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THE 
 
 GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 By J. D. BELL. 
 
 "We are all of us richer than we think ; but we are taught to borrow 
 and to beg, and brought up more to make use of what is another's than 
 of our own." Montaigne, Essays, Book III., Chap. XII. 
 
 " O foolish men ! they sell their inheritance (as their foolish Mother 
 did hers), though it is Paradise, for a crotchet." 
 
 Carlyle, TJie Diamond Necklace. 
 
 dl 
 
 New York : 
 PUBLISHED BY T. Y. CROWELL, 
 
 NO. 744 BROADWAY. 
 
< 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 
 
 1878, 
 By John D. Bell. 
 
 Stereotyped at the Boston Stereotype Foundry, 
 19 Spring Lane. 
 
MY COLLEGE MATES OF THE CLASS OF 1855, 
 
 FROM WHOM, TWENTY-THREE YEARS AGO, 
 I PARTED AMID THE 
 
 CLASSIC SCENES OF AMHERST, MASS., 
 
 AND OF WHOM MANY HAVE BECOME EMINENT IN SPHERES OF NOBLE 
 
 USEFULNESS J COMRADES AFORETIME WITH ME, NOT ONLY IN 
 
 STUDY AND YOUNG ASPIRATION, BUT ALSO IN THE 
 
 PLEASURE OF A MUTUAL ENDEARMENT, WHICH 
 
 WAS SUCH THAT " NOTHING WAS SO NEAR 
 
 TO US AS ONE ANOTHER ; " 
 
 TO YOU 
 
 &I)is Volume is Jfobinglg g^bitateb, 
 
 AS A TOKEN OF THE HIGH AND HEARTFELT ESTIMATION WHICH, IN 
 
 YEARS OF TOILS AND STRUGGLES, SORROWS AND JOYS, ITS 
 
 AUTHOR HAS CONSTANTLY PLACED ON THE GENEROUS 
 
 AND WARM FELLOW-FEELING WHEREWITH (HE 
 
 HATH BEEN WELL ASSURED) YOU 
 
 HAVE EVER KEPT HIM IN 
 
 REMEMBRANCE. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 We live in unexampled years. The current period 
 is one of amazing human intensities, and of astonishing 
 triumphs of energy and enterprise. In no by-gone time 
 was there such successful pursuit of science, such 
 crowned inventiveness, such multiplication of advan- 
 tages on the material side of civilization. And } T et few 
 are they that are becoming more excellent, more con- 
 tented, more serene, more happy. Men are immersed 
 in the senses. Health is either sacrificed to utilitarian 
 concentration, or immolated on the altar of Fashion. 
 Individuality — that key to freedom from mental mendi- 
 cancy — is lost in imitation. Frivolity renders thought 
 impotent and sentiment shallow. Assumed refinement 
 has the place of genuine courtesy. People (as saith 
 Tennyson) " whisper, and hint, and chuckle, and grin at 
 a brother's shame." There is an unfortunate "weaken- 
 ing of the power of imagination, as well as of the power 
 of faith — those two great sources of motives to excel- 
 lence of character and perfectness of life." Politics, 
 philosophy, art, literature, economics, social life, all 
 seem pointed toward " the vale of the Salt Sea," rather 
 than toward " the Olive mountains." 
 
 And this is the reason why : The progress and the im- 
 provement which mark the period are continually with- 
 
VI PBEFACE. 
 
 out men, and only slightly within them. There is need 
 of something to break the spell of Utilitarianism whereby 
 mortals are bound, and to open glimpses of better, 
 sweeter, grander possibilities. Hence this volume, which 
 is a plea for that great fortune of man — his own nature. 
 Bulwer says, " Strive, while improving }^our one talent, 
 to enrich your whole capital as a man." The present 
 work is designed to aid in securing the result thus rec- 
 ommended. It is a contribution toward heightening 
 men's valuation of those natural inheritances, the body 
 and the soul, with all the specific dowers which they 
 include, and toward fitting men to experience not only 
 nobler stirrings and ardors, but also a continual cheer- 
 fulness — that which is affirmed by Montaigne to be " the 
 most certain sign of wisdom." It illustrates the truth 
 (taught by Madame de Stael in her Corinne) that the 
 hearth of human happiness can exist nowhere but in the 
 secret sanctuary of the human breast. Perchance it will 
 prove a means of checking the pernicious communistic 
 tendencies of the passing time — tendencies which have 
 their origin in a discontent, as blind to the dignity of 
 human nature as it is dead to the divine fatherhood. The 
 book is not exhaustive, but suggestive. We send it 
 forth, trusting that it will find its way into the hands of 
 many readers, and that every one who reads it will gather 
 from its pages something like that lesson expressed by 
 Horace Bushnell : ' ' The greatest wealth you will ever 
 get, will be in yourself." 
 
 J. D. B. 
 September 1, 1878. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 THE BODY. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. The Master-Form among Organisms 3 
 
 II. Conscientious Abuse of the Body 13 
 
 III. Physical Sins 21 
 
 IV. Health 24 
 
 V. Fast Life, as related to Invalidism 35 
 
 THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 THE SOUL. 
 
 I. Our Self-Knowing Substance 43 
 
 II. The Soul knowable only by Way of its Phenomena . 49 
 
 III. The Soul's Inner Phenomena — How Perceived . . 52 
 
 IV. The Outer Phenomena of the Soul : Works of Great 
 
 Men 54 
 
 V. The Soul's Revealings of Itself through the Body . 63 
 
 VI. Opinions as to the Soul's Nature 72 
 
 VII. Definitions of the Soul 92 
 
 VIII. The Innate Dignity of the Soul 96 
 
 IX. The Distinctness of the Soul from the Body .... 100 
 
 X.. The Soul the Real Human Self 108 
 
 XI. The Capabilities of the Soul Ill 
 
 vii 
 
Vlll CONTENTS. 
 
 XII. The Endless Improvability of the Soul 118 
 
 XIII. The Immortality of the Soul . 127 
 
 XIV. The Value of the Soul 139 
 
 XV. The Needlessness of Stationary Mediocrity .... 151 
 
 XVI. Self-Disrespect, and what comes of it 1G0 
 
 A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY; OR, THE POWEE OF 
 PUSH. 
 
 I. That whence springs all True Perseverance .... 177 
 II. A Comparison, as to the Impelling Capability, be- 
 tween the English and the Americans 188 
 
 III. Great Impelling Capability indispensable to Great 
 
 Triumphs 199 
 
 IV. Relation of the Impelling Capability to Success in 
 
 Common Life 205 
 
 V. Relation of the Impelling Capability to Human Joy . 211 
 
 VI. Excesses of the Impelling Capability 214 
 
 VII. Summation 219 
 
 THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 INFLUENCE. 
 
 I. Its Succession of Generations 223 
 
 II. Silent Expression 22G 
 
 III. Words 232 
 
 IV. Deeds 246 
 
 V. Particular Illustrations of Sowing and Reaping in 
 
 Life 249 
 
 VI The Secret of the Immortalization of Endearment . 2G4 
 
 VII Life and Influence Inseparable 2G9 
 
CONTENTS. IX 
 
 THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 PRESENCE AND THE PRESENCE-FORCE. 
 
 I. The Secret of Personal Impressiveness 275 
 
 II. Personal Atmospheres : their Dissimilitude 282 
 
 III. The Eye, as connected with Presence 296 
 
 IV. The Weighty Presence 314 
 
 V. Relation of Independent Self-Exertion to Presence . 320 
 
 VI. Fitful Concentration of Personal Energy 324 
 
 VII. Unimpressive Engagedness 327 
 
 VIII. Chaotic Discomposure 332 
 
 IX. The Effect on Presence of Fashion and Frivolity . . 335 
 
 THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 KNOWING HOW TO BE ONE'S OWN. 
 
 I. As related to Inner Luminosity and Noblemanship . 343 
 
 II. Individuality 352 
 
 III. Masterfulness and Tenderness 373 
 
 IV. Desire of Exertion 378 
 
 V. Decision, Determination, Resolution 385 
 
 VI. Independence of Thought 400 
 
 VII. Originality and Creativeness 405 
 
 VIII. Socrates 420 
 
 IX. Thoreau 425 
 
 X. Lincoln 433 
 
 XL Dempster 442 
 
 XII. The Master-Soul 449 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 
 
 " This breathing house not built with hands." 
 
 Coleridge. 
 
 " The body — the house no eye can probe." 
 
 Robert Browning. 
 
THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Chapter I. 
 THE BODY. 
 
 I. 
 
 THE MASTER-EORM AMONG ORGANISMS. 
 
 " That superior mystery, 
 Our vital frame, so fearfully devised." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 Significant is the fact, that, in literature, sacred 
 as well as unsacred, there occur numerous references 
 to the corporeal structure of man, which plainly im- 
 ply a profound respect for that living, throbbing 
 fabric. Take some examples. Both Jesus and St. 
 Paul speak of it as a " temple ; " that is to say, 
 a building highly excellent and solemnly superb. 
 Milton indirectly pays a special tribute to it, in those 
 lines in Paradise Lost, where, breathing a plaint on 
 account of what his blindness denied him, he uses 
 the oft-quoted words, " human face divine." Nova- 
 lis, not content to call it simply a temple, says: 
 " There is but one temple in the world, and that is 
 the body of man.*' Thomas Dick affirms that " the 
 system of organization connected with the human 
 frame is the most admirable piece of mechanism 
 which the mind can contemplate." 
 
 3 
 
4 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Great, indeed, is the change when one turns from 
 such attributive expressions to allusions in which 
 there is ascribed to the body only a small importance, 
 only a little majesty. Shakespeare makes Hamlet 
 call it " this mortal coil." In Jean Paul's Titan it is 
 spoken of as a " chrysalis shell." The disciples of 
 Pythagoras were wont to term it the soul's " tent," 
 and the disciples of Plato were accustomed to repre- 
 sent it as the soul's " vestment." And St. Paul, in 
 one place, designates it as "this tabernacle," thus 
 conveying the impression that it is, after all, a thing 
 of minor consequence. 
 
 What, now, shall be said of the two classes of ref- 
 erences? Is there ground for both of them? Is 
 it true that the body is something really fine and 
 noble, like a temple, and at the same time true that 
 it is an inferior thing, like the crude wrappage of a 
 chrysalis, or the fading hut of coarse cloth inside 
 which the traveler tarries ? In response, I affirm 
 that, when viewed in comparison with the soul, 
 the body is obviously inferior, and deserves only a 
 faint praise ; whereas, when viewed in comparison 
 with other vitalized earth-forms, it has a supreme 
 rank, a sovereign nobility. This explanation opens 
 a clear path. Let us, courteous reader, enter it, and 
 go on therein for a little while, seeking to know to 
 what extent entitled to high regard is that visible 
 part of the natural human fortune — the pulse-stirred 
 house in which the soul resides. In beginning this 
 inquiry, it is of course to be supposed that the body 
 is all itself ; or, in other words, that it has neither 
 been deformed by bad habits, nor corroded to thin- 
 ness by slow-devouring disease. We are to consider 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 5 
 
 it, not as a blighted, broken, half-ruined structure, 
 but as a sound organic frame. When Selim the 
 First, the subduer of Eg}^pt, led his host of warriors 
 through Syria, though he was one of the most cruel 
 of conquerors, he permitted the beautiful gardens 
 about Damascus, in the vicinity of which his army 
 was encamped, to lie untouched by the hands of his 
 soldiers. Those gardens were open to view, and were 
 in a subjugated land ; but the troops, by reason of 
 the effectiveness of the military discipline, remained 
 aloof, not daring to invade and to ravage the attrac- 
 tive grounds, because they had not received from 
 their commander the signal of plunder. In like 
 manner, for at least a period of years, the body lives 
 and flourishes, with its vital strength unimpaired by 
 reckless invasion, and its comely proportions unde- 
 spoiled by withering ravage. And so, forsooth, it 
 would continue to live and flourish, during per- 
 haps a whole lifetime, did not the careless mon- 
 arch Self, unlike even that cruel Oriental conqueror 
 who spared the fair gardens about Damascus, so 
 often let all wholesome discipline relax, and give 
 the signal of plunder to a swarm of wayward pro- 
 clivities. 
 
 Now, to know what the body is before it has been 
 overrun and pillaged by any of the ruthless fora- 
 gers — Thoughtlessness, Intemperance, Foolhardi- 
 ness, Vanity, Passion, Lust, Superstition, austere 
 Devotion, and the rest — is surely to have made an 
 estimable attainment. Never should it be forgotten 
 by the one who would worthily occupy his entire 
 being, that when the Creator built up in the womb 
 of nature man's form, He did not rear a poor and 
 
6 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 mean structure, but erected a frame of such supe- 
 rior^ among physical objects, that human artists, 
 in all the great ages of the world, have ardently vied 
 with one another in giving it representation on can- 
 vas or in marble. The body of man, though com- 
 posed of earth-elements which were one in essence 
 with " the dust of the ground," grew up a hand- 
 some achievement of organizing power, a " fine con- 
 texture of solids and fluids." The completion of it 
 marked the commencement of an extraordinary cycle 
 of terrestrial history. That body stood among myri- 
 ads of living forms without a peer. It was the pre- 
 eminent visible ornament of the world. It was the 
 most dignified and most interesting compound of 
 material atoms that had appeared in all the stupen- 
 dous aeons of earthly change and progressive devel- 
 opment. 
 
 Respecting the high rank which belongs to the 
 body before its inner courts have been reached and 
 its secret treasury has been rummaged by Vandal 
 invaders, one may obtain a clear and abiding impres- 
 sion by comparing this frame with the other verte- 
 brate frames which are presented to view in the 
 animal scale. Certainly the principal spine-possess- 
 ing organism is that of man. His vertebral parts 
 are so arranged as unmistakably to fit him for an 
 upright position both in standing and in walking. 
 They make it easy for him to look toward heaven. 
 It was, perhaps, for this reason the Greeks gave him 
 the name ftvOgajnog, which the author of an ancient 
 grammar derives from two words, signifying, when 
 taken together, "to look upward." The poet Ovid 
 declares that God, in providing as He did for the 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 7 
 
 elevated carriage of man's face, designed that he 
 should scan the realm of the stars : 
 
 "He set man's face aloft, that, with his eyes 
 Uplifted, he might view the starry skies." 
 
 The hands of man are beautifully contrived for per- 
 formances of executive cunning. The feet of man 
 are skillfully fitted both for supporting with ease his 
 erect organic trunk, and for elastically bearing it 
 along its way. 
 
 Now, it will be found that all the other vertebrate 
 animal frames are strikingly inferior in arrangement 
 to that of man. Unlike the latter, they are adapted 
 for a posture habitually un erect. Honest old Mon- 
 taigne is in error when he good-naturedly ridicules 
 our prerogative of bodily erectness as that which 
 " the poets make such a mighty matter of," and 
 when he intimates that other animals "in their nat- 
 ural posture discover as much of heaven and earth 
 as man." Says a learned scientist, " Man is the only 
 mammiferous animal to which the erect position is 
 natural." And evidently, if it is not natural to any 
 other mammiferous animal, it cannot for a moment 
 be presumed to be so to any animal of the non- 
 mammiferous orders. Every known creature infe- 
 rior to the human species — whether it be oviparous 
 or viviparous, whether aerial or terrestrial, aquatic 
 or amphibious, whether an ostrich or a camel, a long- 
 necked giraffe or a quick-limbed monkey — has a 
 structural arrangement which fits its head for a down- 
 ward rather than for an upward bend and bearing.* 
 
 * The author of the Fifth Bridgewater Treatise (Dr. P. M. 
 Roget), after remarking that man presents the only instance 
 
8 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 The fish has two pairs of coarse organs called fins* 
 instead of two finely formed hands and two cun- 
 ningly constructed feet. The bird has in its two 
 wings a sort of fingerless hands, and has for feet a 
 pair of rough-fashioned extremities consisting mostly 
 of toes. The beast has no hands, but has four feet, 
 which are either hoofs or paws ; and the serpent has 
 neither hands nor feet, but is " a mean, abortive 
 creature, which the angry motherhood of nature 
 would not go on to finish, but shook from her lap 
 before the legs were done, muttering ominously, 
 4 Cursed art thou for man's sake above all cattle ; 
 on thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat 
 all the days of thy life.' " 
 
 I shall conduct my reader but little further in 
 the present path of inquiry. A long discussion does 
 not seem to be necessary to show the rank which the 
 body holds among organized structures, before it has 
 been invaded, plundered, and impaired. Doubtless 
 it will be sufficient to add to what has already been 
 said, a comprehensive statement of the conclusion 
 relative to the subject, which reason finds itself 
 
 among the mammalia of a conformation by which the erect posture 
 can be permanently maintained, and that to this intention the form 
 and the arrangement of all the parts of the osseous fabric, as 
 well as the position and the adjustments of the organs of sense, 
 have a clear reference, adds, in a marginal note, the much-mean- 
 ing statement : "In most quadrupeds, as we have seen, the thorax 
 is deep in the direction from the sternum to the spine, but is com- 
 pressed laterally, for the evident purpose of bringing the fore limbs 
 nearer to each other, that they might more effectually support the 
 anterior part of the trunk. In man, on the contrary, the thorax 
 is flattened anteriorly, and extends more in width than in depth, 
 thus throwing out the shoulders, and allowing an extensive range 
 of motion to the arms." 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 9 
 
 brought to deduce, and to set down under the same 
 a summary of the leading arguments which consti- 
 tute its support. 
 
 The body, when uncheapened by the infirmities 
 and the exhaustions of an invalid state, or when 
 breathing and throbbing in nature's own condition 
 of soundness, has a superior excellence and an im- 
 pressive importance. In other words, it is a finely 
 wrought and nobly qualified frame — the very mas- 
 ter-form among mundane organisms. And for these 
 reasons : 
 
 It is higher in order than any other living material 
 form with which mortals are acquainted. 
 
 In the first instance of its appearance on the globe 
 it was the last-created organism in a distinctly pro- 
 gressive series of organic frames ; and consequently 
 it inherited the rank of a masterpiece. 
 
 Its upright attitude, both in standing and in walk- 
 ing, betokens natural dignity and superiority. 
 
 It is the only visible living organism that is adapted 
 for articulate speech, and for the achievement of great 
 triumphs in mechanical and in beautiful art. 
 
 By reason of the distinguishing peculiarities which 
 it presents to view, according to sex and to age, — 
 now as the stately form of the adult man, provided 
 with strong bones, firm sinews, and well-set joints, 
 and now again as the smooth, rotund, graceful form 
 of the full-grown woman ; at one time as the lithe, 
 robust frame of the gallant stripling, " whose glory 
 is his strength," and at another time as the delicate, 
 tripping, charming frame which has "the sweet clean- 
 ness of the high-bred maiden," — it is the one organ- 
 
10 y THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ism which, above all others, has, in every period of 
 civilization, made poets eloquent, inspired painters 
 and sculptors, interested philosophers, and raised to 
 a passionate glow the admiring feelings of chaste 
 lovers. 
 
 It is, during the soul's stay on earth, its suitable 
 habitation. That it is, as a habitation, well fitted 
 for its occupant, we are to infer from the fact that 
 there is in nature no such instance of incongruity 
 as that of two things made for each other, and yet 
 having no fitness the one for the other. The body 
 is the house of the soul, because nothing but itself 
 would have answered the demands of the case. Ac- 
 cordingly, it is to be presumed that the body has an 
 importance, bearing some clue proportion to the ex- 
 alted importance of the soul. 
 
 It is, withal, the soul's suitable organ and suitable 
 •mirror or revealer. This is an argument for the 
 nobility of the body, which there is no difficulty in 
 being able to comprehend. The soul needs the 
 body as an instrument whereby to develop itself, to 
 improve itself, and to express itself. Had ifc been 
 made to grow up on earth in a form similar even to 
 the most excellent specimen of existing organisms 
 other than the one chosen for it, it would have been 
 at an unspeakable disadvantage. It was suggestive- 
 ly remarked by Helvetius, that " had the hoof of a 
 horse been joined to the human arm, man would yet 
 have been wandering in the woods." See how it is 
 with the lower vertebrates ! No qualification what- 
 ever have they for the expression of fine sensations 
 or emotions. Esdaile says, that, though they are 
 abundantly able to show anger or rage in their coun- 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 11 
 
 tenances, they can scarcely reveal in them any feel- 
 ing but that. The clog can indicate his inclination 
 to fawn by nothing better than the wagging of his 
 tail and the consequent motion of his body. The 
 face of the brute animal, even when it is dying and 
 when it is dead, hardly manifests a single important 
 change of any kind on its part. " A salmon," says 
 the writer above named, " looks as well when dead 
 as when alive." Here, also, are some of his words : 
 
 " There is an expression in the human countenance of which we 
 .can scarcely observe a vestige in any of the brute creation. The 
 blush of modesty or of shame — the paleness of terror — the ani- 
 mation of joy dancing in the eye — the depression of grief, pro- 
 ducing a monotonous relaxation of features — the pensive softness 
 of love — together with a thousand other varied feelings, are all 
 depicted on the human countenance, and give it an expression 
 which both conveys intelligence and suggests signs by which we 
 are enabled to render such intelligence permanent and useful." 
 
 From infanc} r to old age, the soul depends largely 
 on the body in educating its own capabilities. 
 Among the teachings of that sublime exponent of 
 "ideal realism," Professor Schoberlein,* there are not 
 a few weighty outgivings on this point. The body is 
 essential to the soul, as a means of intercourse with 
 other souls. Without it there could be no actualized 
 acceptance or rejection by the soul of particular ob- 
 jects. It is also essential to the soul as a means 
 whereby to attain to adequate self-consciousness. 
 It enables the soul to objectify itself, and thus to 
 distinguish, in a sufficient manner, between itself 
 
 * See his work, Die Geheimnisse des Glaubens, Heidelberg, 1872, 
 of one division of which a translation is presented in the Methodist 
 Quarterly for October, 1877. 
 
12 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 and other entities. The body is, moreover, an organ 
 indispensable to the soul's progress in the acquisi- 
 tion of knowledge and experience, and in the pro- 
 duction of a true character, since by it the soul is kept 
 in the requisite communion with the multitudinous 
 ever-changing relations of the material and the spir- 
 itual worlds. Concerning the importance of the body 
 as the soul's medium of self-revelation, the same pro- 
 found theologian teaches that man plainly expresses 
 his disposition and character in his body on earth, 
 and will do likewise in eternity ; that the human 
 soul is so in need of a body that, in default of one, it 
 would, wherever it might be, lack an element essen- 
 tial to its wellbeing ; that bodilessness implies per 
 se a hinderance to free self-revelation ; that in order 
 to the full enjoyment of selfhood, it is " necessary to 
 bring the ideal fullness of the mind and the heart to 
 full outer expression ; " and that accordingly the soul 
 will need and will have a body in the future state — 
 will, forsooth, take with it, when it departs into that 
 state, a germinally-existing spiritual form, which 
 amid an appropriate environment will at length at- 
 tain completeness. 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 13 
 
 II. 
 
 CONSCIENTIOUS ABUSE OF THE BODY. 
 
 " What power of prince or penal law, be it never so strict, could 
 enforce men to do that which for conscience's sake they will vol- 
 untarily undergo ? " Buktox, Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 " Farewell, a long farewell to thee, Arran of my heart! Para- 
 dise is with thee ; the garden of God within the sound of thy 
 bells. The angels love Arran. Each day an angel comes there to 
 join in its services." St. Columba.* 
 
 I AM to set in array some painful points, apper- 
 taining to wrongs conscientiously done to the flesh 
 for the supposed good of the spirit. That quotation 
 from Columbkill, or Saint Columba, the hermit of Ar- 
 ran, a bleak, wild island outside Gal way Bay, in the 
 Atlantic, — Saint Columba, who could sing a plaintive 
 farewell on leaving the spot where, " with the wind 
 whistling through the loose stones, and the sea-spray 
 hanging on his hair," he had abused his body for 
 what he thought to be the welfare of his soul, — is 
 certainly not pleasantly suggestive. 
 
 The story of religious austerity is a dismal one, 
 for it is the story of " inhuman wisdom." I shall 
 not attempt to relate it, but shall simply place before 
 the mind of the reader some of the things which 
 give a pitiful remarkableness to its contents. 
 
 There have been persons, not a few but many, 
 who conceived it to be their duty to withhold all re- 
 spect and all culture from their organic frames. Cu- 
 
 * Words of his when summoned from his dreary hermitage to 
 be bishop of Iona. 
 
14 THE GREAT SLTGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 rious is the inquiry, how the God-created form has 
 been, under imagined divine approval, abused, — 
 how men, hungering and thirsting after what they 
 sincerely believed to be righteousness, have cruelly 
 denied it and oppressed it, macerated and marred 
 it. In prosecuting this inquiry, one quickly meets 
 the general fact, that body-abusing saints, more 
 than ten thousand in number, have miserably lived 
 and thankfully died. Having kindled in themselves 
 a quenchless zeal against their own corporeal sub- 
 stance, they defied their nerves, despitefully used 
 their physical members, quarrelled with their vital 
 breath, and went out at last as candles do that have 
 burned down, in discolored and disfigured candle- 
 sticks. 
 
 Whole classes of men can be named that were 
 characterized by an unremitting antagonism against 
 the body. The Essenes, a sect of religious people 
 who dwelt in Palestine in the first century of the 
 Christian era, were led by their creed to reduce 
 their fleshly nature to an abject inferiority, and to 
 rule over it as with a rod of iron. Their principal 
 settlements were situated on the northwest shore 
 of the Dead Sea. They were distinguished by a 
 one-sided, fanatical aspiration after ideal purity and 
 communion, — an aspiration which carried them into 
 states of visionariness and into courses of excessive 
 self-denial. They maintained that religion consists 
 in nothing but silence and contemplation ; held the 
 dogma of the malignity of matter ; contemned the 
 body as the source of all evil passions ; and sought, 
 by inflicting on it various mortifying severities, to 
 secure a high degree of sanctity to their souls. They 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 15 
 
 acknowledged the law of Moses, bat regarded the 
 Pentateuch as allegorical and full of hidden mean- 
 ings. In their devotion to mysticism and solemn 
 reverie, to retirement and silence, to misleading 
 notions and mischosen practices, they withheld 
 themselves from nearly all the harmless pleasures 
 of appetite, and kept their defenseless frames de- 
 pressed under the yoke of a cheerless thralldom. 
 The great Teacher who arose in their time, and who 
 shone on them 
 
 " Like stars upon some gloomy grove," 
 
 practically indicated that he had no sympathy 
 with them in their peculiar opinions and customs. 
 Though, out of regard for their calm virtue, and of 
 that disposition on their part which withheld them 
 from opposing the progress of his religion, he did 
 not openly reprehend them, yet he carefully avoid- 
 ed every species of austerity which they made it 
 their care to practice. By participating in the inno- 
 cent festivities of life, as in the case of the marriage 
 celebration at Cana, he set an example, which is an 
 ever-abiding reproof for conscientious extremists^ 
 who, like them, think they are adding to their spir- 
 itual excellence when they are diminishing their 
 physical vigor. 
 
 The Gnostics, a sect that disseminated their heret- 
 ical notions in the second century, were not less 
 directly nor less habitually than the Essenes, body- 
 abusers. They maintained that matter is an inde- 
 pendent, active principle, altogether evil in its nature, 
 and the centre and the source of all that is bad, cor- 
 rupt, hateful. This, they believed, produced the 
 
16 THE GIIEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 globe. They held that it is inimical to everything 
 good ; that it is a foe to the Supreme Being and to 
 the soul of man, and that the latter would be ever 
 pure, were it not clogged and burdened therewith. 
 The body, in their view, restrains the soul's inherent 
 energ}^, hinders its progress toward heavenly attain- 
 ments, and imbues it with its own gross and malig- 
 nant properties. They believed that the mission of 
 Christ was to break the dominion of matter ; and 
 they claimed that his body was not really material, 
 but was destitute of corporeal organs, was incapa- 
 ble of pain and anguish, and was a physical entity 
 only in appearance. They discarded the doctrine 
 of the resurrection. Their conscientious abuse of 
 their vitalized frames was life-long and incessant. 
 They were unwilling to confer on their outer nature 
 favors or helps, and were averse to fortifying it 
 against accident or disease, fearing lest any efforts 
 to protect it, or any outlay on it of fostering care, 
 should result in damage to the soul. The austerer 
 ones among them practiced a withering abstinence. 
 They scorned to indulge even in the most innocent 
 animal enjoyments. They declined to marry, and 
 deemed it hurtful to the soul to associate with 
 women. Withdrawing- from all circles of worldly 
 society, they passed their days in penitential sobrie- 
 ty, in silent dreamful thought, and in prayer. Such 
 were the peculiarities, such the modes of body-abuse, 
 which distinguished all the more rigid representa- 
 tives of that sect. 
 
 The most famous of primitive fighters against the 
 body was, perhaps, Simon Stylites, the Syrian ascetic 
 of Antioch, who lived for thirty-seven years on the 
 
THE WONDEKFUL HOUSE. 17 
 
 top of a pillar, which was gradually raised from the 
 height of six cubits to that of forty. When he had 
 attained to the last-named altitude, and had become 
 wonted to its airy perilousness, he thought that his 
 body lacked little of being conquered, and that his 
 soul was pretty nearly sanctified. In the fifth cen- 
 tury there were certain monks in Palestine, of whom 
 some dwelt in little dens just large enough to hold 
 their bodies, and some went to the desert, and there, 
 like the beasts, walked " on all four," and ate grass. 
 St. Jerome refers to a noted religious man who by 
 too much kneeling had contracted a hardness in his 
 knees like that in the knees of camels ; and Saurin, 
 speaking of some of the conscientious body-abusers 
 of early times, represents them as having wrought 
 cavities with their knees in the floor of the places 
 where they were accustomed to pray. 
 
 There were the Flagellants, an order of would- 
 be holy men, who used, from time to time, to give 
 their bodies a sound whipping, that they might 
 make their souls pure. There was Hilarion, who so 
 reduced his corporeal fabric by fasting, that his skin 
 almost ceased to cleave to his bones. He could not 
 sleep without the help of vapors ; and, " for want of 
 sleep, became idle-headed, heard every night infants 
 cry, oxen low, wolves howl, lions roar (as he 
 thought), clattering of chains, strange voices, and 
 the like illusions of devils." And there was Godric, 
 a saint of the twelfth century, who constantly wore 
 an iron shirt next to his skin ; who mingled ashes 
 with the flour whereof his bread was made, and then, 
 lest his body should be nourished too much by that 
 food, kept it for four months before eating it ; who 
 2 
 
18 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 in winter often passed the whole night in prayer, 
 with his body up to the neck in water ; who some- 
 times rolled his naked form through briers, and im- 
 mediately afterward poured brine into his wounds. 
 
 The religious devotees of India, known as fakirs, 
 are living instances illustrative of the extent to 
 which persons can superstitiously, yet conscientious- 
 ly, abuse their fleshly substance. One of them, now 
 a missionary helper, spent nearly forty years of his 
 lifetime in a place of seclusion, where he compelled 
 his body to remain, during much of that period, 
 within the confines of a few feet. Many of them 
 make long pilgrimages to sacred cities, temples, or 
 fountains, performing the same in modes resulting in 
 constant physical suffering. Some of them, in trav- 
 elling, use appliances for torturing their feet, and 
 some measure the distance with their bodies, by con- 
 tinually lying down and marking their length on the 
 ground. One who was journeying thus was rigidly 
 careful, as often as he stretched his almost naked 
 body on the hot earth, to place his feet where his 
 nose and mouth had indented the sand and dust. 
 Some of them hold the fist tightly clenched from 
 year to year, till the finger-nails actually grow 
 through the hand. An iron spike is thrust by some 
 of them through the tongue. Some of them turn the 
 head to one side, and continue it in that position 
 till it is drilled into retaining it, with the eyes look- 
 ing nearly backward. Often there is an instance 
 in which one of them is seen hanging his head for 
 hours over a slow, smoking fire, and repeating this 
 act daily for whole months and even for years. Some 
 of them refuse to sit or to lie down for years, and 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 19 
 
 meanwhile oblige themselves to take sleep with the 
 body in a standing posture. Some of them prostrate 
 themselves again and again on sharp upright nails, 
 till their forms are shockingly pierced and torn. By 
 some of them dancing is practiced, with threads, 
 canes or bamboos passed through the side ; b}^ others, 
 the body is exercised in swinging over a fire ; and 
 by still others, it is put to the task of climbing, un- 
 shielded by any clothing, a tree bristling with fright- 
 ful thorns. 
 
 Victor Hugo, in his work entitled Les Miserables, 
 tells of the abuse perpetually inflicted on the body 
 by the Bernardo-Benedictine nuns. It is well worth 
 while to try to imagine them as leading the life 
 which he describes. They abstain from meat all the 
 year ; fast frequently ; arise from sleep from one to 
 three in the morning, to read their breviary and to 
 chant matins ; sleep through all seasons in serge 
 sheets and on straw; never bathe; chastise their 
 frames on every Friday ; keep themselves for most 
 of the time silent ; never speak except in a low 
 voice ; and never walk save with their eyes fixed on 
 the ground. They perform what is called by them 
 the " reparation," which is a penance for all the sins, 
 faults, irregularities, violations, iniquities, and crimes 
 that are done on earth, and which consists in re- 
 maining on the knees for twelve consecutive hours, 
 from four in the evening till four in the morning, on 
 the stone before the Holy Sacrament, with the hands 
 clasped, and a rope around the neck. Those nuns 
 never use a brush on their teeth ; for, in their idea, 
 " cleaning the teeth is the first rung in the ladder 
 at the foot of which is 4 losing the soul.' " 
 
20 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 It is true, that author's description is an account 
 of conscientious body-abuse as it was practiced in a 
 convent half a century ago. But who will say that 
 such modes of it as he recounts have become ex- 
 tinct? Who will aver that there are not to-day, 
 even in civilized lands, numerous instances in which 
 the body is drained and deformed by inflictions of 
 penance ? Travelers who pass from the high and 
 fair-skied region of Pueblo in Colorado, to Santa Fe, 
 that hoary old city of New Mexico, see along their 
 way, heaped up in one spot and another, the heavy 
 wooden crosses which representatives of an order 
 of religious Mexicans (the Penitentes) periodically 
 carry on their shoulders, running as they do so, and 
 the grounds over which they go dealing out upon 
 their naked flesh, at every step, penance-lashings, 
 that draw and scatter their blood.* Thus there is 
 proof that the Flagellants who figured in a former 
 century on European soil, are equalled in " inhuman 
 wisdom " by men living at this hour in the wide 
 land of the Americans. 
 
 * Some of them, at the recurring times of their pious orgies, 
 are seen with cumbersome chains about their feet, and some with 
 long ropes about their necks, by means of which others pull them 
 hither and thither, as they attempt to make progress. And it is a 
 fact that some of them at such times are seen bearing on their 
 naked backs uprooted cactus plants as large as a bushel basket, 
 and bleeding from the wounds made by the sharp and venomous 
 cactus thorns. On some occasions they have (so it is reliably de- 
 clared) an actual crucifixion ! 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 21 
 
 III. 
 
 PHYSICAL SINS. 
 
 " A man does wrong to the great and omnipotent Giver, to re- 
 fuse, disannul, and disfigure His gift." 
 
 Montaigne, Essays, Book III., Chap. XIII. 
 
 Concerning injuries willfully done to the corpo- 
 real structure, it is not difficult to determine what 
 is to be condemned, and what is to be approved. 
 Civilized sense — that uncapricious decider as to the 
 reasonableness or the inconsistency of theories and 
 of practices — gives in relation to such points a 
 trustworthy verdict. It distinguishes between a 
 proper and an improper subjection of the body to 
 the soul. It -defines the extent to which one can 
 justly limit, deny, repress, subject to hardness, or 
 put into a suffering state, his physical sj^stem. It 
 answers the question when hostility to the frame is 
 indefensible, and settles the inquiry when reduction 
 and depletion of it are inexcusable. 
 
 Civilized sense confirms those lessons of Herbert 
 Spencer, that the preservation of health is a duty, 
 and that all breaches of the laws of health are phys- 
 ical sins.* Rejecting the old-time hideous doctrine 
 of the malignity of material substance, it favors the 
 improvement of the body by care and culture. It 
 is at war with all austere piety, all ascetic abnega- 
 tion, all marring of the visage and maceration of the 
 form, as methods whereby to attain to a sublimated 
 purity. It is unfriendly to virtuous grimness and to 
 
 * See his work on Education, Chap. IV. 
 
22 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 dreary devoutness. No propitiousness has it for 
 the abstinence which pinches, or for the indulgence 
 which enervates. It is opposed to making the body 
 breathe into itself the vitiated air of ill-ventilated 
 rooms ; to the long tasking of it in shop, in store, or 
 in field ; and to the much feeding of it at tables set 
 off with complicated temptations to the appetite — 
 a practice by which thousands of persons are sowing 
 in their physical nature the seeds of indigestion 
 and misery. Cotton Mather gives an account of a 
 thoughtful man who, being at the bedside of a dying 
 physician, asked him how he could most effectually 
 preserve his health and prolong his life. The reply 
 of the expiring son of iEsculapius was, " Do not eat 
 too much." Civilized sense is in accord with this 
 advice. Almost does it approve that act of the 
 crabbed philosopher, Diogenes, who, seizing hold of 
 a young man that was going to a feast, carried him 
 back to his home, as one whom he had prevented 
 from putting his body in dangerous circumstances. 
 
 Civilized sense is opposed to the fashionable noc- 
 turnal party, to the dissipating whirl of the night- 
 dance, and to all the stupefying gratifications which 
 belong to voluptuous, to Epicurean, and to bacchanal 
 life. It is shocked by the fact that in the United 
 States a billion of dollars are annually spent for 
 strong drink and tobacco.* It agrees with the judg- 
 
 * The people of this nation annually madden their brains with 
 two hundred millions of gallons of intoxicating liquors, and not 
 only stupefy and defile themselves, but transmit irritable nerves 
 and contaminated blood to their children by the consumption of 
 more than thirty million dollars' worth of tobacco. Of this im- 
 mense sum, ... it is estimated by Dr. Cole, an able writer on 
 
THE WONDEEFUL HOUSE. 23 
 
 ment of Montaigne, who pronounces the loathing of 
 natural pleasures an injustice equal to that of being 
 too much in love with them, and who declares in- 
 temperance to be the pest of pleasure, and temper- 
 ance to be, not its scourge, but its seasoning. 
 
 Civilized sense — being versed in the practical, 
 schooled in the rational, and well instructed in the 
 sesthetical and the moral, and having a clearness 
 which age cannot dim, and a freshness which change 
 cannot lessen — is to be recommended especially to 
 the young, as a safe guide respecting the treatment 
 due the body from its birth till its death. Appeal 
 to it, thou young man and thou young woman, and 
 it will be found to afford a solid basis for counsels 
 such as these : 
 
 Behold thy God-made form ! Molded and fash- 
 ioned it was to stand beneath thy soul, and to enable 
 the same to become developed. It is the medium 
 through which thou receivest precious knowledge. 
 So linked to thy mental nature is it, that to abuse 
 the one is to abuse the other. Cultivate thy body 
 and thy soul; but cultivate not the latter at the 
 expense of the former, nor the former at the expense 
 of the latter. Thy frame is a transcendent form 
 among forms. It deserves not insult and assault, 
 but respect and honor. Therefore, be wise in thy 
 treatment of it. Suitably protect it against wind 
 and tide, the blow of accident, and the germ of dis- 
 ease. So help and foster it, that it may walk the 
 earth not crouchingly, but erectly ; not with the 
 
 Physiology, that the memhers of the Church of Jesus Christ take 
 five million dollars' worth for their share." 
 
 Horace Mann, Inaugural Address at Antioch College. 
 
24 THE GftEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 step of languid deficiency, but with the step of com- 
 petent strength. Use it as an instrument of self- 
 education, of good works, and of innocent delights. 
 In short, so control, so manage, so cherish, and so 
 exercise it, that it may be, throughout thy years, a 
 fit organic abode for the intelligent creature thou in 
 thy very self art. 
 
 IV, 
 
 HEALTH. 
 
 " Why does a blessing, not till it is lost, cut its way like a sharp 
 diamond so deeply into the heart ? Why must we first have la- 
 mented a thing, before we ardently and painfully love it? " 
 
 Jean Paul, Titan, p. 463. 
 
 According to Sir James Mackintosh, there is 
 but one condition of the body in which mortals are 
 capable of receiving pleasure from without ; and, it 
 is that which is known by the name — "health." 
 With the usual evidences of its presence all men are 
 familiar. One of them is a vitality plenteous as the 
 fatness of a fruitful soil. Another is a ruddy glow 
 of the countenance, resembling the hue of roses seen 
 in the light of morning. But what need is there to 
 continue to particularize ? Let it suffice to say, that 
 he whose body is in health has a vivid unlikeness in 
 look, in tone of expression, and in manner of motion, 
 to " the yellow sicklings of the age." 
 
 Health is the prime of wholeness, the exuberant 
 thrift of the vitals. Rich is he who has health ; poor 
 is he who has it not. " The heir of a sound cousti- 
 
THE WONDEEFUL HOUSE. 25 
 
 tution," says Dr. Reid the metaphysician, "has no 
 right to regret the absence of any other patrimon} 7 ." 
 Herbert Spencer declares that " chronic bodily dis- 
 order casts a gloom over the brightest prospects, 
 while the vivacity of strong health gilds even mis- 
 fortune." And another writer affirms that " good 
 bones are better than gold, tough muscles than silver, 
 and nerves that flash fire and carry energy to every 
 function, are better than houses and lands." 
 
 But a strange thing to say is it, that health, not- 
 withstanding its unspeakable importance, is never so 
 well prized as when it is contemplated after its for- 
 feiture, or when it is remembered as a blessing that 
 has taken its flight. Where are the instances in 
 which this precious thing is duly appreciated while 
 it is enjoyed ? Not the pointed arguments and admo- 
 nitions contained in hygienic journals, nor the special 
 instructions conveyed in physiological treatises, nor 
 the practical lessons dropped from the tongues of 
 gifted lecturers on the body and its liabilities, are 
 sufficient to keep able-bodied people from under-esti- 
 mating their health. The fact is, such people, taken 
 in general, refuse to make health a subject of much 
 study or care, till they have ceased to possess it. In 
 the Mosaic delineation, the first pair are pictured as 
 having failed to appreciate the primeval estate, till 
 they had lost it by sin. In the Christian parable, 
 the five foolish virgins are represented as having re- 
 garded with indifference the opportunity they had 
 of providing oil for their lamps, till the pressure of 
 the midnight need was on them, and they were 
 doomed to be " late, so late ! " 
 
26 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 " 'Late, late, so late! and dark the night and chill! 
 Late, late, so late ! but we can enter still ! ' 
 ' Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.' 
 
 " ' No light had we ; for that we do repent, 
 And learning this, the bridegroom will relent.' 
 ' Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.' 
 
 " * No light, so late ! and dark and chill the night. 
 O let us in, that we may find the light ! ' 
 ' Too late, too late ! ye cannot enter now.' 
 
 " * Have we not heard the bridegroom is so sweet? 
 O let us in, though late, to kiss his feet ! ' 
 'No, no! too late! ye cannot enter now.'" 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 In like manner a thousand and a thousand per- 
 sons, now blessed with a vigorous bodily condition, 
 will come to estimate it as they should, not while 
 they are able to call it their own, but when they 
 shall have imprudently let it pass away, and shall 
 be painfully eager to recover it. health ! simple 
 boon from God to man, without which no one can 
 take sweet delight either in the brightness or in the 
 bloom of nature, — " vital principle of bliss," more 
 worthy of esteem than the inheritances of princes, 
 and more entitled to honor than all the glory of 
 a pomp-loving world, — how little do short-sighted 
 mortals prize thee, before thou hast withdrawn thy 
 balmy presence from thy native dwelling-place ! 
 
 It is saddening to think how much the loss of 
 health has to do in teaching people to be mindful of 
 its value. When all else has come short of bringing 
 the reckless self-gratifler to consider what he owes 
 to his stomach and his circulatory machinery, to his 
 brain and his nerves, this proves effectual. It is 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 27 
 
 nature's last recourse, in her endeavor to put an end 
 to his excesses. What readiness it gives him in 
 bearing testimony to the preciousness of a sound 
 constitution ! It causes him to regard poverty itself, 
 only so it be accompanied by bodily vigor and elas- 
 ticity, as no mean allotment, and to account the 
 sweating toiler by the roadside, who wears on his 
 cheek the rosy sign of hale blood, and who wields 
 his arms with the effectiveness which goes with ade- 
 quate physical force, as far more fortunate than the 
 wealthiest invalid in the world. 
 
 But let no one suppose it is necessary for him to 
 lose his health in order to learn how to estimate it. 
 Vital strength may be properly prized before it has 
 taken its flight. Provision may be made before the 
 bodily functions have become disordered, for secur- 
 ing a long-continuing regularity, briskness, and pain- 
 less thoroughness to them. 
 
 The poet Spenser alludes to a man who was led 
 by fair speech to " spoil the castle of his health ; " 
 I would lead people by sound speech to guard the 
 castle of their health. And to this end I present 
 a number of plain and straightforward suggestions. 
 
 Food and drink should be taken, not merely to 
 appease hunger and to pacify thirst, but ever with a 
 view to providing for the waste of bodily tissues, 
 and for the expenditure of bodily heat. Hence, the 
 supply to the frame of the one and of the other 
 should be according to the amount of such waste, 
 and the measure of such expenditure. 
 
 Eating should not be done hurriedly, nor in the 
 
28 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 incontinuous manner occasioned by a succession of 
 gastronomic courses, nor at irregular seasons, nor 
 within half an hour after fatiguing physical or men- 
 tal exertion. 
 
 There is a practical significance in that saying of 
 Sir John Hunter: "Some will have it that the 
 stomach is a mill, others that it is a fermenting vat, 
 and others that it is a stewpan ; but in my view of 
 the matter, it is neither a mill, a fermenting vat, nor 
 a stewpan ; but a. stomach — a stomach ! " 
 
 Nourishment for the hody should not consist in 
 animal flesh, nor in starchy substance, nor in oleagi- 
 nous matter alone ; but it should comprise, at every 
 important meal, portions of each of these three kinds 
 of aliment. 
 
 Food should not be taken when there is no 
 demand for it on the part of one's appetite. 
 
 There should be neither under-feeding nor over- 
 feeding. Of the two, however, the latter is less 
 injurious to the body than the former. Even Hip- 
 pocrates, the ancient physician, teaches this ; for he 
 plainly represents the damage resulting from too 
 sparing a diet as much greater than that which 
 springs from the practice of those who " feed liber- 
 ally, and are ready to surfeit." 
 
 When there is a change from a low diet to a 
 highly nutritive one, it should in all cases be 
 gradual. 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 29 
 
 Food should not be taken in a concentrated state, 
 but in such a prepared form, that, along with what 
 is combined with it to give it volume, it will suita- 
 bly distend the stomach. 
 
 The taking of a full meal at a later period of the 
 day than at least two hours before bed-time, should 
 be scrupulously avoided ; for a practice it is which 
 not only deprives one of brain-refreshing sleep, but 
 which exposes his body to be tormented, when in 
 a helpless state, by the power of grim nightmare 
 specters. 
 
 During the period of eating at the table there 
 should always be a cheerful exercise of the mind 
 and the heart. All somber thoughts should be 
 driven away, and all gloomy feelings should be 
 forced to subside. No sighs should be heaved, no 
 melancholy cares or forebodings should be manifest- 
 ed. Animated, sprightly conversation, interspersed 
 with occasional ejaculations of harmless merriment, 
 should be carried on from the commencement till 
 the close of the meal. 
 
 After every season of eating there should be an 
 interval, not of sleep, but of rest ; and it should 
 never be shorter than half an hour. 
 
 Persons who perform much intellectual labor 
 should use for food articles which are specially rich 
 in albumen and the phosphates ; that is to say, they 
 should eat eggs, fish, oysters and other shellfish, 
 
30 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the lean parts of beef and mutton, and bread made 
 of wheat flour. 
 
 Animal flesh in the roasted, baked, or broiled 
 state, is much more flavorous and stimulating as 
 food, than when it has been boiled or fried. 
 
 Oleaginous or fatty food should be used habitually 
 by all persons who have inherited a predisposition 
 to consumption ; and even those who are free from 
 such a tendency should, according to the conclusion 
 recently arrived at by scientists, use such food con- 
 tinually and in considerable quantities, by way of 
 preventing pulmonary disease. 
 
 Food, when taken into the stomach, should be 
 almost at blood-heat. 
 
 Neither ice-water nor extremely hot drinks should 
 ever accompany the taking of nourishment. 
 
 Tea and coffee, by reason of containing an invig- 
 orating principle akin to that of quinine, are whole- 
 some daily tonics. They should, however, be taken 
 with milk, on account of the tannin which is in them. 
 
 The edibles which are commendable as articles of 
 general diet, are bread from the flour of any one of 
 the staple cereals, but more especially from that of 
 wheat; rice; beans; peas; potatoes (when accom- 
 panied by animal nourishment) ; milk (an article 
 better fitted for the body while it is growing than 
 in the years of its adult stature) ; beef (if it be not 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 31 
 
 too old) ; pork (for persons of robust digestion) ; 
 mutton ; eggs (of which a smaller bulk than of any 
 other food " will," says Cullen, " satisfy and occupy 
 the digestive powers of man ") ; butter ; cheese 
 (if always taken along with some coarser food) ; 
 animal oil, or fat ; broths and soups ; sugar (in mod- 
 erate quantities) ; the asparagus, the cabbage, and 
 other succulent vegetables ; onions ; pulpy fruits, 
 such as the apple, the peach, the fig, the pear, the 
 currant, the raspberry, the grape, &c; fish ; oysters; 
 lobsters ; the flesh of birds of the gallinaceous fam- 
 ily ; salt ; vinegar ; and, withal, buttermilk, that acid 
 which is so cooling and so beneficial to the body in 
 its heated or feverish states. 
 
 The preparations of nutriment should not be com- 
 plex. " Simple diet," says Pliny, " is the best." 
 When king Archilaus pressed Socrates to cease dis- 
 coursing on the streets of Athens, and come and live 
 with him in his splendid abode, the philosopher saw 
 what but few who have been plied with a similar 
 temptation have cared to let themselves see — that is, 
 the almost certain forfeiture of health as the result 
 of compliance ; and he suggestively remarked, " Meal, 
 please your majesty, is a halfpenny a peck at Athens, 
 and water I can get for nothing." Addison declares 
 of the table of fashion, " set out in all its magnifi- 
 cence," and exhibiting its medley of rich rarities and 
 high-seasoned compounds : " I fancy that I see gouts 
 and dropsies, fevers and lethargies, with other innu- 
 merable distempers, lyiug in ambuscade among the 
 dishes." 
 
