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diff --git a/2945.txt b/2945.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..de530ef --- /dev/null +++ b/2945.txt @@ -0,0 +1,5549 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere 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 + + +Title: Essays, Second Series + +Author: Ralph Waldo Emerson + +Posting Date: December 1, 2008 [EBook #2945] +Release Date: December, 2001 + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, SECOND SERIES *** + + + + +Produced by Tony Adam + + + + + +ESSAYS, SECOND SERIES + +By Ralph Waldo Emerson + + + + THE POET. + + A moody child and wildly wise + Pursued the game with joyful eyes, + Which chose, like meteors, their way, + And rived the dark with private ray: + They overleapt the horizon's edge, + Searched with Apollo's privilege; + Through man, and woman, and sea, and star + Saw the dance of nature forward far; + Through worlds, and races, and terms, and times + Saw musical order, and pairing rhymes. + + Olympian bards who sung + Divine ideas below, + Which always find us young, + And always keep us so. + + + + +I. THE POET. + +Those who are esteemed umpires of taste are often persons who have +acquired some knowledge of admired pictures or sculptures, and have an +inclination for whatever is elegant; but if you inquire whether they are +beautiful souls, and whether their own acts are like fair pictures, you +learn that they are selfish and sensual. Their cultivation is local, as +if you should rub a log of dry wood in one spot to produce fire, all the +rest remaining cold. Their knowledge of the fine arts is some study of +rules and particulars, or some limited judgment of color or form, which +is exercised for amusement or for show. It is a proof of the shallowness +of the doctrine of beauty as it lies in the minds of our amateurs, that +men seem to have lost the perception of the instant dependence of form +upon soul. There is no doctrine of forms in our philosophy. We were +put into our bodies, as fire is put into a pan to be carried about; but +there is no accurate adjustment between the spirit and the organ, much +less is the latter the germination of the former. So in regard to other +forms, the intellectual men do not believe in any essential dependence +of the material world on thought and volition. Theologians think it a +pretty air-castle to talk of the Spiritual meaning of a ship or a cloud, +of a city or a contract, but they prefer to come again to the solid +ground of historical evidence; and even the poets are contented with a +civil and conformed manner of living, and to write poems from the fancy, +at a safe distance from their own experience. But the highest minds of +the world have never ceased to explore the double meaning, or shall +I say the quadruple or the centuple or much more manifold meaning, of +every sensuous fact; Orpheus, Empedocles, Heraclitus, Plato, Plutarch, +Dante, Swedenborg, and the masters of sculpture, picture, and poetry. +For we are not pans and barrows, nor even porters of the fire and +torch-bearers, but children of the fire, made of it, and only the same +divinity transmuted and at two or three removes, when we know least +about it. And this hidden truth, that the fountains whence all this +river of Time and its creatures floweth are intrinsically ideal and +beautiful, draws us to the consideration of the nature and functions of +the Poet, or the man of Beauty; to the means and materials he uses, and +to the general aspect of the art in the present time. + +The breadth of the problem is great, for the poet is representative. He +stands among partial men for the complete man, and apprises us not +of his wealth, but of the common wealth. The young man reveres men of +genius, because, to speak truly, they are more himself than he is. They +receive of the soul as he also receives, but they more. Nature enhances +her beauty, to the eye of loving men, from their belief that the poet +is beholding her shows at the same time. He is isolated among his +contemporaries by truth and by his art, but with this consolation in his +pursuits, that they will draw all men sooner or later. For all men live +by truth and stand in need of expression. In love, in art, in avarice, +in politics, in labor, in games, we study to utter our painful secret. +The man is only half himself, the other half is his expression. + +Notwithstanding this necessity to be published, adequate expression is +rare. I know not how it is that we need an interpreter, but the great +majority of men seem to be minors, who have not yet come into possession +of their own, or mutes, who cannot report the conversation they have +had with nature. There is no man who does not anticipate a supersensual +utility in the sun and stars, earth and water. These stand and wait to +render him a peculiar service. But there is some obstruction or some +excess of phlegm in our constitution, which does not suffer them to +yield the due effect. Too feeble fall the impressions of nature on us to +make us artists. Every touch should thrill. Every man should be so much +an artist that he could report in conversation what had befallen him. +Yet, in our experience, the rays or appulses have sufficient force to +arrive at the senses, but not enough to reach the quick and compel the +reproduction of themselves in speech. The poet is the person in whom +these powers are in balance, the man without impediment, who sees +and handles that which others dream of, traverses the whole scale of +experience, and is representative of man, in virtue of being the largest +power to receive and to impart. + +For the Universe has three children, born at one time, which reappear +under different names in every system of thought, whether they be called +cause, operation, and effect; or, more poetically, Jove, Pluto, Neptune; +or, theologically, the Father, the Spirit, and the Son; but which +we will call here the Knower, the Doer, and the Sayer. These stand +respectively for the love of truth, for the love of good, and for +the love of beauty. These three are equal. Each is that which he is +essentially, so that he cannot be surmounted or analyzed, and each of +these three has the power of the others latent in him, and his own, +patent. + +The poet is the sayer, the namer, and represents beauty. He is a +sovereign, and stands on the centre. For the world is not painted or +adorned, but is from the beginning beautiful; and God has not made some +beautiful things, but Beauty is the creator of the universe. Therefore +the poet is not any permissive potentate, but is emperor in his own +right. Criticism is infested with a cant of materialism, which assumes +that manual skill and activity is the first merit of all men, and +disparages such as say and do not, overlooking the fact that some men, +namely poets, are natural sayers, sent into the world to the end of +expression, and confounds them with those whose province is action but +who quit it to imitate the sayers. But Homer's words are as costly and +admirable to Homer as Agamemnon's victories are to Agamemnon. The poet +does not wait for the hero or the sage, but, as they act and think +primarily, so he writes primarily what will and must be spoken, +reckoning the others, though primaries also, yet, in respect to him, +secondaries and servants; as sitters or models in the studio of a +painter, or as assistants who bring building materials to an architect. + +For poetry was all written before time was, and whenever we are so +finely organized that we can penetrate into that region where the air +is music, we hear those primal warblings and attempt to write them down, +but we lose ever and anon a word or a verse and substitute something of +our own, and thus miswrite the poem. The men of more delicate ear write +down these cadences more faithfully, and these transcripts, though +imperfect, become the songs of the nations. For nature is as truly +beautiful as it is good, or as it is reasonable, and must as much appear +as it must be done, or be known. Words and deeds are quite indifferent +modes of the divine energy. Words are also actions, and actions are a +kind of words. + +The sign and credentials of the poet are that he announces that which no +man foretold. He is the true and only doctor; he knows and tells; he is +the only teller of news, for he was present and privy to the appearance +which he describes. He is a beholder of ideas and an utterer of the +necessary and causal. For we do not speak now of men of poetical +talents, or of industry and skill in metre, but of the true poet. I +took part in a conversation the other day concerning a recent writer of +lyrics, a man of subtle mind, whose head appeared to be a music-box of +delicate tunes and rhythms, and whose skill and command of language, we +could not sufficiently praise. But when the question arose whether he +was not only a lyrist but a poet, we were obliged to confess that he is +plainly a contemporary, not an eternal man. He does not stand out of our +low limitations, like a Chimborazo under the line, running up from the +torrid Base through all the climates of the globe, with belts of the +herbage of every latitude on its high and mottled sides; but this genius +is the landscape-garden of a modern house, adorned with fountains and +statues, with well-bred men and women standing and sitting in the walks +and terraces. We hear, through all the varied music, the ground-tone of +conventional life. Our poets are men of talents who sing, and not the +children of music. The argument is secondary, the finish of the verses +is primary. + +For it is not metres, but a metre-making argument that makes a poem,--a +thought so passionate and alive that like the spirit of a plant or an +animal it has an architecture of its own, and adorns nature with a new +thing. The thought and the form are equal in the order of time, but in +the order of genesis the thought is prior to the form. The poet has a +new thought; he has a whole new experience to unfold; he will tell us +how it was with him, and all men will be the richer in his fortune. For +the experience of each new age requires a new confession, and the world +seems always waiting for its poet. I remember when I was young how much +I was moved one morning by tidings that genius had appeared in a youth +who sat near me at table. He had left his work and gone rambling none +knew whither, and had written hundreds of lines, but could not tell +whether that which was in him was therein told; he could tell nothing +but that all was changed,--man, beast, heaven, earth and sea. How gladly +we listened! how credulous! Society seemed to be compromised. We sat +in the aurora of a sunrise which was to put out all the stars. Boston +seemed to be at twice the distance it had the night before, or was much +farther than that. Rome,--what was Rome? Plutarch and Shakspeare were +in the yellow leaf, and Homer no more should be heard of. It is much to +know that poetry has been written this very day, under this very roof, +by your side. What! that wonderful spirit has not expired! These stony +moments are still sparkling and animated! I had fancied that the oracles +were all silent, and nature had spent her fires; and behold! all night, +from every pore, these fine auroras have been streaming. Every one has +some interest in the advent of the poet, and no one knows how much it +may concern him. We know that the secret of the world is profound, but +who or what shall be our interpreter, we know not. A mountain ramble, +a new style of face, a new person, may put the key into our hands. +Of course the value of genius to us is in the veracity of its report. +Talent may frolic and juggle; genius realizes and adds. Mankind in good +earnest have availed so far in understanding themselves and their work, +that the foremost watchman on the peak announces his news. It is the +truest word ever spoken, and the phrase will be the fittest, most +musical, and the unerring voice of the world for that time. + +All that we call sacred history attests that the birth of a poet is +the principal event in chronology. Man, never so often deceived, still +watches for the arrival of a brother who can hold him steady to a truth +until he has made it his own. With what joy I begin to read a poem which +I confide in as an inspiration! And now my chains are to be broken; I +shall mount above these clouds and opaque airs in which I live,--opaque, +though they seem transparent,--and from the heaven of truth I shall see +and comprehend my relations. That will reconcile me to life and renovate +nature, to see trifles animated by a tendency, and to know what I am +doing. Life will no more be a noise; now I shall see men and women, and +know the signs by which they may be discerned from fools and satans. +This day shall be better than my birthday: then I became an animal; now +I am invited into the science of the real. Such is the hope, but the +fruition is postponed. Oftener it falls that this winged man, who will +carry me into the heaven, whirls me into mists, then leaps and frisks +about with me as it were from cloud to cloud, still affirming that he +is bound heavenward; and I, being myself a novice, am slow in perceiving +that he does not know the way into the heavens, and is merely bent that +I should admire his skill to rise like a fowl or a flying fish, a little +way from the ground or the water; but the all-piercing, all-feeding, and +ocular air of heaven that man shall never inhabit. I tumble down again +soon into my old nooks, and lead the life of exaggerations as before, +and have lost my faith in the possibility of any guide who can lead me +thither where I would be. + +But, leaving these victims of vanity, let us, with new hope, observe +how nature, by worthier impulses, has ensured the poet's fidelity to his +office of announcement and affirming, namely by the beauty of things, +which becomes a new and higher beauty when expressed. Nature offers +all her creatures to him as a picture-language. Being used as a type, +a second wonderful value appears in the object, far better than its old +value; as the carpenter's stretched cord, if you hold your ear close +enough, is musical in the breeze. "Things more excellent than every +image," says Jamblichus, "are expressed through images." Things admit of +being used as symbols because nature is a symbol, in the whole, and in +every part. Every line we can draw in the sand has expression; and +there is no body without its spirit or genius. All form is an effect of +character; all condition, of the quality of the life; all harmony, +of health; and for this reason a perception of beauty should be +sympathetic, or proper only to the good. The beautiful rests on the +foundations of the necessary. The soul makes the body, as the wise +Spenser teaches:-- + + "So every spirit, as it is most pure, + And hath in it the more of heavenly light, + So it the fairer body doth procure + To habit in, and it more fairly dight, + With cheerful grace and amiable sight. + For, of the soul, the body form doth take, + For soul is form, and doth the body make." + +Here we find ourselves suddenly not in a critical speculation but in a +holy place, and should go very warily and reverently. We stand before +the secret of the world, there where Being passes into Appearance and +Unity into Variety. + +The Universe is the externization of the soul. Wherever the life is, +that bursts into appearance around it. Our science is sensual, and +therefore superficial. The earth and the heavenly bodies, physics, and +chemistry, we sensually treat, as if they were self-existent; but +these are the retinue of that Being we have. "The mighty heaven," +said Proclus, "exhibits, in its transfigurations, clear images of the +splendor of intellectual perceptions; being moved in conjunction with +the unapparent periods of intellectual natures." Therefore science +always goes abreast with the just elevation of the man, keeping step +with religion and metaphysics; or the state of science is an index of +our self-knowledge. Since everything in nature answers to a moral power, +if any phenomenon remains brute and dark it is that the corresponding +faculty in the observer is not yet active. + +No wonder then, if these waters be so deep, that we hover over them with +a religious regard. The beauty of the fable proves the importance of the +sense; to the poet, and to all others; or, if you please, every man is +so far a poet as to be susceptible of these enchantments of nature; for +all men have the thoughts whereof the universe is the celebration. I +find that the fascination resides in the symbol. Who loves nature? Who +does not? Is it only poets, and men of leisure and cultivation, who live +with her? No; but also hunters, farmers, grooms, and butchers, though +they express their affection in their choice of life and not in their +choice of words. The writer wonders what the coachman or the hunter +values in riding, in horses and dogs. It is not superficial qualities. +When you talk with him he holds these at as slight a rate as you. His +worship is sympathetic; he has no definitions, but he is commanded +in nature, by the living power which he feels to be there present. No +imitation or playing of these things would content him; he loves the +earnest of the north wind, of rain, of stone, and wood, and iron. A +beauty not explicable is dearer than a beauty which we can see to the +end of. It is nature the symbol, nature certifying the supernatural, +body overflowed by life which he worships with coarse but sincere rites. + +The inwardness and mystery of this attachment drives men of every class +to the use of emblems. The schools of poets and philosophers are not +more intoxicated with their symbols than the populace with theirs. In +our political parties, compute the power of badges and emblems. See +the great ball which they roll from Baltimore to Bunker hill! In the +political processions, Lowell goes in a loom, and Lynn in a shoe, +and Salem in a ship. Witness the cider-barrel, the log-cabin, the +hickory-stick, the palmetto, and all the cognizances of party. See the +power of national emblems. Some stars, lilies, leopards, a crescent, a +lion, an eagle, or other figure which came into credit God knows how, on +an old rag of bunting, blowing in the wind on a fort at the ends of +the earth, shall make the blood tingle under the rudest or the most +conventional exterior. The people fancy they hate poetry, and they are +all poets and mystics! + +Beyond this universality of the symbolic language, we are apprised of +the divineness of this superior use of things, whereby the world is a +temple whose walls are covered with emblems, pictures, and commandments +of the Deity,--in this, that there is no fact in nature which does not +carry the whole sense of nature; and the distinctions which we make in +events and in affairs, of low and high, honest and base, disappear when +nature is used as a symbol. Thought makes everything fit for use. The +vocabulary of an omniscient man would embrace words and images excluded +from polite conversation. What would be base, or even obscene, to the +obscene, becomes illustrious, spoken in a new connexion of thought. The +piety of the Hebrew prophets purges their grossness. The circumcision is +an example of the power of poetry to raise the low and offensive. Small +and mean things serve as well as great symbols. The meaner the type by +which a law is expressed, the more pungent it is, and the more lasting +in the memories of men: just as we choose the smallest box or case in +which any needful utensil can be carried. Bare lists of words are found +suggestive to an imaginative and excited mind; as it is related of Lord +Chatham that he was accustomed to read in Bailey's Dictionary when he +was preparing to speak in Parliament. The poorest experience is rich +enough for all the purposes of expressing thought. Why covet a knowledge +of new facts? Day and night, house and garden, a few books, a few +actions, serve us as well as would all trades and all spectacles. We are +far from having exhausted the significance of the few symbols we use. +We can come to use them yet with a terrible simplicity. It does not +need that a poem should be long. Every word was once a poem. Every new +relation is a new word. Also we use defects and deformities to a sacred +purpose, so expressing our sense that the evils of the world are such +only to the evil eye. In the old mythology, mythologists observe, +defects are ascribed to divine natures, as lameness to Vulcan, blindness +to Cupid, and the like,--to signify exuberances. + +For as it is dislocation and detachment from the life of God that +makes things ugly, the poet, who re-attaches things to nature and the +Whole,--re-attaching even artificial things and violations of nature, +to nature, by a deeper insight,--disposes very easily of the most +disagreeable facts. Readers of poetry see the factory-village and the +railway, and fancy that the poetry of the landscape is broken up by +these; for these works of art are not yet consecrated in their reading; +but the poet sees them fall within the great Order not less than the +beehive or the spider's geometrical web. Nature adopts them very fast +into her vital circles, and the gliding train of cars she loves like +her own. Besides, in a centred mind, it signifies nothing how many +mechanical inventions you exhibit. Though you add millions, and never so +surprising, the fact of mechanics has not gained a grain's weight. The +spiritual fact remains unalterable, by many or by few particulars; as no +mountain is of any appreciable height to break the curve of the sphere. +A shrewd country-boy goes to the city for the first time, and the +complacent citizen is not satisfied with his little wonder. It is not +that he does not see all the fine houses and know that he never saw such +before, but he disposes of them as easily as the poet finds place for +the railway. The chief value of the new fact is to enhance the great and +constant fact of Life, which can dwarf any and every circumstance, and +to which the belt of wampum and the commerce of America are alike. + +The world being thus put under the mind for verb and noun, the poet is +he who can articulate it. For though life is great, and fascinates, and +absorbs; and though all men are intelligent of the symbols through which +it is named; yet they cannot originally use them. We are symbols and +inhabit symbols; workmen, work, and tools, words and things, birth and +death, all are emblems; but we sympathize with the symbols, and being +infatuated with the economical uses of things, we do not know that they +are thoughts. The poet, by an ulterior intellectual perception, gives +them a power which makes their old use forgotten, and puts eyes and +a tongue into every dumb and inanimate object. He perceives the +independence of the thought on the symbol, the stability of the thought, +the accidency and fugacity of the symbol. As the eyes of Lyncaeus were +said to see through the earth, so the poet turns the world to glass, and +shows us all things in their right series and procession. For through +that better perception he stands one step nearer to things, and sees +the flowing or metamorphosis; perceives that thought is multiform; that +within the form of every creature is a force impelling it to ascend +into a higher form; and following with his eyes the life, uses the forms +which express that life, and so his speech flows with the flowing of +nature. All the facts of the animal economy, sex, nutriment, gestation, +birth, growth, are symbols of the passage of the world into the soul +of man, to suffer there a change and reappear a new and higher fact. He +uses forms according to the life, and not according to the form. This is +true science. The poet alone knows astronomy, chemistry, vegetation +and animation, for he does not stop at these facts, but employs them as +signs. He knows why the plain or meadow of space was strewn with these +flowers we call suns and moons and stars; why the great deep is adorned +with animals, with men, and gods; for in every word he speaks he rides +on them as the horses of thought. + +By virtue of this science the poet is the Namer or Language-maker, +naming things sometimes after their appearance, sometimes after their +essence, and giving to every one its own name and not another's, thereby +rejoicing the intellect, which delights in detachment or boundary. The +poets made all the words, and therefore language is the archives of +history, and, if we must say it, a sort of tomb of the muses. For though +the origin of most of our words is forgotten, each word was at first +a stroke of genius, and obtained currency because for the moment +it symbolized the world to the first speaker and to the hearer. The +etymologist finds the deadest word to have been once a brilliant +picture. Language is fossil poetry. As the limestone of the continent +consists of infinite masses of the shells of animalcules, so language +is made up of images or tropes, which now, in their secondary use, have +long ceased to remind us of their poetic origin. But the poet names the +thing because he sees it, or comes one step nearer to it than any other. +This expression or naming is not art, but a second nature, grown out +of the first, as a leaf out of a tree. What we call nature is a certain +self-regulated motion or change; and nature does all things by her own +hands, and does not leave another to baptize her but baptizes herself; +and this through the metamorphosis again. I remember that a certain poet +described it to me thus: + +Genius is the activity which repairs the decays of things, whether +wholly or partly of a material and finite kind. Nature, through all her +kingdoms, insures herself. Nobody cares for planting the poor fungus; so +she shakes down from the gills of one agaric countless spores, any one +of which, being preserved, transmits new billions of spores to-morrow or +next day. The new agaric of this hour has a chance which the old one had +not. This atom of seed is thrown into a new place, not subject to the +accidents which destroyed its parent two rods off. She makes a man; +and having brought him to ripe age, she will no longer run the risk of +losing this wonder at a blow, but she detaches from him a new self, that +the kind may be safe from accidents to which the individual is exposed. +So when the soul of the poet has come to ripeness of thought, she +detaches and sends away from it its poems or songs,--a fearless, +sleepless, deathless progeny, which is not exposed to the accidents of +the weary kingdom of time; a fearless, vivacious offspring, clad with +wings (such was the virtue of the soul out of which they came) which +carry them fast and far, and infix them irrecoverably into the hearts +of men. These wings are the beauty of the poet's soul. The songs, thus +flying immortal from their mortal parent, are pursued by clamorous +flights of censures, which swarm in far greater numbers and threaten to +devour them; but these last are not winged. At the end of a very short +leap they fall plump down and rot, having received from the souls out of +which they came no beautiful wings. But the melodies of the poet ascend +and leap and pierce into the deeps of infinite time. + +So far the bard taught me, using his freer speech. But nature has a +higher end, in the production of New individuals, than security, namely +ascension, or the passage of the soul into higher forms. I knew in my +younger days the sculptor who made the statue of the youth which stands +in the public garden. He was, as I remember, unable to tell directly, +what made him happy or unhappy, but by wonderful indirections he could +tell. He rose one day, according to his habit, before the dawn, and saw +the morning break, grand as the eternity out of which it came, and for +many days after, he strove to express this tranquillity, and lo! his +chisel had fashioned out of marble the form of a beautiful youth, +Phosphorus, whose aspect is such that it is said all persons who look +on it become silent. The poet also resigns himself to his mood, and that +thought which agitated him is expressed, but alter idem, in a manner +totally new. The expression is organic, or the new type which things +themselves take when liberated. As, in the sun, objects paint their +images on the retina of the eye, so they, sharing the aspiration of the +whole universe, tend to paint a far more delicate copy of their essence +in his mind. Like the metamorphosis of things into higher organic forms +is their change into melodies. Over everything stands its daemon or +soul, and, as the form of the thing is reflected by the eye, so the +soul of the thing is reflected by a melody. The sea, the mountain-ridge, +Niagara, and every flower-bed, pre-exist, or super-exist, in +pre-cantations, which sail like odors in the air, and when any man goes +by with an ear sufficiently fine, he overhears them and endeavors to +write down the notes without diluting or depraving them. And herein is +the legitimation of criticism, in the mind's faith that the poems are a +corrupt version of some text in nature with which they ought to be made +to tally. A rhyme in one of our sonnets should not be less pleasing than +the iterated nodes of a sea-shell, or the resembling difference of a +group of flowers. The pairing of the birds is an idyl, not tedious as +our idyls are; a tempest is a rough ode, without falsehood or rant; +a summer, with its harvest sown, reaped, and stored, is an epic song, +subordinating how many admirably executed parts. Why should not the +symmetry and truth that modulate these, glide into our spirits, and we +participate the invention of nature? + +This insight, which expresses itself by what is called Imagination, is +a very high sort of seeing, which does not come by study, but by the +intellect being where and what it sees; by sharing the path or circuit +of things through forms, and so making them translucid to others. The +path of things is silent. Will they suffer a speaker to go with them? A +spy they will not suffer; a lover, a poet, is the transcendency of their +own nature,--him they will suffer. The condition of true naming, on the +poet's part, is his resigning himself to the divine aura which breathes +through forms, and accompanying that. + +It is a secret which every intellectual man quickly learns, that, beyond +the energy of his possessed and conscious intellect he is capable of a +new energy (as of an intellect doubled on itself), by abandonment to the +nature of things; that beside his privacy of power as an individual man, +there is a great public power on which he can draw, by unlocking, at +all risks, his human doors, and suffering the ethereal tides to roll +and circulate through him; then he is caught up into the life of the +Universe, his speech is thunder, his thought is law, and his words are +universally intelligible as the plants and animals. The poet knows that +he speaks adequately then only when he speaks somewhat wildly, or, "with +the flower of the mind;" not with the intellect used as an organ, but +with the intellect released from all service and suffered to take its +direction from its celestial life; or as the ancients were wont to +express themselves, not with intellect alone but with the intellect +inebriated by nectar. As the traveller who has lost his way throws his +reins on his horse's neck and trusts to the instinct of the animal +to find his road, so must we do with the divine animal who carries us +through this world. For if in any manner we can stimulate this instinct, +new passages are opened for us into nature; the mind flows into and +through things hardest and highest, and the metamorphosis is possible. + +This is the reason why bards love wine, mead, narcotics, coffee, tea, +opium, the fumes of sandal-wood and tobacco, or whatever other procurers +of animal exhilaration. All men avail themselves of such means as they +can, to add this extraordinary power to their normal powers; and to +this end they prize conversation, music, pictures, sculpture, dancing, +theatres, travelling, war, mobs, fires, gaming, politics, or love, or +science, or animal intoxication,--which are several coarser or +finer quasi-mechanical substitutes for the true nectar, which is the +ravishment of the intellect by coming nearer to the fact. These are +auxiliaries to the centrifugal tendency of a man, to his passage out +into free space, and they help him to escape the custody of that body +in which he is pent up, and of that jail-yard of individual relations +in which he is enclosed. Hence a great number of such as were +professionally expressers of Beauty, as painters, poets, musicians, and +actors, have been more than others wont to lead a life of pleasure and +indulgence; all but the few who received the true nectar; and, as it was +a spurious mode of attaining freedom, as it was an emancipation not into +the heavens but into the freedom of baser places, they were punished for +that advantage they won, by a dissipation and deterioration. But never +can any advantage be taken of nature by a trick. The spirit of the +world, the great calm presence of the Creator, comes not forth to the +sorceries of opium or of wine. The sublime vision comes to the pure +and simple soul in a clean and chaste body. That is not an inspiration, +which we owe to narcotics, but some counterfeit excitement and fury. +Milton says that the lyric poet may drink wine and live generously, but +the epic poet, he who shall sing of the gods and their descent unto men, +must drink water out of a wooden bowl. For poetry is not 'Devil's wine,' +but God's wine. It is with this as it is with toys. We fill the hands +and nurseries of our children with all manner of dolls, drums, and +horses; withdrawing their eyes from the plain face and sufficing objects +of nature, the sun, and moon, the animals, the water, and stones, which +should be their toys. So the poet's habit of living should be set on +a key so low that the common influences should delight him. His +cheerfulness should be the gift of the sunlight; the air should suffice +for his inspiration, and he should be tipsy with water. That spirit +which suffices quiet hearts, which seems to come forth to such from +every dry knoll of sere grass, from every pine-stump and half-imbedded +stone on which the dull March sun shines, comes forth to the poor and +hungry, and such as are of simple taste. If thou fill thy brain with +Boston and New York, with fashion and covetousness, and wilt stimulate +thy jaded senses with wine and French coffee, thou shalt find no +radiance of wisdom in the lonely waste of the pinewoods. + +If the imagination intoxicates the poet, it is not inactive in other +men. The metamorphosis excites in the beholder an emotion of joy. The +use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for +all men. We seem to be touched by a wand which makes us dance and run +about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave +or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, +oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods. Men have +really got a new sense, and found within their world another world, or +nest of worlds; for, the metamorphosis once seen, we divine that it +does not stop. I will not now consider how much this makes the charm +of algebra and the mathematics, which also have their tropes, but it +is felt in every definition; as when Aristotle defines space to be an +immovable vessel in which things are contained;--or when Plato defines +a line to be a flowing point; or figure to be a bound of solid; and +many the like. What a joyful sense of freedom we have when Vitruvius +announces the old opinion of artists that no architect can build any +house well who does not know something of anatomy. When Socrates, in +Charmides, tells us that the soul is cured of its maladies by certain +incantations, and that these incantations are beautiful reasons, from +which temperance is generated in souls; when Plato calls the world an +animal; and Timaeus affirms that the plants also are animals; or affirms +a man to be a heavenly tree, growing with his root, which is his head, +upward; and, as George Chapman, following him, writes,-- + + "So in our tree of man, whose nervie root + Springs in his top;"-- + +when Orpheus speaks of hoariness as "that white flower which marks +extreme old age;" when Proclus calls the universe the statue of the +intellect; when Chaucer, in his praise of 'Gentilesse,' compares good +blood in mean condition to fire, which, though carried to the darkest +house betwixt this and the mount of Caucasus, will yet hold its natural +office and burn as bright as if twenty thousand men did it behold; when +John saw, in the Apocalypse, the ruin of the world through evil, and the +stars fall from heaven as the figtree casteth her untimely fruit; when +Aesop reports the whole catalogue of common daily relations through +the masquerade of birds and beasts;--we take the cheerful hint of the +immortality of our essence and its versatile habit and escapes, as when +the gypsies say "it is in vain to hang them, they cannot die." + +The poets are thus liberating gods. The ancient British bards had for +the title of their order, "Those Who are free throughout the world." +They are free, and they make free. An imaginative book renders us +much more service at first, by stimulating us through its tropes, than +afterward when we arrive at the precise sense of the author. I think +nothing is of any value in books excepting the transcendental and +extraordinary. If a man is inflamed and carried away by his thought, to +that degree that he forgets the authors and the public and heeds only +this one dream which holds him like an insanity, let me read his paper, +and you may have all the arguments and histories and criticism. All +the value which attaches to Pythagoras, Paracelsus, Cornelius Agrippa, +Cardan, Kepler, Swedenborg, Schelling, Oken, or any other who introduces +questionable facts into his cosmogony, as angels, devils, magic, +astrology, palmistry, mesmerism, and so on, is the certificate we have +of departure from routine, and that here is a new witness. That also is +the best success in conversation, the magic of liberty, which puts the +world like a ball in our hands. How cheap even the liberty then seems; +how mean to study, when an emotion communicates to the intellect the +power to sap and upheave nature; how great the perspective! nations, +times, systems, enter and disappear like threads in tapestry of large +figure and many colors; dream delivers us to dream, and while the +drunkenness lasts we will sell our bed, our philosophy, our religion, in +our opulence. + +There is good reason why we should prize this liberation. The fate of +the poor shepherd, who, blinded and lost in the snow-storm, perishes in +a drift within a few feet of his cottage door, is an emblem of the state +of man. On the brink of the waters of life and truth, we are miserably +dying. The inaccessibleness of every thought but that we are in, is +wonderful. What if you come near to it; you are as remote when you are +nearest as when you are farthest. Every thought is also a prison; every +heaven is also a prison. Therefore we love the poet, the inventor, who +in any form, whether in an ode or in an action or in looks and behavior +has yielded us a new thought. He unlocks our chains and admits us to a +new scene. + +This emancipation is dear to all men, and the power to impart it, as +it must come from greater depth and scope of thought, is a measure of +intellect. Therefore all books of the imagination endure, all which +ascend to that truth that the writer sees nature beneath him, and uses +it as his exponent. Every verse or sentence possessing this virtue will +take care of its own immortality. The religions of the world are the +ejaculations of a few imaginative men. + +But the quality of the imagination is to flow, and not to freeze. The +poet did not stop at the color or the form, but read their meaning; +neither may he rest in this meaning, but he makes the same objects +exponents of his new thought. Here is the difference betwixt the poet +and the mystic, that the last nails a symbol to one sense, which was a +true sense for a moment, but soon becomes old and false. For all symbols +are fluxional; all language is vehicular and transitive, and is good, as +ferries and horses are, for conveyance, not as farms and houses are, +for homestead. Mysticism consists in the mistake of an accidental and +individual symbol for an universal one. The morning-redness happens to +be the favorite meteor to the eyes of Jacob Behmen, and comes to stand +to him for truth and faith; and, he believes, should stand for the same +realities to every reader. But the first reader prefers as naturally the +symbol of a mother and child, or a gardener and his bulb, or a jeweller +polishing a gem. Either of these, or of a myriad more, are equally +good to the person to whom they are significant. Only they must be held +lightly, and be very willingly translated into the equivalent terms +which others use. And the mystic must be steadily told,--All that you +say is just as true without the tedious use of that symbol as with it. +Let