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diff --git a/2944-0.txt b/2944-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c0becc --- /dev/null +++ b/2944-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7238 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook of Essays, First Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +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 +www.gutenberg.org. 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. + +Title: Essays, First Series + +Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson + +Release Date: December, 2001 [eBook #2944] +[Most recently updated: February 10, 2021] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: UTF-8 + +Produced by: Tony Adam and David Widger + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES *** + + + + +ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES + +By Ralph Waldo Emerson + + +Contents + + I. HISTORY + II. SELF-RELIANCE + III. COMPENSATION + IV. SPIRITUAL LAWS + V. LOVE + VI. FRIENDSHIP + VII. PRUDENCE + VIII. HEROISM + IX. THE OVER-SOUL + X. CIRCLES + XI. INTELLECT + XII. ART + + + Next Volume + + + + +I. +HISTORY + + +There is no great and no small +To the Soul that maketh all: +And where it cometh, all things are +And it cometh everywhere. + + +I am owner of the sphere, +Of the seven stars and the solar year, +Of Cæsar’s hand, and Plato’s brain, +Of Lord Christ’s heart, and Shakspeare’s strain. + + + + +HISTORY + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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, _for us_, as we ourselves in that place would have done or +applauded. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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! + +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 _civil history_ +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 _literature_, in epic and lyric poems, drama, and +philosophy; a very complete form. Then we have it once more in their +_architecture_, a beauty as of temperance itself, limited to the +straight line and the square,—a builded geometry. Then we have it once +again in _sculpture_, 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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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 _sense_, 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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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;— + +“His substance is not here. +For what you see is but the smallest part +And least proportion of humanity; +But were the whole frame here, +It is of such a spacious, lofty pitch, +Your roof were not sufficient to contain it.” +—Henry VI. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + + + + +II. +SELF-RELIANCE + + +“Ne te quæsiveris extra.” + +“Man is his own star; and the soul that can +Render an honest and a perfect man, +Commands all light, all influence, all fate; +Nothing to him falls early or too late. +Our acts our angels are, or good or ill, +Our fatal shadows that walk by us still.” + +_Epilogue to Beaumont and Fletcher’s Honest Man’s Fortune._ + + +Cast the bantling on the rocks, +Suckle him with the she-wolf’s teat, +Wintered with the hawk and fox. +Power and speed be hands and feet. + + + + +SELF-RELIANCE + + +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 _they_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _éclat_ 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. + +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. + +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, _Whim_. 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 _my_ 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. + +Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the exception than the +rule. There is the man _and_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _becomes;_ 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. + +This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on +every topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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 _direct_, or in the _reflex_ 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. + +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! + +If any man consider the present aspects of what is called by +distinction _society_, 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. + +If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises they lose all +heart. If the young merchant fails, men say he is _ruined_. 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 _teams it, farms it, peddles_, 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. + +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. + +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,— + + “His hidden meaning lies in our endeavors; + Our valors are our best gods.” + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +III. +COMPENSATION + + +The wings of Time are black and white, +Pied with morning and with night. +Mountain tall and ocean deep +Trembling balance duly keep. +In changing moon, in tidal wave, +Glows the feud of Want and Have. +Gauge of more and less through space +Electric star and pencil plays. +The lonely Earth amid the balls +That hurry through the eternal halls, +A makeweight flying to the void, +Supplemental asteroid, +Or compensatory spark, +Shoots across the neutral Dark. + + +Man’s the elm, and Wealth the vine, +Stanch and strong the tendrils twine: +Though the frail ringlets thee deceive, +None from its stock that vine can reave. +Fear not, then, thou child infirm, +There’s no god dare wrong a worm. +Laurel crowns cleave to deserts +And power to him who power exerts; +Hast not thy share? On winged feet, +Lo! it rushes thee to meet; +And all that Nature made thy own, +Floating in air or pent in stone, +Will rive the hills and swim the sea +And, like thy shadow, follow thee. + + + + +COMPENSATION + + +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. + +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. + +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 _such_ 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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. +_Res nolunt diu male administrari_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _one end_, without +an _other end_. 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. + +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. + +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.” + +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!”[1] + + [1] St. Augustine, Confessions, B. I. + +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:— + + “Of all the gods, I only know the keys + That ope the solid doors within whose vaults + His thunders sleep.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + “Winds blow and waters roll + Strength to the brave, and power and deity, + Yet in themselves are nothing.