32 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 It is hurtful to inhale impure air, and particularly 
 hurtful to inhale air which has once been expelled 
 from the lungs. Hence cesspools and decaying mat- 
 ter should not be allowed to exist about dwellings ; 
 and all occupied apartments, especially school-rooms 
 and audience -rooms, should be amply ventilated. 
 
 Persons whose lungs are small or weak should 
 avoid exposure to low degrees of temperature, as 
 well as being in rooms heated above sixty-five 
 degrees. 
 
 In breathing, care should be taken to fill all the air- 
 cells of the lungs ; and, to become accustomed to do 
 this, one should learn to respire in a quiet manner, 
 and not too frequently. 
 
 One should beware of standing or sitting with any 
 part of the body exposed to a piercing or chilling 
 draft of air. 
 
 One should keep his mouth, as the dumb animals 
 are wont to keep theirs, closed, except when there 
 is some real occasion for doing otherwise ; and he 
 should make it his custom to breathe through those 
 proper avenues to the larynx, the nostrils. 
 
 No part of the body should be compressed by 
 clothing; and such clothing should be worn as will 
 prevent the sudden loss of bodily heat in cases of a 
 sudden subjection of the frame to a lower tempera- 
 ture. As to quantity of apparel, the true rule is to 
 wear just so much as will fail to create oppressive 
 
THE WONDEEFUL HOUSE. 33 
 
 warmth, and as will suffice to prevent any general 
 feeling of cold. 
 
 Intellectual activity should be maintained, as a 
 method of keeping the brain in a healthy state ; ex- 
 ercise should be taken daily in the pure open air ; 
 and the body should not only be bathed frequently 
 in cold water, but should be made to receive much 
 direct sunlight. 
 
 Sleep at night should be in proportion to the 
 amount of brain-work done during the day. In cases 
 of persistent wakefulness, the strictest regularity 
 should be practiced in retiring and rising. No one 
 should take sleep either in the sunlight or in the 
 moonlight. 
 
 It should be borne in mind that (as Herbert 
 Spencer observes) " happiness is the most power- 
 ful of tonics." Let no one, therefore, think of liv- 
 ing without it. All people need for their health's 
 sake to rejoice and be glad. Not to be extolled is 
 that saying of Antisthenes, " I would rather go mad 
 than experience pleasure." If pleasure be rightly 
 compounded, it is happiness ; and he who stoically 
 refuses or cynically scorns to be happy, is to be con- 
 sidered as in danger of becoming mad. Certainly, 
 such a one cannot be deemed to be in very high 
 health ; for the absence of happiness implies the ab- 
 sence of health. 
 
 Profitable will it be to remember some of the say- 
 ings of wise and worthy Montaigne concerning bodily 
 3 
 
o4 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ways — more especially those which were his own. 
 The most usual and common method of living he 
 pronounces the most becoming, and recommends 
 that all particularity be avoided. He objects to late 
 suppers, maintaining that digestion goes on better 
 when one is awake. He remarks that from his 
 youth he had the custom of being out of the way 
 occasionally at the time of some meal, either to 
 sharpen his appetite or to preserve his vigor for 
 some service of body or mind. " I never keep my 
 legs and thighs," he says, ''warmer in winter than 
 in summer." To dull the whiteness of the page 
 before him, he used, when he engaged in reading, 
 to lay a piece of glass on his book, and he found it 
 to be a relief to his eyes. Of pleasures, he teaches 
 that " a man should neither pursue nor fly, but re- 
 ceive them." He avers that when he danced, he 
 danced ; when he slept, he slept ; and when he 
 walked alone in a beautiful orchard, if his thoughts 
 were at some part of the time taken up with extrin- 
 sic occurrences, he at some other part of the time 
 called them back to his walk, to the orchard, to the 
 sweetness of the solitude, and to himself. Of fogs, 
 he says he feared them ; and of smoke, he declares 
 that he flew from it as from a plague. 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 35 
 
 V. 
 
 FAST LIFE, AS RELATED TO INVALIDISM. 
 
 " We tread upon life's broken laws, 
 And murmur at our self-inflicted pain." 
 
 Whittier. 
 
 The most potent destroyers of vital soundness and 
 vigor, at the present day, are the unnatural wants, 
 the acquired gnawing appetites, the lawless desires, 
 and the prodigal passions which render life (to use 
 a familiar adjective) fast. People all over the land 
 are throwing their health to the winds by their im- 
 moderation, their over-intensity, their impetuosity 
 in attaining ends which either are not worth, or do 
 not call for, any such outlay. The fact is one which 
 leads to some sober reflections on the relation exist- 
 ing between fast life and invalidism. 
 
 There is a course of experience wherein numerous 
 strong-bodied mortals excuselessly become "yellow 
 sicklings." Let us trace it. 
 
 Among all the grave contrasts which appertain to 
 humanity, it would be difficult to find one more grave 
 than that presented to view in the two unlike cases — 
 that of the hale person who is utterly careless of the 
 health he possesses, and that of the invalid who goes 
 pining for the health he has lost. A contrast it is 
 which can daily be witnessed. Look up and down 
 the busy street ! There move the representatives 
 of the million who eat and drink, work and play, 
 sleep and wake, without heeding any of the rules 
 laid down by physiologists, without troubling them- 
 
36 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 selves over any nice questions in reference to diet or 
 to disorder, and without ever seeming to feel the 
 difference between enough and too much. They 
 plunge into labors and into pleasures as if they sup- 
 posed Impunity to be a decree issued from the high 
 court of nature especially for them. The matter of 
 digestion or of indigestion remains aloof from the 
 realm of their anxieties, and they mind not whether 
 their tea or their coffee is or is not swallowed in 
 mou thf uls too hot to agree with health, or whether 
 they are wont to masticate their food as they should, 
 or to gobble it in chunky portions. The rain drenches 
 them ; but they go their way with unchanged gar- 
 ments, having no thought of the danger of taking a 
 cold or of incurring a fever. Wet with perspiration, 
 they sit by the open window or in the open door, and, 
 thinking not of consequences or possibilities, let the 
 incoming air-current dry their sweaty skins. So far as 
 caring for health is concerned, it is all of a piece with 
 them to be temperate or intemperate. They leave 
 their various organic apparatuses — the circulatory, 
 the secretory, the respiratory, the sympathetic, the 
 digestive, the excretory, the absorbent, the nervous — 
 all to take care of themselves ; and when appetite 
 or passion is in the process of bringing their consti- 
 tutional elements into the wild action implied in an 
 excess, they do not even raise the question whether 
 their life-machinery is likely to be injured in the case 
 or not. Such are the majoritj^ of well or healthy 
 people. 
 
 Now, shouldst thou, reader, turn to those quiet 
 walks which exist just apart from the thronged places 
 of stir and hurry, thou wouldst perceive persons 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 37 
 
 whose tendencies and customs are surprisingly dis- 
 similar to those of the class just delineated. There 
 move the still thoughtful ones, whose nerves are 
 shattered, and whose vitality is at a low ebb. Their 
 step is faltering, their faces are faded, and a sad 
 longing is indicated in the expression of their eyes. 
 These feeble individuals are as careful in respect to 
 the quan tit} T of almost every experience they have, 
 as if it were some powerful drug, and they were re- 
 quired to take a homeopathic dose of it. In eating 
 and drinking they are obliged to keep themselves 
 within humiliating limits. Think of a person par- 
 taking of delicious edibles and of palatable fluids, 
 while, as often as he nibbles at the former or sips at 
 the latter, he seems to hear the terrible mandate, 
 " Thus far, but no further ! " 
 
 The contrast which strikes the mind when the two 
 classes that have been considered are compared, af- 
 fords a weighty lesson. What is it that accounts for 
 the extreme unlikeness between them ? Why do we 
 find in the one class a carelessness of health so uni- 
 formly persistent and so airily precipitate, and in the 
 other a care for health so constant and so sad ? I 
 answer by affirming that the sin of living too fast is 
 largely involved in the explanation of the great con- 
 trast. The former class are wickedly regardless of 
 the preciousness of that which the latter, by reason 
 of a regardlessness of precisely the same kind, have 
 forfeited. 
 
 Let us see if this is not the truth. How is it that 
 invalidism is generally produced ? How is it that 
 the robust and athletic are brought into that pitiful 
 state in which the competency and the glory of the 
 
38 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 frame are wanting, and in which physical feebleness, 
 with all its unhappy concomitants, has taken the 
 place of physical vigor ? By what cause is the rubi- 
 cund look native to the human face superseded by 
 an abiding pallor ? Is the immense change to be 
 attributed to hereditary descent ? or is it to be re- 
 ferred to sudden and unavoidable disaster ? To the 
 one or the other of these, possibly all the impairment 
 and all the disability, in a given case of invalid life, 
 should be ascribed ; but probably the cause will be 
 found to have been neither of them. I venture to 
 declare that the secret of the trouble with most of 
 those who are to-day in a valetudinarian state, has 
 been fast life — just that kind of fast life which 
 marks the hurrying, food-gobbling million already 
 described. Whatever they may be now, they were 
 once daring perpetrators of physical imprudences 
 and transgressions. Against the laws of health they 
 formerly sinned — sinned with a gay rashness, as if 
 they counted their own heartiness eternal. They 
 gave place, as the stream of time rolled on, to phil- 
 osophic thought and rational moderation, but not till 
 their vital strength was mostly scattered, and the 
 rose-color had departed from their cheeks. 
 
 Wouldst thou know, reader, where now are they 
 who will, in the future, take rank with unrecovering 
 invalids ? They are among the inconsiderate eaters 
 and drinkers, goers and comers, who vividly figure 
 in the bustling circles of the world. Behold him 
 who rushes into exciting circumstances, indifferent 
 as to what self-indulgence or self-neglect is adapted 
 to do for him ! See him as he makes haste through 
 the process of food-taking, and then as he sallies 
 
THE WONDERFUL HOUSE. 39 
 
 forth from the table, and flings himself into the midst 
 of hot and fermenting affairs ! Watch him, as, with 
 a panting eagerness for new engagements and new 
 scenes, he rashly exposes his body in various ways 
 to impairing evils ! See him as he seems to challenge 
 nature herself to relax, if she can, by any extreme 
 vicissitude his hold on bodily vigor ! Ah ! see him 
 as he thus wildly sports with his body along the track 
 of life ! 
 
 Now, what ground is there for supposing that that 
 person should for many years continue to be able- 
 bodied ? What reason is there to think his health 
 should abide the withering of the grass and the 
 fading of the flowers during a long succession of 
 seasons? Only the reason that he has inherited a 
 constitution of wonderful firmness and tenacity, — 
 and this, on account of his frequent and bold break- 
 ing of the laws of health, is rapidly coming to be no 
 reason at all. The individual is needlessly, reck- 
 lessly, and inexcusably undermining and bringing 
 down the house- of his soul. And where shall be 
 the occasion for surprise, if, after a few more springs, 
 and summers, and autumns, and winters, he will be 
 seen to have become a retired, trembling sufferer, 
 bleached and worn by chronic disease — an instance 
 of the melancholy deliberateness and the feverish 
 weakness inseparable from confirmed invalidism ? 
 
 Thus it is one is enabled to form some clear idea 
 of the relation which exists between too intense a 
 life and a state of physical brokenness and blight. 
 I would not commend an over-nice carefulness of the 
 physical nature. There is an absurd waiting on the 
 frame. Let no person treat his corporeal fabric as 
 
40 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 if it were too precious to be subjected to anything 
 trying, and too fine to be made forcibly useful. Fre- 
 quent exposures of skin and sinew to circumstances 
 that have rough edges ; the custom of submitting 
 the limbs to occasional tests of what they can do and 
 what they can endure ; a brave betaking of the body, 
 at times, into close contact with the elements when 
 in their discomposed state ; persevering exertions of 
 physical energy in climbing, not too rarely, from the 
 bottom to the top of some one of Difficulty's rugged 
 steeps, — these are parts of a true bodily life. An 
 extreme watch-care over health results in making 
 the nerves over-sensitive, the muscles unenduring, 
 and the whole organic system inefficient. The frame 
 should be neither petted nor too much held under 
 inspection ; should be neither the object of a squeam- 
 ish concern, nor the recipient of an extravagant min- 
 istration. Berkley, that Englishman mentioned by 
 Longfellow in his Hyperion, as having usually eaten 
 his breakfast " sitting in a tub of cold water and 
 reading a newspaper," did greatly err in the matter 
 of cold bathing. People should be anxious for noth- 
 ing (so teaches a wise contributor to The Spectator^) 
 save what nature demands as necessary. 
 
 But to condemn an excessive nicety in caring for 
 the body, is not to encourage a reckless treatment 
 of it. If it is true that (as Horace Mann declares) " a 
 man without high health is as much at war with 
 nature as a guilty soul is with the Spirit of God," 
 then indisputable is it that he who sacrifices high 
 health for the sake of living fast, is flagrantly foolish. 
 
THE 
 
 INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 
 
 " Mind it seeth, Mind it heareth ; all beside is deaf and blind." 
 Philosophic Proverb (attributed to Epicharmus). 
 
 41 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 43 
 
 Chapter II. 
 THE SOUL 
 
 I. 
 
 OUR SELE-KNOWING SUBSTANCE. 
 
 " Most people deride or vilify their nature ; it is a better thing to 
 endeavor to understand it." Spinoza. 
 
 "To know, we must understand our instrument of knowing." 
 Sir William Hamilton, Discussions, p. 696. 
 
 We have studied that wonderful house, the body ; 
 now we are to study the more wonderful entity 
 which occupies it. This is the intelligent part of 
 the Great Slighted Fortune. It is many-named. 
 Sometimes men call it the spirit ; sometimes, the 
 mind ; sometimes, the Ego. Carlyle represents it 
 as the ethereal God-given Force which dwells in 
 mortals, and is their Self. Its most familiar desig- 
 nation is the " soul." Every one is irresistibly made 
 aware that, holding habitance somehow in his or- 
 ganic frame, is a something invisible and intangible 
 that perceives, remembers, imagines, abstracts, com- 
 pares, reasons, feels, and wills. But not every one 
 considers as he should, that the same viewless, im- 
 palpable performer and home-keeper in the body is 
 a high species of property, a fine, unwasting heritage. 
 
44 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 The soul is our self-knowing substance; and our 
 self-knowing substance is surely our most wondrous 
 wealth. Does there arise the inquiry, How can the 
 soul, which has the dignity of an owner, be to itself 
 a thing owned by itself? Or, do there come to mind 
 those words of Coleridge, 
 
 " For what you are, you cannot have" ? 
 
 I answer that, just so long as the soul can develop 
 and improve its own nature, so long can it account 
 its nature a wealth to itself, — a heritage that may 
 be continually kept in process of increase. Shakes- 
 peare, in his play entitled Taming of the Shrew, puts 
 into the mouth of Petruchio the words, 
 
 " For 'tis the mind that makes the body rich." 
 
 All men know that the mind does this. But it 
 does this only when, conscious that it is itself a rich 
 estate, it is engaged in making itself more rich. 
 Montaigne, in one place, says, " I have nothing 
 mine but myself." And in another place he re- 
 marks, " I fold myself within my own skin." Ex- 
 plain these apparently contradictory averments of 
 his as you will. Here is my explanation of them. 
 He saw that more to him than anything else, nay, 
 than all things else that he possessed on earth, was 
 the heaven-bequeathed wealth above price, which, 
 under the name of a soul, was lodged inside his cor- 
 poreal tegument. The soul is that inestimable cap- 
 ital which it is the privilege of man, all his years, to 
 enhance and add to ; and he who treats property 
 that can be measured with a chain or a tape-line, or 
 property that can be carried in a bag, as better than 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 45 
 
 it, not merely hides a single native talent, but in 
 great part buries his rich-born self alive. 
 
 I have pronounced the soul our self-knowing sub- 
 stance ; and our self-knowing substance I have 
 affirmed to be a heritage, the value of which outvies 
 that of the most prized outward riches. Are these 
 representations warrantable ? Is not the soul some- 
 thing to which explorers cannot find a complete 
 way ? Is it not the housed mystery which comes out 
 into sight through no unbolted door, and can be seen 
 through none ? Have not inquiring men, from He- 
 raclitus' day to the present, taught that one can 
 never advance so far toward the knowledge of the 
 soul as to arrive thereat? u We know," says Addi- 
 son, " neither the nature of an idea, nor the sub- 
 stance of a soul." " Of the essence of mind," says 
 Wayland, "we know nothing." " What the thing 
 is which we call ourselves," says James Anthony 
 Froude, " we know not." And Sir William Hamil- 
 ton, though he declares the knowledge of ourselves 
 to be of paramount importance, and though he avers 
 that the maxim " Know thyself " is in fact a heav- 
 enly precept in Christianity as in heathenism, teaches 
 that, " as substances, we know not what is matter, 
 and are ignorant of what is mind." What shall be 
 said of these grave assertions, and of all others like 
 them ? Certainly, not too much is it to say they are 
 too broad, too sweeping. It is true, we can know but 
 little concerning the soul, considered as the basis of 
 its own qualities. That it is, when thus considered, 
 incomprehensible in the same sense in which all 
 other things are so, there is no room for denial, none 
 
46 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 for doubt. " One thing," says Cicero, " can no more 
 nor less be comprehended than another, because the 
 definition of comprehending all things is the same." 
 Atoms are mysterious entities. The greatest scien- 
 tists can tell but little concerning them. They are 
 not susceptible of being wholly known ; and, in the 
 sense of this statement, they are incomprehensible. 
 But can nothing be known about them ? Who 
 would venture to make such an assertion ? The 
 eminent Tyndall, having performed the experiment 
 which consists in pouring a solution of chloride of 
 ammonium on glass, and then exhibiting, by means 
 of a camera obscura together with an electric light, 
 the ensuing process of crystallization, remarked to 
 his audience, that he never witnessed the process, 
 thus repeated, without a feeling of awe at " the 
 enormous display of energy on the part of atoms 
 which singly must ever remain invisible." Suggest- 
 ive words ! Do they not plainly imply that atoms 
 are not utterly unknowable ? The truth is, a thing 
 may be incomprehensible, while, in some respects, it 
 can be apprehended. Such a thing is the self-know- 
 ing substance. Concerning this, men all over the 
 world have arrived at conclusions which they have 
 justly formed into unwavering trusts. The doctrine 
 of Sir William Hamilton, that mind and matter, in 
 themselves considered, are totally unsusceptible of 
 being known, is an untenable theory. More than 
 once, he himself virtually abandons it. For example, 
 in his Philosophy of Perception, he says : 
 
 " They [mind and matter] are known to us only in their quali- 
 ties ; and we can justify the postulation of two different substances, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 47 
 
 exclusively on the supposition of the incompatibility of the double 
 series of phenomena to coinhere in one." * 
 
 If they are known to us in their qualities; evi- 
 dently they are, in a measure, known to us as sub- 
 stances ; for qualities are manifestations of the basis, 
 essence, or substance, wherein they inhere. Aris- 
 totle makes the true observation : " For what ap- 
 pears to all, that we affirm to be." It appears to all 
 that men are not mere machines ; therefore, we may 
 say that they are not mere machines. It appears to 
 all that men do not, like the forms of mere matter, 
 lose, in the course of rolling time, their identity, but 
 that they continually know themselves as the same 
 beings ; therefore we may affirm that men are not 
 of the substance called matter, but are of a self- 
 identifying substance very different from matter. 
 
 But while some knowledge of the soul's essence 
 can be gathered from what appears to all in respect 
 to the soul, some can also be gathered from particu- 
 lar discernments in respect to the soul, made by 
 individuals of rare and highly-qualified intellectual 
 powers. " The more the mind is enlightened," says 
 Madame de Stael, " the further it will penetrate into 
 the essence of things." They that have come to 
 "years that bring the philosophic mind," see deeper 
 into man than do others. Accordingly, such persons, 
 almost without exception, hold the belief that the 
 soul is unspeakably higher. in rank than any material 
 entity ever yet discovered. Is it possible to con- 
 ceive one like Bacon or one like Newton, as deeming 
 the human intellect on a level as to essence with the 
 
 * In his Philosophy of Common Sense, Section II., he expresses 
 with somewhat more amplitude the same meaning. 
 
48 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 human organism? The great Shakespeare, pene- 
 trating into the self-knowing substance, makes his 
 soliloquizing Hamlet say : 
 
 " What a piece of work is a man ! How noble in reason! how 
 infinite in faculty ! in form, in moving, how express and admira- 
 ble ! in action, how like an angel ! in apprehension, how like a god ! 
 the beauty of the world ! the paragon of animals ! " 
 
 Wordsworth, looking deeply into the same sub- 
 stance, sings : 
 
 " The soul that rises with us, our life's star, 
 Hath had elsewhere its setting, 
 
 And cometh from afar ; 
 Not in entire forgetfulness, 
 And not in utter nakedness, 
 But trailing clouds of glory do we come 
 From God who is our home." 
 
 Novalis, getting glimpses into the mental essence, 
 declares : 
 
 " Man is the higher sense of our planet, the star which connects 
 it with the upper world, the eye which it turns toward heaven." 
 
 Carlyle, piercingly scanning it, affirms : 
 
 "A healthy body is good ; but a soul in right health — it is the 
 thing beyond all others to be prayed for ; the blessedest thing this 
 earth receives from heaven." 
 
 Bulwer — a man familiar with the vastness of 
 geological mutations and with the sublimity of the 
 working of mundane forces — exploringly studies 
 it, and exclaims : 
 
 " Oh, how much greater is the soul of one man than the vicissi- 
 tudes of the whole globe ! " 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTEKIOB, HERITAGE. 49 
 
 And Bushnell, the Christian philosopher, looks 
 thoughtfully down into it, and breaks forth in the 
 words : 
 
 " this great and mighty soul! were it something less, you 
 might find what to do with it ; charm it with the jingle of a golden 
 toy, house it in a safe with ledgers and stocks, take it about on 
 journeys to see and be seen ! Anything would please it and bring 
 it content. But it is the Godlike soul, capable of rest in nothing 
 but God ; able to be filled and satisfied with nothing but His full- 
 ness and the confidence of His friendship ! " 
 
 Each of these celebrated authors felt impelled, by 
 what he was able to discern respecting the conscious 
 basis of human qualities, to honor it with some en- 
 kindled and emphatic expression, suggestive of its 
 superiority. 
 
 II. 
 
 THE SOUL KNOWABLE ONLY BY WAY OF ITS 
 PHENOMENA. 
 
 " The intellect knows itself only in knowing its objects." 
 
 Aristotle, De Anima, Book III. 
 
 The inquiry is here to be considered, how the 
 knowledge which it is our privilege to have, both in 
 respect to what the soul is in itself, and in respect 
 to its capabilities and possibilities, is obtainable. I 
 promptly answer that it can be acquired only by 
 studying the operations, the states, and the effects 
 of the mental substance ; in short, all that can be 
 called its phenomena. Of this finest thing in the 
 world, be it remembered, we can get no information 
 save by way of things which are second to itself. It 
 4 
 
50 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FOETUNE. 
 
 absolutely refuses to be known otherwise. And 
 herein it resembles all power in physical nature. 
 " The great energies of nature," says Paley, " are 
 known to us only by their effects." Their effects 
 are the things second to them, by way of which we 
 obtain our knowledge of them ; and were not the 
 former perceivable, the latter would be unknowable. 
 The power which produces crystallization; the 
 power which draws out of the earth the nourishing 
 elements which circulate in the vitals of trees ; the 
 power in sunlight which is designated by the name 
 actinism, and which noiselessly works changes adapt- 
 ed to raise solemn wonderment in the mind of the 
 student of nature ; the power which gives cohesion 
 to the parts and the particles of porphyry rocks and 
 of granite bowlders ; and the power whereby the 
 mountains are held in their places while the globe is 
 whirling on its axis, and whereby the planets are 
 held in their orbits in spite of their centrifugal ten- 
 dency, — each would at this moment be to the 
 human understanding as if it were not, and had 
 never been, but for the effects of it, which, from 
 time to time, do engage, and have engaged human 
 attention. Men cannot see with their eyes, or hear 
 with their ears, or touch with their fingers, or taste 
 with their tongues, or smell with their nostrils, 
 
 " The mighty force of ocean's troubled flood; " 
 
 they can have knowledge of its existence, and of its 
 arousal, and of what it is in itself, and of what it 
 can do, by its effects only. " The roots of phenom- 
 ena," says Tyndall, " are imbedded in a region 
 beyond the reach of the senses." 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 51 
 
 To one beholding the famous Niagara River pre- 
 viously to the beginning of its swift descent and its 
 breaking-up into far-sounding and gleaming rapids, 
 that river seems destitute of great power. But when, 
 tracing its course, he gazes on its waters as they rush 
 with foaming fury down the uneven declivity which 
 rudely welcomes them, and as they fall headlong over 
 the stupendous precipice which they cannot avoid, 
 he then creeps with awe-stricken spirit into the im- 
 mediate presence of the same thundering stream, 
 seeking to know how it was, that, a little while be- 
 fore, when it was moving so quietly and so unim- 
 pressively, there lay concealed in its depths such 
 sublime puissance. And just so all the astonishing 
 potencies of the material system, all the tiger-forces 
 of nature, refuse to be made objects of direct per- 
 ception. They crouch in their own chosen ambus- 
 cades, and often enough manifest themselves by 
 making an unexpected spring. 
 
 Now, like them, in point of knowability, is the 
 soul. That is to say, just as the knowledge of them 
 can be arrived at only by way of things which are 
 second to what they themselves are, so the knowl- 
 edge of the soul can be arrived at only by wa}^ of 
 things second to what the soul itself is. 
 
 But let it be noticed that, while power in physical 
 nature can be known to us only by way of its effects, 
 the soul can be known to us by way not only of its 
 effects, but also of its operations and states. And 
 here I turn to enter on a careful treatment of these 
 several orders of indices of the mental substance and 
 its powers. 
 
52 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE SOUL'S INNER PHENOMENA — HOW PERCEIVED. 
 
 " I may think I think, and then there is a deeper depth when I 
 think that I think I think." 
 
 Prop. R. W. Raymond, Lecture on the Seven Senses. 
 
 We gather knowledge of our intelligent essence 
 and its endowments, by examining what occurs in the 
 secret self-realm, the territory of personality. Such 
 an examination is called an exercise of consciousness. 
 " Consciousness," says Jouffroy, "is the feeling which 
 the intelligent principle has of itself." Sir William 
 Hamilton represents it as " the recognition by the 
 mind, or Ego, of its acts and affections." To our hid- 
 den percipient nature, not hidden is its own thinking. 
 It can trace from their beginnings its reasonings. It 
 can scrutinize its engagedness when it is forming a 
 resolution, and when it is fulfilling a resolution al- 
 ready formed. It can distinguish its procedure, when, 
 letting itself become unduly fanciful, it builds what 
 are called "castles in the air." It can discern the 
 process of which it is the subject when it is hoping 
 or desponding, loving or hating, striving to gain some 
 noble object or lapsing into the dreamy state of a 
 mere humdrum. 
 
 Neither the oak that stands firm-fastened to the 
 soil, nor the globe that travels its rounds in the grip 
 of gravity, ever realizes what it is to muse on a high 
 theme or to ponder over a low one, — what it is to 
 devise an excellent plan or to concoct a wicked one. 
 Only natures that can perceive, and at the same time 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 53 
 
 « 
 
 be conscious of perceiving, — only self-knowing na- 
 tures that can have cognition of their own thoughts 
 and feelings while these are being born, — can do 
 things answering to such descriptions. Hommel, the 
 noted fatalist, declares : "I have a feeling of liberty 
 even at the very moment when I am writing against 
 liberty." Coleridge, in one of his seasons of spirit- 
 ual quickening, sings of his soul's high mood : 
 
 " O ye hopes that stir within me, 
 
 Health comes with you from above ! 
 God is with me, God is in me, 
 I cannot die if life be lore." 
 
 The aged Bishop of Poictiers, while he is expiring, 
 tranquilly cognizes the emotions of his soul as the 
 process of dissolution advances, and says : "Go out, 
 soul, go out ! Of what canst thou be afraid ? Hast 
 thou not studied duty for seventy years ? " By con- 
 sciousness one is enabled to know that he is ; that 
 he is himself, and not another ; and that what he is 
 in himself is diverse from all known material things. 
 By consciousness one is made aware of the various 
 changes which come over his spirit. By conscious- 
 ness one becomes acquainted with pain and pleasure 
 in himself, and apprehends not only those natural 
 awakenings of his soul which are called instincts, 
 appetites, propensities, desires, affections, and pas- 
 sions, but also those natural modes of his soul which 
 are called intellectual and spiritual faculties. With- 
 out consciousness there could be no complete seeing 
 or hearing, remembering or imagining, comparing or 
 judging, — in short, no complete cognitive exercise of 
 mental energy. This is not to deny that the soul is the 
 subject of a fruitful action whereof it is unconscious. 
 
54 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 There are certain fundamental truths which (as 
 Wordsworth says) " wake to perish never." We do 
 not seek them ; we do not in the least bestir our- 
 selves to get possession of them. They come right 
 to us when it is meet they should come ; and we 
 are totally unaware of the process whereby they 
 come. Sometimes they are called principles of com- 
 mon sense, sometimes self-evident truths, sometimes 
 primordial law^s of intelligence, sometimes intuitions, 
 sometimes instinctive cognitions, sometimes natural 
 prenotions, sometimes transcendental truths, some- 
 times primary hypotheses of nature, sometimes ax- 
 ioms, sometimes received principles of demonstration, 
 sometimes sacred principles against which it is un- 
 lawful to contend, sometimes incomprehensible spon- 
 taneities, and sometimes necessary convictions. But 
 such truths, though the soul is unconscious of the 
 action which brings them to itself, are never known 
 to the soul till they are " elicited into consciousness." 
 While it is certain we do not consciously obtain them, 
 it is equally certain we could not, independently of 
 consciousness, have knowledge of them. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE OUTER PHENOMENA OF THE SOUL: WORKS OF 
 GREAT MEN. 
 
 " That which is greatest in a man is that which he has in com- 
 mon with all men." Henry Giles. 
 
 The one quest of quests, the search after knowl- 
 edge of our self-knowing substance and its innate 
 qualities, is ever more or less successful when carried 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 55 
 
 on, as it perennially may be, in the directions and 
 the regions of the soul's outer phenomena. Under 
 this head, what engaging indices of the subtile man 
 that is within man may be considered ! There are 
 the much-signifying works of famous poets, artists, 
 philosophers, orators. These, it is true, are prod- 
 ucts attributable to different souls ; but, at the same 
 time, are they not impressive helps toward knowing 
 what the soul is in general? A man once lived 
 whose name was Homer. Having the gray rocks of 
 the isle of Scio in his sight, and the grand roar of 
 the iEgean Sea in his ear, he set his conscious self 
 to composing, in epic measure, the story of Troy ; 
 and there resulted the cantos of the Iliad, the 
 words of which, though first recited more than 
 twenty-seven hundred years ago, are at this hour 
 wonderfully alive — nay, are as potent as if a kind 
 of eternal energy were in them. A man once lived 
 whose name was John Milton. Taking for his 
 theme the lost Paradise described in primeval his- 
 tovy, he concentrated his conscious self in elevated 
 musings on the same ; and there resulted a poem, 
 beautiful and great, written in a style which is a 
 "costume of sovereignty," and so endowed with 
 chaste and uplifting thought, as to be a rare gift to 
 the world. A man once lived whose name was 
 Michael Angelo. When he was a small boy, his 
 conscious self took for its master-bias a partiality 
 for exercise with the pencil. When fourteen years 
 of age, he evinced an extraordinary skill in paint- 
 ing, which excited jealousy and envy in his teacher, 
 Dominico Ghirlandajo. When he had come to ma- 
 turity, he manifested such persevering energy, such 
 
56 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 loftiness and grandeur of conception, and such un- 
 surpassed creativeness, as a painter, as a sculptor, 
 and as an architect, that some of his admirers have 
 even deemed him to have possessed powers that 
 were superhuman. One of them — Sir Joshua Re}-- 
 nolds — enthusiastically affirms that he was not only 
 the inventor of modern art, but that he carried it to 
 the highest point of possible perfection. 
 
 A man once lived whose name was Isaac Newton. 
 At his birth, his body was remarkably diminutive — 
 so much so as scarcely to afford a resting-place for 
 the hope of rearing him. It could almost have been 
 put into a quart measure. This fact, however, pre- 
 vented him not from coming to be one of the great- 
 est of " those great men who have been ornaments 
 of their species." At an early age, his conscious 
 self acquired a fondness for reading and study, and 
 for the contriving of novel expedients whereby to 
 apply and elucidate natural principles. When he 
 was a school-lad, such mental power had he, that, 
 whenever he specially exerted himself to outstrip 
 his fellow-pupils, he flew as on invisible wings to a 
 position above them. His widowed mother recalled 
 him from the pursuits which he loved, that he might 
 oversee " the tillage, the grazing, and the harvest ; " 
 but she found that the farm management was often 
 delegated by him to the hired servant, in order that 
 he himself might linger in a garret with some old 
 books, or that he might execute some contrivance 
 for the elucidation of scientific truth. He was sent 
 to Trinity College, Cambridge. There, at a rapid 
 rate of progress, he prosecuted not only the regular 
 studies, but also other studies, which were much 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTEEIOE HEEITAGE. 57 
 
 more difficult. He became a devoted, admired, emi- 
 nent philosophic inquirer, a masterful penetrator 
 into terrestrial and celestial mysteries. One field 
 of science after another — optics, mathematics, hy- 
 dro-dynamics, astronomy — was entered by him, with 
 the hope of discovering therein some great hidden 
 thing ; and, in each of them, his soul was — 
 
 "Like a glory from afar." 
 
 Wherever he brought to bear his heroic energies 
 in scientific research, dimness seemed to flee away 
 from truths that were obscure, and darkness from 
 truths that "lay hid in night," unaccountable things 
 became suddenly explicable, riddles were deprived 
 as by magic of their puzzling strangeness, and rela- 
 tions, laws, and forces, which had hitherto been 
 wholly concealed, or but half discerned, burst, as it 
 were, into the state of things well known. In his 
 encounters with complexity and intricacy in nature, 
 he seized splendid trophies, wherewith he both sur- 
 prised and enriched the minds of men. By reason 
 of the fine certainties which he discovered con- 
 cerning light, mortals learned to look with a pro- 
 found respect on the gaudy colors of the spectrum. 
 He began with reflections on the falling of an apple, 
 proceeded by sure steps of investigation and with a 
 sublime deliberateness toward some hoped-for gen- 
 eralization that would simplify the universe, and 
 finally reached a deduction, the greatest of all that 
 have been arrived at in modern ages. 
 
 He who, by the exertions of his mind, thus made 
 himself the path-finder to the law of gravitation, 
 was amiably meek, unpretendingly modest, and per- 
 
58 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 fectly free from arrogance. He referred all his 
 grand triumphs to his industry and his patience as 
 an interrogator of nature, and seemed to become 
 more deeply humble in proportion as he became 
 more conspicuous and famous. 
 
 See how some of those, to whom this performer 
 of august toil, this solver of the problem of the 
 spheres, this mighty soul, has been an object of con- 
 templation, have indicated their idea of his great- 
 ness ! One of the contributors to The Spectator 
 describes him as having broken forth from amid the 
 darkness that involved human understanding, and 
 appeared like a being of another species. Edmund 
 Halley, carried away by his reverent admiration for 
 him, said — 
 
 " So near the gods — man cannot nearer go." 
 
 And a certain French nobleman (the Marquis de 
 L'Hopital), when visited by some Englishmen, made 
 mention to them of . their renowned countryman 
 thus: "Does Mr. Newton eat, drink, or sleep like 
 other men ? I represent him to myself as a celestial 
 genius, entirely disengaged from matter." 
 
 A man once lived whose name was Patrick Henry. 
 In all his early years he was habitually indisposed 
 to efficacious activity, and seemed to be unambitious 
 for any superior attainment. Leaving hard study 
 and hard work to those who loved them, he spent 
 most of his time loitering in fields, roaming through 
 woodlands, lingering on the banks of streams, hunt- 
 ing, fishing, dreaming. So tardy was the develop- 
 ment of his soul, that, even after he had become an 
 adult in body, his life for several years gave promise 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 59 
 
 of nothing but a series of failures. But the day at 
 length came in his history, when, notwithstanding all 
 his long-continued unfecundity of mind, he appeared 
 with his conscious self not merely in a blossoming 
 state, but abounding — nay, profusely covering him 
 — with " delicious and matured fruit." The world 
 was astonished. The outburst of mental energy, 
 and the display of mental richness, which occurred 
 on his part, were such as, in a case like his, had not 
 been supposed to be within the range of possibility. 
 When he made the public effort which suddenly 
 advanced him to eminence, he had no confident ex- 
 pectation of success. He was neither spurred on 
 by a thirst for popular applause, nor impelled by an 
 ardent desire for fame ; was neither encouraged by 
 the thought that he had undergone a long drill in 
 the art of declamation, nor buoyed up by the recol- 
 lection that he had already, on some little scale, 
 made triumphant oratorical exertions. He came 
 before his audience, an unlettered, plain man, who 
 was in doubt respecting what he was fitted to be ; 
 he confronted it without any thing to serve as a 
 ground for the anticipation of transcendent results. 
 His mien and manner, at the outset, were such as 
 befitted the clown rather than the orator ; but " as 
 his mind rolled along and began to glow from its 
 own action, all the exuvice of the clown seemed to 
 shed themselves spontaneously," and his awakened 
 countenance, the fine fire which played about his 
 eyes and which often darted therefrom, the mag- 
 netism which his gestures carried with them, and 
 his form, no longer bowed or bent, but standing 
 forth erect and majestic, conspired with' his winged 
 
60 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 words to render him an irresistible prince and mas- 
 ter of eloquence. 
 
 His sublime entrance into the sphere of action for 
 which nature had formed him, was followed by no 
 relapse into indolence and fruitlessness. By one 
 demonstration after another of his native gifts, he 
 dazzled human throngs, passing, as he did so, through 
 every degree of glory attainable to an orator. Men 
 listened to him with absorbed attention. He over- 
 whelmed bitter opposition and defiant resistance. 
 He " seared the visages of his haughty antagonists 
 by his consuming scowl." Advocates, the moment 
 they heard they were to have him for a contestant, 
 scarcely prepared for anything but defeat. He cham- 
 pioned the rights of men ; he thundered against 
 tyranny and tyrants ; he defended the Bible and the 
 preachers of its truth, proclaiming that, without the 
 wholesome influence of these, "liberty would be- 
 come licentiousness, and man more savage than the 
 roaming tigers." Sobriety and dignity were worn 
 by him as familiar robes. Neither the flatteries of 
 the idolizing multitude, nor the seductions of par- 
 ticular admirers, who had not the virtue of self- 
 denial, could delude him into forgetting to be ele- 
 vated in spirit and manly in deportment. It has 
 been said of him, that he " shrank from the contact 
 of vulgar associates." 
 
 Age seems to have been loth to impair the quali- 
 fications which this man had for a divine eloquence. 
 Even when almost at his sixtieth year, he displayed, 
 in one instance, a might and a splendor as an ora- 
 tor, which were, perhaps, equalled by him at no pre- 
 vious period, The occasion was a discussion before 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 61 
 
 the people, between himself and John Randolph, of 
 certain political issues of the day. Taking the ros- 
 trum, he energetically opened the debate ; and, as 
 he proceeded along the line of the questions which 
 required his attention and became more and more 
 absorbed and earnest, he poured forth bewitching 
 words, and shone with a wonderful light. The 
 enthusiasm of the audience, when he had concluded, 
 w^as so intense and rapturous that, as he came down 
 from his place, they literally embraced him and bore 
 him about in their arms. Randolph immediately 
 mounted on the platform to reply to him. So eccen- 
 tric was he in personal appearance, in manner, and 
 in matter, that from the first he drew attention and 
 held it. At the close of his harangue the auditors, 
 having been vividly impressed by his queer look, his 
 sharp, clear, nervous, and penetrating voice, and his 
 long, cool" sentences, all freighted and bristling w T ith 
 stinging satire, honored him with tributes of lively 
 applause. To the great Henry, such a result as this, 
 occurring in the case of one who had ventured to be 
 his rival, was a singular surprise. It gave him a 
 rare impulse to spontaneous exertion. He went 
 back to the stage, and began again to speak. And 
 then it was he clothed himself with such majesty 
 and grace, and evinced such energy and sweetness 
 in public address, as had scarcely ever before distin- 
 guished him. Frequently, with a sort of fatherly 
 pathos, he alluded to his young competitor, min- 
 gling with intimations of high regard for his talents 
 expressions of regret in view of his political here- 
 sies. As his soul threw itself out in efforts for con- 
 summate mastery, he exhibited a series of oratorical 
 
Wl THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 flights which were not merely Demosthenian or 
 Ciceronian : they were incomparable. The people, 
 utterly unable to resist his magical sway, resigned 
 their minds and hearts to be borne by him hither 
 and thither. On their part, transport succeeded 
 transport. At times they broke forth in ejacula- 
 tions of delight, and at times burst out in tears 
 copious as rain gushing from over-laden clouds. 
 Says an adverter to that scene : " The gesture, in- 
 tonations, and pathos of Mr. Henry operated like 
 an epidemic on the transported assembly. The con- 
 tagion was universal. An hysterical frenzy per- 
 vaded the whole audience to such a degree, that 
 they were at the same moment literally weeping 
 and laughing. At this juncture the speaker de- 
 scended from the stage. Shouts of applause rent 
 the air, and were echoed from the skies. The whole 
 spectacle, as it really was, would not only mock 
 every attempt at description, but would almost chal- 
 lenge the imagination of any one who had not wit- 
 nessed it." 
 
 In the Iliad, there are attributed to Ulysses some 
 rich-freighted remarks concerning souls that have 
 come into the world, gifted for the sphere of the 
 orator. He is represented as saying : 
 
 " The gods do not give all good things to all men, and often a man 
 is made unfair to look upon ; but over his ill favor they fling, like 
 a garland, a power of lovely speech, and the people delight to look 
 on him. He speaks with modest dignity, and he shines among 
 the multitude. As he walks through the city, men gaze on him as 
 on a god." 
 
 Not inapplicable are these words to Patrick Henry, 
 that splendid instance of what nature can do for a 
 human soul. 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 63 
 
 V. 
 
 THE SOUL'S REVEALINGS OF ITSELF THROUGH THE 
 BODY. 
 
 " The intellect of man sits enthroned visibly upon his forehead 
 and in his eye ; and the heart of" man is written upon his counte- 
 nance." Longfellow, Hyperion, p. 210. 
 
 The striking effects which the inner man produces 
 on the outer, are indices of the soul's essence and 
 faculties, which may well be considered by them- 
 selves. Among them are the enchanting looks, ges- 
 tures, and accents which mark the golden-mouthed 
 orator. Nature is an autobiographer. She prints 
 records about herself on the trunks of trees and on 
 coal layers, along river shores, and the gorges of 
 mountains ; and she tells stories about herself in the 
 motions occasioned by the exertion of her forces, and 
 in the sounds which emanate from her awakened 
 elements. The soul is a more remarkable autobiog- 
 rapher. This writes facts concerning itself on the 
 features of the face, and on those parts of the hands 
 that are variegated with veins ; and it speaks them 
 in the action of the limbs, and in the utterances of 
 the articulating organs. 
 
 The corporeal aspects, movings, attitudes, vocifer- 
 ations, and vocables which have the rank of soul- 
 language, are as varied as the descriptions of a 
 romance-writer. Man must have begun, very early 
 in his history, to be observant of them. Doubtless 
 he studied them before he studied the stars. May 
 we not believe that the first time he saw his face 
 
64 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 mirrored in the water of earth, he was led to reflect 
 on one or more of them ? 
 
 The tale-telling effects produced on the part of 
 the body by its occupant are, to the percipient of 
 them, sometimes agreeable and sometimes horrible ; 
 sometimes enlivening and sometimes saddening ; 
 sometimes soothing and sometimes rousing. In the 
 list of them must be named appearances which are 
 beautiful human brightnesses, and appearances which 
 are fury-flashings resembling out-darted tongues of 
 night-fire flame. Who has never noticed how the 
 soul, when charged with " the stormy electricity of 
 passion," gives account of itself by way of different 
 parts of the organism which it occupies ? Says 
 Ovid : 
 
 " Rage swells the lips, with black blood fill 3 the veins." 
 
 And says the author of the eighty-sixth essay of 
 The Spectator, " I have seen an eye curse for 
 half an hour together, and an eye-brow call a man 
 a scoundrel." In the moments in which the invisi- 
 ble speaker that uses so many methods and modes of 
 communication, speaks passionately, vain would it 
 be to look or to listen for anything ungenuine. Af- 
 fectation is, then, out of the question. The soul, 
 when agitated and billowy, employs no feigned lan- 
 guage. 
 
 Consider what varieties of bodily expression, both 
 visible and audible, there are which afford knowl- 
 edge of it in its different passional states. Is it 
 affrighted ? If so, then it speaks in a paleness, a 
 trembling, a standing of the hair upright, a starting, 
 and a shrieking. Is it perturbed by grief ? If so, 
 then it speaks in a sighing, a sobbing, a groaning, a 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 65 
 
 screaming, a roaring, a weeping, a distorting of the 
 face, a grinding of the teeth, and a sweating. Is it 
 joyful ? If so, then it speaks in a display of anima- 
 tion and vigor in the eyes, a singing, a leaping, a 
 dancing, and perhaps a shedding of tears. Is it 
 angry ? If so, then it speaks in a pallor of the coun- 
 tenance, a going and a coming of the color, a trepi- 
 dation, a swelling, an ebullition from the mouth, a 
 stamping, and a cloubling-up or clenching of the 
 hands. Is it displeased ? If so, then it speaks in a 
 shaking of the head, and in a frowning and a knit- 
 ting of the brows. Is it ashamed ? If so, then it 
 speaks in blushes and in a downcasting of the eyes. 
 Is it in a pitying mood ? If so, then it speaks in 
 tears and in a turning of the eyes aside. Is it in a 
 wondering mood ? If so, then it speaks in a still, 
 rigid posture of the frame, a casting of the eyes 
 heavenward, and an uplifting of the hands. Is it 
 laughing ? If so, then it speaks in a dilatation of 
 the mouth and the lips, a continued vociferous ex- 
 pulsion of the breath, a shaking of the breast and 
 the sides, and a running of water from the eyes. 
 What a spontaneous, straightforward, undelusive 
 outgiving of information there is in each one of 
 these sorts of language ! How full they all are of 
 meaning ! Na} r , how they overflow with it ! And 
 what is here said of them might truly be said of all 
 the other sorts of language which may properly be 
 included among the many whereof they are a few. 
 Did we but learn to interpret the lesser, as we have 
 learned to interpret the greater, shows, actions and 
 sounds of the body which are significant of the soul, 
 what an acquaintance would we come to have with 
 5 
 
66 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 this heaven-made thing ! What Shakespeare-like 
 knowers of it would we come to be ? We would, 
 then, often be able, while looking at some " thin, 
 veined wrist," to say, — 
 
 " In such a little tremor of the blood, 
 The whole strong clamor of a vehement soul 
 Doth utter itself distinct." 
 
 The languages in which the inner man speaks by 
 way of the outer are not entirely the same, in one 
 stage of life as in another; nor are they altogether the 
 same in any individual instance as in another. From 
 the revealings made by the conscious self through a 
 mature body, expect not to gather much knowledge 
 about the mental nature as it is in the "salad days" 
 of its history. The poet says of adolescence : 
 
 " In that first onrush of life's chariot wheels, 
 We know not if the forests move or we." 
 
 The truth is, the soul in youth is, in a thousand 
 respects, unlike what it is in age ; and accordingly it 
 manifests itself in youth, in a thousand character- 
 istics of the body, unlike those in which it mani- 
 fests itself in age. Elasticity of limb and buoyancy 
 of form, pliancy of bone and flexibility of fiber and 
 ligament, bouncingness of blood and dewy mellow- 
 ness of tissue, a spontaneity and a fluency of utter- 
 ance in tenor tones, and a brightness of the eyes as 
 unrestful almost as the Northern Lights, — these, 
 each of them in some high degree, are among the 
 effects on the body which are wrought by the soul 
 when in its juvenile stage, and in which it then 
 speaks of what it is and of what it can. He whose 
 frame is the subject of such effects, has a youthful 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 67 
 
 mind and heart ; he whose frame is the subject of 
 effects which are their opposites, has an unyouthful 
 mind and heart. There are some juveniles that are 
 more senile than juvenile. They are precociously 
 wise. A loveliness, pale, serene, unnatural, charac- 
 terizes them. They go about, each in a form which 
 is scarcely more than " a little quantity of matter 
 containing a light, an excuse for a soul to remain 
 upon the earth." They have a solemn bodily air and 
 a precise and dignified bodily movement, as if they 
 " were setting an example for their ancestors." Boys 
 and girls answering to such a description, seem to 
 have souls that have grown old without having been 
 young. 
 
 It is ever interesting to notice and to try to inter- 
 pret the effects of the soul on the body, in cases of 
 human greatness. Great men in general have a pos- 
 ture neither pertly straight nor proudly rigid, but 
 nobly easy ; they have a deliberate and firm step, 
 sometimes leonine, sometimes elephantine ; they have 
 an utterance which both commands and engages, 
 which comprises both the sound of power and the 
 intonation of modesty ; they have in their ordinary 
 and most tranquil look, either an aspect as if they 
 were beholding something away back in the vast in- 
 terior of their being, or an aspect as if they were 
 gazing at something far beyond the expanses of the 
 present and the pre-discerned elevations of the near 
 future. When a great man is stirred up into an in- 
 tense state, he has a glance as effective as was Ahas- 
 uerus' scepter. Goethe the majestic German, and 
 Webster the majestic American, each had bodily 
 characteristics like these. All great men are uncom- 
 
68 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 monly rich in magnetism. But this who shall de- 
 scribe ? We know that it is some penetrating out- 
 come. We know that we cannot directly behold 
 them without feeling it attract and thrill us. " Soon 
 as we really see a real great man," said Theodore 
 Parker, "his magnetism draws us, will we or no." 
 What is that of which he, who was himself a great 
 man, thus spoke ? Is it the soul, in such a manner 
 projected as to be to some extent without the body as 
 well as within it? Is it an effluence from the soul? 
 Is it an aura which the soul, by reason of its own 
 energy, obliges the body to exhale ? Who can tell ? 
 Certain facts there are, however, respecting it which 
 may be definitely stated. It is something whereof 
 every person has his or her degree ; it is something 
 which is intimately connected with the conscious 
 self, since, if the latter were out of the body, or 
 were asleep therein, then nothing like that same 
 thing would characterize the body ; and it is some- 
 thing of which the great man has so much, that his 
 features teem with it, the air around him for a not 
 inconsiderable distance is saturated with it, and 
 those who approach into his presence are, in a meas- 
 ure, fascinated. 
 
