +reality not less than the frescoes of Angelo. From this succession of excellent +objects we learn at last the immensity of the world, the opulence of human +nature, which can run out to infinitude in any direction. But I also learn that +what astonished and fascinated me in the first work astonished me in the second +work also; that excellence of all things is one. +</p> + +<p> +The office of painting and sculpture seems to be merely initial. The best +pictures can easily tell us their last secret. The best pictures are rude +draughts of a few of the miraculous dots and lines and dyes which make up the +ever-changing “landscape with figures” amidst which we dwell. +Painting seems to be to the eye what dancing is to the limbs. When that has +educated the frame to self-possession, to nimbleness, to grace, the steps of +the dancing-master are better forgotten; so painting teaches me the splendor of +color and the expression of form, and as I see many pictures and higher genius +in the art, I see the boundless opulence of the pencil, the indifferency in +which the artist stands free to choose out of the possible forms. If he can +draw every thing, why draw any thing? and then is my eye opened to the eternal +picture which nature paints in the street, with moving men and children, +beggars and fine ladies, draped in red and green and blue and gray; +long-haired, grizzled, white-faced, black-faced, wrinkled, giant, dwarf, +expanded, elfish,—capped and based by heaven, earth and sea. +</p> + +<p> +A gallery of sculpture teaches more austerely the same lesson. As picture +teaches the coloring, so sculpture the anatomy of form. When I have seen fine +statues and afterwards enter a public assembly, I understand well what he meant +who said, “When I have been reading Homer, all men look like +giants.” I too see that painting and sculpture are gymnastics of the eye, +its training to the niceties and curiosities of its function. There is no +statue like this living man, with his infinite advantage over all ideal +sculpture, of perpetual variety. What a gallery of art have I here! No +mannerist made these varied groups and diverse original single figures. Here is +the artist himself improvising, grim and glad, at his block. Now one thought +strikes him, now another, and with each moment he alters the whole air, +attitude and expression of his clay. Away with your nonsense of oil and easels, +of marble and chisels; except to open your eyes to the masteries of eternal +art, they are hypocritical rubbish. +</p> + +<p> +The reference of all production at last to an aboriginal Power explains the +traits common to all works of the highest art,—that they are universally +intelligible; that they restore to us the simplest states of mind, and are +religious. Since what skill is therein shown is the reappearance of the +original soul, a jet of pure light, it should produce a similar impression to +that made by natural objects. In happy hours, nature appears to us one with +art; art perfected,—the work of genius. And the individual, in whom +simple tastes and susceptibility to all the great human influences overpower +the accidents of a local and special culture, is the best critic of art. Though +we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us, or we +find it not. The best of beauty is a finer charm than skill in surfaces, in +outlines, or rules of art can ever teach, namely a radiation from the work of +art of human character,—a wonderful expression through stone, or canvas, +or musical sound, of the deepest and simplest attributes of our nature, and +therefore most intelligible at last to those souls which have these attributes. +In the sculptures of the Greeks, in the masonry of the Romans, and in the +pictures of the Tuscan and Venetian masters, the highest charm is the universal +language they speak. A confession of moral nature, of purity, love, and hope, +breathes from them all. That which we carry to them, the same we bring back +more fairly illustrated in the memory. The traveller who visits the Vatican, +and passes from chamber to chamber through galleries of statues, vases, +sarcophagi and candelabra, through all forms of beauty cut in the richest +materials, is in danger of forgetting the simplicity of the principles out of +which they all sprung, and that they had their origin from thoughts and laws in +his own breast. He studies the technical rules on these wonderful remains, but +forgets that these works were not always thus constellated; that they are the +contributions of many ages and many countries; that each came out of the +solitary workshop of one artist, who toiled perhaps in ignorance of the +existence of other sculpture, created his work without other model save life, +household life, and the sweet and smart of personal relations, of beating +hearts, and meeting eyes; of poverty and necessity and hope and fear. These +were his inspirations, and these are the effects he carries home to your heart +and mind. In proportion to his force, the artist will find in his work an +outlet for his proper character. He must not be in any manner pinched or +hindered by his material, but through his necessity of imparting himself the +adamant will be wax in his hands, and will allow an adequate communication of +himself, in his full stature and proportion. He need not cumber himself with a +conventional nature and culture, nor ask what is the mode in Rome or in Paris, +but that house and weather and manner of living which poverty and the fate of +birth have made at once so odious and so dear, in the gray unpainted wood +cabin, on the corner of a New Hampshire farm, or in the log-hut of the +backwoods, or in the narrow lodging where he has endured the constraints and +seeming of a city poverty, will serve as well as any other condition as the +symbol of a thought which pours itself indifferently through all. +</p> + +<p> +I