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _is_. +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. + +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. + +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 _am;_ 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. + +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 _presence +of the soul_, 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.” + +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 +_His_ and _Mine_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +IV. +SPIRITUAL LAWS + + +The living Heaven thy prayers respect, +House at once and architect, +Quarrying man’s rejected hours, +Builds therewith eternal towers; +Sole and self-commanded works, +Fears not undermining days, +Grows by decays, +And, by the famous might that lurks +In reaction and recoil, +Makes flame to freeze, and ice to boil; +Forging, through swart arms of Offence, +The silver seat of Innocence. + + + + +SPIRITUAL LAWS + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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.’ + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +I say, _do not choose;_ but that is a figure of speech by which I would +distinguish what is commonly called _choice_ 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 _calling_ in his +character? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Nothing seems so easy as to speak and to be understood. Yet a man may +come to find _that_ 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. + +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.” + +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. + +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” _not_ 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! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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?” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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,— + + “He knew not what to say, and so he swore.” + +I may say it of our preposterous use of books,—He knew not what to do, +and so _he read_. 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +V. +LOVE + + +“I was as a gem concealed; +Me my burning ray revealed.” + _Koran_. + + + + +LOVE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + “Thou art not gone being gone, where’er thou art, + Thou leav’st in him thy watchful eyes, in him thy loving heart.” + +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,— + + “All other pleasures are not worth its pains:” + +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. + +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:— + + “Fountain-heads and pathless groves, + Places which pale passion loves, + Moonlight walks, when all the fowls + Are safely housed, save bats and owls, + A midnight bell, a passing groan,— + These are the sounds we feed upon.” + +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. + +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. + +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; _he_ is somewhat; _he_ is a person; _he_ is a soul. + +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. + +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 _from_ that which is representable +to the senses, _to_ 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.” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + “Her pure and eloquent blood + Spoke in her cheeks, and so distinctly wrought, + That one might almost say her body thought.” + +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:— + + “The person love does to us fit, + Like manna, has the taste of all in it.” + +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. + +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. + + + + +VI. +FRIENDSHIP + + +A ruddy drop of manly blood +The surging sea outweighs; +The world uncertain comes and goes, +The lover rooted stays. +I fancied he was fled, +And, after many a year, +Glowed unexhausted kindliness +Like daily sunrise there. +My careful heart was free again,— +O friend, my bosom said, +Through thee alone the sky is arched, +Through thee the rose is red, +All things through thee take nobler form +And look beyond the earth, +The mill-round of our fate appears +A sun-path in thy worth. +Me too thy nobleness has taught +To master my despair; +The fountains of my hidden life +Are through thy friendship fair. + + + + +FRIENDSHIP + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + +DEAR FRIEND, + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + “The valiant warrior famoused for fight, + After a hundred victories, once foiled, + Is from the book of honor razed quite, + And all the rest forgot for which he toiled.” + +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 +_naturlangsamkeit_ 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. + +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. + +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; _that_ 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. + +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. + +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 _one to one_ +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. + +No two men but being left alone with each other enter into simpler +relations. Yet it is affinity that determines _which_ 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. + +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 _not mine_ is _mine_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. _Crimen quos inquinat, æquat_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VII. +PRUDENCE + + +Theme no poet gladly sung, +Fair to old and foul to young; +Scorn not thou the love of parts, +And the articles of arts. +Grandeur of the perfect sphere +Thanks the atoms that cohere. + + + + +PRUDENCE + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _men of parts_, 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. + +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. + +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? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_his_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +VIII. +HEROISM + + +“Paradise is under the shadow of swords.” + _Mahomet._ + +Ruby wine is drunk by knaves, +Sugar spends to fatten slaves, +Rose and vine-leaf deck buffoons; +Thunderclouds are Jove’s festoons, +Drooping oft in wreaths of dread +Lightning-knotted round his head; +The hero is not fed on sweets, +Daily his own heart he eats; +Chambers of the great are jails, +And head-winds right for royal sails. + + + + +HEROISM + + +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:— + +_Valerius_. Bid thy wife farewell. + +_Sophocles_. No, I will take no leave. My Dorigen, +Yonder, above, ’bout Ariadne’s crown, +My spirit shall hover for thee. Prithee, haste. + +_Dorigen_. Stay, Sophocles,—with this tie up my sight; +Let not soft nature so transformed be, +And lose her gentler sexed humanity, +To make me see my lord bleed. So, ’tis well; +Never one object underneath the sun +Will I behold before my Sophocles: +Farewell; now teach the Romans how to die. + +_Martius_. Dost know what ’t is to die? + +_Sophocles_. Thou dost not, Martius, +And, therefore, not what ’tis to live; to die +Is to begin to live. It is to end +An old, stale, weary work, and to commence +A newer and a better. ’Tis to leave +Deceitful knaves for the society +Of gods and goodness. Thou thyself must part +At last from all thy garlands, pleasures, triumphs, +And prove thy fortitude what then ’t will do. + +_Valerius_. But art not grieved nor vexed to leave thy life thus? + +_Sophocles_. Why should I grieve or vex for being sent +To them I ever