 Other instructive effects of the soul on the organic 
 house in which it leads its earthly life, claim to be 
 mentioned. The inimitable Victor Hugo sets forth 
 one of them in the passage: 
 
 " There are moments in battle when the soul hardens a man, 
 so that it changes the soldier into a statue, and all flesh becomes 
 granite." 
 
 He sets forth another of them in the words : 
 
 " In great and lofty natures, the revolt of the flesh and of the 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HEEITAGE. 69 
 
 senses, when suffering from physical pain, makes the soul appear 
 on the brow, in the same way as the mutiny of troops compels the 
 captain to show himself." 
 
 Instances there are of disease, instances also of 
 Somnambulism, of Mesmerism, of Odylism, and — 
 who can doubt it ? — of what is called Spiritualism, 
 wherein the soul, that busy indweller, works on the 
 body vivid effects, all which are kinds of speech 
 employed by it in its unceasing process of self- 
 reporting. Despise no human outcomes, thou stu- 
 dent, thou philosopher, from which there may be 
 derived lessons about the inner man. Believe not 
 in divining-rod miracles, believe not in miracles of 
 electro-biology and of table-turning ; but carefully 
 attend to any curious anthropological facts, any 
 noteworthy effects of the soul on the body, which 
 are included under these heads. Acknowledge no 
 science of Phrenology and no science of Physiogno- 
 my ; but pay good heed to the phenomena whereon 
 these so-called sciences have been built. An emi- 
 nent authority, alluding to Lavater's physiognomical 
 system, remarks that no one will venture to pro- 
 nounce it " totally fanciful or absurd," and that 
 " there is no one who, in his intercourse with the 
 world, does not practice it in a greater or less de- 
 gree." * And are not these words applicable to 
 many another system, made up of real and hypothet- 
 ical data, — that, for example, of the Phrenologists, 
 that of the Spiritualists, &c. ? 
 
 Is one able to write, or speak, or see, after the 
 manner signified by the term " mediumistic " ? Do 
 
 * See article on Physiognomy in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia. 
 
70 THE GEE AT SLTGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 not ridicule him or her for being able so to do ; but 
 from the human facts in the case, taken by them- 
 selves, learn something concerning the conscious 
 human self, and be thankful. "All things," says 
 Cicero, " that are done according to nature, are to 
 be accounted good." A safe rule for well-poised 
 persons, all over the world, is to study every phe- 
 nomenon of every kind whatsoever, from which may 
 be caught by the eye or the ear a part of that 
 great and endless story — the story of the soul. 
 
 Much may be learned concerning the thinking 
 essence from the outcomes which distinguish all real 
 conversational discourse, as well as all real melody- 
 making with the voice. Talk that has meaning and 
 magnetism in it ; talk that is animated, fervent, stir- 
 ring, prevailing ; talk that is of that not very com- 
 mon order whereof people say, " There's heart in 
 it," or, " There's soul in it," what a phenomenon is 
 this ! Is it not an effect which carries a large and 
 manifold freight of instruction relative to its cause ? 
 There is a harp, and its chords are in the body. 
 The soul, whenever it engages earnestly and win- 
 somely in conversation, and whenever it expresses 
 in vocal song thoughts which are wholly its own, or 
 thoughts which it has made its own by adoption, — 
 plays on this harp. How delightfully Coleridge, 
 Macaulay, Margaret Fuller, and Thoreau played on 
 it ! How impressive the music Carlyle and Emer- 
 son have a thousand times made it give forth ! It is 
 the HARP OF thought. The present writer, mus- 
 ing once thereon, had a train of reflections which he 
 was moved to put in verse ; and here are the stan- 
 zas which he composed : 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 71 
 
 When, in the inner realm, Thoughts, thickly-thronging, 
 
 Gather at some strong Feeling's magic call, 
 And winged words are formed, and there's a longing 
 
 Ungladdened ears to thrill, to charm, t'enthrall, 
 Then chords within the living frame, vibrating, 
 
 Shed lovely tones and cadences around ; 
 Then doth that Harp of Nature's own creating — 
 
 The Harp of Thought — with melody abound. 
 
 What bosom hath not, by a quicker beating, 
 
 Told how its music can beguile and win? 
 Who hath not felt, when care his heart was eating, 
 
 How good it was to drink its sweet sounds in? 
 Sometimes that Harp's melodious gushes rally 
 
 Fast-sinking courage to the pitch of fire ; 
 And sometimes one, far down in life's low valley, 
 
 Learns how its music's might can lift souls higher. 
 
 On foreign soil, a pilgrim wandered lonely, 
 
 His white feet moving near grim heathen gods ; 
 He met and mingled with dark strangers only, — 
 
 Men who adored things gross as stones and clods. 
 But wheresoe'er he trod, they gathered round him, 
 
 He played with skill upon the Harp of Thought; 
 The spell of Truth sublime and holy bound him, 
 
 They heard that Harp's blest strains, and cursed him not. 
 
 The music was not lost. It rolled victorious 
 
 Along the superstition-burdened air; 
 In it were seeds, whence sprung a harvest glorious ; 
 
 Dull souls received them, and grew wise and fair. 
 O potent Harp ! in many a land of greenness, 
 
 How much of bliss men owe to thy dear tones ! 
 Thou helpest troubled minds to gain sereneness, 
 
 And thou dost soothe the weary breast that moans. 
 
72 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 OPINIONS AS TO THE SOUL'S NATURE. 
 
 " Whatever is preached to us, and whatever we learn, we should 
 still remember that it is man that gives and man that receives ; 'tis 
 a mortal hand that presents it to us ; 'tis a mortal hand that accepts 
 it. The things that come to us from heaven have the sole right 
 and authority of persuasion, the sole mark of truth." 
 
 Montaigne, Apology for Raimond Sebond. 
 
 Greatly instructive is it to observe how medita- 
 tive men of different epochs have spoken in refer- 
 ence to the soul's nature. I will mention the opin- 
 ions on this subject of some of the philosophers of 
 antiquity, some of the profound inquirers of modern 
 past centuries, and some of the exploring thinkers 
 of the passing age. Not only to the views of minds 
 wisely curious and contemplative will I advert, but 
 also to the views of 
 
 " Minds mad with reasoning, and fancy-fed." 
 
 Many an old-time searcher into mental mysteries 
 there was, whose avowed doctrine concerning the 
 soul, though to not a few of his contemporaries it 
 may have seemed reasonable, seems to us wildly 
 inconsistent. Anaximander represented the soul as 
 a compound of earth and water. Parmenides pro- 
 nounced it a compound of earth and fire. Empedo- 
 cles maintained that it consists in blood, and has its 
 seat in the sanguineous fluid of the body. Cleanthes 
 and Posidonius both declared it to be heat, or a hot 
 
THE INESTIMABLE 1NTEEI0E. HERITAGE. 73 
 
 complexion. Crates and DicaBarchus alike asserted 
 that it is only a natural stirring of the body. Hesiod 
 expressed the opinion that it is the result of a 
 union of earth and water ; in other words, the same 
 opinion avowed several centuries after his time by 
 Anaximander. Zeno averred that it seemed to him 
 to be fire. Asclepiades held it to be an exercising 
 of the senses. It was conceived by Xenocrates 
 to be number, and by Aristoxenus to be harmony. 
 Heraclides Ponticus deemed it to be identical in 
 substance with light. The Chaldean philosophers 
 affirmed it to be a vital habit of the human frame. 
 Hippocrates claimed that it is a spirit diffused 
 throughout the body ; and Varro, that it is a kind 
 of air, received at the mouth, heated in the lungs, 
 moistened in the heart, and thence extending to all 
 parts of the corporeal structure. The Pythagoreans 
 taught that the soul is the principle of animal life 
 and sensation, and that with it is connected the 
 spirit or intellect, to which belong the higher human 
 faculties. Socrates believed the soul to be that 
 which moves the body, and is tha.man's self. Plato 
 considered it an invisible, self-moving being, which 
 can neither be dissipated nor annihilated, which, if it 
 retains its purity without any mixture of filth from 
 the body, is destined at death to repair to a Being 
 ever-living and divine, with whom or in whom it 
 will enjoy an inexpressible felicity, but which, if 
 it becomes stained and polluted by too intimate a 
 commerce with the body, is destined at death to 
 depart therefrom with a load of impurity that will 
 drag it down to the earth, and make it to be like 
 those souls known as gloomy phantoms or specters, 
 
74 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 wandering about tombs. Aristotle regarded it as 
 the realized principle of action, potentially existing 
 in germinal corporeal matter; and he was accus- 
 tomed to designate it by the term entelechy, — " a 
 new-coined word," says Cicero, " signifying per- 
 petual motion." Thales held that it is a nature 
 which is without repose and which moves of itself. 
 Lactantius and Seneca both confessed that they did 
 not understand what it is ; and Galen often said 
 that he could not venture to affirm anything con- 
 cerning its nature. Saint Austin called it a self- 
 moving spiritual substance. 
 
 According to Spinoza, the soul is a modification 
 of thought ; and thought is one of the infinite attri- 
 butes of Deity. According to Montaigne, the soul 
 is something never other than a soul, which, by 
 power of its own, reasons, remembers, comprehends, 
 judges, desires, and performs various other opera- 
 tions, making use in so doing of various instruments 
 of the body, in like manner as the pilot, regulated 
 by his experience, guides his ship, one while strain- 
 ing or slacking the cordage, one while hoisting the 
 mainyard or moving the rudder, by one and the 
 same power working several effects : it is, moreover, 
 something lodged in the brain, since the injuries 
 which touch that part immediately offend the men- 
 tal faculties ; and from the brain it diffuses itself 
 through the other parts of the frame, as the sun 
 sheds from heaven its light and influence, and fills 
 the world therewith. According to " orthodox " in- 
 terpreters of Genesis ii. 7, from Eusebius to Dean 
 Patrick, the soul is an intelligent substance, which 
 bears a resemblance to the divine substance. It has 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTEBIOE HERITAGE. 75 
 
 the body for its earthly covering, and is linked to 
 the body by that powerful bond, the vital breath. 
 
 According to Swedenborg, the soul is the inner- 
 most human nature, and is a spiritual substance, 
 possessing recipient vessels which adapt it to take 
 into itself "influent life." It has, or rather is, an 
 organism, which " consists of perpetual spiral lines," 
 and the figure of which is the same as that of the 
 human body. " The spirit of man, after its separa- 
 tion from the body," he says, "is itself a man, and 
 similar in form." The personality of the soul is in 
 the will. The soul has senses corresponding to the 
 bodily senses, and these, though generally inactive 
 in the present life, are sometimes before death 
 opened and exercised, and the opening of them, on 
 whatever occasion it occurs, is instantly followed by 
 a perception of " the things of another life." " Man 
 is an organ of life, and God alone is life." The life 
 which flows into man is the Spirit of God. Angels 
 are human beings that have departed to the spirit- 
 world. The resurrection is the drawing forth of 
 the soul from the body, and its introduction into 
 that world. Man rises again only as to his soul. 
 Jesus rose as to his body as well as to his soul, 
 because when he was in the world he glorified his 
 entire humanity, — that is to say, made it divine. 
 Man, after death, finds himself to be a man as much 
 as he was before ; he walks, runs, sits, eats, and 
 drinks, as really as he did on earth. There are, in 
 the spirit-world, lands, mountains, fountains, rivers, 
 gardens, groves, woods, houses, cities, books, trades, 
 gold, silver, indeed all things that there are in the nat- 
 ural world, only they are " immensely more perfect" 
 
76 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 in the former than in the latter. The habitations of 
 the angels " are exactly like the habitations on earth 
 called houses, but more beautiful." The architec- 
 ture of heaven is such that one might say it is the 
 very art of architecture itself. The angels have an 
 atmosphere wherein they respire, and wherein they 
 utter articulate speech. The suu that gives them 
 light is God. They go veiled in a thin cloud, lest 
 they should suffer injury from the influx of divine 
 radiance. They wear real garments, which are put 
 on and taken off, and which are of different styles, 
 according to their differences in intelligence. There 
 are marriages in heaven ; but they are for the pro- 
 pagation of good and truth, not for procreation. 
 The angels are very powerful; they can overthrow 
 mountains, or shake them from one end to the other. 
 The angels live together in societies, and engage in 
 affairs domestic, civil, and religious. All of them 
 that are "in similar good" know each other, al- 
 though they never met before. Immediately after 
 death, the soul goes to an intermediate place, resem- 
 bling an undulating valley situated between moun- 
 tains and rocks. There it is examined and prepared 
 for its final abode. Some souls remain there only a 
 moment, some a few weeks, some several years, but 
 none longer than thirty years. Those in whom 
 " good is conjoined with truth," are advanced into 
 heaven : those who are wedded to evil, gravitate to 
 hell. The former come to have beautiful faces, in 
 which all their thoughts and feelings are revealed, 
 and wherein " the interiors appear like light; " the 
 latter come to have deformed faces, wherein the 
 things of the mind appear either black or as a 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 77 
 
 "dusky fire." The senses of the angels are exqui- 
 sitely acute. They can, for example, by their fine 
 sense of touch, distinguish the quality of others, 
 even though they may be at a distance. It is com- 
 mon, there, for persons to appear as present in the 
 place where the view taken is fixed or terminated. 
 The soul, whether on earth or elsewhere, exhales an 
 expiratory principle, which constitutes a " sphere " 
 around it, and that sphere is, as it were, an image of 
 the soul and its character. The expiratory principle 
 flows forth from the region of the affections ; and, 
 while man is in the body, it blends with the efflux 
 which naturally exudes from his physical frame. It 
 is either attractive or repulsive. He says : 
 
 " The inclination of conjugal partners, one toward the other, is 
 from no other origin than this : such partners are united by unan- 
 imous and concordant spheres, and disunited by adverse and dis- 
 cordant spheres; for concordant spheres are delightful and grate- 
 ful, whereas discordant spheres are undelightful and ungrateful. I 
 have been informed by the angels, who are in a clear perception 
 of these spheres, that there is not any part within man nor any 
 without, which does not renew itself, and that this renewal is 
 effected by solutions and reparations, and that hence is the sphere 
 which continually issues forth." 
 
 The doctrine propounded and advocated by Stahl 
 next demands attention. He was a professor of 
 medicine in the university of Halle, Germany, in 
 the second half of the seventeenth century. There 
 is in man, he maintained, an agent to which the 
 body owes all its vital properties. That agent is 
 the anima, or soul. It possesses peculiar qualities 
 distinct from those which belong to matter. Intel- 
 ligence, consciousness, and rationality, appertain to 
 it ; and it is not only the source of the corporeal 
 
78 THE GREAT SLIGHTED EOETUNE. 
 
 vitality, but also the director of all the corporeal 
 operations. He seems to have considered it as an 
 entity intermediate between the body and the spirit. 
 Whytt, a medical professor in Edinburgh University 
 in the first half of the eighteenth century, held that 
 the soul is a sentient principle distinct from the 
 bodily substance, yet necessarily attached thereto, 
 and that it is the immediate fountain of bodily life. 
 He conceived that it performs its actions in conform- 
 ity to the effects produced by external causes, and 
 that, therefore, it does not possess either independent 
 consciousness or a free faculty of volition. 
 
 Quesne's theory of the soul, which is known under 
 the name of " psychism," may well be noticed as 
 we press on in this course of review. He contended 
 that there is a psychic fluid, which is universally dif- 
 fused, and which equally animates all living beings, 
 and that the differences in the actions of such beings 
 are to be attributed solely to differences in their 
 organisms. The opinion of the soul's nature, which 
 was expressed by Formey, in an essay published at 
 Berlin in 1746, by the Royal Academy of Sciences 
 and Belle-Lettres of Germany, is a singular one. He 
 represents the soul as consisting in a spiritual fluid, 
 into which the furthest inner extremities of the 
 nerves dip, and that sensation is the result of vibra- 
 tions communicated along the nerves to that fluid. 
 Tucker, who wrote on psychological topics a few 
 years later than Formey, advanced the hypothesis 
 that the soul, or " spiritual part," is a substance 
 which is naturally penetrable, but " capable of ren- 
 dering itself solid upon occasion, with respect to par- 
 ticular bodies, and that hereon our activity depends.'' 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 79 
 
 This theory, together with that of Formey, is al- 
 luded to in the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia, in the 
 article on Metaphysics. 
 
 We will now glance at opinions of the soul's 
 nature which have been set forth in times compara- 
 tively, and in times absolutely, recent. Some of 
 them are materialistic, some of them anti-material- 
 istic ; but most of them will serve to show that the 
 passing age, utilitarian as it is, has not been, and is 
 not, without its great philosophers, who have exem- 
 plified what Coleridge calls — 
 
 " the earnest scan 
 
 Of manhood, musing what and whence is man." 
 
 Sib Benjamin Bbodie. — Every one * [so avers 
 he in his Psychological Inquiries'] feels himself to 
 be an indivisible, percipient, and thinking being. 
 This, then, is a primary truth, which, like our belief 
 in the external world, neither rests on nor admits of 
 argument. We are unable to conceive the slightest 
 resemblance between the known properties of mat- 
 ter and mental operations. The former exist in 
 space, with which the latter have nothing to do. 
 Our knowledge of mind is of a much more positive 
 kind than our knowledge of matter. We are sure 
 of our mental existence, and we can conceive the 
 existence of mind without matter ; hence there is 
 no absurdit}' in believing they are not necessarily 
 conjoined. The belief of mankind in the indepen- 
 dent existence of spirit and in a future state, is so 
 universal as to assume the aspect of an instinct, 
 which, like every other natural human instinct, is to 
 
80 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 be regarded as directed to the attainment of some 
 real end and object. 
 
 Professor Liebig. — " In the animal body we 
 recognize, as the ultimate cause of all force, only 
 one cause, — the chemical action which the elements 
 of the food and the oxygen of the atmosphere ex- 
 ercise on each other." " Physiology has sufficiently 
 decisive grounds for the opinion that every motion, 
 every manifestation of force, is the result of a trans- 
 formation of the structure or of its substance." 
 
 Professor Mulder. — "Any one who imagines 
 that there is anything else in action in living beings 
 than a molecular force, than chemical force, sees 
 what does not exist." 
 
 Lewes. — The soul is an entity which, before it 
 began its present life, had somewhere lived, some- 
 where exercised intelligent power, somewhere been 
 conscious of experience ; and the instincts which 
 now characterize it are relics of the acquisitions it 
 made in its prior state, — out-gleams from the ashes 
 of its preexistent but "lapsed intelligence." 
 
 Brown-Sequard. — The soul comprises' two 
 natures, essentially different from each other : the 
 one that wherein inhere our ordinary knowing fac- 
 ulties, the operations of which we are alwa} r s able 
 to perceive and trace by consciousness; the other 
 that which is the source of our intuitions, and 
 which cognizes and directs our lives without any 
 effort that we can by any means feel or discern. 
 
 Darwin. — The soul, in his view, is traceable, 
 just as the body is, to a Simian or ape ancestry. 
 " The early progenitors of man," he says, " were no 
 doubt once covered with hair, both sexes having 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 81 
 
 beards, . . . their ears were pointed and capable of 
 movement, and their bodies were provided with a 
 tail, having the proper muscles." His doctrine seems 
 to be, that mind is a species of cerebral effect, that 
 thought and feeling are brain-actions, and that man 
 is simply an organic being of higher order than any 
 other on earth. 
 
 Agassiz. — The soul is an intelligent, conscious 
 power, akin to that which is manifested in nature, 
 and of which nature is the product. It acts and 
 manifests itself only in connection with the organs 
 of a living body ; so that wit hoot brain you have no 
 thinking, without brain you have no expression of 
 intellectual power. It comprises two species of in- 
 telligence, one of which is the reflective, argumen- 
 tative, and combining ; the other the intuitive, or 
 that which acts without the element of logical se- 
 quence and combination that pertains to conscious 
 intellectual effort. Its faculties, in the case of 
 every man, differ only in degree from the intelligent 
 endowments of the brute-vertebrates, but are en- 
 tirely and essentially different from the knowing 
 faculties displayed by insects. It is not connected 
 with certain highly-organized parts of the brain 
 rather than with others, but with the brain in its 
 totality. It is transmitted from parent to child, just 
 as all that makes up its visible organism is ; and, 
 though it had not its primal origin in any line of 
 genetic evolution consisting in a consecutive pro- 
 cession of types, yet how, in the first instance, it 
 originated, is a question for which science does not 
 yet afford an answer. 
 
 Flint. — The mind is produced by the brain- 
 6 
 
82 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 substance, and there can be no intelligence without 
 that species of substance. 
 
 Hammond. — The mind is the result of nervous 
 action ; and the ability to perceive sensations, to be 
 conscious, to understand, to experience emotions, 
 and to will, is in accordance with such action. 
 Consciousness resides exclusively in the brain ; but 
 the other mental qualities are developed with more 
 or less intensity in other parts of the nervous sys- 
 tem, as well as in that one. 
 
 Frederick Harrison. — The soul is a name for 
 the combined faculties of the living human organism. 
 
 Professor Huxley. — "I understand and I re- 
 spect the meaning of the word soul, as used by 
 pagan and Christian philosophers for what they 
 believe to be the imperishable seat of human per- 
 sonality, bearing throughout eternity its burden of 
 woe, or its capacity for adoration and love. . . . 
 And if I am not satisfied with the evidence that is 
 offered me that such a soul and such a future life 
 exist, I am content to take what is to be had, and to 
 make the best of the brief span of existence that is 
 within my reach, without reviling those whose faith 
 is more robust, and whose hopes are richer and 
 fuller." 
 
 Professor Tyndall. — " That hypothesis [the 
 hypothesis of a free human soul] is offered as an 
 explanation or simplification of a series of phenom- 
 ena more or less obscure. But adequate reflection 
 shows that instead of introducing light into our 
 minds, it increases our darkness." " Molecular mo- 
 tion produces consciousness." " Amid all our spec- 
 ulative uncertainty, there is one practical point as 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 83 
 
 clear as the day — namely, that the brightness and 
 the usefulness of life, as well as its darkness and dis- 
 aster, depend to a great extent upon our own use or 
 abuse of this miraculous organ." " From that hum- 
 ble society [our non-human progenitors], through 
 the interaction of its members and the storing-up of 
 their best qualities, a better one emerged ; from this 
 again a better still, until at length, by the integra- 
 tion of infinitesimals through ages of amelioration, 
 we came to be what we are to-day." 
 
 Professor Virchow. — " At this moment there 
 are, probably, few naturalists who are not of opinion 
 that man is allied to the rest of the animal world, 
 and that a connection will possibly be found, if not, 
 indeed, with apes, then, perhaps, in some other di- 
 rection." "But yet I must declare that every step 
 of positive progress which we have made in the 
 domain of pre-historic anthropology, has really re- 
 moved us further away from the proof of this con- 
 nection." " On the whole, we must really acknowl- 
 edge that all fossil type of a lower human develop- 
 ment is absolutely wanting." "As a fact, we must 
 positively acknowledge that there is always a sbarp 
 limit between man and the ape. We cannot teach, 
 we cannot designate it as a revelation of science, 
 that man descends from the ape, or from any other 
 animal." 
 
 Topinard. — There is no radical difference be- 
 tween man and most animals ; and the fundamental 
 distinction between him and the ape is in quantity 
 of brain, of which the former has three or four 
 times as much as the latter. Man had his origin in 
 " an albuminous clot formed lr^ a fortuitous union 
 
84 THE GREAT SLTGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 of certain elements of carbon, oxygen, hydrogen, 
 and nitrogen." Out of that clot sprang, by spon- 
 taneous generation, minute vital cells; these, after 
 undergoing nine successive transformations, gave 
 rise to a certain low genus of vertebrates (the am- 
 phioxus lanoeolatus) ; and when there had occurred 
 twenty-two long steps in the course of evolution, 
 the human being appeared as the terminus of the 
 line of tailless and tailed descendants. 
 
 Letourneatj. — There is no separate existence 
 under the name of mind, spirit, life, or force. The 
 universe contains nothing but matter, the constit- 
 uents of which are animated, self-existent, eternal 
 atoms. These have a movement which they trans- 
 mit to one another, and which, as it endlessly goes 
 on, transforms itself in a multitude of ways. The 
 transformations produce organisms, vital properties, 
 sensations, perceptions, consciousness. Between 
 organized living bodies and inorganic bodies, there 
 is no radical ground of distinction. Living organ- 
 isms are the results of spontaneous generation from 
 inorganic matter. Life has no object, since it is 
 simply the result of a fortuitous concurrence of 
 cosmical, geological, climacteric, and even orological 
 facts. The nerve-cells give rise to muscular con- 
 tractions, are conscious of the effects produced on 
 them by surrounding mediums, and are capable of 
 experiencing pain and pleasure. They are intelli- 
 gently alive to impressions. Not only can the3^ 
 perceive sensations, but they can treasure them up, 
 and, in a thousand modes, combine them. Indeed, 
 they can think and will. 
 
 Hedge. — The soul is a part of the planetary life, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 85 
 
 and can never, while that life endures, be divorced 
 from the planetary system. Dying is not migration. 
 This earth is to be man's future and eternal abode. 
 In the course of human development the time is to 
 come when death will no longer occupy the place it 
 now does in the human economy. " We do not go 
 to heaven, but heaven comes to us." Ultimately, 
 the soul is to have a new organism, which will be of 
 a corporeal nature, and it is supposable and likely 
 that, in its prospective organism, the memories gar- 
 nered up in connection with the present body will 
 not be retained. The hypothesis of the soul's pre- 
 existence best matches the supposition of its con- 
 tinued existence hereafter. 
 
 Bascom. — There is an unbridged gulf between 
 the highest human intelligence and the highest in- 
 telligence of brutes. Man has insight, with all the 
 awe, the solemnity, and the fearfulness which go 
 with it ; the brutes have it not. Man is capable of 
 u alarms from a far-off future;" the brutes are ca- 
 pable of no such alarms. Man recognizes " somber 
 duties" as incumbent on him ; the brutes recognize 
 no such duties as incumbent on them. Man is con- 
 versant with high and wonderful intuitions — with 
 piimary truths relative to being, to time, to space, 
 to causation, to moral distinctions, to the spiritual 
 and to the divine, to the infinite and to the eternal ; 
 the brutes are strangers to all such truths. 
 
 Whedon. — We have a lower generic class of 
 mental operations which we share with brutes, and a 
 higher which we share with higher natures than our 
 own. " It may not be necessary to say there are 
 two separate entities in us, yet it is certain the lower 
 
86 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 one does exist separately in the brutes, and that our 
 own glorified bodies will lose most, if not all, our 
 animal nature. And this is the very thing implied 
 in Paul's soulical and spiritual body." The trinality 
 of human nature, expressed by Paul in the terms 
 body, soul, and spirit, has great value both in ex- 
 egetics and in theology. 
 
 Lionel Beale. — The living I and the vital 
 power of the highest form of bioplasm or germinal 
 matter in nature, are identical. 
 
 Ulrici. — The soul is a distinct substance in us, 
 that wherein inhere our sense of identity and our 
 power to see and to feel. That we should conclude 
 thus, is required by the law of cause and effect. 
 There can not be a sense of identity without some- 
 thing to which that sense belongs. There can not be 
 seeing without something that sees. There can not 
 be feeling without something that feels. We are 
 capable of perceiving our identity, therefore there 
 must be a perceiver of identity. The percipience 
 of our identity is constant ; therefore the perceiver 
 of it must be, in spite of the yearly change of the 
 body, a constant, perennial unit. The soul acts both 
 consciously and unconsciously. It is surrounded by 
 a non-atomic ethereal " enswathement," from which 
 it is not separated at death ; and the vital proper- 
 ties of man result from the action of the soul on 
 the body through that subtile inner medium. The 
 soul, operating not only consciously but also uncon- 
 sciously in union with its invisible semi-material in- 
 vestiture, is the organizing life-principle in the body. 
 
 Hermann Lotze. — The soul is the substantial 
 and permanent bearer of the phenomena of our inner 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 87 
 
 life. Like all other finite things, it is an illustration 
 of the work of the Eternal. Not necessarily is it 
 forever indestructible ; but it will endure forever, 
 provided it is, " on account of its worth and mean- 
 ing," a permanent member of the world's order. 
 u All which lacks this worth will come to an end." 
 We cannot well even dare to wish to decide " which 
 spiritual creation has gained for itself immortality 
 through the everlasting importance to which it has 
 raised itself, and to which other this has been de- 
 nied." Accordingly, the belief we are to fall back 
 upon is the belief that " to every being will the lot 
 fall to which it is entitled." 
 
 Professor Ludwig Schoberlein. — The soul is 
 essentially the vital organizing force which dwells 
 in the body. Unlike the vital force which acts in 
 plants, it is capable of sensation and of bringing the 
 organism wherein it resides into different relations to 
 the outer world. It appropriates from that world the 
 materials suitable for its body. " The formation of the 
 body is not a result of mere chemical affinities be- 
 tween different elements of matter; but it is a vital 
 process : it proceeds from the animate principle. The 
 soul assumes to itself such elements as -adequately 
 express objectively its life and its wants. It itself, and 
 not chemical affinities, is the organizing principle." 
 By nature, the soul is a participant of the Spirit of 
 God, as well as of the realm of matter. It is conse- 
 quently a substance that stands midway between 
 nature and God, and man, by reason of this fact, is 
 both a nature-soul, or yvx*], and a spirit-soul, or nvsvfia. 
 It is inherent in him to gravitate toward the spirit- 
 world. The soul's higher powers, those which are 
 
88 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 rational and spiritual, do not belong to it per se, but 
 are called forth under a training which makes it 
 appropriate to itself the elements of the world of 
 spirit, wherewith it is constitutionally connected. 
 By reason of its participation of the Spirit of God, 
 it is destined to an endless life. In its absolutely 
 natural condition, or when it is wholly within the 
 sphere of nature, the soul does not plastically react 
 on the body ; but its outgoings are, then, determined 
 by its instincts, which are direct actions of God and 
 direct realizations of His intention. " The highest 
 perfection of the future no less than of the present 
 life, calls for a corporeity of the soul." It will 
 need a spiritual body in heaven, as much as it needs 
 a fleshly body on earth ; and at death, it will depart 
 with a germinally-extant spiritual body, which it 
 will ultimately render complete by drawing to itself 
 the quintessence of a transfigured or glorified mate- 
 rial system. The spiritual body is immortal, because, 
 " being participant of the spirit, it shares the spirit's 
 immortality." In the present life, it is not a devel- 
 oped organism, but the vital germ of one, like the 
 germ which lies invisibly imbedded in the substance 
 of the actual wheat-grain, and which " cannot come 
 into actualit} r till that substance shall have fallen 
 away." The matter out of which the spirit will 
 finally consummate its inner germinal body, will be 
 that of a new heaven and a new earth, resulting from 
 the transfiguration by fire of the present system of 
 external nature. The consummate organism man 
 will have, after that grand general transfiguration, 
 will be the resurrection-body. u It will move at 
 will through the realm of space. Wherever the soul 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 89 
 
 may will to be, there it will be able to be." Man's 
 relation to nature will be an active relation. " The 
 whole realm of glorified materiality will be one vast 
 platform for the plastic influence of glorified spirits." 
 The soul, by truly living on its spirit-side, not only 
 becomes spiritualized, but has a spiritualizing effect 
 on its body and on other matter. It thus tends to 
 exalt itself from a merely psychic or soulical into a 
 pneumatic state. Jesus had the Spirit of God nat- 
 urally as all other men ; but he yielded to its full 
 guidance, and thus realized the union of human 
 nature with the divine. In so doing, he laid the 
 foundation for the transfiguration of his body; and 
 the transfiguring process went on in it continually, the 
 effect of the same being often shown in his miracles 
 of mastery over his frame and over external nature. 
 The change of his fleshly organism into a resurrec- 
 tion-body was completed after his death. " The 
 essence of his body remained the same ; simply the 
 mode of its existence was changed." It is by' our 
 free choice between a merely psychic life and a life 
 of communion with the divine Spirit, that we real- 
 ize the higher spiritualization of our nature ; and 
 God's incarnation and revelation of Himself are 
 methods intended by Him to secure that end. 
 
 Joseph Cook. — The opinion relative to the sours 
 nature, which Mr. Cook holds and has advanced, 
 would claim to be thoughtfully noticed here, even 
 were it impossible to state more than a very few 
 points of it correctly. He has done a great service 
 for Americans and Englishmen, in unfolding in the 
 terms of his incisive and brilliant rhetoric, the philo- 
 sophic and psychological ideas of those masterly 
 
90 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 German thinkers, Ulrici, Lotze, and Schoberlein — 
 ideas which (if I mistake not) are destined to have 
 high prominence and familiar elucidation in the 
 science, the art, the literature, and the theology of 
 coming years. Not being able fully to understand 
 his own theory on the subject mentioned, the pres- 
 ent writer submitted to a valued, clear-minded cor- 
 respondent (Rev. Charles B. Sheldon, pastor of the 
 Congregational Church in San Buenaventura, Cal.) 
 these two questions : " What is Cook's doctrine of 
 the soul ? Does he make the life-power and the 
 soul (TO 7 /) identical ? " The following is the in- 
 teresting answer which was received : 
 
 " 'Does he make the life-power and the soul (<A^ f /) identical?' 
 I think not. I understand him to adopt Ulriei's theory, that ' the 
 soul is the occupant of a non-atomic ether, that fills the whole 
 form and lies behind the mysterious weaving of the tissues.' 'It 
 co-operates with the vital force, but is not identical with it.' This 
 is a point which he says Lotze and Ulrici take much pains to dis- 
 tinguish. ' The immaterial principle [by this I suppose he must 
 mean the soul, the V 1 ^ 1 ?] i s not necessarily to be thought of as 
 identical with what has been called the vital force. That which 
 moves these bioplasts, and causes them to build on a plan kept in 
 view from the first and maintained as a unit to the last, we say 
 must be an adequate cause of these motions, and that is not the 
 vital force simply, although it may be the vital force, with this 
 other psychical force behind it; and yet the two are always to be 
 carefully distinguished from each other.' Man has a threefold 
 constitution: the atomic material body (corpus), the immaterial 
 spirit (soul), and a somewhat intermediate ' enswathement' (I do 
 not like that term) which is non- atomic and so far immaterial, yet 
 it has some of the properties of matter, such as extension, length, 
 breadth, and thickness. I do not think Cook is clear in defining 
 what he means by ' vital force.' Evidently he cannot use this 
 term as identical in import with ' life ; ' for he elsewhere defines 
 life to be 'the power which co-ordinates germinal matter.' Now, 
 put this definition in the above quotation, in the place of the words, 
 1 That which moves these bioplasts,' &c, and we will have the 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 91 
 
 statement, 'Life, the power which co-ordinates germinal matter, 
 is not the vital force simply, but the vital force with this other 
 psychical force behind it.' Now, if life is not vital force, what is 
 vital force? Is it identical with this spiritual or ethereal body? 
 Probably he would say, No, though I confess myself somewhat 
 confused with his use of different terms. But to go on unfolding 
 his view, chiefly in his own language : ' The soul, as the occupant of 
 this ethereal enswathement, operates in part unconsciously and in 
 part consciously. It is the morphological agent which weaves all 
 living tissues, nerves, tendons, the brain, &c. [This seems to 
 make the soul, together with its enswathement, identical with life- 
 power.] When it rises to the state of consciousness, it produces 
 the phenomena known as thought, emotion, will. The proof that 
 there is such a non-atomic substance, in which mind inheres, is, 
 that it is required by the persistence of our sense of individuality, 
 or our unity of consciousness or sense of identity. This seems 
 inconsistent with the constant flux of particles which takes place 
 in our material bodies. There must be some permanent substra- 
 tum as the foundation for this unity of consciousness. For every 
 effect must have an adequate cause. Another proof is the unity 
 of plan on which our bodies are constantly woven. The particles 
 change, the plan persists. There must be a somewhat that causes 
 this permanence of form. We supply the non-atomic spiritual 
 body.' Now, I am not sure that I have in all this answered your 
 questions. I thought at first that I knew Cook's position. But I 
 am not so confident of it now as when I began. To the inquiry, 
 ' Does he make the life-power and the soul identical ? ' I answer 
 modestly, No ; but he holds that the soul, together with a non- 
 atomic form in which it inheres and with which it co-operates, is 
 the life-power, or, in other words, the power which co-ordinates 
 germinal matter." 
 
92 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 VII. 
 
 DEFINITIONS OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " The pressure of the general intellectual influences of the 
 time determines the predispositions which ultimately regulate the 
 details of belief; and though all men do not yield to that pressure 
 with the same facility, all large bodies are at last controlled." 
 
 Leckt, History of Rationalism in Europe. 
 
 " The change of times and the change of conditions change also 
 the appearance of things which in themselves are the same they 
 always were." Froude, Short Studies on Great Subjects, p. 200. 
 
 What is a just and adequate statement, expres- 
 sive of the ideas and the conclusions which are worthy 
 to be treasured up as truths concerning the self- 
 knowing substance ? Here is an inquiry which, to 
 say the least, is trying to human capability and a 
 test of human enlightenment. Many are they who, 
 though actually rich in knowledge of that viewless 
 heritage whence comes all the brightness which be- 
 longs to the faces of mortals, prefer, whenever they 
 are plied for a definition of it, either to be silent or 
 to answer evasively. Were the inquiry named above 
 to be submitted to them, the way in which they 
 would treat it might be modest enough, but it would 
 fall far short of being the best. " Know thyself" 
 was the motto inscribed on the Delphic temple of 
 old. And Pope says : 
 
 " Be sure yourself, and your own reach to know." 
 
 It is good to know ourselves j is it not good also 
 to define ourselves? It must be confessed, how- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 93 
 
 ever, that to do this is not easy. Indeed, when the 
 attempt to do it is most successful, the result of the 
 doing is but an unfinished work. Why must it be 
 so ? Do we not hold to our conscious nature a rela- 
 tion of the greatest possible closeness ? " We are 
 nearer neighbors to ourselves," says Montaigne, 
 " than whiteness to snow or weight to stones." And 
 if this declaration of that tireless, honest, ever- 
 cheerful student of the soul be true, what, then, is 
 there to prevent us being well able, explicitly and 
 fully, to tell what the soul is ? I will intimate the 
 explanation. 
 
 We are not such beings as can know all that any- 
 thing is; consequently, we can never, except approxi- 
 mately, define a given thing. The measure of what 
 we can know about the soul, is, in all probability, 
 very small in comparison with the measure of what 
 we cannot know about it ; therefore we will, in all 
 probability, never be able, in undertaking to define 
 it, to present other than a comparatively very incom- 
 plete statement. Certain it is, however, that just 
 in proportion to the increase of our knowledge of 
 the soul, in that proportion will our definition of it 
 become more and more comprehensive. Progress 
 respecting the former is the co-mate of progress 
 respecting the latter. If one belonging to some 
 snowless clime, should see snow falling softly from 
 the welkin, the definition he would at first give of 
 it would embrace only one or two facts about it. 
 After learning that every flake of snow is a collec- 
 tion of beautiful little snow-crystals, he would 
 modify his definition in such a manner as to make 
 it express more about snow ; and after learning that 
 
94 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 flakes of snow-crystals are produced by the freezing 
 of drops of rain in the air, when the air is under a 
 certain degree of frigid temperature, he would, of 
 course, modify again his definition, making it ex- 
 press still more about that same fair physical wonder. 
 Now, so it is in the case of the soul. The acqui- 
 sition of knowledge concerning this entity is a con- 
 tinuous and never-ending process. Carlyle quotes 
 the saying, " Man is perennially interesting to 
 man." It is a true averment. Man finds in man 
 communications more interesting to him than any 
 others that originate within the bounds of this 
 world. The author of them is the soul, and the 
 theme of them is the soul ; and he studies them, 
 and studies them, and tires not of studying them, 
 for they have a charm which is unfailing. Those 
 communications are the soul's phenomena. From 
 immemorial time they have, as if there were some 
 marvelous magic in them, wrought upon human 
 attention. In the present age they are studied 
 under circumstances far better adapted than were 
 those of any former age to aid in securing a correct 
 interpretation of them, and by intellects far better 
 qualified than were those of former ages to pene- 
 trate through them into the self-knowing substance 
 which is their producer. As the study of them has 
 gone on, in one period of history and another, it has 
 sometimes had for its consequence the abandonment 
 of notions entertained concerning the soul, and some- 
 times the addition of new ideas and conclusions to 
 those already held in respect to it, the result gener- 
 ally being an increase of knowledge relative to that 
 entity. The same study will go on in the future ; 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 95 
 
 and who can doubt that it will result in a deeper and 
 deeper penetration into mental mysteries, and in suc- 
 cessive additions to the stock of human knowledge 
 of the human being? And just as in the past the 
 statement used to express what was held in relation 
 to the soul became more and more comprehensive ac- 
 cording to the progress which was made in knowing 
 the soul, so in the future the statement used to ex- 
 press what is held in relation to it will become more 
 and more comprehensive according to the same 
 kind of progress ; for definitions ever take shape 
 in harmony with ideas and conclusions which are 
 adopted as knowledge. The scientist can never tell 
 all that electricity is ; but he may hope to become 
 able, in defining it, to state much more of what is 
 true about it than he can state now. The theo- 
 logian can never declare all that God is ; but he 
 may hope to become able to define God more fully, 
 more wisely, more satisfactorily. And likewise, the 
 explorer of the soul, while certain that he can never 
 in any definition tell all that it is, may hope to be- 
 come able to set forth in his statement of what is 
 true concerning it much more than he can, at pres- 
 ent, formulate, or even vaguely suggest. 
 
 It is evident that he who speaks of the soul's na- 
 ture should not speak dogmatically. Let him firmty 
 declare what he firmly believes respecting the self- 
 knowing substance ; but let him not declare the 
 same as if he were giving a definition for men of 
 future ages. It were well if, before venturing to 
 speak thereof, he should learn a lesson from the 
 Sphinx concerning silence, and a lesson from ancient 
 wisdom concerning comprehensiveness. Perchance, 
 
96 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 even in that case, better far than his will be the 
 words,,of some after-comer who shall treat the same 
 subject. 
 
 It was not the intention of the writer of these 
 pages to construct a formal definition of the soul. 
 He aimed at something much more useful — namely, 
 to specify and illustrate the more important ideas 
 and conclusions which " the pressure of the general 
 intellectual influences " of the passing period con- 
 strains one to express in such a definition. The 
 purpose here mentioned will now be carried into 
 effect. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 THE INNATE DIGNITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 "By the soul 
 Only the nations shall be great and free." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 The soul is by nature a superior entity. In other 
 words, there belongs to it a high degree of innate 
 dignity. Often it is treated as if it were inferior, 
 unimportant, cheap, — perhaps as if it were of little 
 more account than some leaf of paper which may 
 fitly enough be scribbled on and blotted ; but, how- 
 ever ignobly it may be treated, it is never in itself 
 ignoble. On the contrary, there is due it, from the 
 first moment of its existence, a rare respect, on ac- 
 count of its elevated inborn rank. By comparing 
 what we are conscious of as belonging to it, and what 
 we observe to be its outer phenomena with what 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 97 
 
 we perceive to appertain to other finite things, and 
 to be manifestations of their essence, we can settle 
 the question whether the former is or is not by nature 
 more estimable and more admirable than the latter. 
 And who has never formed thus an opinion of the 
 inherent superiority of the self-knowing substance ? 
 Who has never thus arrived at the conclusion that, 
 in point of inherited nobility, that substance is wor- 
 thy of a surpassing repute ? 
 
 With a very great admiration men have viewed 
 and contemplated the sun. In by-gone periods, 
 there were fond beholders of it, who hesitated not 
 to regard it as something inexpressibly majestic and 
 sublime. As they saw that magnificent dispenser 
 of daylight rising and setting to the world, illumi- 
 nating the hills and the valleys, gilding with bright- 
 ness the waters, imparting warmth to the soil, and 
 causing luxuriance to spring up out of decay-smitten 
 matter, strength out of dust, and beauty out of dark- 
 ness, they were ready to honor it as an exalted thing 
 in " the most ancient heavens." Some of them — 
 the pagan saints of old Egypt, and even Pythagoras 
 and his reverent pupils at Crotona, in Greece — 
 deemed it to be divine, and worshiped it. Plu- 
 tarch speaks of Eudoxus, an ardent explorer of 
 .nature, who wished and begged of the gods that he 
 might once be permitted to see the sun near at 
 hand, and to gain a knowledge of its form, its great- 
 ness, and its beauty, though he should be consumed 
 while in the exercise of the privilege. 
 
 But what, after all, is the innate dignity of the 
 sun in comparison with that of the soul? This is 
 a question which we, who enjoy the information 
 7 
 
98 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 afforded by modern science, are in a goodly measure 
 qualified to answer. We know that that master- 
 luminary, which Ronsard describes as 
 
 " At rest without rest, idle without stay, 
 Nature's first son, and father of the day," 
 
 is not divine. We know that it is a vast sphere of 
 revolving matter about ninety-two millions of miles 
 distant, and that it turns on its axis once in twenty- 
 five days. We know that its surface is in a molten 
 and hideously eruptive state, so that, though to us 
 it seems to be quiet, there is a noise produced by its 
 convulsions which exceeds a million-fold that of an 
 earthquake. We know that, far above the boiling, 
 raging surface of the sun, are vapors cooler than the 
 matter which is beneath them, and that those vapors 
 contain particles of iron, of copper, of sodium, and 
 of other metals, which are evidences that the sun is 
 composed of materials similar to those of our globe. 
 We know that masses of glowing gas are in process 
 of upheaval there, and that some of them — those 
 of hydrogen — are thrown up to the height of two 
 hundred thousand miles. And we have reason to 
 conclude that there are specimens of those huge 
 fiery gas-columns which, bearing with them metallic 
 and mineral atoms, ascend at the rate of five hun- 
 dred miles per second, and that these pass entirely 
 away from the sun, and never return to it. 
 
 Such is that bright orb to which so many of the 
 ancients paid daily adoration. It is only an enor- 
 mous inflamed material bulk, formed of elements like 
 the constituents of the earth. And accordingly, just 
 as one feels himself compelled to regard the earth as 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 99 
 
 unspeakably inferior by nature to the soul, so he 
 feels himself compelled to regard the sun as un- 
 speakably inferior by nature to it. The soul has not 
 to depend for guidance in action, as the sun does, 
 on power which belongs to some other entity ; it 
 can guide itself. The soul, when disturbed and con- 
 vulsed, is not obliged to continue in its wild state, 
 as far-off, burning, blazing, heaving Sol must in his, 
 till the calm might of some other entity shall assuage 
 the tempest of fire, and bring peace ; it can, in the 
 time of its intense tumult, look back on its fierce 
 lava-sea,- and say, " Peace, be still ! " It is innately 
 royal. It is that which can calculate where an un- 
 discovered continent should be, and then direct a 
 ship across strange trackless waters to that conti- 
 nent's green outskirts ; and it is that which can 
 calculate where an undiscovered planet should be, 
 and then take sight at the empyreal expanse through 
 an adjusted telescope, and ken that very planet in 
 its course. The soul ! it is the home of quenchless 
 longings, and the subject of endless stirrings. The 
 soul ! it is the one sublunary substance that can 
 forecast distant futurity, that can weave the^ web of 
 its own fortune, that can be " an adventurer for an- 
 other world." 
 
100 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE DISTINCTNESS OF THE SOUL FROM THE BODY. 
 
 "There is a spirit in man." 
 
 Book of Job, xxxii. 8. 
 
 " The soul is an incorporeal substance." 
 
 Gregory Nyssen. 
 
 Carlyle makes his thoughtful Professor Teufels- 
 drokh assure us that man is never altogether a 
 clothes-horse ; that under the clothes which he 
 wears are always a body and a soul. One would 
 hardly suppose anything could be said to the con- 
 trary. Certain it is, however, that the question 
 whether beneath the garb of humanity there are two 
 entities, a body and a soul, the one distinct from the 
 other, is, in the estimation of some of the most busy 
 and vigorous physicists and philosophers of the pass- 
 ing age, far from being settled. Men there are, 
 such as Darwin, as Spencer, as Helmholtz, as Hackel, 
 as Virchow, as Huxley, as Tyndall, as Flint, as 
 Hammond, as Youmans, as Maudsley, who are tire- 
 lessly exploring the deeps of human nature, in order 
 to determine whether it is true that there is a spirit 
 in man, — a soul which is an incorporeal substance, 
 — or true that he is only a living organism, having 
 a class of organic functions that have been errone- 
 ously attributed to a spiritual entity. Let us glance 
 at the materialistic and the anti-materialistic reason- 
 ings on this inquiry. 
 