us have a little algebra, instead of this trite rhetoric,--universal +signs, instead of these village symbols,--and we shall both be gainers. +The history of hierarchies seems to show that all religious error +consisted in making the symbol too stark and solid, and was at last +nothing but an excess of the organ of language. + +Swedenborg, of all men in the recent ages, stands eminently for the +translator of nature into thought. I do not know the man in history to +whom things stood so uniformly for words. Before him the metamorphosis +continually plays. Everything on which his eye rests, obeys the impulses +of moral nature. The figs become grapes whilst he eats them. When +some of his angels affirmed a truth, the laurel twig which they held +blossomed in their hands. The noise which at a distance appeared like +gnashing and thumping, on coming nearer was found to be the voice of +disputants. The men in one of his visions, seen in heavenly light, +appeared like dragons, and seemed in darkness; but to each other they +appeared as men, and when the light from heaven shone into their cabin, +they complained of the darkness, and were compelled to shut the window +that they might see. + +There was this perception in him which makes the poet or seer an object +of awe and terror, namely that the same man or society of men may wear +one aspect to themselves and their companions, and a different aspect to +higher intelligences. Certain priests, whom he describes as conversing +very learnedly together, appeared to the children who were at some +distance, like dead horses; and many the like misappearances. And +instantly the mind inquires whether these fishes under the bridge, +yonder oxen in the pasture, those dogs in the yard, are immutably +fishes, oxen, and dogs, or only so appear to me, and perchance to +themselves appear upright men; and whether I appear as a man to all +eyes. The Bramins and Pythagoras propounded the same question, and +if any poet has witnessed the transformation he doubtless found it +in harmony with various experiences. We have all seen changes as +considerable in wheat and caterpillars. He is the poet and shall draw us +with love and terror, who sees through the flowing vest the firm nature, +and can declare it. + +I look in vain for the poet whom I describe. We do not with sufficient +plainness or sufficient profoundness address ourselves to life, nor dare +we chaunt our own times and social circumstance. If we filled the day +with bravery, we should not shrink from celebrating it. Time and nature +yield us many gifts, but not yet the timely man, the new religion, the +reconciler, whom all things await. Dante's praise is that he dared to +write his autobiography in colossal cipher, or into universality. We +have yet had no genius in America, with tyrannous eye, which knew the +value of our incomparable materials, and saw, in the barbarism and +materialism of the times, another carnival of the same gods whose +picture he so much admires in Homer; then in the Middle Age; then in +Calvinism. Banks and tariffs, the newspaper and caucus, Methodism and +Unitarianism, are flat and dull to dull people, but rest on the same +foundations of wonder as the town of Troy and the temple of Delphi, +and are as swiftly passing away. Our logrolling, our stumps and their +politics, our fisheries, our Negroes and Indians, our boats and our +repudiations, the wrath of rogues and the pusillanimity of honest men, +the northern trade, the southern planting, the western clearing, Oregon +and Texas, are yet unsung. Yet America is a poem in our eyes; its ample +geography dazzles the imagination, and it will not wait long for metres. +If I have not found that excellent combination of gifts in my countrymen +which I seek, neither could I aid myself to fix the idea of the poet +by reading now and then in Chalmers's collection of five centuries of +English poets. These are wits more than poets, though there have been +poets among them. But when we adhere to the ideal of the poet, we have +our difficulties even with Milton and Homer. Milton is too literary, and +Homer too literal and historical. + +But I am not wise enough for a national criticism, and must use the old +largeness a little longer, to discharge my errand from the muse to the +poet concerning his art. + +Art is the path of the creator to his work. The paths or methods are +ideal and eternal, though few men ever see them; not the artist himself +for years, or for a lifetime, unless he come into the conditions. The +painter, the sculptor, the composer, the epic rhapsodist, the orator, +all partake one desire, namely to express themselves symmetrically +and abundantly, not dwarfishly and fragmentarily. They found or put +themselves in certain conditions, as, the painter and sculptor before +some impressive human figures; the orator, into the assembly of the +people; and the others in such scenes as each has found exciting to his +intellect; and each presently feels the new desire. He hears a voice, +he sees a beckoning. Then he is apprised, with wonder, what herds of +daemons hem him in. He can no more rest; he says, with the old painter, +"By God, it is in me and must go forth of me." He pursues a beauty, +half seen, which flies before him. The poet pours out verses in every +solitude. Most of the things he says are conventional, no doubt; but by +and by he says something which is original and beautiful. That charms +him. He would say nothing else but such things. In our way of talking +we say 'That is yours, this is mine;' but the poet knows well that it is +not his; that it is as strange and beautiful to him as to you; he would +fain hear the like eloquence at length. Once having tasted this immortal +ichor, he cannot have enough of it, and as an admirable creative power +exists in these intellections, it is of the last importance that these +things get spoken. What a little of all we know is said! What drops of +all the sea of our science are baled up! and by what accident it is +that these are exposed, when so many secrets sleep in nature! Hence the +necessity of speech and song; hence these throbs and heart-beatings in +the orator, at the door of the assembly, to the end namely that thought +may be ejaculated as Logos, or Word. + +Doubt not, O poet, but persist. Say 'It is in me, and shall out.' Stand +there, balked and dumb, stuttering and stammering, hissed and hooted, +stand and strive, until at last rage draw out of thee that dream-power +which every night shows thee is thine own; a power transcending all +limit and privacy, and by virtue of which a man is the conductor of +the whole river of electricity. Nothing walks, or creeps, or grows, or +exists, which must not in turn arise and walk before him as exponent +of his meaning. Comes he to that power, his genius is no longer +exhaustible. All the creatures by pairs and by tribes pour into his mind +as into a Noah's ark, to come forth again to people a new world. This is +like the stock of air for our respiration or for the combustion of +our fireplace; not a measure of gallons, but the entire atmosphere if +wanted. And therefore the rich poets, as Homer, Chaucer, Shakspeare, and +Raphael, have obviously no limits to their works except the limits of +their lifetime, and resemble a mirror carried through the street, ready +to render an image of every created thing. + +O poet! a new nobility is conferred in groves and pastures, and not in +castles or by the sword-blade any longer. The conditions are hard, but +equal. Thou shalt leave the world, and know the muse only. Thou shalt +not know any longer the times, customs, graces, politics, or opinions of +men, but shalt take all from the muse. For the time of towns is tolled +from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are +counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy +on joy. God wills also that thou abdicate a manifold and duplex life, +and that thou be content that others speak for thee. Others shall be thy +gentlemen and shall represent all courtesy and worldly life for thee; +others shall do the great and resounding actions also. Thou shalt lie +close hid with nature, and canst not be afforded to the Capitol or the +Exchange. The world is full of renunciations and apprenticeships, and +this is thine: thou must pass for a fool and a churl for a long +season. This is the screen and sheath in which Pan has protected his +well-beloved flower, and thou shalt be known only to thine own, and they +shall console thee with tenderest love. And thou shalt not be able to +rehearse the names of thy friends in thy verse, for an old shame before +the holy ideal. And this is the reward; that the ideal shall be real +to thee, and the impressions of the actual world shall fall like summer +rain, copious, but not troublesome, to thy invulnerable essence. Thou +shalt have the whole land for thy park and manor, the sea for thy bath +and navigation, without tax and without envy; the woods and the rivers +thou shalt own; and thou shalt possess that wherein others are only +tenants and boarders. Thou true land-lord! sea-lord! air-lord! Wherever +snow falls or water flows or birds fly, wherever day and night meet in +twilight, wherever the blue heaven is hung by clouds or sown with stars, +wherever are forms with transparent boundaries, wherever are outlets +into celestial space, wherever is danger, and awe, and love,--there is +Beauty, plenteous as rain, shed for thee, and though thou shouldest walk +the world over, thou shalt not be able to find a condition inopportune +or ignoble. + +***** + + + + EXPERIENCE. + + THE lords of life, the lords of life,-- + I saw them pass, + In their own guise, + Like and unlike, + Portly and grim, + Use and Surprise, + Surface and Dream, + Succession swift, and spectral Wrong, + Temperament without a tongue, + And the inventor of the game + Omnipresent without name;-- + Some to see, some to be guessed, + They marched from east to west: + Little man, least of all, + Among the legs of his guardians tall, + Walked about with puzzled look:-- + Him by the hand dear Nature took; + Dearest Nature, strong and kind, + Whispered, 'Darling, never mind! + Tomorrow they will wear another face, + The founder thou! these are thy race!' + + + + +II. EXPERIENCE. + +WHERE do we find ourselves? In a series of which we do not know the +extremes, and believe that it has none. We wake and find ourselves on a +stair; there are stairs below us, which we seem to have ascended; there +are stairs above us, many a one, which go upward and out of sight. But +the Genius which according to the old belief stands at the door by which +we enter, and gives us the lethe to drink, that we may tell no tales, +mixed the cup too strongly, and we cannot shake off the lethargy now at +noonday. Sleep lingers all our lifetime about our eyes, as night hovers +all day in the boughs of the fir-tree. All things swim and glitter. Our +life is not so much threatened as our perception. Ghostlike we glide +through nature, and should not know our place again. Did our birth +fall in some fit of indigence and frugality in nature, that she was so +sparing of her fire and so liberal of her earth that it appears to us +that we lack the affirmative principle, and though we have health and +reason, yet we have no superfluity of spirit for new creation? We have +enough to live and bring the year about, but not an ounce to impart or +to invest. Ah that our Genius were a little more of a genius! We are +like millers on the lower levels of a stream, when the factories above +them have exhausted the water. We too fancy that the upper people must +have raised their dams. + +If any of us knew what we were doing, or where we are going, then when +we think we best know! We do not know to-day whether we are busy or +idle. In times when we thought ourselves indolent, we have afterwards +discovered that much was accomplished, and much was begun in us. All our +days are so unprofitable while they pass, that 'tis wonderful where or +when we ever got anything of this which we call wisdom, poetry, virtue. +We never got it on any dated calendar day. Some heavenly days must have +been intercalated somewhere, like those that Hermes won with dice of the +Moon, that Osiris might be born. It is said all martyrdoms looked mean +when they were suffered. Every ship is a romantic object, except that +we sail in. Embark, and the romance quits our vessel and hangs on every +other sail in the horizon. Our life looks trivial, and we shun to +record it. Men seem to have learned of the horizon the art of perpetual +retreating and reference. 'Yonder uplands are rich pasturage, and my +neighbor has fertile meadow, but my field,' says the querulous farmer, +'only holds the world together.' I quote another man's saying; unluckily +that other withdraws himself in the same way, and quotes me. 'Tis +the trick of nature thus to degrade to-day; a good deal of buzz, and +somewhere a result slipped magically in. Every roof is agreeable to +the eye until it is lifted; then we find tragedy and moaning women and +hard-eyed husbands and deluges of lethe, and the men ask, 'What's the +news?' as if the old were so bad. How many individuals can we count in +society? how many actions? how many opinions? So much of our time is +preparation, so much is routine, and so much retrospect, that the pith +of each man's genius contracts itself to a very few hours. The +history of literature--take the net result of Tiraboschi, Warton, or +Schlegel,--is a sum of very few ideas and of very few original tales; +all the rest being variation of these. So in this great society wide +lying around us, a critical analysis would find very few spontaneous +actions. It is almost all custom and gross sense. There are even few +opinions, and these seem organic in the speakers, and do not disturb the +universal necessity. + +What opium is instilled into all disaster! It shows formidable as we +approach it, but there is at last no rough rasping friction, but the +most slippery sliding surfaces. We fall soft on a thought; Ate Dea is +gentle,-- + + "Over men's heads walking aloft, + With tender feet treading so soft." + +People grieve and bemoan themselves, but it is not half so bad with them +as they say. There are moods in which we court suffering, in the hope +that here at least we shall find reality, sharp peaks and edges of +truth. But it turns out to be scene-painting and counterfeit. The only +thing grief has taught me is to know how shallow it is. That, like all +the rest, plays about the surface, and never introduces me into the +reality, for contact with which we would even pay the costly price of +sons and lovers. Was it Boscovich who found out that bodies never come +in contact? Well, souls never touch their objects. An innavigable +sea washes with silent waves between us and the things we aim at and +converse with. Grief too will make us idealists. In the death of my son, +now more than two years ago, I seem to have lost a beautiful estate,--no +more. I cannot get it nearer to me. If to-morrow I should be informed of +the bankruptcy of my principal debtors, the loss of my property would be +a great inconvenience to me, perhaps, for many years; but it would +leave me as it found me,--neither better nor worse. So is it with this +calamity: it does not touch me; something which I fancied was a part of +me, which could not be torn away without tearing me nor enlarged without +enriching me, falls off from me and leaves no scar. It was caducous. I +grieve that grief can teach me nothing, nor carry me one step into real +nature. The Indian who was laid under a curse that the wind should not +blow on him, nor water flow to him, nor fire burn him, is a type of us +all. The dearest events are summer-rain, and we the Para coats that shed +every drop. Nothing is left us now but death. We look to that with a +grim satisfaction, saying There at least is reality that will not dodge +us. + +I take this evanescence and lubricity of all objects, which lets them +slip through our fingers then when we clutch hardest, to be the most +unhandsome part of our condition. Nature does not like to be observed, +and likes that we should be her fools and playmates. We may have the +sphere for our cricket-ball, but not a berry for our philosophy. Direct +strokes she never gave us power to make; all our blows glance, all our +hits are accidents. Our relations to each other are oblique and casual. + +Dream delivers us to dream, and there is no end to illusion. Life is a +train of moods like a string of beads, and as we pass through them they +prove to be many-colored lenses which paint the world their own hue, and +each shows only what lies in its focus. From the mountain you see the +mountain. We animate what we can, and we see only what we animate. +Nature and books belong to the eyes that see them. It depends on the +mood of the man whether he shall see the sunset or the fine poem. There +are always sunsets, and there is always genius; but only a few hours so +serene that we can relish nature or criticism. The more or less depends +on structure or temperament. Temperament is the iron wire on which +the beads are strung. Of what use is fortune or talent to a cold and +defective nature? Who cares what sensibility or discrimination a man has +at some time shown, if he falls asleep in his chair? or if he laugh and +giggle? or if he apologize? or is infected with egotism? or thinks of +his dollar? or cannot go by food? or has gotten a child in his boyhood? +Of what use is genius, if the organ is too convex or too concave and +cannot find a focal distance within the actual horizon of human life? Of +what use, if the brain is too cold or too hot, and the man does not care +enough for results to stimulate him to experiment, and hold him up in +it? or if the web is too finely woven, too irritable by pleasure and +pain, so that life stagnates from too much reception without due +outlet? Of what use to make heroic vows of amendment, if the same old +law-breaker is to keep them? What cheer can the religious sentiment +yield, when that is suspected to be secretly dependent on the seasons of +the year and the state of the blood? I knew a witty physician who found +the creed in the biliary duct, and used to affirm that if there was +disease in the liver, the man became a Calvinist, and if that organ +was sound, he became a Unitarian. Very mortifying is the reluctant +experience that some unfriendly excess or imbecility neutralizes the +promise of genius. We see young men who owe us a new world, so readily +and lavishly they promise, but they never acquit the debt; they die +young and dodge the account; or if they live they lose themselves in the +crowd. + +Temperament also enters fully into the system of illusions and shuts us +in a prison of glass which we cannot see. There is an optical illusion +about every person we meet. In truth they are all creatures of given +temperament, which will appear in a given character, whose boundaries +they will never pass: but we look at them, they seem alive, and we +presume there is impulse in them. In the moment it seems impulse; in the +year, in the lifetime, it turns out to be a certain uniform tune +which the revolving barrel of the music-box must play. Men resist the +conclusion in the morning, but adopt it as the evening wears on, that +temper prevails over everything of time, place, and condition, and is +inconsumable in the flames of religion. Some modifications the moral +sentiment avails to impose, but the individual texture holds its +dominion, if not to bias the moral judgments, yet to fix the measure of +activity and of enjoyment. + +I thus express the law as it is read from the platform of ordinary +life, but must not leave it without noticing the capital exception. For +temperament is a power which no man willingly hears any one praise but +himself. On the platform of physics we cannot resist the contracting +influences of so-called science. Temperament puts all divinity to rout. +I know the mental proclivity of physicians. I hear the chuckle of the +phrenologists. Theoretic kidnappers and slave-drivers, they esteem each +man the victim of another, who winds him round his finger by knowing the +law of his being; and by such cheap signboards as the color of his beard +or the slope of his occiput, reads the inventory of his fortunes and +character. The grossest ignorance does not disgust like this impudent +knowingness. The physicians say they are not materialists; but they +are:--Spirit is matter reduced to an extreme thinness: O so thin!--But +the definition of spiritual should be, that which is its own evidence. +What notions do they attach to love! what to religion! One would not +willingly pronounce these words in their hearing, and give them the +occasion to profane them. I saw a gracious gentleman who adapts his +conversation to the form of the head of the man he talks with! I had +fancied that the value of life lay in its inscrutable possibilities; in +the fact that I never know, in addressing myself to a new individual, +what may befall me. I carry the keys of my castle in my hand, ready to +throw them at the feet of my lord, whenever and in what disguise +soever he shall appear. I know he is in the neighborhood hidden among +vagabonds. Shall I preclude my future by taking a high seat and kindly +adapting my conversation to the shape of heads? When I come to that, the +doctors shall buy me for a cent.--'But, sir, medical history; the report +to the Institute; the proven facts!'--I distrust the facts and +the inferences. Temperament is the veto or limitation-power in the +constitution, very justly applied to restrain an opposite excess in the +constitution, but absurdly offered as a bar to original equity. When +virtue is in presence, all subordinate powers sleep. On its own level, +or in view of nature, temperament is final. I see not, if one be once +caught in this trap of so-called sciences, any escape for the man from +the links of the chain of physical necessity. Given such an embryo, +such a history must follow. On this platform one lives in a sty of +sensualism, and would soon come to suicide. But it is impossible that +the creative power should exclude itself. Into every intelligence there +is a door which is never closed, through which the creator passes. The +intellect, seeker of absolute truth, or the heart, lover of absolute +good, intervenes for our succor, and at one whisper of these high powers +we awake from ineffectual struggles with this nightmare. We hurl it into +its own hell, and cannot again contract ourselves to so base a state. + +The secret of the illusoriness is in the necessity of a succession +of moods or objects. Gladly we would anchor, but the anchorage is +quicksand. This onward trick of nature is too strong for us: Pero si +muove. When at night I look at the moon and stars, I seem stationary, +and they to hurry. Our love of the real draws us to permanence, but +health of body consists in circulation, and sanity of mind in variety +or facility of association. We need change of objects. Dedication to +one thought is quickly odious. We house with the insane, and must humor +them; then conversation dies out. Once I took such delight in Montaigne, +that I thought I should not need any other book; before that, in +Shakspeare; then in Plutarch; then in Plotinus; at one time in Bacon; +afterwards in Goethe; even in Bettine; but now I turn the pages of +either of them languidly, whilst I still cherish their genius. So with +pictures; each will bear an emphasis of attention once, which it cannot +retain, though we fain would continue to be pleased in that manner. How +strongly I have felt of pictures that when you have seen one well, you +must take your leave of it; you shall never see it again. I have had +good lessons from pictures which I have since seen without emotion or +remark. A deduction must be made from the opinion which even the wise +express of a new book or occurrence. Their opinion gives me tidings of +their mood, and some vague guess at the new fact, but is nowise to be +trusted as the lasting relation between that intellect and that thing. +The child asks, 'Mamma, why don't I like the story as well as when +you told it me yesterday?' Alas! child it is even so with the oldest +cherubim of knowledge. But will it answer thy question to say, Because +thou wert born to a whole and this story is a particular? The reason +of the pain this discovery causes us (and we make it late in respect to +works of art and intellect), is the plaint of tragedy which murmurs from +it in regard to persons, to friendship and love. + +That immobility and absence of elasticity which we find in the arts, +we find with more pain in the artist. There is no power of expansion in +men. Our friends early appear to us as representatives of certain ideas +which they never pass or exceed. They stand on the brink of the ocean of +thought and power, but they never take the single step that would bring +them there. A man is like a bit of Labrador spar, which has no lustre as +you turn it in your hand until you come to a particular angle; then it +shows deep and beautiful colors. There is no adaptation or universal +applicability in men, but each has his special talent, and the mastery +of successful men consists in adroitly keeping themselves where and when +that turn shall be oftenest to be practised. We do what we must, and +call it by the best names we can, and would fain have the praise of +having intended the result which ensues. I cannot recall any form of man +who is not superfluous sometimes. But is not this pitiful? Life is not +worth the taking, to do tricks in. + +Of course it needs the whole society to give the symmetry we seek. The +party-colored wheel must revolve very fast to appear white. Something is +earned too by conversing with so much folly and defect. In fine, whoever +loses, we are always of the gaining party. Divinity is behind our +failures and follies also. The plays of children are nonsense, but very +educative nonsense. So it is with the largest and solemnest things, with +commerce, government, church, marriage, and so with the history of every +man's bread, and the ways by which he is to come by it. Like a bird +which alights nowhere, but hops perpetually from bough to bough, is the +Power which abides in no man and in no woman, but for a moment speaks +from this one, and for another moment from that one. + +But what help from these fineries or pedantries? What help from thought? +Life is not dialectics. We, I think, in these times, have had lessons +enough of the futility of criticism. Our young people have thought and +written much on labor and reform, and for all that they have written, +neither the world nor themselves have got on a step. Intellectual +tasting of life will not supersede muscular activity. If a man should +consider the nicety of the passage of a piece of bread down his throat, +he would starve. At Education-Farm, the noblest theory of life sat +on the noblest figures of young men and maidens, quite powerless and +melancholy. It would not rake or pitch a ton of hay; it would not +rub down a horse; and the men and maidens it left pale and hungry. A +political orator wittily compared our party promises to western roads, +which opened stately enough, with planted trees on either side to +tempt the traveller, but soon became narrow and narrower and ended in +a squirrel-track and ran up a tree. So does culture with us; it ends in +headache. Unspeakably sad and barren does life look to those who a few +months ago were dazzled with the splendor of the promise of the times. +"There is now no longer any right course of action nor any self-devotion +left among the Iranis." Objections and criticism we have had our fill +of. There are objections to every course of life and action, and the +practical wisdom infers an indifferency, from the omnipresence of +objection. The whole frame of things preaches indifferency. Do not craze +yourself with thinking, but go about your business anywhere. Life is not +intellectual or critical, but sturdy. Its chief good is for well-mixed +people who can enjoy what they find, without question. Nature hates +peeping, and our mothers speak her very sense when they say, "Children, +eat your victuals, and say no more of it." To fill the hour,--that is +happiness; to fill the hour and leave no crevice for a repentance or an +approval. We live amid surfaces, and the true art of life is to skate +well on them. Under the oldest mouldiest conventions a man of native +force prospers just as well as in the newest world, and that by skill +of handling and treatment. He can take hold anywhere. Life itself is a +mixture of power and form, and will not bear the least excess of either. +To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the +road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom. It is not +the part of men, but of fanatics, or of mathematicians if you will, +to say that the shortness of life considered, it is not worth caring +whether for so short a duration we were sprawling in want or sitting +high. Since our office is with moments, let us husband them. Five +minutes of today are worth as much to me as five minutes in the next +millennium. Let us be poised, and wise, and our own, today. Let us treat +the men and women well; treat them as if they were real; perhaps they +are. Men live in their fancy, like drunkards whose hands are too soft +and tremulous for successful labor. It is a tempest of fancies, and the +only ballast I know is a respect to the present hour. Without any shadow +of doubt, amidst this vertigo of shows and politics, I settle myself +ever the firmer in the creed that we should not postpone and refer and +wish, but do broad justice where we are, by whomsoever we deal with, +accepting our actual companions and circumstances, however humble or +odious as the mystic officials to whom the universe has delegated +its whole pleasure for us. If these are mean and malignant, their +contentment, which is the last victory of justice, is a more satisfying +echo to the heart than the voice of poets and the casual sympathy of +admirable persons. I think that however a thoughtful man may suffer +from the defects and absurdities of his company, he cannot without +affectation deny to any set of men and women a sensibility to +extraordinary merit. The coarse and frivolous have an instinct of +superiority, if they have not a sympathy, and honor it in their blind +capricious way with sincere homage. + +The fine young people despise life, but in me, and in such as with me +are free from dyspepsia, and to whom a day is a sound and solid good, it +is a great excess of politeness to look scornful and to cry for company. +I am grown by sympathy a little eager and sentimental, but leave me +alone and I should relish every hour and what it brought me, the potluck +of the day, as heartily as the oldest gossip in the bar-room. I am +thankful for small mercies. I compared notes with one of my friends who +expects everything of the universe and is disappointed when anything +is less than the best, and I found that I begin at the other extreme, +expecting nothing, and am always full of thanks for moderate goods. I +accept the clangor and jangle of contrary tendencies. I find my account +in sots and bores also. They give a reality to the circumjacent picture +which such a vanishing meteorous appearance can ill spare. In the +morning I awake and find the old world, wife, babes, and mother, Concord +and Boston, the dear old spiritual world and even the dear old devil not +far off. If we will take the good we find, asking no questions, we +shall have heaping measures. The great gifts are not got by analysis. +Everything good is on the highway. The middle region of our being is +the temperate zone. We may climb into the thin and cold realm of pure +geometry and lifeless science, or sink into that of sensation. Between +these extremes is the equator of life, of thought, of spirit, of +poetry,--a narrow belt. Moreover, in popular experience everything +good is on the highway. A collector peeps into all the picture-shops of +Europe for a landscape of Poussin, a crayon-sketch of Salvator; but the +Transfiguration, the Last Judgment, the Communion of St. Jerome, and +what are as transcendent as these, are on the walls of the Vatican, the +Uffizii, or the Louvre, where every footman may see them; to say nothing +of Nature's pictures in every street, of sunsets and sunrises every day, +and the sculpture of the human body never absent. A collector recently +bought at public auction, in London, for one hundred and fifty-seven +guineas, an autograph of Shakspeare; but for nothing a school-boy +can read Hamlet and can detect secrets of highest concernment yet +unpublished therein. I think I will never read any but the commonest +books,--the Bible, Homer, Dante, Shakspeare, and Milton. Then we are +impatient of so public a life and planet, and run hither and thither for +nooks and secrets. The imagination delights in the woodcraft of Indians, +trappers, and bee-hunters. We fancy that we are strangers, and not so +intimately domesticated in the planet as the wild man and the wild beast +and bird. But the exclusion reaches them also; reaches the climbing, +flying, gliding, feathered and four-footed man. Fox and woodchuck, hawk +and snipe and bittern, when nearly seen, have no more root in the deep +world than man, and are just such superficial tenants of the globe. Then +the new molecular philosophy shows astronomical interspaces betwixt atom +and atom, shows that the world is all outside; it has no inside. + +The mid-world is best. Nature, as we know her, is no saint. The lights +of the church, the ascetics, Gentoos, and corn-eaters, she does not +distinguish by any favor. She comes eating and drinking and sinning. Her +darlings, the great, the strong, the beautiful, are not children of our +law; do not come out of the Sunday School, nor weigh their food, nor +punctually keep the commandments. If we will be strong with her strength +we must not harbor such disconsolate consciences, borrowed too from the +consciences of other nations. We must set up the strong present tense +against all the rumors of wrath, past or to come. So many things are +unsettled which it is of the first importance to settle;--and, pending +their settlement, we will do as we do. Whilst the debate goes forward on +the equity of commerce, and will not be closed for a century or two, +New and Old England may keep shop. Law of copyright and international +copyright is to be discussed, and in the interim we will sell our books +for the most we can. Expediency of literature, reason of literature, +lawfulness of writing down a thought, is questioned; much is to say on +both sides, and, while the fight waxes hot, thou, dearest scholar, stick +to thy foolish task, add a line every hour, and between whiles add +a line. Right to hold land, right of property, is disputed, and the +conventions convene, and before the vote is taken, dig away in your +garden, and spend your earnings as a waif or godsend to all serene and +beautiful purposes. Life itself is a bubble and a skepticism, and a +sleep within a sleep. Grant it, and as much more as they will,--but +thou, God's darling! heed thy private dream; thou wilt not be missed in +the scorning and skepticism; there are enough of them; stay there in +thy closet and toil until the rest are agreed what to do about it. Thy +sickness, they say, and thy puny habit require that thou do this or +avoid that, but know that thy life is a flitting state, a tent for a +night, and do thou, sick or well, finish that stint. Thou art sick, but +shalt not be worse, and the universe, which holds thee dear, shall be +the better. + +Human life is made up of the two elements, power and form, and the +proportion must be invariably kept if we would have it sweet and sound. +Each of these elements in excess makes a mischief as hurtful as its +defect. Everything runs to excess; every good quality is noxious if +unmixed, and, to carry the danger to the edge of ruin, nature causes +each man's peculiarity to superabound. Here, among the farms, we adduce +the scholars as examples of this treachery. They are nature's victims of +expression. You who see the artist, the orator, the poet, too near, and +find their life no more excellent than that of mechanics or farmers, and +themselves victims of partiality, very hollow and haggard, and pronounce +them failures, not heroes, but quacks,--conclude very reasonably that +these arts are not for man, but are disease. Yet nature will not bear +you out. Irresistible nature made men such, and makes legions more +of such, every day. You love the boy reading in a book, gazing at a +drawing, or a cast; yet what are these millions who read and behold, but +incipient writers and sculptors? Add a little more of that quality which +now reads and sees, and they will seize the pen and chisel. And if one +remembers how innocently he began to be an artist, he perceives that +nature joined with his enemy. A man is a golden impossibility. The line +he must walk is a hair's breadth. The wise through excess of wisdom is +made a fool. + +How easily, if fate would suffer it, we might keep forever these +beautiful limits, and adjust ourselves, once for all, to the perfect +calculation of the kingdom of known cause and effect. In the street +and in the newspapers, life appears so plain a business that manly +resolution and adherence to the multiplication-table through all +weathers will insure success. But ah! presently comes a day, or is +it only a half-hour, with its angel-whispering,--which discomfits the +conclusions of nations and of years! Tomorrow again everything looks +real and angular, the habitual standards are reinstated, common sense is +as rare as genius,--is the basis of genius, and experience is hands and +feet to every enterprise;--and yet, he who should do his business on +this understanding would be quickly bankrupt. Power keeps quite another +road than the turnpikes of choice and will; namely the subterranean and +invisible tunnels and channels of life. It is ridiculous that we are +diplomatists, and doctors, and considerate people: there are no dupes +like these. Life is a series of surprises, and would not be worth taking +or keeping if it were not. God delights to isolate us every day, and +hide from us the past and the future. We would look about us, but with +grand politeness he draws down before us an impenetrable screen +of purest sky, and another behind us of purest sky. 