remember when in my younger days I had heard of the wonders of Italian +painting, I fancied the great pictures would be great strangers; some +surprising combination of color and form; a foreign wonder, barbaric pearl and +gold, like the spontoons and standards of the militia, which play such pranks +in the eyes and imaginations of school-boys. I was to see and acquire I knew +not what. When I came at last to Rome and saw with eyes the pictures, I found +that genius left to novices the gay and fantastic and ostentatious, and itself +pierced directly to the simple and true; that it was familiar and sincere; that +it was the old, eternal fact I had met already in so many forms,—unto +which I lived; that it was the plain <i>you and me</i> I knew so +well,—had left at home in so many conversations. I had the same +experience already in a church at Naples. There I saw that nothing was changed +with me but the place, and said to myself—‘Thou foolish child, hast +thou come out hither, over four thousand miles of salt water, to find that +which was perfect to thee there at home?’ That fact I saw again in the +Academmia at Naples, in the chambers of sculpture, and yet again when I came to +Rome and to the paintings of Raphael, Angelo, Sacchi, Titian, and Leonardo da +Vinci. “What, old mole! workest thou in the earth so fast?” It had +travelled by my side; that which I fancied I had left in Boston was here in the +Vatican, and again at Milan and at Paris, and made all travelling ridiculous as +a treadmill. I now require this of all pictures, that they domesticate me, not +that they dazzle me. Pictures must not be too picturesque. Nothing astonishes +men so much as common-sense and plain dealing. All great actions have been +simple, and all great pictures are. +</p> + +<p> +The Transfiguration, by Raphael, is an eminent example of this peculiar merit. +A calm benignant beauty shines over all this picture, and goes directly to the +heart. It seems almost to call you by name. The sweet and sublime face of Jesus +is beyond praise, yet how it disappoints all florid expectations! This +familiar, simple, home-speaking countenance is as if one should meet a friend. +The knowledge of picture-dealers has its value, but listen not to their +criticism when your heart is touched by genius. It was not painted for them, it +was painted for you; for such as had eyes capable of being touched by +simplicity and lofty emotions. +</p> + +<p> +Yet when we have said all our fine things about the arts, we must end with a +frank confession, that the arts, as we know them, are but initial. Our best +praise is given to what they aimed and promised, not to the actual result. He +has conceived meanly of the resources of man, who believes that the best age of +production is past. The real value of the Iliad or the Transfiguration is as +signs of power; billows or ripples they are of the stream of tendency; tokens +of the everlasting effort to produce, which even in its worst estate the soul +betrays. Art has not yet come to its maturity if it do not put itself abreast +with the most potent influences of the world, if it is not practical and moral, +if it do not stand in connection with the conscience, if it do not make the +poor and uncultivated feel that it addresses them with a voice of lofty cheer. +There is higher work for Art than the arts. They are abortive births of an +imperfect or vitiated instinct. Art is the need to create; but in its essence, +immense and universal, it is impatient of working with lame or tied hands, and +of making cripples and monsters, such as all pictures and statues are. Nothing +less than the creation of man and nature is its end. A man should find in it an +outlet for his whole energy. He may paint and carve only as long as he can do +that. Art should exhilarate, and throw down the walls of circumstance on every +side, awakening in the beholder the same sense of universal relation and power +which the work evinced in the artist, and its highest effect is to make new +artists. +</p> + +<p> +Already History is old enough to witness the old age and disappearance of +particular arts. The art of sculpture is long ago perished to any real effect. +It was originally a useful art, a mode of writing, a savage’s record of +gratitude or devotion, and among a people possessed of a wonderful perception +of form this childish carving was refined to the utmost splendor of effect. But +it is the game of a rude and youthful people, and not the manly labor of a wise +and spiritual nation. Under an oak-tree loaded with leaves and nuts, under a +sky full of eternal eyes, I stand in a thoroughfare; but in the works of our +plastic arts and especially of sculpture, creation is driven into a corner. I +cannot hide from myself that there is a certain appearance of paltriness, as of +toys and the trumpery of a theatre, in sculpture. Nature transcends all our +moods of thought, and its secret we do not yet find. But the gallery stands at +the mercy of our moods, and there is a moment when it becomes frivolous. I do +not wonder that Newton, with an attention habitually engaged on the paths of +planets and suns, should have wondered what the Earl of Pembroke found to +admire in “stone dolls.” Sculpture may serve to teach the pupil how +deep is the secret of form, how purely the spirit can translate its meanings +into that eloquent dialect. But the statue will look cold and false before that +new activity which needs to roll through all things, and is impatient of +counterfeits and things not alive. Picture and sculpture are the celebrations +and festivities of form. But true art is never fixed, but always flowing. The +sweetest music is not in the oratorio, but in the human voice when it speaks +from its instant life tones of tenderness, truth, or courage. The oratorio has +already lost its relation to the morning, to the sun, and the