 During the present life, that which is described 
 as the soul never acts and never expresses itself, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 101 
 
 except as it does so through the corporeal organism; 
 are not, then, what are called the soul's acts and 
 states, phenomena which are produced by that or- 
 ganism ? In swoons there is no sign whatever of a 
 soul's existence in the body ; are not swoons, then, 
 bodily states in which the corporeal organism is in- 
 capacitated to produce those phenomena which are 
 called mental ? In sound sleep there is a complete 
 cessation of mental activity ; is not sound sleep, 
 then, a bodily state in which the corporeal organ- 
 ism is unfitted to give rise to sensation, perception, 
 emotion, thought? By actual experiment, it has 
 been demonstrated that feeling (for example, in 
 the case of a wound) is propagated along the line of 
 the nerves to the brain at the rate of about one hun- 
 dred and twelve, and from that to two hundred, feet 
 per second ; so that, to cite an illustration given 
 by Proctor, if an infant were born with an arm 
 long enough to reach the sun, and if, while in the 
 cradle, that infant were to stretch out its arm and 
 touch the sun, it would need to become a hundred 
 and thirty-five years old, before it could be con- 
 scious of the fact that the tip of its finger had been 
 burned by that blazing orb. Again ; it has been 
 shown by experiment that, after an impression has 
 been telegraphed along the nerves to the brain, an 
 appreciable amount of time is required for the for- 
 mation of an idea of that impression ; and that, ac- 
 cordingly, in cases of a very quick exchange of 
 impressions, such as occurs in winking, one fails to 
 have any idea of the exchange, because there is not 
 time enough for an idea of it to be formed. More- 
 over, it has been experimentally shown that when- 
 
102 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ever an idea arises, a change, which is of the nature 
 of a movement, is wrought in the gray matter of the 
 brain ; that this change occupies an appreciable 
 amount of time ; that, without it, no idea ever 
 springs up ; and that if there is an inadequate 
 supply of healthy blood, an interruption of nerve- 
 communication, a compression of the brain, or an 
 exhausted, acidulous state of the nerve-element, the 
 change or movement on which the upspringing of 
 the idea depends, will not ensue. And, in addition 
 to the foregoing statements, it may be said that 
 physicists seem to have ascertained that there are 
 physiological grounds for such conclusions as these : 
 — that, in the case of recollection or the conscious 
 retention of a past idea, there is always an existing 
 tendency of the nerve-element to repeat the same 
 movement which occurred in it at the time of the 
 first rise of that idea ; that deficiency or disorder of 
 memory is ever proportionate to deterioration of 
 nerve-element ; that the reason why pain, when it 
 has ceased, cannot be remembered as it actually 
 was, is because the tendency to repetition of move- 
 ment in the nerve-element, which resulted from the 
 movement occasioned therein at the time the pain 
 was felt, has been neutralized by the restoration of 
 the nerve-element to a painless state ; and that the 
 peculiar phenomena displayed by somnambulists and 
 mesmerized persons are invariably attended by only 
 a partial circulation of blood in the brain, and by an 
 activity of that organ only in particular areas.* Is 
 there not, theni a good foundation for the material- 
 
 * See the work entitled Physiology of 31ind, by Henry Mauds- 
 ley, M. D. (Appleton.) 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTEEIOE HEEITAGE. 103 
 
 istic theory of mental acts and conscious states ? 
 Is not the opinion entirely reasonable, that sensa- 
 tion, thought, emotion, volition, calculation, are not 
 properly attributable to a free human soul distinct 
 from the human body ? 
 
 But pause here, reader. 
 
 A brief examination of the facts expressed in the 
 foregoing statements will suffice to show that there 
 is no need to deduce from them such inferences as 
 those which have been mentioned. The reason why 
 the soul, during the present life, acts and manifests 
 itself only through the visible body, may be that it 
 is somehow hindered from doing otherwise. Per- 
 haps (as many great investigators have believed) it 
 has a finely-constituted invisible inner organism, 
 which in this life is incompletely developed and only 
 slightly employed, but which it could wonderfully 
 use if it had opportunit}^. Indeed, does not the case 
 of Swedenborg seem to show, not only that the soul 
 has such an interior organism, but that it may, even 
 while this life is passing, become able to use the 
 same to some extent as an instrument, in conjunc- 
 tion with the visible body ? The non-exercise and 
 the non-manifestation of the soul, in cases of swoon- 
 ing and of sound sleep, are completely accounted 
 for, by supposing that, in such cases, it cannot, in 
 its ordinary way, enter into conscious states. All 
 that has been ascertained respecting the rate at 
 which feeling is transmitted from an impressed nerve 
 to the brain ; respecting the time necessary for the 
 upspringing of an idea after an impression on a 
 nerve has been telegraphed to the brain ; respecting 
 the change, movement, vibration, or whatever it be 
 
104 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 called, which occurs in the gray cerebral matter 
 when an idea arises, and which does not occur 
 therein unless an idea does arise ; respecting a resid- 
 ual tendency, as existing in the nerve-element in 
 the case of recollection ; and respecting the cerebral 
 conditions of somnambulistic and of mesmeristic 
 phenomena, — all this leaves unshaken and unim- 
 paired the doctrine that the soul is a distinct entity. 
 Molecular constitution and motion are unquestion- 
 ably concerned in some intimate manner in our pres- 
 ent mode of entering into states of consciousness ; 
 but what a leap is it to deduce from such a premise 
 the conclusion that there is no soul ? Why may 
 there not be within us a substance which, the mo- 
 ment it shall have opportunity, will be able to think 
 and to recall ideas by means of an instrument very 
 different from that now employed in the discharge 
 of mental functions ? Reader, let not any prema- 
 ture inferences be imposed on thee ! And prema- 
 ture, certainly, is the inference of Carl Vogt, that 
 thought is a secretion of the brain ; the inference of 
 Haller, that ideas are impressions made on the brain ; 
 the inference of Bonnel, that they are oscillatory 
 motions of the cerebral molecules ; the inference of 
 Huxley, that they are results of molecular composi- 
 tion, and that the power of producing them dies with 
 the body ; the inference of Maudsley, that they are 
 currents of molecular movement passing along nerv- 
 ous circuits ; and the inference of Tyndall, that they 
 are physical phenomena produced by or associated 
 with molecular motions in the cerebral organ. 
 
 In ability to judge fairly and correctly of scientific 
 facts in their bearing on the question of the soul's 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 105 
 
 distinctness as an entity, that great man, Agassiz, 
 was behind no physicist of modern times ; and his 
 opinion he plainly told in the remark : 
 
 "I shall not say, nor do I believe, the mental faculties are a 
 product of these [the corporeal] organs." 
 
 One strong natural evidence in favor of the con- 
 clusion that the phenomena known as mental are to 
 be ascribed to an incorporeal substance, is the testi- 
 mony of consciousness. I am certain that I exist, 
 because I am conscious that I exist. I am certain 
 that I who exist do not exist merely as a body capa- 
 ble of functional activities, because I am conscious 
 of activities on my part that are totally and widely 
 different from any of those which I know my body 
 can perform. Why is it, if men are not spiritual 
 entities in bodies, they should ever be conscious that 
 they are such ? Observe how, in various ages of the 
 world, they have described human nature. The 
 Pythagoreans and the Platonists (as we learn from 
 Jamblichus, Nemesius, Sallust, and Laertius) repre- 
 sented man as " a compound of three differing parts," 
 namely, the body (auu«), the soul as to its less emi- 
 nent capabilities (y^), and the soul as to its pre- 
 eminent intellectual potency (nvevfm or vov{). " There 
 are three things," says Marcus Antoninus, " which 
 belong to a man : the body, the soul, and the mind 
 (vovg)" St. Paul, in his First Epistle to the Thessa- 
 lonians, adopts a like manner of speaking ; for he 
 
 Uses the phrase, 'oldxlqgov 'vuibv ib nvev/ta, xal r r] ipv^rj, 
 
 xal to ocbfiay (" your whole spirit, and soul, and body.") 
 The same terms of distinction are employed by Ire- 
 nseus, who says, " A perfect man consists of body, 
 
106 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 soul, and spirit ; " and by Origen, who says, " Man 
 is composed of body, soul, and spirit." The Ger- 
 mans, in their description of man, represent him as 
 comprising a bod}^ and a soul, and represent his soul 
 as comprising the ordinary conscious intelligence 
 (yer stand), and the reason (yernunft) ; meaning by the 
 former the reflective or logical faculties, and by rea- 
 son the intuitional faculty, or that by which truth is 
 discovered without any experience of mental effort. 
 The English-speaking nations usually describe man 
 as consisting of body, intellect, sensibilities, and 
 will, signifying by the three latter designations, not 
 three separate, spiritual entities, but three great 
 divisions under which respectively the capabilities 
 of one and the same spiritual entity are classifiable. 
 
 This, then, is what is clearly revealed by the lan- 
 guages of mortals : That, from distant past times to 
 the present hour, men have comprehensively de- 
 scribed man as a living being with a body and a 
 soul, the one distinct from the other, and have rep- 
 resented man's soul as possessing different capabili- 
 ties or faculties, some inferior to others. And why 
 thus rather than otherwise ? Consciousness provides 
 the answer. By this we are assured, — by this the 
 men who shall live a hundred generations hence 
 will be assured, — that the body is not the soul, and 
 the soul is not the body ; that the body is not neces- 
 sary to the continuance of the life of the soul, but 
 the soul is necessary to the continuance of the life 
 of the body; that while the body is a vitalized 
 organism the soul is in it, and when the body is 
 dead the soul is out of it. By this we know, — by 
 this the men of future ages will know, — that (as 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 107 
 
 Montaigne affirms) " the body, saving in greater or 
 less proportion, has but one and the same bent and 
 bias ; whereas, the soul is variable into all sorts of 
 forms, and subjects to herself, and to her own em- 
 pire, all things whatsoever, both the senses of the 
 body, and all other accidents." 
 
 Consciousness does not help us to solve all prob- 
 lems about ourselves. Neither by this nor by any 
 other means can we learn how the inner man is 
 united to the outer. " The manner whereby souls 
 adhere to bodies," says Saint Augustine, "is alto- 
 gether wonderful and cannot be conceived by man." 
 And says Beilby Porteus, " We can as easily con- 
 ceive the connection and mutual influence of soul 
 and body, as we can explain how two mathematical 
 lines, indefinitely produced, can be forever approach- 
 ing each other, and yet never meet." But con- 
 sciousness certainly helps to solve the problem 
 (declared by Tyndall to be the final problem), 
 whether our intellectual and moral processes are or 
 are not *f physical origin and subject to physical 
 laws; whether "the will of man is free, or it and 
 nature are equally ' bound fast in fate.' " 
 
108 THE GJSEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 X. 
 
 THE SOUL THE REAL HUMAN SELF. 
 
 " The Self, the I, is recognized in every act of intelligence, as 
 the subject to which that act belongs." Sir William Hamilton. 
 
 " The man, most man, 
 Works best for men; and, if most man indeed, 
 He gets his manhood plainest from his soul." 
 
 Mks. Browning, Aurora Leigh, p. 348. 
 
 What is that which makes man veritably him- 
 self? Is it his body? No; for the moment the 
 vital breath has gone out of that, it is a corpse, not 
 a man. Is it life in the sense of vitality? No ; for 
 plants have that; yet plants, those "children of the 
 earth," — unlike men, those " children of the ether," 
 — are destitute of permanent, distinct, self-knowing 
 selves. The self of man is that to which Socrates 
 had reference when, discoursing to Alcibiades, he said 
 to that handsome young listener : 
 
 "The man is that which uses the body; now, does anything use 
 the body but the mind? Is not the mind, therefore, the man? " 
 
 He, of course, employed the term mind, in that 
 instance, to signify what is now generally meant by 
 the term soul. 
 
 The soul is the foundation of all man's unfailing 
 notability as an inhabitant of earth. The soul is 
 •the center whence emanates the real man-life and 
 man-light. The soul is that which exerts the real 
 man-power. The soul is the very man himself. Ac- 
 cordant with these declarations are the fine words 
 of Guthrie: 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 109 
 
 "They say I am growing old because my hair is silvered, and 
 there are crows' feet on my forehead, and my step is not so firm 
 and elastic as of yore. But they are mistaken. That is not me. 
 The knees are weak ; but the knees are not me. The brow is 
 wrinkled; but the brow is not me. This is the house in which 
 I live." 
 
 The body of a fellow-being is entitled to receive 
 honor, but never as if it were the fellow-being him- 
 self. That without which man could not be man, 
 is something that cannot be measured in feet and 
 inches, something that cannot be clad with visible 
 garments. It is that in him which can say, " I am I ; " 
 that in him which, by means of his organic frame, 
 sees, hears, touches, tastes, smells, goes, comes, seeks, 
 speaks. This no foe can kill. It may be serene, 
 though a tempest roars around it. It may be rich 
 in acquisitions, though the visible form wherein it 
 for a season dwells, wears a garb which is open at 
 the elbows. Said a thoughtful man : 
 
 "When a stranger treats me with a want of proper respect, I 
 comfort myself with the reflection that it is not myself he slights, 
 but my old shabby coat and bat, which, to say the truth, have no 
 particular claims to admiration. So, if my coat and hat choose 
 to fret about it, let them. It is nothing to me." 
 
 And to these words he might well have added some 
 pointed remark like that of which Carlyle is the 
 author : *' Courtesy is the due of man to man, not 
 of suit of clothes to suit of clothes." 
 
 In realhty, the fairest of persons is the one that 
 has the fairest soul; the purest of persons is the one 
 whose soul is the cleanest ; the mightiest of persons 
 is the one whose soul wields the most influence ; the 
 wealthiest of persons is " the millionaire of intellect." 
 The real king of men is he who represents the kind 
 
110 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED EORTUNE. 
 
 of kingship which, according to Ruskin, consists in 
 a stronger moral state, and a truer thoughtful state, 
 than that of others, enabling one, therefore, to guide or 
 to rouse them. 
 
 A human being, standing on the earth, is like the 
 auriferous ore which is gathered in the mountains. 
 Just as the latter derives all its lasting importance 
 from the gold substance that is in it, so the former 
 derives all his or her lasting importance from the 
 thinking substance that is inside his Qr her corporeal 
 frame. Men pay a high regard to gold. They honor 
 it with tributes of ambitious ardor and eager devo- 
 tion ; with vast outlays ; with costly sacrifices. To 
 obtain it, they have done who can tell what ? they 
 are ready to do who can imagine what ? For its 
 sake, some are bearing heavy burdens ; some are 
 daring the dangers of long journeys by land, or the 
 perils of long voyages by sea ; some are braving the 
 pestilence ; some are confronting beasts of prey and 
 cannibal savages. And why, do men, at so great 
 cost, prosecute their quest after it ? Evidently be- 
 cause it has so high a degree of intrinsic estimable- 
 ness. Now, the soul is the gold of human nature. 
 Consider how it enriches the outward man ! Would 
 not the most beautiful face soon become utterly poor 
 were this precious thing to be removed from behind 
 it? Consider what never-diminishing consequence 
 goes with it ! Do not the tallest trees, the grandest 
 beasts, and even the eagle that cleaves with its 
 mighty wings the clear air of the great cerulean 
 expanses, seem less important than the least creature 
 that has a human soul? When Burns, that poet 
 "of Nature's own making," said, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. Ill 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea's stamp, 
 The man 's the gold for all that," 
 
 he had reference not to a form, so many feet by 
 so many inches in stature, and having an outer skin 
 composed of cloth ; no, he had reference to the soul, 
 that which shines through the body and renders it 
 affluent ; that which, whether it is located in a 
 peasant's brain or a prince's, is the very man of the 
 man, the real self of the being. 
 
 XI. 
 
 THE CAPABILITIES OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " For never, that I could in searching find out, has man been, 
 by time which devours so much, deprivated of any faculty what- 
 soever that he in any era was possessed of." Sauerteig. 
 
 The soul, according as it is differently directed, 
 becomes the subject of different stirrings and states, 
 of which some are passive and some active. Refer- 
 able either to the former or to the latter of these 
 two classes, are the feelings which are known as 
 pain and pleasure ; the sensations connected with 
 seeing, hearing, touching, &c. ; the spontaneous ex- 
 periences which are called instinctive ; the opera- 
 tions suggested by the terms appetite, propensity, 
 desire, affection, passion, perception, recollection, 
 imagination, abstraction, judgment, argumentation, 
 intuition, volition, hope, wonder, faith. The fact 
 that these passive and active awakenings and pro- 
 
112 THE Git EAT SLIGHTED FOKTUNE. 
 
 cesses so readily occur, or are so readily brought to 
 pass on the part of the soul from an early period in 
 its history, has led men to represent them as its 
 " functions." In harmony with this mode of speak- 
 ing is that line in Pope's Essay on Man : 
 
 "As the mind opens and its functions spread." 
 
 A more familiar mode of representation, occasioned 
 by the same fact, is that in which the soul is de- 
 scribed as having powers, each of which, like each 
 organ of the body, has its appointed office or work. 
 Instead of the term powers, there is often employed 
 the term faculties, frequently the term endowments, 
 not rarely the term capacities, and sometimes the 
 term capabilities. As a general designation, the one 
 of these which is last mentioned is evidently the 
 most convenient. But, be it understood, when the 
 soul is said to have different capabilities, powers, 
 faculties, or whatever they may be called, the mean- 
 ing is not that it has different energies. Men affirm 
 that the soul has a faculty, the office of which is to 
 recall ideas ; and they tell us the name of it is mem- 
 ory. What do they, when they thus speak, intend 
 to signify ? Certainly, they cannot well aim to ex- 
 press anything incompatible with this : that the con- 
 scious self, the Ego, is such by nature that it can 
 and does recall ideas. Says an erudite writer 
 (James Esdaile, author of the article on Logic in 
 the Edinburgh Encyclopaedia) : 
 
 " It should be remembered that the mind is one and indivisible, 
 and .that what have been called its different faculties are nothing 
 but the same energy directed to different subjects, and, on that 
 account alone, designated by different names." 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 113 
 
 And Carlyle, in his Heroes and Hero- Worship 
 
 (p. 95), remarks : 
 
 "What, indeed, are faculties? We talk of faculties as if they 
 were distinct, things separable ; as if a man had intellect, imagi- 
 nation, fancy, &c, as he has hands, feet, and arms. That is a 
 capital error. Then, again, we hear of a man's ' intellectual na- 
 ture,' and of his ' moral nature,' as if these again were divisible, 
 and existed apart. . . . We ought to know withal, and to keep 
 forever in mind, that these divisions are at bottom but names ; 
 that man's spiritual nature, the vital force which dwells in him, is 
 essentially one and indivisible." 
 
 A convenient illustration of the unity of energy 
 or force, which exists in the case of the soul, may be 
 found in the similar unity of energy or force which 
 has been proved to exist in the case of external 
 nature. All material substances consist of atoms or 
 molecules, in a state of cohesion; and every ma- 
 terial energy is reducible to a motion of material 
 atoms or molecules. Take a piece of iron and heat 
 it; take a needle and magnetize it ; take a glass jar 
 and charge it with electricity ; and when you shall 
 have performed these several acts, what, in reality, 
 will you have done ? Certainly, you will not have 
 added anything to the piece of iron, to the needle, 
 and to the glass jar. You will simply have given, 
 in the case of the first, a certain motion to its atoms 
 which is called heat-force, and, in the case of the 
 second, a certain motion to its atoms which is called 
 magnetic force, and, in the case of the third, a cer- 
 tain motion to its atoms which is called electric 
 force. Vitality itself is but a motion of atoms; 
 and, in the case of man, the prime cause of it is, in 
 all likelihood, his soul. Now, though we cannot 
 8 
 
114 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 attribute to the soul atomic or molecular motion, we 
 can employ the unity of the seemingly separate en- 
 ergies of matter to help us in forming a conception 
 of the unity of the seemingly separate energies of 
 the soul. 
 
 The soul's capabilities may be enumerated under 
 seven orders. There are, first, the basal ones. This 
 order includes the instincts (among which are that 
 of suction, that of deglutition, that of sympathy, 
 and that of life-preservation) ; the power to feel 
 pain and pleasure ; the power to experience sensa- 
 tions of sight, of hearing, of touch, of taste, and 
 of smell ; the appetites ; and the various powers 
 known by the names amativeness, combativeness, 
 destructiveness, adhesiveness, acquisitiveness, secre- 
 tiveness, &c. There are, secondly, the intellectual 
 capabilities, or those which are suggested by the 
 term understanding. They are perception, memoiw, 
 imagination, abstraction, judgment, the reasoning 
 faculty, &c* There are, thirdly, the egoistic capa- 
 bilities, or those which are related as no others are 
 to the idea of the JEJgo, or self. They are self-love 
 and the will. There are, fourthly, the domestic and 
 
 * Some authorities (among them Ileid, Hutcheson, Stewart, 
 Royer-Collard, and those old-time metaphysicians, Philoponus and 
 Michael Ephesius) have named consciousness as one of the intel- 
 lectual faculties or capabilities. But Sir William Hamilton, in 
 the first chapter of his Philosophy of Perception, shows clearly 
 that consciousness is a condition of intelligence rather than a 
 mode of the mind. He calls it "the complement of our cognitive 
 energies." That is to say, it is the condition indispensable to 
 complete cognition in the case of the exercise of any one of the 
 cognitive faculties, such as perception, memory, &c. 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 115 
 
 social capabilities. This order includes the affection 
 which results in marriage, the parental affection, the 
 filial affection, the affection which exists between 
 one child and another of the same family, the affec- 
 tion of friend for friend, the affection which is called 
 patriotism, the capability entitled the love of appro- 
 bation, and the capability known by the name of 
 benevolence. There are, fifthly, the spiritual capa- 
 bilities. Under this head must be mentioned ideal- 
 ity, veneration, conscience, hope, faith, and wonder 
 — that faculty which leads one to acknowledge with 
 rare emotions and expressions the new, the grand, 
 aud the sublime. There is, sixthly, the intuitional 
 capability. The Germans call it the vemunft — that 
 is to say, the higher reason in us, which acts without 
 our being conscious of its action. The English and 
 the Americans usually designate it by the name com- 
 mon sense. Sometimes it is termed the faculty of first 
 principles. By this it is we see spontaneously the truth 
 of those succinct sayings which are known as axioms. 
 It is at its best in women and in men of genius. 
 Goethe, speaking with reference to the high degree 
 of it which is exhibited by fine females, applies to it 
 the title of " the eternal womanly." Some partic- 
 ular allusions to it have place in Agassiz' lecture on 
 Vital Characteristics. He refers to it as " a superior 
 power which controls our better nature, solves some- 
 times suddenly and unexpectedly — nay, even in 
 sleep — our problems and perplexities, suggests the 
 right thing at the right time, acting through us 
 without conscious action of our own, though sus- 
 ceptible of training and elevation." A good in- 
 stance illustrative of it is that of the inventor, Mat- 
 
116 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 thew Murray, of Leeds. When perplexed in his 
 attempts at invention, it was his custom to rest 
 night and day, so far as it was possible for him to do 
 so, from all voluntary effort. And in the moments 
 of his quiet, the idea he wanted " would steal in 
 and look at him, and light on him, and stay, as birds 
 used to light on the old hermits, no more afraid of 
 them than of the trees under which they sat." 
 Wordsworth doubtless alludes to the same power in 
 those lines, where, excusing himself to his "good 
 friend Matthew " for sitting and dreaming, " for the 
 length of half a day," on an old gray stone by 
 Esthwaite Lake, he avers — 
 
 " That we can feed this mind of ours 
 In a wise passiveness." 
 
 And adds the words : 
 
 " Think you, 'mid all this mighty sum 
 Of things forever speaking, 
 That nothing of itself will come, 
 But we must still be seeking? 
 
 "Then ask not wherefore, here, alone, 
 Conversing as I may, 
 I sit upon this old gray stone, 
 And dream my time away." * 
 
 * An excellent friend of the author — a man of fine, pellucid 
 mind and of rare spirituality — relates, in a letter, as folloAvs, the 
 method whereby he is accustomed, in moments of perplexing 
 doubt, to open the way fully for some enlightening outcome from 
 the same capability: "This is my way of solving difficulties and 
 getting light on dark points. I fix my mind upon the subject, look 
 at it with the present light I have, and then lift up my spiritual 
 sense toward the Source of all light and wisdom, and holding it 
 attent, say, ' Speak, Lord, for thy servant heareth ; ' and I have 
 thus often verified the promise, 'If any man lack wisdom,' &c. 
 My mind is thus often led to conclusions which satisfy me, and 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 117 
 
 But to resume: there is, lastly, the magnetic ca- 
 pability. By this I mean the power which the soul 
 has of evolving through the eyes and through other 
 bodily channels a certain something which is called 
 magnetism, and which creates around one an aura 
 or atmosphere, either attractive or repulsive. (For 
 further particulars respecting it, see the chapter 
 entitled " Presence and the Presence-Force.") * 
 
 Now, the rule of Nature relative to the capabil- 
 ities thus classified is, " Occupy till I come." It 
 implies all that is meant by such specific directions 
 as these : 
 
 Make the most thou canst of each one of thy 
 powers. Develop and improve thyself. 
 
 Study, think, investigate, learn. Remember, how- 
 ever, that " it is not the knowledge stored up as in- 
 tellectual fat which is of value, but that which is 
 turned into intellectual muscle." 
 
 Out of dull and selfish seclusion go forth. 
 
 Regulate with care thy basal endowments. 
 
 Prove thy strength, and render it sure. 
 
 which I am sure I never should have reached in the use of my 
 logical intellectual faculties alone. The answer comes through 
 the intellect, and yet, but for that spiritual direction and quickening 
 given it, the result would not be attained. There is a pre-science 
 which goes before science, and blazes out the way for science to 
 follow." 
 
 * There is ground, I think, to believe that great capabilities of 
 the soul, not mentioned in tbe foregoing classification, are yet to 
 be defined and catalogued by psychological inquirers. The truth 
 is slowly dawning on the explorers of man's nature, that the soul, 
 in union with its invisible inner form, is the source of the life of 
 the body, including all tissue-weaving and other vital processes. 
 It is reasonable, therefore, to infer that the time will come when 
 there will be enrolled in the list of the soul's powers the capabil' 
 ity of vitalization. 
 
118 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Deliver thy conceptions from narrowness, thy 
 charity from scrimpness, thy purposes from small- 
 ness. 
 
 Refuse to live the faint life of the mere spectator 
 or reader, of the sickly dreamer of dreams, or the 
 fanciful seer of visions. 
 
 Find not thy delight in luxury or ease, in hollow 
 shows or frivolous pursuits. 
 
 Deny thyself, and take up thy cross. 
 
 Do and dare, love and suffer. 
 
 So shalt thou build a character that will abide all 
 the tests which future years or ages may bring. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE ENDLESS IMPROVABILITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 "It is for God and for Omnipotency to do mighty things in a 
 moment ; but degreeingly to grow to greatness is the course that 
 He hath left for man." Owen Feltham, a. d. 1650. 
 
 "Truth ... is not progressive; though finite beings maybe 
 forever progressive in acquiring truth." Horace Mann. 
 
 To the conscious human self there belong possi- 
 bilities of such moment, that no one can well study 
 them without being either thrillingly impressed or 
 made to experience unusual emotions. Some of its 
 powers — I mean those to which are referable the 
 leading kinds of mental activity — were obviously 
 designed for an ever-continuing education. Let 
 them be once roused, and (to quote the language of 
 a scientist) " their development has no assignable 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 119 
 
 limit." The conclusion is, therefore, unavoidable, 
 that every soul can become great. By processes of 
 culture to which it is able to subject itself, it can 
 perpetually increase in wisdom, in strength, and in 
 nobleness ; it can endlessly stretch forward toward 
 higher realizations and conditions. It is its innate 
 and inalienable prerogative to approach, by a never- 
 ceasing advancement, a state of dignity like that of 
 its uncreated Maker. Indeed, Nichols, in his Archi- 
 tecture of the Heavens, ventures to express the idea 
 that man, by reason of the unlimited and unremit- 
 ting growth of his faculties, may one day become as 
 that Being who, from the battlements of His own 
 royal abode, can see beneath His feet the mighty 
 motions of the entire stellar creation, proceeding in 
 unbroken harmony. 
 
 In Jean Paul's quaint, rich romance, called Titan, 
 occurs a delineation, the vague, mystical, immense 
 meaning of which fits it to be suggestive of the 
 ineffable greatness to which the soul is heir. He 
 describes his hero, Albano, as having climbed to the 
 top of a thick-limbed apple-tree, where, lingering in 
 still thought, he poetically conceived the same tree 
 to be expanded to gigantic proportions. To his 
 imagination it appeared growing alone in the uni- 
 verse, as if it were the tree of everlasting life, — its 
 roots piercing far down into the abyss, the white-red 
 clouds hanging as blossoms on its twigs, the moon 
 pendent as fruit amid its foliage, the stars glistening 
 like dew on its illuminated surface. And Albano, 
 in that vast youthful vision, saw himself reposing in 
 the tree's sublime and infinite summit, while by a 
 storm that summit was swayed "out of Day into 
 
120 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Night, and out of Night into Day." Does not the 
 description seem to have been intended to intimate 
 the immeasurableness of the enlargement possible 
 to the ever-improvable human soul ? 
 
 The soul's chief capabilities may, for the sake of 
 elucidation, be represented as so many different 
 rooms within itself, each of which can be made to 
 have a spaciousness equalled by no material ampli- 
 tude ever yet ascertained, and each of which, so 
 long as it is kept in the process of growth, is 
 and will be susceptible of fresh furnishing. These 
 apartments of the inner man are too wonderful to 
 admit being depicted either by a writer's pen or by 
 a painter's brush. Their most distinguishing char- 
 acteristics can, at best, only be indicated. Who can 
 tell how much knowledge can find place in them, or 
 what volumes of feeling the} r can contain? Who 
 can declare the magnitude of the grandest traits 
 that, in them, can have freedom to thrive and bear 
 fruit ? Who can estimate the length and the 
 breadth, the height and the depth, of the loftiest 
 inspirations or of the noblest joys that, in them, can 
 be experienced? To give a full expression to the 
 utmost intelligence, potency, amiability, purity, 
 meritoriousness, and majesty that can reside in the 
 capability-rooms of a human soul, would be equiva- 
 lent to picturing the unimaginable or to portraying 
 the infinite; and to do either the one or the other is 
 impossible. We are accustomed, it is true, to speak 
 of persons of ill-developed minds as having " limited 
 capabilities." But, in employing such phraseology, 
 we invariably talk in a relative, not in an absolute 
 manner. No reasoning person exists, whose prin- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 121 
 
 cipal capabilities, how much soever they may seem 
 to be doomed to smallness, are, in the sense of being 
 positively confined to their present dimensions, cir- 
 cumscribed or limited. They who have small fac- 
 ulties which continue to be small, are persons who, 
 by neglect or by misuse of their souls, stifle their 
 mental energy and withhold themselves from mental 
 growth. They habitually go their dull way, with a 
 half-fed, lean, jejune thinking nature. Perhaps they 
 have an inveterate shrinking toward contractedness 
 and contemptibleness. Perhaps they have literally 
 established their souls in a " pungent, acrid, awfully 
 intensified, and talented littleness." Certainly they 
 are entirely destitute of that passion for self-im- 
 provement which led one of the Greek poets to 
 say, — 
 
 " I seek what's to be sought, 
 I learn what's to be taught, 
 I beg the rest of heaven." 
 
 One may be sadly indifferent to the value of his 
 soul's foremost capabilities, may inadequately exer- 
 cise them, and may secure to them merely a dwarf- 
 like compass ; but there is never a time when they 
 cannot be made to transcend the limits of develop- 
 ment to which they have attained. Their possessor 
 can educate them forever. He can unceasingly add 
 to their roominess and resource. In all time to come 
 he can cause them to continue to exceed breadth 
 after breadth. Are they small to-day ? He can 
 render them large, and then larger, and then still 
 larger. Oh, who can conceive how great his mental 
 being is able to become ? Who can comprehend 
 how elevated a life it is possible for him to live ? 
 
122 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Who can be liable to overrate the vastness of the 
 destiny for which he Avas created ? The dullest of 
 those who pass their days with earth-bound desires, 
 having no cultivated hunger and no cherished thirst 
 for anything divine, can become so developed in 
 mind as to have admirable thoughts and to be famil- 
 iar with exalted delights. " Honor all men," says 
 one of the Christ-sent apostles. Even the unlettered 
 peasant, whose costliest luxuries are bread and 
 cheese, is entitled to receive honor. The conclusion 
 that it is due him, rests on solid ground ; for it rests 
 on the fact that he has a soul which is susceptible 
 of a never-ending development — a soul which can 
 be made to be as great as that of 
 
 " The starry Galileo with his woes ; " 
 
 or as that of Bacon, who " effectually taught the 
 sublime art of creating sciences;" or as that of 
 Shakespeare, whose genius was believed by Cole- 
 ridge to be superhuman. He can progress intermi- 
 nably, from attainment to attainment, along a course 
 of self-training in which activity will become ever 
 more and more facile and free, and in which experi- 
 ence will ever increase in blissful sweetness. The 
 intellectual character possessed by Sir Isaac Newton 
 might seem unsurpassable. But there is no undis- 
 tinguished rational being, toiling and scrambling on 
 the monotonous level of commonplace life, whose 
 more important capabilities cannot be so educated 
 as to give him, at some period of that duration 
 through which his existence is to run, an intellectual 
 character even greater than that which was the 
 source of Newton's glory and grandeur. 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 123 
 
 It is interesting to observe in what various ways 
 meditative scholars have made references to the 
 mental possibilities. Hughes, one of the contribu- 
 tors to The Spectator, says : " Our case is like that 
 of a traveler on the Alps, who should fancy that the 
 top of the next hill must end his journey because 
 it terminates his prospect ; but he no sooner arrives 
 at it than he sees new ground and other hills beyond 
 it, and continues to travel on as before." Addison, 
 using words applicable to every person who is heed- 
 less of those possibilities, says : 
 
 " Thou talk'st like one who never felt 
 The impatient throbs and longings of a soul 
 That pants and reaches after distant good." 
 
 Horace Mann remarks : " No natural impediment 
 forbids our turning what is now divine knowledge 
 into human knowledge. We may ascend Pisgahs 
 after Pisgahs, and enter Canaans after Canaans, yet 
 forever see before us new Pisgahs to be ascended, 
 and Canaans flowing with the milk and honey of a 
 diviner wisdom, to be made our own." Carlyle 
 represents great men as " prophetic tokens of what 
 may still be," and declares that he who does not see 
 or rationally conceive, and with his whole heart pas- 
 sionately love and reverence, their greatness, cannot 
 but be little. And, says Victor Hugo, " There are 
 in the world men — are they men ? — who distinctly 
 perceive on the horizon of dreamland the heights of 
 the Absolute, and have the terrible vision of the 
 mountain of the Infinite. These are men of genius 
 — the Swedenborgs, the Pascals." 
 
 It would be passing strange if there were to be 
 
124 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 found in the Scriptures no unmistakable allusions to 
 the more wondrous results which are attainable to a 
 soul bent on making the most of itself. But the 
 truth is, they contain hint after hint at such results ; 
 and hints they are which are always striking, and 
 sometimes startling. Consider a few examples. On 
 the page where reference is made to Enoch, with 
 what a mysterious yet suggestive brevity, as if 
 there had been exemplified in the case a greatness 
 too divine for words, is there mentioned a transcend- 
 ent excellence, as having marked that primitive 
 saint, and as having rendered him fit even to be 
 carried to heaven without seeing death ! Further 
 on, how one is left pondering with amazement over 
 that representation concerning Moses, in which he is 
 described as coming down from the place of his soli- 
 tary intercourse with Deity, having such a bright- 
 ness in his countenance that it was necessary for him 
 to put a veil thereon, in order that he might be 
 able to talk again with men ! According to Cony- 
 beare and Howson, the averment of David, quoted 
 by Saint Paul from the eighth Psalm, and usually 
 given in the words, " For thou hast made him a 
 little lower than the angels," should stand thus : 
 " For a little while Thou hast made him lower than 
 the angels." And if this translation is correct, then 
 how strongly does that Davidian declaration suggest 
 an inconceivable unfoldment of mental capabilities, 
 as in reserve for man when the " little while " of 
 his earthly sojourn shall be ended ! Says Horace 
 Bushnell : 
 
 " Here they [the Scriptures] drive us out in the almost cold 
 mathematical question, What shall it profit a man to gain the whole 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 125 
 
 world and lose his own soul ? Here they show us, in John's 
 vision, Moses and Elijah, as angels, suggesting our future classi- 
 fication among angels, who are sometimes called chariots of God, 
 to indicate their excelling strength and swiftness in careering 
 through His empire to do His will. Here they speak of powers 
 unimaginable as regards the volume of their personality, calling 
 them dominions, principalities, powers, and appear to set us on a 
 footing with these dim majesties. Here they notify us that it doth 
 not yet appear what we shall be. Here they call us sons of God. 
 Here they bolt upon us, ' But I said ye are gods,' — as if meaning 
 to waken us by a shock! In these and all ways possible, they 
 contrive to start some better conception in us of ourselves, and 
 of the immense significance of the soul; forbidding us always to 
 be the dull mediocrities [mediocres] into which, under the stupor 
 of our unbelief, we are commonly so ready to subside." 
 
 The neglect and the abuse of capabilities of the 
 soul, which can be endlessly developed and trained, 
 constitute an explanation of what may be called the 
 Christ-sorrow for the world. This was that holy 
 consuming grief which, propagating from the great- 
 est of all man-saviors, repeated itself in the evan- 
 gelists and the apostles, and especially in him who, 
 traversing the lands of the Gentiles, proclaimed to 
 remote nations the possible expansions and exalta- 
 tions of human nature. They, and the old Hebrew 
 patriarchs and prophets before them, and Confucius, 
 and Zoroaster, and Socrates, and Ochino of Siena, 
 and Luther, and Knox, and Fenelon, and John 
 Howard, and Wesley, and Whitefield, and Living- 
 stone, illustrated the meaning of Mrs. Browning's 
 
 words, — 
 
 " Who, 
 Being man and human, can stand calmly by 
 And view these things, and never tease his soul 
 Eor some great cure ? " 
 
 The thought of the soul's endless improvability is 
 
126 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 well adapted to quicken torpid virtue and to revive 
 drooping aspiration. It tends to scatter the gloom 
 resulting from disappointed endeavor. Let it but 
 have a star-like clearness in the mind, and there 
 will spring from it an ever-new interest in life and 
 being. We know that the paths of usefulness and 
 affection must sometimes be strewn with smitten 
 leaves and faded bloom, and that the heart must 
 sometimes be chilled by harsh changes, even as the 
 face of nature is chilled by rude winds. We know 
 that we are doomed to find thorns in roses, and to 
 suffer from "thorns in the flesh." W^ know that 
 there are for us hours when the sunshine without 
 must be darkened by shadows within ; when we 
 must be pierced by trials ; when we must be hum- 
 bled by afflictions. Yet, so we but duly ken our 
 mental possibilities, how much there is to animate 
 us and to make us hopeful ! Well may we go our 
 way, with a high ambition and with good cheer ! 
 Well may we prize, as a stage of action, this old 
 stone-ribbed earth, whereon we can behold the 
 beauty of emerald meadows and of blossoming plants, 
 and can hear the songs of russet-bosomed robins and 
 the prattle of children, the voice of the vernal 
 breeze, and the sound of the summer rain ! Oh, who 
 that ever muses on the soul's heirship to the divine 
 can wish he had never been born ? I am grateful 
 for my existence. I rejoice that I have place amid 
 the bright-bordered mysteries which surround me. 
 I glory in the shifting scenery of the seasons. No 
 flaw do I find in the sun, the moon, or the stars. 
 No prayer have I to make that the grass which 
 grows at my feet may be fairer than it is, or that 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 127 
 
 the mornings and the evenings may be more attrac- 
 tive. Let me know as I may, and feel as I should, 
 the truth that I am endlessly improvable, and I am 
 assured that the Soul of the universe will somehow 
 sweeten every bitter allotment that falls to me, 
 will " charm my pained steps over the burning 
 marl," which belongs to the course of probationary 
 experience, and will assist me joyfully to approxi- 
 mate the greatness of His own infinite and tranquil 
 character. 
 
 XIII. 
 
 THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " A man may, for twenty years, believe the immortality of the 
 soul, — in the one-and-twentieth, in some great moment, he for 
 the first time discovers with amazement the rich meaning of this 
 belief, and the warmth of this naphtha-well." Jean Paul. 
 
 The soul is an ever-enduring entity. Unlike 
 the clouds and the snow-heaps, the fluids and the 
 liquids, the rocks and the metals, — unlike all the 
 generations of living organisms, — it neither wastes 
 away nor loses its distinctiveness. Nay (for all that 
 nature teaches to the contrary), it outlasts every 
 possible transmuting process, and, as a self-identify- 
 ing self, is endlessly living. 
 
 It is true that, respecting this point, men have in 
 no age of the world been universally like-minded. 
 Job, that great Oriental Gentile, so confidently be- 
 lieved in the deathlessness of the thinking substance, 
 that he could say he knew, though after his skin 
 
128 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 worms should destroy his body, he should, without 
 his flesh, see God.* But Epicurus, Lucretius, and 
 some other ancient authors, maintained that the soul 
 follows the fortunes of the body, declining when it 
 declines, dying when it dies. Said true-hearted 
 Samuel Johnson to one who had propounded to him 
 the question, " Have we not evidence enough of the 
 soul's immortality?" "I wish for more;" Some, 
 giving place to a frigid, keen-edged sort of pantheis- 
 tic contempt for the very idea of an eternal continu- 
 ance of human personality, use words like those 
 icicles of speech attributed by Werner, in his Sons 
 of the Valley, to Robert d'Hereclon : 
 
 " This shallow self of ours, 
 We are not nailed to it eternally. 
 We can, we must be free of it, and then 
 "[Incumbered wanton in the Force of All." 
 
 Some refuse to believe the soul to be immortal, by 
 reason of having acquired such a character as makes 
 them dread a future existence. They have quite 
 unfitted themselves to wish for anything better than 
 annihilation — that which " it is the most abject 
 thing in the world to wish ; " and their wish for it is 
 father to their deduction of the certainty of it. The 
 truth is, there are to-day, and there have ever, been 
 in past ages, a scale of degrees relative to faith in 
 the soul's immortality, and a scale of degrees rela- 
 tive to unfaith therein ; and there are to-day, and 
 there have ever been in past ages, representatives of 
 every degree of each. They who say, " I am fully 
 
 * Job xix. 26. [According to the best critics, the words ren- 
 dered in the ordinary Bible "in my flesh," should read "with- 
 out my flesh."] 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 129 
 
 persuaded that the soul is immortal," are at one end 
 of the former scale ; and at the other end of it are 
 persons who say, " I believe the soul is immortal, 
 yet often need help for my unbelief." But they 
 who, after the manner of Huxley and such as he, 
 say, " I am not satisfied with the evidence that is 
 offered me in behalf of the soul's immortality," are 
 at one end of the latter scale ; and at the other end 
 of it are persons who, on account of their depravity 
 and wretchedness, hate the words " endless life," 
 and love the words "extinction of being," — per- 
 sons whose heart-cries are like the cries which Cole- 
 ridge ascribes to restless Cain : 
 
 ' ; The mighty One that persecuteth me is on this side and on that ; 
 he pursueth my soul like the wind, like the sand-blast he passeth 
 through me ; lie is around me even as the air ! O that I might 
 be utterly no more ! I desire to die — yea, the things that never had 
 life, neither move they upon the earth — behold! they seem pre- 
 cious to mine eyes. O that a man might live -without the breath 
 of his nostrils. So I might abide in darkness and blackness, and 
 an empty space ! Yea, I would lie down, I would not rise, neither 
 would I stir my limbs till I became as the rock in the den of the 
 lion, on which the young lion resteth his head whilst he sleepeth. 
 For the torrent that roareth far off hath a voice, and the clouds in 
 heaven look terribly on me ; the mighty One who is against me 
 speaketh in the wind of the cedar grove ; and in silence am I 
 dried up." 
 
 Now, be it observed that the lack of universal 
 like-mindedness concerning the question of the soul's 
 immortality, has never tended and never can tend, 
 in the least, to determine how that question should 
 be decided. Education, association, or experience, 
 can produce either a strong bias in favor of the 
 affirmative of it, or a strong bias in favor of the 
 negative. Faith in immortality may become, by 
 9 
 
130 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 culture, so strong as to enable one to speak of an 
 after-life, as did the dying Lady Hastings, who said, 
 " O the greatness of the glory that is revealed to 
 me ! " and unfaith in immortality may become by 
 culture so persistent as to make it easy for one to 
 express, as did Harriet Martineau, a readiness to 
 accept annihilation. What, then, should be allowed 
 by a deliberate reasoner to settle for him the inquiry 
 whether the soul is or is not a deathless entity? 
 Surely this — -the preponderance of evidence. And 
 on which side has always been the preponderance of 
 evidence ? Unquestionably it has always been on 
 the affirmative. Hence, in sixty centuries agone, 
 dark though many of them were, the belief in im- 
 mortality survived all the doubters and all the 
 deniers of it. 
 
 The preponderance of evidence on the affirmative, 
 is what qualified Job virtually to say he knew his con- 
 scious self was immortal. What made Pherecydes 
 of Scyros such a believer in immortality that he went 
 lecturing in behalf of the doctrine in Greece ? What 
 brought Epicharmus to maintain that " man, dying, 
 returns from whence he came, his earthy part to 
 the earth, his spirit upward"? "Is it not strange," 
 said Socrates to his friends, " after all that I have 
 said to convince you that I am going to the society 
 of the happy, that Crito still thinks this body, which 
 will soon be a lifeless corpse, to be Socrates ? Let 
 him dispose of my body as he pleases ; but let him 
 not at its interment mourn over it as if it were 
 Socrates." Said the elder Cyrus to his children, 
 u For my own part, I never could think that the 
 soul while in a mortal body lives, but when departed 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 131 
 
 out of it dies ; or that its consciousness is lost when 
 it is discharged out of an unconscious habitation." 
 How did it come to pass that that Greek philosopher 
 could thus speak ? — how that that Persian con- 
 queror and ruler could thus discourse ? Here is the 
 answer : the preponderance of evidence on the 
 affirmative. Sir John Davies could sing : 
 
 " The soul, though made in time, survives for aye, 
 And, though it hath beginning, sees no end." 
 
 And Wordsworth could sing : 
 
 " We will grieve not, rather find 
 Strength in what remains behind, 
 In the primal sympathy, 
 Which, having been, must ever be ; 
 In the soothing thoughts that spring 
 Out of human suffering ; 
 In the faith that looks through death." 
 
 And the reason why was this : the preponderance 
 of evidence on the affirmative. 
 
 I will set forth some arguments for the soul's im- 
 mortalit} T . And, first in the list shall be presented 
 that one, the force of which must have been repeat- 
 edly felt by all who have given adequate scope for 
 the exercise of the vernunft or higher reason. I 
 mean the intuition, or rather the intuitive foresight, 
 of a life after death. Cicero alludes to it in the 
 passage : 
 
 " There is, I know not how, in minds a certain presage, as it 
 were, of a future existence ; and this takes the deepest root and 
 is most discoverable {in maximis ingeniis altissimisque animis) 
 in the greatest geniuses and the most exalted souls." 
 
 The eminent Muretus of France, " for whose 
 
182 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 equal as a Latin orator, we must [so says Sir Wil 
 Ham Hamilton] ascend to Cicero himself," adduces 
 this general intuitive foresight of a life to come, as 
 a strong and weighty evidence of the soul's immor- 
 tality. In our clearer moods, if we look futureward 
 and contemplate death, we naturally think ourselves 
 to be ever-enduring, endlessly-living. Let one say 
 to his own mind, " I am destined to outlive my 
 body," and his mind, if it be unclogged and unre- 
 strained, will intuitively ratify the affirmation. It 
 will not be able to do otherwise. Now, this sponta- 
 neous, irresistible ratification by the mind, of the 
 affirmation of a future existence, is to be taken as a 
 natural testimony in behalf of the certainty of im- 
 mortality. For what is an intuitive mental act but 
 a prompt telling by the mental substance, of some 
 truth or some fact appertaining either to itself or to 
 something else ? In one point, intuitions and in- 
 stinctive actions are alike, — the}^ both have refer- 
 ence to certainties which are present or prospective. 
 There is an instinctive effort for life-preservation, 
 and it is correlative to a life made to be preserved ; 
 there is an intuition of a future existence, and it is 
 correlative to immortality. 
 
 The intuitive foresight or presage of a life to 
 come is intimately connected with some great human 
 feelings. It helps largely to explain that disposi- 
 tion which leads the thoughtful mourner to visit the 
 grave of his departed relative or friend, and there 
 " lift his yearnings from the dust," and look heaven- 
 ward, and with an expectant fondness muse on a 
 coming time of reunion. It helps largely, also, to 
 explain why man desires, as he does, the perpetua- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 133 
 
 tion of his name. He longs for reputation, perhaps 
 for fame. He feels that 
 
 " 'Tis sweet to be remembered," 
 
 and, in the keeping of cherished fellow-beings, 
 thoughtfully deposits mementos of himself. Such 
 things as distinguishing wreaths and honorary badges, 
 medals and titles, memorial tablets and monumental 
 structures, are, in his idea, worth years of costly vy- 
 ing. How he strives that he may leave behind him 
 something — it may be a book, it may be an inven- 
 tion, it may be a model of fine art, it may be a great 
 estate — that shall commemorate him ! And the 
 explanation of all this is, that he has an intuition of 
 a life after death, together with a love of the appro- 
 bation of beings of his own kind, and the one inten- 
 sifies the other. 
 
 I present next the argument for immortality, 
 which consists in the unlikelihood of the soul's de- 
 struction or annihilation. Substances that we know 
 to be material undergo striking alterations, which 
 result in the decomposition of their parts and the 
 dispersion of their atoms. In no instance, however, 
 are their atoms, so far as we can see, destroyed or 
 annihilated ; hence, it may be concluded that these 
 have a natural persistence which will eternally pre- 
 vent their being destroyed or annihilated. Now, 
 the soul does not appear to be subject to any decom- 
 posing or dispersing alterations whatever. Indeed, 
 it does not appear to be by any means divisible. 
 Therefore, there is much less reason to suspect de- 
 struction or annihilation to be the destiny of the 
 soul, than there is to suspect it to be the destiny of 
 
134 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 matter. But it may be claimed that, in this course 
 of reasoning, too much is inferred, since there is 
 inferred the natural indestructibility of matter — a 
 position which is untenable. For, was not matter 
 produced by a miraculous exertion of omnipotent 
 power? and does it not owe the continuity of its 
 existence to the unremitting exertion of that power? 
 Let us suppose it to have been thus produced and to 
 be thus continued in existence ; what follows ? Cer- 
 tainly it does not follow that matter, because it is 
 not naturally indestructible, is doomed to extinction. 
 If a miracle had to be wrought to bring matter into 
 existence, a miracle will be necessary to obliterate 
 it ; and there is nothing whatever, in the course of 
 things, to show that a miracle will ever be performed 
 for that purpose. And if it is unlikely that matter 
 will ever be destroyed or annihilated by a miracu- 
 lous exertion of omnipotent power, much more un- 
 likely is it that the soul, which is ineffably superior 
 to all that is known to be material, will ever be thus 
 destroyed or annihilated. 
 