'You will not +remember,' he seems to say, `and you will not expect.' All good +conversation, manners, and action, come from a spontaneity which forgets +usages and makes the moment great. Nature hates calculators; her methods +are saltatory and impulsive. Man lives by pulses; our organic movements +are such; and the chemical and ethereal agents are undulatory and +alternate; and the mind goes antagonizing on, and never prospers but by +fits. We thrive by casualties. Our chief experiences have been casual. +The most attractive class of people are those who are powerful obliquely +and not by the direct stroke; men of genius, but not yet accredited; one +gets the cheer of their light without paying too great a tax. Theirs +is the beauty of the bird or the morning light, and not of art. In the +thought of genius there is always a surprise; and the moral sentiment is +well called "the newness," for it is never other; as new to the oldest +intelligence as to the young child;--"the kingdom that cometh without +observation." In like manner, for practical success, there must not be +too much design. A man will not be observed in doing that which he +can do best. There is a certain magic about his properest action which +stupefies your powers of observation, so that though it is done before +you, you wist not of it. The art of life has a pudency, and will not +be exposed. Every man is an impossibility until he is born; every thing +impossible until we see a success. The ardors of piety agree at last +with the coldest skepticism,--that nothing is of us or our works,--that +all is of God. Nature will not spare us the smallest leaf of laurel. +All writing comes by the grace of God, and all doing and having. I would +gladly be moral and keep due metes and bounds, which I dearly love, and +allow the most to the will of man; but I have set my heart on honesty in +this chapter, and I can see nothing at last, in success or failure, than +more or less of vital force supplied from the Eternal. The results of +life are uncalculated and uncalculable. The years teach much which the +days never know. The persons who compose our company, converse, and come +and go, and design and execute many things, and somewhat comes of it +all, but an unlooked-for result. The individual is always mistaken. +He designed many things, and drew in other persons as coadjutors, +quarrelled with some or all, blundered much, and something is done; all +are a little advanced, but the individual is always mistaken. It turns +out somewhat new and very unlike what he promised himself. + +The ancients, struck with this irreducibleness of the elements of human +life to calculation, exalted Chance into a divinity; but that is to +stay too long at the spark, which glitters truly at one point, but the +universe is warm with the latency of the same fire. The miracle of life +which will not be expounded but will remain a miracle, introduces a new +element. In the growth of the embryo, Sir Everard Home I think noticed +that the evolution was not from one central point, but coactive from +three or more points. Life has no memory. That which proceeds in +succession might be remembered, but that which is coexistent, or +ejaculated from a deeper cause, as yet far from being conscious, knows +not its own tendency. So is it with us, now skeptical or without unity, +because immersed in forms and effects all seeming to be of equal yet +hostile value, and now religious, whilst in the reception of spiritual +law. Bear with these distractions, with this coetaneous growth of the +parts; they will one day be members, and obey one will. On that one +will, on that secret cause, they nail our attention and hope. Life +is hereby melted into an expectation or a religion. Underneath the +inharmonious and trivial particulars, is a musical perfection; the +Ideal journeying always with us, the heaven without rent or seam. Do but +observe the mode of our illumination. When I converse with a profound +mind, or if at any time being alone I have good thoughts, I do not at +once arrive at satisfactions, as when, being thirsty, I drink water; +or go to the fire, being cold; no! but I am at first apprised of my +vicinity to a new and excellent region of life. By persisting to read +or to think, this region gives further sign of itself, as it were in +flashes of light, in sudden discoveries of its profound beauty and +repose, as if the clouds that covered it parted at intervals and showed +the approaching traveller the inland mountains, with the tranquil +eternal meadows spread at their base, whereon flocks graze and shepherds +pipe and dance. But every insight from this realm of thought is felt as +initial, and promises a sequel. I do not make it; I arrive there, +and behold what was there already. I make! O no! I clap my hands in +infantine joy and amazement before the first opening to me of this +august magnificence, old with the love and homage of innumerable ages, +young with the life of life, the sunbright Mecca of the desert. And what +a future it opens! I feel a new heart beating with the love of the new +beauty. I am ready to die out of nature and be born again into this new +yet unapproachable America I have found in the West:-- + + "Since neither now nor yesterday began + These thoughts, which have been ever, nor yet can + A man be found who their first entrance knew." + +If I have described life as a flux of moods, I must now add that there +is that in us which changes not and which ranks all sensations and +states of mind. The consciousness in each man is a sliding scale, which +identifies him now with the First Cause, and now with the flesh of his +body; life above life, in infinite degrees. The sentiment from which it +sprung determines the dignity of any deed, and the question ever is, not +what you have done or forborne, but at whose command you have done or +forborne it. + +Fortune, Minerva, Muse, Holy Ghost,--these are quaint names, too narrow +to cover this unbounded substance. The baffled intellect must still +kneel before this cause, which refuses to be named,--ineffable cause, +which every fine genius has essayed to represent by some emphatic +symbol, as, Thales by water, Anaximenes by air, Anaxagoras by (Nous) +thought, Zoroaster by fire, Jesus and the moderns by love; and the +metaphor of each has become a national religion. The Chinese Mencius has +not been the least successful in his generalization. "I fully understand +language," he said, "and nourish well my vast-flowing vigor."--"I beg +to ask what you call vast-flowing vigor?"--said his companion. "The +explanation," replied Mencius, "is difficult. This vigor is supremely +great, and in the highest degree unbending. Nourish it correctly and do +it no injury, and it will fill up the vacancy between heaven and earth. +This vigor accords with and assists justice and reason, and leaves no +hunger."--In our more correct writing we give to this generalization the +name of Being, and thereby confess that we have arrived as far as we can +go. Suffice it for the joy of the universe that we have not arrived at a +wall, but at interminable oceans. Our life seems not present so much as +prospective; not for the affairs on which it is wasted, but as a hint of +this vast-flowing vigor. Most of life seems to be mere advertisement of +faculty; information is given us not to sell ourselves cheap; that +we are very great. So, in particulars, our greatness is always in a +tendency or direction, not in an action. It is for us to believe in the +rule, not in the exception. The noble are thus known from the ignoble. +So in accepting the leading of the sentiments, it is not what we believe +concerning the immortality of the soul or the like, but the universal +impulse to believe, that is the material circumstance and is the +principal fact in the history of the globe. Shall we describe this cause +as that which works directly? The spirit is not helpless or needful +of mediate organs. It has plentiful powers and direct effects. I am +explained without explaining, I am felt without acting, and where I am +not. Therefore all just persons are satisfied with their own praise. +They refuse to explain themselves, and are content that new actions +should do them that office. They believe that we communicate without +speech and above speech, and that no right action of ours is quite +unaffecting to our friends, at whatever distance; for the influence of +action is not to be measured by miles. Why should I fret myself because +a circumstance has occurred which hinders my presence where I was +expected? If I am not at the meeting, my presence where I am should be +as useful to the commonwealth of friendship and wisdom, as would be my +presence in that place. I exert the same quality of power in all places. +Thus journeys the mighty Ideal before us; it never was known to fall +into the rear. No man ever came to an experience which was satiating, +but his good is tidings of a better. Onward and onward! In liberated +moments we know that a new picture of life and duty is already possible; +the elements already exist in many minds around you of a doctrine of +life which shall transcend any written record we have. The new statement +will comprise the skepticisms as well as the faiths of society, and out +of unbeliefs a creed shall be formed. For skepticisms are not gratuitous +or lawless, but are limitations of the affirmative statement, and the +new philosophy must take them in and make affirmations outside of them, +just as much as it must include the oldest beliefs. + +It is very unhappy, but too late to be helped, the discovery we have +made that we exist. That discovery is called the Fall of Man. Ever +afterwards we suspect our instruments. We have learned that we do not +see directly, but mediately, and that we have no means of correcting +these colored and distorting lenses which we are, or of computing the +amount of their errors. Perhaps these subject-lenses have a creative +power; perhaps there are no objects. Once we lived in what we saw; +now, the rapaciousness of this new power, which threatens to absorb all +things, engages us. Nature, art, persons, letters, religions, objects, +successively tumble in, and God is but one of its ideas. Nature and +literature are subjective phenomena; every evil and every good thing is +a shadow which we cast. The street is full of humiliations to the proud. +As the fop contrived to dress his bailiffs in his livery and make them +wait on his guests at table, so the chagrins which the bad heart gives +off as bubbles, at once take form as ladies and gentlemen in the street, +shopmen or bar-keepers in hotels, and threaten or insult whatever is +threatenable and insultable in us. 'Tis the same with our idolatries. +People forget that it is the eye which makes the horizon, and +the rounding mind's eye which makes this or that man a type or +representative of humanity, with the name of hero or saint. Jesus, the +"providential man," is a good man on whom many people are agreed +that these optical laws shall take effect. By love on one part and +by forbearance to press objection on the other part, it is for a time +settled, that we will look at him in the centre of the horizon, and +ascribe to him the properties that will attach to any man so seen. But +the longest love or aversion has a speedy term. The great and crescive +self, rooted in absolute nature, supplants all relative existence and +ruins the kingdom of mortal friendship and love. Marriage (in what is +called the spiritual world) is impossible, because of the inequality +between every subject and every object. The subject is the receiver of +Godhead, and at every comparison must feel his being enhanced by that +cryptic might. Though not in energy, yet by presence, this magazine of +substance cannot be otherwise than felt; nor can any force of intellect +attribute to the object the proper deity which sleeps or wakes forever +in every subject. Never can love make consciousness and ascription +equal in force. There will be the same gulf between every me and thee as +between the original and the picture. The universe is the bride of the +soul. All private sympathy is partial. Two human beings are like globes, +which can touch only in a point, and whilst they remain in contact, +all other points of each of the spheres are inert; their turn must +also come, and the longer a particular union lasts the more energy of +appetency the parts not in union acquire. + +Life will be imaged, but cannot be divided nor doubled. Any invasion +of its unity would be chaos. The soul is not twin-born but the only +begotten, and though revealing itself as child in time, child in +appearance, is of a fatal and universal power, admitting no co-life. +Every day, every act betrays the ill-concealed deity. We believe in +ourselves as we do not believe in others. We permit all things to +ourselves, and that which we call sin in others is experiment for us. It +is an instance of our faith in ourselves that men never speak of crime +as lightly as they think; or every man thinks a latitude safe for +himself which is nowise to be indulged to another. The act looks very +differently on the inside and on the outside; in its quality and in its +consequences. Murder in the murderer is no such ruinous thought as poets +and romancers will have it; it does not unsettle him or fright him +from his ordinary notice of trifles; it is an act quite easy to be +contemplated; but in its sequel it turns out to be a horrible jangle +and confounding of all relations. Especially the crimes that spring from +love seem right and fair from the actor's point of view, but when acted +are found destructive of society. No man at last believes that he can be +lost, nor that the crime in him is as black as in the felon. Because the +intellect qualifies in our own case the moral judgments. For there is +no crime to the intellect. That is antinomian or hypernomian, and judges +law as well as fact. "It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder," said +Napoleon, speaking the language of the intellect. To it, the world is +a problem in mathematics or the science of quantity, and it leaves out +praise and blame and all weak emotions. All stealing is comparative. If +you come to absolutes, pray who does not steal? Saints are sad, because +they behold sin (even when they speculate), from the point of view of +the conscience, and not of the intellect; a confusion of thought. +Sin, seen from the thought, is a diminution, or less: seen from the +conscience or will, it is pravity or bad. The intellect names it +shade, absence of light, and no essence. The conscience must feel it as +essence, essential evil. This it is not; it has an objective existence, +but no subjective. + +Thus inevitably does the universe wear our color, and every object fall +successively into the subject itself. The subject exists, the subject +enlarges; all things sooner or later fall into place. As I am, so I see; +use what language we will, we can never say anything but what we are; +Hermes, Cadmus, Columbus, Newton, Bonaparte, are the mind's ministers. +Instead of feeling a poverty when we encounter a great man, let us treat +the new comer like a travelling geologist who passes through our estate +and shows us good slate, or limestone, or anthracite, in our brush +pasture. The partial action of each strong mind in one direction is a +telescope for the objects on which it is pointed. But every other part +of knowledge is to be pushed to the same extravagance, ere the soul +attains her due sphericity. Do you see that kitten chasing so prettily +her own tail? If you could look with her eyes you might see her +surrounded with hundreds of figures performing complex dramas, with +tragic and comic issues, long conversations, many characters, many ups +and downs of fate,--and meantime it is only puss and her tail. How long +before our masquerade will end its noise of tambourines, laughter, and +shouting, and we shall find it was a solitary performance? A subject and +an object,--it takes so much to make the galvanic circuit complete, but +magnitude adds nothing. What imports it whether it is Kepler and the +sphere, Columbus and America, a reader and his book, or puss with her +tail? + +It is true that all the muses and love and religion hate these +developments, and will find a way to punish the chemist who publishes in +the parlor the secrets of the laboratory. And we cannot say too little +of our constitutional necessity of seeing things under private aspects, +or saturated with our humors. And yet is the God the native of these +bleak rocks. That need makes in morals the capital virtue of self-trust. +We must hold hard to this poverty, however scandalous, and by more +vigorous self-recoveries, after the sallies of action, possess our axis +more firmly. The life of truth is cold and so far mournful; but it +is not the slave of tears, contritions and perturbations. It does not +attempt another's work, nor adopt another's facts. It is a main lesson +of wisdom to know your own from another's. I have learned that I cannot +dispose of other people's facts; but I possess such a key to my own as +persuades me, against all their denials, that they also have a key to +theirs. A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among +drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he give so much as a leg or a +finger they will drown him. They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of +their vices, but not from their vices. Charity would be wasted on this +poor waiting on the symptoms. A wise and hardy physician will say, Come +out of that, as the first condition of advice. + +In this our talking America we are ruined by our good nature and +listening on all sides. This compliance takes away the power of being +greatly useful. A man should not be able to look other than directly +and forthright. A preoccupied attention is the only answer to the +importunate frivolity of other people; an attention, and to an aim which +makes their wants frivolous. This is a divine answer, and leaves no +appeal and no hard thoughts. In Flaxman's drawing of the Eumenides of +Aeschylus, Orestes supplicates Apollo, whilst the Furies sleep on +the threshold. The face of the god expresses a shade of regret and +compassion, but is calm with the conviction of the irreconcilableness +of the two spheres. He is born into other politics, into the eternal and +beautiful. The man at his feet asks for his interest in turmoils of the +earth, into which his nature cannot enter. And the Eumenides there +lying express pictorially this disparity. The god is surcharged with his +divine destiny. + +Illusion, Temperament, Succession, Surface, Surprise, Reality, +Subjectiveness,--these are threads on the loom of time, these are the +lords of life. I dare not assume to give their order, but I name them as +I find them in my way. I know better than to claim any completeness for +my picture. I am a fragment, and this is a fragment of me. I can very +confidently announce one or another law, which throws itself into relief +and form, but I am too young yet by some ages to compile a code. I +gossip for my hour concerning the eternal politics. I have seen many +fair pictures not in vain. A wonderful time I have lived in. I am not +the novice I was fourteen, nor yet seven years ago. Let who will +ask Where is the fruit? I find a private fruit sufficient. This is +a fruit,--that I should not ask for a rash effect from meditations, +counsels and the hiving of truths. I should feel it pitiful to demand a +result on this town and county, an overt effect on the instant month and +year. The effect is deep and secular as the cause. It works on periods +in which mortal lifetime is lost. All I know is reception; I am and I +have: but I do not get, and when I have fancied I had gotten anything, +I found I did not. I worship with wonder the great Fortune. My reception +has been so large, that I am not annoyed by receiving this or that +superabundantly. I say to the Genius, if he will pardon the proverb, +In for a mill, in for a million. When I receive a new gift, I do not +macerate my body to make the account square, for if I should die I could +not make the account square. The benefit overran the merit the first +day, and has overrun the merit ever since. The merit itself, so-called, +I reckon part of the receiving. + +Also that hankering after an overt or practical effect seems to me an +apostasy. In good earnest I am willing to spare this most unnecessary +deal of doing. Life wears to me a visionary face. Hardest roughest +action is visionary also. It is but a choice between soft and turbulent +dreams. People disparage knowing and the intellectual life, and urge +doing. I am very content with knowing, if only I could know. That is +an august entertainment, and would suffice me a great while. To know a +little would be worth the expense of this world. I hear always the law +of Adrastia, "that every soul which had acquired any truth, should be +safe from harm until another period." + +I know that the world I converse with in the city and in the farms, is +not the world I think. I observe that difference, and shall observe it. +One day I shall know the value and law of this discrepance. But I have +not found that much was gained by manipular attempts to realize the +world of thought. Many eager persons successively make an experiment +in this way, and make themselves ridiculous. They acquire democratic +manners, they foam at the mouth, they hate and deny. Worse, I observe +that in the history of mankind there is never a solitary example of +success,--taking their own tests of success. I say this polemically, or +in reply to the inquiry, Why not realize your world? But far be from me +the despair which prejudges the law by a paltry empiricism;--since there +never was a right endeavor but it succeeded. Patience and patience, we +shall win at the last. We must be very suspicious of the deceptions of +the element of time. It takes a good deal of time to eat or to sleep, +or to earn a hundred dollars, and a very little time to entertain a hope +and an insight which becomes the light of our life. We dress our garden, +eat our dinners, discuss the household with our wives, and these things +make no impression, are forgotten next week; but, in the solitude to +which every man is always returning, he has a sanity and revelations +which in his passage into new worlds he will carry with him. Never mind +the ridicule, never mind the defeat; up again, old heart!--it seems to +say,--there is victory yet for all justice; and the true romance which +the world exists to realize will be the transformation of genius into +practical power. + +***** + + + + CHARACTER. + + The sun set; but set not his hope: + Stars rose; his faith was earlier up: + Fixed on the enormous galaxy, + Deeper and older seemed his eye: + And matched his sufferance sublime + The taciturnity of time. + He spoke, and words more soft than rain + Brought the Age of Gold again: + His action won such reverence sweet, + As hid all measure of the feat. + + Work of his hand + He nor commends nor grieves + Pleads for itself the fact; + As unrepenting Nature leaves + Her every act. + + + + +III. CHARACTER. + +I HAVE read that those who listened to Lord Chatham felt that there was +something finer in the man than any thing which he said. It has been +complained of our brilliant English historian of the French Revolution +that when he has told all his facts about Mirabeau, they do not justify +his estimate of his genius. The Gracchi, Agis, Cleomenes, and others of +Plutarch's heroes, do not in the record of facts equal their own fame. +Sir Philip Sidney, the Earl of Essex, Sir Walter Raleigh, are men of +great figure and of few deeds. We cannot find the smallest part of the +personal weight of Washington in the narrative of his exploits. The +authority of the name of Schiller is too great for his books. This +inequality of the reputation to the works or the anecdotes is not +accounted for by saying that the reverberation is longer than the +thunder-clap, but somewhat resided in these men which begot an +expectation that outran all their performance. The largest part of their +power was latent. This is that which we call Character,--a reserved +force which acts directly by presence, and without means. It is +conceived of as a certain undemonstrable force, a Familiar or Genius, +by whose impulses the man is guided but whose counsels he cannot impart; +which is company for him, so that such men are often solitary, or +if they chance to be social, do not need society but can entertain +themselves very well alone. The purest literary talent appears at one +time great, at another time small, but character is of a stellar and +undiminishable greatness. What others effect by talent or by eloquence, +this man accomplishes by some magnetism. "Half his strength he put not +forth." His victories are by demonstration of superiority, and not by +crossing of bayonets. He conquers because his arrival alters the face of +affairs. "O Iole! how did you know that Hercules was a god?" "Because," +answered Iole, "I was content the moment my eyes fell on him. When I +beheld Theseus, I desired that I might see him offer battle, or at least +guide his horses in the chariot-race; but Hercules did not wait for a +contest; he conquered whether he stood, or walked, or sat, or whatever +thing he did." Man, ordinarily a pendant to events, only half attached, +and that awkwardly, to the world he lives in, in these examples appears +to share the life of things, and to be an expression of the same laws +which control the tides and the sun, numbers and quantities. + +But to use a more modest illustration and nearer home, I observe that in +our political elections, where this element, if it appears at all, +can only occur in its coarsest form, we sufficiently understand +its incomparable rate. The people know that they need in their +representative much more than talent, namely the power to make his +talent trusted. They cannot come at their ends by sending to Congress a +learned, acute, and fluent speaker, if he be not one who, before he was +appointed by the people to represent them, was appointed by Almighty God +to stand for a fact,--invincibly persuaded of that fact in himself,--so +that the most confident and the most violent persons learn that here is +resistance on which both impudence and terror are wasted, namely faith +in a fact. The men who carry their points do not need to inquire of +their constituents what they should say, but are themselves the country +which they represent; nowhere are its emotions or opinions so instant +and true as in them; nowhere so pure from a selfish infusion. The +constituency at home hearkens to their words, watches the color of +their cheek, and therein, as in a glass, dresses its own. Our public +assemblies are pretty good tests of manly force. Our frank countrymen of +the west and south have a taste for character, and like to know whether +the New Englander is a substantial man, or whether the hand can pass +through him. + +The same motive force appears in trade. There are geniuses in trade, +as well as in war, or the State, or letters; and the reason why this or +that man is fortunate is not to be told. It lies in the man; that is all +anybody can tell you about it. See him and you will know as easily why +he succeeds, as, if you see Napoleon, you would comprehend his fortune. +In the new objects we recognize the old game, the Habit of fronting the +fact, and not dealing with it at second hand, through the perceptions of +somebody else. Nature seems to authorize trade, as soon as you see the +natural merchant, who appears not so much a private agent as her factor +and Minister of Commerce. His natural probity combines with his insight +into the fabric of society to put him above tricks, and he communicates +to all his own faith that contracts are of no private interpretation. +The habit of his mind is a reference to standards of natural equity and +public advantage; and he inspires respect and the wish to deal with +him, both for the quiet spirit of honor which attends him, and for the +intellectual pastime which the spectacle of so much ability affords. +This immensely stretched trade, which makes the capes of the Southern +Ocean his wharves, and the Atlantic Sea his familiar port, centres in +his brain only; and nobody in the universe can make his place good. In +his parlor I see very well that he has been at hard work this morning, +with that knitted brow and that settled humor, which all his desire to +be courteous cannot shake off. I see plainly how many firm acts have +been done; how many valiant noes have this day been spoken, when others +would have uttered ruinous yeas. I see, with the pride of art and +skill of masterly arithmetic and power of remote combination, the +consciousness of being an agent and playfellow of the original laws of +the world. He too believes that none can supply him, and that a man must +be born to trade or he cannot learn it. + +This virtue draws the mind more when it appears in action to ends not +so mixed. It works with most energy in the smallest companies and in +private relations. In all cases it is an extraordinary and incomputable +agent. The excess of physical strength is paralyzed by it. Higher +natures overpower lower ones by affecting them with a certain sleep. The +faculties are locked up, and offer no resistance. Perhaps that is the +universal law. When the high cannot bring up the low to itself, it +benumbs it, as man charms down the resistance of the lower animals. Men +exert on each other a similar occult power. How often has the influence +of a true master realized all the tales of magic! A river of command +seemed to run down from his eyes into all those who beheld him, a +torrent of strong sad light, like an Ohio or Danube, which pervaded them +with his thoughts and colored all events with the hue of his mind. "What +means did you employ?" was the question asked of the wife of Concini, +in regard to her treatment of Mary of Medici; and the answer was, "Only +that influence which every strong mind has over a weak one." Cannot +Caesar in irons shuffle off the irons and transfer them to the person +of Hippo or Thraso the turnkey? Is an iron handcuff so immutable a bond? +Suppose a slaver on the coast of Guinea should take on board a gang +of negroes which should contain persons of the stamp of Toussaint +L'Ouverture: or, let us fancy, under these swarthy masks he has a gang +of Washingtons in chains. When they arrive at Cuba, will the relative +order of the ship's company be the same? Is there nothing but rope and +iron? Is there no love, no reverence? Is there never a glimpse of right +in a poor slave-captain's mind; and cannot these be supposed available +to break or elude or in any manner overmatch the tension of an inch or +two of iron ring? + +This is a natural power, like light and heat, and all nature cooperates +with it. The reason why we feel one man's presence and do not feel +another's is as simple as gravity. Truth is the summit of being; justice +is the application of it to affairs. All individual natures stand in a +scale, according to the purity of this element in them. The will of the +pure runs down from them into other natures as water runs down from +a higher into a lower vessel. This natural force is no more to be +withstood than any other natural force. We can drive a stone upward for +a moment into the air, but it is yet true that all stones will forever +fall; and whatever instances can be quoted of unpunished theft, or of +a lie which somebody credited, justice must prevail, and it is the +privilege of truth to make itself believed. Character is this moral +order seen through the medium of an individual nature. An individual is +an encloser. Time and space, liberty and necessity, truth and thought, +are left at large no longer. Now, the universe is a close or pound. All +things exist in the man tinged with the manners of his soul. With what +quality is in him he infuses all nature that he can reach; nor does he +tend to lose himself in vastness, but, at how long a curve soever, all +his regards return into his own good at last. He animates all he can, +and he sees only what he animates. He encloses the world, as the patriot +does his country, as a material basis for his character, and a theatre +for action. A healthy soul stands united with the Just and the True, +as the magnet arranges itself with the pole; so that he stands to all +beholders like a transparent object betwixt them and the sun, and whoso +journeys towards the sun, journeys towards that person. He is thus the +medium of the highest influence to all who are not on the same level. +Thus, men of character are the conscience of the society to which they +belong. + +The natural measure of this power is the resistance of circumstances. +Impure men consider life as it is reflected in opinions, events, and +persons. They cannot see the action until it is done. Yet its moral +element preexisted in the actor, and its quality as right or wrong it +was easy to predict. Everything in nature is bipolar, or has a positive +and negative pole. There is a male and a female, a spirit and a fact, +a north and a south. Spirit is the positive, the event is the negative. +Will is the north, action the south pole. Character may be ranked as +having its natural place in the north. It shares the magnetic currents +of the system. The feeble souls are drawn to the south or negative +pole. They look at the profit or hurt of the action. They never behold a +principle until it is lodged in a person. They do not wish to be lovely, +but to be loved. Men of character like to hear of their faults; the +other class do not like to hear of faults; they worship events; secure +to them a fact, a connection, a certain chain of circumstances, and they +will ask no more. The hero sees that the event is ancillary; it must +follow him. A given order of events has no power to secure to him the +satisfaction which the imagination attaches to it; the soul of goodness +escapes from any set of circumstances; whilst prosperity belongs to a +certain mind, and will introduce that power and victory which is its +natural fruit, into any order of events. No change of circumstances +can repair a defect of character. We boast our emancipation from many +superstitions; but if we have broken any idols it is through a transfer +of the idolatry. What have I gained, that I no longer immolate a bull to +Jove or to Neptune, or a mouse to Hecate; that I do not tremble +before the Eumenides, or the Catholic Purgatory, or the Calvinistic +Judgment-day,--if I quake at opinion, the public opinion, as we call it; +or at the threat of assault, or contumely, or bad neighbors, or poverty, +or mutilation, or at the rumor of revolution, or of murder? If I quake, +what matters it what I quake at? Our proper vice takes form in one or +another shape, according to the sex, age, or temperament of the +person, and, if we are capable of fear, will readily find terrors. The +covetousness or the malignity which saddens me when I ascribe it to +society, is my own. I am always environed by myself. On the other part, +rectitude is a perpetual victory, celebrated not by cries of joy but by +serenity, which is joy fixed or habitual. It is disgraceful to fly to +events for confirmation of our truth and worth. The capitalist does not +run every hour to the broker to coin his advantages into current money +of the realm; he is satisfied to read in the quotations of the market +that his stocks have risen. The same transport which the occurrence of +the best events in the best order would occasion me, I must learn to +taste purer in the perception that my position is every hour meliorated, +and does already command those events I desire. That exultation is only +to be checked by the foresight of an order of things so excellent as to +throw all our prosperities into the deepest shade. + +The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. I revere the +person who is riches; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor, +or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor, +and beatified man. Character is centrality, the impossibility of being +displaced or overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society +is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into +ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man I shall +think myself poorly entertained if he give me nimble pieces of +benevolence and etiquette; rather he shall stand stoutly in his place +and let me apprehend if it were only his resistance; know that I have +encountered a new and positive quality;--great refreshment for both of +us. It is much that he does not accept the conventional opinions and +practices. That nonconformity will remain a goad and remembrancer, and +every inquirer will have to dispose of him, in the first place. There is +nothing real or useful that is not a seat of war. Our houses ring with +laughter and personal and critical gossip, but it helps little. But the +uncivil, unavailable man, who is a problem and a threat to society, whom +it cannot let pass in silence but must either worship or hate,--and +to whom all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion and the +obscure and eccentric,--he helps; he puts America and Europe in the +wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, 'man is a doll, let us +eat and drink, 'tis the best we can do,' by illuminating the untried +and unknown. Acquiescence in the establishment and appeal to the public, +indicate infirm faith, heads which are not clear, and which must see a +house built, before they can comprehend the plan of it. The wise man +not only leaves out of his thought the many, but leaves out the few. +Fountains, the self-moved, the absorbed, the commander because he is +commanded, the assured, the primary,--they are good; for these announce +the instant presence of supreme power. + +Our action should rest mathematically on our substance. In nature, there +are no false valuations. A pound of water in the ocean-tempest has no +more gravity than in a midsummer pond. All things work exactly according +to their quality and according to their quantity; attempt nothing they +cannot do, except man only. He has pretension; he wishes and attempts +things beyond his force. I read in a book of English memoirs, "Mr. Fox +(afterwards Lord Holland) said, he must have the Treasury; he had served +up to it, and would have it." Xenophon and his Ten Thousand were quite +equal to what they attempted, and did it; so equal, that it was not +suspected to be a grand and inimitable exploit. Yet there stands that +fact unrepeated, a high-water mark in military history. Many have +attempted it since, and not been equal to it. It is only on reality that +any power of action can be based. No institution will be better than the +institutor. I knew an amiable and accomplished person who undertook a +practical reform, yet I was never able to find in him the enterprise of +love he took in hand. He adopted it by ear and by the understanding from +the books he had been reading. All his action was tentative, a piece of +the city carried out into the fields, and was the city still, and no new +fact, and could not inspire enthusiasm. Had there been something latent +in the man, a terrible undemonstrated genius agitating and embarrassing +his demeanor, we had watched for its advent. It is not enough that the +intellect should see the evils and their remedy. We shall still postpone +our existence, nor take the ground to which we are entitled, whilst +it is only a thought and not a spirit that incites us. We have not yet +served up to it. + +These are properties of life, and another trait is the notice of +incessant growth. Men should be intelligent and earnest. They must also +make us feel that they have a controlling happy future opening before +them, whose early twilights already kindle in the passing hour. The hero +is misconceived and misreported; he cannot therefore wait to unravel any +man's blunders; he is again on his road, adding new powers and honors to +his domain and new claims on your heart, which will bankrupt you if you +have loitered about the old things and have not kept your relation to +him by adding to your wealth. New actions are the only apologies +and explanations of old ones which the noble can bear to offer or to +receive. If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit down to +consider it, for he has already lost all memory of the passage, and +has doubled his power to serve you, and ere you can rise up again will +burden you with blessings. + +We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is only measured +by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if its estate is wasted, its +granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though he +sleep, seems to purify the air and his house to adorn the landscape and +strengthen the laws. People always recognize this difference. We know +who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of subscription +to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can be enumerated. +Fear, when your friends say to you what you have done well, and say it +through; but when they stand with uncertain timid looks of respect and +half-dislike, and must suspend their judgment for years to come, you may +begin to hope. Those who live to the future must always appear selfish +to those who live to the present. Therefore it was droll in the good +Riemer, who has written memoirs of Goethe, to make out a list of his +donations and good deeds, as, so many hundred thalers given to Stilling, +to Hegel, to Tischbein; a lucrative place found for Professor Voss, +a post under the Grand Duke for Herder, a pension for Meyer, two +professors recommended to foreign universities; &c., &c. The longest +list of specifications of benefit would look very short. A man is a +poor creature if he is to be measured so. For all these of course +are exceptions, and the rule and hodiernal life of a good man is +benefaction. The true charity of Goethe is to be inferred from the +account he gave Dr. Eckermann of the way in which he had spent his +fortune. "Each bon-mot of mine has cost a purse of gold. Half a million +of my own money, the fortune I inherited, my salary and the large income +derived from my writings for fifty years back, have been expended to +instruct me in what I now know. I have besides seen," &c. + +I own it is but poor chat and gossip to go to enumerate traits of this +simple and rapid power, and we are painting the lightning with charcoal; +but in these long nights and vacations I like to console myself so. +Nothing but itself can copy it. A word warm from the heart enriches me. +I surrender at discretion. How death-cold is literary genius before this +fire of life! These are the touches that reanimate my heavy soul and +give it eyes to pierce the dark of nature. I find, where I thought +myself poor, there was I most rich. Thence comes a new intellectual +exaltation, to be again rebuked by some new exhibition of character. +Strange alternation of attraction and repulsion! Character repudiates +intellect, yet excites it; and character passes into thought, is +published so, and then is ashamed before new flashes of moral worth. + +Character is nature in the highest form. It is of no use to ape it or to +contend with it. Somewhat is possible of resistance, and of persistence, +and of creation, to this power, which will foil all emulation. + +This masterpiece is best where no hands but nature's have been laid on +it. Care is taken that the greatly-destined shall slip up into life in +the shade, with no thousand-eyed Athens to watch and blazon every new +thought, every blushing emotion of young genius. Two persons lately, +very young children of the most high God, have given me occasion for +thought. When I explored the source of their sanctity and charm for the +imagination, it seemed as if each answered, 'From my nonconformity; I +never listened to your people's law, or to what they call their gospel, +and wasted my time. I was content with the simple rural poverty of my +own; hence this sweetness; my work never reminds you of that;--is pure +of that.' And nature advertises me in such persons that in +democratic America she will not be democratized. How cloistered and +constitutionally sequestered from the market and from scandal! It was +only this morning that I sent away some wild flowers of these wood-gods. +They are a relief from literature,--these fresh draughts from the +sources of thought and sentiment; as we read, in an age of polish and +criticism, the first lines of written prose and verse of a nation. +How captivating is their devotion to their favorite books, whether +Aeschylus, Dante, Shakspeare, or Scott, as feeling that they have a +stake in that book; who touches that, touches them;--and especially +the total solitude of the critic, the Patmos of thought from which +he writes, in unconsciousness of any eyes that shall ever read +this writing. Could they dream on still, as angels, and not wake to +comparisons, and to be flattered! Yet some natures are too good to be +spoiled by praise, and wherever the vein of thought reaches down into +the profound, there is no danger from vanity. Solemn friends will +warn them of the danger of the head's being turned by the flourish of +trumpets, but they can afford to smile. I remember the indignation of an +eloquent Methodist at the kind admonitions of a Doctor of Divinity,--'My +friend, a man can neither be praised nor insulted.' But forgive the +counsels; they are very natural. I remember the thought which occurred +to me when some ingenious and spiritual foreigners came to America, was, +Have you been victimized in being brought hither?