loved best? Now I’ll kneel, +But with my back toward thee; ’tis the last duty +This trunk can do the gods. + +_Martius_. Strike, strike, Valerius, +Or Martius’ heart will leap out at his mouth. +This is a man, a woman. Kiss thy lord, +And live with all the freedom you were wont. +O love! thou doubly hast afflicted me +With virtue and with beauty. Treacherous heart, +My hand shall cast thee quick into my urn, +Ere thou transgress this knot of piety. + +_Valerius_. What ails my brother? + +_Sophocles_. Martius, O Martius, +Thou now hast found a way to conquer me. + +_Dorigen_. O star of Rome! what gratitude can speak +Fit words to follow such a deed as this? + +_Martius_. This admirable duke, Valerius, +With his disdain of fortune and of death, +Captived himself, has captivated me, +And though my arm hath ta’en his body here, +His soul hath subjugated Martius’ soul. +By Romulus, he is all soul, I think; +He hath no flesh, and spirit cannot be gyved; +Then we have vanquished nothing; he is free, +And Martius walks now in captivity. + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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!” + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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,— + + _Juletta_. Why, slaves, ’tis in our power to hang ye. + _Master_. Very likely, + ’Tis in our powers, then, to be hanged, and scorn ye. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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:— + + “Let them rave: + Thou art quiet in thy grave.” + +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. + + + + +IX. +THE OVER-SOUL + + +“But souls that of his own good life partake, +He loves as his own self; dear as his eye +They are to Him: He’ll never them forsake: +When they shall die, then God himself shall die: +They live, they live in blest eternity.” + _Henry More_. + + +Space is ample, east and west, +But two cannot go abreast, +Cannot travel in it two: +Yonder masterful cuckoo +Crowds every egg out of the nest, +Quick or dead, except its own; +A spell is laid on sod and stone, +Night and Day ’ve been tampered with, +Every quality and pith +Surcharged and sultry with a power +That works its will on age and hour. + + + + +THE OVER-SOUL + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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,— + + “Can crowd eternity into an hour, + Or stretch an hour to eternity.” + +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. + +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 +_total_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +We distinguish the announcements of the soul, its manifestations of its +own nature, by the term _Revelation_. 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 _revival_ of the +Calvinistic churches; the _experiences_ of the Methodists, are varying +forms of that shudder of awe and delight with which the individual soul +always mingles with the universal soul. + +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. + +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 _patois_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _from within_, or from experience, as parties and possessors of +the fact; and the other class _from without_, 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. + +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? + +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 _him_. 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. + +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. + +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.” + +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. + +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? + +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. + + + + +X. +CIRCLES + + +Nature centres into balls, +And her proud ephemerals, +Fast to surface and outside, +Scan the profile of the sphere; +Knew they what that signified, +A new genesis were here. + + + + +CIRCLES + + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +Conversation is a game of circles. In conversation we pluck up the +_termini_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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? + +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:— + + “Forgive his crimes, forgive his virtues too, + Those smaller faults, half converts to the right.” + +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. + +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 _if we are true_, forsooth, our +crimes may be lively stones out of which we shall construct the temple +of the true God! + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 +_so to be_ is the sole inlet of _so to know_. 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. + +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. + +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. + + + + +XI. +INTELLECT + + +Go, speed the stars of Thought +On to their shining goals;— +The sower scatters broad his seed, +The wheat thou strew’st be souls. + + + + +INTELLECT + + +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. + +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_ and _mine_. 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _Trismegisti_, 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 _parvenues_ 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. + + + + +XII. +ART + + +Give to barrows trays and pans +Grace and glimmer of romance, +Bring the moonlight into noon +Hid in gleaming piles of stone; +On the city’s paved street +Plant gardens lined with lilac sweet, +Let spouting fountains cool the air, +Singing in the sun-baked square. +Let statue, picture, park and hall, +Ballad, flag and festival, +The past restore, the day adorn +And make each morrow a new morn +So shall the drudge in dusty frock +Spy behind the city clock +Retinues of airy kings, +Skirts of angels, starry wings, +His fathers shining in bright fables, +His children fed at heavenly tables. +’Tis the privilege of Art +Thus to play its cheerful part, +Man in Earth to acclimate +And bend the exile to his fate, +And, moulded of one element +With the days and firmament, +Teach him on these as stairs to climb +And live on even terms with Time; +Whilst upper life the slender rill +Of human sense doth overfill. + + + + +ART + + +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. + +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? + +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, _as history;_ +as a stroke drawn in the portrait of that fate, perfect and beautiful, +according to whose ordinations all beings advance to their beatitude? + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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 _you and me_ 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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + +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. + + + Next Volume + + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, FIRST SERIES *** + +***** This file should be named 2944-0.txt or 2944-0.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2944/ + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will +be renamed. + +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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