 It is an irrefutable argument for immortality, that 
 the soul is inimitably improvable; for this is a fact 
 which is perennially suggestive of endless life. Man 
 shrinks from believing that a thing which can so 
 surely advance without limit under culturing pro- 
 cesses, should, after a short series of fleeting years, 
 be obliged to sink down in the waters of oblivious 
 death. Why was the soul so wondrously endowed, 
 if made to live only for so little a while ? Why 
 were such valuable, such ever-improvable faculties 
 implanted in it, if it were to have no adequate time 
 for developing and training them ? " How can it," 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 135 
 
 inquires Addison, " enter into the thoughts of man, 
 that the soul, which is capable of such immense 
 perfections and of receiving new improvements to 
 all eternity, should fall awa}^ into nothing almost as 
 soon as it is created ? " There occurs in the writings 
 of Cicero an imaginary dialogue, in which he as- 
 cribes to the elder Cato these impressive words : 
 
 "This is my firm persuasion, that since the human soul exerts 
 itself with so great activity ; since it has such a remembrance of 
 the past, such a concern for the future ; since it is enriched with 
 so many arts, sciences, and discoveries, it is impossible that the 
 being which contains all these should not be immortal." 
 
 I go on to name an argument or two further. 
 
 In the present course of things, vice is punished 
 and virtue is rewarded ; but the punishing and the 
 rewarding are not perfectly adjusted to human de- 
 serts. Vice is often highly favored, and virtue is 
 often sorely vilified and persecuted. Hence, men 
 naturally come to think that (as Plato says) " vices, 
 when they escape the discovery and cognizance of 
 human justice, are still within the reach of the 
 divine, which will pursue them even after the death 
 of the guilty;" and that virtues which suffer the 
 pains of calumniation and revilement on earth, shall 
 fail not of a great hereafter of divine recompense. 
 
 Again ; there are deaths, there are dreams, there 
 are cataleptic trances, and there are magnetic trans- 
 ports, which furnish one common argument for im- 
 mortality ; and it is the argument which consists in 
 an extraordinary inner lucidness, or, in other words, 
 a preternatural mental illumination, prevailing more 
 and more as the influence of the body on the soul 
 diminishes. Not unregarded, in any historic period, 
 
136 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 have been the different orders of instances wherein 
 this argument has been from primeval years illus- 
 trated. Shakespeare has the lines : 
 
 " They say, the tongues of dying men 
 Enforce attention like deep harmony." 
 
 " It is observed," remarks Sir Thomas Browne, 
 " that men sometimes, upon the hour of their de- 
 parture, do speak and reason above themselves ; for 
 then the soul, beginning to be freed from the liga- 
 ments of the body, begins to reason like herself, and 
 to discourse in a strain above mortality." And says 
 Victor Hugo, " There is a dilatation peculiar to the 
 viciuity of the tomb ; and to be near death, makes 
 a man see correctly." 
 
 Who has never, at a time of dreamful sleep, found 
 himself speaking, reading, reasoning, calculating, or 
 perhaps inventing, with a transcendent ease and a 
 masterly directness, which it was astonishing to con- 
 template? What is to be said of the wonderful 
 inner lucidness experienced at such times ? Shall 
 we not say it shows what is " natural to the facul- 
 ties of the mind, when they are disengaged from the 
 body?" 
 
 A man there was whose name was William Ten- 
 nent. He was for three days thought to be dead. His 
 neighbors had assembled to pay a final tribute of 
 respect to his body. But just as the funeral was ready 
 to begin, he awoke and looked out of his eyes again. 
 Afterward he testified that, during those days, he 
 saw and heard things unutterable. " I was trans- 
 ported," said he, " with my own situation, viewing 
 all my troubles ended, and my rest and glory begun, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 137 
 
 and was about to join the great and happy multi- 
 tude, when one came to me, looked me full in the 
 face, laid his hand upon my shoulder, and said, 
 1 You must go back.' These words went through me. 
 Nothing could have shocked me more. I cried out, 
 ' Lord, must I go back ? ' With this shock I opened 
 my eyes in this world." Such was the trance, such 
 the lucid vision-state, in which William Tennent, 
 well known for many years as a Presbyterian min- 
 ister, did once at New Brunswick, in the State of 
 New Jersey, about the middle of the eighteenth 
 century, pass three of the days of his lifetime. A 
 man there was whose name was Emanuel Sweden- 
 borg. He was a celebrated Swedish scholar and 
 dignitary, the author of remarkable books and the 
 founder of an abiding church. He was born at 
 Stockholm, on the twenty-ninth day of January, 
 1689. After graduating at the university of Upsal, 
 he acquired distinction as a mineralogist, an anato- 
 mist, a theologian, and a philosopher. When he was 
 twenty-eight years old, he was made the chief mine 
 assessor in the kingdom of Sweden ; and when he 
 was thirty years old, he was advanced to the rank 
 of a Swedish nobleman. According to the testi- 
 mony of Count von Hopken, who knew him to the 
 heart, he was uniformly virtuous, was free from fret- 
 fulness, was diligent, was frugal without sorclidness, 
 was gifted with a most happy genius, was fitted to 
 shine in whatever scientific pursuit he chose to apply 
 himself, was sound in judgment, and was, withal, 
 one who " saw everything clearly, and expressed 
 himself well on every subject." In 1743 he became 
 the subject of an inner lucidness which was sur- 
 
138 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 passingly extraordinary. He himself ascribed it to 
 an opening of his spiritual sight. It occurred on 
 his part at frequent intervals, during a score and 
 seven years. It is reasonable to believe that it was 
 some exalted state of magnetic ecstasy. By him, 
 however, it was adjudged to be far superior to any 
 experience of that kind. Sometimes it made his 
 eyes shine like bright flames. In the moments of 
 his exalted inner lucidness, he could certainly see 
 with a preternatural vision in earthly directions ; for 
 he was able at one time, when in Gottenburg, to 
 disclose the particulars of a conflagration in Stock- 
 holm, even two days before the news of the burning 
 was brought by the post. According to his own 
 continual professions, his state of illumination was 
 such that it qualified him to perceive the " spiritual 
 world." In a letter, written near the close of his 
 life to the Duke of Hesse, he solemnly declared that 
 it had been granted him continually, for twenty- 
 seven years, " to see the heavens and many of their 
 wonders, and also the hells, and to speak with angels 
 and spirits." 
 
 Now, soul-illumination or inner lucidness, when it 
 is of any one of the high and notable species that 
 have been mentioned, can be accounted for on no 
 superficial hypothesis. Call it an abnormal phenom- 
 enon of no practical importance, and you have still 
 to explain why it is at all times so wonderful, and 
 why, forsooth, it is sometimes so amazing. Say 
 that it is the effect of some curious freak of human 
 nature, and you have still to grapple with the fact 
 that it is a state in which the very highest mental 
 faculties are supremely engaged and concentrated. 
 
THE INESTIMABLE LNTEKIOK HERITAGE. 139 
 
 It certainly signifies some great change in the rela- 
 tionship between the inner man and the outer. It 
 is evidently the result of a partial emancipation of 
 the former from the latter ; and I do accordingly say 
 it tends to prove that the soul is immortal. 
 
 (For the Scriptural arguments relative to the ques- 
 tion of a future existence, see the Scriptures them- 
 selves.) 
 
 Immortality is, on the whole, an amply-war- 
 ranted belief. And it meaneth — what? Does it 
 imply only this : That the soul is not to be annihi- 
 lated ? Reader, think not so. The belief has great 
 depths of significance. Look down into them ! It 
 implies unending personal existence. Nay, more ; it 
 implies unending personal identity. Nay, more ; it 
 implies the eternal onward-rolling of a personal life- 
 stream, to which every mental capability shall for- 
 ever be a tributary, and wherein thoughts, feelings, 
 and volitions shall forever merge. Immortality ! 
 What a " rich meaning " there is in this belief ! 
 what a warmth there is in " this naphtha- well ! " 
 
 XIV. 
 
 THE VALUE OF THE SOUL. 
 
 " His nature no man can o'er-rate." 
 
 Young. 
 
 Few topics are more gravely important than that 
 
 of the soul's value. It demands to be discussed 
 
 thoughtfully and sedately, yet, so far as possible, 
 
140 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 strikingly and penetratingly. He who thus dis- 
 cusses it will take care to avoid commonplace aver- 
 ments and cold, crystalline generalities. He will not 
 say the soul is a valuable entity ; for so to say would 
 be to deal out a mere truism. He will not declare 
 it to be a thing of superior worth ; for such a decla- 
 ration, how great soever its import might be, would 
 be too much lacking in concreteness, too little like 
 words of the class that seem to be alive. There is 
 a Scylla of trite teaching, and there is a Charybdis 
 of cold, dry, abstract instruction ; and both these 
 should be shunned forever. Reader, come thou with 
 me ; I will specially endeavor to keep clear of each 
 of them. 
 
 In entering on a treatment of the topic before us, 
 I at once raise the inquiry, What is the value of the 
 soul ? It is an inquiry which can be positively but 
 not definitely answered. Let investigation respect- 
 ing it be adequately prosecuted, and it will inevita- 
 bly result in the deep deduction that the soul is 
 worth so much we can never, save approximately, 
 ascertain how high an estimate it behooves us to 
 set upon it. Condensing the same deduction into 
 the fewest words possible, we have this aphorism : 
 The value of the soul is so great as to be incalcula- 
 ble. Now, to see the validity and to feel the force 
 of the comprehensive statement here presented, my 
 reader has need to view it as a thesis which is to be 
 proved, and to consider the reasons or arguments 
 that go to establish it. I will assist him in so doing. 
 
 The value of the soul is so great as to be incalcu- 
 lable. 
 
 One argument for this proposition, is the immeas- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR. HERITAGE. 141 
 
 urable extent to which the value of the soul exceeds 
 that of the body. In unfolding and elucidating it, 
 the admirableness which belongs to man's living 
 frame is, of course, to be unstintedly acknowledged. 
 Surely, of all the goodly organic structures on earth, 
 that frame is the most excellent. Spinoza did never 
 more wisely speak than when he said, " This fabric of 
 the human body exceeds infinitely any contrivance of 
 human skill." Novalis pronounces it the form than 
 which nothing is holier — the "Revelation in the 
 flesh" to which reverence is done when men bend 
 before men. Jean Paul alludes to it as " the greatest 
 of all temples." Such are its parts and their inter- 
 connections, such are the processes which go on in 
 it from day to day, such is its life when it is awake, 
 and such is its life when it is asleep, that, as long as 
 it breathes, it silently tells an awe-inspiring story of 
 a Power, independent of humanity, mysterious, im- 
 perturbable, sublime, by which it was originated, and 
 by which, acting concurrently with the human soul, 
 its vital stream is driven along. That saying of the 
 peerless psalmist of Israel, " I am fearfully and won- 
 derfully made," might well be repeated by every 
 man, as often as he turns his attention to the pul- 
 sating house of his thinking self. At more than a 
 myriad points, the body bears the unmistakable im- 
 press of a Master-guide operating behind the pro- 
 cesses of the organizing principle that inhabits it. 
 How apparent is this on every part of the twinkling 
 eye, and of the labyrinthine ear, and of the pliant 
 hand with its sensitive finger-tips, and of the humble 
 yet elaborate foot ! And, in the awful interior of 
 the frame, how plainly the same impress abides on 
 
142 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 every division of the wondrously throbbing heart ! 
 How vividly it is fixed on the strange walls of those 
 lung-cells to which the dark, venous blood comes to 
 be cleansed and brightened ! Ah, who would not, 
 instead of being disposed to teach a person to de- 
 spise his vitalized fabric, be disposed to teach him 
 to regard it with a solemn interest, since it is digni- 
 fied by so many marks significant of " a Some One " 
 that designed it, and that, in cooperation with the 
 human soul, made it to be what it is ? 
 
 When, however, we bring the body into compari- 
 son with the soul, we are obliged to deem it an ob- 
 ject of inferior value. In that case, the representa- 
 tion of the poet seems but just: 
 
 " Our gross investiture of mortal weeds." 
 
 What is it more than a vivified vehicle which nature 
 has carefully provided for the soul, that the soul 
 might therein travel to the end of its earthly jour- 
 ney? It is subject to be scarred by sudden blows 
 and to be maimed by accidental falls. It is a short- 
 lived structure. Disease, that serpent-like foe to 
 the " living dust," steals an attack on it, and in 
 some one of its parts or organs plants a destroying 
 venom ; and soon the corporeal glory passes away ; 
 the rubicund color of the lips and the cheeks fades ; 
 the eyes surrender their attractive luster; the 
 limbs, once able and agile, exchange their strength 
 for a hopeless impotence, and their adroitness for a 
 pulseless immobility; and the form, that used to 
 walk the earth erect and elastic, becomes a pros- 
 trate, unexpressive, disenchanted object. When the 
 soul leaves the body, life leaves it ; and when life has 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 143 
 
 gone out of it, it is bereft of all its interesting sig- 
 nificance, and is fitted for nothing but to collapse 
 and dissolve, and become mingled with the common 
 earth. 
 
 Now, we are well assured that no such desolating 
 changes are possible to the soul. This cannot be 
 touched by any of the entities which have power to 
 wound or to cripple the body. Human flesh can be 
 pierced through with the sword or with the dagger; 
 but no material blade can be brought into contact 
 with the human self. Man's form can be perforated 
 with the missiles of fire-lock weapons ; but no pro- 
 jectile, whether of lead or of iron, whether driven 
 by gunpowder force or by any other force, can be 
 made to enter man's spirit. " Then only," says 
 Epictetus, " are you [i. e., your soul] hurt when 
 you think j^ourself so." And says Marcus Antoni- 
 nus, " Things themselves cannot affect the mind ; 
 for they have no entrance into it to turn and move 
 it : it is the mind alone that turns and moves itself." 
 The soul is not short-lived. What can cause it to 
 disintegrate ? What can reduce it to the condition 
 of scattered atoms? "When thou nearest," says 
 Chrysostom, " of the death of the soul, imagine not 
 that the soul becomes extinct." 
 
 We say of our departed friends whose absence 
 we lament with sighings of disconsolateness and 
 with longings of affection, that they are dead. But 
 it is a mode of expression which is but an instance 
 of popular inexactitude in speech. Those friends 
 themselves are not dead ; for the soul, in the sense 
 of becoming like a clod of the valley or like a 
 sepulchral ruin, cannot die. From the disease-worn 
 
144 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 and death-smitten body this escapes. Perhaps it 
 does so with an exalted composure, the token of 
 perfect triumph. Leaving the house which it has 
 ceased to illuminate behind it, and, rising to the 
 border of the " undiscovered country," it goes to 
 its own place. 
 
 Now, the body is held by all enlightened men to 
 be unspeakably valuable. No one would delib- 
 erately barter his corporeal inheritance for the opu- 
 lence of merchant-princes or for the precious gems 
 which glitter amid royal decorations. And if the 
 soul is so far superior, in every respect, to the bodj^, 
 the conclusion is unavoidable that the value of the 
 soul immeasurably exceeds that of the body. And 
 from this spontaneously springs the corollary that 
 the value of the soul is so great as to be incalculable. 
 
 Another argument for the proposition under dis- 
 cussion is, the immeasurable extent to which the 
 value of the soul exceeds that of all known matter 
 external to human nature. In every case in which 
 man's self is compared with the physical objects 
 which exist outside of him, the former, by reason of 
 the innate nobility and the potential grandeur that 
 give it its preeminence, makes the latter seem poor. 
 Let us glance at the striking differences between 
 them. The most remarkable of those physical 
 objects are of no higher inherent importance than 
 such things as we are able to handle with our 
 hands, to break in pieces with mallet or maul, or to 
 weigh in the receiver of a balance. But who can 
 lay hands on the soul ? Who can smite the soul 
 into fragments ? Who can put the soul into a 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 145 
 
 balance-basin, and determine its weight in pounds 
 or ounces ? What is there in the fairest, the rarest, 
 the sublimest material thing external to man, that, 
 in dignity of essence and in improvableness of capa- 
 bility, resembles the soul ? The beautiful flower 
 with its welcome fragrance, the handsome tree with 
 its graceful foliage, the flying wind with its won- 
 derful elasticity, the refulgent sun with its splendid 
 beams, the trembling star with its far-sent shimmer- 
 ings — what do these things know ? what can they 
 feel ? what can they do ? They are incapable of 
 cognizing their own existence. They cannot choose 
 what they will be or what they will have. Unen- 
 dowed are they with power to see, or to hear, or to 
 touch, or to taste, or to smell. They cannot in any 
 way direct themselves. They cannot by any means 
 free themselves from the tendencies which are in 
 them. They are senseless, feelingless, knowledge- 
 less. They are, save as they depend for improve- 
 ment on some being superior to them, utterly un- 
 susceptible of any change for the better. But, 
 turning to the soul, we find that in each of the 
 points here named it is amazingly unlike them. 
 The soul can perceive by means of senses. The 
 soul is self-conscious and self-directing. The soul is 
 a substance that can think — that can choose — that 
 can form purposes and accomplish them — that can 
 manifest sympathy — that can hope and fear, laugh 
 and sigh, rejoice and mourn. The soul can end- 
 lessly improve itself. The soul can intentionally set 
 in action causes, the effects of which will be felt in 
 distant parts of the earth. The soul can evolve 
 ideas that will tend to revolutionize communities or 
 10 
 
146 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 to transform nations. The soul can make discov- 
 eries in planetary spaces and stellar realms. The 
 soul can worship Deity and anticipate eternity. 
 Saj^s Pascal : 
 
 " Man is but a reed, the feeblest in nature ; but he is a thinking 
 reed. The entire universe need not arm itself to crush him. A 
 vapor, a drop of water, suffices. But though the universe should 
 crush him, man would still be nobler than that which slew him, 
 because he would know that he was dying ; while of the advantage 
 which the universe had over him, the universe would know 
 nothing." 
 
 Now, we are accustomed to regard the value of 
 material things which are outside of us, as very 
 great. We speak of the immense worth of precious 
 metals and of precious stones. We imagine that 
 we understand what a high estimate we should 
 place on the air which we breathe, on the light 
 which cheers our eyes, on the water which refreshes 
 our lips, on the soil which lies deep and fertile 
 around us, and on the nourishing products which 
 spring therefrom. But if, in every case of compari- 
 son between such things and the soul, there are to 
 be discovered distinctions so surpassingly important 
 in favor of the latter, then we must conclude that 
 the value of the latter immeasurably exceeds that 
 of the former. And this conclusion is fitted to give 
 rise to the belief, that the value of the soul is so 
 great as to be incalculable. 
 
 One argument further for the same proposition 
 remains to be considered. It is the argument that 
 consists in the immeasurable extent to which the 
 value of the conscious human self exceeds that of 
 
THE INESTIMABLE IKTEEIOR HERITAGE. 147 
 
 the conscious self of the most knowing of the ver- 
 tebrate beings on earth that are other than human. 
 These all are representatives of a kind of soul 
 which, save in point of improvability, is substan- 
 tially similar to our own. " If I am not mistaken," 
 saj^s Agassiz, " we can trace in all vertebrates men- 
 tal powers akin to those of man." The creatures 
 which are generally known by the term animals, 
 evince sensation and perception, appetite and pro- 
 pensity, desire and affection, memory and will, won- 
 der and curiosity, caution and constructiveness, the 
 power of imitation and the power of profiting by 
 experience. They can anticipate pleasure and they 
 can dread pain. They are capable of anger and 
 hate, of trust and lo} r alty. The dog (so says an 
 acute contributor to the Edinburgh Revieiv) some- 
 times has a feeling of shame as distinct from fear, 
 and sometimes a feeling very like modesty. A great 
 dog, by its scorn for the snarling of a little dog, 
 shows magnanimity. Dogs and horses give proof 
 in their dreams that they have imagination. The 
 chimpanzee cracks nuts with a stone, and thus ex- 
 hibits some knowledge of tool-using. The dog, by 
 its action in regard to its bone, and the bird, by its 
 action in regard to its nest, indicate an idea of 
 property. 
 
 That the vertebrate beings under consideration 
 are, in a degree, capable of reasoning, is an opinion 
 which, from ancient times, has had able accepters 
 and advocates. Chrysippus, a distinguished Greek 
 philosopher, referring to the logical process whereby 
 a dog determines which one of three ways to take, 
 describes it thus : 
 
148 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 "I have traced my master to this place; he must of necessity 
 have gone one of these three ways : he has not gone this way nor 
 that; he must then infallibly have gone this other." 
 
 Agassiz maintains that we cannot, without shut- 
 ting our eyes to the plainest and most unmistakable 
 facts, deny to the more elevated orders of brute- 
 vertebrates "some degree of argumentative power." 
 And he not only attributes to them this, but declares 
 that "in their moral relations they give evidence of 
 a natural sense of right and wrong, as keen, if not 
 as susceptible of higher development, as that which 
 we find in some men." 
 
 From what has been advanced, it is to be inferred 
 that the saying quoted by Bayle, Deus est anima 
 brutorum ( u God is the soul of brutes,") * is untrue. 
 The instinctive movings of brutes are, in all likeli- 
 hood, actions to which God's energy spurs them ; 
 but surely their conscious self, their soul, is an entity 
 distinct from God. It is also to be inferred that the 
 affirmation of Huxley, that " the only conclusion at 
 which there seems to be any good ground for ar- 
 riving is, that animals are machines, but that they 
 are conscious machines," is to be regarded as hav- 
 ing an insufficient foundation. Unsafe, certainly, for 
 a general rule, is the conscious-machine deduction. 
 There are numerous facts with which it appears to 
 be totally irreconcilable. Plutarch relates of the 
 elephant which King Porus rode in his battle with 
 Alexander the Great, that this beast, when he found 
 his master ready to sink under the darts which had 
 entered his flesh, kneeled down in the softest man- 
 
 * See Addison's Essay on Animal Instinct. {The Spectator, 
 No. 121.) 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 149 
 
 ner to prevent the pierced rider from falling off, and 
 afterward, with his proboscis, gently drew every 
 dart out of his master's body. Could a conscious 
 machine have performed such acts ? 
 
 The brute-vertebrates (to say what none will 
 deny) have in their kind of soul something which 
 makes them far superior by nature, both to inani- 
 mate material forms and to living but impersonal 
 physical organisms. The crystal is striking, but it 
 knows nothing — it is stolid : therefore, in itself 
 considered, it is a thing of lower order than the 
 squirrel, that sagaciously gathers food in autumn 
 whereon to subsist in winter. The flower is beauti- 
 ful, but it is incapable of perception or of feeling, 
 of recollection or of volition : therefore it is inferior 
 by nature to the bird, which can see and choose, go 
 and come — the bird which has a mental nature in 
 union with its organized physical frame. Any vital- 
 ized body that is stirred, and moved, and lighted up 
 by the powers of a soul dwelling in it, as the eagle's 
 soul dwells in the eagle's body, or as the horse's 
 soul dwells in the horse's body, is to be regarded 
 with an interest deeper than that which is due to a 
 mountain or to a tree. For wherever there is such 
 a thing with such another thing in it, there is in- 
 trinsic superiority in the scale of being, there is 
 natural ground for a surpassing valuation. 
 
 But here let us turn to institute a comparison 
 between the conscious self of the brute- vertebrate 
 and that of man. I will suppose that some highly 
 intelligent representative of beast-souls is made an 
 object of study by the side of some highly intelli- 
 gent representative of human souls. We contem- 
 
150 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 plate the perceptive power revealed by the one, and 
 then the perceptive power revealed by the other. 
 We compare the memory, the imagination, and the 
 will evinced by the one, with the memory, the imag- 
 ination, and the will evinced by the other. We 
 notice the ingenuity displayed by the one, and then 
 the ingenuity displayed by the other. We take into 
 consideration the reasonings of the one, — those logi- 
 cal processes which at best we find to be only slight, 
 — and then we take into consideration the reason- 
 ings of the other, — reasonings proceeding along 
 some extended line of powerful thought and victori- 
 ous combination. We prosecute the double study 
 yet further. Indeed, we go on comparing till the 
 comparison must end. And what then ? We have, 
 as the result, a conviction fadelessly clear and abid- 
 ingly strong ; and it is the conviction that the human 
 soul, since it immeasurably exceeds in improvability 
 the beast-soul, does also immeasurably exceed the 
 same in value. Once in possession of this, the mind 
 needs but a lightning-like moment, to pass from it 
 to the more significant deduction, that the value of 
 mart's soul is so great as to be incalculable. 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 151 
 
 XV. 
 
 THE NEEDLESSNESS OF STATIONARY MEDIOCRITY. 
 
 " The soul is a kind of rough diamond which requires art, labor, 
 and time to polish it. For want of which many a good natural 
 genius is lost, or lies unfashioned like a jewel in the mine." 
 
 The Spectator, No. 554. 
 
 There has long been rife in the world the erro- 
 neous notion, that some persons can afford to pass 
 through life without any special efforts to educate 
 themselves. This notion is a conclusion deduced 
 from certain reasonings which have proceeded from 
 false premises. The fact is well known that human 
 beings are commonly regarded as divisible into the 
 two classes — the gifted and the ungifted. Mis- 
 takes ha,ve widely obtained, concerning the real dif- 
 ferences existing between the classes thus designat- 
 ed ; and it is to them the ill-founded opinion, already 
 mentioned, can be traced. I propose here to offer 
 a plea in behalf of the portion of mankind that 
 bear the disparaging title of ungifted. It shall be 
 my aim to show the indefensibleness of that low 
 estimate of ordinary mental endowments wherein 
 the same title had its origin. And I begin by affirm- 
 ing that no human soul, in possession of the usual 
 thinking faculties, has need to resign itself to a condi- 
 tion of stationary mediocrity. This thesis is one that 
 can be maintained by irrefutable proofs. The read- 
 er's attention is solicited to the argumentative en- 
 deavor now to be undertaken in support of it. 
 
 What is it to be an incarnated human self, capa- 
 
152 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ble of perceiving, of comparing, of judging, of putting 
 forth volitions, of conveying ideas, of realizing pur- 
 poses ? I answer that it is to be an embodied intel- 
 ligent entity, outvying in inherent importance all 
 wealth that is merely earthly, and all glory that is 
 wholly material. Men greatly err when they con- 
 clude that the innermost substance of humanity, 
 even though it be in its lowest stage of development, 
 is of little worth or of trivial account. The least 
 distinguished human soul is a marvelous creature. 
 Would you call it ungifted ? Examine the manifes- 
 tations which it makes of its hidden nature, and you 
 shall find that it has priceless gifts'. Would you 
 almost ascribe to it an inferiority like that of the 
 soul of the brute ? Look downward from its innate 
 rank, and notice the distance which yawns between 
 its knowing power and that of the most intelligent 
 specimen of brutehood ! Compare tKe claims to 
 respect which mark the one with those which char- 
 acterize the other! The former, not the latter, can 
 think in the higher sense of thinking — can reason 
 in the higher sense of reasoning — can improve in 
 the higher sense of improving. The former, not the 
 latter, can discover the existence of Deity — can 
 pray and adore — can keep a Sabbath-day holy — 
 can anticipate a life after death. 
 
 The most ill-conditioned man, in any nation of 
 the world, is, in spite of all that can be said to the 
 contrary, a wonderfully significant living being. 
 Survey him and read the evidences of his inherited 
 preeminence ! Study the points appertaining to 
 his nature, which from his birth-hour have entitled 
 him to regard ! Up from the helplessness of infancy 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTEEIOR HEEITAGE. 153 
 
 lie has come to the strength of adult years. In 
 youth, he sang and laughed, leaped and sported. 
 As the clays of a maturer age passed, like bright 
 pageants, by him, he had feelings which originated 
 in deeper recesses of his soul. He was conscious of 
 expectations which were clouded by disappoint- 
 ments, and of joys which were skirted with sorrows. 
 Having grown to be a man, he found himself able to 
 hold counsel with his own faculties ; able to com- 
 mune with beings of his own race in friendship ; 
 able to exercise kindness and gratitude ; able to 
 rejoice with those that rejoiced, and to weep with 
 those that wept ; able to act the part of an honora- 
 ble, God-fearing, patriotic, useful mortal. And, in 
 the light of facts like these, how can such a one be 
 deemed the possessor of unimportant capabilities? 
 Is there not in him something which, in its essence, 
 is akin to the mind of Socrates, the mind of Shakes- 
 peare, and the mind of Newton ? Is there not in 
 him something which, if estimated as " God in Naz- 
 areth " estimated every such thing, would be de- 
 clared to be worth more than all the opulence that 
 shines in palaces and all the diamond emblems that 
 glitter in imperial crowns ? 
 
 Amid the bustle and the whirl of practical life, 
 men are not apt to set a correct valuation on ordi- 
 nary souls. They are slow to discern and to acknowl- 
 edge the native consequence of that substance which 
 is endowed with reflective faculties and intuitional 
 power. Hence a strong prejudice has come to exist 
 against the capabilities of a large proportion of the 
 inhabitants of the world. There are those who are 
 wont to point to the idle, the ignorant, the super- 
 
154 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 stitious, and the servile, and, with the confidence of 
 a disdainful pride, to ask, " What right to any esti- 
 mation whatever have such specimens of inferiority 
 and wretchedness? " But to all who are inclined 
 thus to express themselves, it may be said that, even 
 the lowest, meanest, vilest members of the human 
 race have something inexpressibly valuable in them. 
 The drunkard, wallowing and soaking in the way- 
 side gutter, has that in him which, intrinsically con- 
 sidered, is of more worth than gold or precious 
 stones. The condemned perpetrator of crime, who 
 is awaiting the hour when he must be swung from 
 the gallows, and the wrinkled, faded crone whom 
 vice has blighted and misery has blunted, and whose 
 home is some underground den or some gloomy, 
 leaking hovel, within the city's bounds, — each of 
 these has a soul ; and that soul, though it is in a 
 deplorable state, consists in a kind of substance the 
 importance of which exceeds that of the brightest 
 stars in the heavens. There is a sense in which the 
 uncouth tatterdemalion and the listless organ-grinder 
 are owners of real w r ealth. They have human eyes, 
 ears, and hands, together with a human memory, 
 imagination, reasoning faculty, and conscience. By 
 their eyes they have learned, at least, how to spell 
 the words on a sign-post ; and this is more than any 
 of the brute animals can do. By their ears, they 
 have learned, at least, how to distinguish the articu- 
 late sounds of a widely-spoken language ; and this 
 is something no brute animal ever did. By their 
 hands, they have become able to ply with success, 
 at least, a dozen useful tools ; and this is to have 
 gained a greater skill than any beast of the field or 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 155 
 
 any fowl of the air ever exhibited. By their mem- 
 ory, they have been enabled to store in their minds 
 a myriad weighty facts and truths, and by their 
 imagination to rear many a fair mental form, and by 
 their reasoning faculty to calculate times and dis- 
 tances, to estimate quantities and values, and to draw 
 conclusions from compared propositions, and by their 
 conscience to apprehend immutable moral distinc- 
 tions, — all which are acts that are almost entirely 
 outside the life-range of the most knowing brute 
 creatures. And is it not clear that what these 
 dependent, dreamy, ill-living human beings need, to 
 break the hold which their beggarly environments 
 have on them, and to raise them to the mental state 
 and the physical level of honored members of soci- 
 ety, is the development of their slighted capabili- 
 ties ? They surely need, above all things, to educate 
 themselves. 
 
 The reason why some persons can wield no tool 
 higher in rank than a wood-saw or a spade, an ax or 
 a hoe, is not because they are not endowed to do it ; 
 it is because the} 7 " have had no culture fitting them 
 to do it. A similar explanation solves the riddle 
 why so many college graduates, who are to-clay won- 
 dering at the distinction acquired by persons that 
 have, perhaps, never seen the inside of a college, 
 are, notwithstanding all their fine scholarship, on 
 the plane of mediocrity, and there seemingly con- 
 tent with 
 
 "The flat experience of the common man." 
 
 Self-development ! this is the great method whereby 
 to secure relief and rescue from slavish conditions. 
 
156 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 The devotees of dirt, the plodding peddlers, the 
 lounging hostlers, the groveling vagrants — all can 
 become admirable mortals. That which is adequate 
 to make them such is an educative activity in the 
 better regions of their being. There are thousands 
 of persons who do never more than partly bestir 
 themselves. In certain territories of their mental 
 nature they are either almost or utterly inactive or 
 dormant. Though they go, and come, and see, and 
 hear, and speak, yet one can detect a species of con- 
 tinual slumber, by looking into their expressionless 
 eyes and by listening to their vacant talk. Their 
 nature-soul is awake, but their spirit-soul is asleep. 
 They are psychically astir, but are pneumatically 
 motionless. What is that that will cure the torpor 
 in which their nobler mental potency is now wrapt 
 and bound ? What is that that will give them the 
 use of their unused valuable capabilities? It is self- 
 development. 
 
 Wonderful, and glorious is the effect which follows 
 when knowledge is received into some neglected 
 province of the soul, and is there appropriated as 
 nutriment. How it stimulates ! How it brings into 
 action latent power of mind and of heart ! How it 
 causes meanness to depart and majesty to take its 
 place ! The beginning of human salvation, in the 
 secular sense as well as in the religious, is the diges- 
 tion of needful knowledge in the soul. That which 
 can produce a complete reformation on the part of 
 one who has become so degraded as to be an object 
 of contemptuous pity even to the vicious ; that which 
 can deliver the most unworthy man or woman on 
 the whole earth, from the track of a shameful career, 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 157 
 
 and from the liability to a dark and frightful end, is 
 genial and salubrious knowledge, assimilated in re- 
 gions of the conscious self, where precious capabilities 
 have been lying torpid. 
 
 No slavery, by whatever name it may be known, 
 can long maintain its bondage-grip, under the salva- 
 tory influence of the right kind of information, so 
 turned to account as to result in self-development. 
 Behold the case of the slave of superstition ! He 
 has been nurtured amid scenes of barbaric idolatry. 
 His dearest delight has been realized in paying 
 homage to gods of wood or of stone, of earth or of 
 metal. A good thing has seemed to him to have 
 been done, when some infant has been flung into 
 the throat of a rushing river, with a view to appeas- 
 ing the wrath of a vengeful deity, or when all the 
 attractions of social life have been exchanged for the 
 dreary seclusion of an ascetic hermit, or when an 
 erring mortal has pierced and mutilated his body by 
 way of doing penance for his sins. But see how he 
 starts toward a new condition of being, and how 
 quickly the chains of his servitude fall from his 
 soul, when truth, such as is suited to work an ex- 
 pansion of his faculties, once becomes lodged in his 
 rational nature ! Behold the case of the slave of 
 vice ! An evil appetite has been his bane. Intem- 
 perance has hatched in his frame and in his mind its 
 brood of woes. He has been cast out of men. The 
 good, when they look on him, are horror-stricken ; 
 and the bad, when they pass by him, have a thrill 
 of disgust. But see how he betakes himself toward 
 that which is high and hoi} 7 , and how he schools his 
 feet to shun the path of abject life, when his con- 
 
158 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 scious self is once brought into a process of true 
 growth by well-adapted instruction ! And again, 
 behold the case of the slave who crouches in the 
 presence of a human taskmaster ! Long has he 
 borne on his back the marks of the lash, and long 
 has he shown in his countenance the degree in 
 which he has been unmanned under the cruelties of 
 arbitrary domination. But see how soon the tenor 
 of his way is changed, how he rises out of his low, 
 cowering tameness, and how he prepares to ex- 
 change the condition of a bondman for that of a 
 freeman, when knowledge, fitted to be meat and 
 drink to his dormant capabilities, once begins to 
 result in their development ! 
 
 Thus it is with all debasing bondages, whether 
 they be physical, intellectual, social, or moral : their 
 sure destroyer is suitable mental food, so assimilated 
 as to give rise to mental stir and expansion. And 
 this goes to prove that the education of a soul of 
 very ordinary endowments is no wasted outlay of 
 attention and foster-care. Be it ever remembered 
 that all men, not excepting the least talented, are 
 capable of high attainments. If a dumb animal can 
 be trained to praiseworthy habits and performances, 
 who will deny that the most unpromising human 
 soul can form a character too excellent to be deemed 
 poor, and too noble to be considered middling? It 
 is certain that the very smallest degree of mental 
 development is a benefit. Better is it to be slightly 
 educated than to be stupidly ignorant ; better is it 
 to be a half-scholar than to be a blundering ignora- 
 mus. And, furthermore, it may be emphatically 
 said that mental development, with a view to 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 159 
 
 making the most of one's self, is just as much a duty, 
 as to supply any damaging external deficiency is a 
 duty. The person who is without eyesight, is excus- 
 able for not being able to see ; but would he not be 
 pronounced a drowsy drone if he should never seek 
 to make compensation for his lack, by acquiring 
 special aptitudes of touch and of hearing ? And, to 
 apply the illustration, if a person finds he has not 
 inherited any remarkable mental gifts, he will be 
 blameworthy, provided he does not continually and 
 manfully endeavor to supply the want, by cultivat- 
 ing the unremarkable ones which he possesses. 
 
 It is indisputable, not only that ordinary men 
 have, by educating themselves, risen above medioc- 
 rity, but also that such men, when educated, are 
 generally highly useful and estimable actors in the 
 world. The}^ are living proofs that education tends 
 to make mortals, however commonplace they may 
 be, admirable. In the age when Virgil wrote his 
 poems, there were, all over Italy, men, not num- 
 bered in the so-called gifted class, who were well- 
 informed and well-cultivated ; and this fact is, un- 
 questionably, the reason why his Gfeorgics proved to 
 be, as they did, the means whereby the whole system 
 of agriculture in that country was reconstructed. 
 Numerous quiet farmers were, then, high-toned 
 scholars. It seems to have been the custom of the 
 mass of people to pay more regard to intellectual 
 pleasures than to mere animal enjoyments. Obscure 
 towns and remote rural districts were blessed with 
 the steady presence of persons of superior intelli- 
 gence and merit, who were, perhaps, entirely un- 
 known to the heralds of historic fame. Men that 
 
160 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE . 
 
 were doubtless regarded as ungifted had a trained 
 sense of propriety, and a refined feeling as to per- 
 sonal honor, which would not let them submit to 
 incivilities from such as were publicly recognized 
 as gifted. An evidence of the correctness of this 
 statement may be found in the instance of Scipio 
 Nasica, who, being a candidate for the office of an 
 edile (a representative of a species of Roman magis- 
 tral authority), took a plain countryman one day 
 by the hand, and, finding it somewhat toil-hardened, 
 accosted him with the rude question, " Prithee, 
 friend, do you walk on your hands ? " The result 
 was that the farmer, deeming that his dignity as a 
 man and as a citizen had been infringed, made com- 
 plaint to the people, and Scipio failed to secure the 
 edileship. 
 
 XVI. 
 
 SELF-DISRESPECT, AND WHAT COMES OF IT. 
 
 " It is rarely that men have respect and reverence enough for 
 themselves." Qdtntilian. 
 
 " There is nothing so handsome and lawful as well and duly to 
 play the man; nor science so hard as well to know how to live 
 this life; and of all the infirmities we have, 'tis the most savage to 
 despise our being." 
 
 Montaigne, Essays, Book III., Chap. XIII. 
 
 The soul is liable to enter into states in which 
 it will come to have a habit of rating itself low. 
 Numerous, in all periods of history, have been they 
 that were so modest as to have no faith in them- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 161 
 
 selves, and they that were so ashamed as to look 
 with a continual derision on themselves. There are 
 two kinds of self-disrespect. One of them is implied 
 in that cringing diffidence which proceeds from the 
 constant imputation to one's self of inferiority ; the 
 other is implied in that remorse which is insepara- 
 ble from the consciousness of guilt. These both, in 
 all instances in which they are habitual, war sadly 
 against the soul's well-being. They shall be dis- 
 cussed in the order in which they have been men- 
 tioned. 
 
 Persons who are cringingly diffident are wont to 
 receive but little esteem from others. Timothy Tit- 
 comb calls them "shying people ; " and he declares 
 that an individual of this class is sure to be shunned 
 at last, and that he will well deserve his fate. In 
 the sight of others we are usually what we are in 
 our own sight. If one accounts himself a fool or a 
 coward, others will speedily learn to account him 
 likewise. Under-estimate yourself, and the inevita- 
 ble consequence will be that those who are around 
 you will under-estimate you. This is one of the les- 
 sons illustrated by the ten Jewish spies, who, having 
 accomplished their retreat from the land of Canaan, 
 said to Moses : 
 
 " And there we saw the giants, the sons of Anak which come of 
 the giants ; and we were in our own sight as grasshoppers, and so 
 we were in their sight." 
 
 It is easy to tell what would have been the result, 
 had Napoleon, while conducting his grenadiers over 
 the bridge at Lodi, or had General Grant, while 
 making the bloody march through the Virginia wil- 
 derness, concluded that he was incompetent to com- 
 11 
 
162 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 mand an army in a time of great peril. The staff- 
 officers and the division leaders, together with the 
 whole host of the rank and file, in either case, would 
 very soon have arrived at the same conclusion, and 
 have acted accordingly. See how it was with Alex- 
 ander the Great ! He had set out to meet and to 
 conquer the Persians and their king Darius ; and 
 he had crossed the Hellespont, and had come to the 
 Granicus. His subalterns raised the question whe- 
 ther the latter stream could be safely crossed by his 
 troops through the waters. Parmenio remonstrated 
 against making the attempt. Alexander replied : 
 " The Hellespont would blush if, after crossing it, I 
 should be afraid of the Granicus." Then, dashing 
 with thirteen brave horsemen into the river, he ad- 
 vanced to encounter the enemy on its opposite bank. 
 The rest of his army promptly followed him. Why 
 should they not have done so? Is it not ever the 
 truth, that when one is discovered to believe in his 
 own ability to do a thing, others quickly learn to 
 believe in it, too ? 
 
 If one will be as an eagle or as a lion in his own 
 sight, he will be as an eagle or as a lion in the sight 
 of others ; and if one will be only as a grasshopper 
 in his own sight, he should not be surprised to find 
 himself to be only as a grasshopper in the sight of 
 others. We are, to a great extent, responsible for 
 the manner in which our fellow-mortals rate us ; for 
 they are wont to adopt what they perceive to be our 
 own manner of rating ourselves. If we feel that our 
 nature is of goodly extraction, that we were made 
 for no mean place among men, and that we cannot 
 afford to sell at any price our birthright to fine in- 
 
THE ^ESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 163 
 
 spirations and noble acquirements, then we will 
 hardly fail to impress those whom we daily meet 
 with a style and a force of character, which will 
 cause them to take us to be just what we feel that 
 we are, and to award us favor and honor. People 
 cannot but have respect for one who respects him- 
 self. Such a one will so influence others as to make 
 their antipathies or prejudices toward him, if they 
 have any, gradually dwindle, and finally fail. But 
 if a person habitually adjudges himself to be weak 
 and inferior, or incapacitated and worthless, he will 
 be similarly adjudged by those who share in his 
 society. 
 
 Self-rating has much to do both with self-making 
 and with self-unmaking. There results from it 
 either an ardent desire of superiority or a settled 
 servility of soul ; either the heroic unrest of one bent 
 on realizing high possibilities, or the sickly content 
 of a stagnating conservative. Become accustomed 
 to respect 3 r ourself, and you will have fulfilled an 
 important requisite to success ; become accustomed 
 to disrespect yourself, and you will have got ready 
 for miscarriage and defeat. Caleb and Joshua, Mil- 
 tiades and Marius, and all the other great souls that 
 have lived, grew to their greatness — how ? Cer- 
 tainly not by counting themselves cheap, and aim- 
 ing at low marks. Where is he that, in whatever 
 circumstances his lot may be cast, is to prove " a 
 slave by his own compulsion " ? Where is he that 
 is to show himself a superficial time-server, always 
 seeking to be numbered with some majority ? Where 
 is he that is to be a dependent imitator, constantly 
 devoted to the customary and the fashionable, and 
 
164 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 never daring to manufacture an opinion, or to insti- 
 tute a mode for himself? And where is he that, out 
 of all the contests in which he may choose to engage, 
 is to emerge stigmatized as a cowardly capitulator, 
 or satirized as one better qualified for flight or re- 
 treat than for winning a victory ? Answer : they 
 each belong to the class that have become used to 
 setting a mean estimate on themselves. O fellow- 
 soul, whosoever thou art, look not down on thy- 
 self ! Up, and perceive what thou canst be ! Why 
 shouldst thou consent to remain plebeian and dim ? 
 I bid thee triumph over thy self-disrespect, and be- 
 come fine and crystalline ! I bid even him who 
 herds with the coarse and tough populace, to re- 
 member that (as Ruskin teaches) street-mud con- 
 tains clay which can become a sapphire, sand which 
 can become an opal, soot which can become a dia- 
 mond, and water which can become a star ; and that 
 as with those rude ingredients, so with the souls of 
 the street-crowd ! 
 
 The other species of self-disrespect — that which 
 is implied in the remorse inseparable from the con- 
 sciousness of guilt — will now receive attention. 
 This, be it understood, is entirely distinct from that 
 dissatisfaction with self which is connected with 
 penitential humiliation, with mournful regret for 
 some mistake, omission, or failure, or with " despair 
 for some public disgrace." Lucretia, when her vir- 
 gin virtue had by force been violated, stabbed her- 
 self, but not because she was remorseful. Apollonius 
 Rhodius, when he had badly recited certain specimens 
 of his poetry, banished himself from his country and 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 165 
 
 his friends, but not because he was influenced by 
 remorse. Sophocles, when one of his tragedies had 
 been hissed off the stage, killed himself (so it is 
 written), but not because remorse had taken posses- 
 sion of him. Aristotle, when he found himself baf- 
 fled in his attempts to explain the motion of the sea 
 between Euboea and Bceotia, drowned himself (so it 
 is recorded), but not because there was remorse in 
 his heart. Would you know what painful self-dis- 
 satisfaction one can have, without any feeling of 
 remorse ? Read, then, the words of Marshal de 
 Montluc. His son, whose virtuous character he 
 admired, and for whom he had a deep and strong 
 affection, had died on the island of Madeira ; and he 
 was sorrow-stricken because he had not been famil- 
 iar enough with that son, to let him know how he 
 prized his excellence, and how he loved him. Said 
 he: 
 
 " The poor boy never saw in me other than a stern and disdain- 
 ful countenance, and is gone in a belief that I neither knew how to 
 lore nor to esteem him according to his desert. For whom did I 
 reserve the discovery of that singular affection I had for him in my 
 soul? Was it not he himself who ought to have had all the pleas- 
 ure of it, and all the obligation? I forced and wracked myself to 
 put on and maintain tins vain disguise, and have by that means 
 deprived myself of the pleasure of his conversation, and, I doubt, 
 in some measure, of his affection ; which could not but be very cold 
 toward me, having never other from me than austerity ; nor felt 
 other than a tyrannical manner of proceeding." * 
 
 Certain it is, then, that a person can be ruefully 
 self-dissatisfied, without being remorsefully self-dis- 
 respectful. He who accuses himself in affectionate 
 grief, has one feeling ; he who derides himself in 
 
 * See Montaigne's Essays, Book II-. Chap. VIII. 
 
166 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 view of his deep-dyed and continuing turpitude, has 
 quite another feeling. He who goes crestfallen with 
 chagrin, has one sort of experience ; he who goes 
 slinking with compunction as if he would flee from 
 his own conscience, has quite another sort of expe- 
 rience. There is a gnawing pain which unmans a 
 man, as does nothing else. Only wrong-doers have 
 it, and it obliges them to scorn themselves. Cain 
 was made by it to take to fugacity and vagabondage. 
 Charles the Ninth was made by it, when he died, to 
 grin and gibber at his own horrible heart. Shakes- 
 peare tells some thrilling episodes of Macbeth, who 
 was so affected by it, that, thinking he saw at a ban- 
 quet which he gave, the ghost of Banquo, whose 
 murder he had procured, he exclaimed : 
 
 " Avaunt ! and quit my sight ! Let the earth hide thee ! 
 Thy bones are marrowless, thy blood is cold ; 
 Thou hast no speculation in those eyes 
 Which thou dost glare with." 
 
 Take, here, a glance at the case of Herod. He had 
 been summoned to Rome to answer charges which 
 had been presented to the imperial government 
 against him. Before his departure, being passion- 
 ately fond of his wife Mariamne, and intensely averse 
 to the thought of her marrying in the event of his 
 condemnation some one else, he constrained Joseph, 
 the Jew whom he had appointed to direct public 
 affairs in his absence, to promise under oath to kill 
 Mariamne, if he himself should be sentenced to die. 
 She, being informed of this by Joseph, became, as 
 was but natural, incurably set against her base hus- 
 band. He was acquitted. On his return, finding 
 himself an object of scorn to her, and learning that 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 167 
 
 she had been made acquainted with the promise 
 exacted from Joseph, he put Joseph to death, and 
 threw Alexandra, his wife's mother, into prison. 
 Afterward, he contrived to have Mariamne arraigned, 
 convicted, and executed. Then began in him a 
 remorse such as few mortals have ever felt. He 
 tried, by having recourse to dissipating indulgence, 
 and to various acts of violence and cruelty, to drive 
 her image from his soul ; but in vain were his efforts 
 to effect its banishment. The remembrance of her 
 beauty constantly harrowed and roused the foul 
 depths of his nature. He often called aloud to her. 
 At intervals, he flew away into solitude, as if he 
 could prevail on lonely rocks and woods to relieve 
 him of her memory. After returning from the haunts 
 where he had unavailingly lingered in seclusion, his 
 malignant spirit, more disturbed than ever by the 
 consciousness of guilt, was wont to break forth in 
 wild displays of bestial fierceness and of demon-like 
 frenzy. It was as if the recording angel had said to 
 him : 
 
 " There are shades which will not vanish, 
 There are thoughts thou canst not Danish ; 
 By a power to thee unknown, 
 Thou canst never be alone ; 
 Thou art wrapt as with a shroud, 
 Thou art gathered in a cloud ; 
 And forever shalt thou dwell 
 In the spirit of this spell." 
 
 Take next a glance at the analogous yet more hor- 
 rible case of the Roman emperor, Caligula.* Con- 
 ceive him as moving amid the rich, brilliant, and 
 
 * Some account of his career is given in the last chapter of this 
 book. 
 
168 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 variegated scenes of a magnificent palace ; and imag- 
 ine him as wearing smiles on his countenance, and 
 as sending out echoes of laughter from his lips ! 
 But what meanwhile was the experience within him ? 
 Let the words of Suetonius be an answer : 
 
 "But above all he was tormented with nervous irritation, by 
 sleeplessness ; for he enjoyed not more than three hours of noc- 
 turnal repose, nor even these in pure, untroubled rest, but agi- 
 tated by phantasm ata of portentous augury; as, for example, on 
 one occasion he fancied he saw the sea, under some definite im- 
 personation, conversing with himself. Hence it was, and from 
 this incapacity of sleeping, and from weariness of lying awake, 
 that he had fallen into habits of ranging all the night long through 
 the palace, sometimes throwing himself on a couch, sometimes 
 wandering along the vast corridors, watching for the earliest dawn, 
 and anxiously invoking its approach." 
 