--or, prior to that, +answer me this, 'Are you victimizable?' + +As I have said, Nature keeps these sovereignties in her own hands, and +however pertly our sermons and disciplines would divide some share of +credit, and teach that the laws fashion the citizen, she goes her own +gait and puts the wisest in the wrong. She makes very light of gospels +and prophets, as one who has a great many more to produce and no excess +of time to spare on any one. There is a class of men, individuals of +which appear at long intervals, so eminently endowed with insight and +virtue that they have been unanimously saluted as divine, and who seem +to be an accumulation of that power we consider. Divine persons are +character born, or, to borrow a phrase from Napoleon, they are victory +organized. They are usually received with ill-will, because they are new +and because they set a bound to the exaggeration that has been made +of the personality of the last divine person. Nature never rhymes her +children, nor makes two men alike. When we see a great man we fancy a +resemblance to some historical person, and predict the sequel of his +character and fortune; a result which he is sure to disappoint. None +will ever solve the problem of his character according to our prejudice, +but only in his own high unprecedented way. Character wants room; must +not be crowded on by persons nor be judged from glimpses got in the +press of affairs or on few occasions. It needs perspective, as a great +building. It may not, probably does not, form relations rapidly; and we +should not require rash explanation, either on the popular ethics, or on +our own, of its action. + +I look on Sculpture as history. I do not think the Apollo and the Jove +impossible in flesh and blood. Every trait which the artist recorded in +stone he had seen in life, and better than his copy. We have seen many +counterfeits, but we are born believers in great men. How easily we +read in old books, when men were few, of the smallest action of the +patriarchs. We require that a man should be so large and columnar in +the landscape, that it should deserve to be recorded that he arose, and +girded up his loins, and departed to such a place. The most credible +pictures are those of majestic men who prevailed at their entrance, and +convinced the senses; as happened to the eastern magian who was sent to +test the merits of Zertusht or Zoroaster. When the Yunani sage arrived +at Balkh, the Persians tell us, Gushtasp appointed a day on which the +Mobeds of every country should assemble, and a golden chair was placed +for the Yunani sage. Then the beloved of Yezdam, the prophet Zertusht, +advanced into the midst of the assembly. The Yunani sage, on seeing that +chief, said, "This form and this gait cannot lie, and nothing but truth +can proceed from them." Plato said it was impossible not to believe in +the children of the gods, "though they should speak without probable +or necessary arguments." I should think myself very unhappy in my +associates if I could not credit the best things in history. "John +Bradshaw," says Milton, "appears like a consul, from whom the fasces +are not to depart with the year; so that not on the tribunal only, but +throughout his life, you would regard him as sitting in judgment upon +kings." I find it more credible, since it is anterior information, that +one man should know heaven, as the Chinese say, than that so many men +should know the world. "The virtuous prince confronts the gods, without +any misgiving. He waits a hundred ages till a sage comes, and does not +doubt. He who confronts the gods, without any misgiving, knows heaven; +he who waits a hundred ages until a sage comes, without doubting, knows +men. Hence the virtuous prince moves, and for ages shows empire the +way." But there is no need to seek remote examples. He is a dull +observer whose experience has not taught him the reality and force of +magic, as well as of chemistry. The coldest precisian cannot go abroad +without encountering inexplicable influences. One man fastens an eye on +him and the graves of the memory render up their dead; the secrets that +make him wretched either to keep or to betray must be yielded;--another, +and he cannot speak, and the bones of his body seem to lose their +cartilages; the entrance of a friend adds grace, boldness, and eloquence +to him; and there are persons he cannot choose but remember, who gave a +transcendent expansion to his thought, and kindled another life in his +bosom. + +What is so excellent as strict relations of amity, when they spring from +this deep root? The sufficient reply to the skeptic who doubts the power +and the furniture of man, is in that possibility of joyful intercourse +with persons, which makes the faith and practice of all reasonable men. +I know nothing which life has to offer so satisfying as the profound +good understanding which can subsist after much exchange of good +offices, between two virtuous men, each of whom is sure of himself +and sure of his friend. It is a happiness which postpones all other +gratifications, and makes politics, and commerce, and churches, cheap. +For when men shall meet as they ought, each a benefactor, a shower +of stars, clothed with thoughts, with deeds, with accomplishments, it +should be the festival of nature which all things announce. Of such +friendship, love in the sexes is the first symbol, as all other things +are symbols of love. Those relations to the best men, which, at one +time, we reckoned the romances of youth, become, in the progress of the +character, the most solid enjoyment. + +If it were possible to live in right relations with men!--if we could +abstain from asking anything of them, from asking their praise, or help, +or pity, and content us with compelling them through the virtue of +the eldest laws! Could we not deal with a few persons,--with one +person,--after the unwritten statutes, and make an experiment of their +efficacy? Could we not pay our friend the compliment of truth, of +silence, of forbearing? Need we be so eager to seek him? If we are +related, we shall meet. It was a tradition of the ancient world that no +metamorphosis could hide a god from a god; and there is a Greek verse +which runs,-- + + "The Gods are to each other not unknown." + +Friends also follow the laws of divine necessity; they gravitate to each +other, and cannot otherwise:-- + + When each the other shall avoid, + Shall each by each be most enjoyed. + +Their relation is not made, but allowed. The gods must seat themselves +without seneschal in our Olympus, and as they can instal themselves +by seniority divine. Society is spoiled if pains are taken, if the +associates are brought a mile to meet. And if it be not society, it is a +mischievous, low, degrading jangle, though made up of the best. All the +greatness of each is kept back and every foible in painful activity, as +if the Olympians should meet to exchange snuff-boxes. + +Life goes headlong. We chase some flying scheme, or we are hunted by +some fear or command behind us. But if suddenly we encounter a friend, +we pause; our heat and hurry look foolish enough; now pause, now +possession is required, and the power to swell the moment from the +resources of the heart. The moment is all, in all noble relations. + +A divine person is the prophecy of the mind; a friend is the hope of the +heart. Our beatitude waits for the fulfilment of these two in one. The +ages are opening this moral force. All force is the shadow or symbol of +that. Poetry is joyful and strong as it draws its inspiration thence. +Men write their names on the world as they are filled with this. History +has been mean; our nations have been mobs; we have never seen a man: +that divine form we do not yet know, but only the dream and prophecy +of such: we do not know the majestic manners which belong to him, which +appease and exalt the beholder. We shall one day see that the most +private is the most public energy, that quality atones for quantity, and +grandeur of character acts in the dark, and succors them who never saw +it. What greatness has yet appeared is beginnings and encouragements +to us in this direction. The history of those gods and saints which the +world has written and then worshipped, are documents of character. The +ages have exulted in the manners of a youth who owed nothing to fortune, +and who was hanged at the Tyburn of his nation, who, by the pure quality +of his nature, shed an epic splendor around the facts of his death which +has transfigured every particular into an universal symbol for the eyes +of mankind. This great defeat is hitherto our highest fact. But the +mind requires a victory to the senses; a force of character which will +convert judge, jury, soldier, and king; which will rule animal and +mineral virtues, and blend with the courses of sap, of rivers, of winds, +of stars, and of moral agents. + +If we cannot attain at a bound to these grandeurs, at least let us do +them homage. In society, high advantages are set down to the possessor +as disadvantages. It requires the more wariness in our private +estimates. I do not forgive in my friends the failure to know a fine +character and to entertain it with thankful hospitality. When at last +that which we have always longed for is arrived and shines on us with +glad rays out of that far celestial land, then to be coarse, then to be +critical and treat such a visitant with the jabber and suspicion of the +streets, argues a vulgarity that seems to shut the doors of heaven. This +is confusion, this the right insanity, when the soul no longer knows +its own, nor where its allegiance, its religion, are due. Is there any +religion but this, to know that wherever in the wide desert of being the +holy sentiment we cherish has opened into a flower, it blooms for me? if +none sees it, I see it; I am aware, if I alone, of the greatness of the +fact. Whilst it blooms, I will keep sabbath or holy time, and suspend my +gloom and my folly and jokes. Nature is indulged by the presence of this +guest. There are many eyes that can detect and honor the prudent and +household virtues; there are many that can discern Genius on his +starry track, though the mob is incapable; but when that love which is +all-suffering, all-abstaining, all-aspiring, which has vowed to itself +that it will be a wretch and also a fool in this world sooner than +soil its white hands by any compliances, comes into our streets and +houses,--only the pure and aspiring can know its face, and the only +compliment they can pay it is to own it. + +***** + + + + MANNERS. + + "HOW near to good is what is fair! + Which we no sooner see, + But with the lines and outward air + Our senses taken be. + + Again yourselves compose, + And now put all the aptness on + Of Figure, that Proportion + Or Color can disclose; + That if those silent arts were lost, + Design and Picture, they might boast + From you a newer ground, + Instructed by the heightening sense + Of dignity and reverence + In their true motions found." + BEN JONSON + + + + +IV. MANNERS. + +HALF the world, it is said, knows not how the other half live. Our +Exploring Expedition saw the Feejee islanders getting their dinner off +human bones; and they are said to eat their own wives and children. The +husbandry of the modern inhabitants of Gournou (west of old Thebes) +is philosophical to a fault. To set up their housekeeping nothing is +requisite but two or three earthen pots, a stone to grind meal, and a +mat which is the bed. The house, namely a tomb, is ready without rent +or taxes. No rain can pass through the roof, and there is no door, for +there is no want of one, as there is nothing to lose. If the house do +not please them, they walk out and enter another, as there are several +hundreds at their command. "It is somewhat singular," adds Belzoni, to +whom we owe this account, "to talk of happiness among people who live in +sepulchres, among the corpses and rags of an ancient nation which they +know nothing of." In the deserts of Borgoo the rock-Tibboos still dwell +in caves, like cliff-swallows, and the language of these negroes +is compared by their neighbors to the shrieking of bats and to the +whistling of birds. Again, the Bornoos have no proper names; individuals +are called after their height, thickness, or other accidental quality, +and have nicknames merely. But the salt, the dates, the ivory, and the +gold, for which these horrible regions are visited, find their way into +countries where the purchaser and consumer can hardly be ranked in one +race with these cannibals and man-stealers; countries where man serves +himself with metals, wood, stone, glass, gum, cotton, silk, and wool; +honors himself with architecture; writes laws, and contrives to execute +his will through the hands of many nations; and, especially, establishes +a select society, running through all the countries of intelligent +men, a self-constituted aristocracy, or fraternity of the best, which, +without written law or exact usage of any kind, perpetuates itself, +colonizes every new-planted island and adopts and makes its own whatever +personal beauty or extraordinary native endowment anywhere appears. + +What fact more conspicuous in modern history than the creation of +the gentleman? Chivalry is that, and loyalty is that, and, in English +literature, half the drama, and all the novels, from Sir Philip Sidney +to Sir Walter Scott, paint this figure. The word gentleman, which, like +the word Christian, must hereafter characterize the present and the few +preceding centuries by the importance attached to it, is a homage +to personal and incommunicable properties. Frivolous and fantastic +additions have got associated with the name, but the steady interest +of mankind in it must be attributed to the valuable properties which +it designates. An element which unites all the most forcible persons of +every country; makes them intelligible and agreeable to each other, and +is somewhat so precise that it is at once felt if an individual lack +the masonic sign,--cannot be any casual product, but must be an average +result of the character and faculties universally found in men. It +seems a certain permanent average; as the atmosphere is a permanent +composition, whilst so many gases are combined only to be decompounded. +Comme il faut, is the Frenchman's description of good Society: as we +must be. It is a spontaneous fruit of talents and feelings of precisely +that class who have most vigor, who take the lead in the world of this +hour, and though far from pure, far from constituting the gladdest and +highest tone of human feeling, is as good as the whole society permits +it to be. It is made of the spirit, more than of the talent of men, +and is a compound result into which every great force enters as an +ingredient, namely virtue, wit, beauty, wealth, and power. + +There is something equivocal in all the words in use to express the +excellence of manners and social cultivation, because the quantities are +fluxional, and the last effect is assumed by the senses as the cause. +The word gentleman has not any correlative abstract to express the +quality. Gentility is mean, and gentilesse is obsolete. But we must +keep alive in the vernacular the distinction between fashion, a word of +narrow and often sinister meaning, and the heroic character which the +gentleman imports. The usual words, however, must be respected; +they will be found to contain the root of the matter. The point of +distinction in all this class of names, as courtesy, chivalry, fashion, +and the like, is that the flower and fruit, not the grain of the tree, +are contemplated. It is beauty which is the aim this time, and not +worth. The result is now in question, although our words intimate well +enough the popular feeling that the appearance supposes a substance. +The gentleman is a man of truth, lord of his own actions, and expressing +that lordship in his behavior, not in any manner dependent and servile, +either on persons, or opinions, or possessions. Beyond this fact of +truth and real force, the word denotes good-nature or benevolence: +manhood first, and then gentleness. The popular notion certainly adds a +condition of ease and fortune; but that is a natural result of personal +force and love, that they should possess and dispense the goods of the +world. In times of violence, every eminent person must fall in with many +opportunities to approve his stoutness and worth; therefore every man's +name that emerged at all from the mass in the feudal ages, rattles in +our ear like a flourish of trumpets. But personal force never goes out +of fashion. That is still paramount to-day, and in the moving crowd of +good society the men of valor and reality are known and rise to their +natural place. The competition is transferred from war to politics +and trade, but the personal force appears readily enough in these new +arenas. + +Power first, or no leading class. In politics and in trade, bruisers and +pirates are of better promise than talkers and clerks. God knows +that all sorts of gentlemen knock at the door; but whenever used in +strictness and with any emphasis, the name will be found to point +at original energy. It describes a man standing in his own right and +working after untaught methods. In a good lord there must first be +a good animal, at least to the extent of yielding the incomparable +advantage of animal spirits. The ruling class must have more, but they +must have these, giving in every company the sense of power, which +makes things easy to be done which daunt the wise. The society of the +energetic class, in their friendly and festive meetings, is full of +courage and of attempts which intimidate the pale scholar. The courage +which girls exhibit is like a battle of Lundy's Lane, or a sea-fight. +The intellect relies on memory to make some supplies to face these +extemporaneous squadrons. But memory is a base mendicant with basket and +badge, in the presence of these sudden masters. The rulers of society +must be up to the work of the world, and equal to their versatile +office: men of the right Caesarian pattern, who have great range of +affinity. I am far from believing the timid maxim of Lord Falkland +("that for ceremony there must go two to it; since a bold fellow will go +through the cunningest forms"), and am of opinion that the gentleman is +the bold fellow whose forms are not to be broken through; and only that +plenteous nature is rightful master which is the complement of whatever +person it converses with. My gentleman gives the law where he is; he +will outpray saints in chapel, outgeneral veterans in the field, and +outshine all courtesy in the hall. He is good company for pirates +and good with academicians; so that it is useless to fortify yourself +against him; he has the private entrance to all minds, and I could as +easily exclude myself, as him. The famous gentlemen of Asia and Europe +have been of this strong type; Saladin, Sapor, the Cid, Julius Caesar, +Scipio, Alexander, Pericles, and the lordliest personages. They sat very +carelessly in their chairs, and were too excellent themselves, to value +any condition at a high rate. + +A plentiful fortune is reckoned necessary, in the popular judgment, to +the completion of this man of the world; and it is a material deputy +which walks through the dance which the first has led. Money is not +essential, but this wide affinity is, which transcends the habits of +clique and caste and makes itself felt by men of all classes. If the +aristocrat is only valid in fashionable circles and not with truckmen, +he will never be a leader in fashion; and if the man of the people +cannot speak on equal terms with the gentleman, so that the gentleman +shall perceive that he is already really of his own order, he is not +to be feared. Diogenes, Socrates, and Epaminondas, are gentlemen of the +best blood who have chosen the condition of poverty when that of wealth +was equally open to them. I use these old names, but the men I speak of +are my contemporaries. Fortune will not supply to every generation one +of these well-appointed knights, but every collection of men furnishes +some example of the class; and the politics of this country, and the +trade of every town, are controlled by these hardy and irresponsible +doers, who have invention to take the lead, and a broad sympathy which +puts them in fellowship with crowds, and makes their action popular. + +The manners of this class are observed and caught with devotion by men +of taste. The association of these masters with each other and with men +intelligent of their merits, is mutually agreeable and stimulating. The +good forms, the happiest expressions of each, are repeated and adopted. +By swift consent everything superfluous is dropped, everything graceful +is renewed. Fine manners show themselves formidable to the uncultivated +man. They are a subtler science of defence to parry and intimidate; but +once matched by the skill of the other party, they drop the point of the +sword,--points and fences disappear, and the youth finds himself in a +more transparent atmosphere, wherein life is a less troublesome game, +and not a misunderstanding rises between the players. Manners aim to +facilitate life, to get rid of impediments and bring the man pure +to energize. They aid our dealing and conversation as a railway aids +travelling, by getting rid of all avoidable obstructions of the road and +leaving nothing to be conquered but pure space. These forms very soon +become fixed, and a fine sense of propriety is cultivated with the more +heed that it becomes a badge of social and civil distinctions. Thus +grows up Fashion, an equivocal semblance, the most puissant, the most +fantastic and frivolous, the most feared and followed, and which morals +and violence assault in vain. + +There exists a strict relation between the class of power and the +exclusive and polished circles. The last are always filled or filling +from the first. The strong men usually give some allowance even to the +petulances of fashion, for that affinity they find in it. Napoleon, +child of the revolution, destroyer of the old noblesse, never ceased to +court the Faubourg St. Germain; doubtless with the feeling that fashion +is a homage to men of his stamp. Fashion, though in a strange way, +represents all manly virtue. It is virtue gone to seed: it is a kind of +posthumous honor. It does not often caress the great, but the children +of the great: it is a hall of the Past. It usually sets its face against +the great of this hour. Great men are not commonly in its halls; they +are absent in the field: they are working, not triumphing. Fashion is +made up of their children; of those who through the value and virtue +of somebody, have acquired lustre to their name, marks of distinction, +means of cultivation and generosity, and, in their physical organization +a certain health and excellence which secures to them, if not the +highest power to work, yet high power to enjoy. The class of power, the +working heroes, the Cortez, the Nelson, the Napoleon, see that this is +the festivity and permanent celebration of such as they; that fashion is +funded talent; is Mexico, Marengo, and Trafalgar beaten out thin; that +the brilliant names of fashion run back to just such busy names as their +own, fifty or sixty years ago. They are the sowers, their sons shall +be the reapers, and their sons, in the ordinary course of things, must +yield the possession of the harvest to new competitors with keener eyes +and stronger frames. The city is recruited from the country. In the year +1805, it is said, every legitimate monarch in Europe was imbecile. The +city would have died out, rotted, and exploded, long ago, but that it +was reinforced from the fields. It is only country which came to town +day before yesterday that is city and court today. + +Aristocracy and fashion are certain inevitable results. These mutual +selections are indestructible. If they provoke anger in the least +favored class, and the excluded majority revenge themselves on the +excluding minority by the strong hand and kill them, at once a new class +finds itself at the top, as certainly as cream rises in a bowl of milk: +and if the people should destroy class after class, until two men only +were left, one of these would be the leader and would be involuntarily +served and copied by the other. You may keep this minority out of sight +and out of mind, but it is tenacious of life, and is one of the estates +of the realm. I am the more struck with this tenacity, when I see its +work. It respects the administration of such unimportant matters, that +we should not look for any durability in its rule. We sometimes meet +men under some strong moral influence, as a patriotic, a literary, a +religious movement, and feel that the moral sentiment rules man and +nature. We think all other distinctions and ties will be slight and +fugitive, this of caste or fashion for example; yet come from year to +year and see how permanent that is, in this Boston or New York life +of man, where too it has not the least countenance from the law of the +land. Not in Egypt or in India a firmer or more impassable line. Here +are associations whose ties go over and under and through it, a +meeting of merchants, a military corps, a college class, a fire-club, +a professional association, a political, a religious convention;--the +persons seem to draw inseparably near; yet, that assembly once +dispersed, its members will not in the year meet again. Each returns to +his degree in the scale of good society, porcelain remains porcelain, +and earthen earthen. The objects of fashion may be frivolous, or fashion +may be objectless, but the nature of this union and selection can +be neither frivolous nor accidental. Each man's rank in that perfect +graduation depends on some symmetry in his structure or some +agreement in his structure to the symmetry of society. Its doors +unbar instantaneously to a natural claim of their own kind. A natural +gentleman finds his way in, and will keep the oldest patrician out who +has lost his intrinsic rank. Fashion understands itself; good-breeding +and personal superiority of whatever country readily fraternize with +those of every other. The chiefs of savage tribes have distinguished +themselves in London and Paris, by the purity of their tournure. + +To say what good of fashion we can, it rests on reality, and hates +nothing so much as pretenders; to exclude and mystify pretenders and +send them into everlasting 'Coventry,' is its delight. We contemn in +turn every other gift of men of the world; but the habit even in little +and the least matters of not appealing to any but our own sense of +propriety, constitutes the foundation of all chivalry. There is almost +no kind of self-reliance, so it be sane and proportioned, which fashion +does not occasionally adopt and give it the freedom of its saloons. A +sainted soul is always elegant, and, if it will, passes unchallenged +into the most guarded ring. But so will Jock the teamster pass, in some +crisis that brings him thither, and find favor, as long as his head is +not giddy with the new circumstance, and the iron shoes do not wish to +dance in waltzes and cotillons. For there is nothing settled in manners, +but the laws of behavior yield to the energy of the individual. The +maiden at her first ball, the country-man at a city dinner, believes +that there is a ritual according to which every act and compliment must +be performed, or the failing party must be cast out of this presence. +Later they learn that good sense and character make their own forms +every moment, and speak or abstain, take wine or refuse it, stay or go, +sit in a chair or sprawl with children on the floor, or stand on their +head, or what else soever, in a new and aboriginal way; and that strong +will is always in fashion, let who will be unfashionable. All that +fashion demands is composure and self-content. A circle of men perfectly +well-bred would be a company of sensible persons in which every man's +native manners and character appeared. If the fashionist have not this +quality, he is nothing. We are such lovers of self-reliance that we +excuse in a man many sins if he will show us a complete satisfaction +in his position, which asks no leave to be, of mine, or any man's good +opinion. But any deference to some eminent man or woman of the world, +forfeits all privilege of nobility. He is an underling: I have nothing +to do with him; I will speak with his master. A man should not go where +he cannot carry his whole sphere or society with him,--not bodily, the +whole circle of his friends, but atmospherically. He should preserve in +a new company the same attitude of mind and reality of relation which +his daily associates draw him to, else he is shorn of his best beams, +and will be an orphan in the merriest club. "If you could see Vich +Ian Vohr with his tail on!--" But Vich Ian Vohr must always carry his +belongings in some fashion, if not added as honor, then severed as +disgrace. + +There will always be in society certain persons who are mercuries of its +approbation, and whose glance will at any time determine for the curious +their standing in the world. These are the chamberlains of the lesser +gods. Accept their coldness as an omen of grace with the loftier +deities, and allow them all their privilege. They are clear in their +office, nor could they be thus formidable without their own merits. +But do not measure the importance of this class by their pretension, or +imagine that a fop can be the dispenser of honor and shame. They pass +also at their just rate; for how can they otherwise, in circles which +exist as a sort of herald's office for the sifting of character? + +As the first thing man requires of man is reality, so that appears +in all the forms of society. We pointedly, and by name, introduce the +parties to each other. Know you before all heaven and earth, that this +is Andrew, and this is Gregory,--they look each other in the eye; they +grasp each other's hand, to identify and signalize each other. It is +a great satisfaction. A gentleman never dodges; his eyes look straight +forward, and he assures the other party, first of all, that he has been +met. For what is it that we seek, in so many visits and hospitalities? +Is it your draperies, pictures, and decorations? Or do we not insatiably +ask, Was a man in the house? I may easily go into a great household +where there is much substance, excellent provision for comfort, +luxury, and taste, and yet not encounter there any Amphitryon who shall +subordinate these appendages. I may go into a cottage, and find a +farmer who feels that he is the man I have come to see, and fronts +me accordingly. It was therefore a very natural point of old feudal +etiquette that a gentleman who received a visit, though it were of his +sovereign, should not leave his roof, but should wait his arrival at +the door of his house. No house, though it were the Tuileries or the +Escurial, is good for anything without a master. And yet we are not +often gratified by this hospitality. Every body we know surrounds +himself with a fine house, fine books, conservatory, gardens, equipage +and all manner of toys, as screens to interpose between himself and his +guest. Does it not seem as if man was of a very sly, elusive nature, +and dreaded nothing so much as a full rencontre front to front with his +fellow? It were unmerciful, I know, quite to abolish the use of these +screens, which are of eminent convenience, whether the guest is too +great or too little. We call together many friends who keep each other +in play, or by luxuries and ornaments we amuse the young people, and +guard our retirement. Or if perchance a searching realist comes to our +gate, before whose eye we have no care to stand, then again we run to +our curtain, and hide ourselves as Adam at the voice of the Lord God +in the garden. Cardinal Caprara, the Pope's legate at Paris, defended +himself from the glances of Napoleon by an immense pair of green +spectacles. Napoleon remarked them, and speedily managed to rally them +off: and yet Napoleon, in his turn, was not great enough with eight +hundred thousand troops at his back, to face a pair of freeborn eyes, +but fenced himself with etiquette and within triple barriers of reserve; +and, as all the world knows from Madame de Stael, was wont, when he +found himself observed, to discharge his face of all expression. But +emperors and rich men are by no means the most skilful masters of +good manners. No rentroll nor army-list can dignify skulking and +dissimulation; and the first point of courtesy must always be truth, as +really all the forms of good-breeding point that way. + +I have just been reading, in Mr. Hazlitt's translation, Montaigne's +account of his journey into Italy, and am struck with nothing more +agreeably than the self-respecting fashions of the time. His arrival in +each place, the arrival of a gentleman of France, is an event of some +consequence. Wherever he goes he pays a visit to whatever prince or +gentleman of note resides upon his road, as a duty to himself and to +civilization. When he leaves any house in which he has lodged for a few +weeks, he causes his arms to be painted and hung up as a perpetual sign +to the house, as was the custom of gentlemen. + +The complement of this graceful self-respect, and that of all the points +of good breeding I most require and insist upon, is deference. I +like that every chair should be a throne, and hold a king. I prefer +a tendency to stateliness to an excess of fellowship. Let the +incommunicable objects of nature and the metaphysical isolation of man +teach us independence. Let us not be too much acquainted. I would have +a man enter his house through a hall filled with heroic and sacred +sculptures, that he might not want the hint of tranquillity and +self-poise. We should meet each morning as from foreign countries, +and, spending the day together, should depart at night, as into foreign +countries. In all things I would have the island of a man inviolate. Let +us sit apart as the gods, talking from peak to peak all round Olympus. +No degree of affection need invade this religion. This is myrrh and +rosemary to keep the other sweet. Lovers Should guard their strangeness. +If they forgive too much, all slides into confusion and meanness. It +is easy to push this deference to a Chinese etiquette; but coolness and +absence of heat and haste indicate fine qualities. A gentleman makes no +noise; a lady is serene. Proportionate is our disgust at those invaders +who fill a studious house with blast and running, to secure some +paltry convenience. Not less I dislike a low sympathy of each with his +neighbor's needs. Must we have a good understanding with one another's +palates? as foolish people who have lived long together know when each +wants salt or sugar. I pray my companion, if he wishes for bread, to ask +me for bread, and if he wishes for sassafras or arsenic, to ask me for +them, and not to hold out his plate as if I knew already. Every natural +function can be dignified by deliberation and privacy. Let us leave +hurry to slaves. The compliments and ceremonies of our breeding should +signify, however remotely, the recollection of the grandeur of our +destiny. + +The flower of courtesy does not very well bide handling, but if we dare +to open another leaf and explore what parts go to its conformation, +we shall find also an intellectual quality. To the leaders of men, the +brain as well as the flesh and the heart must furnish a proportion. +Defect in manners is usually the defect of fine perceptions. Men are too +coarsely made for the delicacy of beautiful carriage and customs. It +is not quite sufficient to good-breeding, a union of kindness and +independence. We imperatively require a perception of, and a homage to +beauty in our companions. Other virtues are in request in the field and +workyard, but a certain degree of taste is not to be spared in those we +sit with. I could better eat with one who did not respect the truth or +the laws than with a sloven and unpresentable person. Moral qualities +rule the world, but at short distances the senses are despotic. The same +discrimination of fit and fair runs out, if with less rigor, into all +parts of life. The average spirit of the energetic class is good sense, +acting under certain limitations and to certain ends. It entertains +every natural gift. Social in its nature, it respects everything which +tends to unite men. It delights in measure. The love of beauty is mainly +the love of measure or proportion. The person who screams, or uses the +superlative degree, or converses with heat, puts whole drawing-rooms to +flight. If you wish to be loved, love measure. You must have genius or +a prodigious usefulness if you will hide the want of measure. This +perception comes in to polish and perfect the parts of the social +instrument. Society will pardon much to genius and special gifts, but, +being in its nature a convention, it loves what is conventional, or +what belongs to coming together. That makes the good and bad of manners, +namely what helps or hinders fellowship. For fashion is not good +sense absolute, but relative; not good sense private, but good sense +entertaining company. It hates corners and sharp points of character, +hates quarrelsome, egotistical, solitary, and gloomy people; hates +whatever can interfere with total blending of parties; whilst it values +all peculiarities as in the highest degree refreshing, which can +consist with good fellowship. And besides the general infusion of wit +to heighten civility, the direct splendor of intellectual power is ever +welcome in fine society as the costliest addition to its rule and its +credit. + +The dry light must shine in to adorn our festival, but it must be +tempered and shaded, or that will also offend. Accuracy is essential +to beauty, and quick perceptions to politeness, but not too quick +perceptions. One may be too punctual and too precise. He must leave the +omniscience of business at the door, when he comes into the palace of +beauty. Society loves creole natures, and sleepy languishing manners, so +that they cover sense, grace and good-will: the air of drowsy strength, +which disarms criticism; perhaps because such a person seems to reserve +himself for the best of the game, and not spend himself on surfaces; +an ignoring eye, which does not see the annoyances, shifts, and +inconveniences that cloud the brow and smother the voice of the +sensitive. + +Therefore besides personal force and so much perception as constitutes +unerring taste, society demands in its patrician class another element +already intimated, which it significantly terms good-nature,--expressing +all degrees of generosity, from the lowest willingness and faculty to +oblige, up to the heights of magnanimity and love. Insight we must have, +or we shall run against one another and miss the way to our food; but +intellect is selfish and barren. The secret of success in society is a +certain heartiness and sympathy. A man who is not happy in the company +cannot find any word in his memory that will fit the occasion. All his +information is a little impertinent. A man who is happy there, finds +in every turn of the conversation equally lucky occasions for the +introduction of that which he has to say. The favorites of society, and +what it calls whole souls, are able men and of more spirit than wit, +who have no uncomfortable egotism, but who exactly fill the hour and the +company; contented and contenting, at a marriage or a funeral, a ball +or a jury, a water-party or a shooting-match. England, which is rich in +gentlemen, furnished, in the beginning of the present century, a good +model of that genius which the world loves, in Mr. Fox, who added to +his great abilities the most social disposition and real love of men. +Parliamentary history has few better passages than the debate in which +Burke and Fox separated in the House of Commons; when Fox urged on his +old friend the claims of old friendship with such tenderness that the +house was moved to tears. Another anecdote is so close to my matter, +that I must hazard the story. A tradesman who had long dunned him for +a note of three hundred guineas, found him one day counting gold, and +demanded payment:--"No," said Fox, "I owe this money to Sheridan; it is +a debt of honor; if an accident should happen to me, he has nothing +to show." "Then," said the creditor, "I change my debt into a debt +of honor," and tore the note in pieces. Fox thanked the man for his +confidence and paid him, saying, "his debt was of older standing, and +Sheridan must wait." Lover of liberty, friend of the Hindoo, friend +of the African slave, he possessed a great personal popularity; and +Napoleon said of him on the occasion of his visit to Paris, in 1805, +"Mr. Fox will always hold the first place in an assembly at the +Tuileries." + +We may easily seem ridiculous in our eulogy of courtesy, whenever we +insist on benevolence as its foundation. The painted phantasm Fashion +rises to cast a species of derision on what we say. But I will neither +be driven from some allowance to Fashion as a symbolic institution, nor +from the belief that love is the basis of courtesy. We must obtain that, +if we can; but by all means we must affirm this. Life owes much of its +spirit to these sharp contrasts. Fashion, which affects to be honor, is +often, in all men's experience, only a ballroom-code. Yet so long as +it is the highest circle in the imagination of the best heads on the +planet, there is something necessary and excellent in it; for it is +not to be supposed that men have agreed to be the dupes of anything +preposterous; and the respect which these mysteries inspire in the most +rude and sylvan characters, and the curiosity with which details of +high life are read, betray the universality of the love of cultivated +manners. I know that a comic disparity would be felt, if we should enter +the acknowledged 'first circles' and apply these terrific standards of +justice, beauty, and benefit to the individuals actually found there. +Monarchs and heroes, sages and lovers, these gallants are not. Fashion +has many classes and many rules of probation and admission, and not +the best alone. There is not only the right of conquest, which genius +pretends,--the individual demonstrating his natural aristocracy best +of the best;--but less claims will pass for the time; for Fashion loves +lions, and points like Circe to her horned company. This gentleman is +this afternoon arrived from Denmark; and that is my Lord Ride, who came +yesterday from Bagdat; here is Captain Friese, from Cape Turnagain; and +Captain Symmes, from the interior of the earth; and Monsieur Jovaire, +who came down this morning in a balloon; Mr. Hobnail, the reformer; and +Reverend Jul Bat, who has converted the whole torrid zone in his Sunday +school; and Signor Torre del Greco, who extinguished Vesuvius by pouring +into it the Bay of Naples; Spahi, the Persian ambassador; and Tul Wil +Shan, the exiled nabob of Nepaul, whose saddle is the new moon.