earth, but that +persuading voice is in tune with these. All works of art should not be +detached, but extempore performances. A great man is a new statue in every +attitude and action. A beautiful woman is a picture which drives all beholders +nobly mad. Life may be lyric or epic, as well as a poem or a romance. +</p> + +<p> +A true announcement of the law of creation, if a man were found worthy to +declare it, would carry art up into the kingdom of nature, and destroy its +separate and contrasted existence. The fountains of invention and beauty in +modern society are all but dried up. A popular novel, a theatre, or a ball-room +makes us feel that we are all paupers in the alms-house of this world, without +dignity, without skill or industry. Art is as poor and low. The old tragic +Necessity, which lowers on the brows even of the Venuses and the Cupids of the +antique, and furnishes the sole apology for the intrusion of such anomalous +figures into nature,—namely, that they were inevitable; that the artist +was drunk with a passion for form which he could not resist, and which vented +itself in these fine extravagances,—no longer dignifies the chisel or the +pencil. But the artist and the connoisseur now seek in art the exhibition of +their talent, or an asylum from the evils of life. Men are not well pleased +with the figure they make in their own imaginations, and they flee to art, and +convey their better sense in an oratorio, a statue, or a picture. Art makes the +same effort which a sensual prosperity makes; namely to detach the beautiful +from the useful, to do up the work as unavoidable, and, hating it, pass on to +enjoyment. These solaces and compensations, this division of beauty from use, +the laws of nature do not permit. As soon as beauty is sought, not from +religion and love but for pleasure, it degrades the seeker. High beauty is no +longer attainable by him in canvas or in stone, in sound, or in lyrical +construction; an effeminate, prudent, sickly beauty, which is not beauty, is +all that can be formed; for the hand can never execute any thing higher than +the character can inspire. +</p> + +<p> +The art that thus separates is itself first separated. Art must not be a +superficial talent, but must begin farther back in man. Now men do not see +nature to be beautiful, and they go to make a statue which shall be. They abhor +men as tasteless, dull, and inconvertible, and console themselves with +color-bags and blocks of marble. They reject life as prosaic, and create a +death which they call poetic. They despatch the day’s weary chores, and +fly to voluptuous reveries. They eat and drink, that they may afterwards +execute the ideal. Thus is art vilified; the name conveys to the mind its +secondary and bad senses; it stands in the imagination as somewhat contrary to +nature, and struck with death from the first. Would it not be better to begin +higher up,—to serve the ideal before they eat and drink; to serve the +ideal in eating and drinking, in drawing the breath, and in the functions of +life? Beauty must come back to the useful arts, and the distinction between the +fine and the useful arts be forgotten. If history were truly told, if life were +nobly spent, it would be no longer easy or possible to distinguish the one from +the other. In nature, all is useful, all is beautiful. It is therefore +beautiful because it is alive, moving, reproductive; it is therefore useful +because it is symmetrical and fair. Beauty will not come at the call of a +legislature, nor will it repeat in England or America its history in Greece. It +will come, as always, unannounced, and spring up between the feet of brave and +earnest men. It is in vain that we look for genius to reiterate its miracles in +the old arts; it is its instinct to find beauty and holiness in new and +necessary facts, in the field and road-side, in the shop and mill. Proceeding +from a religious heart it will raise to a divine use the railroad, the +insurance office, the joint-stock company; our law, our primary assemblies, our +commerce, the galvanic battery, the electric jar, the prism, and the +chemist’s retort; in which we seek now only an economical use. Is not the +selfish and even cruel aspect which belongs to our great mechanical works, to +mills, railways, and machinery, the effect of the mercenary impulses which +these works obey? When its errands are noble and adequate, a steamboat bridging +the Atlantic between Old and New England and arriving at its ports with the +punctuality of a planet, is a step of man into harmony with nature. The boat at +St. Petersburg, which plies along the Lena by magnetism, needs little to make +it sublime. When science is learned in love, and its powers are wielded by +love, they will appear the supplements and continuations of the material +creation. +</p> + +</div><!--end chapter--> + + <p> + <br /> + </p> + <table summary="" border="3" cellpadding="4"> + <tbody> + <tr> + <td> + <a + href="http://www.gutenberg.org/files/2945/2945-h/2945-h.htm">Next + Volume</a> + </td> + </tr> + </tbody> + </table> + +<div style='display:block;margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES ***</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This file should be named 2944-h.htm or 2944-h.zip</div> +<div style='display:block;margin:1em 0;'>This and all associated files of various formats will be found in https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2944/</div> +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will +be renamed. +</div> + +<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> +Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright +law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, +so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United +States without permission and without paying copyright +royalties. 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