 In his Boston lectures, Joseph Cook speaks of a 
 state of the soul in which it has to hear the laughter 
 of itself at itself. "It results," he remarks, "from 
 the very nature of things, that those who do that for 
 which they cannot forgive themselves, never cease 
 to hear the laughter of the soul at itself." That to 
 which he refers, is what I mean by the self-disrespect 
 of a guilty soul conscious of its guilt. 
 
 Let us examine this matter to the core. 
 
 The lesson is taught not only in the Scriptures but 
 also in the every-day history of humanity, that the 
 righteous rejoice, while the wicked are ashamed. 
 The former, as they tread the course of life, are 
 usually buoyant and songful ; the latter, as they 
 travel the same course, are usually depressed in 
 spirit, and destitute of musical gladness. However 
 men may differ concerning doctrines and dogmas, 
 they universally agree in the belief, that along with 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 169 
 
 virtue and piety there goes a high and serene confi- 
 dence, while their opposites, vice and irreligion, are 
 accompanied by a disquieting and emasculating sense 
 of condemnation. The wrong-doer, it is true, has 
 seasons of delight. " Who ever saw," says Chrysos- 
 tom, " a covetous man troubled in mind when he is 
 telling of his money, an adulterer mourn with his 
 mistress in his arms ? " Those creatures of vanity 
 and deceit, waywardness and extravagance, who flit 
 about now in silk and now again in satin, at one 
 time in scarlet and at another time in velvet, and 
 who worship not God but Fashion, have their emo- 
 tions of pleasure and their thrills of glee. Lemnius 
 does, indeed, aver that the guilty, even in their 
 greatest delights, their singing, their dancing, and 
 their dalliance, are " tortured in their souls ; " but 
 the saying is applicable only to rare instances. 
 Generally, the torture, the gnawing pain, the re- 
 morse of such persons, is felt not in their delights, 
 but after them. This point, however, is not the 
 paramount one. The consideration of most moment 
 is the fact that they are remorse-disturbed and 
 ashamed. Wickedness invariably produces guilt, 
 guilt gives rise to remorse, and remorse and shame 
 go together, and are inimical to human welfare. 
 These two last were originally so wedded as to make 
 their divorcement impossible. The fittest emblem 
 of a guilty soul seems to be a plant, which, by reason 
 of having something corrosive at its roots, is un- 
 thriving and limp-leaved. Who has ever trampled 
 on the principles of purity and rectitude, without 
 becoming the cowed and quailing object of his own 
 derision ? Who has ever bowed himself again and 
 
170 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 again to the foul waters of sin, and lapped them up, 
 without making self-disrespect a deplorable habit of 
 his being ? 
 
 There is no one who has not learned by experi- 
 ence the nature of that scorn for one's self, that base 
 shame, which has its more remote origin in will- 
 ful transgression. Look back along the path of 
 your past life, wherein you made so many footsteps 
 which you have had to lament, and mark the time 
 when you committed the sin that consists in telling 
 a lie. What were the effects on yourself of that 
 wrong act ? Were there not among them a sense 
 of ill-desert, a cowardly uneasiness, and an intense 
 self-loathing ? Did you not feel as if you had been 
 suddenly let down to a despicable level ? To tell a 
 lie is to render one's self the wretched recipient of 
 his own withering reproaches. He who has ever got 
 by any test-point in the course of his life, by dropping 
 from his lips a big round falsehood or a little two- 
 penny one, did doubtless, in the next hour, find his 
 soul almost completely shorn of courage, and him- 
 self ready to pocket insults with the utmost tame- 
 ness and submission. Tell a real lie outright and 
 designed^, and you will have a moral sickness that 
 will be far worse than any possible gastric nausea. 
 You will be disqualified for the maintenance of a 
 manly bearing. Your best strength will desert you, 
 and you will skulk in the broad daylight. Indeed, 
 you will seem to yourself fit only to walk the earth, 
 a slave of slaves and a keeper of swine. 
 
 Now, from the unmanning shame which results 
 from the guilt incurred by lying, one can form some 
 idea of the degree of similar shame which springs 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 171 
 
 from the guilt incurred by any sin of more atrocious 
 character. He may even gather a sufficient basis 
 of thought, to enable him to imagine that dreadful 
 self-disrespect which must have existed on the part 
 of Haman, and of Nero, and of Benedict Arnold. 
 Think of Theodoric, that Gothic king, who, because 
 he had murdered Symmachus and Boethius, was wont 
 to shrink with terror from such a small sight as a 
 fish-head ! Think of Richard the Third, who, be- 
 cause he had established himself in the throne at the 
 cost of staining his way thereto with the blood of 
 several of his near kindred, felt ever a secret agony 
 which told itself in his dreams ! All intelligent per- 
 sons have read the story of him who was once num- 
 bered with Christ's disciples, and who lost his disci- 
 pleship by his iniquitous acts. It is well known how 
 he surrendered himself to his lust for money, and 
 how he let himself be hired to print a traitor's kiss 
 on the most sacred face that had ever beamed on 
 the world. And what was the full measure of his 
 shame? What was the sum of his self-disrespect? 
 Who can express it in words ? O think of him as 
 fleeing from the haunts of men, and, with his soul 
 rendered life-weary under its own mad derision 
 toward itself, as seeking relief in suicide ! Should 
 a person, at some still hour of the night, go stealth- 
 ily to his neighbor's house and set fire to it, and 
 immediately begin to retrace his steps — what then ? 
 Though no unnatural darkness would enshroud his 
 way, yet all things he would meet or pass would 
 seem to him to look strangely dismal ; though the 
 earth beneath his feet would show no discomposure, 
 yet he would almost conceive it to be opening its 
 
172 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 long-shut jaws to swallow him up ; and though the 
 rocks, standing out in his vista, would be as they 
 had been, yet to his shame-stricken soul they would 
 seem as if just ready to fly in pieces, and to shiver 
 him to atoms with their scornful fragments. 
 
 The gratification of wrong appetites, desires, or 
 passions, results in an unmistakable let-down and 
 impairment of the soul, whereof the soul itself can- 
 not but be sufficiently aware to disrespect itself. 
 He who continually incurs guilt has his hopes. One 
 of them is, perhaps, the hope that there will be time 
 enough for moral renewal and amendment in old 
 age, or, at least, before the last sickness shall have 
 finished its desolating work on the vital energies of 
 the frame. Another, it may be, is the hope of anni- 
 hilation. But what shall be said of hopes such as 
 these ? Surely, they excite no ennobling emotions. 
 They give no uplift to thought. They are associated 
 with no beautiful ideals of future attainment. They 
 are hopes that signify an inward degradation. The 
 same person has his fears. But they lead toward 
 nothing good. They are not of the kind that serve 
 as motives to a wholesome change of action or of 
 drift. They are followed by no repentant disposi- 
 tion, no reformatorjr strife. They make the subject 
 of them shrink, and grovel, and tremble, and quake. 
 They cause him to turn with pallid face from every 
 exhibition of divine majesty. They are unholy fears. 
 They are remorseful fears. They are fears that sig- 
 nify an inward degradation. That person has also 
 (according to what is said on a previous page) his 
 delights. While devoting himself to selfish ends, he 
 finds a sort of gladness, and is doubtless often dis- 
 
THE INESTIMABLE INTERIOR HERITAGE. 173 
 
 posed to say, " How sweet it is to go the way 
 wherein carnal inclination can have its longed-for 
 indulgence ! How sweet to spend the day or the 
 night, without minding any nice questions about 
 right and wrong, responsibility and destiny, eternity 
 and God ! " But, admitting that he does experience 
 delights, one may well ask how much are they really 
 worth ? Are they fine and healthful felicities ? Do 
 they truly refresh both the outer and the inner man ? 
 These are questions which can be readily answered. 
 Unquestionably, some of them are enjoyments which 
 are genuine, rich, and productive of good results. 
 But most of them are delusive pleasures, which en- 
 courage evil proclivities. Most of them are pleas- 
 ures that signify an inward degradation. And of the 
 disrespect for one's self which goes with that degra- 
 dation, what need is there to say more ? I add but 
 this : He in whom it has become habitual, exempli- 
 fies, in a sad sense, the meaning of the words of 
 Seneca, In divitiis inopes, quod genus egestatis gravis- 
 simum est, — " Poor in the midst of riches, which is 
 the most insupportable kind of poverty." 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 
 
 well for him whose will is strong ! 
 
 He suffers, but he will not suffer long ; 
 
 He suffers, but he will not suffer wrong : 
 
 For him nor moves the loud world's random mock, 
 
 Nor all Calamity's hugest waves confound, 
 Who seems a promontory of rock, 
 
 That, compassed round with turbulent sound, 
 In middle ocean meets the surging shock, 
 
 Tempest-buffeted, citadel-crowned." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 175 
 
Chapter III. 
 
 THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY; OR, 
 THE POWER OF PUSH. 
 
 I. 
 
 THAT WHENCE SPRINGS ALL TRUE PERSEVERANCE. 
 
 " He appeared to aim at pushing away from him everything that 
 did hang upon his individual will." 
 
 Goethe, Wilhelm Meister, Book VI. 
 
 "There is a Socratic courage which converts all Xanthippean 
 shower-baths into refreshing rain ; there is a hero-mood that 
 breaks the chains it finds too heavy to be borne." 
 
 Miss Bremer. 
 
 " O how I like those words, ' I can,' and ' I will ' ! " 
 Dr. Edward Thomson, 
 Essay entitled The Conflicts of Mind. 
 
 A certain capability of the soul there is, without 
 which human effort could in no case be heroic, and 
 human life would in all cases be a failure. It is the 
 capability that impels one onward, and holds him to 
 his course, till his enlisted energies have gained the 
 goal which is sometimes called triumph, but more 
 often called success. Men refer to it when they use 
 the words force of will, and also when they employ 
 the compound term, will-power. They usually des- 
 ignate it by the simple name, will. It is what bore 
 12 177 
 
178 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 up and urged on the soul of Samuel Johnson, during 
 the seven years' lonely toil which resulted in his 
 monumental dictionary. It is what enabled Tous- 
 saint L'Ouverture to have that practical invincible- 
 ness which won for him the encomium, " This man 
 makes an opening everywhere." There was a cel- 
 ebrated English preacher of the last century, who 
 quite strikingly exemplified it. I mean him who, 
 when asked how he had patience to chide a block- 
 head twenty times for profanity, answered that if he 
 had done it but nineteen times he would have failed 
 of his object. Its most noticeable effect is men- 
 tioned by Shakespeare, in that place where he attrib- 
 utes to one of his characters the words : 
 
 " Perseverance, dear my lord, 
 Keeps honor bright." 
 
 Milton hints at the same, in the sinewy line : 
 
 " Still bear up, and steer right onward." 
 
 And Jean Paul alludes to it (or rather to what it is 
 in the case of a certain typical style of manhood) 
 when he says: "What often seems vengeance is 
 merely the determined, soldier-like tread wherewith 
 a man who can never flee and fear, but only knows 
 how to advance and stand his ground, tramples 
 down larks' eggs and ears of corn." That capa- 
 bility is, forsooth, the hidden spur whereby is to be 
 explained all noble continuity in exertion, all that 
 unrelaxing persistence in pursuit, which is suggested 
 by the phrase, pressing forward, or by the kindred 
 phrase, pushing onward. Accordingly, there seems 
 to be perfect propriety in terming it The Power of 
 
A PEETCELY POSSESSION. 179 
 
 Push. By this title is expressed the entire sense of 
 every other designation which has been employed to 
 denote the capability ; and besides, it is much better 
 fitted than any other to convey a vivid idea of what 
 the capability practically effectuates. 
 
 The Power of Push is, at bottom, identical with 
 the will. Hence, in some degree of development, it 
 is in every soul, and has a just claim to be included 
 in the Great Fortune of Humanity. In cases 
 wherein it is manifested as a prominent and distin- 
 guishing characteristic, it is the will in a form or 
 state in which it has an uncommon strength, con- 
 stancy, and effectiveness. To illustrate the Power 
 of Push, will, therefore, be to elucidate possibilities 
 which appertain to the will. When I read in Hol- 
 land's Kathrina the words, 
 
 "Eor fiends of water, and earth, and fire, 
 Are baffled and beaten by the ire 
 Of a dauntless human will," 
 
 I know that by "a dauntless human will " he meant 
 just what I shall mean, if I shall anywhere on these 
 pages speak of a dauntless poiver of push. 
 
 Throughout the present chapter, the important 
 capability here occupying attention is to be viewed 
 almost solely in its relation to perseverance in effort, 
 and the results thereof; but, in the last chapter, it 
 will be examined in some other interesting relations. 
 Moreover, throughout the present chapter, it is to 
 be discussed in a manner spontaneous and free, and 
 for the most part unmarked by any rigid conformity 
 to method ; whereas, in the last one, it will receive 
 
180 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 a treatment involving a degree of systematism and 
 a measure of particularity. 
 
 In all ages, it has been a problem how to rise 
 above the level of that in character or in perform- 
 ance which is almost nothing, to the level of that 
 which is decidedly something. Now, there is a plain 
 rule for solving it, and it is this : The Power of Push 
 must be so developed and trained, that, actiug with 
 other educated and disciplined faculties, it will 
 move the individual out of the company of the 
 seeming ciphers of the world, and impel him on 
 through difficulties and over obstacles, from one 
 elevated and honorable goal of joyful realization to 
 another. This capability may be described as the 
 mental locomotive which enables one to ascend the 
 rugged incline that leads to shining attainment. Its 
 might differs from that of the railway locomotive, 
 since the former is personal, while the latter is im- 
 personal. As to mode of operation, also, there is a 
 difference ; for in the one case, the might which 
 produces the onward movement acts in the rear, in 
 the other case it acts in front. In the one case it 
 is a pushing force, in the other a tractive or drawing 
 force. 
 
 Immense is the meaning which lies wrapped up in 
 the old proverb, " Where there's a will, there's a 
 way." Why does progress ever take place in sci- 
 ence or in art ? Why is business ever marked by a 
 wholesome quickening or a splendid expansion? 
 Here is the answer : Because there are souls that 
 form fresh and broad purposes, and that, as soon as 
 they have formed them, are moved by the Power of 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 181 
 
 Push to accomplish them. Alexander the Great, 
 had he not possessed an indomitable will, could 
 never have conquered, in such manner as he did, 
 the world ; for he could never, even if he had un- 
 dertaken to gain that end, have persevered till he 
 had reached it. What a will was that which pushed 
 to success the genius of Themistocles ! One day, 
 having discovered a number of brilliant bracelets and 
 chains of gold glittering on some dead bodies cast 
 up by the sea, he said to another, " Take these things 
 for yourself, for you are not Themistocles ;" then, 
 turning his face away from the rich ornaments, he 
 went on to attain some higher height of fame. John 
 Sebastian Bach, after he had risen to his enviable 
 distinction as an organist, said: "I was industrious; 
 whoever will be equally sedulous will be equally 
 successful." But in these words he told only a 
 part of the secret. Certainly, to succeed as he did, 
 one must have an impelling capability equal to his 
 in lasting vigor and brave tenacity. Thoreau says : 
 
 "What a wedge, what a beetle, what a catapult, is an earnest 
 man ! What can resist him ? " 
 
 He doubtless meant by "an earnest man," a man 
 who is in earnest, not merely in wish but in will. 
 Such a one, be he whosoever he may, will prove to 
 be, in a sense, irresistible. What could resist Na- 
 poleon the First — what but Providence ? Vision- 
 ary in any other man (remarks Bushnell) would 
 have been his vast and daring plans ; but, " with 
 him, every vision flew out of his brain a chariot of 
 iron." Yea, and when it went forth therefrom, it 
 went in the direction he had intended it should take, 
 
182 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED FOKTUNE. 
 
 for it was moved by a will which was a kind of 
 magnificent driving engine. 
 
 "'I cannot do it,' " says Hawes, " never accom- 
 plished anything ; ' I will try ' has wrought won- 
 ders." Let not honor, in cases of triumphant 
 genius, be paid to genius alone. Let it also be paid 
 to the Power of Push, that without which genius 
 could scarcely do more than perform spasmodic and 
 extravagant efforts. " The man," says William 
 Arthur, " who has genius without perseverance, 
 may run the career of a rocket, but can never be a 
 star ; .... he that has genius and perseverance 
 will be the sun of his own system." The truth is, 
 genius, unless steadied and impelled by a well- 
 trained will, is wayward, fickle, and wild. Jean 
 Paul, speaking of the love which genius gives, rep- 
 resents it as " that alternation of flying heat and 
 flying cold, that fire which, like the electric, always 
 twice destroys — in the stroke and in the rebound." 
 There have surely been numerous instances that 
 have afforded some ground for such a representation. 
 Genius, when it is in love, seems to be unregulated 
 by the will, just as thought, in time of dreaming, is 
 unregulated thereby. Gilfillan, pointing out the 
 extent to which they who have genius and who 
 exercise it, ever depend for consistent action and 
 for admirable efficiency on a strong impelling capa- 
 bility, says : 
 
 "Men of genius fluctuate like the wide, uncertain ocean; men 
 of will pass on and pierce it with an iron prow." 
 
 When one in whom the Power of Push is potent, 
 speaks, his voice, though it be of quiet tone, has a 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 183 
 
 sound which secures attention ; and his words, 
 though they be few, have a terseness which com- 
 mands respect. But when one who has a weak will 
 speaks, his utterance is either unheeded, or is taken 
 as the sign of a cowering and subservient soul. 
 "Servitude," says Cicero, "is the obedience of a 
 subdued and abject mind wanting its own free will." 
 How many there are who are in this condition, yet 
 who would declare themselves to be not in it ! 
 Some persons could in no event be made slaves to 
 others. If Julius Caesar had been put in chains, 
 would he not have been a master in them ? How 
 was it with Joseph, that sublime son of Jacob, when, 
 on account of Potiphar's wife's lies, he was confined 
 in Pharaoh's state-prison? Did he not show that, if 
 he must be a prisoner, he could only be a masterful 
 one? Diogenes Laertius tells of Anaxarchus, a 
 Greek philosopher, such a story as this : that when, 
 by the order of the tyrant Nicocreon, he was put 
 into a stone mortar and pounded with iron mallets, 
 he exclaimed again and again : 
 
 "Strike, batter; 'tis not Anaxarchus, 'tis but his sheath that 
 you pound." 
 
 Of what avail thus to bruise and break that body ? 
 Blows of tyranny could no more reduce the man 
 himself, who was in it, to a truckling underling, 
 than Xerxes' lash-strokes could humiliate the might 
 of the sea. But it must be averred that there are 
 ten thousand men who, unlike the irrepressible souls 
 that I have named, are much of the time cowed 
 and servile mortals, ready to be domineered over. 
 They have nominal liberty ; but they have not, and 
 
184 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 will not have, will-power enough to render them 
 unabject, unconquerable freemen. "Servitude," 
 says Seneca, " seizes on few ; but many seize on 
 her." 
 
 The ancient Greeks honored the Power of Push, 
 by conceiving it as a person, and by attributing to 
 the personal image of it which they formed, the 
 dignity of a father and king of gods and men. 
 What was their supreme deity, Zeus, but an ideal 
 representative of force of will ? The outline of his 
 history, as related in pagan mythology, is simply 
 this : He was the son of Saturn and Rhea, and was 
 born and bred on Mount Ida, in Crete. When he 
 had grown up he dethroned his father, and divided 
 between himself and his brothers his father's king- 
 dom. He chose for his empire the earth and the 
 air. He waged a war with the giants, that were 
 the sons of Titan and the earth ; and having, with 
 his great weapon, the lightning, overcome them, he 
 imprisoned them under the waters and the moun- 
 tains. The immense benefits he conferred on man- 
 kind resulted in his being called Zevg-lTareg^ or Ju- 
 piter, (i. e., Zeus-Father,) and in his being made a 
 recipient of divine honors. He was celebrated as 
 the father of the Muses and the Graces ; of Mer- 
 cury, the god of eloquence and commerce ; and of 
 Minerva, the goddess of wisdom, war, and the lib- 
 eral arts. It was the custom to describe him as the 
 compeller of the clouds (Nephelegeretes) and the 
 dispenser of their contents, and as holding the light- 
 ning in one hand and a scepter in the other. There 
 was attributed to him sometimes a look of calmness 
 and benignity, and sometimes a look of agitation 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 185 
 
 and anger. By the artists of old he was invariably 
 represented with majestic hair, eyebrows, and beard. 
 By ancient poets he was depicted as the monarch- 
 thunderer among the gods of Mount Olympus. 
 Whenever he did but give his nod (so Homer as- 
 sures us), 
 
 " High heaven with trembling the dread signal took, 
 And all Olympus to the center shook." 
 
 Now the entire foregoing account is in harmony 
 with the supposition, nay, with the belief, that the 
 god Zeus, or Jupiter, was an ideal being, framed by 
 the Greeks on a clear idea of the potency of a great 
 will. Not as one consummately righteous and good, 
 did those Greeks regard him. In the circle of do- 
 mesticity, as well as in other circles, he had his 
 times of ill-humor and unwisdom. But he was, in 
 their view, always consummately superior in power. 
 He could inflict punishment by letting loose furious 
 flames accompanied by thunder-sounds. The tallest 
 trees of the forest could be quickly overthrown by 
 him. He could sit on the clouds, and make them 
 shed refreshing showers of rain, or yield ruinous out- 
 bursts of hail. He it was that delivered the Cyclops 
 from the fetters with which Saturn had bound them. 
 He it was that emancipated the hundred-armed 
 Uranids. The inhabitants of Libya worshiped him 
 under the form of a ram. And this they did, doubt- 
 less, on account of the fitness they thought there 
 was in choosing that animal as a symbol of the 
 impelling strength which they conceived Zeus, or 
 Jupiter, to possess. Is it not, then, on the whole, 
 quite evident that he was none other than a human 
 will apotheosized ? 
 
186 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 In the later ages, mortals have withheld them- 
 selves from deifying the Power of Push. They 
 have not, however, failed to acknowledge its impor- 
 tance by honoring those who have been impressive 
 instances of it. All over the world, a profound rev- 
 erence is paid to the names of men that have per- 
 severed through great difficulties and over great 
 obstacles to great successes. Among such names is 
 that of Columbus, that of Luther, that of John 
 Knox, that of Wellington, that of Washington, that 
 of Franklin, that of Daniel Webster, that of Sher- 
 man, that of Grant, that of Moltke. 
 
 Some eminent contemplatists have set so high an 
 estimate on the Power of Push, as even to think it 
 to be that which constitutes the human personality. 
 " The will," saysSwedenborg, "is the very essen- 
 tial constituent of man." And, in another place, he 
 avers yet more distinctly, " The will is the man 
 himself." Novalis says, " A character is a complete- 
 ly-fashioned will." And Coleridge, in a conversa- 
 tion with Emerson at Highgate, London, 1833, said: 
 " The will is that by which a person is a person ; 
 because if one should push me in the street, and so 
 I should force the man next me into the kennel, I 
 should at once exclaim, ' I did not do it, sir,' mean- 
 ing it was not my will." * 
 
 Start a hoop along the ground, and continually 
 
 * This opinion respecting the will, notwithstanding the fact that 
 it was advanced by so acute a thinker as Coleridge, cannot well be 
 adopted. The real person is the self-knowing substance, and the 
 will is one of the properties of that substance. If not so, then it 
 must be maintained that all the cognitive faculties — perception, 
 memory, imagination, &c. — are properties and faculties of the 
 will, — a position one cannot easily conceive to be tenable. 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 187 
 
 apply to it the force of the hand, and it will contin- 
 ually make progress ; withdraw from it the force of 
 the hand, and it will quickly stop and fall. Now, 
 the Power of Push holds, in any path of endeavor, 
 the same relation to human achievement that the 
 force of the hand, in the case mentioned, holds to the 
 progress of the hoop. There are hundreds of mor- 
 tals who, like an unurged hoop, have stopped and 
 fallen, because, in an evil hour, their impelling capa- 
 bility slackened and dwindled, leaving them to lapse 
 into the unmanning embrace of appetite, of passion, 
 of immoderate grief, or of dreamy indolence. When 
 the Power of Push ceases to be effective in a man, 
 the power of stagnation enters into him. Better is 
 it to be extravagantly intense, with a vigorous will 
 behind the eye, as is usually the case with unflinch- 
 ing fanatics, than to sink into worthlessness for want 
 of vigor of will. It is related of Sarah, the Duchess 
 of Marlborough, whose impelling capability was al- 
 most the only characteristic that entitled her to re- 
 spect, that at one time, when she was suffering from 
 a fit of illness, and was apparently so feeble she 
 could neither speak nor recognize impressions made 
 on her senses, she heard her physician say to the 
 attendants at her bedside, " She must be blistered 
 or she will die ; " whereupon she started, like a 
 lightning-flash, from her lethargy, and in an ugly, 
 spiteful tone of voice exclaimed, " I won't be blis- 
 tered, and I won't die ! " And, notwithstanding 
 the precariousness of her condition, she fulfilled the 
 fiery promise which went forth from her pallid lips. 
 
188 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 II. 
 
 A COMPARISON, AS TO THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY, 
 BETWEEN THE ENGLISH AND THE AMERICANS. 
 
 "The people have that nervous-hilious temperament which is 
 known by medical men to resist every means employed to make 
 its possessor subservient to the will of others." 
 
 Emerson, English Traits, p. 83. 
 
 " Them we know, the high-souled, natural, unaffected, the citi- 
 zen heroes." Edward Everett. 
 
 As A people, the English may be said to exem- 
 plify a customary pushing force of mind, or, in other 
 words, a qualification for perseverance, which is spe- 
 cially noteworthy. In them the will is a stout, stren- 
 uous faculty, which causes them to evince a sedate 
 patience in doing, and an iron sternness in daring. 
 Whatever their hand findeth to do, they do it with 
 their might; for they do it with true will-power, 
 and this is their might. How slow they are to think 
 it possible for them to fail ! They always expect 
 success, because they invariably give the "par of 
 exchange " for it. It cannot well be doubted that 
 they have inherited from ancestral sources peculiar- 
 ities of natural constitution, which greatly promote 
 on their part the development of the impelling capa- 
 bility. Their blood is strongly fertilizing. It flows 
 through their frames a vigorous stream, wherein 
 commingle properties which have come down from 
 far-off springs, and which are exactly fitted to feed 
 the energies and to sustain the temperament most 
 conducive to the acquisition of will-power. Furthest 
 back were those aborigines of the island, the Celts. 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 189 
 
 They were sturdy producers, and " had an alphabet, 
 astronomy, priestly culture, and a sublime creed." 
 Their religion was Druidism. The Belgic Goths, a 
 hardy people whose progenitors were from Scythia 
 in Asia, entered the island from Gaul, and drove the 
 Celts before them. It is reasonable to suppose that, 
 in process of time, there was some commingling of 
 Celtic with Gothic blood. When Julius Caesar, fifty- 
 five years before the birth of Christ, came with an 
 army to conquer the Britons, he found them divided 
 into confederacies which, according to Tacitus, were 
 " powerful nations." Strabo, speaking of their per- 
 sonal characteristics at that period, describes them 
 as having so high a stature that many of their 
 young men were " half a foot taller than the tallest 
 men." They were marked by honesty, dignity, and 
 individuality. Caesar had but moderate success in 
 his attempts to subjugate them, and would by no 
 means have succeeded as well as he did, had they 
 not, by reason of lack of military discipline, fought 
 each by himself rather than unitedly. In the days of 
 Claudius, one of their chiefs, whose name was Carac- 
 tacus, was captured and carried to Rome as a prisoner. 
 Being brought before the throne, he appeared so un- 
 daunted and majestic, that the emperor was moved 
 to order his fetters to be struck off, and him and 
 his family to be treated with unusual attention. In 
 the fifth century, the powerful Saxons, Angles, and 
 Jutes, going forth from Germany, invaded the land, 
 and established themselves in it. To know what 
 they were, one may study the careers of the brothers 
 Hengist and Horsa, of Cerdic and his son Kenric, 
 of Egbert and Ethered, of Alfred the Great and 
 
190 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Edward the Elder. In the eighth century, the 
 Danes and the Normans (or Northmen) swarmed 
 into Britain from the shores of the Baltic, and occu- 
 pied certain parts of the country. And to know 
 what they were, one may study the careers of Swein 
 and Olave, Canute and Harold. The appellation 
 England (^Anglia) resulted from the predominant 
 influence of the Angles in the island ; and the title 
 " Anglo-Saxon," which, according to Trench, origi- 
 nated before the name Anglia, shows that the most 
 powerful of the ancestors from whom descended the 
 English of this day, were the Angles, and the next 
 most powerful of them the Saxons. 
 
 The English are an ungarrulous, serious people. 
 With a silent, deliberate firmness, they go right on 
 in their way. Madame de Stael, speaking of them, 
 says : 
 
 " Happy the country where the authors are melancholy, the 
 merchants satisfied, the rich gloomy, and where the middling class 
 of people are contented ! " 
 
 But see some of the things which are said of them 
 by Emerson, in his noble book entitled English 
 Traits. 
 
 They have sound bodies, and supreme endurance 
 in war and in labor. They are rather manly than 
 warlike. They delight in the antagonism which 
 combines in one person the extremes of courage and 
 tenderness. They walk and ride as fast as they can, 
 with their head bent forward, as if urged on some 
 pressing affair. The English game is main force to 
 main force, the planting of foot to foot, fair play and 
 open field, — a rough tug without trick or dodging, 
 — till one or both come to pieces. Their mind is 
 
A PJRINCELY POSSESSION. 191 
 
 not dazzled by its own means, but locked and bolted 
 to results. They are bound to see their measure 
 carried, and stick to it through ages of defeat. They 
 are heavy at the fine arts, but adroit at the coarse. 
 The Frenchman invented the ruffle, the Englishman 
 added the shirt. They have impressed their direct- 
 ness and practical habit on modern civilization. 
 Their drowsy minds need to be flagellated by war, 
 and trade, and politics, and persecution. They 
 attempt no more work than they do. They would 
 rather not do anything at all, than not do it well. 
 If all the wealth in the planet should perish by war 
 or deluge, they know themselves competent to re- 
 place it. The very felons have their pride in each 
 other's English stanchness. The Englishman is he 
 of all men who stands firmest in his shoes. He has 
 stamina ; he can take the initiative in emergencies. 
 He is never betrayed into any curiosity or unbecom- 
 ing emotion. A Frenchman may possibly be clean, 
 an Englishman is conscientiously clean. They hate 
 innovation. They avoid pretension, and go right to 
 the heart of the thing. They like a man committed 
 to his objects. In mixed company they shut their 
 mouths. They are headstrong believers and defend- 
 ers of their opinion. They have extreme difficulty 
 to run away, and will die game. They stoutly carry 
 into every nook and corner of the earth their tur- 
 bulent sense, leaving no lie uncontradicted, no pre- 
 tension unexamined. More intellectual than other 
 races, when they live with other races they do not 
 take their language, but bestow their own. They 
 assimilate other races to themselves, and are not 
 assimilated. No nation was ever so rich in able 
 
192 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 men. They are capable of a sublime resolution. 
 They have a steady courage that fits them for great 
 attempts and endurance. They take hold of things 
 by the right end, and there is no slipperiness in their 
 grasp. 
 
 Interesting is it to notice how the English are 
 spoken of by some of their own representative men. 
 " As for my part," says one of the contributors to 
 The Spectator, " I am as much surprised when I see 
 a talkative Englishman, as I should be to see the 
 Indian pine growing on one of our quickset hedges." 
 Addison says: 
 
 " To favor our natural taciturnity, when we are obliged to utter 
 our thoughts, we do it in the shortest way we are able." 
 
 And he avers that it is on account of this that the 
 English language abounds as it does in monosylla- 
 bles ; that in so many of its words which are of 
 Latin origin, the length of the syllables is con- 
 tracted by rapidity of pronunciation ; that such 
 words as ' drowned ' and ' arrived ' are shortened 
 into ' drown'd ' and ' arriv'd ' ; that the termination 
 1 s ' is, in numerous cases, substituted for that of 
 ' eth ' ; that the letter ' s ' is, on many occasions, 
 used at the end of words as an equivalent for ' his ' 
 or ' her ' ; and that two words are often drawn into 
 one, as in the case of the epitomization of ' may 
 not' into 'mayn't,' of 'cannot' into 'can't,' and 
 of ' will not ' into ' won't.' Thomas Hughes, the 
 author of Tom Brown' 's School-Days at Rugby, repre- 
 sents as dear to every Englishman " the conscious- 
 ness of silent endurance, — of standing out against 
 something, and not giving in." Alluding to the 
 
A PKINCELY POSSESSION. 193 
 
 pluck which characterizes even the youths of his 
 nation, he says : 
 
 "It's very odd how almost all English boys love danger; you 
 can get ten to join a game, or climb a tree, or swim a stream, 
 where there's a chance of breaking their limbs, or getting drowned, 
 for one who'll stay on level ground, or in his depth, or play quoits 
 or bowls." 
 
 That same author, I may add, forcibly illustrates, 
 in his style of composition, something of the English 
 relish for short, forcible terms. In the second sen- 
 tence of his book, he has thirty-seven or thirty-eight 
 Anglo-Saxon words ; and on the tenth page of it, in 
 a sentence of ninety-six words, there can be counted 
 ninety-four that are Anglo-Saxon, and that, with 
 the exception of twenty-four of them, are monosyl- 
 lables. 
 
 I am proud to pay honor to the English greatness 
 of will ; for I know that the descendants of the 
 American founders that toiled so well in the seven- 
 teenth century, and of the American revolutionists, 
 that fought so well in the eighteenth century, are 
 inheritors of English blood and Anglo-Saxon speech. 
 Those mother-country Britons, with their plump, 
 stocky bodies and their somewhat melancholy souls, 
 are the most long-enduring men on the earth. 
 Though they excessively love the real, and unduly 
 distrust the ideal, they plan and perform things 
 which no other people can equal. We of America 
 are more energetic than they ; but we are inferior 
 to them in constitutional fitness for vast, quiet, 
 sublime toil. We are the more ingenious, they are 
 the more powerful. While we are doing many fine 
 things, they are doing some one mighty thing which 
 13 
 
194 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 they alone are fully adapted to do. They advance 
 slowly toward results ; but they admirably compen- 
 sate for their lack of rapidity in approaching them, 
 by insuring to them such magnificence and such per- 
 fection. How grand is that indifference to duration 
 which characterizes English achievers ! They hurry 
 nothing to completion. All their distinguished works 
 seem to inculcate the lesson : 
 
 " Learn to labor and to wait." 
 
 Sir Christopher Wren held himself for thirty-five 
 years to his stupendous task, St. Paul's Cathedral ; 
 and at last the finished product of his genius and 
 skill stood forth, bearing the motto, " If you seek his 
 monument, look around." James Watt, having set 
 himself to improve the steam-engine, worked there- 
 on as if many years were a few days. He kept 
 himself calm and cool, avoided getting either fidgety 
 or impatient, ate long at his meals, put " a solid bar 
 of sleep between day and day," and finally secured 
 to the world a locomotive machine, whereby all the 
 aspects of civilization were to be changed. When 
 the Great Eastern first sailed down the Thames, it 
 was not only great but consummate. It was a mov- 
 ing symbol of the national strength — a vessel capa- 
 ble of floating seven thousand full-grown elephants. 
 
 The Americans, in respect to the exemplification 
 of true will-power, are not to be considered as much 
 excelled by the English. Certainly there have been 
 on the western continent not a few famous in- 
 stances illustrative of the worth of the impelling 
 capability. This it was that kept the strong-brained 
 New Englanders from taking any backward steps 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 195 
 
 after they had fired that defensive shot which was 
 " heard round the world." It is the principal ex- 
 planation of the unparalleled growth by which the 
 North American republic, once only an infantine 
 confederacy, has become a nation of adult propor- 
 tions — a nation " mirrored in the Atlantic and the 
 Pacific, the stateliest of earthly sovereignties." 
 
 What persevering Americans there have been ! 
 Long ago, it was set down in foreign books, that 
 the American whalers, navigators, and mariners 
 have no superiors. The first milled nail, the first 
 lightning-rod, the first steamboat, the first quadrant, 
 the first cotton-gin, the first specimen of vulcanized 
 India rubber, the first photograph,* the first sew- 
 ing-machine, the first seed-planting machine, the 
 first reaping-machine, and the first phonograph — 
 each owed its existence to an American, whose will 
 was wont to push him on and on in toilsome pro- 
 cesses. The strength of the Power of Push, in true 
 representatives of our Republic, was well illustrated 
 b}^ Washington, who showed mankind, in a life of 
 constant fidelity to right principles, how " by the 
 smallest means to attain the greatest ends." I will 
 name other illustrators of it: Franklin, who, rising 
 from the obscurity of a tallow-chandler's son to the 
 eminence of a peerless political ambassador and a 
 distinguished scientific discoverer, " tempered the 
 rigor of human government, and drew from the 
 thundering atmosphere its fiery dangers ; " Fisher 
 Ames, who, being left fatherless in early boj^hood, 
 grew up amid taxing circumstances to be an orator 
 
 * Professor Draper made the first one, though Daguerre first 
 showed how to turn photography to practical account. 
 
196 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 equal to Sheridan ; Thomas Blanchard, who, in 
 courses of protracted intellectual application accom- 
 panied by careful handiwork, produced his wonder- 
 ful lathes ; and Abraham Lincoln, who, in his earlier 
 years, toiled with the ax and on the flat-boat, and in 
 his later ones, won the veneration of nations by his 
 sterling statesmanship. 
 
 Not far can one go on these lands between the 
 ocean and the ocean, without meeting numerous 
 notable works, which refer for their origin to the 
 impelling power, not less than to the productive 
 ability, of American souls. It is a people that have 
 reared up smooth, magically-acting things where 
 there were rough and unenchanting things. It is a 
 people that have wrought out a myriad times a 
 myriad new forms, wherein to make serviceable 
 old forces. Travel across the States, and see what 
 may be seen ! There are the strange machines that 
 hum or roar in the shops of the unresting men of 
 Massachusetts and of Connecticut, and that, mean- 
 while, turn out by the car-load products which the 
 world needs. There is the Hoosac tunnel, twenty- 
 one thousand feet in length, which, in the years that 
 saw it take form beneath the mountain's huge rump, 
 progressed to completion by the smallest fractions 
 of an inch, yet progressed as surely as the Gulf 
 Stream flowed down the seas. There are the im- 
 mense coal-mining methods and operations of the 
 Pennsylvanians. There is the Erie Canal. There 
 is the electro-magnetic telegraph, with its more than 
 a hundred thousand miles of wires. There is the 
 magnificent suspension bridge below Niagara Falls. 
 There are the vast bridges which span the Missis- 
 
A PEINCELY POSSESSION. 197 
 
 sippi and the Missouri. There is the awe-inspiring 
 Hoe cylinder printing-press, which is adequate to 
 the making of forty thousand newspaper impressions 
 in an hour. There is the Monitor war-ship, with its 
 iron-clad hulk and its revolving battery. There is 
 the great solemn columbiad, in which are combined 
 the gun, the howitzer, and the mortar. There is 
 the railway over the Rocky Mountains. And there 
 is Chicago, built again on the ashy ground of her 
 ruined glory. These, I affirm, are monumental 
 achievements which celebrate the Power of Push as 
 exemplified by Americans. 
 
 It is true that this people, like the English, are 
 extremely devoted to definite reality and utility. 
 Too little exercise do they give to veneration, hope, 
 ideality, and the other spiritual capabilities. They 
 are not enough inclined to elevating speculation. 
 Victor Hugo, in Les Miserables, makes his Bishop 
 Myriel say t 
 
 "The beautiful is as useful as the useful; more so, perhaps." 
 
 This truth the Americans, like the English, seem to 
 forget. They cultivate their nature-soul much, their 
 spirit-soul not enough. The ancient kings of Persia 
 (so says Plutarch) refused to drink any water but 
 that of the river Choaspes. The American people 
 seem more sadly self-limiting ; for they generally 
 withhold their mind from refreshing itself anywhere 
 apart from the bounds of the tangible and practical. 
 Ever are they on the alert for something that can 
 be weighed or measured, something that can be sum- 
 marily put to use or promptly turned to profit. At 
 Crystal Palace they are seen taking notes of labor- 
 
198 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 saving machines. Amid Niagara's grandeur they 
 are disposed to exclaim, " What a waste of water- 
 power ! " 
 
 It is true, also, that the Americans tend more than 
 they should, to motion and hurry. Herein they are 
 unlike the English. The tendency shows itself from 
 youth up. The typical lad of the great Republic 
 nervously says, " Read me a story to make the time 
 pass quick." What knows he by experience of the 
 meaning of the word "moderate," or of the phrase, 
 "keeping the head level?" A certain American 
 mother is said to have, in one instance, commanded 
 her noisy, playful son, James, to " sit down quietly 
 for the next hour," and to have received the reply, 
 "Why, mother, I can't keep still; I'd burst right 
 open, I know I would, if I couldn't run, and laugh, 
 and get the noise out of me." There was another 
 boy of the nation, who, on being required to sit 
 down and keep still for a little while, pretty soon 
 said, " Oh, dear ! how stones must ache keeping still 
 always ! I ache now in this little speck of a time." 
 From the inclination to motion and hurry, thus illus- 
 trated, comes the liability to what is known as Ameri- 
 can fast life. 
 
 Now, be it understood, the two faults I have 
 pointed out as appertaining to tmr people, are not 
 chargeable to the Power of Push in them. They 
 are over-utilitarian — why ? Because thej r let them- 
 selves be so. They are marked by inordinate stir 
 and impetuous onward-goingness — why ? Because 
 they guard not themselves, as they might and ought, 
 against being so. The fast American, whether young 
 or old, is what he is, not in consequence of the fact 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 199 
 
 that his impelling capability drives him to excesses 
 in spite of himself, but in consequence of the fact 
 that he himself has chosen the way of folly, and left 
 himself to be pushed onward therein, at a break- 
 neck rate, by that capabili'". 
 
 III. 
 
 GREAT IMPELLING CAPABILITY INDISPENSABLE TO 
 GREAT TRIUMPHS. 
 
 1 'The man who distinguishes himself from the rest, stands in a 
 press of people. Those before him intercept his progress f and those 
 behind him, if he does not urge on, will tread him down." 
 
 Sir Richard Steele, The Spectator, No. 374. 
 
 "When a firm, decisive spirit is recognized, it is curious to see 
 how the space clears around a man, and leaves him room and free- 
 dom. ... A conviction that he understands and that he wills with 
 extraordinary force, silences the conceit that intended to perplex 
 or instruct him, and intimidates the malice that was disposed to 
 attack him. There is a feeling, as in respect to Fate, that the 
 decrees of so inflexible a spirit must be right, or that, at least, 
 they will be accomplished." 
 
 John Foster, Decision of Character. 
 
 To attain to any magnificent result of individual 
 energy, whether it be a discovery or an invention, 
 a victory over hindering circumstances or a conquest 
 over hostile men, one must have a mighty will. The 
 Power of Push in him must have such efficacy, that 
 it will prevent him from shrinking back from what 
 he has attempted. It must be accustomed to act 
 firmly, indefatigably, prevailingly. The history of 
 human progress abounds with records which amply 
 
200 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 confirm this statement. The impelling capability, it 
 is true, is not a faculty which peers into mysteries, 
 or which plans undertakings. It neither kens the 
 unattained, nor devises how to find way thereto. 
 Harvey's will was not that in him which gave him 
 his conception of the blood-circulation, and New- 
 ton's will was not that in him which gave him 
 his idea of the gravitation-law. Nevertheless, it is 
 a warrantable influence that, without great will- 
 power, Harvey would never have made his ascer- 
 tainment respecting the sanguineous process, and 
 Newton would never have seized hold of his deduc- 
 tion respecting the spheres. 
 
 The Power of Push, so developed and so trained 
 as to be exhaustlessly able, is a requisite to civiliza- 
 tion which, in all the generations of this rolling world, 
 has shown itself entitled to emphatic acknowledg- 
 ment. But for this, what treasures of nature, tan- 
 gible and intangible, would have remained unknown ! 
 But for this, what forces would, from century to 
 century, have acted for the bewilderment of mortals, 
 rather than for their benefit ! But for this, how 
 gloomy and barren would be the paths of scientific 
 research and of mechanical activity ! Independently 
 of this, men would doubtless have thought of such 
 things as ships, colonies, manufactories, railroads, 
 newspapers, asylums, colleges, reforms, and exploring 
 expeditions; but they would have gone dreaming 
 about them, — they would not, it is reasonable to 
 believe, have seen them as facts. The truth-seeker 
 is, by this, urged on till he comes to the truth. The 
 unraveler of perplexities is, by this, held strong in 
 his struggle with kinks and knots, till, under his 
 
A PEINCELY POSSESSION. 201 
 
 steady eye, the intricate becomes plain and the 
 crooked straight. The student of common objects 
 is, by this, empowered to have success in turning 
 them inside out, and rifling them of their hidden 
 meanings. Without this, never yet did any man 
 prove to be a representative of true kingliness, or 
 an instance of invincible courage. " The natural 
 king," says Carlyle, "is one who melts all wills into 
 his own." And Gerald Massey says : 
 
 " They've battled best who've boldliest borne." 
 
 When a human soul applies itself to some waiting 
 task, with a concentration and a continuity attribu- 
 table to and sustained by an unfailing will, then look 
 for some great result ! Who were the victorious toil- 
 ers that left their light tingeing with tranquil glory 
 the historic sky ? They were persons who were 
 wont, with a tremendous earnestness, to say, " I will ! " 
 Would you know, reader, how the renowned finders 
 of nature's secrets made their discoveries ? I will 
 tell you. Ten thousand times had superficial and 
 irresolute minds surveyed the region where the won- 
 derful hidden thing was, and regarded it as unat- 
 tractive and sterile. But one day a mind, thought- 
 ful and inquiring, penetrating and careful, began to 
 employ its faculties and energies within the bounds 
 of that seemingly unpromising territory. Impelled 
 by the capability which gives rise to perseverance, 
 it fixed its piercing gaze on the dull externals which 
 were there, saw little by little into them, perceived 
 at length, as " through a glass darkly," the precious 
 wonder which lay partly in them and partly beneath 
 them, and finally, after a noble endurance in en- 
 
202 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 deavor, captured that wonder and gave it to man- 
 kind. When Leopold von Buch was making his 
 geological discoveries, he traversed all Europe on 
 foot, and once went from Berlin to Stockholm to 
 see a fossil shell. Lyonnet spent years exploring in 
 respect to a certain caterpillar, which had for its 
 haunt the wood of the European willow. In order 
 to secure drawings to illustrate his discoveries, he 
 learned the art of drawing ; and in order to secure 
 engravings of his drawings, he learned the art of 
 engraving. Thus, by reason that a great will pushed 
 him on, he found out facts and produced delinea- 
 tions relative to insect metamorphosis, which aston- 
 ished the scientists of the world. Thomas Young, 
 the originator of the modulatory theory of light, was 
 urged by a powerful impelling capability in prose- 
 cuting the vast solitary investigations which resulted 
 in that theory. Impossible, without that, would it 
 have been for him, in a time when such an explana- 
 tion of light could bring him no honor, to perform, 
 as its evolver and elucidator, so immense a service 
 to science. 
 
 It is interesting to watch the progress of a supe- 
 rior mind, made self-reliant and persevering by an 
 ever-efficacious will, as that mind, with the fixed 
 intention never to cease its strivings save at the 
 point of triumph, fights against obstructing and 
 resisting circumstances. Men, beholding such an 
 instance of exerted genius and impelling capability, 
 feel that triumph in the case is sure. And, to speak 
 humanly, it is sure. Soon the apparent Impossibili- 
 ties which confront the warrior-intellect, will be 
 grappled with and turned aside. Soon the rugged, 
 
A PEIXCELY POSSESSION. 203 
 
 puissant monster, Difficulty, which is encountered by 
 the daring assailant of impeding actualities, will be 
 pierced to the quick, and left disabled and quivering 
 by the way. 
 
 From the books which tell how departed illustrious 
 men wrought and struggled, and from those other 
 books known as living discoverers, inventors, and 
 achigvers, there may be gathered a weighty lesson ; 
 and it is the lesson that the cost of a great triumph 
 is invariably earnest effort, brought by a great will 
 to bear in a single direction, and rendered by the 
 same continuous in spite of all obstacles and all 
 antagonisms. Whoever will pay this cost, he shall 
 in the end have renown. And, be it remembered, 
 he who is qualified to pay it, can never be in want 
 of a noble task. Science, art, literature, politics, 
 religion, society, commerce — each of these will open 
 to him some field wherein he can do a true and 
 admirable work. The known has no extreme limit, 
 no Ultima Thule, beyond which such a one cannot 
 make a way for himself as an explorer. He can 
 enter untried regions of things, and all along his 
 pioneer path can ascertain new relations and princi- 
 ples, new processes and forces. Thus can he neces- 
 sitate a reclassification of positive knowledge, and 
 a reconstruction of long-entertained theories and 
 hypotheses. 
 
 To him whose intellectual faculties are languidly 
 waiting for something to do, well might it be said : 
 Why art thou, day by day, incurious and aimless, 
 while, in the wide kingdoms of being and life, so 
 many treasures lie unreached, and so many marvels 
 lie hidden? Dost thou not know that every leaf, 
 
204 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 every pebble, every sunbeam, every walking, flying, 
 creeping, throbbing thing has a history ? Go and write 
 that history ! Go, at least, and learn a few of the un- 
 recorded facts which belong to it ! Train thine eye to 
 be more keen, thine ear to be more susceptible, thy 
 mind to be more studious, and thy will to be a strong, 
 manly, and ready power, adequate to impel thee 
 from attempt to attempt and from effort to effort, 
 and thou shalt come to know some of the concealed 
 facts which appertain to those little entities. Thou 
 shalt see beauties such as no limner has penciled. 
 Thou shalt hear music such as no man-made harp 
 has sung. Thou shalt, perhaps, discover and render 
 available more than one secret of nature that' will 
 change the look of the world. 
 
 " Stranger ! henceforth be warned ; and know that pride, 
 Howe'er disguised in his own majesty, 
 Is littleness ; that he who feels contempt 
 For any living thing, hath faculties 
 Which he has never used ; that thought with him 
 Is in its infancy." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 205 
 
 IV. 
 