--But +these are monsters of one day, and to-morrow will be dismissed to +their holes and dens; for in these rooms every chair is waited for. The +artist, the scholar, and, in general, the clerisy, wins their way up +into these places and get represented here, somewhat on this footing of +conquest. Another mode is to pass through all the degrees, spending a +year and a day in St. Michael's Square, being steeped in Cologne water, +and perfumed, and dined, and introduced, and properly grounded in all +the biography and politics and anecdotes of the boudoirs. + +Yet these fineries may have grace and wit. Let there be grotesque +sculpture about the gates and offices of temples. Let the creed +and commandments even have the saucy homage of parody. The forms of +politeness universally express benevolence in superlative degrees. +What if they are in the mouths of selfish men, and used as means of +selfishness? What if the false gentleman almost bows the true out Of the +world? What if the false gentleman contrives so to address his companion +as civilly to exclude all others from his discourse, and also to make +them feel excluded? Real service will not lose its nobleness. All +generosity is not merely French and sentimental; nor is it to be +concealed that living blood and a passion of kindness does at last +distinguish God's gentleman from Fashion's. The epitaph of Sir Jenkin +Grout is not wholly unintelligible to the present age: "Here lies Sir +Jenkin Grout, who loved his friend and persuaded his enemy: what his +mouth ate, his hand paid for: what his servants robbed, he restored: if +a woman gave him pleasure, he supported her in pain: he never forgot his +children; and whoso touched his finger, drew after it his whole body." +Even the line of heroes is not utterly extinct. There is still ever some +admirable person in plain clothes, standing on the wharf, who jumps +in to rescue a drowning man; there is still some absurd inventor of +charities; some guide and comforter of runaway slaves; some friend of +Poland; some Philhellene; some fanatic who plants shade-trees for the +second and third generation, and orchards when he is grown old; some +well-concealed piety; some just man happy in an ill fame; some youth +ashamed of the favors of fortune and impatiently casting them on other +shoulders. And these are the centres of society, on which it returns for +fresh impulses. These are the creators of Fashion, which is an attempt +to organize beauty of behavior. The beautiful and the generous are, in +the theory, the doctors and apostles of this church: Scipio, and the +Cid, and Sir Philip Sidney, and Washington, and every pure and valiant +heart who worshipped Beauty by word and by deed. The persons who +constitute the natural aristocracy are not found in the actual +aristocracy, or only on its edge; as the chemical energy of the spectrum +is found to be greatest just outside of the spectrum. Yet that is the +infirmity of the seneschals, who do not know their sovereign when he +appears. The theory of society supposes the existence and sovereignty of +these. It divines afar off their coming. It says with the elder gods,-- + + "As Heaven and Earth are fairer far + Than Chaos and blank Darkness, though once chiefs; + And as we show beyond that Heaven and Earth, + In form and shape compact and beautiful; + So, on our heels a fresh perfection treads; + A power, more strong in beauty, born of us, + And fated to excel us, as we pass + In glory that old Darkness: + -------- for, 'tis the eternal law, + That first in beauty shall be first in might." + +Therefore, within the ethnical circle of good society there is a +narrower and higher circle, concentration of its light, and flower +of courtesy, to which there is always a tacit appeal of pride and +reference, as to its inner and imperial court; the parliament of love +and chivalry. And this is constituted of those persons in whom heroic +dispositions are native; with the love of beauty, the delight in +society, and the power to embellish the passing day. If the individuals +who compose the purest circles of aristocracy in Europe, the guarded +blood of centuries, should pass in review, in such manner as that we +could at leisure and critically inspect their behavior, we might find no +gentleman and no lady; for although excellent specimens of courtesy and +high-breeding would gratify us in the assemblage, in the particulars +we should detect offence. Because elegance comes of no breeding, but +of birth. There must be romance of character, or the most fastidious +exclusion of impertinencies will not avail. It must be genius which +takes that direction: it must be not courteous, but courtesy. High +behavior is as rare in fiction as it is in fact. Scott is praised for +the fidelity with which he painted the demeanor and conversation of the +superior classes. Certainly, kings and queens, nobles and great ladies, +had some right to complain of the absurdity that had been put in their +mouths before the days of Waverley; but neither does Scott's dialogue +bear criticism. His lords brave each other in smart epigramatic +speeches, but the dialogue is in costume, and does not please on the +second reading: it is not warm with life. In Shakspeare alone the +speakers do not strut and bridle, the dialogue is easily great, and he +adds to so many titles that of being the best-bred man in England and in +Christendom. Once or twice in a lifetime we are permitted to enjoy the +charm of noble manners, in the presence of a man or woman who have no +bar in their nature, but whose character emanates freely in their +word and gesture. A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face; a +beautiful behavior is better than a beautiful form: it gives a higher +pleasure than statues or pictures; it is the finest of the fine arts. A +man is but a little thing in the midst of the objects of nature, yet, +by the moral quality radiating from his countenance he may abolish all +considerations of magnitude, and in his manners equal the majesty of the +world. I have seen an individual whose manners, though wholly within +the conventions of elegant society, were never learned there, but were +original and commanding and held out protection and prosperity; one who +did not need the aid of a court-suit, but carried the holiday in his +eye; who exhilarated the fancy by flinging wide the doors of new modes +of existence; who shook off the captivity of etiquette, with happy, +spirited bearing, good-natured and free as Robin Hood; yet with the port +of an emperor, if need be,--calm, serious, and fit to stand the gaze of +millions. + +The open air and the fields, the street and public chambers are the +places where Man executes his will; let him yield or divide the +sceptre at the door of the house. Woman, with her instinct of behavior, +instantly detects in man a love of trifles, any coldness or imbecility, +or, in short, any want of that large, flowing, and magnanimous +deportment which is indispensable as an exterior in the hall. Our +American institutions have been friendly to her, and at this moment I +esteem it a chief felicity of this country, that it excels in women. A +certain awkward consciousness of inferiority in the men may give rise +to the new chivalry in behalf of Woman's Rights. Certainly let her be as +much better placed in the laws and in social forms as the most zealous +reformer can ask, but I confide so entirely in her inspiring and musical +nature, that I believe only herself can show us how she shall be served. +The wonderful generosity of her sentiments raises her at times into +heroical and godlike regions, and verifies the pictures of Minerva, +Juno, or Polymnia; and by the firmness with which she treads her upward +path, she convinces the coarsest calculators that another road exists +than that which their feet know. But besides those who make good in +our imagination the place of muses and of Delphic Sibyls, are there not +women who fill our vase with wine and roses to the brim, so that the +wine runs over and fills the house with perfume; who inspire us with +courtesy; who unloose our tongues and we speak; who anoint our eyes and +we see? We say things we never thought to have said; for once, our walls +of habitual reserve vanished and left us at large; we were children +playing with children in a wide field of flowers. Steep us, we cried, in +these influences, for days, for weeks, and we shall be sunny poets and +will write out in many-colored words the romance that you are. Was it +Hafiz or Firdousi that said of his Persian Lilla, She was an elemental +force, and astonished me by her amount of life, when I saw her day after +day radiating, every instant, redundant joy and grace on all around her. +She was a solvent powerful to reconcile all heterogeneous persons into +one society: like air or water, an element of such a great range of +affinities that it combines readily with a thousand substances. Where +she is present all others will be more than they are wont. She was a +unit and whole, so that whatsoever she did, became her. She had too much +sympathy and desire to please, than that you could say her manners were +marked with dignity, yet no princess could surpass her clear and erect +demeanor on each occasion. She did not study the Persian grammar, nor +the books of the seven poets, but all the poems of the seven seemed +to be written upon her. For though the bias of her nature was not to +thought, but to sympathy, yet was she so perfect in her own nature as to +meet intellectual persons by the fulness of her heart, warming them by +her sentiments; believing, as she did, that by dealing nobly with all, +all would show themselves noble. + +I know that this Byzantine pile of chivalry or Fashion, which seems so +fair and picturesque to those who look at the contemporary facts for +science or for entertainment, is not equally pleasant to all spectators. +The constitution of our society makes it a giant's castle to the +ambitious youth who have not found their names enrolled in its Golden +Book, and whom it has excluded from its coveted honors and privileges. +They have yet to learn that its seeming grandeur is shadowy and +relative: it is great by their allowance; its proudest gates will +fly open at the approach of their courage and virtue. For the present +distress, however, of those who are predisposed to suffer from the +tyrannies of this caprice, there are easy remedies. To remove your +residence a couple of miles, or at most four, will commonly relieve the +most extreme susceptibility. For the advantages which fashion values +are plants which thrive in very confined localities, in a few streets +namely. Out of this precinct they go for nothing; are of no use in the +farm, in the forest, in the market, in war, in the nuptial society, in +the literary or scientific circle, at sea, in friendship, in the heaven +of thought or virtue. + +But we have lingered long enough in these painted courts. The worth of +the thing signified must vindicate our taste for the emblem. Everything +that is called fashion and courtesy humbles itself before the cause and +fountain of honor, creator of titles and dignities, namely the heart of +love. This is the royal blood, this the fire, which, in all countries +and contingencies, will work after its kind and conquer and expand +all that approaches it. This gives new meanings to every fact. This +impoverishes the rich, suffering no grandeur but its own. What is rich? +Are you rich enough to help anybody? to succor the unfashionable and the +eccentric? rich enough to make the Canadian in his wagon, the itinerant +with his consul's paper which commends him "To the charitable," the +swarthy Italian with his few broken words of English, the lame pauper +hunted by overseers from town to town, even the poor insane or besotted +wreck of man or woman, feel the noble exception of your presence and +your house from the general bleakness and stoniness; to make such feel +that they were greeted with a voice which made them both remember and +hope? What is vulgar but to refuse the claim on acute and conclusive +reasons? What is gentle, but to allow it, and give their heart and yours +one holiday from the national caution? Without the rich heart, wealth is +an ugly beggar. The king of Schiraz could not afford to be so bountiful +as the poor Osman who dwelt at his gate. Osman had a humanity so broad +and deep that although his speech was so bold and free with the Koran +as to disgust all the dervishes, yet was there never a poor outcast, +eccentric, or insane man, some fool who had cut off his beard, or who +had been mutilated under a vow, or had a pet madness in his brain, but +fled at once to him; that great heart lay there so sunny and hospitable +in the centre of the country, that it seemed as if the instinct of all +sufferers drew them to his side. And the madness which he harbored he +did not share. Is not this to be rich? this only to be rightly rich? + +But I shall hear without pain that I play the courtier very ill, and +talk of that which I do not well understand. It is easy to see, that +what is called by distinction society and fashion has good laws as well +as bad, has much that is necessary, and much that is absurd. Too good +for banning, and too bad for blessing, it reminds us of a tradition +of the pagan mythology, in any attempt to settle its character. 'I +overheard Jove, one day,' said Silenus, 'talking of destroying the +earth; he said it had failed; they were all rogues and vixens, who went +from bad to worse, as fast as the days succeeded each other. Minerva +said she hoped not; they were only ridiculous little creatures, with +this odd circumstance, that they had a blur, or indeterminate aspect, +seen far or seen near; if you called them bad, they would appear so; if +you called them good, they would appear so; and there was no one person +or action among them, which would not puzzle her owl, much more all +Olympus, to know whether it was fundamentally bad or good.' + +***** + + + + GIFTS. + + Gifts of one who loved me,-- + 'T was high time they came; + When he ceased to love me, + Time they stopped for shame. + + + + +V. GIFTS. + +IT is said that the world is in a state of bankruptcy; that the world +owes the world more than the world can pay, and ought to go into +chancery and be sold. I do not think this general insolvency, which +involves in some sort all the population, to be the reason of the +difficulty experienced at Christmas and New Year and other times, in +bestowing gifts; since it is always so pleasant to be generous, though +very vexatious to pay debts. But the impediment lies in the choosing. +If at any time it comes into my head that a present is due from me to +somebody, I am puzzled what to give, until the opportunity is gone. +Flowers and fruits are always fit presents; flowers, because they are a +proud assertion that a ray of beauty outvalues all the utilities of the +world. These gay natures contrast with the somewhat stern countenance of +ordinary nature: they are like music heard out of a work-house. +Nature does not cocker us; we are children, not pets; she is not fond; +everything is dealt to us without fear or favor, after severe universal +laws. Yet these delicate flowers look like the frolic and interference +of love and beauty. Men use to tell us that we love flattery even though +we are not deceived by it, because it shows that we are of importance +enough to be courted. Something like that pleasure, the flowers give us: +what am I to whom these sweet hints are addressed? Fruits are acceptable +gifts, because they are the flower of commodities, and admit of +fantastic values being attached to them. If a man should send to me to +come a hundred miles to visit him and should set before me a basket of +fine summer-fruit, I should think there was some proportion between the +labor and the reward. + +For common gifts, necessity makes pertinences and beauty every day, and +one is glad when an imperative leaves him no option; since if the man +at the door have no shoes, you have not to consider whether you could +procure him a paint-box. And as it is always pleasing to see a man eat +bread, or drink water, in the house or out of doors, so it is always +a great satisfaction to supply these first wants. Necessity does +everything well. In our condition of universal dependence it seems +heroic to let the petitioner be the judge of his necessity, and to give +all that is asked, though at great inconvenience. If it be a fantastic +desire, it is better to leave to others the office of punishing him. I +can think of many parts I should prefer playing to that of the Furies. +Next to things of necessity, the rule for a gift, which one of my +friends prescribed, is that we might convey to some person that which +properly belonged to his character, and was easily associated with him +in thought. But our tokens of compliment and love are for the most +part barbarous. Rings and other jewels are not gifts, but apologies for +gifts. The only gift is a portion of thyself. Thou must bleed for me. +Therefore the poet brings his poem; the shepherd, his lamb; the farmer, +corn; the miner, a gem; the sailor, coral and shells; the painter, his +picture; the girl, a handkerchief of her own sewing. This is right and +pleasing, for it restores society in so far to its primary basis, when +a man's biography is conveyed in his gift, and every man's wealth is an +index of his merit. But it is a cold lifeless business when you go to +the shops to buy me something which does not represent your life and +talent, but a goldsmith's. This is fit for kings, and rich men who +represent kings, and a false state of property, to make presents of gold +and silver stuffs, as a kind of symbolical sin-offering, or payment of +black-mail. + +The law of benefits is a difficult channel, which requires careful +sailing, or rude boats. It is not the office of a man to receive gifts. +How dare you give them? We wish to be self-sustained. We do not quite +forgive a giver. The hand that feeds us is in some danger of being +bitten. We can receive anything from love, for that is a way of +receiving it from ourselves; but not from any one who assumes to bestow. +We sometimes hate the meat which we eat, because there seems something +of degrading dependence in living by it:-- + + "Brother, if Jove to thee a present make, + Take heed that from his hands thou nothing take." + +We ask the whole. Nothing less will content us. We arraign society if +it do not give us, besides earth and fire and water, opportunity, love, +reverence, and objects of veneration. + +He is a good man who can receive a gift well. We are either glad or +sorry at a gift, and both emotions are unbecoming. Some violence I think +is done, some degradation borne, when I rejoice or grieve at a gift. I +am sorry when my independence is invaded, or when a gift comes from such +as do not know my spirit, and so the act is not supported; and if the +gift pleases me overmuch, then I should be ashamed that the donor should +read my heart, and see that I love his commodity, and not him. The gift, +to be true, must be the flowing of the giver unto me, correspondent to +my flowing unto him. When the waters are at level, then my goods pass +to him, and his to me. All his are mine, all mine his. I say to him, How +can you give me this pot of oil or this flagon of wine when all your oil +and wine is mine, which belief of mine this gift seems to deny? Hence +the fitness of beautiful, not useful things, for gifts. This giving is +flat usurpation, and therefore when the beneficiary is ungrateful, as +all beneficiaries hate all Timons, not at all considering the value of +the gift but looking back to the greater store it was taken from,--I +rather sympathize with the beneficiary than with the anger of my lord +Timon. For the expectation of gratitude is mean, and is continually +punished by the total insensibility of the obliged person. It is a great +happiness to get off without injury and heart-burning from one who has +had the ill-luck to be served by you. It is a very onerous business, +this of being served, and the debtor naturally wishes to give you a +slap. A golden text for these gentlemen is that which I so admire in +the Buddhist, who never thanks, and who says, "Do not flatter your +benefactors." + +The reason of these discords I conceive to be that there is no +commensurability between a man and any gift. You cannot give anything to +a magnanimous person. After you have served him he at once puts you in +debt by his magnanimity. The service a man renders his friend is trivial +and selfish compared with the service he knows his friend stood in +readiness to yield him, alike before he had begun to serve his friend, +and now also. Compared with that good-will I bear my friend, the benefit +it is in my power to render him seems small. Besides, our action on each +other, good as well as evil, is so incidental and at random that we can +seldom hear the acknowledgments of any person who would thank us for +a benefit, without some shame and humiliation. We can rarely strike a +direct stroke, but must be content with an oblique one; we seldom +have the satisfaction of yielding a direct benefit which is directly +received. But rectitude scatters favors on every side without knowing +it, and receives with wonder the thanks of all people. + +I fear to breathe any treason against the majesty of love, which is the +genius and god of gifts, and to whom we must not affect to prescribe. +Let him give kingdoms or flower-leaves indifferently. There are persons +from whom we always expect fairy-tokens; let us not cease to expect +them. This is prerogative, and not to be limited by our municipal rules. +For the rest, I like to see that we cannot be bought and sold. The best +of hospitality and of generosity is also not in the will, but in fate. I +find that I am not much to you; you do not need me; you do not feel me; +then am I thrust out of doors, though you proffer me house and lands. No +services are of any value, but only likeness. When I have attempted to +join myself to others by services, it proved an intellectual trick,--no +more. They eat your service like apples, and leave you out. But love +them, and they feel you and delight in you all the time. + +***** + + + NATURE. + + The rounded world is fair to see, + Nine times folded in mystery: + Though baffled seers cannot impart + The secret of its laboring heart, + Throb thine with Nature's throbbing breast, + And all is clear from east to west. + Spirit that lurks each form within + Beckons to spirit of its kin; + Self-kindled every atom glows, + And hints the future which it owes. + + + + +VI. NATURE. + +THERE are days which occur in this climate, at almost any season of +the year, wherein the world reaches its perfection; when the air, +the heavenly bodies and the earth, make a harmony, as if nature would +indulge her offspring; when, in these bleak upper sides of the planet, +nothing is to desire that we have heard of the happiest latitudes, and +we bask in the shining hours of Florida and Cuba; when everything that +has life gives sign of satisfaction, and the cattle that lie on the +ground seem to have great and tranquil thoughts. These halcyons may be +looked for with a little more assurance in that pure October weather +which we distinguish by the name of the Indian summer. The day, +immeasurably long, sleeps over the broad hills and warm wide fields. +To have lived through all its sunny hours, seems longevity enough. The +solitary places do not seem quite lonely. At the gates of the forest, +the surprised man of the world is forced to leave his city estimates of +great and small, wise and foolish. The knapsack of custom falls off his +back with the first step he makes into these precincts. Here is sanctity +which shames our religions, and reality which discredits our heroes. +Here we find Nature to be the circumstance which dwarfs every other +circumstance, and judges like a god all men that come to her. We have +crept out of our close and crowded houses into the night and morning, +and we see what majestic beauties daily wrap us in their bosom. How +willingly we would escape the barriers which render them comparatively +impotent, escape the sophistication and second thought, and suffer +nature to intrance us. The tempered light of the woods is like a +perpetual morning, and is stimulating and heroic. The anciently reported +spells of these places creep on us. The stems of pines, hemlocks, and +oaks almost gleam like iron on the excited eye. The incommunicable trees +begin to persuade us to live with them, and quit our life of solemn +trifles. Here no history, or church, or state, is interpolated on the +divine sky and the immortal year. How easily we might walk onward into +the opening landscape, absorbed by new pictures and by thoughts fast +succeeding each other, until by degrees the recollection of home was +crowded out of the mind, all memory obliterated by the tyranny of the +present, and we were led in triumph by nature. + +These enchantments are medicinal, they sober and heal us. These are +plain pleasures, kindly and native to us. We come to our own, and make +friends with matter, which the ambitious chatter of the schools would +persuade us to despise. We never can part with it; the mind loves its +old home: as water to our thirst, so is the rock, the ground, to our +eyes and hands and feet. It is firm water; it is cold flame; what +health, what affinity! Ever an old friend, ever like a dear friend and +brother when we chat affectedly with strangers, comes in this honest +face, and takes a grave liberty with us, and shames us out of our +nonsense. Cities give not the human senses room enough. We go out daily +and nightly to feed the eyes on the horizon, and require so much scope, +just as we need water for our bath. There are all degrees of natural +influence, from these quarantine powers of nature, up to her dearest +and gravest ministrations to the imagination and the soul. There is the +bucket of cold water from the spring, the wood-fire to which the chilled +traveller rushes for safety,--and there is the sublime moral of autumn +and of noon. We nestle in nature, and draw our living as parasites from +her roots and grains, and we receive glances from the heavenly bodies, +which call us to solitude and foretell the remotest future. The blue +zenith is the point in which romance and reality meet. I think if +we should be rapt away into all that we dream of heaven, and should +converse with Gabriel and Uriel, the upper sky would be all that would +remain of our furniture. + +It seems as if the day was not wholly profane in which we have given +heed to some natural object. The fall of snowflakes in a still air, +preserving to each crystal its perfect form; the blowing of sleet over +a wide sheet of water, and over plains; the waving ryefield; the mimic +waving of acres of houstonia, whose innumerable florets whiten and +ripple before the eye; the reflections of trees and flowers in glassy +lakes; the musical steaming odorous south wind, which converts all trees +to windharps; the crackling and spurting of hemlock in the flames, or +of pine logs, which yield glory to the walls and faces in the +sittingroom,--these are the music and pictures of the most ancient +religion. My house stands in low land, with limited outlook, and on the +skirt of the village. But I go with my friend to the shore of our little +river, and with one stroke of the paddle I leave the village politics +and personalities, yes, and the world of villages and personalities +behind, and pass into a delicate realm of sunset and moonlight, too +bright almost for spotted man to enter without novitiate and probation. +We penetrate bodily this incredible beauty; we dip our hands in this +painted element; our eyes are bathed in these lights and forms. +A holiday, a villeggiatura, a royal revel, the proudest, most +heart-rejoicing festival that valor and beauty, power and taste, ever +decked and enjoyed, establishes itself on the instant. These sunset +clouds, these delicately emerging stars, with their private and +ineffable glances, signify it and proffer it. I am taught the poorness +of our invention, the ugliness of towns and palaces. Art and luxury +have early learned that they must work as enhancement and sequel to this +original beauty. I am overinstructed for my return. Henceforth I shall +be hard to please. I cannot go back to toys. I am grown expensive and +sophisticated. I can no longer live without elegance, but a countryman +shall be my master of revels. He who knows the most; he who knows +what sweets and virtues are in the ground, the waters, the plants, the +heavens, and how to come at these enchantments,--is the rich and royal +man. Only as far as the masters of the world have called in nature +to their aid, can they reach the height of magnificence. This is the +meaning of their hanging-gardens, villas, garden-houses, islands, +parks and preserves, to back their faulty personality with these +strong accessories. I do not wonder that the landed interest should be +invincible in the State with these dangerous auxiliaries. These bribe +and invite; not kings, not palaces, not men, not women, but these tender +and poetic stars, eloquent of secret promises. We heard what the rich +man said, we knew of his villa, his grove, his wine and his company, but +the provocation and point of the invitation came out of these beguiling +stars. In their soft glances I see what men strove to realize in some +Versailles, or Paphos, or Ctesiphon. Indeed, it is the magical lights of +the horizon and the blue sky for the background which save all our works +of art, which were otherwise bawbles. When the rich tax the poor with +servility and obsequiousness, they should consider the effect of men +reputed to be the possessors of nature, on imaginative minds. Ah! if +the rich were rich as the poor fancy riches! A boy hears a military +band play on the field at night, and he has kings and queens and famous +chivalry palpably before him. He hears the echoes of a horn in a +hill country, in the Notch Mountains, for example, which converts the +mountains into an Aeolian harp,--and this supernatural tiralira restores +to him the Dorian mythology, Apollo, Diana, and all divine hunters and +huntresses. Can a musical note be so lofty, so haughtily beautiful! +To the poor young poet, thus fabulous is his picture of society; he +is loyal; he respects the rich; they are rich for the sake of his +imagination; how poor his fancy would be, if they were not rich! That +they have some high-fenced grove which they call a park; that they live +in larger and better-garnished saloons than he has visited, and go in +coaches, keeping only the society of the elegant, to watering-places +and to distant cities,--these make the groundwork from which he +has delineated estates of romance, compared with which their actual +possessions are shanties and paddocks. The muse herself betrays her son, +and enhances the gifts of wealth and well-born beauty by a radiation +out of the air, and clouds, and forests that skirt the road,--a certain +haughty favor, as if from patrician genii to patricians, a kind of +aristocracy in nature, a prince of the power of the air. + +The moral sensibility which makes Edens and Tempes so easily, may not be +always found, but the material landscape is never far off. We can +find these enchantments without visiting the Como Lake, or the Madeira +Islands. We exaggerate the praises of local scenery. In every landscape +the point of astonishment is the meeting of the sky and the earth, +and that is seen from the first hillock as well as from the top of the +Alleghanies. The stars at night stoop down over the brownest, homeliest +common with all the spiritual magnificence which they shed on the +Campagna, or on the marble deserts of Egypt. The uprolled clouds and the +colors of morning and evening will transfigure maples and alders. The +difference between landscape and landscape is small, but there is +great difference in the beholders. There is nothing so wonderful in any +particular landscape as the necessity of being beautiful under which +every landscape lies. Nature cannot be surprised in undress. Beauty +breaks in everywhere. + +But it is very easy to outrun the sympathy of readers on this topic, +which schoolmen called natura naturata, or nature passive. One can +hardly speak directly of it without excess. It is as easy to broach in +mixed companies what is called "the subject of religion." A susceptible +person does not like to indulge his tastes in this kind without the +apology of some trivial necessity: he goes to see a wood-lot, or to look +at the crops, or to fetch a plant or a mineral from a remote locality, +or he carries a fowling-piece or a fishing-rod. I suppose this shame +must have a good reason. A dilettantism in nature is barren and +unworthy. The fop of fields is no better than his brother of Broadway. +Men are naturally hunters and inquisitive of wood-craft, and I suppose +that such a gazetteer as wood-cutters and Indians should furnish facts +for, would take place in the most sumptuous drawing-rooms of all the +"Wreaths" and "Flora's chaplets" of the bookshops; yet ordinarily, +whether we are too clumsy for so subtle a topic, or from whatever +cause, as soon as men begin to write on nature, they fall into euphuism. +Frivolity is a most unfit tribute to Pan, who ought to be represented +in the mythology as the most continent of gods. I would not be frivolous +before the admirable reserve and prudence of time, yet I cannot renounce +the right of returning often to this old topic. The multitude of false +churches accredits the true religion. Literature, poetry, science are +the homage of man to this unfathomed secret, concerning which no sane +man can affect an indifference or incuriosity. Nature is loved by what +is best in us. It is loved as the city of God, although, or rather +because there is no citizen. The sunset is unlike anything that is +underneath it: it wants men. And the beauty of nature must always seem +unreal and mocking, until the landscape has human figures that are +as good as itself. If there were good men, there would never be this +rapture in nature. If the king is in the palace, nobody looks at the +walls. It is when he is gone, and the house is filled with grooms and +gazers, that we turn from the people to find relief in the majestic men +that are suggested by the pictures and the architecture. The critics who +complain of the sickly separation of the beauty of nature from the +thing to be done, must consider that our hunting of the picturesque +is inseparable from our protest against false society. Man is fallen; +nature is erect, and serves as a differential thermometer, detecting +the presence or absence of the divine sentiment in man. By fault of our +dulness and selfishness we are looking up to nature, but when we are +convalescent, nature will look up to us. We see the foaming brook with +compunction: if our own life flowed with the right energy, we should +shame the brook. The stream of zeal sparkles with real fire, and not +with reflex rays of sun and moon. Nature may be as selfishly studied as +trade. Astronomy to the selfish becomes astrology; psychology, mesmerism +(with intent to show where our spoons are gone); and anatomy and +physiology become phrenology and palmistry. + +But taking timely warning, and leaving many things unsaid on this +topic, let us not longer omit our homage to the Efficient Nature, natura +naturans, the quick cause before which all forms flee as the driven +snows; itself secret, its works driven before it in flocks and +multitudes, (as the ancient represented nature by Proteus, a shepherd,) +and in undescribable variety. It publishes itself in creatures, reaching +from particles and spiculae through transformation on transformation to +the highest symmetries, arriving at consummate results without a +shock or a leap. A little heat, that is a little motion, is all that +differences the bald, dazzling white and deadly cold poles of the earth +from the prolific tropical climates. All changes pass without violence, +by reason of the two cardinal conditions of boundless space and +boundless time. Geology has initiated us into the secularity of nature, +and taught us to disuse our dame-school measures, and exchange our +Mosaic and Ptolemaic schemes for her large style. We knew nothing +rightly, for want of perspective. Now we learn what patient periods +must round themselves before the rock is formed; then before the rock +is broken, and the first lichen race has disintegrated the thinnest +external plate into soil, and opened the door for the remote Flora, +Fauna, Ceres, and Pomona to come in. How far off yet is the trilobite! +how far the quadruped! how inconceivably remote is man! All duly arrive, +and then race after race of men. It is a long way from granite to the +oyster; farther yet to Plato and the preaching of the immortality of the +soul. Yet all must come, as surely as the first atom has two sides. + +Motion or change and identity or rest are the first and second secrets +of nature:--Motion and Rest. The whole code of her laws may be written +on the thumbnail, or the signet of a ring. The whirling bubble on the +surface of a brook admits us to the secret of the mechanics of the sky. +Every shell on the beach is a key to it. A little water made to rotate +in a cup explains the formation of the simpler shells; the addition of +matter from year to year, arrives at last at the most complex forms; and +yet so poor is nature with all her craft, that from the beginning to the +end of the universe she has but one stuff,--but one stuff with its two +ends, to serve up all her dream-like variety. Compound it how she will, +star, sand, fire, water, tree, man, it is still one stuff, and betrays +the same properties. + +Nature is always consistent, though she feigns to contravene her own +laws. She keeps her laws, and seems to transcend them. She arms and +equips an animal to find its place and living in the earth, and at the +same time she arms and equips another animal to destroy it. Space exists +to divide creatures; but by clothing the sides of a bird with a few +feathers she gives him a petty omnipresence. The direction is forever +onward, but the artist still goes back for materials and begins again +with the first elements on the most advanced stage: otherwise all goes +to ruin. If we look at her work, we seem to catch a glance of a system +in transition. Plants are the young of the world, vessels of health and +vigor; but they grope ever upward towards consciousness; the trees are +imperfect men, and seem to bemoan their imprisonment, rooted in the +ground. The animal is the novice and probationer of a more advanced +order. The men, though young, having tasted the first drop from the +cup of thought, are already dissipated: the maples and ferns are still +uncorrupt; yet no doubt when they come to consciousness they too will +curse and swear. Flowers so strictly belong to youth that we adult men +soon come to feel that their beautiful generations concern not us: we +have had our day; now let the children have theirs. The flowers jilt us, +and we are old bachelors with our ridiculous tenderness. + +Things are so strictly related, that according to the skill of the +eye, from any one object the parts and properties of any other may be +predicted. If we had eyes to see it, a bit of stone from the city wall +would certify us of the necessity that man must exist, as readily as +the city. That identity makes us all one, and reduces to nothing great +intervals on our customary scale. We talk of deviations from natural +life, as if artificial life were not also natural. The smoothest curled +courtier in the boudoirs of a palace has an animal nature, rude and +aboriginal as a white bear, omnipotent to its own ends, and is +directly related, there amid essences and billetsdoux, to Himmaleh +mountain-chains and the axis of the globe. If we consider how much +we are nature's, we need not be superstitious about towns, as if that +terrific or benefic force did not find us there also, and fashion +cities. Nature, who made the mason, made the house. We may easily hear +too much of rural influences. The cool disengaged air of natural objects +makes them enviable to us, chafed and irritable creatures with red +faces, and we think we shall be as grand as they if we camp out and eat +roots; but let us be men instead of woodchucks and the oak and the elm +shall gladly serve us, though we sit in chairs of ivory on carpets of +silk. + +This guiding identity runs through all the surprises and contrasts of +the piece, and characterizes every law. Man carries the world in his +head, the whole astronomy and chemistry suspended in a thought. Because +the history of nature is charactered in his brain, therefore is he +the prophet and discoverer of her secrets. Every known fact in natural +science was divined by the presentiment of somebody, before it was +actually verified. A man does not tie his shoe without recognizing laws +which bind the farthest regions of nature: moon, plant, gas, crystal, +are concrete geometry and numbers. Common sense knows its own, and +recognizes the fact at first sight in chemical experiment. The common +sense of Franklin, Dalton, Davy and Black, is the same common sense +which made the arrangements which now it discovers. + +If the identity expresses organized rest, the counter action runs also +into organization. The astronomers said, 'Give us matter and a little +motion and we will construct the universe. It is not enough that we +should have matter, we must also have a single impulse, one shove +to launch the mass and generate the harmony of the centrifugal and +centripetal forces. Once heave the ball from the hand, and we can show +how all this mighty order grew.'