 RELATION OF THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY TO 
 SUCCESS IN COMMON LIEE. 
 
 " The true question is not, Whose son are you ? — What kind of 
 a dress do you wear ? — How much cash are you worth ? But this 
 is the true question : How much executive power do you wear 
 under your hat ? — How much ' can do ' walks in your boots ? " 
 
 E. L. Magoon, Lyceum Lecture. 
 
 " There are three kinds of men in the world, — the Wills, the 
 Won'ts, and the Can'ts. The first effect everything ; the others 
 oppose everything. ' I will ' builds our railroads and steamboats ; 
 'I won't' don't believe in experiments and nonsense; while 'I 
 can't ' grows weeds for wheat, and commonly ends his days in the 
 slow digestion of bankruptcy." American Newspaper. 
 
 Between some persons and others, there is a 
 difference respecting success in common life, which 
 will be found to correspond exactly to the difference 
 existing between them in force of will. The truth 
 is, men and women, viewed in relation to progress 
 and prosperity, in the ordinary courses of human 
 endeavor, belong either to the one or to the other 
 of these two classes : 
 
 The efficient persons, who undertake an occupation 
 or an enterprise, and by a steady advance attain to 
 the object they wish for and aim at. 
 
 TJie inefficient persons, who make attempts to gain 
 what is desirable, but rarely, if ever, accomplish any- 
 thing worthy of mention. 
 
 Emerson, speaking to an audience of students, 
 once said : " I conceive that success is in finding 
 what it is that you yourself really want, and pursu- 
 
206 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ing it. The remark is a deep one, and its meaning 
 may be deqlared to be illustrated in the lives of the 
 first-named class of mortals. Visit them in the 
 places where they daily move, and observe their 
 characteristics and their modes ! The obvious, sa- 
 lient facts which appertain to them in general, will 
 be found to be greatly instructive. Their faculties 
 and energies, though not extraordinarily applied, are 
 applied availingly — or rather prevailingly. They 
 insure to themselves a life-long series of happ}^ reali- 
 zations. They thrive. Let their pursuit be what it 
 may, and let what may occur along the line of it, 
 they press ever surely on to gain their purpose. 
 Scarcely do they know by experience what it is to 
 shrink back, with unnerved hands and a counte- 
 nance expressive of failure, from a task which they 
 have once deliberately set out to perform. For 
 hardships they have no dread, but a kind of real 
 liking, which is proof that they draw something 
 sweet out of them, just as bees draw honey out of 
 thistles. Never do they go begging for success. It 
 comes to them naturally, spontaneously. It seems, 
 forsooth, to dart into existence as if to greet their 
 very finger-tips, somewhat as electric sparks spring 
 into being when the point of a metallic conductor is 
 held near a charged cylinder of glass. Do they find 
 their surroundings unfavorable, and do they per- 
 ceive no feasible or honorable alternative but to 
 make the most of the situation they occupy ? If so, 
 then, waiting not for time or for Providence to pro- 
 duce a change for the better, they coolly, yet vigor- 
 ously, begin a work of improvement. Against the 
 jagged, gnarled things which are in their way, they 
 
A PKINCELY POSSESSION. 207 
 
 deal out strokes of manly violence. They hack down 
 bad circumstances, and supply their places with 
 good ones. Instead of saying " I can't," they say 
 " I will ! " How impediments diminish and wither 
 about them ! How difficulties relax to tameness 
 before them ! They are not long in effecting bright 
 clearings on the territory of wild and appalling 
 besetments. Herein, they may be likened to those 
 pioneer toilers who founded new seats for civiliza- 
 tion in the American forests of two hundred and 
 sixty years ago. Let us suppose a few possibilities. 
 Should one of the class of mortals, now under con- 
 sideration, be constrained, by what is called Fate, 
 to settle on a bleak, stony hill-side, or in a valley 
 infested by ferocious beasts, he would, at least, con- 
 trive somehow to gather there the materials for a 
 living. Should one of them, with a view to a per- 
 manent stay, build his sheltering roof on a desert 
 shore, he would in due time evoke from the sterile 
 soil gladdening verdure and blossoms as fair as the 
 flower of the rose. Should one of them, by a strange 
 concurrence of events or influences, be led to locate 
 his domicile on a spot so dismal, that Hope might be 
 said to have fled from it, and Despair might be con- 
 ceived to brood over it, he would, even there, soon 
 have the unmistakable signs of progressive and pros- 
 perous life springing up around him. 
 
 The great multitude of folk are wont to regard 
 with wonder the success of such persons. But 
 would they know the prime secret of it? Let them 
 understand, then, that it is not accident, not luck, 
 not any special propitiousness of Providence. It is 
 the Power of Push, rendered valorous and effective 
 
208 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 by a true training which was begun in youth, and 
 which has been continued uninterruptedly from 
 youth upward. This is that whereby human energy 
 is enabled to make dreary places take on an abid- 
 ing pleasantness, arid ground become fruitful, and 
 beauty spring up where desolation keeps its silence 
 and spreads its mildew. 
 
 Behold yonder enterprising farmer ! His grounds, 
 as a hundred men have observed, yield him, year by 
 year, handsome harvests. His house is snug and 
 fair. His barn is commodious and well-preserved. 
 His fences are so strong that no headstrong beast 
 can break them down, and so high that lazy persons 
 can hardly climb over them. But there is another 
 farmer not far away, who, with just as good natural 
 opportunities, complains that his land brings forth 
 scanty crops ; who dwells in an old dingy structure 
 which he calls a house ; who stores the produce of 
 his fields in a barn, the roof of which shockingly 
 leaks, and the basal sills of which are rapidly going 
 to decay ; and who has fences that are so poor and so 
 low a grasshopper could overleap them, much more a 
 horse, a cow, or a sheep. Behold yonder enterpris- 
 ing merchant ! ' There is a genuine bustle from day 
 to day about his counters. He is blessed with an 
 incessant influx of money into his tills. Moreover, 
 he, from time to time, finds it needful to provide 
 fresh room for his ever-expanding business. But, 
 just across the street perhaps, there is another mer- 
 cantile man, who began trade with an equal amount 
 of capital and with equal advantages of situation, 
 yet who scarcely reaps any profits, and who feels 
 himself forced annually to shorten the diameter of 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 209 
 
 his circle of operations. Now, what is that which, in 
 all such cases, is the chief reason of the difference 
 so strikingly apparent ? The answer is, it is differ- 
 ence in force of will. 
 
 " Take this for granted, once for all, 
 There is neither chance nor fate ; 
 And to sit and wait for the sky to fall, 
 Is to wait as the foolish wait. 
 
 " The laurel longed for you must earn, 
 It is not of the things men lend ; 
 And though the lesson be hard to learn, 
 The sooner the better, my friend." 
 
 Alice Cary. 
 
 John Foster relates an instance that may fitly be 
 cited by way of pointing the meaning already ex- 
 pressed. In presenting it, I will omit some of the 
 minor particulars. It is substantially this : 
 
 A young possessor of a large patrimony had, in 
 two or three years, wasted his inheritance in profli- 
 gate revels. In his condition of want, he went forth 
 one day with the intention of putting an end to his 
 life. As he wandered about, absorbed in gloomy 
 reverie, he came to the brow of an eminence, from 
 which, looking abroad, he beheld his lost estates. 
 He sat down, and for a number of hours remained 
 fixed in thought. When he arose, he did so with a 
 sudden start, and with a vehement, exulting emo- 
 tion. He had resolved that all those estates should 
 be his again. His will instantly began to push him 
 on to the accomplishment of his plan. Seeing a 
 heap of coals lying on the pavement in front of a 
 house, he offered himself to shovel or wheel them 
 into the place where they were to be deposited, and 
 14 
 
210 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 was employed. He received a few pence for the 
 labor, and, having made request for some food, re- 
 ceived that also. He then sought another oppor- 
 tunity for earning some money, however small the 
 sum 'might be. With indefatigable industry, he 
 went through a succession of servile employments 
 in different places, all the time avoiding the least 
 expense that was not absolutely necessary. Thus, 
 after a considerable period, he gained means enough 
 to purchase a few cattle. These he sold at such a 
 price as to secure in the bargain a goodly profit. 
 He advanced by degrees to larger transactions. He 
 obtained incipient wealth. He added money to 
 money, riches to riches, and even more than recov- 
 ered his lost possessions. Foster, after mentioning 
 the fact that the man died an inveterate miser, 
 worth sixty thousand pounds, says : " I have always 
 recollected this as a signal instance, though in an 
 unfortunate and ignoble direction, of decisive char- 
 acter, and of the extraordinary effect which, accord- 
 ing to general laws, belongs to the strongest form of 
 such a character." 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 211 
 
 V. 
 
 RELATION OF THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY TO 
 HUMAN JOY. 
 
 " On the whole, she [Nature] . . . hardens her genuine children 
 against the pains and evils she incessantly prepares for them ; so 
 that we name him the happiest man who is the strongest to make 
 front against evil, to put it aside from him, and in defiance of it go 
 the road of his own will." Goethe. 
 
 Pleasure is cheap, but joy is costly. Concern- 
 ing the former, shouting Folly and simpering Van- 
 ity, gushing fops and dainty demoiselles, may be 
 said to know much ; but concerning the latter, only 
 persevering workers and battlers can be truly said 
 to know anything. I believe that Tubal Cain, the 
 inventor of iron-forging, was a man of joy, for I 
 cannot doubt that, in his patient strivings in his 
 antediluvian workshop, he fulfilled the conditions 
 of a joyful experience. Undertake things worthy of 
 yourself, and persevere till you have accomplished 
 them, then you will have joy. You will not have it 
 otherwise. Swedenborg says : " Food for the body 
 is given to every one in heaven, according to the. use 
 which he performs, — magnificent to those who are 
 in eminent uses ; moderate, but of exquisite relish, 
 to those who are in uses of middle degree ; and mean 
 to those who are in mean uses ; but none to the 
 slothful." Somewhat so is it, in this world, respect- 
 ing happiness. The indolent have it not ; they who 
 are active, but are of weak will, have it only in low 
 degrees ; and none but firm-minded strivers have it 
 
212 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 in any of those high degrees in which it amounts to 
 joy or bliss. 
 
 There was Archimedes. How familiar with human 
 joy was he ! According to Plutarch, he was wont 
 to be " transported with intellectual delight." And 
 why? Because he used to attempt noble work, and 
 bend his soul to the doing of it till it was done. He 
 went through great processes of thought, as a geo- 
 metrician and as a philosopher. Kepler was a joyful 
 man. And the reason why was this : he applied 
 himself to tasks proportionate to his powers, and 
 finished them. Joy was the crown wherewith his 
 persevering toil, as an astronomer, was crowned. So 
 dear to him was one of his discoveries, on account 
 of the delight whereof it had been the occasion, that 
 he once declared he valued it, at the time of mak- 
 ing it, more than he would have done the possession 
 of the whole electorate of Saxony. Such prevailing 
 workers as Archimedes, Kepler, Bacon, Boyle, and 
 Sir Isaac Newton, are not apt to be in danger of 
 committing suicide because of not being able to be 
 happy. There was David Hume. Some people 
 have imagined that, since he was such a skeptic as 
 regards the Christian religion, he must have been a 
 joyless man. But the truth is, he was an indefati- 
 gable thinker and writer. He gained, by persever- 
 ance in effort, ends which were to him dear-bought 
 triumphs ; consequently they were to him occasions 
 of joy. We must believe that, so. long as his valiant 
 will pushed him on in intellectual strivings, he was 
 a man of high delights. Indeed, this belief is amply 
 confirmed by testimony. The averment of those 
 who knew him, was to the effect that he bore, in 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 213 
 
 " the jolly openness of his countenance," the proof 
 of a mind accustomed to elevated enjoyment. The 
 eminent Adam Smith even went so far as to repre- 
 sent him to have been, in his personal qualities, " as 
 near to perfection as the lot of humanity will ad- 
 mit." All this, of course, makes nothing for that 
 infidelity which doomed his name to come down 
 colored to after-generations. It simply goes to 
 establish the lesson which has been advanced, — 
 namely, that whoever has a will so strong as to keep 
 him in its own chosen track of exertion, and to hold 
 him patient and courageous therein up to the tri- 
 umph-point, he will be joyful. 
 
 And now, courteous reader, take for a sequel to 
 the treatment of the present topic, some simple 
 lines, which have a direct bearing on the foregoing 
 thoughts, and which, in their first form, were com- 
 posed by this writer in his college 3-ears. They will 
 not ask to be prized save for what they suggest. 
 This is their caption : 
 
 THE STRIVER'S HOLIDAY. 
 
 In Truth's still field behold a stranger striving ! 
 
 His brow is knitted, for his will is strong ; 
 Of balmy ease himself he is depriving, 
 
 To bring to pass what men have needed long. 
 
 Dull idlers gaze on him with dreamy wonder, 
 And weaklings watch him with a stupid stare ; 
 
 They fancy he hath made a sorry blunder, 
 To count upon a thrill of gladness there. 
 
 Time rolleth on. His taxing labor endetb, 
 
 And be from his lone work-place cometh forth ; 
 
 From strain severe his firm mind he unbendeth : 
 A triumph he hath wrought of passing worth. 
 
214 THE GBEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Mark, now, in his clear eye that strange fine luster — 
 
 The sign of feelings wondrously elate! 
 See the fair smiles which round his flushed lips cluster! 
 
 Surely his soul is in a blissful state. 
 
 Thus doth the manly one, the earnest-hearted, 
 After some triumph grand, oft take his way ; 
 
 Thus to his mind joy often is imparted, 
 And his high faculties hold holiday. 
 
 He loseth sight of all that breedeth sadness, 
 He scarcely sees save with the inner sense ; 
 
 His bright thoughts seem to clap their hands for gladness, 
 His speech, whate'er its form, is eloquence. 
 
 At such a time the soul of man is glorious : 
 Its rapture seems to be an upward flight, 
 
 In which, o'er earthly din and clouds victorious, 
 It floats and revels in a purer light. 
 
 How poor it then doth deem all fleshly pleasure ! 
 
 And the extolled delights of wealth, how tame! 
 Its joy is deep, is great, is without measure, — 
 
 A bliss it is for which earth hath no name. 
 
 VI. 
 
 EXCESSES OF THE IMPELLING CAPABILITY. 
 
 Id arbitror 
 
 Adprime in vita esse utile, ne quid nimis. 
 ("I take it to be a principal rule of life, not to be too much 
 addicted to any one thing.") Terence, Andria, Act. L, Scene 1. 
 
 " Nothing so good but it may be abused." 
 
 Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy. 
 
 The will, or, in other words, the Power of Push, 
 when it has once acquired the habit of giving rise 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 215 
 
 to great perseverance, is liable to be extremely 
 urgent and strenuous. Hence it is that there are so 
 many earnest persons in the world, who, in their 
 courses of effort, find for themselves too little leisure. 
 Man was designed for play as well as for work ; and 
 if he commands himself as he ought, he will have 
 due proportions of each. Certainly, he will never, 
 except in circumstances which necessitate it, be seen 
 with a physical constitution pleading in vain for 
 time in which to undergo a process of recuperation. 
 Hundreds of gifted achievers there are whose impel- 
 ling capability disallows them the diversion they 
 truly need, and holds them incessantly strained in 
 nerve-wearing pursuit. The result is that they are 
 workers whose work draws ruinously on their vital 
 energies. After a few years, they will be obliged to 
 " give up," because they will be worn out. While 
 every man should see to it that his will is strong, he 
 should also see to it that it does not den}^ him what 
 Macaulay calls " hours of careless relaxation." It 
 is a serious mistake to let the Power of Push get the 
 better of one's very self. Its true place is that of a 
 potent helper, not that of a ruler. It should be so 
 disciplined and regulated, that it will readily serve 
 to render the soul indomitable, and will readily 
 slacken when bidden by the soul to yield. Woe to 
 that mortal who lets his will make him its subject ! 
 To be absolutely governed, in a life of zealous action, 
 by one's impelling capability, is to be like a slave 
 who is forced and goaded by an exacting and merci- 
 less master. 
 
 The tyranny of the will explains why so few great 
 Englishmen and great Americans have been instances 
 
216 THE -GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 of long-lasting bodily vigor and wholeness. Think 
 of the aspiring students, the assiduous authors, the 
 devoted lovers of scientific research, the able and 
 far-sought practitioners at the bar, and the " sons 
 of thunder " in the ranks of the clergy, that are, 
 at this hour, surely tending, in consequence of the 
 same kind of tyrannj^, to the fate of the prematurely 
 blighted ! The list of hero-thinkers who have been 
 reduced to invalidism, or who have been exhausted 
 to death, by an excessive urgency and strenuousness 
 of the Power of Push, runs parallel with the record 
 of the toilful ages of civilization. When they should 
 have checked and held back that power, they left it 
 free to exercise itself in rigorism and oppression. 
 When they should have ungirded and recreated 
 themselves, they suffered the mighty mental engine 
 which impelled them toward their object, to press 
 their overtasked frames to the point of break-down. 
 Such persons are self-made martyrs. William Pitt, 
 Sir Samuel Romilly, Hugh Miller, Rufus Choate, 
 Theodore Parker, Henry J. Raymond, Edwin Stan- 
 ton, Hiram Mattison, John McClintock, Edward 
 Thomson, Davis W. Clark, Horace Greeley, Samuel 
 Bowles, — each departed this life too soon (just as 
 did ten thousand others that might be named), on 
 account of not reining in the impelling capability, 
 and protecting the body against it. 
 
 Most of the excesses of the will are illustrations 
 of the folly of having too much gritty tenacity. 
 This is what was exhibited by that Irish gardener, 
 who is mentioned by Robert Collier in his lecture 
 on Clear G-rit. Having been shot by an Irishman 
 from another county, he refused surgical aid, alleg- 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 217 
 
 ing that he wanted to die in order that the other 
 man might be hung. Mr. Collier declares that the 
 injured son of Erin realized his wish : he himself 
 died of his wound, and his assassin died on the gal- 
 lows. To persevere with an unwise resolution, even 
 in a course of action which is compatible with honor 
 and chivalry, is to make a rueful sort of progress. 
 Columbus might have failed to discover the New 
 World, had he — at that time when the mutinous 
 crews of his fleet informed him that he must order 
 the vessels turned back, or take the alternative of 
 being thrown overboard — let himself have a surplus 
 of gritty tenacity. He saw the situation as it was, 
 perceived at once how foolish it would be for him to 
 show that he meant to adhere to his undertaking in 
 defiance of such a league of desperate sailors, and, 
 softening to a conciliatory mildness, he said, " Give 
 me but three days more," &c. The French, in the 
 time of the Franco-Prussian war, should not, after the 
 beleaguerment of their capital, have defied and with- 
 stood, as they did, their puissant besiegers. Tt was 
 no inevitable necessity that compelled them to eat 
 horse-flesh soup, and to prize as delicacies crumbs 
 and crusts such as, in all ages, have appeared on 
 beggars' tables. They brought themselves to par- 
 take of poverty's crude, hard fare, because they 
 chose to be haughty when they should have been 
 humble, and chose to be persistent when they should 
 have been yielding. Thus they illustrated the folly 
 of having too much gritty tenacity. 
 
 Better is it to allow a person the last word in a 
 dispute, than to go on wrangling with him or her 
 all the day. Better is it to drop the rod and try 
 
218 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 " moral suasion," than to flagellate an unruly lad till 
 his flesh shall have become numb, and his skin shall 
 be covered with purple lines of inflammation. There 
 was a man in the town of Medina, in the state of 
 New York, who killed a lad in this way, and had to 
 be sent to prison for child-slaughter. A suitable 
 amount of abstemiousness is indispensable to the 
 cure of disease ; but let the invalid beware lest he 
 allow his will to become accustomed to resist, with 
 an iron severity, the replenishing of the daily wants 
 of his body ! " To starve ourselves," says a writer, 
 "as a cure for disease, is to be afflicted with two 
 evils instead of one : the disease torments us on 
 one side, and the remedy on the other." Resolute 
 self-defense against intentional aggression or abusive 
 insolence, is just and proper ; but to pursue an in- 
 flicter of injury, however deserving of punishment 
 he may be, with a heart hot with desire for ven- 
 geance, a hand drilled for the summary execution of 
 a vindictive threat, and an unrelaxing impelling 
 capability driving that heart and that hand on to the 
 direful triumph of malevolent hate, — this is to seek 
 satisfaction for an offense, not after the manner of a 
 wise man, but after the manner of a wild human 
 beast. Religion, as a personal possession, is abso- 
 lutely essential to the highest style of manhood ; 
 but it is possible to be righteous overmuch; and 
 the Hebrew preacher (Eccl. vii. 16) says : " Be not 
 righteous overmuch. . . . Why shouldst thou de- 
 stroy thyself? " That is, why shouldst thou suffer 
 thyself to be driven, by an unduly urgent and stren- 
 uous will, to a ruinous excess of religious devotion ? 
 In short, just as the French, in their beleaguered 
 
A PRINCELY POSSESSION. 219 
 
 metropolis, prepared a cup of misery for themselves 
 by holding out so unwisely against the Prussians, 
 and just as the fighter of a duel brings dishonor on 
 himself by running the risk of getting buried in a 
 fool's grave, so a needless loss of comfort or of credit 
 is invariably incurred by every one who exemplifies 
 the folly of having too much gritty tenacity. 
 
 VII. 
 
 SUMMATION. 
 
 " A man is made great or little by his own will." 
 
 Schiller. 
 "The secret of influence is will, whether good or bad." 
 
 Robertson. 
 
 The reader may now be presumed to be ready for 
 some condensed presentment of the leading thoughts 
 which have been evolved in the different divisions 
 of the foregoing discussion. An epitome or sum- 
 mation of them may prove profitable, even though 
 it be not formed in any manner strictly precise or 
 strictly methodical. 
 
 The Power of Push, in its effective state, is the 
 fountain of all true perseverance. There can be no 
 genuine advancement or genuine thrift in life with- 
 out it. Without it, energy is scattered in the ser- 
 vice of wayward impulse, time is squandered in 
 fitful and inadequate exertion, faith is weak and 
 wavering, and courage is little more than an empty 
 name. Without it, a young man is a dreamer 
 
220 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 rather than a doer, and an old man is a disappointed 
 dreamer, whose heart is slowly sinking in the gloom 
 of miscarried expectations and entombed hopes. 
 He who, however well developed may be his other 
 capabilities, has an ill-developed impelling capa- 
 bility, will prove true in no course of trying expe- 
 rience. Where firmness is wanted, he will evince a 
 pitiful instability ; where strength is needed, he will 
 show a deplorable impotence ; where fidelity is re- 
 quired and expected, he will manifest the disposi- 
 tion of a self-excusing weakling, whose chief apti- 
 tude is an aptitude for miserable delinquencies and 
 for shameful failures. 
 
 The Power of Push, in its effective state, is that 
 which enables the aspiring toiler to " labor and to 
 wait " till the hour of achievement has fully come. 
 It is that which supports the courage of man when 
 he wages war with difficulties or with antagonisms, 
 and lets not his courage wane in the least, till re- 
 sistance has surrendered, and the object of endeavor 
 is reached and seized. It is that without which no 
 person can ever be fitted to gain one noteworthy 
 triumph or one passable success ; to carry into effect 
 a single manly resolve, or to withstand admirably a 
 single hard ordeal ; to give rise to any true stir in 
 the world, or to secure any deep-felt thrills of intel- 
 lectual joy. Finally, it is that which prevents the 
 great processes of civilization from having an end, 
 and saves this planet whereon we tread from be- 
 coming a vast theatre for the futile operations of 
 despair-stricken visionaries and sluggards. 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 
 
 "Shadow of death, what art thou? Man's thoughts survive; 
 can he then be no more ? " 
 
 Madame de Stael, Corinne, Book XIII., Chap. III. 
 
 221 
 
Chapter IV. 
 INFLUENCE 
 
 I. 
 
 ITS SUCCESSION OF GENEKATIONS. 
 
 " Achieve the good, and godlike plants possessed 
 Already by mankind, thou nourishest ; 
 Create the beautiful, and seeds are sown 
 Eor godlike plants, to man as yet unknown." 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 " His reflections have given birth to thousands of new reflec- 
 tions." Madame de Stael, concerning Montesquieu. 
 
 The French comedy-writer MoliSre speaks of a 
 person who, on betaking himself, at a late period of 
 his career, to the study of grammar, was amazed to 
 find that he had, from his youth up, been using sub- 
 stantives, adjectives, adverbs, and the other classi- 
 fied parts of speech, without knowing it. Is there 
 not many a mortal who, if he should be made to see 
 that he has, ever since he began his active life, been 
 scattering an ever-living produce, would in like 
 manner be amazed to find that he has year after 
 year done this without being aware of doing it ? 
 
 True is the Latin aphorism, Nemo solus sapit, "No 
 one is wise alone." True, also, is the averment of 
 
 223 
 
224 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the author of Tom Brown's School- 1) ays at Rugby, 
 that " One coward makes many." There is a sense 
 in which every person sows seed from which others 
 have to reap harvests, and in which every person 
 reaps — nay, must reap — harvests from seed which 
 others have strewn. The scholiast on Aristophanes 
 quotes the proverb, " One soweth, but another shall 
 reap;" and Jesus (as one will see by adverting to 
 John iv. 37) quoted the same. It is applicable for- 
 ever to influence. What human character in this 
 world has no part in the production of any other 
 human character ? What mortal ever became con- 
 spicuously good or conspicuously bad, without being 
 able to say truly that another or others had dissemi- 
 nated undying thoughts, good or bad, some of which 
 found a lodgment in his soul, and that he had gone 
 his way afterward reaping of the same ? 
 
 Influence has its succession of generations ; and a 
 succession it is which, after being once started, seems 
 to run on endlessly. Let thine influence go forth 
 in something said by thee or in something done by 
 thee, and who can ever know all that will spring 
 therefrom? Surely, none but He who knoweth 
 all beginnings and all endings. Dispense it by a 
 smile or by a frown, by a pathetic sigh or by an 
 earnest tear, and who can ever trace the entire line 
 of its prospective progeny? Certainly none but 
 He who foresees all future outcomes, all destined 
 evolutions. " Things past," says Livy, " may be 
 repented of, but never erased." Cain's bloody deed 
 could never be as if it had never been done ; nor 
 could Abel's excellent act of worship ever be as if 
 it had never been performed. That fratricide and 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 225 
 
 that pious offering, each contained a seed whence 
 speedily sprung a harvest, which extended even to 
 the heaven of heavens, and which is }^et being re- 
 produced. Victor Hugo avows the belief, that when 
 two persons, mutually attached by the sacred tie of 
 love, approach each other and exchange the " inef- 
 fable kiss," it is impossible the transaction should 
 not be followed by a tremor in the immense mys- 
 tery of the stars. 
 
 What a wonder of wonders is the propagation of 
 influence ! Even the uncultured common man, with 
 all his inward lack and all his outward crudity, gives 
 rise to a produce which will go on multiplying into 
 eternity ; and much more so does the master-man, 
 the true star among souls. " Great men," says 
 Sydney Smith, " hallow a whole people, and lift up 
 all who live in their time." If influence can but 
 have a soil to sprout in, it will germinate and repro- 
 duce itself through the ages. The celebrated Eng- 
 lish traveler, Lord Lindsay, accidentally found, in 
 the vicinity of the Egyptian pyramids, a mummy, in 
 connection with which was an inscription two thou- 
 sand years old. Having unwrapped the dry form, 
 he discovered in one of its closed hands a small 
 bulb. This he planted in a warm spot, where dew 
 and rain could come to it ; and in a few weeks it 
 grew, and budded, and became a beautiful blooming 
 flower. So with influence. Sometimes it is put 
 forth in a vehicle which long lies hidden, but which 
 is, in process of time, uncovered. Then it grows 
 and multiplies. There was Poggio Bracciolini, that 
 restorer of literature who lived in Florence in the 
 fifteenth century. See what he did for the influence 
 15 
 
226 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 which, for more than thirteen hundred years, had 
 lain unproductive in the language of certain val- 
 uable manuscript works of Quintilian and other 
 great Roman authors ! Finding those works buried 
 in the obscurity of a dark and desolate tower, where 
 they were covered with filth and rubbish, he brought 
 them into the light of day. And quickly enough, 
 when he had done this, did the thoughts which were 
 in the words of them burst forth and begin to 
 reproduce themselves. 
 
 But here we will turn our attention to points more 
 specific, concerning that important part of the For- 
 tune of Humanity which is the theme of the pres- 
 ent chapter. 
 
 II. 
 
 SILENT EXPRESSION. 
 
 " Silence is often an answer." Arabic Proverb. 
 
 " There is a language of the human countenance which we all 
 understand without an interpreter, though the lineaments belong 
 to the rudest savage that ever stammered in an unknown barbaric 
 dialect." O. W. Holmes. 
 
 "The thought that is bound up with our passion is as pene- 
 trating as air — everything is porous to it." 
 
 George Eliot, Daniel Leronda, Book VI. 
 
 The soul many times each day, without doing any 
 other outward thing, looks through the body wherein 
 it dwells. In the process of thus looking through 
 its corporeal house, it inevitably tells more or less of 
 what there is in itself. Men are accustomed to des- 
 ignate the still mode in which it does so often each 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 227 
 
 day communicate its thoughts, its emotions, and its 
 feelings, by the name silent expression. Every per- 
 son goes about disseminating influence, either good 
 or bad, by means of the phases of his face, and 
 especially by means of those of his eye. There is a 
 kind of speech which is composed of bodily ele- 
 ments, but not of bodily sounds ; and in it seeds are 
 effectually conveyed to soil which is immortal. 
 Consider the case of the little child that, during the 
 entire day, is under the watchful eye of its mother ! 
 Does not that mother, by the outlooking or silent 
 expression of her soul over the tender, breathing 
 object of her care, ceaselessly shed on the plastic 
 soul of her little loved one influence, such as is fitted 
 to give rise to traits that will be amiable or to traits 
 that will be disagreeable ? Who would not answer 
 this question affirmatively ? By reason of the law 
 which is usually stated in the words, " Like begets 
 its like," it is to be inferred that a look of impa- 
 tience, often repeated over a child, will cause it to 
 acquire an impatient disposition, and that a look of 
 anger, often repeated over a child, will cause it to 
 become either quick-tempered and fiery, or prone to 
 sullenness and revenge. " The very handling of 
 the nursery," says Bushnell, "is significant; and 
 the petulance, the passion, the gentleness, the tran- 
 quillity indicated by it are all reproduced in the 
 child." It is safe to say that nearly all grown per- 
 sons received the seeds out of which grew their 
 dispositions in their infancy, and that those seeds 
 were conveyed to their hearts, not in words and 
 not in deeds, but in expressions of soul silently 
 made over them by their mothers. Away back in 
 
228 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the unremembered days of thy helpless littleness, 
 when thou didst daily draw nourishment from the 
 bosom of her that bore thee, then it was that thy 
 leading bent germinated and took root in thee ; for 
 then it was that thy mother, chiefly by looking into 
 thy face, sowed in thy nature the invisible kernel 
 whence sprung that enduring offshoot. 
 
 Believe me, the seed of a harvest great as destiny 
 itself has, oftener than we know, been conveyed in 
 a penetrating glance. Chaucer says : 
 
 " For by my troth, I vow, and by this book, 
 You may both heal and slay me with a look." 
 
 And in one of Spenser's poems are the lines: 
 
 " And mighty hands forget their manliness, 
 Driven with the power of a heart-burning eye." 
 
 Not too much is it to affirm, that wrong-doers have 
 been turned into saints and saints into wrong-doers, 
 by the influence flung forth by a soul, silently peer- 
 ing out through its own chosen windows, the orbs 
 of vision. Who has not read and re-read of the 
 result of that look which Jesus gave to Peter, when 
 the latter, after his series of base denials, appeared 
 face to face before him whom he had so shamefully 
 wronged ? There is reason for thinking that no 
 look mightier than that has ever been given in this 
 world. The thought, the feeling, nay, the seed, 
 which it bore, was revolutionizing. Saint Luke 
 narrates the incident thus : 
 
 "And the Lord turned and looked upon Peter. And Peter 
 remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said unto him, 
 ' Before the cock crow, thou shalt deny me thrice.' And Peter 
 went out and wept bitterly," 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 229 
 
 Oh, that sad, rebukiDg expression of the wondrous 
 Master ! Silent though it was, there passed in it 
 from hirn to Peter something that melted the heart 
 of the latter, and that would have melted it even 
 if it had been made of stone ! 
 
 It is authentically related that a single look of 
 John Fletcher, the excellent vicar of Madeley, so 
 impressed a certain man who had shocked him by 
 the use of profane language, as to occasion at length 
 a complete change in that individual's manners and 
 life. For a moment, the swearer was struck dumb 
 by the look. After retiring from Fletcher's pres- 
 ence, he went to sea. But, while voyaging over the 
 fickle ocean and while traveling amid various scenes 
 beyond it, the powerful meaning transmitted to him 
 in the holy glance, continually and profoundly dis- 
 turbed his soul. The words which had accompanied 
 that silent expression were forgotten by him ; but 
 he remembered, as if it were every day repeated to 
 him with all its original vividness, the silent expres- 
 sion itself. He settled in the State of Louisiana, and 
 there, after becoming a good man, related how the 
 influence conveyed to him in Fletcher's look had 
 gone with him over the world, annoying him in all 
 his sins, and how, from it, had finally sprung a moral 
 transformation of his nature.* 
 
 Instances can also be cited to show that in evil 
 expressions of the soul which are silent, — in the 
 noiseless outgiancings which are prompted by cor- 
 rupt impulses, desires, or passions, — the seeds of 
 results, correspondingly great, though of an opposite 
 
 * See marginal note in Stevens' History of Methodism, Vol. II. 
 p. 261. 
 
230 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTTLNE. 
 
 character, may be borne to adjacent mental soil. 
 One writer, describing that gifted but wicked little 
 woman, Lola Montez, aptly represents her eyes as 
 " masked batteries of passion." And who shall ever 
 tell — who but the recording angel 9 — how many 
 were deprived of the strength of their hearts, and 
 how many were made to lose their hold on purity 
 and virtue, by the influence which went forth — nay, 
 which was shot forth — from that woman's beautiful, 
 contaminating eyes, as they trembled and shone in 
 their sockets, while with her restless spirit she was 
 going her way in one clime and another? 
 
 There are possibilities of silent expression which 
 it is interesting to contemplate. May we not well 
 muse, here, on some of Swedenborg's and on some 
 of Schoberlein's teachings ? Souls, in another life 
 (so the former tells us), instantly know, not only the 
 character of another's mind, but also that of his 
 faith. As soon as any spirit in that life comes to 
 another, he perceives his thoughts and his affections 
 — in short, all his present state, as if he had been 
 ever so long with him. All that are there show by 
 looks and gestures the acts of their will. There is 
 an aura or sphere, surrounding each one, which im- 
 mediately reveals his internal quality, and enables 
 others who have at any time before known him, to 
 recognize even at a distance his identity. The faces 
 of all are effigies of their ideas and feelings. 
 
 But observe a few lessons, much greater and finer, 
 which are taught by that masterly theologian of 
 Gottingen, Ludwig Schoberlein. The vital germ of 
 a true spiritual body is formed in the soul during 
 its stay on the earth. The natural fleshly body is 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 231 
 
 simply the receptacle, the womb, in which this inte- 
 rior form is invisibly generated and qualified, up to 
 the hour when, the crude flesh falling away, it 
 passes into the heavenly state, there to spring forth 
 into its full beauty and actuality. It will be com- 
 pleted in the "transfigured world," which is to be 
 man's ultimate theater of action ; and, when com- 
 pleted, it will be like the shining form wherein Jesus 
 appeared to Peter, James, and John, on Mount Ta- 
 bor. The peculiar traits of spiritual beauty which 
 occasionally beam out from the persons of ripened 
 believers, are actual reflexes of the transfigured cor- 
 poreity which lies potentially within them. The con- 
 summate body in which the soul will lead its high 
 future life, after once entering fully into its destined 
 resurrection-state, will be a body of light, a heavenly 
 body. It will be imbued with the spiritual element, 
 and therefore will be immortal. The fleshly and the 
 psychic in man will be exalted into the pneumatic. 
 On his outer features will be stamped the free har- 
 mony of his soul with the divine Spirit originally 
 inbreathed into him ; and the material elements of 
 his form will be thoroughly pervaded and ethereal- 
 ized by his habitual spirituality. His ever-enduring 
 body will reveal and manifest to the universe the 
 very finest shades of thought and sentiment existing 
 in his soul. It will be such as to afford perfect com- 
 munication between him and others. 
 
232 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 III. 
 
 WORDS. 
 
 " How forcible are right words ! " 
 
 Book of Job, Chap. vi. 25. 
 
 "A winged word hath stuck ineradicably in a million hearts, and 
 envenomed every hour throughout their hard pulsations." 
 
 Walter Savage Landor. 
 
 Among the leading modes wherein influence is 
 disseminated, is that universally familiar one which 
 consists in the use of words. These, the world over, 
 belong either to the former or to the latter of two 
 great classes of syllabic forms, namely, those which 
 are emitted from the mouth under the title of ut- 
 tered or oral speech, and those which are formed on 
 paper or any other material basis under the title of 
 written or printed language. Words of the first- 
 named class have been described as " mouthfuls of 
 spoken wind," and words of the second-named 
 class have been represented as " vessels in which 
 thoughts ride at anchor." But applicable alike to 
 the former and to the latter is the definition : Words 
 are vehicles in which influence is conveyed from soul 
 to soul. 
 
 The invisible kernels which are contained in the 
 terms of sentences audible, and of sentences visible, 
 are of innumerable varieties ; and there result from 
 them harvests large and small, bitter and sweet. 
 That little word, No, has often carried a significa- 
 tion which has made the living die ; and that little 
 
THE EVER -LIVING PRODUCE. 233 
 
 word, Yes, has often carried an import which has 
 made the dying live. Would you conceive what a 
 weight of influence there may be in a monosyllable 
 composed of no more than five letters ? Think, then, 
 of the word ought ! Says Joseph Cook : 
 
 " God is in that word ought, and therefore it outweighs all but 
 God." 
 
 Utterances, so far as their physical substance is 
 concerned, are, it is true, only " mouthfuls of spoken 
 wind," only effluxes of vocalized breath. But when 
 considered in their relation to thought, to sentiment, 
 to influence — then what are they ? Certainly they 
 are, then, much more than is implied in any such 
 description. They are bearers of meanings ; and 
 those meanings are in their nature either pleasant or 
 painful, either wholesome or pernicious. Every 
 utterance, deliberately made by one person in the 
 presence of another, conveys something born of a 
 soul — mayhap something fitted to produce a pang 
 of disappointment or a thrill of horror. A word 
 may be an oral exhalation, which will be found to 
 be cheeringly warm with love, or one which will 
 be found to be chillingly cold with treachery. 
 It may be an out-sent syllabified breath in which 
 envy lives and lurks like venom beneath a ser- 
 pent's fang, or one in which wrath seethes like hot 
 steam fretting through a leaky conduit. Idle words 
 do doubtless seem to many people to be empty words, 
 which are doomed to drop quickly into nonentit}^. 
 But they are not empty. Each one of them is the 
 vagabond transporter of an unprofitable meaning. 
 Carlyle fervidly exclaims : 
 
234 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 " Fool ! thinkest thou that because no Boswell is there with ass- 
 skin and black-lead to note thy jargon, it therefore dies and is 
 harmless? Nothing dies, nothing can die. No idlest word thou 
 speakest but is a seed cast into Time, and grows through all 
 Eternity ! " 
 
 Could mortals neither speak nor write, they would 
 live under the necessity of being only partially un- 
 derstood, and would, perhaps, die with the inevitable 
 prospect of being quickly forgotten. " Language," 
 says Ben Jonson, " most shows a man." And 
 among the things said by Charles the Fifth, is the 
 suggestive declaration, " A man is just as many times 
 a man as he has language with which to express 
 himself." How effectually have a thousand authors, 
 by the far-circulating pages which have borne abroad 
 their ideas and convictions, their principles and sen- 
 timents, been enabled to impress mankind with what 
 appertained to their innermost being ! The dwellers 
 in a hundred million homes can, to-day, see the feel- 
 ings of David's heart and the thoughts of Paul's 
 soul. The great penmen of past centuries are, by 
 their works, now acting, now doing good 'or evil, 
 now perpetuating their ideas, now making their 
 power widely and deeply felt in the world. Milton 
 says of books, " They do preserve, as in a vial, the 
 purest efficacy and extraction of that living intellect 
 that bred them." And says Thackeray, " A man's 
 books may not always speak the truth ; but they 
 speak his mind in spite of himself." Shakespeare's 
 famous writings will speak his mind till history shall 
 end; and so will Dante's Divine Comedy speak his, 
 for " the fiery life of it endures for evermore among 
 men." 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 235 
 
 But to make a book speak one's mind for ages, is 
 to make it convey in its words one's influence for 
 ages. It is well to reflect sometimes on the immense 
 results, the outgrowths many-branched and massive, 
 which, during the rolling years of by-gone eras, have 
 sprung from the seeds put forth in the contents of 
 poems, of chronicles, of biographies, of sciences, of 
 philosophies, of sermons, of commentaries, of hym- 
 nodies, and of the Bible. " No one who can read," 
 says Dickens, " ever looks at a book even unopened 
 on a shelf, like one who cannot." Not merely great 
 harvests of enjoyment, but great harvests of thought, 
 of energy, of strength, and of fervor have been reaped 
 from the influence conveyed in the words of pub- 
 lished pages. The martial odes of Tyrtseus, a Gre- 
 cian bard, inspired the Spartan soldiers, and by so 
 doing contributed largely to make them invincible 
 in strife and struggle. Sir Phillip Sydney declares 
 concerning the old English ballad of Chevy Chase, 
 that he had never heard it without finding his heart 
 " more moved than with a trumpet." Thomas 
 Hood's Song of the Shirt gave a remarkable impulse 
 to the endeavors which had been begun in England 
 for the relief of poor and distressed needle-women. 
 Wordsworth's Excursion and other poems brought 
 into existence the taste which secured to his works 
 permanent admiration and fame. That vigorous, 
 magnificent, and sublime offspring of the genius of 
 Bailey, the book entitled Festus, has been pro- 
 nounced by Gilfillan " the chaos of a hundred poetic 
 worlds." In George Eliot's story of Daniel Deronda 
 Kate Meyrick is represented as speaking thus of 
 Erckmann-Chatrian's Histoire d'un Conscrit: 
 
236 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 " It is a bit of history brought near us with a strong telescope. 
 We can see the soldiers' faces : no, it is more than that — we can 
 hear everything — we can almost hear their hearts beat." 
 
 What productive vitality, what propagating force, 
 must there be in the seeds contained in such a vol- 
 ume ! When Byron's passionate poems went forth 
 from the press, the influence which traveled in the 
 vivid, fascinating words of them speedily produced 
 immeasurable results. An outgrowth of feelings and 
 tendencies, for the most part selfish and corrupt, 
 grew, like germs starting under June showers, from 
 that influence. Indeed, Byron may be said to have, 
 by means of his wild voluptuous effusions, Byron- 
 ized thousands of minds, both in the British domains 
 and in the virgin lands of America. Says Macaulay, 
 speaking of the 3 r oung men who eagerly perused the 
 writings of that gifted young lord : 
 
 " They bought pictures of him ; they treasured up the smallest 
 relics of him ; they learned his poems by heart, and did their best 
 to write like him, and to look like him. Many of them practiced 
 at the glass in the hope of catching the curl of the upper lip and 
 the scowl of the brow which appear in some of his portraits. A 
 few discarded their neckcloths, in imitation of their great leader." 
 
 The same author adds that many undergraduates 
 and medical students drew from Bja-on's poetry " a 
 system of ethics, compounded of misanthropy and 
 voluptuousness — a system in which the two great 
 commandments were, to hate your neighbor, and to 
 love your neighbor's wife." It is painful to dwell 
 on the case. Let us turn to another. 
 
 John Flavell's little treatise, entitled Keeping the 
 Heart, gave rise to results such as he himself, while 
 engaged in composing it, doubtless never ventured 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 237 
 
 to anticipate. The bookseller Boulter relates that 
 there came one day into his store a gay gentleman, 
 who inquired for play -books. He informed the cus- 
 tomer that he had none, and then showed him that 
 little production, written by Flavell, entreating him 
 to read it, and assuring him that it would do him 
 more good than such books as he was seeking. The 
 gentleman, after noticing the title of the volume 
 and glancing over several pages of it, exclaimed, 
 " What a damnable fanatic was he who made this 
 book ! " But the effort was continued, notwith- 
 standing his profane outburst, to induce him to take 
 the volume and peruse it. Finalty, he so far yielded 
 to the persuasion brought to bear on him as to pur- 
 chase the treatise. He emphatically affirmed, how- 
 ever, that he should not read it. " What will } r ou 
 do with it, then?" asked the tradesman. "I will 
 tear and burn and send it to the devil," answered 
 the purchaser. " If so," said the bookseller, " }^ou 
 shall not have it." The individual, after being 
 again plied with expostulatory words, promised to 
 peruse the work ; and Mr. Boulter pledged himself 
 to return to him, in case of his disliking its contents, 
 the money he had paid for it. A month later, the 
 man reentered the store, and said : 
 
 " Sir, I most heartily thank you for putting this book into my 
 hands ; I bless God that you were moved to do it ; it has saved 
 my soul. Blessed be God that ever I came into your shop." 
 
 He then bought a hundred copies of that treatise 
 for free distribution.* 
 
 * The incident is narrated in the Presbyterian magazine, Ow 
 Monthly, for October, 1873. 
 
238 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 A good book is defined by Milton as " the pre- 
 cious life-blood of a master-spirit embalmed and 
 treasured up on purpose to a life beyond life." 
 Applicable is this definition to his own Paradise 
 Lost, and to Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and to 
 Johnson's Rasselas, and to Butler's Analogy, and to 
 Chalmers' Astronomical Discourses, The " life be- 
 yond life," which is secured by such books, is the 
 continuance of influence inimitably beyond the end 
 of that little life which Shakespeare describes as 
 "rounded with a sleep." They enable their authors 
 to be, for an indefinite number of years, teachers, 
 reprovers, comforters, guides, inspirers, reformers; 
 and they do this by reason that the words in them 
 have nuclei, which continue from epoch to epoch 
 alive and productive. Why is Montaigne's influ- 
 ence, in all these years, an ever-multiplying produce 
 in civilized nations? John Sterling tells why: 
 Because he left a mantle behind him, not only in- 
 scribed as are the magic garments of romance with 
 many strange characters, but showing the familiar 
 folds and twists of the short and stout-bodied old 
 Gascon ; in sharp light, and with endlessly daring 
 strokes, he painted himself, as the one great cer- 
 tainty in a world of doubt ; himself, a living being, 
 a person, a man, bright-shining, like an enchanted 
 head ; a human image of brassy flame in Eem- 
 brandt's wizard cave of blackness. Emerson, also, 
 tells why : "Cut these words [he means the words 
 of Montaigne's books], and they would bleed; they 
 are vascular and alive." 
 
 Ruskin says : 
 
THE eVer-living peoduce. 239 
 
 "If you read ten pages of a good book, letter by letter, — that 
 is to say, with real accuracy, — you are for evermore, in some 
 measure, an educated person." 
 
 In another place, he remarks : 
 
 "No book is worth anything which is not worth much; nor is it 
 serviceable, until it has been read and re-read, and loved, and 
 loved again, and marked, so that you can refer to the passages you 
 want in it, as a soldier can seize the weapon he needs in an ar- 
 mory, or a housewife bring the spice she needs from her store." * 
 
 Attend thus to any worthy volume, and, though 
 its contents be a thousand or several thousand years 
 old, you will feel its author's influence germinating 
 in you. The writings of Confucius have made him 
 potently live in the world, since his burial, for more 
 than twenty-three centuries. Longfellow sings : 
 
 " I shot an arrow into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 For so swift it flew, the sight 
 Could not follow it, in its flight. 
 
 "I breathed a song into the air, 
 It fell to earth, I knew not where ; 
 Eor who has sight so keen and strong 
 That it can follow the flight of song? 
 
 "Long, long afterward, in an oak 
 I found the arrow still unbroke ; 
 And the song, from beginning to end, 
 I found in the heart of a friend." 
 
 Could the noble author of these lines, a hundred 
 years after his decease, return to America, he would 
 not fail to find many of his songs still living, fresh 
 as sprouting seed-grain, in human hearts. Thus 
 
 * See his work, entitled Sesame and Lilies, pp 21 and 49. 
 
240 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 live, to-day, a myriad verses of Homer ; thus live 
 unnumbered sayings of Shakespeare — him whom 
 Emerson calls 4t the one unparalleled mind;" and 
 thus live the sentences, the words — who shall tell 
 how many — comprised in the hallowed writings of 
 the inspired " shepherds, fishermen, and homeless 
 wanderers" of the old ages of faith. 
 
 In this study of syllabic forms considered as ve- 
 hicles of influence, some meditation is due in rela- 
 tion to those important seed-bearers, the utterances 
 which are produced in conversation. Persons are ele- 
 vated and persons are debased by meanings conveyed 
 in talk. Historians relate that Cleomenes, the Spar- 
 tan king, was once visited by Aristagoras of Miletus, 
 who hoped to induce him to join the Ionians in an 
 expedition against the Persians. Cleomenes asked 
 him how far it was from the Ionian Sea to Susa, the 
 Persian metropolis ; and, being told that it was a 
 three months' journey, he at once declined the prop- 
 osition and ordered Aristagoras to quit the city be- 
 fore sunset. But the latter followed him to his 
 house, plying him with eloquent and enticing per- 
 suasions, which he enforced with large offers of 
 wealth. The daughter of the king, a child nine 
 years old, perceiving the influence put forth by that 
 zealous visitor in his well-chosen words, cried out, 
 ." Fly, father, or this stranger will corrupt you ! " 
 And her advice was not disregarded. How many 
 have been aroused and stimulated, how many have 
 been soothed and comforted, how many have been 
 distressed and disheartened, and how many have 
 been piqued and exasperated, by what passed to 
 their souls in time of conversational intercourse ! 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 241 
 
 Bulwer states that it was the custom of the cele- 
 brated artist, Sir Godfrey Kneller, when he was 
 executing a person's portrait, to say to him, " Praise 
 me, sir, praise me ! How can I throw any animation 
 into your face, if you do not choose to animate me?" 
 There have been ten thousand men — some of them 
 soldiers in battle, some of them sailors contending 
 with the elements at sea, and some of them trav- 
 elers moiling across desert plains — who have known 
 as well as that painter knew, what a harvest of ani- 
 mation can spring from the influence transmitted in 
 familiarly spoken words. If one can properly say 
 (in the language of Tennyson), 
 
 "lama part of all that I hare met," 
 
 then much more properly can he say, " I am a part 
 of all with whom I have talked." The Methodist 
 founder, Wesley, seems to have had some such truth 
 in his mind, when he resolved, at Oxford Univer- 
 sity, " to have no companions by chance, but by 
 choice, and to choose only such as would help him 
 on his way to heaven." 
 