--'A very unreasonable postulate,' said +the metaphysicians, 'and a plain begging of the question. Could you not +prevail to know the genesis of projection, as well as the continuation +of it?' Nature, meanwhile, had not waited for the discussion, but, right +or wrong, bestowed the impulse, and the balls rolled. It was no great +affair, a mere push, but the astronomers were right in making much of +it, for there is no end to the consequences of the act. That famous +aboriginal push propagates itself through all the balls of the +system, and through every atom of every ball; through all the races of +creatures, and through the history and performances of every individual. +Exaggeration is in the course of things. Nature sends no creature, no +man into the world without adding a small excess of his proper quality. +Given the planet, it is still necessary to add the impulse; so to every +creature nature added a little violence of direction in its proper path, +a shove to put it on its way; in every instance a slight generosity, a +drop too much. Without electricity the air would rot, and without this +violence of direction which men and women have, without a spice of bigot +and fanatic, no excitement, no efficiency. We aim above the mark to hit +the mark. Every act hath some falsehood of exaggeration in it. And when +now and then comes along some sad, sharp-eyed man, who sees how paltry a +game is played, and refuses to play, but blabs the secret;--how then? Is +the bird flown? O no, the wary Nature sends a new troop of fairer forms, +of lordlier youths, with a little more excess of direction to hold +them fast to their several aim; makes them a little wrongheaded in that +direction in which they are rightest, and on goes the game again with +new whirl, for a generation or two more. The child with his sweet +pranks, the fool of his senses, commanded by every sight and sound, +without any power to compare and rank his sensations, abandoned to +a whistle or a painted chip, to a lead dragoon or a gingerbread-dog, +individualizing everything, generalizing nothing, delighted with every +new thing, lies down at night overpowered by the fatigue which this day +of continual pretty madness has incurred. But Nature has answered her +purpose with the curly, dimpled lunatic. She has tasked every faculty, +and has secured the symmetrical growth of the bodily frame by all these +attitudes and exertions,--an end of the first importance, which could +not be trusted to any care less perfect than her own. This glitter, this +opaline lustre plays round the top of every toy to his eye to insure +his fidelity, and he is deceived to his good. We are made alive and kept +alive by the same arts. Let the stoics say what they please, we do +not eat for the good of living, but because the meat is savory and +the appetite is keen. The vegetable life does not content itself with +casting from the flower or the tree a single seed, but it fills the +air and earth with a prodigality of seeds, that, if thousands perish, +thousands may plant themselves; that hundreds may come up, that tens may +live to maturity; that at least one may replace the parent. All things +betray the same calculated profusion. The excess of fear with which the +animal frame is hedged round, shrinking from cold, starting at sight +of a snake, or at a sudden noise, protects us, through a multitude of +groundless alarms, from some one real danger at last. The lover seeks in +marriage his private felicity and perfection, with no prospective end; +and nature hides in his happiness her own end, namely, progeny, or the +perpetuity of the race. + +But the craft with which the world is made, runs also into the mind and +character of men. No man is quite sane; each has a vein of folly in his +composition, a slight determination of blood to the head, to make sure +of holding him hard to some one point which nature had taken to heart. +Great causes are never tried on their merits; but the cause is reduced +to particulars to suit the size of the partisans, and the contention is +ever hottest on minor matters. Not less remarkable is the overfaith of +each man in the importance of what he has to do or say. The poet, the +prophet, has a higher value for what he utters than any hearer, and +therefore it gets spoken. The strong, self-complacent Luther declares +with an emphasis not to be mistaken, that "God himself cannot do without +wise men." Jacob Behmen and George Fox betray their egotism in the +pertinacity of their controversial tracts, and James Naylor once +suffered himself to be worshipped as the Christ. Each prophet comes +presently to identify himself with his thought, and to esteem his hat +and shoes sacred. However this may discredit such persons with the +judicious, it helps them with the people, as it gives heat, pungency, +and publicity to their words. A similar experience is not infrequent +in private life. Each young and ardent person writes a diary, in which, +when the hours of prayer and penitence arrive, he inscribes his soul. +The pages thus written are to him burning and fragrant; he reads them +on his knees by midnight and by the morning star; he wets them with his +tears; they are sacred; too good for the world, and hardly yet to be +shown to the dearest friend. This is the man-child that is born to the +soul, and her life still circulates in the babe. The umbilical cord +has not yet been cut. After some time has elapsed, he begins to wish to +admit his friend to this hallowed experience, and with hesitation, yet +with firmness, exposes the pages to his eye. Will they not burn his +eyes? The friend coldly turns them over, and passes from the writing to +conversation, with easy transition, which strikes the other party with +astonishment and vexation. He cannot suspect the writing itself. Days +and nights of fervid life, of communion with angels of darkness and of +light have engraved their shadowy characters on that tear-stained book. +He suspects the intelligence or the heart of his friend. Is there then +no friend? He cannot yet credit that one may have impressive experience +and yet may not know how to put his private fact into literature; and +perhaps the discovery that wisdom has other tongues and ministers than +we, that though we should hold our peace the truth would not the less be +spoken, might check injuriously the flames of our zeal. A man can +only speak so long as he does not feel his speech to be partial and +inadequate. It is partial, but he does not see it to be so whilst he +utters it. As soon as he is released from the instinctive and particular +and sees its partiality, he shuts his mouth in disgust. For no man can +write anything who does not think that what he writes is for the time +the history of the world; or do anything well who does not esteem his +work to be of importance. My work may be of none, but I must not think +it of none, or I shall not do it with impunity. + +In like manner, there is throughout nature something mocking, something +that leads us on and on, but arrives nowhere; keeps no faith with +us. All promise outruns the performance. We live in a system of +approximations. Every end is prospective of some other end, which is +also temporary; a round and final success nowhere. We are encamped in +nature, not domesticated. Hunger and thirst lead us on to eat and to +drink; but bread and wine, mix and cook them how you will, leave us +hungry and thirsty, after the stomach is full. It is the same with all +our arts and performances. Our music, our poetry, our language itself +are not satisfactions, but suggestions. The hunger for wealth, which +reduces the planet to a garden, fools the eager pursuer. What is the end +sought? Plainly to secure the ends of good sense and beauty, from the +intrusion of deformity or vulgarity of any kind. But what an operose +method! What a train of means to secure a little conversation! This +palace of brick and stone, these servants, this kitchen, these stables, +horses and equipage, this bank-stock and file of mortgages; trade to all +the world, country-house and cottage by the waterside, all for a little +conversation, high, clear, and spiritual! Could it not be had as well +by beggars on the highway? No, all these things came from successive +efforts of these beggars to remove friction from the wheels of life, and +give opportunity. Conversation, character, were the avowed ends; wealth +was good as it appeased the animal cravings, cured the smoky chimney, +silenced the creaking door, brought friends together in a warm and +quiet room, and kept the children and the dinner-table in a different +apartment. Thought, virtue, beauty, were the ends; but it was known that +men of thought and virtue sometimes had the headache, or wet feet, or +could lose good time whilst the room was getting warm in winter days. +Unluckily, in the exertions necessary to remove these inconveniences, +the main attention has been diverted to this object; the old aims have +been lost sight of, and to remove friction has come to be the end. That +is the ridicule of rich men, and Boston, London, Vienna, and now the +governments generally of the world are cities and governments of the +rich; and the masses are not men, but poor men, that is, men who would +be rich; this is the ridicule of the class, that they arrive with pains +and sweat and fury nowhere; when all is done, it is for nothing. They +are like one who has interrupted the conversation of a company to make +his speech, and now has forgotten what he went to say. The appearance +strikes the eye everywhere of an aimless society, of aimless nations. +Were the ends of nature so great and cogent as to exact this immense +sacrifice of men? + +Quite analogous to the deceits in life, there is, as might be expected, +a similar effect on the eye from the face of external nature. There is +in woods and waters a certain enticement and flattery, together with a +failure to yield a present satisfaction. This disappointment is felt +in every landscape. I have seen the softness and beauty of the summer +clouds floating feathery overhead, enjoying, as it seemed, their height +and privilege of motion, whilst yet they appeared not so much the +drapery of this place and hour, as forelooking to some pavilions and +gardens of festivity beyond. It is an odd jealousy, but the poet finds +himself not near enough to his object. The pine-tree, the river, the +bank of flowers before him, does not seem to be nature. Nature is still +elsewhere. This or this is but outskirt and far-off reflection and echo +of the triumph that has passed by and is now at its glancing splendor +and heyday, perchance in the neighboring fields, or, if you stand in +the field, then in the adjacent woods. The present object shall give you +this sense of stillness that follows a pageant which has just gone by. +What splendid distance, what recesses of ineffable pomp and loveliness +in the sunset! But who can go where they are, or lay his hand or plant +his foot thereon? Off they fall from the round world forever and ever. +It is the same among the men and women as among the silent trees; always +a referred existence, an absence, never a presence and satisfaction. +Is it that beauty can never be grasped? in persons and in landscape +is equally inaccessible? The accepted and betrothed lover has lost the +wildest charm of his maiden in her acceptance of him. She was heaven +whilst he pursued her as a star: she cannot be heaven if she stoops to +such a one as he. + +What shall we say of this omnipresent appearance of that first +projectile impulse, of this flattery and balking of so many well-meaning +creatures? Must we not suppose somewhere in the universe a slight +treachery and derision? Are we not engaged to a serious resentment of +this use that is made of us? Are we tickled trout, and fools of nature? +One look at the face of heaven and earth lays all petulance at rest, +and soothes us to wiser convictions. To the intelligent, nature converts +itself into a vast promise, and will not be rashly explained. Her secret +is untold. Many and many an Oedipus arrives; he has the whole mystery +teeming in his brain. Alas! the same sorcery has spoiled his skill; +no syllable can he shape on his lips. Her mighty orbit vaults like the +fresh rainbow into the deep, but no archangel's wing was yet strong +enough to follow it and report of the return of the curve. But it +also appears that our actions are seconded and disposed to greater +conclusions than we designed. We are escorted on every hand through life +by spiritual agents, and a beneficent purpose lies in wait for us. +We cannot bandy words with Nature, or deal with her as we deal with +persons. If we measure our individual forces against hers we may easily +feel as if we were the sport of an insuperable destiny. But if, instead +of identifying ourselves with the work, we feel that the soul of the +workman streams through us, we shall find the peace of the morning +dwelling first in our hearts, and the fathomless powers of gravity +and chemistry, and, over them, of life, preexisting within us in their +highest form. + +The uneasiness which the thought of our helplessness in the chain of +causes occasions us, results from looking too much at one condition +of nature, namely, Motion. But the drag is never taken from the wheel. +Wherever the impulse exceeds, the Rest or Identity insinuates its +compensation. All over the wide fields of earth grows the prunella or +self-heal. After every foolish day we sleep off the fumes and furies of +its hours; and though we are always engaged with particulars, and +often enslaved to them, we bring with us to every experiment the innate +universal laws. These, while they exist in the mind as ideas, stand +around us in nature forever embodied, a present sanity to expose and +cure the insanity of men. Our servitude to particulars betrays into a +hundred foolish expectations. We anticipate a new era from the invention +of a locomotive, or a balloon; the new engine brings with it the old +checks. They say that by electro-magnetism your salad shall be grown +from the seed whilst your fowl is roasting for dinner; it is a symbol of +our modern aims and endeavors, of our condensation and acceleration of +objects;--but nothing is gained; nature cannot be cheated; man's life +is but seventy salads long, grow they swift or grow they slow. In these +checks and impossibilities however we find our advantage, not less than +in the impulses. Let the victory fall where it will, we are on that +side. And the knowledge that we traverse the whole scale of being, +from the centre to the poles of nature, and have some stake in every +possibility, lends that sublime lustre to death, which philosophy and +religion have too outwardly and literally striven to express in the +popular doctrine of the immortality of the soul. The reality is more +excellent than the report. Here is no ruin, no discontinuity, no spent +ball. The divine circulations never rest nor linger. Nature is the +incarnation of a thought, and turns to a thought again, as ice becomes +water and gas. The world is mind precipitated, and the volatile essence +is forever escaping again into the state of free thought. Hence the +virtue and pungency of the influence on the mind of natural objects, +whether inorganic or organized. Man imprisoned, man crystallized, +man vegetative, speaks to man impersonated. That power which does not +respect quantity, which makes the whole and the particle its equal +channel, delegates its smile to the morning, and distils its essence +into every drop of rain. Every moment instructs, and every object: for +wisdom is infused into every form. It has been poured into us as blood; +it convulsed us as pain; it slid into us as pleasure; it enveloped us +in dull, melancholy days, or in days of cheerful labor; we did not guess +its essence until after a long time. + +***** + + + + POLITICS. + + Gold and iron are good + To buy iron and gold; + All earth's fleece and food + For their like are sold. + Boded Merlin wise, + Proved Napoleon great,-- + Nor kind nor coinage buys + Aught above its rate. + Fear, Craft, and Avarice + Cannot rear a State. + Out of dust to build + What is more than dust,-- + Walls Amphion piled + Phoebus stablish must. + When the Muses nine + With the Virtues meet, + Find to their design + An Atlantic seat, + By green orchard boughs + Fended from the heat, + Where the statesman ploughs + Furrow for the wheat; + When the Church is social worth, + When the state-house is the hearth, + Then the perfect State is come, + The republican at home. + + + + +VII. POLITICS. + +In dealing with the State we ought to remember that its institution are +not aboriginal, though they existed before we were born; that they are +not superior to the citizen; that every one of them was once the act +of a single man; every law and usage was a man's expedient to meet a +particular case; that they all are imitable, all alterable; we may +make as good, we may make better. Society is an illusion to the young +citizen. It lies before him in rigid repose, with certain names, men +and institutions rooted like oak-trees to the centre, round which all +arrange themselves the best they can. But the old statesman knows that +society is fluid; there are no such roots and centres, but any particle +may suddenly become the centre of the movement and compel the system +to gyrate round it; as every man of strong will, like Pisistratus, or +Cromwell, does for a time, and every man of truth, like Plato or Paul, +does forever. But politics rest on necessary foundations, and cannot be +treated with levity. Republics abound in young civilians, who believe +that the laws make the city, that grave modifications of the policy +and modes of living and employments of the population, that commerce, +education, and religion, may be voted in or out; and that any measure, +though it were absurd, may be imposed on a people if only you can get +sufficient voices to make it a law. But the wise know that foolish +legislation is a rope of sand which perishes in the twisting; that +the State must follow and not lead the character and progress of the +citizen; the strongest usurper is quickly got rid of; and they only +who build on Ideas, build for eternity; and that the form of government +which prevails is the expression of what cultivation exists in the +population which permits it. The law is only a memorandum. We are +superstitious, and esteem the statute somewhat: so much life as it has +in the character of living men is its force. The statute stands there to +say, Yesterday we agreed so and so, but how feel ye this article to-day? +Our statute is a currency which we stamp with our own portrait: it soon +becomes unrecognizable, and in process of time will return to the mint. +Nature is not democratic, nor limited-monarchical, but despotic, and +will not be fooled or abated of any jot of her authority by the +pertest of her sons; and as fast as the public mind is opened to more +intelligence, the code is seen to be brute and stammering. It speaks not +articulately, and must be made to. Meantime the education of the general +mind never stops. The reveries of the true and simple are prophetic. +What the tender poetic youth dreams, and prays, and paints to-day, but +shuns the ridicule of saying aloud, shall presently be the resolutions +of public bodies; then shall be carried as grievance and bill of +rights through conflict and war, and then shall be triumphant law and +establishment for a hundred years, until it gives place in turn to +new prayers and pictures. The history of the State sketches in coarse +outline the progress of thought, and follows at a distance the delicacy +of culture and of aspiration. + +The theory of politics which has possessed the mind of men, and which +they have expressed the best they could in their laws and in their +revolutions, considers persons and property as the two objects for whose +protection government exists. Of persons, all have equal rights, in +virtue of being identical in nature. This interest of course with its +whole power demands a democracy. Whilst the rights of all as persons are +equal, in virtue of their access to reason, their rights in property are +very unequal. One man owns his clothes, and another owns a county. This +accident, depending primarily on the skill and virtue of the parties, +of which there is every degree, and secondarily on patrimony, falls +unequally, and its rights of course are unequal. Personal rights, +universally the same, demand a government framed on the ratio of the +census; property demands a government framed on the ratio of owners and +of owning. Laban, who has flocks and herds, wishes them looked after by +an officer on the frontiers, lest the Midianites shall drive them off; +and pays a tax to that end. Jacob has no flocks or herds and no fear of +the Midianites, and pays no tax to the officer. It seemed fit that Laban +and Jacob should have equal rights to elect the officer who is to defend +their persons, but that Laban and not Jacob should elect the officer +who is to guard the sheep and cattle. And if question arise whether +additional officers or watch-towers should be provided, must not Laban +and Isaac, and those who must sell part of their herds to buy protection +for the rest, judge better of this, and with more right, than Jacob, +who, because he is a youth and a traveller, eats their bread and not his +own? + +In the earliest society the proprietors made their own wealth, and so +long as it comes to the owners in the direct way, no other opinion would +arise in any equitable community than that property should make the law +for property, and persons the law for persons. + +But property passes through donation or inheritance to those who do not +create it. Gift, in one case, makes it as really the new owner's, as +labor made it the first owner's: in the other case, of patrimony, the +law makes an ownership which will be valid in each man's view according +to the estimate which he sets on the public tranquillity. + +It was not however found easy to embody the readily admitted principle +that property should make law for property, and persons for persons; +since persons and property mixed themselves in every transaction. +At last it seemed settled that the rightful distinction was that the +proprietors should have more elective franchise than non-proprietors, +on the Spartan principle of "calling that which is just, equal; not that +which is equal, just." + +That principle no longer looks so self-evident as it appeared in former +times, partly, because doubts have arisen whether too much weight had +not been allowed in the laws to property, and such a structure given to +our usages as allowed the rich to encroach on the poor, and to keep them +poor; but mainly because there is an instinctive sense, however obscure +and yet inarticulate, that the whole constitution of property, on +its present tenures, is injurious, and its influence on persons +deteriorating and degrading; that truly the only interest for the +consideration of the State is persons; that property will always follow +persons; that the highest end of government is the culture of men; and +if men can be educated, the institutions will share their improvement +and the moral sentiment will write the law of the land. + +If it be not easy to settle the equity of this question, the peril is +less when we take note of our natural defences. We are kept by better +guards than the vigilance of such magistrates as we commonly elect. +Society always consists in greatest part of young and foolish persons. +The old, who have seen through the hypocrisy of courts and statesmen, +die and leave no wisdom to their sons. They believe their own newspaper, +as their fathers did at their age. With such an ignorant and deceivable +majority, States would soon run to ruin, but that there are limitations +beyond which the folly and ambition of governors cannot go. Things +have their laws, as well as men; and things refuse to be trifled with. +Property will be protected. Corn will not grow unless it is planted and +manured; but the farmer will not plant or hoe it unless the chances +are a hundred to one that he will cut and harvest it. Under any forms, +persons and property must and will have their just sway. They exert +their power, as steadily as matter its attraction. Cover up a pound of +earth never so cunningly, divide and subdivide it; melt it to liquid, +convert it to gas; it will always weigh a pound; it will always attract +and resist other matter by the full virtue of one pound weight:--and +the attributes of a person, his wit and his moral energy, will exercise, +under any law or extinguishing tyranny, their proper force,--if not +overtly, then covertly; if not for the law, then against it; if not +wholesomely, then poisonously; with right, or by might. + +The boundaries of personal influence it is impossible to fix, as persons +are organs of moral or supernatural force. Under the dominion of an +idea which possesses the minds of multitudes, as civil freedom, or the +religious sentiment, the powers of persons are no longer subjects of +calculation. A nation of men unanimously bent on freedom or conquest +can easily confound the arithmetic of statists, and achieve extravagant +actions, out of all proportion to their means; as the Greeks, the +Saracens, the Swiss, the Americans, and the French have done. + +In like manner to every particle of property belongs its own attraction. +A cent is the representative of a certain quantity of corn or other +commodity. Its value is in the necessities of the animal man. It is so +much warmth, so much bread, so much water, so much land. The law may +do what it will with the owner of property; its just power will still +attach to the cent. The law may in a mad freak say that all shall +have power except the owners of property; they shall have no vote. +Nevertheless, by a higher law, the property will, year after year, write +every statute that respects property. The non-proprietor will be the +scribe of the proprietor. What the owners wish to do, the whole power of +property will do, either through the law or else in defiance of it. Of +course I speak of all the property, not merely of the great estates. +When the rich are outvoted, as frequently happens, it is the joint +treasury of the poor which exceeds their accumulations. Every man owns +something, if it is only a cow, or a wheel-barrow, or his arms, and so +has that property to dispose of. + +The same necessity which secures the rights of person and property +against the malignity or folly of the magistrate, determines the form +and methods of governing, which are proper to each nation and to its +habit of thought, and nowise transferable to other states of society. In +this country we are very vain of our political institutions, which are +singular in this, that they sprung, within the memory of living men, +from the character and condition of the people, which they still express +with sufficient fidelity,--and we ostentatiously prefer them to any +other in history. They are not better, but only fitter for us. We may be +wise in asserting the advantage in modern times of the democratic +form, but to other states of society, in which religion consecrated the +monarchical, that and not this was expedient. Democracy is better for +us, because the religious sentiment of the present time accords better +with it. Born democrats, we are nowise qualified to judge of monarchy, +which, to our fathers living in the monarchical idea, was also +relatively right. But our institutions, though in coincidence with the +spirit of the age, have not any exemption from the practical defects +which have discredited other forms. Every actual State is corrupt. Good +men must not obey the laws too well. What satire on government can equal +the severity of censure conveyed in the word politic, which now for ages +has signified cunning, intimating that the State is a trick? + +The same benign necessity and the same practical abuse appear in +the parties, into which each State divides itself, of opponents and +defenders of the administration of the government. Parties are also +founded on instincts, and have better guides to their own humble aims +than the sagacity of their leaders. They have nothing perverse in their +origin, but rudely mark some real and lasting relation. We might as +wisely reprove the east wind or the frost, as a political party, whose +members, for the most part, could give no account of their position, but +stand for the defence of those interests in which they find themselves. +Our quarrel with them begins when they quit this deep natural ground at +the bidding of some leader, and obeying personal considerations, throw +themselves into the maintenance and defence of points nowise belonging +to their system. A party is perpetually corrupted by personality. Whilst +we absolve the association from dishonesty, we cannot extend the same +charity to their leaders. They reap the rewards of the docility and zeal +of the masses which they direct. Ordinarily our parties are parties of +circumstance, and not of principle; as the planting interest in conflict +with the commercial; the party of capitalists and that of operatives; +parties which are identical in their moral character, and which can +easily change ground with each other in the support of many of their +measures. Parties of principle, as, religious sects, or the party of +free-trade, of universal suffrage, of abolition of slavery, of abolition +of capital punishment,--degenerate into personalities, or would inspire +enthusiasm. The vice of our leading parties in this country (which may +be cited as a fair specimen of these societies of opinion) is that they +do not plant themselves on the deep and necessary grounds to which they +are respectively entitled, but lash themselves to fury in the carrying +of some local and momentary measure, nowise useful to the commonwealth. +Of the two great parties which at this hour almost share the nation +between them, I should say that one has the best cause, and the other +contains the best men. The philosopher, the poet, or the religious man +will of course wish to cast his vote with the democrat, for free-trade, +for wide suffrage, for the abolition of legal cruelties in the penal +code, and for facilitating in every manner the access of the young and +the poor to the sources of wealth and power. But he can rarely +accept the persons whom the so-called popular party propose to him as +representatives of these liberalities. They have not at heart the ends +which give to the name of democracy what hope and virtue are in it. The +spirit of our American radicalism is destructive and aimless: it is not +loving; it has no ulterior and divine ends, but is destructive only out +of hatred and selfishness. On the other side, the conservative party, +composed of the most moderate, able, and cultivated part of the +population, is timid, and merely defensive of property. It vindicates +no right, it aspires to no real good, it brands no crime, it proposes no +generous policy; it does not build, nor write, nor cherish the arts, +nor foster religion, nor establish schools, nor encourage science, +nor emancipate the slave, nor befriend the poor, or the Indian, or the +immigrant. From neither party, when in power, has the world any benefit +to expect in science, art, or humanity, at all commensurate with the +resources of the nation. + +I do not for these defects despair of our republic. We are not at the +mercy of any waves of chance. In the strife of ferocious parties, human +nature always finds itself cherished; as the children of the convicts +at Botany Bay are found to have as healthy a moral sentiment as other +children. Citizens of feudal states are alarmed at our democratic +institutions lapsing into anarchy, and the older and more cautious among +ourselves are learning from Europeans to look with some terror at our +turbulent freedom. It is said that in our license of construing the +Constitution, and in the despotism of public opinion, we have no anchor; +and one foreign observer thinks he has found the safeguard in the +sanctity of Marriage among us; and another thinks he has found it in our +Calvinism. Fisher Ames expressed the popular security more wisely, +when he compared a monarchy and a republic, saying that a monarchy is a +merchantman, which sails well, but will sometimes strike on a rock and +go to the bottom; whilst a republic is a raft, which would never sink, +but then your feet are always in water. No forms can have any dangerous +importance whilst we are befriended by the laws of things. It makes no +difference how many tons weight of atmosphere presses on our heads, so +long as the same pressure resists it within the lungs. Augment the mass +a thousand fold, it cannot begin to crush us, as long as reaction is +equal to action. The fact of two poles, of two forces, centripetal and +centrifugal, is universal, and each force by its own activity develops +the other. Wild liberty develops iron conscience. Want of liberty, +by strengthening law and decorum, stupefies conscience. 'Lynch-law' +prevails only where there is greater hardihood and self-subsistency in +the leaders. A mob cannot be a permanency; everybody's interest requires +that it should not exist, and only justice satisfies all. + +We must trust infinitely to the beneficent necessity which +shines through all laws. Human nature expresses itself in them as +characteristically as in statues, or songs, or railroads; and an +abstract of the codes of nations would be a transcript of the common +conscience. Governments have their origin in the moral identity of men. +Reason for one is seen to be reason for another, and for every other. +There is a middle measure which satisfies all parties, be they never so +many or so resolute for their own. Every man finds a sanction for his +simplest claims and deeds in decisions of his own mind, which he calls +Truth and Holiness. In these decisions all the citizens find a perfect +agreement, and only in these; not in what is good to eat, good to wear, +good use of time, or what amount of land or of public aid, each is +entitled to claim. This truth and justice men presently endeavor to make +application of to the measuring of land, the apportionment of service, +the protection of life and property. Their first endeavors, no doubt, +are very awkward. Yet absolute right is the first governor; or, every +government is an impure theocracy. The idea after which each community +is aiming to make and mend its law, is the will of the wise man. The +wise man it cannot find in nature, and it makes awkward but earnest +efforts to secure his government by contrivance; as by causing the +entire people to give their voices on every measure; or by a double +choice to get the representation of the whole; or, by a selection of the +best citizens; or to secure the advantages of efficiency and internal +peace by confiding the government to one, who may himself select his +agents. All forms of government symbolize an immortal government, common +to all dynasties and independent of numbers, perfect where two men +exist, perfect where there is only one man. + +Every man's nature is a sufficient advertisement to him of the character +of his fellows. My right and my wrong is their right and their wrong. +Whilst I do what is fit for me, and abstain from what is unfit, my +neighbor and I shall often agree in our means, and work together for +a time to one end. But whenever I find my dominion over myself not +sufficient for me, and undertake the direction of him also, I overstep +the truth, and come into false relations to him. I may have so much more +skill or strength than he that he cannot express adequately his sense of +wrong, but it is a lie, and hurts like a lie both him and me. Love +and nature cannot maintain the assumption; it must be executed by a +practical lie, namely by force. This undertaking for another is the +blunder which stands in colossal ugliness in the governments of the +world. It is the same thing in numbers, as in a pair, only not quite +so intelligible. I can see well enough a great difference between my +setting myself down to a self-control, and my going to make somebody +else act after my views; but when a quarter of the human race assume to +tell me what I must do, I may be too much disturbed by the circumstances +to see so clearly the absurdity of their command. Therefore all public +ends look vague and quixotic beside private ones. For any laws but those +which men make for themselves, are laughable. If I put myself in the +place of my child, and we stand in one thought and see that things are +thus or thus, that perception is law for him and me. We are both there, +both act. But if, without carrying him into the thought, I look over +into his plot, and, guessing how it is with him, ordain this or that, +he will never obey me. This is the history of governments,--one man does +something which is to bind another. A man who cannot be acquainted with +me, taxes me; looking from afar at me ordains that a part of my labor +shall go to this or that whimsical end,--not as I, but as he happens to +fancy. Behold the consequence. Of all debts men are least willing to pay +the taxes. What a satire is this on government! Everywhere they think +they get their money's worth, except for these. + +Hence the less government we have the better,--the fewer laws, and the +less confided power. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government is +the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the +appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of +the wise man; of whom the existing government is, it must be owned, but +a shabby imitation. That which all things tend to educe; which freedom, +cultivation, intercourse, revolutions, go to form and deliver, is +character; that is the end of Nature, to reach unto this coronation +of her king. To educate the wise man the State exists, and with +the appearance of the wise man the State expires. The appearance of +character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He +needs no army, fort, or navy,--he loves men too well; no bribe, +or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no +favorable circumstance. He needs no library, for he has not done +thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has +the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home +where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through +him, and looks from his eyes. He has no personal friends, for he who +has the spell to draw the prayer and piety of all men unto him needs not +husband and educate a few to share with him a select and poetic life. +His relation to men is angelic; his memory is myrrh to them; his +presence, frankincense and flowers. + +We think our civilization near its meridian, but we are yet only at +the cock-crowing and the morning star. In our barbarous society the +influence of character is in its infancy. As a political power, as +the rightful lord who is to tumble all rulers from their chairs, its +presence is hardly yet suspected. Malthus and Ricardo quite omit it; the +Annual Register is silent; in the Conversations' Lexicon it is not set +down; the President's Message, the Queen's Speech, have not mentioned +it; and yet it is never nothing. Every thought which genius and piety +throw into the world, alters the world. The gladiators in the lists +of power feel, through all their frocks of force and simulation, the +presence of worth. I think the very strife of trade and ambition are +confession of this divinity; and successes in those fields are the poor +amends, the fig-leaf with which the shamed soul attempts to hide its +nakedness. I find the like unwilling homage in all quarters. It is +because we know how much is due from us that we are impatient to +show some petty talent as a substitute for worth. We are haunted by a +conscience of this right to grandeur of character, and are false to it. +But each of us has some talent, can do somewhat useful, or graceful, +or formidable, or amusing, or lucrative. That we do, as an apology to +others and to ourselves for not reaching the mark of a good and equal +life. But it does not satisfy us, whilst we thrust it on the notice of +our companions. It may throw dust in their eyes, but does not smooth our +own brow, or give us the tranquillity of the strong when we walk abroad. +We do penance as we go. Our talent is a sort of expiation, and we +are constrained to reflect on our splendid moment with a certain +humiliation, as somewhat too fine, and not as one act of many acts, a +fair expression of our permanent energy. Most persons of ability meet +in society with a kind of tacit appeal. Each seems to say, 'I am not all +here.' Senators and presidents have climbed so high with pain enough, +not because they think the place specially agreeable, but as an apology +for real worth, and to vindicate their manhood in our eyes. This +conspicuous chair is their compensation to themselves for being of a +poor, cold, hard nature. They must do what they can. Like one class +of forest animals, they have nothing but a prehensile tail; climb they +must, or crawl. If a man found himself so rich-natured that he could +enter into strict relations with the best persons and make life serene +around him by the dignity and sweetness of his behavior, could he afford +to circumvent the favor of the caucus and the press, and covet relations +so hollow and pompous as those of a politician? Surely nobody would be a +charlatan who could afford to be sincere. + +The tendencies of the times favor the idea of self-government, and leave +the individual, for all code, to the rewards and penalties of his own +constitution; which work with more energy than we believe whilst we +depend on artificial restraints. The movement in this direction has been +very marked in modern history. Much has been blind and discreditable, +but the nature of the revolution is not affected by the vices of the +revolters; for this is a purely moral force. It was never adopted by any +party in history, neither can be. It separates the individual from +all party, and unites him at the same time to the race. It promises +a recognition of higher rights than those of personal freedom, or the +security of property. A man has a right to be employed, to be trusted, +to be loved, to be revered. The power of love, as the basis of a State, +has never been tried. We must not imagine that all things are lapsing +into confusion if every tender protestant be not compelled to bear his +part in certain social conventions; nor doubt that roads can be built, +letters carried, and the fruit of labor secured, when the government +of force is at an end. Are our methods now so excellent that all +competition is hopeless? could not a nation of friends even devise +better ways? On the other hand, let not the most conservative and timid +fear anything from a premature surrender of the bayonet and the system +of force. For, according to the order of nature, which is quite superior +to our will, it stands thus; there will always be a government of force +where men are selfish; and when they are pure enough to abjure the code +of force they will be wise enough to see how these public ends of the +post-office, of the highway, of commerce and the exchange of property, +of museums and libraries, of institutions of art and science can be +answered. + +We live in a very low state of the world, and pay unwilling tribute to +governments founded on force. There is not, among the most religious and +instructed men of the most religious and civil nations, a reliance on +the moral sentiment and a sufficient belief in the unity of things, +to persuade them that society can be maintained without artificial +restraints, as well as the solar system; or that the private citizen +might be reasonable and a good neighbor, without the hint of a jail or a +confiscation. What is strange too, there never was in any man sufficient +faith in the power of rectitude to inspire him with the broad design of +renovating the State on the principle of right and love. All those +who have pretended this design have been partial reformers, and have +admitted in some manner the supremacy of the bad State. I do not call to +mind a single human being who has steadily denied the authority of the +laws, on the simple ground of his own moral nature. Such designs, full +of genius and full of fate as they are, are not entertained except +avowedly as air-pictures. If the individual who exhibits them dare to +think them practicable, he disgusts scholars and churchmen; and men of +talent and women of superior sentiments cannot hide their contempt. +Not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with +suggestions of this enthusiasm, and there are now men,--if indeed I can +speak in the plural number,--more exactly, I will say, I have just been +conversing with one man, to whom no weight of adverse experience will +make it for a moment appear impossible that thousands of human beings +might exercise towards each other the grandest and simplest sentiments, +as well as a knot of friends, or a pair of lovers. + +***** + + + + NOMINALIST AND REALIST. + + In countless upward-striving waves + The moon-drawn tide-wave strives: + In thousand far-transplanted grafts + The parent fruit survives; + So, in the new-born millions, + The perfect Adam lives. + Not less are summer-mornings dear + To every child they wake, + And each with novel life his sphere + Fills for his proper sake. + + + + +VIII. NONIMALIST AND REALIST. + +I CANNOT often enough say that a man is only a relative and +representative nature. Each is a hint of the truth, but far enough from +being that truth which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us. +If I seek it in him I shall not find it. Could any man conduct into me +the pure stream of that which he pretends to be! Long afterwards I +find that quality elsewhere which he promised me. The genius of the +Platonists is intoxicating to the student, yet how few particulars of +it can I detach from all their books. The man momentarily stands for +the thought, but will not bear examination; and a society of men will +cursorily represent well enough a certain quality and culture, for +example, chivalry or beauty of manners; but separate them and there is +no gentleman and no lady in the group. The least hint sets us on the +pursuit of a character which no man realizes. We have such exorbitant +eyes that on seeing the smallest arc we complete the curve, and when the +curtain is lifted from the diagram which it seemed to veil, we are vexed +to find that no more was drawn than just that fragment of an arc which +we first beheld. We are greatly too liberal in our construction of each +other's faculty and promise. Exactly what the parties have already done +they shall do again; but that which we inferred from their nature and +inception, they will not do. That is in nature, but not in them. That +happens in the world, which we often witness in a public debate. Each +of the speakers expresses himself imperfectly; no one of them hears much +that another says, such is the preoccupation of mind of each; and the +audience, who have only to hear and not to speak, judge very wisely and +superiorly how wrongheaded and unskilful is each of the debaters to his +own affair. Great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find, +but symmetrical men never. When I meet a pure intellectual force or a +generosity of affection, I believe here then is man; and am presently +mortified by the discovery that this individual is no more available to +his own or to the general ends than his companions; because the power +which drew my respect is not supported by the total symphony of his +talents. All persons exist to society by some shining trait of beauty or +utility which they have. We borrow the proportions of the man from that +one fine feature, and finish the portrait symmetrically; which is false, +for the rest of his body is small or deformed. I observe a person who +makes a good public appearance, and conclude thence the perfection of +his private character, on which this is based; but he has no private +character. He is a graceful cloak or lay-figure for holidays. All our +poets, heroes, and saints, fail utterly in some one or in many parts to +satisfy our idea, fail to draw our spontaneous interest, and so leave us +without any hope of realization but in our own future. Our exaggeration +of all fine characters arises from the fact that we identify each in +turn with the soul. But there are no such men as we fable; no Jesus, nor +Pericles, nor Caesar, nor Angelo, nor Washington, such as we have made. +We consecrate a great deal of nonsense because it was allowed by great +men. There is none without his foible. I verily believe if an angel +should come to chant the chorus of the moral law, he would eat too much +gingerbread, or take liberties with private letters, or do some precious +atrocity. It is bad enough that our geniuses cannot do anything useful, +but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits. He +is admired at a distance, but he cannot come near without appearing a +cripple. The men of fine parts protect themselves by solitude, or by +courtesy, or by satire, or by an acid worldly manner, each concealing as +he best can his incapacity for useful association, but they want either +love or self-reliance. + +Our native love of reality joins with this experience to teach us a +little reserve, and to dissuade a too sudden surrender to the brilliant +qualities of persons. Young people admire talents or particular +excellences; as we grow older we value total powers and effects, as the +impression, the quality, the spirit of men and things. The genius is +all. The man,--it is his system: we do not try a solitary word or act, +but his habit. The acts which you praise, I praise not, since they are +departures from his faith, and are mere compliances. The magnetism which +arranges tribes and races in one polarity is alone to be respected; the +men are steel-filings. Yet we unjustly select a particle, and say, +'O steel-filing number one! what heart-drawings I feel to thee! what +prodigious virtues are these of thine! how constitutional to thee, and +incommunicable.' Whilst we speak the loadstone is withdrawn; down falls +our filing in a heap with the rest, and we continue our mummery to the +wretched shaving. Let us go for universals; for the magnetism, not for +the needles. Human life and its persons are poor empirical pretensions. +A personal influence is an ignis fatuus. If they say it is great, it is +great; if they say it is small, it is small; you see it, and you see it +not, by turns; it borrows all its size from the momentary estimation of +the speakers: the Will-of-the-wisp vanishes if you go too near, vanishes +if you go too far, and only blazes at one angle. Who can tell if +Washington be a great man or no? Who can tell if Franklin be? Yes, or +any but the twelve, or six, or three great gods of fame? And they too +loom and fade before the eternal. + +We are amphibious creatures, weaponed for two elements, having two sets +of faculties, the particular and the catholic. We adjust our instrument +for general observation, and sweep the heavens as easily as we pick out +a single figure in the terrestrial landscape. We are practically skilful +in detecting elements for which we have no place in our theory, and no +name. Thus we are very sensible of an atmospheric influence in men and +in bodies of men, not accounted for in an arithmetical addition of all +their measurable properties. There is a genius of a nation, which is +not to be found in the numerical citizens, but which characterizes the +society. England, strong, punctual, practical, well-spoken England +I should not find if I should go to the island to seek it. In the +parliament, in the play-house, at dinner-tables, I might see a great +number of rich, ignorant, book-read, conventional, proud men,--many +old women,--and not anywhere the Englishman who made the good speeches, +combined the accurate engines, and did the bold and nervous deeds. It +is even worse in America, where, from the intellectual quickness of the +race, the genius of the country is more splendid in its promise and more +slight in its performance. Webster cannot do the work of Webster. We +conceive distinctly enough the French, the Spanish, the German genius, +and it is not the less real that perhaps we should not meet in either +of those nations a single individual who corresponded with the type. We +infer the spirit of the nation in great measure from the language, which +is a sort of monument to which each forcible individual in a course of +many hundred years has contributed a stone. And, universally, a good +example of this social force is the veracity of language, which cannot +be debauched. In any controversy concerning morals, an appeal may be +made with safety to the sentiments which the language of the people +expresses. Proverbs, words, and grammar-inflections convey the public +sense with more purity and precision than the wisest individual. + +In the famous dispute with the Nominalists, the Realists had a good deal +of reason. General ideas are essences. They are our gods: they round +and ennoble the most partial and sordid way of living. Our proclivity +to details cannot quite degrade our life and divest it of poetry. The +day-laborer is reckoned as standing at the foot of the social scale, yet +he is saturated with the laws of the world. His measures are the hours; +morning and night, solstice and equinox, geometry, astronomy and all +the lovely accidents of nature play through his mind. Money, which +represents the prose of life, and which is hardly spoken of in parlors +without an apology, is, in its effects and laws, as beautiful as roses. +Property keeps the accounts of the world, and is always moral. The +property will be found where the labor, the wisdom, and the virtue have +been in nations, in classes, and (the whole life-time considered, with +the compensations) in the individual also. How wise the world appears, +when the laws and usages of nations are largely detailed, and the +completeness of the municipal system is considered! Nothing is left +out. If you go into the markets and the custom-houses, the insurers' and +notaries' offices, the offices of sealers of weights and measures, of +inspection of provisions,--it will appear as if one man had made it +all. Wherever you go, a wit like your own has been before you, and +has realized its thought. The Eleusinian mysteries, the Egyptian +architecture, the Indian astronomy, the Greek sculpture, show that there +always were seeing and knowing men in the planet. The world is full of +masonic ties, of guilds, of secret and public legions of honor; that +of scholars, for example; and that of gentlemen, fraternizing with the +upper class of every country and every culture. + +I am very much struck in literature by the appearance that one person +wrote all the books; as if the editor of a journal planted his body of +reporters in different parts of the field of action, and relieved some +by others from time to time; but there is such equality and identity +both of judgment and point of view in the narrative that it is plainly +the work of one all-seeing, all-hearing gentleman. I looked into Pope's +Odyssey yesterday: it is as correct and elegant after our canon of +to-day as if it were newly written. The modernness of all good books +seems to give me an existence as wide as man. What is well done I feel +as if I did; what is ill done I reck not of. Shakspeare's passages of +passion (for example, in Lear and Hamlet) are in the very dialect of the +present year. I am faithful again to the whole over the members in my +use of books. I find the most pleasure in reading a book in a manner +least flattering to the author. I read Proclus, and sometimes Plato, as +I might read a dictionary, for a mechanical help to the fancy and the +imagination. I read for the lustres, as if one should use a fine picture +in a chromatic experiment, for its rich colors. 'Tis not Proclus, but a +piece of nature and fate that I explore. It is a greater joy to see +the author's author, than himself. A higher pleasure of the same kind I +found lately at a concert, where I went to hear Handel's Messiah. As the +master overpowered the littleness and incapableness of the performers +and made them conductors of his electricity, so it was easy to observe +what efforts nature was making, through so many hoarse, wooden, and +imperfect persons, to produce beautiful voices, fluid and soul-guided +men and women. The genius of nature was paramount at the oratorio. + +This preference of the genius to the parts is the secret of that +deification of art, which is found in all superior minds. Art, in the +artist, is proportion, or a habitual respect to the whole by an eye +loving beauty in details. And the wonder and charm of it is the sanity +in insanity which it denotes. Proportion is almost impossible to human +beings. There is no one who does not exaggerate. In conversation, men +are encumbered with personality, and talk too much. In modern sculpture, +picture, and poetry, the beauty is miscellaneous; the artist works here +and there and at all points, adding and adding, instead of unfolding the +unit of his thought. Beautiful details we must have, or no artist; but +they must be means and never other. The eye must not lose sight for a +moment of the purpose. Lively boys write to their ear and eye, and the +cool reader finds nothing but sweet jingles in it. When they grow older, +they respect the argument. + +We obey the same intellectual integrity when we study in exceptions the +law of the world. Anomalous facts, as the never quite obsolete rumors +of magic and demonology, and the new allegations of phrenologists and +neurologists, are of ideal use. They are good indications. Homoeopathy +is insignificant as an art of healing, but of great value as criticism +on the hygeia or medical practice of the time. So with Mesmerism, +Swedenborgism, Fourierism, and the Millennial Church; they are poor +pretensions enough, but good criticism on the science, philosophy, and +preaching of the day. For these abnormal insights of the adepts ought to +be normal, and things of course. + +All things show us that on every side we are very near to the best. +It seems not worth while to execute with too much pains some one +intellectual, or aesthetical, or civil feat, when presently the dream +will scatter, and we shall burst into universal power. The reason of +idleness and of crime is the deferring of our hopes. Whilst we are +waiting we beguile the time with jokes, with sleep, with eating, and +with crimes. + +Thus we settle it in our cool libraries, that all the agents with which +we deal are subalterns, which we can well afford to let pass, and life +will be simpler when we live at the centre and flout the surfaces. I +wish to speak with all respect of persons, but sometimes I must pinch +myself to keep awake and preserve the due decorum. They melt so fast +into each other that they are like grass and trees, and it needs an +effort to treat them as individuals. Though the uninspired man certainly +finds persons a conveniency in household matters, the divine man does +not respect them; he sees them as a rack of clouds, or a fleet of +ripples which the wind drives over the surface of the water. But this is +flat rebellion. Nature will not be Buddhist: she resents generalizing, +and insults the philosopher in every moment with a million of fresh +particulars. It is all idle talking: as much as a man is a whole, so is +he also a part; and it were partial not to see it. What you say in your +pompous distribution only distributes you into your class and section. +You have not got rid of parts by denying them, but are the more partial. +You are one thing, but Nature is one thing and the other thing, in the +same moment. She will not remain orbed in a thought, but rushes into +persons; and when each person, inflamed to a fury of personality, would +conquer all things to his poor crotchet, she raises up against him +another person, and by many persons incarnates again a sort of whole. +She will have all. Nick Bottom cannot play all the parts, work it how +he may; there will be somebody else, and the world will be round. +Everything must have its flower or effort at the beautiful, coarser or +finer according to its stuff. They relieve and recommend each other, +and the sanity of society is a balance of a thousand insanities. She +punishes abstractionists, and will only forgive an induction which +is rare and casual. We like to come to a height of land and see the +landscape, just as we value a general remark in conversation. But it +is not the intention of Nature that we should live by general views. We +fetch fire and water, run about all day among the shops and markets, and +get our clothes and shoes made and mended, and are the victims of these +details; and once in a fortnight we arrive perhaps at a rational moment. +If we were not thus infatuated, if we saw the real from hour to hour, we +should not be here to write and to read, but should have been burned +or frozen long ago. She would never get anything done, if she suffered +admirable Crichtons and universal geniuses. She loves better a +wheelwright who dreams all night of wheels, and a groom who is part +of his horse; for she is full of work, and these are her hands. As the +frugal farmer takes care that his cattle shall eat down the rowen, +and swine shall eat the waste of his house, and poultry shall pick the +crumbs,--so our economical mother dispatches a new genius and habit +of mind into every district and condition of existence, plants an eye +wherever a new ray of light can fall, and gathering up into some man +every property in the universe, establishes thousandfold occult mutual +attractions among her offspring, that all this wash and waste of power +may be imparted and exchanged. + +Great dangers undoubtedly accrue from this incarnation and distribution +of the godhead, and hence Nature has her maligners, as if she were +Circe; and Alphonso of Castille fancied he could have given useful +advice. But she does not go unprovided; she has hellebore at the bottom +of the cup. Solitude would ripen a plentiful crop of despots. The +recluse thinks of men as having his manner, or as not having his manner; +and as having degrees of it, more and less. But when he comes into a +public assembly he sees that men have very different manners from his +own, and in their way admirable. In his childhood and youth he has +had many checks and censures, and thinks modestly enough of his +own endowment. When afterwards he comes to unfold it in propitious +circumstance, it seems the only talent; he is delighted with his +success, and accounts himself already the fellow of the great. But he +goes into a mob, into a banking house, into a mechanic's shop, into a +mill, into a laboratory, into a ship, into a camp, and in each new place +he is no better than an idiot; other talents take place, and rule the +hour. The rotation which whirls every leaf and pebble to the meridian, +reaches to every gift of man, and we all take turns at the top. + +For Nature, who abhors mannerism, has set her heart on breaking up all +styles and tricks, and it is so much easier to do what one has done +before than to do a new thing, that there is a perpetual tendency to a +set mode. In every conversation, even the highest, there is a certain +trick, which may be soon learned by an acute person and then that +particular style continued indefinitely. Each man too is a tyrant in +tendency, because he would impose his idea on others; and their trick is +their natural defence. Jesus would absorb the race; but Tom Paine or +the coarsest blasphemer helps humanity by resisting this exuberance of +power. Hence the immense benefit of party in politics, as it reveals +faults of character in a chief, which the intellectual force of the +persons, with ordinary opportunity and not hurled into aphelion by +hatred, could not have seen. Since we are all so stupid, what benefit +that there should be two stupidities! It is like that brute advantage so +essential to astronomy, of having the diameter of the earth's orbit for +a base of its triangles. Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy, +but in the State and in the schools it is indispensable to resist the +consolidation of all men into a few men. If John was perfect, why are +you and I alive? As long as any man exists, there is some need of him; +let him fight for his own. A new poet has appeared; a new character +approached us; why should we refuse to eat bread until we have found his +regiment and section in our old army-files? Why not a new man? Here is +a new enterprise of Brook Farm, of Skeneateles, of Northampton: why so +impatient to baptize them Essenes, or Port-Royalists, or Shakers, or by +any known and effete name? Let it be a new way of living. Why have only +two or three ways of life, and not thousands? Every man is wanted, and +no man is wanted much. We came this time for condiments, not for +corn. We want the great genius only for joy; for one star more in our +constellation, for one tree more in our grove. But he thinks we wish +to belong to him, as he wishes to occupy us. He greatly mistakes us. I +think I have done well if I have acquired a new word from a good author; +and my business with him is to find my own, though it were only to melt +him down into an epithet or an image for daily use:-- + + "Into paint will I grind thee, my bride!" + +To embroil the confusion, and make it impossible to arrive at any +general statement,--when we have insisted on the imperfection of +individuals, our affections and our experience urge that every +individual is entitled to honor, and a very generous treatment is sure +to be repaid. A recluse sees only two or three persons, and allows them +all their room; they spread themselves at large. The statesman looks at +many, and compares the few habitually with others, and these look less. +Yet are they not entitled to this generosity of reception? and is not +munificence the means of insight? For though gamesters say that the +cards beat all the players, though they were never so skilful, yet in +the contest we are now considering, the players are also the game, and +share the power of the cards. If you criticise a fine genius, the odds +are that you are out of your reckoning, and instead of the poet, are +censuring your own caricature of him. For there is somewhat spheral and +infinite in every man, especially in every genius, which, if you can +come very near him, sports with all your limitations. For rightly every +man is a channel through which heaven floweth, and whilst I fancied I +was criticising him, I was censuring or rather terminating my own soul. +After taxing Goethe as a courtier, artificial, unbelieving, worldly,--I +took up this book of Helena, and found him an Indian of the wilderness, +a piece of pure nature like an apple or an oak, large as morning or +night, and virtuous as a brier-rose. + +But care is taken that the whole tune shall be played. If we were not +kept among surfaces, every thing would be large and universal; now the +excluded attributes burst in on us with the more brightness that they +have been excluded. "Your turn now, my turn next," is the rule of the +game. The universality being hindered in its primary form, comes in +the secondary form of all sides; the points come in succession to the +meridian, and by the speed of rotation a new whole is formed. Nature +keeps herself whole and her representation complete in the experience +of each mind. She suffers no seat to be vacant in her college. It is +the secret of the world that all things subsist and do not die but only +retire a little from sight and afterwards return again. Whatever does +not concern us is concealed from us. As soon as a person is no longer +related to our present well-being, he is concealed, or dies, as we say. +Really, all things and persons are related to us, but according to our +nature they act on us not at once but in succession, and we are made +aware of their presence one at a time. All persons, all things which we +have known, are here present, and many more than we see; the world is +full. As the ancient said, the world is a plenum or solid; and if we saw +all things that really surround us we should be imprisoned and unable to +move. For though nothing is impassable to the soul, but all things are +pervious to it and like highways, yet this is only whilst the soul does +not see them. As soon as the soul sees any object, it stops before that +object. Therefore, the divine Providence which keeps the universe open +in every direction to the soul, conceals all the furniture and all the +persons that do not concern a particular soul, from the senses of that +individual. Through solidest eternal things the man finds his road as if +they did not subsist, and does not once suspect their being. As soon as +he needs a new object, suddenly he beholds it, and no longer attempts +to pass through it, but takes another way. When he has exhausted for +the time the nourishment to be drawn from any one person or thing, +that object is withdrawn from his observation, and though still in his +immediate neighborhood, he does not suspect its presence. Nothing is +dead: men feign themselves dead, and endure mock funerals and mournful +obituaries, and there they stand looking out of the window, sound and +well, in some new and strange disguise. Jesus is not dead; he is very +well alive: nor John, nor Paul, nor Mahomet, nor Aristotle; at times +we believe we have seen them all, and could easily tell the names under +which they go. + +If we cannot make voluntary and conscious steps in the admirable science +of universals, let us see the parts wisely, and infer the genius of +nature from the best particulars with a becoming charity. What is best +in each kind is an index of what should be the average of that thing. +Love shows me the opulence of nature, by disclosing to me in my friend +a hidden wealth, and I infer an equal depth of good in every other +direction. It is commonly said by farmers that a good pear or apple +costs no more time or pains to rear than a poor one; so I would have no +work of art, no speech, or action, or thought, or friend, but the best. + +The end and the means, the gamester and the game,--life is made up +of the intermixture and reaction of these two amicable powers, whose +marriage appears beforehand monstrous, as each denies and tends to +abolish the other. We must reconcile the contradictions as we can, but +their discord and their concord introduce wild absurdities into our +thinking and speech. No sentence will hold the whole truth, and the only +way in which we can be just, is by giving ourselves the lie; Speech is +better than silence; silence is better than speech;--All things are in +contact; every atom has a sphere of repulsion;--Things are, and are not, +at the same time;--and the like. All the universe over, there is but one +thing, this old Two-Face, creator-creature, mind-matter, right-wrong, of +which any proposition may be affirmed or denied. Very fitly therefore +I assert that every man is a partialist, that nature secures him as an +instrument by self-conceit, preventing the tendencies to religion and +science; and now further assert, that, each man's genius being nearly +and affectionately explored, he is justified in his individuality, as +his nature is found to be immense; and now I add that every man is a +universalist also, and, as our earth, whilst it spins on its own axis, +spins all the time around the sun through the celestial spaces, so +the least of its rational children, the most dedicated to his private +affair, works out, though as it were under a disguise, the universal +problem. We fancy men are individuals; so are pumpkins; but every +pumpkin in the field goes through every point of pumpkin history. The +rabid democrat, as soon as he is senator and rich man, has ripened +beyond possibility of sincere radicalism, and unless he can resist the +sun, he must be conservative the remainder of his days. Lord Eldon said +in his old age that "if he were to begin life again, he would be damned +but he would begin as agitator." + +We hide this universality if we can, but it appears at all points. We +are as ungrateful as children. There is nothing we cherish and strive to +draw to us but in some hour we turn and rend it. We keep a running +fire of sarcasm at ignorance and the life of the senses; then goes by, +perchance, a fair girl, a piece of life, gay and happy, and making the +commonest offices beautiful by the energy and heart with which she does +them; and seeing this we admire and love her and them, and say, 'Lo! a +genuine creature of the fair earth, not dissipated or too early ripened +by books, philosophy, religion, society, or care!' insinuating a +treachery and contempt for all we had so long loved and wrought in +ourselves and others. + +If we could have any security against moods! If the profoundest prophet +could be holden to his words, and the hearer who is ready to sell +all and join the crusade could have any certificate that tomorrow his +prophet shall not unsay his testimony! But the Truth sits veiled there +on the Bench, and never interposes an adamantine syllable; and the +most sincere and revolutionary doctrine, put as if the ark of God were +carried forward some furlongs, and planted there for the succor of the +world, shall in a few weeks be coldly set aside by the same speaker, +as morbid; "I thought I was right, but I was not,"--and the same +immeasurable credulity demanded for new audacities. If we were not of +all opinions! if we did not in any moment shift the platform on which +we stand, and look and speak from another! if there could be any +regulation, any 'one-hour-rule,' that a man should never leave his +point of view without sound of trumpet. I am always insincere, as always +knowing there are other moods. + +How sincere and confidential we can be, saying all that lies in +the mind, and yet go away feeling that all is yet unsaid, from the +incapacity of the parties to know each other, although they use the same +words! My companion assumes to know my mood and habit of thought, and we +go on from explanation to explanation until all is said which words can, +and we leave matters just as they were at first, because of that vicious +assumption. Is it that every man believes every other to be an incurable +partialist, and himself a universalist? I talked yesterday with a pair +of philosophers; I endeavored to show my good men that I love everything +by turns and nothing long; that I loved the centre, but doated on the +superficies; that I loved man, if men seemed to me mice and rats; that +I revered saints, but woke up glad that the old pagan world stood its +ground and died hard; that I was glad of men of every gift and nobility, +but would not live in their arms. Could they but once understand that +I loved to know that they existed, and heartily wished them God-speed, +yet, out of my poverty of life and thought, had no word or welcome for +them when they came to see me, and could well consent to their living in +Oregon, for any claim I felt on them,--it would be a great satisfaction. + +***** + + + + NEW ENGLAND REFORMERS. + + In the suburb, in the town, + On the railway, in the square, + Came a beam of goodness down + Doubling daylight everywhere: + Peace now each for malice takes, + Beauty for his sinful weeks, + For the angel Hope aye makes + Him an angel whom she leads. + + + + +NEW ENGLAND REFORMERS. + +A LECTURE READ BEFORE THE SOCIETY IN AMORY HALL, ON SUNDAY, MARCH 3, +1844. + +WHOEVER has had opportunity of acquaintance with society in New England +during the last twenty-five years, with those middle and with those +leading sections that may constitute any just representation of the +character and aim of the community, will have been struck with the great +activity of thought and experimenting. His attention must be commanded +by the signs that the Church, or religious party, is falling from +the Church nominal, and is appearing in temperance and non-resistance +societies; in movements of abolitionists and of socialists; and in very +significant assemblies called Sabbath and Bible Conventions; composed of +ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul of the soldiery of dissent, +and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, of the +priesthood, and of the Church. In these movements nothing was more +remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers. The spirit of +protest and of detachment drove the members of these Conventions to +bear testimony against the Church, and immediately afterward, to declare +their discontent with these Conventions, their independence of their +colleagues, and their impatience of the methods whereby they were +working. They defied each other, like a congress of kings, each of +whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert +unprofitable. What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the +world! One apostle thought all men should go to farming, and another +that no man should buy or sell, that the use of money was the cardinal +evil; another that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink +damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death to +fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife that God made yeast, +as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves +vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element in the +grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No; they wish +the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. Stop, dear +nature, these incessant advances of thine; let us scotch these +ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of agriculture, the use +of animal manures in farming, and the tyranny of man over brute nature; +these abuses polluted his food. The ox must be taken from the plough and +the horse from the cart, the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, +and the man must walk, wherever boats and locomotives will not carry +him. Even the insect world was to be defended,--that had been too long +neglected, and a society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and +mosquitos was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the +adepts of homoeopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and +their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles! Others assailed +particular vocations, as that of the lawyer, that of the merchant, of +the manufacturer, of the clergyman, of the scholar. Others attacked the +institution of marriage as the fountain of social evils. Others devoted +themselves to the worrying of churches and meetings for public worship; +and the fertile forms of antinomianism among the elder puritans seemed +to have their match in the plenty of the new harvest of reform. + +With this din of opinion and debate there was a keener scrutiny of +institutions and domestic life than any we had known; there was sincere +protesting against existing evils, and there were changes of employment +dictated by conscience. No doubt there was plentiful vaporing, and cases +of backsliding might occur. But in each of these movements emerged +a good result, a tendency to the adoption of simpler methods, and an +assertion of the sufficiency of the private man. Thus it was directly in +the spirit and genius of the age, what happened in one instance when a +church censured and threatened to excommunicate one of its members on +account of the somewhat hostile part to the church which his conscience +led him to take in the anti-slavery business; the threatened individual +immediately excommunicated the church in a public and formal process. +This has been several times repeated: it was excellent when it was done +the first time, but of course loses all value when it is copied. Every +project in the history of reform, no matter how violent and surprising, +is good when it is the dictate of a man's genius and constitution, but +very dull and suspicious when adopted from another. It is right and +beautiful in any man to say, 'I will take this coat, or this book, or +this measure of corn of yours,'--in whom we see the act to be original, +and to flow from the whole spirit and faith of him; for then that taking +will have a giving as free and divine; but we are very easily disposed +to resist the same generosity of speech when we miss originality and +truth to character in it. + +There was in all the practical activities of New England for the last +quarter of a century, a gradual withdrawal of tender consciences from +the social organizations. There is observable throughout, the contest +between mechanical and spiritual methods, but with a steady tendency of +the thoughtful and virtuous to a deeper belief and reliance on spiritual +facts. + +In politics for example it is easy to see the progress of dissent. The +country is full of rebellion; the country is full of kings. Hands off! +let there be no control and no interference in the administration of the +affairs of this kingdom of me. Hence the growth of the doctrine and of +the party of Free Trade, and the willingness to try that experiment, in +the face of what appear incontestable facts. I confess, the motto of +the Globe newspaper is so attractive to me that I can seldom find much +appetite to read what is below it in its columns: "The world is governed +too much." So the country is frequently affording solitary examples of +resistance to the government, solitary nullifiers, who throw themselves +on their reserved rights; nay, who have reserved all their rights; who +reply to the assessor and to the clerk of court that they do not +know the State, and embarrass the courts of law by non-juring and the +commander-in-chief of the militia by non-resistance. + +The same disposition to scrutiny and dissent appeared in civil, festive, +neighborly, and domestic society. A restless, prying, conscientious +criticism broke out in unexpected quarters. Who gave me the money with +which I bought my coat? Why should professional labor and that of the +counting-house be paid so disproportionately to the labor of the porter +and woodsawyer? This whole business of Trade gives me to pause and +think, as it constitutes false relations between men; inasmuch as I am +prone to count myself relieved of any responsibility to behave well and +nobly to that person whom I pay with money; whereas if I had not that +commodity, I should be put on my good behavior in all companies, and man +would be a benefactor to man, as being himself his only certificate that +he had a right to those aids and services which each asked of the other. +Am I not too protected a person? is there not a wide disparity between +the lot of me and the lot of thee, my poor brother, my poor sister? Am +I not defrauded of my best culture in the loss of those gymnastics which +manual labor and the emergencies of poverty constitute? I find nothing +healthful or exalting in the smooth conventions of society; I do +not like the close air of saloons. I begin to suspect myself to be a +prisoner, though treated with all this courtesy and luxury. I pay a +destructive tax in my conformity. + +The same insatiable criticism may be traced in the efforts for the +reform of Education. The popular education has been taxed with a want of +truth and nature. It was complained that an education to things was +not given. We are students of words: we are shut up in schools, and +colleges, and recitation-rooms, for ten or fifteen years, and come out +at last with a bag of wind, a memory of words, and do not know a thing. +We cannot use our hands, or our legs, or our eyes, or our arms. We do +not know an edible root in the woods, we cannot tell our course by the +stars, nor the hour of the day by the sun. It is well if we can swim and +skate. We are afraid of a horse, of a cow, of a dog, of a snake, of +a spider. The Roman rule was to teach a boy nothing that he could not +learn standing. The old English rule was, 'All summer in the field, +and all winter in the study.' And it seems as if a man should learn to +plant, or to fish, or to hunt, that he might secure his subsistence +at all events, and not be painful to his friends and fellow-men. The +lessons of science should be experimental also. The sight of the planet +through a telescope is worth all the course on astronomy; the shock of +the electric spark in the elbow, outvalues all the theories; the taste +of the nitrous oxide, the firing of an artificial volcano, are better +than volumes of chemistry. + +One of the traits of the new spirit is the inquisition it fixed on our +scholastic devotion to the dead languages. The ancient languages, with +great beauty of structure, contain wonderful remains of genius, which +draw, and always will draw, certain likeminded men,--Greek men, and +Roman men,--in all countries, to their study; but by a wonderful +drowsiness of usage they had exacted the study of all men. Once (say two +centuries ago), Latin and Greek had a strict relation to all the science +and culture there was in Europe, and the Mathematics had a momentary +importance at some era of activity in physical science. These things +became stereotyped as education, as the manner of men is. But the Good +Spirit never cared for the colleges, and though all men and boys were +now drilled in Latin, Greek, and Mathematics, it had quite left these +shells high and dry on the beach, and was now creating and feeding other +matters at other ends of the world. But in a hundred high schools and +colleges this warfare against common sense still goes on. Four, or six, +or ten years, the pupil is parsing Greek and Latin, and as soon as he +leaves the University, as it is ludicrously called, he shuts those books +for the last time. Some thousands of young men are graduated at our +colleges in this country every year, and the persons who, at forty +years, still read Greek, can all be counted on your hand. I never met +with ten. Four or five persons I have seen who read Plato. + +But is not this absurd, that the whole liberal talent of this country +should be directed in its best years on studies which lead to nothing? +What was the consequence? Some intelligent persons said or thought, +'Is that Greek and Latin some spell to conjure with, and not words of +reason? If the physician, the lawyer, the divine, never use it to come +at their ends, I need never learn it to come at mine. Conjuring is gone +out of fashion, and I will omit this conjugating, and go straight to +affairs.' So they jumped the Greek and Latin, and read law, medicine, or +sermons, without it. To the astonishment of all, the self-made men took +even ground at once with the oldest of the regular graduates, and in +a few months the most conservative circles of Boston and New York had +quite forgotten who of their gownsmen was college-bred, and who was not. + +One tendency appears alike in the philosophical speculation and in the +rudest democratical movements, through all the petulance and all the +puerility, the wish, namely, to cast aside the superfluous and arrive +at short methods; urged, as I suppose, by an intuition that the human +spirit is equal to all emergencies, alone, and that man is more often +injured than helped by the means he uses. + +I conceive this gradual casting off of material aids, and the indication +of growing trust in the private self-supplied powers of the individual, +to be the affirmative principle of the recent philosophy, and that it is +feeling its own profound truth and is reaching forward at this very hour +to the happiest conclusions. I readily concede that in this, as in every +period of intellectual activity, there has been a noise of denial and +protest; much was to be resisted, much was to be got rid of by those +who were reared in the old, before they could begin to affirm and to +construct. Many a reformer perishes in his removal of rubbish; and that +makes the offensiveness of the class. They are partial; they are not +equal to the work they pretend. They lose their way; in the assault on +the kingdom of darkness they expend all their energy on some accidental +evil, and lose their sanity and power of benefit. It is of little moment +that one or two or twenty errors of our social system be corrected, but +of much that the man be in his senses. + +The criticism and attack on institutions, which we have witnessed, +has made one thing plain, that society gains nothing whilst a man, not +himself renovated, attempts to renovate things around him: he has become +tediously good in some particular but negligent or narrow in the rest; +and hypocrisy and vanity are often the disgusting result. + +It is handsomer to remain in the establishment better than the +establishment, and conduct that in the best manner, than to make a sally +against evil by some single improvement, without supporting it by a +total regeneration. Do not be so vain of your one objection. Do you +think there is only one? Alas! my good friend, there is no part of +society or of life better than any other part. All our things are right +and wrong together. The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike. +Do you complain of our Marriage? Our marriage is no worse than our +education, our diet, our trade, our social customs. Do you complain of +the laws of Property? It is a pedantry to give such importance to them. +Can we not play the game of life with these counters, as well as with +those? in the institution of property, as well as out of it? Let into +it the new and renewing principle of love, and property will be +universality. No one gives the impression of superiority to the +institution, which he must give who will reform it. It makes no +difference what you say, you must make me feel that you are aloof from +it; by your natural and supernatural advantages do easily see to the end +of it,--do see how man can do without it. Now all men are on one side. +No man deserves to be heard against property. Only Love, only an Idea, +is against property as we hold it. + +I cannot afford to be irritable and captious, nor to waste all my +time in attacks. If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false +sentiment I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? the +street is as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my +manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie. When we see +an eager assailant of one of these wrongs, a special reformer, we feel +like asking him, What right have you, sir, to your one virtue? Is virtue +piecemeal? This is a jewel amidst the rags of a beggar. + +In another way the right will be vindicated. In the midst of abuses, in +the heart of cities, in the aisles of false churches, alike in one place +and in another,--wherever, namely, a just and heroic soul finds itself, +there it will do what is next at hand, and by the new quality of +character it shall put forth it shall abrogate that old condition, law +or school in which it stands, before the law of its own mind. + +If partiality was one fault of the movement party, the other defect was +their reliance on Association. Doubts such as those I have intimated +drove many good persons to agitate the questions of social reform. But +the revolt against the spirit of commerce, the spirit of aristocracy, +and the inveterate abuses of cities, did not appear possible to +individuals; and to do battle against numbers they armed themselves with +numbers, and against concert they relied on new concert. + +Following or advancing beyond the ideas of St. Simon, of Fourier, and +of Owen, three communities have already been formed in Massachusetts on +kindred plans, and many more in the country at large. They aim to give +every member a share in the manual labor, to give an equal reward to +labor and to talent, and to unite a liberal culture with an education +to labor. The scheme offers, by the economies of associated labor and +expense, to make every member rich, on the same amount of property, +that, in separate families, would leave every member poor. These new +associations are composed of men and women of superior talents and +sentiments; yet it may easily be questioned whether such a community +will draw, except in its beginnings, the able and the good; whether +those who have energy will not prefer their chance of superiority +and power in the world, to the humble certainties of the association; +whether such a retreat does not promise to become an asylum to those who +have tried and failed, rather than a field to the strong; and whether +the members will not necessarily be fractions of men, because each +finds that he cannot enter it, without some compromise. Friendship and +association are very fine things, and a grand phalanx of the best of +the human race, banded for some catholic object; yes, excellent; but +remember that no society can ever be so large as one man. He, in his +friendship, in his natural and momentary associations, doubles or +multiplies himself; but in the hour in which he mortgages himself to two +or ten or twenty, he dwarfs himself below the stature of one. + +But the men of less faith could not thus believe, and to such, concert +appears the sole specific of strength. I have failed, and you have +failed, but perhaps together we shall not fail. Our housekeeping is not +satisfactory to us, but perhaps a phalanx, a community, might be. Many +of us have differed in opinion, and we could find no man who could make +the truth plain, but possibly a college, or an ecclesiastical council +might. I have not been able either to persuade my brother or to prevail +on myself, to disuse the traffic or the potation of brandy, but +perhaps a pledge of total abstinence might effectually restrain us. The +candidate my party votes for is not to be trusted with a dollar, but he +will be honest in the Senate, for we can bring public opinion to bear on +him. Thus concert was the specific in all cases. But concert is neither +better nor worse, neither more nor less potent than individual force. +All the men in the world cannot make a statue walk and speak, cannot +make a drop of blood, or a blade of grass, any more than one man can. +But let there be one man, let there be truth in two men, in ten men, +then is concert for the first time possible; because the force which +moves the world is a new quality, and can never be furnished by adding +whatever quantities of a different kind. What is the use of the concert +of the false and the disunited? There can be no concert in two, where +there is no concert in one. When the individual is not individual, but +is dual; when his thoughts look one way and his actions another; when +his faith is traversed by his habits; when his will, enlightened by +reason, is warped by his sense; when with one hand he rows and with the +other backs water, what concert can be? + +I do not wonder at the interest these projects inspire. The world is +awaking to the idea of union, and these experiments show what it is +thinking of. It is and will be magic. Men will live and communicate, and +plough, and reap, and govern, as by added ethereal power, when once they +are united; as in a celebrated experiment, by expiration and respiration +exactly together, four persons lift a heavy man from the ground by the +little finger only, and without sense of weight. But this union must be +inward, and not one of covenants, and is to be reached by a reverse of +the methods they use. The union is only perfect when all the uniters are +isolated. It is the union of friends who live in different streets or +towns. Each man, if he attempts to join himself to others, is on all +sides cramped and diminished of his proportion; and the stricter the +union the smaller and the more pitiful he is. But leave him alone, to +recognize in every hour and place the secret soul; he will go up and +down doing the works of a true member, and, to the astonishment of all, +the work will be done with concert, though no man spoke. Government will +be adamantine without any governor. The union must be ideal in actual +individualism. + +I pass to the indication in some particulars of that faith in man, which +the heart is preaching to us in these days, and which engages the more +regard, from the consideration that the speculations of one generation +are the history of the next following. + +In alluding just now to our system of education, I spoke of the deadness +of its details. But it is open to graver criticism than the palsy of +its members: it is a system of despair. The disease with which the +human mind now labors is want of faith. Men do not believe in a power of +education. We do not think we can speak to divine sentiments in man, and +we do not try. We renounce all high aims. We believe that the defects of +so many perverse and so many frivolous people who make up society, are +organic, and society is a hospital of incurables. A man of good sense +but of little faith, whose compassion seemed to lead him to church as +often as he went there, said to me that "he liked to have concerts, and +fairs, and churches, and other public amusements go on." I am afraid the +remark is too honest, and comes from the same origin as the maxim of the +tyrant, "If you would rule the world quietly, you must keep it amused." +I notice too that the ground on which eminent public servants urge the +claims of popular education is fear; 'This country is filling up with +thousands and millions of voters, and you must educate them to keep them +from our throats.' We do not believe that any education, any system of +philosophy, any influence of genius, will ever give depth of insight to +a superficial mind. Having settled ourselves into this infidelity, our +skill is expended to procure alleviations, diversion, opiates. We adorn +the victim with manual skill, his tongue with languages, his body with +inoffensive and comely manners. So have we cunningly hid the tragedy of +limitation and inner death we cannot avert. Is it strange that society +should be devoured by a secret melancholy which breaks through all its +smiles and all its gayety and games? + +But even one step farther our infidelity has gone. It appears that some +doubt is felt by good and wise men whether really the happiness +and probity of men is increased by the culture of the mind in those +disciplines to which we give the name of education. Unhappily too the +doubt comes from scholars, from persons who have tried these methods. +In their experience the scholar was not raised by the sacred thoughts +amongst which he dwelt, but used them to selfish ends. He was a profane +person, and became a showman, turning his gifts to a marketable use, and +not to his own sustenance and growth. It was found that the intellect +could be independently developed, that is, in separation from the man, +as any single organ can be invigorated, and the result was monstrous. A +canine appetite for knowledge was generated, which must still be fed but +was never satisfied, and this knowledge, not being directed on action, +never took the character of substantial, humane truth, blessing those +whom it entered. It gave the scholar certain powers of expression, the +power of speech, the power of poetry, of literary art, but it did not +bring him to peace or to beneficence. + +When the literary class betray a destitution of faith, it is not strange +that society should be disheartened and sensualized by unbelief. What +remedy? Life must be lived on a higher plane. We must go up to a higher +platform, to which we are always invited to ascend; there, the whole +aspect of things changes. I resist the skepticism of our education and +of our educated men. I do not believe that the differences of opinion +and character in men are organic. I do not recognize, beside the class +of the good and the wise, a permanent class of skeptics, or a class of +conservatives, or of malignants, or of materialists. I do not believe +in two classes. You remember the story of the poor woman who importuned +King Philip of Macedon to grant her justice, which Philip refused: the +woman exclaimed, "I appeal:" the king, astonished, asked to whom she +appealed: the woman replied, "From Philip drunk to Philip sober." The +text will suit me very well. I believe not in two classes of men, but in +man in two moods, in Philip drunk and Philip sober. I think, according +to the good-hearted word of Plato, "Unwillingly the soul is deprived of +truth." Iron conservative, miser, or thief, no man is but by a supposed +necessity which he tolerates by shortness or torpidity of sight. The +soul lets no man go without some visitations and holydays of a diviner +presence. It would be easy to show, by a narrow scanning of any man's +biography, that we are not so wedded to our paltry performances of +every kind but that every man has at intervals the grace to scorn +his performances, in comparing them with his belief of what he should +do;--that he puts himself on the side of his enemies, listening gladly +to what they say of him, and accusing himself of the same things. + +What is it men love in Genius, but its infinite hope, which degrades all +it has done? Genius counts all its miracles poor and short. Its own idea +it never executed. The Iliad, the Hamlet, the Doric column, the Roman +arch, the Gothic minster, the German anthem, when they are ended, the +master casts behind him. How sinks the song in the waves of melody which +the universe pours over his soul! Before that gracious Infinite out of +which he drew these few strokes, how mean they look, though the praises +of the world attend them. From the triumphs of his art he turns with +desire to this greater defeat. Let those admire who will. With silent +joy he sees himself to be capable of a beauty that eclipses all which +his hands have done; all which human hands have ever done. + +Well, we are all the children of genius, the children of virtue,--and +feel their inspirations in our happier hours. Is not every man sometimes +a radical in politics? Men are conservatives when they are least +vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservatives after +dinner, or before taking their rest; when they are sick, or aged: in the +morning, or when their intellect or their conscience has been aroused; +when they hear music, or when they read poetry, they are radicals. In +the circle of the rankest tories that could be collected in England, Old +or New, let a powerful and stimulating intellect, a man of great heart +and mind, act on them, and very quickly these frozen conservators will +yield to the friendly influence, these hopeless will begin to hope, +these haters will begin to love, these immovable statues will begin to +spin and revolve. I cannot help recalling the fine anecdote which Warton +relates of Bishop Berkeley, when he was preparing to leave England +with his plan of planting the gospel among the American savages. "Lord +Bathurst told me that the members of the Scriblerus club being met at +his house at dinner, they agreed to rally Berkeley, who was also his +guest, on his scheme at Bermudas. Berkeley, having listened to the +many lively things they had to say, begged to be heard in his turn, +and displayed his plan with such an astonishing and animating force of +eloquence and enthusiasm, that they were struck dumb, and, after some +pause, rose up all together with earnestness, exclaiming, 'Let us set +out with him immediately.'" Men in all ways are better than they seem. +They like flattery for the moment, but they know the truth for their +own. It is a foolish cowardice which keeps us from trusting them and +speaking to them rude truth. They resent your honesty for an instant, +they will thank you for it always. What is it we heartily wish of each +other? Is it to be pleased and flattered? No, but to be convicted and +exposed, to be shamed out of our nonsense of all kinds, and made men +of, instead of ghosts and phantoms. We are weary of gliding ghostlike +through the world, which is itself so slight and unreal. We crave a +sense of reality, though it come in strokes of pain. I explain so,--by +this manlike love of truth,--those excesses and errors into which souls +of great vigor, but not equal insight, often fall. They feel the poverty +at the bottom of all the seeming affluence of the world. They know the +speed with which they come straight through the thin masquerade, and +conceive a disgust at the indigence of nature: Rousseau, Mirabeau, +Charles Fox, Napoleon, Byron,--and I could easily add names nearer home, +of raging riders, who drive their steeds so hard, in the violence of +living to forget its illusion: they would know the worst, and tread +the floors of hell. The heroes of ancient and modern fame, Cimon, +Themistocles, Alcibiades, Alexander, Caesar, have treated life and +fortune as a game to be well and skilfully played, but the stake not +to be so valued but that any time it could be held as a trifle light +as air, and thrown up. Caesar, just before the battle of Pharsalia, +discourses with the Egyptian priest concerning the fountains of the +Nile, and offers to quit the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, if he will +show him those mysterious sources. + +The same magnanimity shows itself in our social relations, in the +preference, namely, which each man gives to the society of superiors +over that of his equals. All that a man has will he give for right +relations with his mates. All that he has will he give for an erect +demeanor in every company and on each occasion. He aims at such things +as his neighbors prize, and gives his days and nights, his talents and +his heart, to strike a good stroke, to acquit himself in all men's sight +as a man. The consideration of an eminent citizen, of a noted merchant, +of a man of mark in his profession; a naval and military honor, a +general's commission, a marshal's baton, a ducal coronet, the laurel of +poets, and, anyhow procured, the acknowledgment of eminent merit,--have +this lustre for each candidate that they enable him to walk erect and +unashamed in the presence of some persons before whom he felt himself +inferior. Having raised himself to this rank, having established his +equality with class after class of those with whom he would live well, +he still finds certain others before whom he cannot possess himself, +because they have somewhat fairer, somewhat grander, somewhat purer, +which extorts homage of him. Is his ambition pure? then will his laurels +and his possessions seem worthless: instead of avoiding these men who +make his fine gold dim, he will cast all behind him and seek their +society only, woo and embrace this his humiliation and mortification, +until he shall know why his eye sinks, his voice is husky, and his +brilliant talents are paralyzed in this presence. He is sure that the +soul which gives the lie to all things will tell none. His constitution +will not mislead him. If it cannot carry itself as it ought, high and +unmatchable in the presence of any man; if the secret oracles whose +whisper makes the sweetness and dignity of his life do here withdraw and +accompany him no longer,--it is time to undervalue what he has valued, +to dispossess himself of what he has acquired, and with Caesar to take +in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, "All these +will I relinquish, if you will show me the fountains of the Nile." Dear +to us are those who love us; the swift moments we spend with them are +a compensation for a great deal of misery; they enlarge our life;--but +dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life: +they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby +supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us +to new and unattempted performances. + +As every man at heart wishes the best and not inferior society, wishes +to be convicted of his error and to come to himself,--so he wishes that +the same healing should not stop in his thought, but should penetrate +his will or active power. The selfish man suffers more from his +selfishness than he from whom that selfishness withholds some important +benefit. What he most wishes is to be lifted to some higher platform, +that he may see beyond his present fear the transalpine good, so that +his fear, his coldness, his custom may be broken up like fragments of +ice, melted and carried away in the great stream of good will. Do +you ask my aid? I also wish to be a benefactor. I wish more to be a +benefactor and servant than you wish to be served by me; and surely the +greatest good fortune that could befall me is precisely to be so moved +by you that I should say, 'Take me and all mine, and use me and mine +freely to your ends'! for I could not say it otherwise than because a +great enlargement had come to my heart and mind, which made me superior +to my fortunes. Here we are paralyzed with fear; we hold on to our +little properties, house and land, office and money, for the bread which +they have in our experience yielded us, although we confess that our +being does not flow through them. We desire to be made great; we desire +to be touched with that fire which shall command this ice to stream, and +make our existence a benefit. If therefore we start objections to your +project, O friend of the slave, or friend of the poor, or of the race, +understand well that it is because we wish to drive you to drive us into +your measures. We wish to hear ourselves confuted. We are haunted with +a belief that you have a secret which it would highliest advantage us to +learn, and we would force you to impart it to us, though it should bring +us to prison, or to worse extremity. + +Nothing shall warp me from the belief that every man is a lover +of truth. There is no pure lie, no pure malignity in nature. The +entertainment of the proposition of depravity is the last profligacy and +profanation. There is no skepticism, no atheism but that. Could it be +received into common belief, suicide would unpeople the planet. It has +had a name to live in some dogmatic theology, but each man's innocence +and his real liking of his neighbor have kept it a dead letter. I +remember standing at the polls one day when the anger of the political +contest gave a certain grimness to the faces of the independent +electors, and a good man at my side, looking on the people, remarked, "I +am satisfied that the largest part of these men, on either side, mean to +vote right." I suppose considerate observers, looking at the masses of +men in their blameless and in their equivocal actions, will assent, that +in spite of selfishness and frivolity, the general purpose in the great +number of persons is fidelity. The reason why any one refuses his assent +to your opinion, or his aid to your benevolent design, is in you: he +refuses to accept you as a bringer of truth, because, though you think +you have it, he feels that you have it not. You have not given him the +authentic sign. + +If it were worth while to run into details this general doctrine of +the latent but ever soliciting Spirit, it would be easy to adduce +illustration in particulars of a man's equality to the Church, of his +equality to the State, and of his equality to every other man. It is +yet in all men's memory that, a few years ago, the liberal churches +complained that the Calvinistic church denied to them the name of +Christian. I think the complaint was confession: a religious church +would not complain. A religious man like Behmen, Fox, or Swedenborg +is not irritated by wanting the sanction of the Church, but the Church +feels the accusation of his presence and belief. + +It only needs that a just man should walk in our streets to make it +appear how pitiful and inartificial a contrivance is our legislation. +The man whose part is taken and who does not wait for society in +anything, has a power which society cannot choose but feel. The familiar +experiment called the hydrostatic paradox, in which a capillary column +of water balances the ocean, is a symbol of the relation of one man +to the whole family of men. The wise Dandamis, on hearing the lives of +Socrates, Pythagoras and Diogenes read, "judged them to be great men +every way, excepting, that they were too much subjected to the reverence +of the laws, which to second and authorize, true virtue must abate very +much of its original vigor." + +And as a man is equal to the Church and equal to the State, so he +is equal to every other man. The disparities of power in men are +superficial; and all frank and searching conversation, in which a man +lays himself open to his brother, apprises each of their radical unity. +When two persons sit and converse in a thoroughly good understanding, +the remark is sure to be made, See how we have disputed about words! Let +a clear, apprehensive mind, such as every man knows among his friends, +converse with the most commanding poetic genius, I think it would appear +that there was no inequality such as men fancy, between them; that a +perfect understanding, a like receiving, a like perceiving, abolished +differences; and the poet would confess that his creative imagination +gave him no deep advantage, but only the superficial one that he could +express himself and the other could not; that his advantage was a knack, +which might impose on indolent men but could not impose on lovers of +truth; for they know the tax of talent, or what a price of greatness the +power of expression too often pays. I believe it is the conviction of +the purest men, that the net amount of man and man does not much vary. +Each is incomparably superior to his companion in some faculty. His want +of skill in other directions has added to his fitness for his own work. +Each seems to have some compensation yielded to him by his infirmity, +and every hindrance operates as a concentration of his force. + +These and the like experiences intimate that man stands in strict +connection with a higher fact never yet manifested. There is power over +and behind us, and we are the channels of its communications. We seek +to say thus and so, and over our head some spirit sits which contradicts +what we say. We would persuade our fellow to this or that; another self +within our eyes dissuades him. That which we keep back, this reveals. +In vain we compose our faces and our words; it holds uncontrollable +communication with the enemy, and he answers civilly to us, but believes +the spirit. We exclaim, 'There's a traitor in the house!' but at last it +appears that he is the true man, and I am the traitor. This open channel +to the highest life is the first and last reality, so subtle, so quiet, +yet so tenacious, that although I have never expressed the truth, and +although I have never heard the expression of it from any other, I +know that the whole truth is here for me. What if I cannot answer your +questions? I am not pained that I cannot frame a reply to the question, +What is the operation we call Providence? There lies the unspoken thing, +present, omnipresent. Every time we converse we seek to translate it +into speech, but whether we hit or whether we miss, we have the fact. +Every discourse is an approximate answer: but it is of small consequence +that we do not get it into verbs and nouns, whilst it abides for +contemplation forever. + +If the auguries of the prophesying heart shall make themselves good in +time, the man who shall be born, whose advent men and events prepare and +foreshow, is one who shall enjoy his connection with a higher life, with +the man within man; shall destroy distrust by his trust, shall use his +native but forgotten methods, shall not take counsel of flesh and blood, +but shall rely on the Law alive and beautiful which works over our heads +and under our feet. Pitiless, it avails itself of our success when +we obey it, and of our ruin when we contravene it. Men are all secret +believers in it, else the word justice would have no meaning: they +believe that the best is the true; that right is done at last; or chaos +would come. It rewards actions after their nature, and not after the +design of the agent. 'Work,' it saith to man, 'in every hour, paid or +unpaid, see only that thou work, and thou canst not escape the reward: +whether thy work be fine or coarse, planting corn or writing epics, so +only it be honest work, done to thine own approbation, it shall earn +a reward to the senses as well as to the thought: no matter how often +defeated, you are born to victory. The reward of a thing well done, is +to have done it.' + +As soon as a man is wonted to look beyond surfaces, and to see how +this high will prevails without an exception or an interval, he settles +himself into serenity. He can already rely on the laws of gravity, that +every stone will fall where it is due; the good globe is faithful, and +carries us securely through the celestial spaces, anxious or resigned, +we need not interfere to help it on: and he will learn one day the mild +lesson they teach, that our own orbit is all our task, and we need not +assist the administration of the universe. Do not be so impatient to +set the town right concerning the unfounded pretensions and the false +reputation of certain men of standing. They are laboring harder to +set the town right concerning themselves, and will certainly succeed. +Suppress for a few days your criticism on the insufficiency of this +or that teacher or experimenter, and he will have demonstrated his +insufficiency to all men's eyes. In like manner, let a man fall into the +divine circuits, and he is enlarged. Obedience to his genius is the only +liberating influence. We wish to escape from subjection and a sense of +inferiority, and we make self-denying ordinances, we drink water, we +eat grass, we refuse the laws, we go to jail: it is all in vain; only +by obedience to his genius, only by the freest activity in the way +constitutional to him, does an angel seem to arise before a man and lead +him by the hand out of all the wards of the prison. + +That which befits us, embosomed in beauty and wonder as we are, is +cheerfulness and courage, and the endeavor to realize our aspirations. +The life of man is the true romance, which when it is valiantly +conducted will yield the imagination a higher joy than any fiction. +All around us what powers are wrapped up under the coarse mattings of +custom, and all wonder prevented. It is so wonderful to our neurologists +that a man can see without his eyes, that it does not occur to them that +it is just as wonderful that he should see with them; and that is ever +the difference between the wise and the unwise: the latter wonders at +what is unusual, the wise man wonders at the usual. Shall not the heart +which has received so much, trust the Power by which it lives? May it +not quit other leadings, and listen to the Soul that has guided it so +gently and taught it so much, secure that the future will be worthy of +the past? + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Essays, Second Series, by Ralph Waldo Emerson + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK ESSAYS, SECOND SERIES *** + +***** This file should be named 2945.txt or 2945.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/4/2945/ + +Produced by Tony Adam + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions 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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