 Among the remarkable results which have fol- 
 lowed conversation, Addison mentions the uprising, 
 at different epochs, of notable authors in groups, 
 comprising respectively " men of great genius in the 
 same way of writing." For example, there was the 
 group that arose in Greece, near the tim© of Soc- 
 rates ; the group that arose at Rome in the reign of 
 Augustus ; and the group that arose in France in 
 the age of Louis XIV. " I cannot think," says 
 Addison, "that Corneille, Racine, Moliere, Boileau, 
 La Fontaine, Bruyere, Bossu [Bossuet], or the Da- 
 16 
 
242 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ciers, would have written so well as they have done, 
 had they not been friends and contemporaries." 
 
 The results of influence conveyed in words given 
 from the mouths of public speakers, will next be 
 considered. Among such results may be mentioned 
 arousals and excitements, alterations and transfor- 
 mations, which have been well entitled to be called 
 wonders in the world. It was on the occasion of a 
 notable speech made by the Greek advocate, Callis- 
 tratus, that Demosthenes became fired with the am- 
 bition to excel in oratory. The latter was then a 
 youthful pupil, and his master, by reason of being 
 acquainted with the officers at court, had succeeded 
 in securing for him a seat where, without being 
 seen, he could hear the pleadings. The success of 
 that eminent advocate was such as to win for him 
 tributes of the highest admiration. Plutarch, al- 
 luding to the feelings produced at that time in 
 young Demosthenes, says that when he saw with 
 what distinction Callistratus was conducted home 
 and complimented by the people, he " was struck 
 still more with the power of that commanding elo- 
 quence which could carry all before it," and that, 
 immediately bidding adieu to the customary studies 
 pursued by youths and the usual exercises practiced 
 by them, he applied himself with great assiduity 
 to declaiming, in hope of being one day numbered 
 among orators. 
 
 Bridaine. a distinguished pulpit orator of France, 
 once closed a sermon, the subject of which was 
 Eternity, by exclaiming, three times in succession, 
 "O eternity!" Each time the utterance went 
 from his lips, he concentrated in it all the energy of 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 243 
 
 his impassioned soul ; and from the seed which it 
 carried to his audience there instantly grew up a 
 vast and solemn outgrowth. The spell-bound lis- 
 teners were moved to tears, and many of them were 
 made to become, in a sense in which they had never 
 been before, penitentially humble. The deliverance 
 of John Owen from a wasting religious melancholy 
 was ascribed by him to a sermon which he heard 
 from a stranger, — a man whose name and place of 
 abode he was never able to ascertain. He declared 
 that it seemed to him in that case as if a spirit from 
 a land of mysteries had touched him, and then 
 straightway vanished into heaven. On the eighth 
 day of July, 1741, Jonathan Edwards preached a 
 sermon at Enfield, in the State of Connecticut, in 
 the words of which went forth meanings, whence 
 sprang a far-extending spiritual movement that had, 
 it is supposed, for its fruit the conversion of thirty 
 thousand souls. His text was the thirty-fifth verse 
 of the thirty-second chapter of Deuteronomy : 
 
 " Their foot shall slide in due time." 
 
 At one moment during the delivery of the dis- 
 course, some of the auditors were so thrilled and 
 so perturbed by what was conveyed in his utter- 
 ances, that they seized hold of the pillars and the 
 braces of the meeting-house, as if they felt that 
 their feet were actually sliding downward to the 
 brink of ruin. 
 
 There is an authentic account of a man who, 
 when he was a hundred years old, betook himself 
 from a prayerless to a devout life, in consequence of 
 the influence contained in some words remembered 
 
244 * THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 by him as having fallen from the lips of John Fla- 
 vell, eiglny-five years before.* The venerable min- 
 ister had been discoursing on the passage : 
 
 "If any man lore not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anath- 
 ema maranatha." 
 
 He had closed his sermon, and was in the act of 
 pronouncing the benediction, when, suddenly paus- 
 ing, he said, with a tone of yearning sorrow, "How 
 can I bless this whole assembly, when I know that 
 every one in it who loveth not the Lord Jesus Christ 
 is anathema maranatha ? " And, so long afterward, 
 he who at the age of fifteen years heard that ser- 
 mon and those parting words, and who, without 
 having acquired any religious habit, had attained a 
 hoary maturity, while sitting one day in his field in 
 the town of Micldleborough, Massachusetts, recalled 
 the scene, the text, and especially that sad, piteous 
 utterance of the saintly preacher at the moment of 
 the dismission of his congregation ; and great was the 
 change which followed ! The slumber of his con- 
 science was broken ; his heart, though hardened by 
 the sins of a century, was melted to contrition ; and, 
 entering on a course of pious experience and action, 
 he became as faithful an exponent of Christianity as 
 any one of those that had, half a lifetime earlier 
 than he, made a holy profession. 
 
 What American has not read of the extraordinary 
 result which was produced by the influence thrown 
 out by Fisher Ames, when, at the close of the Rev- 
 
 * See the work written by Professor Park, of Andover, under 
 the title of The Preacher and Pastor. To the same volume I owe 
 the substance of one or two of the preceding accounts. 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 245 
 
 olution, he spoke in the house of representatives at 
 Philadelphia on the subject of the British treaty ap- 
 propriations ? His countenance has been described 
 as having been, on that occasion, irradiated with 
 more than mortal fires, and the intonations of his 
 voice as having been marked with more than mortal 
 sweetness. From his lips (so relates one who heard 
 him*) there fell argument, remonstrance, entreaty, 
 persuasion, terror, and warning, at one moment like 
 music, and at another moment like thunder. As he 
 pleaded for his country, he seemed to be Patriotism 
 in human form. And, from what his fine and 
 powerful soul sent forth in the varied forms that 
 were the constituents of his transcendent oratory, 
 sprang products resembling the fabled workings of 
 enchantment. The senses of the hearers were ren- 
 dered unsusceptible toward all objects but himself; 
 and, so long as he kept the floor, no person had the 
 slightest consciousness of the lapse of time. When 
 he resumed his seat, the great assembly — which 
 included the very flower of Philadelphia — seemed 
 to awaken as from a dream of delight. Such was 
 the state of admiration and fascination into which 
 all present had been brought, that not any one had 
 the proper command of his faculties. Perceiving 
 this to be the case, a prominent member of the 
 opposition moved for an adjournment, in order that 
 the vote of the house might not be taken till the 
 overwhelming feeling excited by the influence of 
 the orator had cooled. 
 
 * Caldwell. See his article on Fisher Ames, in the Edinburgh 
 Fncyclopcedia, American edition. 
 
246 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DEEDS. 
 
 "Halters and racks cannot express from thee 
 More than thy deeds." Ben Jonson. 
 
 " Deeds are greater than words. Deeds have such a life — 
 mute but undeniable — and grow as living trees and fruit-trees 
 do; they people the vacuity of time and make it green and 
 worthy." Carltle. 
 
 Influence, though notably conveyed in looks and 
 words, is yet more notably conveyed in what are 
 called deeds. Compared with these, words, notwith- 
 standing their unmistakable importance, are uncer- 
 tain and fleeting. Indeed, words, compared even 
 with the corporeal phases which are the components 
 of silent expression, have been held by some eminent 
 thinkers to be inferior to the latter. Speech has 
 been represented as silvern, but silence as golden : 
 the one has been pronounced human, the other 
 divine. Whether there is or is not sufficient ground 
 for the opinion thus indicated, is a question which 
 it is not convenient here to attempt to settle. Clear 
 enough, however, is it that speech carries no such 
 weight of import as that which is borne by deeds — 
 that things which are said are not such effective 
 vehicles of meaning as are things which are done. 
 Actions, performances, achievements, works — these 
 are specially significant bearers of the vital and pro- 
 lific produce of soul and character. Mortals, as they 
 go about in the world, go continually, as in a field, 
 sowing. They sow influence ; and they sow it in no 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PEODUCE. 247 
 
 mode quite as decisively as in that one which con- 
 sists in the doing of deeds. Every act of kindness 
 or of unkindness, of courage or of cowardice, of 
 virtue or of vice, is a casting forth of germinant 
 thought, emotion, or feeling. u All work," says 
 CarLvle, " is a seed sown ; it grows and spreads, and 
 sows itself anew, and so in endless palingenesia lives 
 and works." The Revelator suggests much when, 
 referring to those who " die in the Lord," he makes 
 the averment that " their works do follow them." 
 Go and drop a work, a deed, along some frequented 
 way where you shall be "seen of men," and, little 
 though it may be, you will, if after the lapse of a 
 few moments you return to the spot, find that out 
 of it has come forth a wholesome or a baneful out- 
 growth ; you will discover that to some one it has 
 proved a source of benefit or of injury, of happi- 
 ness or of unhappiness. Where is he who did never 
 from a simple yet highly-graceful act of a beautiful 
 female catch that from which sprang up on his part 
 a perennial and ever-sweet harvest ? Where is he 
 who, at no time in his life, has mused on some lovely 
 one that, like a heavenly shape, had flitted by him, 
 and been ready the while to say in language such as 
 that of Keats, 
 
 " Had I ever seen her from an arbor take 
 A dewy flower, oft would that hand appear, 
 And o'er my eyes the trembling moisture shake?" 
 
 Good deeds, wherever they are wrought, are bless- 
 ings. They clothe the desert places of society with 
 a welcome exuberance. Had none ever wisely 
 worked, to what end would science, would art, have 
 
248 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 come ? Had none ever wisely fought, to what end 
 would liberty have come ? Had hearts, great and 
 honest, never made lion-like demonstrations for 
 righteousness' sake, what would have been the his- 
 tory of justice ? — what the history of truth ? Says 
 Victor Hugo, " The honesty of a great heart con- 
 densed in justice and truth, is annihilating." But 
 bad deeds, wherever they are wrought, are curses. 
 Hardly true would it be to say that, if little they 
 are little curses, and if great they are great curses ; 
 for they are liable to prove great curses even when 
 they are little. A man was once sent to prison for 
 changing a 7 to a 9. The influence in bad deeds so 
 lives and so multiplies, as to make them the origin- 
 marks of continuous lineage-lines of curses. For 
 (to use the words of Schiller) "propagating still, it 
 brings forth evil." It results, again and again, in 
 such things as contention, bitterness, animosity, con- 
 fusion, sorrow. Sometimes, 'tis like the fabled winds 
 which, bound up in sacks, King iEolus presented to 
 Ulysses, and which, having been cut loose at sea 
 from their receptacles by the hands of thievish gold- 
 seekers, speedily gave rise to a harvest of direful 
 tempests. 
 
 The mass of mortals do but rarely consider how 
 much they are indebted to the deeds of a compara- 
 tively few excellent persons for all the valuable 
 institutions of the land, all the wholesome laws of 
 the state, all the beneficial regulations appertaining to 
 civility and decorum, and for all political, social, moral, 
 and religious reforms. Every public library, every 
 free reading-room, every Sunda} x -school, every acad- 
 emy, every college, every Christian church, is a plant 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 249 
 
 which has grown from influence conveyed chiefly in 
 work earnestly done by some minority of high- 
 souled persons cooperating with calm determination 
 for the welfare of themselves, of their neighbors, and 
 of mankind in general. 
 
 V. 
 
 PARTICULAR ILLUSTRATIONS OF SOWING AND 
 REAPING IN LIFE. 
 
 " Life's field will yield as we make it, 
 A harvest of thorns or of flowers." 
 
 Alice Caey. 
 
 "And with each face thou sawest the shadow on each, 
 Seeing as men sow men reap." 
 
 Swinbuene, Elegy on Baudelaire. 
 
 Between seed-dissemination and its results in the 
 agricultural or horticultural sphere, and seed-dissemi- 
 nation and its results in any higher sphere, — for 
 example, in that known as the intellectual, the social, 
 the political, or the spiritual, — there may be traced 
 resemblances, each of which will afford an important 
 and valuable lesson. In considering them, one can 
 hardly fail to derive instruction, not only concerning 
 the leading modes wherein influence is dispensed, but 
 also concerning many a subordinate mode wherein 
 that invisible, ever-multiplying produce is sown. 
 But, before attending to the analogical points, 
 glance, reader, at a single striking dissimilarity. A 
 point this is which will be found to be, in quite as 
 high a degree as any one of those, instructively sug- 
 gestive. 
 
250 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Familiar to all mortals is the fact, that when phys- 
 ical seeds have been scattered or planted by the 
 farmer or hy the gardener, a measure of time, which, 
 though comparatively not great, is not inconsidera- 
 ble, must elapse before the germs of those seeds can 
 become mature and fruit-bearing outgrowths. Now, 
 in cases in which there has been a dissemination of 
 influence, it is certain that, ordinarily, no such neces- 
 sity is discovered to exist. From thoughts and feel- 
 ings sown in looks, words, deeds, there may be ex- 
 pected to start forth germs which, with a remarkable 
 and sometimes with an amazing quickness, will attain 
 full development. In how short a time can one pro- 
 duce difficulty where all is smooth ! gloomy dissatis- 
 faction where there is perfect content ! troublesome 
 doubt where there is peaceful faith ! cold distrust 
 where there is warm confidence ! By uttering one 
 arrowy, caustic word, a person can instantly create 
 a heart-wound that will remain unhealed for years, 
 or a bitter prejudice that will abide with undimin- 
 ished strength till the overmastering might of death 
 shall quell it. If one should sow the seed of anger 
 in a fellow-being who is the possessor of an iras- 
 cible disposition, the latter would in a moment 
 show, in 
 
 " The flash and outbreak of a fiery mind," 
 
 that something prodigious and frightful has resulted. 
 If one should inflict cruelty on another, the kernel 
 which, in so doing, he would plant, would in a mo- 
 ment give rise to a full-grown and persistent hate. 
 And if one should go forth, under the cover of dark- 
 ness, and place against his neighbor's house a lighted 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 251 
 
 match, and leave the same secretly burning amid 
 combustible materials, surely not many moments 
 would need to elapse before the little fire-kernel 
 there planted would produce a terrific fire-harvest. 
 Is it not true that wanton or criminal influence, 
 whenever it is actually conveyed to a soil where 
 nothing exists to hinder its germination, speedily 
 gives rise to positive and clearly-distinguishable 
 results ? A thousand iniquitous acts can readily be 
 conceived, any one of which would as promptly 
 yield an appalling outgrowth, as would a diminutive 
 blaze deposited in contact with a dry, crisp building, 
 in the night. 
 
 How soon could something occur that would im- 
 poverish him who is recognized as affluent ! Plow 
 soon could there come to pass an event that would 
 fill with grief him who is numbered among the 
 happy ! In less than an hour, such an agony could 
 spring up in the bosom, as would, before the next 
 day's dawn, make one's hair turn gray. Dickens, 
 in his stor} T entitled Our Mutual Friend, sa} r s it has 
 been written of persons " who have passed through 
 a terrible strait, or who in self-preservation have 
 killed a defenseless fellow-creature, that the record 
 thereof never faded from their countenances until 
 they died." 
 
 Yonder is one who is fascinatingly fair. Does she 
 know that, in the rays of her radiant face, she sends 
 out seeds from which there are liable suddenly to 
 arise in souls, emotions of an inexpressible immen- 
 sity and power ? A devout female teacher of a con- 
 templative tendency, tells in the following language 
 
252 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the story of what grew up in her mind as she looked 
 on a certain fine countenance : 
 
 " I want to speak of a face I have seen lately which has made a 
 deep impression on me. It is not the face of one of God's suffer- 
 ing saints, which sometimes, through long and patient waiting, 
 attains to a beauty almost heavenly. But it is that of a strong 
 young woman, ruddy with health, and beautiful only because of 
 the soul you see shining from it. I have looked upon this face at 
 times, and have said to myself, ' That soul has just come from 
 asking some great thing of the Lord, and is waiting, fully expect- 
 ing to receive what it has asked.' The faith and love of the soul 
 shine clearly through the face. There is an energy which seems 
 to say, ' Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? ' 
 There is a happiness there, which reminds one of the promise, 
 'Your joy no man taketh from you.' If I knew nothing of the 
 life which so fully carries out the promise of this face, I think it 
 would do me good just to look upon it as its owner goes out and in 
 among us. I have thought more of the mission our Father per- 
 mits our faces to perform for Him in this world, and have wished 
 there were more like this. Thank God for beautiful faces ! Truly 
 they are ' goodly to look to.' " * 
 
 And now let us give attention to the resemblances 
 spoken of above. It is taught by naturalists that 
 vegetable seeds are, in some cases, sown, by being 
 made to pass from a foreign land to the place where 
 they germinate. They are, perhaps, borne thereto 
 across intervening waters ; or, peradventure, they 
 are caused to travel thereto by way of the atmos- 
 phere. " When a volcanic island," says Sir W. 
 Thomson, "springs up from the sea, and after a 
 few years is found clothed with vegetation, we do 
 not hesitate to assume that seed has been wafted to 
 it through the air, or floated to it on rafts." Now, 
 sometimes influence analogously undergoes a process 
 
 * Copied from the columns of that vigorous religious newspaper, 
 The Advance (Chicago). 
 
THE EVEE-LIVIKG PEODUCE. 253 
 
 of transference from the place of its origin to the 
 place of its germination. There comes not rarely 
 from a foreign country the vital nucleus whence 
 springs up a custom, an institution, a creed, or even 
 a whole governmental system. The seed of the 
 Roman empire came with iEneas from the distant 
 land of Troy, and was planted by him on the 
 banks of the Tiber. The seed of the republic of 
 the United States had its origin in the Old World, 
 and it came to the New with the sturdy Puritans 
 who crossed the Atlantic in the hulk of the May- 
 flower. The seed of the doctrine of freedom of 
 opinion and conscience traversed the ocean in the 
 keeping of Roger Williams. He sought to make it 
 vegetate at Salem, Massachusetts ; but his en- 
 deavors toward that end proved unsuccessful. He 
 then carefully bore it through the Indian-haunted 
 forests to a certain pleasant, uninhabited spot, 
 which he chose to designate by the name Prov- 
 idence, and which is now the seat of the metropolis 
 of Rhode Island. There he renewed his efforts to 
 bring to pass from it a harvest. He prayerfully 
 planted it. He tenderly nursed it. With his tears 
 he often watered it. By day and by night, through 
 summer heats and winter rigors, he patiently 
 guarded and shielded it. And the result was, that 
 it shot forth a vigorous germ, fastened itself firmly 
 by a root which no vicissitudes of the earth could 
 weaken, and produced a civil constitution, which 
 became a model for all industrious and order-loving 
 peoples beneath the sky. 
 
 The seed from which grew up that political bohun- 
 upas tree known as American slavery, was trans- 
 
254 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 f erred from a foreign shore to the soil where it gave 
 forth its venomous germ. Two hundred and fifty- 
 eight years ago, a Dutch man-of-war, having on board 
 twenty negroes that were for sale, entered the James 
 River, and sailed up its waters toward what is now 
 the city of Richmond. The men who were inter- 
 ested in the cargo of the incoming vessel loved 
 money just as strongly as many men of the present 
 utilitarian day love it; and their avarice led them 
 to deliver those negroes to Virginia planters for a 
 price. Then it was there was lodged in its warm 
 sprouting-place the kernel whence was developed a 
 hideous result, a monstrous outgrowth. From the 
 embryo tic slavery which was floated over to Vir- 
 ginia in that Dutch ship, sprang the gigantic slavery 
 system which could only be removed amid tumults 
 of sanguinary belligerence, and the removal of 
 which, a few years after the middle of the nine- 
 teenth century, cost the nation wherein the huge 
 plant had come to maturity pangs unutterable, and 
 blood enough to tinge all her acres. 
 
 Again, some vegetable seeds are sown in this 
 singular mode : They are provided with little hooks 
 whereby they are enabled to become attached to 
 passing objects ; and by the objects on which they 
 lay hold they are borne abroad and dispersed. 
 And, in like manner, influence is often sown. In- 
 deed, the dissemination of thought by means of 
 those passing objects, the newspaper-sheet, the let- 
 ter-sheet, and the tract-leaf, is one of the com- 
 monest facts appertaining to modern life. To take 
 a newspaper is to take an instrument to which cling 
 the current thoughts of the age. Lord Brougham 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 255 
 
 once declared that, even from a single page of news- 
 paper advertisements, comprising the " wants" of a 
 country, he would engage to give a sketch of the 
 current civilization of the period. And what may 
 not be said of letters — those seed-bearing instru- 
 ments which pass along the mail-routes, inside white 
 or brown envelopes? But for this class of missives 
 how unfortunate would people be ! They are ve- 
 hicles that carry, as no others can do, the thoughts 
 of persons to persons who are at a distance from 
 them. Kindness, love, anxiety, joy, grief, gratitude, 
 mirth, sympathy, — each of these can be made to 
 travel a thousand miles on the ruled lines of a letter- 
 sheet. Think what wonclerfulness there is in a fact 
 so common! One's ideas, one's feelings, can be 
 transferred to a page of writing-paper, and that 
 epistolar}^ page can be put into a rectangular wrap- 
 page, and, at the expense of three cents, be con- 
 veyed to some soul half the width of a continent 
 away ! Thus facts and truths of importance are 
 communicated by the dweller in one part of a coun- 
 try to the dweller in another part of it. Thus 
 friends and kindred are enabled to give comfort and 
 pleasure to one another, at frequent intervals, 
 though they are far apart. It was Washington Ir- 
 ving who expressed the fancy, that among the 
 felicities of Heaven will be the delight experienced 
 in receiving letters at every mail, and never being 
 obliged to answer them. 
 
 One may well meditate for a moment or two, also, 
 on those little carriers of influence which are usually 
 called tracts. To many people these seem to be in- 
 significant tilings — mere evanescent waifs, left to 
 
256 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 perish in the frequented places of the world. But 
 certain it is that, by means of them, seeds, which 
 can germinate only in souls, and which, if they do 
 once germinate, will give rise to new reflections 
 and perhaps to new determinations, are circulated — 
 nay, are often borne where they are received into 
 fertile soil. When Thomas Coke, that indefatigable 
 missionary w r ho crossed the Atlantic nineteen times, 
 was prosecuting his labors as a Wesleyan pioneer 
 preacher in America, he attempted to ford a certain 
 river, but, finding the current too strong, was 
 obliged, in order to save himself from drowning, to 
 let his beast go, and to seize hold of the boughs 
 of a tree. A woman, discovering him in his per- 
 ilous plight, sent men to rescue him. She, also, 
 with much kindness, entertained him at her house. 
 On setting out to resume his travels, he placed a 
 religious tract in her hand. Five years afterward, 
 a young man met him, and, having made himself 
 known to him, gave him information of the results 
 which had sprung from the influence contained in 
 the words of that tract. The woman to whom it 
 was presented drew into her soul, as she read it, 
 the seed of " that change of mental poise which 
 has been fitly named conversion." She placed it 
 in the hands of her children, and several of them 
 (the 3^oung man who gave the information being- 
 one of the number) underwent a change similar to 
 that whereof she had been the subject. She lent 
 it to her neighbors, and many of them experienced 
 a like alteration of heart and bent. And among 
 the many products which grew from the spiritual 
 kernels received from that tract, was the conspic- 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 257 
 
 uous one which consisted in a flourishing religious 
 society. 
 
 And again : some vegetable seeds are disseminated 
 by the sudden opening or bursting of the sack or 
 envelope wherein they are enfolded. ' Thus, to cite 
 a single example, the seeds of the plant which is 
 called the English broom, are scattered. The pods 
 crack open, and the effect of the concussion inci- 
 dent to the breaking of them is, that their contents 
 are thrown into the air, and strewn over the ground. 
 Now, often, in like manner, is the influence cast 
 forth from which spring up memorable national 
 events, noteworthy modifications of social relations, 
 or grave changes on the part of particular individ- 
 uals. What an outburst there was of invisible, 
 quick-propagating seed, when Socrates was put to 
 death at Athens! when Julius Caesar was stabbed in 
 the senate-hall at Rome ! when Jesus the Christ was 
 crucified on a hill outside Jerusalem ! when Gobet, 
 the archbishop of Paris, renounced before the Na- 
 tional Convention of France the Christian religion, 
 and there was enacted the decree that thenceforth 
 the only French deities should be liberty, equality, 
 and reason ! 
 
 On the third day of March, 1770, some British 
 troops under the command of one Captain Preston 
 were drawn up in battle-array near the custom- 
 house in Boston, against a crowd of towns-people, 
 who, being agitated on account of unjust taxation, 
 had there gathered. Henry Knox, a prominent cit- 
 izen, catching hold of Captain Preston's arm, said, 
 " For heaven's sake, sir, take heed what you do, or 
 there will be bloodshed." "Stand aside," haughtily 
 17 
 
258 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 answered the officer ; "do not interfere, sir. Leave 
 me to manage the affair." A few minutes later, a 
 volley of musket-shots smote the lingering throng 
 of Americans, and eleven of them lay bleeding in 
 the street. In the deadly gush from those soldiers' 
 guns was given forth the seed of the American 
 Revolution. " Blood," says Hawthorne, "was 
 streaming upon the snow; and that purple stain, in 
 the midst of King Street, though it melted away in 
 the next day's sun, was never forgotten nor forgiven 
 by the people." 
 
 The great internecine war, which, during the four 
 melancholy years that ended with the spring of 
 1865, so bitterly convulsed the States of our Re- 
 public, and so distressfully shook the world, sprang 
 from a seed which was sown with a startling sud- 
 denness. For that seed was thrown out on the 
 morning of the twelfth day of April, 1861, when the 
 men of the South fired, in Charleston harbor, their 
 first shot at that symbol of the Federal government, 
 Fort Sumter. The act of violence then performed 
 carried in it the prolific influence whence strife and 
 struggle, such as had never before been witnessed in 
 any land of the earth, naturally resulted. 
 
 In the various spheres of common life, there do 
 frequently occur instances in which the kernel of 
 some serious outcome is sown explosively, sown by 
 the concussion of rashness. Deeds, wrought in mo- 
 ments of wild excitement or of headstrong impru- 
 dence, often yield in every community, every neigh- 
 borhood, sad confusions and perturbations. Not 
 rarely does it happen that, in a fit of unrestrained 
 anger, one lets fly the seed of a baleful trouble 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 259 
 
 either to himself or to another. From history's 
 beginning till now there have been persons — and 
 never have they been few — who, by reason of 
 giving way to freakish impulse or to intense passion, 
 betook themselves to a course of extreme action, 
 the results of which they were destined, to their 
 latest day, miserably to deplore. Among such must 
 be numbered Cain, who had to lament the murder 
 of his brother ; Esau, who had to weep on account 
 of the forfeiture of his birthright ; David, who had 
 to go sighing all his years over his foul crime against 
 the hero Uriah ; Judas, who had to bewail, with a 
 sorrow which crazed him, his betrayal of the Re- 
 deemer ; Charles the Ninth, who had to be preyed 
 upon by a bewildering remorse because of his order 
 for the massacre of St. Bartholomew's night ; and 
 Aaron Burr, who had to bemoan as long as he lived 
 his taking-off of the grand and spotless Hamilton. 
 
 Some mortals seem to be ever casting forth such 
 influence as is adapted only to produce the direful 
 vegetation which consists in moral evil. Of this 
 class was the comely but debased man whom the 
 present writer did once, while tarrying at a western 
 inn, find engaged in teaching an innocent little girl 
 that was sitting on his knee, how to swear profanely, 
 just as he did ! It was a scene fitted to suggest the 
 words of Claudian : 
 
 " What a strange sporting cruelty is this ! " 
 
 They who, with a devil-like hardihood, indulge ha- 
 bitually in wicked kinds of seed-sowing, scruple not 
 to adopt almost any mode, manner, or means, in 
 
260 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 which or by which the}* can facilitate the out- 
 throwing of their dreadful mental produce. And 
 what is here stated may be taken as a general ex- 
 planation of much that it is painfully perplexing to 
 contemplate. Times there, are when persons are 
 surprised to find growing up in one on whose part 
 they have been wont to behold only expressions of 
 goodness and purity, some strange, unholy thought 
 or feeling ; and they are unable precisely to account 
 for the existence of the same in that one's soul. 
 There is a pleasant home yonder, and in it is a prat- 
 tling child. Faithfully are its parents endeavoring 
 to keep it aloof from every source of pernicious in- 
 fluence. The care they are daily and hourly exer- 
 cising over it is patient, thoughtful, and wise. But 
 the time will come when they will be shocked to 
 know that their sweet-voiced boy or girl has become 
 the possessor of some mean and degrading concep- 
 tion, idea, desire, purpose, or belief; and, though they 
 earnestly try, they will in all likelihood try in vain, 
 to ascertain exactly how the seed of the corrupt out- 
 growth found its way into their child's fresh and tender 
 nature. All cases answering to this description are 
 problems. And why ? Simply because the ways and 
 the means are endlessly varied, wherein and where- 
 by human souls, in their juvenile days, can be made 
 to receive the seed of moral evil. It is to be believed 
 that an individual can, without limit, effect changes 
 in his mien, his bearing, and his behavior, each of 
 which shall somehow serve to assist him in express- 
 ing his thoughts and feelings. If, therefore, he is 
 bad, it is possible for him to have recourse to any 
 number of methods and instruments, large and small, 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 261 
 
 in effecting the dissemination of his baneful influ- 
 ence. Solomon, describing an exemplifier of vicious 
 waywardness, says : 
 
 "A naughty person, a wicked man, walketh with a froward 
 mouth. He winketh with his eyes, he speaketh with his feet, he 
 teacheth with his fingers; frowardness.is in his heart, he deviseth 
 mischief continually; he soweth discord." 
 
 And here, waiting not to interpose anything transi- 
 tional, I quote the weighty remark made by Bush- 
 nell : 
 
 "Many have gone so far, and not without show at least of rea- 
 son, as to maintain that the look or expression, and even the very 
 features of children, are often changed by exclusive intercourse 
 with nurses and attendants." 
 
 Parents, who have little sons or little daughters, 
 would do well should they often, with deep serious- 
 ness, contemplate those ancient words and these 
 modern ones. 
 
 " He soweth discord." How suggestive a decla- 
 ration is this ! No better definition can, perhaps, be 
 given of a willful sinner, than that which consists in 
 representing him as a discord-sower. He who com- 
 mits a sin throws upon some soil the seed of some 
 deplorable inharmony. All the rancorous commo- 
 tions, all the woful derangements, which exist 
 within the bounds of the universe, are attributable 
 to kernels once put forth in sins. I direct thee, 
 reader, to a case, the story of which is as old as the 
 Hebrew language. I ask thee to take a look with 
 thy mind at the symbolic sin of the ages. In one 
 of the earliest chapters of the Bible is a vivid delin- 
 eation of a primeval seat of blissful quiet and order. 
 It is described as a garden, the name of which was 
 
262 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Eden. It is pictured as the paradise wherein were 
 placed the first man and the first woman of the 
 world. According to the olden story, four rivers of 
 pure and limpid water refreshed it. Trees of vari- 
 ous species, pleasant to the sight and abounding 
 with fruits good for food, grew there. In the midst 
 of the place was a tree more precious than the 
 others ; for it was one that yielded fruit fitted end- 
 lessly to renew human youth and life. The sky (so 
 men naturally infer from the long-honored account) 
 bent lovingly over that scene of wholesome verdure 
 and sweet thrift. No miasmatic atoms floated in the 
 atmosphere of the Eden garden. No unwelcome 
 odors were caught from the wings of its winds. 
 At morning, the sun propitiously arose, and with a 
 soft, attractive luster, ascended along his ethereal 
 course to the zenith ; and at evening, 
 
 ... " Glowed the firmament 
 With living sapphires. Hesperus that led 
 The starry host, rode brightest, till the moon, 
 Rising in clouded majesty, at length, 
 Apparent queen, unveiled her peerless light, 
 And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw." 
 
 In that delightful spot (so readers gather from the 
 venerated pages of the primitive narrative), the 
 first husband and the first wife unitedly plied their 
 willing hands to the inviting tasks of the golden 
 days. There they congenially communed, wor- 
 shiped, rejoiced. The supplies of their wants were 
 complete. Their cup of happiness was full. 
 
 " Perfection crowned with wondrous store, 
 And peace and plenty smiled around ; 
 They felt no grief, they knew no shame, 
 But tasted heaven on earthly ground." 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 263 
 
 The time came, however, when an appalling 
 change (I speak according to the record) passed 
 over that pristine seat of humanity. The favored 
 pair were suddenly expelled from the garden. A 
 flaming sword gleamed and glared at them in the 
 maddened sunlight. Their whole vista was over- 
 cast with a threatening gloom ; and they were 
 ashamed, were confused, were terror-stricken. On 
 their part there had come to exist a guilty proneness 
 to concealment, a tendency to slink away into some 
 obscure corner, and hide themselves from every- 
 thing that was luminous. And from what had 
 sprung these frightful results ? Here is the answer : 
 They had sinned, and, in sinning, had sown discord, 
 — a discord which emptied earth of its paradise, and 
 made the " blue infinite " recoil from the sight of 
 terrestrial life. 
 
 Now, whatever difference of opinion there may be 
 on questions relating to the foundation or to the 
 authorship of the story referred to, all men must 
 concede that it is a story which has been, and which 
 will continue to be, instructive as to human sin, in 
 every historic period. People are sowing discord 
 to-day, substantially, just as that man and that wo- 
 man of the storied paradise of old sowed it. Hence 
 it is that, in whatever direction one turns, he is 
 obliged to discover proofs and exhibitions of inhar- 
 moniousness. There are domestic, commercial, polit- 
 ical incongruities and dissonances, disturbances, and 
 disorders. There are envyings, bickerings, back- 
 bitings, and chronic grudges. There are acrimoni- 
 ous disagreements and virulent animosities. There 
 are tongues which drip with vituperation. There 
 
264 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 are hearts whose early loveliness has been burned to 
 ashes by the lava-flames of ungoverned passion. 
 There are bosoms which are " breathing out threat - 
 enings and slaughter." Homes, once peaceful, have 
 become the dwelling-places of estranged kindred. 
 Neighborhoods once happy in the interchange of 
 sympathy and kindness, have become collections of 
 alienated families. Nations, once linked in prosper- 
 ous concord, have become mutually distrustful and 
 hostile. And all these lamentable things of life 
 have their existence, because there are willful sin- 
 ners in the world, and because every willful sinner 
 soweth discord. 
 
 VI. 
 
 THE SECRET OF THE IMMORTALIZATION OF 
 ENDEARMENT. 
 
 " O sacred bond, by time thou art not broken ! 
 O thing divine, by angels to be spoken ! " 
 
 Drayton, The Legend of Pierce Gaveston. 
 
 Human affection, as all know, does, in spite of 
 the separation wrought by death, remain faithful to 
 its object. Indeed, all know that, as the years roll 
 on after that separation, it fondly cherishes and per- 
 sistently preserves its tender regard for its loved one. 
 Why is this ? It is, I answer, because of that which, 
 in any and in every case, accounts for the existence 
 and the durability of fondness on the part of one 
 soul for another. The explanation is nothing less 
 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 265 
 
 and nothing more than influence, — influence of a 
 kind peculiarly sweet, — left to live and reproduce 
 itself. 
 
 David and Jonathan loved each other just as they 
 did, because they had influenced each other just as 
 they had ; and when Jonathan was dead, David con- 
 tinued to love Jonathan, because the latter, by his 
 immortal influence on his friend, had immortalized 
 his friend's endearment to him. And thus it is ever. 
 Influence — that which is the secret of the existence 
 of endearment — is the secret of its immortalization. 
 
 In one of the wars of the Crusades, Gilbert-a-Beck- 
 et, the father of the celebrated Thomas-a-Becket, 
 was taken prisoner by a Syrian emir. A daughter 
 of the emir, on seeing the captive stranger and hear- 
 ing him converse, came to have a great love for him, 
 and sought to open a way whereby he, in company 
 with herself, might depart to England. Gilbert 
 escaped ; but, by reason of some miscarriage as to 
 the plan, she remained behind. Afterward, how- 
 ever, she succeeded in obtaining a passage to the 
 land whither the object of her affection had- gone. 
 She knew but two English words, and they were 
 "London " and " Gilbert." After reaching London, 
 she for months traveled the streets, followed always 
 by a curious crowd, and continually repeating the 
 name "Gilbert." Finally, she arrived in the vicin- 
 ity of Gilbert's house ; and one of the servants 
 there heard the cry which she uttered. Gilbert, 
 being informed of the circumstance, hastened to the 
 door ; and soon, in the van of the gaping crowd, he 
 recognized his Syrian lover. He received her to his 
 bosom, and married her. What if he had been dead ? 
 
266 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Would he not Still have been dear to that seeking 
 maiden ? The truth is, the influence she had received 
 from him was deathless ; and her love for him had 
 borrowed deathlessness from it. 
 
 Interesting is it to muse on that extraordinary 
 friendship which existed between Montaigne and La 
 Boetie. Even before they had met they had drunk 
 into their souls each other's influence, and, by rea- 
 son of so doing, had become accustomed to " em- 
 brace each other in their names." Of the strong 
 attachment which arose between them, Montaigne 
 speaks " as of a great fact in nature." He even 
 ascribes it to " some secret appointment of heaven." 
 He could not submit to have that friendship ranked 
 with any common one. " We were halves through- 
 out," he says, " and to that degree that, methinks, 
 by outliving him, I defraud him of his part." And 
 again he says : " There is no act or imagining of 
 mine where I do not miss him." What an endear- 
 ment it was which that friend of the noble old Gas- 
 con essayist had, by the influence wherewith he glad- 
 dened the soul of the latter, rendered immortal ! 
 
 The mother of William Cowper sowed in him, 
 when he was a child, such seed as led him to say of 
 her, years and years after her burial : 
 
 ... " Thy own sweet smile I see, 
 The same that oft in childhood solaced me." 
 
 Ah ! how could it have perished from his nature — 
 that endearment which was born of the influence 
 caught by him from the guardian, tender and holy, 
 who used to dress him for school 
 
 " In scarlet mantle warm, and velvet cap," 
 
THE EVER -LIVING PRODUCE. 267 
 
 used to bestow on him •' morning bounties," and used 
 to bathe his little cheeks with " fragrant waters ? " 
 
 The process whereby endearment is immortalized 
 is an ever-continuing one ; for it is identical with 
 that of the reproduction of the ever-living produce. 
 I will endeavor to illustrate it. 
 
 He that is worthy of esteem and affection, what- 
 ever may be his name or clime, has friends, to whom, 
 whether he lives or dies, he will be an object of 
 loving interest. This is one of those beautiful cer- 
 tainties which impart a perennial fairness to the 
 prospect of future existence, and which make des- 
 tiny itself look hospitable. See the fine instance 
 of goodness, the true attractor of hearts ! During 
 many years he has walked with his chosen associates, 
 both in pleasure's flowery paths and in sorrow's 
 thorny ways. And in every hour of his communion 
 with them he has exerted on them his influence. 
 Think now of the results of that influence. His 
 image is clearly formed in their minds.. His pecu- 
 liarities have become fully known to them, and 
 cannot be forgotten. His opinions, his plans, his 
 hopes, his triumphs, his troubles, his jo} T s — all these 
 have been impressively revealed to their minds. 
 Many times have he and they parted, with eyes 
 bedewed with affectionate tears, while from subdued 
 lips fell the gentle good-by of confiding fondness ; 
 and many times have he and they blissfully joined 
 hands, when the season of separation had ended. 
 And now, suppose a great thing : suppose that he 
 has passed through the mystery of death, and that 
 his body is waiting to be carried to its last resting- 
 place. The question arises, How has his decease 
 
268 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 affected the relationship, nay, the endearment of his 
 friends to him ? Has it destroyed it ? Has it weak- 
 ened it ? Let us see. The} r are at hand, mourning 
 on account of the loss of his visible presence. Early 
 had they sought his bedside, that they might lighten 
 his load of pain, and soothe his disease-fretted 
 nature. They had softly pressed his feverish pulse. 
 They had tenderly wiped the sweat-drops from his 
 fading brow. They had beheld when the mighty 
 change came, by which language was made to cease 
 from his mortal lips, vision from his mortal eyes, 
 and vitality from his mortal heart. But, though he 
 is dead, they deem it better to be at the house where 
 lingers his spiritless form, than to be at any house of 
 festivity. They go tearfully to the place of quiet 
 burial. They go sorrowfully to their homes when 
 the burial-scene is over. 
 
 And what then ? Is not their deceased friend 
 still an object of loving interest to them ? Is he not 
 as dear to them as he was before ? Do not all the 
 impressions he made on their minds, while living, 
 remain to tell them what he was ? Does not the 
 image of him — the very same image of him which 
 they used to bear — abide with undimmed vividness 
 in their souls; and does it not, and will it not, 
 through all years, in union with the bright associa- 
 tions which cluster around it, represent to them his 
 engaging character," his attractive manhood? And 
 will he not be dear to them forever ? Oh ! who of 
 all men is there that can, by making the passage 
 over death's somber river, break the tie of affection 
 by which his friends are bound to him ? Who that 
 has won the cherishing fondness of the true and 
 
THE EVEE-LIVING PRODUCE. 269 
 
 good, can depart from the moorings of mortality to 
 the shore of the endless life, without leaving loving 
 hearts to keep his memory green ? 
 
 VII. 
 
 LIFE AND INFLUENCE INSEPARABLE. 
 
 Un cabello haze sombra. 
 (" The least hair makes a shadow.") 
 
 Spanish Proverb. 
 
 All mortals, without exception, are scatterers 
 of germinant mental produce, from which springeth 
 up something acceptable or something unwelcome, 
 something beneficial or something noxious. True it 
 is, there are persons who seem actually to have 
 arrived at the conclusion that they are of no conse- 
 quence to others. They are peculiar, if for nothing 
 else, for their self-depreciation. And there is proof 
 enough of the falseness of the conclusion which they 
 draw, or seem to draw, as to their lack of conse- 
 quence, in the very fact that, while letting them- 
 selves depreciate themselves, they are influencing 
 others in no goodly manner and to no desirable end. 
 Observe any one of them. He is accustomed to 
 compare himself with those who have more property 
 than he, a better education than he, or a higher 
 degree of social distinction than he, and then to look 
 on himself with a downcast eye, and virtually say, 
 " What am I in this big, tough, bustling world ? 
 Were I dead and buried, who would miss me ? Alas ! 
 
270 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 I have no importance, no influence ! I am but a 
 cipher." Now, by way of delivering from his un- 
 happy disposition any one who is inclined thus to 
 deny his own significance, there may well be offered 
 a little medicine compounded of assurance and ex- 
 postulation. The individual is laboring under a 
 mistake. He is not a cipher, and can never be one. 
 He is a human being. He has a living body, with a 
 thinking soul inside of it. Hence he is and must be 
 of some consequence to others ; he sheds and must 
 shed some influence on others. Why, what would 
 a person be if he were without any influence ? Who 
 can conceive a living, knowing, accountable creature, 
 going and coming, sitting down and rising up, speak- 
 ing and acting, and yet exerting no influence? Such 
 a one has never been. Such a one cannot be. Says 
 the profound author of Sermons for the New Life : 
 
 11 Simply to be in this world, whatever you are, is to exert an 
 influence." 
 
 A living dog, declares Solomon, is better than a 
 dead lion. And why was he moved to make this 
 declaration ? Evidently because his soul was pressed 
 by something like the ponderous truth, that life and 
 influence are inseparable. There occurs in one of 
 the works of Haflz, a Persian poet, a fine little fable, 
 which has an apt moral for him who has taught his 
 heart the lie that he is, or can be, utterly uninfluen- 
 tial. I quote it from The Spectator, No. 293 : 
 
 " A drop [of water] fell out of a cloud into the sea, and finding 
 itself lost in such an immensity of fluid [liquid] matter, broke out 
 into the following reflection : ' Alas ! what an inconsiderable crea- 
 ture am I in this prodigious ocean of waters ! My existence is of 
 no concern to the universe; lam reduced to a kind of nothing, and 
 
THE EVER-LIVING PRODUCE. 271 
 
 am less than the least of the works of God.' It so happened that an 
 oyster, which lay in the neighborhood of this drop, chanced to gape 
 and swallow it up in the midst of this its humble soliloquy. The 
 drop, says the fable, lay a great while hardening in the shell, until 
 by degrees it was ripened into a pearl, which, falling into the hands 
 of a diver, after a long series of adventures, is at present that 
 famous pearl which is fixed on the top of the Persian diadem." 
 
 Put thyself, reader, wheresoever thou rnayest, and if 
 thou canst so much as look at other members of thy 
 race and be looked at by them, thou wilt sow seeds 
 in human soil. Thou wilt send forth out of thyself 
 vital grains of a produce fitted to give rise, either to 
 things wholesome and benign, or to things inimical 
 to human welfare, — things such as irritation, con- 
 tention, confusion ; such as the fever of unrest, or 
 the " sorrow which worketh death." Beware lest 
 thou sow iniquity, and be left to reap vanity ! Lis- 
 ten ! There do seem to echo along the air, as if 
 freshly wafted from some breezy Scottish highland, 
 those notes of Bonar's charming harp : 
 
 " Sow truth, if thou the truth wouldst reap, 
 Who sows the false shall reap the vain ; 
 Erect and sound thy conscience keep, 
 From hollow words and deeds refrain. 
 
 "Sow love, and taste its fruitage pure, 
 
 Sow peace, and reap its harvests bright; 
 Sow sunbeams on the rock and moor, 
 And find a harvest-home of light." 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 
 
 . . . "No man is tbe lord of anything 
 (Though in and of him there be much consisting,) 
 Till he communicate his parts to others." 
 
 Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 18 273 
 
Chapter V. 
 
 PRESENCE AND THE PRESENCE- 
 FORCE. 
 
 THE SECRET OE PERSONAL IMPRESSIVENESS. 
 
 " Certainly it is agreeable to reason, that there are at the least 
 some light effluxions from spirit to spirit, when men are in pres- 
 ence one with another, as well as from body to body." 
 
 Lord Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum. 
 
 " There went virtue out of him." This is one 
 of the deep things said of Jesus the Christ, in the 
 evangelic history. And the saying is equivalent to 
 the averment, that he was the subject of an effluence 
 which was of a quality peculiar to him — an efflu- 
 ence which not only continually went out to make 
 him personally impressive, but sometimes specially 
 went out to penetrate adjacent humanity. 
 
 In the same history, one finds it recorded concern- 
 ing Cleopas and his traveling mate, whom Jesus had 
 accompanied for some distance on the way to Em- 
 maus, and from whom he had suddenly withdrawn 
 himself, having been recognized by them as their 
 loved Master only at the last moment, that they said 
 one to the other : 
 
 "Did not our heart burn within us while he talked with us by 
 the way, and while he opened to us the Scriptures? " 
 
 275 
 
276 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 It is evident that, though they did not while he 
 was conversing with them know who he was, they 
 needed no proof that they were holding intercourse 
 with a great soul. The effect which the " virtue," 
 emitted by his rich nature, had on them, sufficed to 
 show them that such was the case. By the won- 
 drous sway which they felt he was exercising over 
 them, by that secret nameless burning which he 
 caused them to experience in their hearts, they were 
 certain that they were walking with no common 
 man. 
 
 Now, so it ever is when a representative of the 
 u pure kind of kingship " goes along with persons 
 of ordinary endowments, and talks with them by 
 the way. He warms them with something more 
 permeating than the heat of glowing coals, or thrills 
 them with something more penetrant than a current 
 of electricity. By means of his outcoming expira- 
 tory principle, his soul-evolved effluence, he gains 
 an easy conquest over them, and does this without 
 appearing to press himself in the least toward the 
 realization of any aim at mastery. A force stirring 
 to the mind and awakening to the heart, passes from 
 him into them ; and so welcome is it, that they treat 
 him with rare deference, — they refrain from vulgar 
 speech if they are vulgar, and from profanity if they 
 are profane, — they give ear to all that he says, and 
 honor him, perhaps, by withholding themselves from 
 all opposition to his opinions. Indeed, so long as he 
 and they continue to walk together, they show by 
 their demeanor that he is touching, influencing, mov- 
 ing their souls with a fine exhalation or efflux out- 
 sent from his own nature, 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 277 
 
 Such, in comprehensive terms, is the explanation 
 of personal impressiveness. Presence-effluence is 
 indispensable to personal influence. A mind nobly 
 self-conscious and profoundly awake, by reason that 
 it directly evolves something quickening, carries an 
 energizing atmosphere about it wherever it goes — 
 an atmosphere the quality of which is determined by 
 the quality of the same mind itself. But a mind that 
 insufficiently makes itself felt, is lacking in presence- 
 force. The saying is true, that men, like wagons, 
 rattle prodigiously when there is nothing in them. 
 Effluent " virtue " is what imparts brightness to mien 
 and potency to bearing. Who does not know the 
 power which a smile can have ? The Italian poets 
 say, Lampeggiar delV angelico riso, — "the lightning 
 of the angelicsmile." Who has never felt this? And 
 who does not know the power which a glance can 
 have ? " Nothing," says Victor Hugo, " is more real 
 than the mighty shocks which two souls give each 
 other by exchanging this spark." 
 
 The man of firm will and heroic spirit is enabled, 
 by the energizing principle which he perennially and 
 hourly sends out, to get by violent ill-wishers with 
 ease, and leave them behind him to tell what grace- 
 ful bravery he exhibited as he passed coolly along, 
 reaching forth in his own unique way for victor}^. 
 Concerning Julius Caesar, it is related that he op- 
 posed only the authority of his countenance and the 
 sharpness of his rebukes to his legions, when they 
 mutinously armed themselves against him. 
 
 " Upon a parapet of turf he stood, 
 
 And froze the mutineers' rebellious blood." 
 
 LcrcAN. 
 
278 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Whipple, in his Character and Characteristic Men, 
 speaking of Zachary Macaulay, the father of the 
 eminent historian, says that his " mere presence was 
 conversation." And of the gifted T. Starr King, 
 he remarks that he had the rare felicity, in everj^- 
 thing he said and did, of communicating himself ; 
 that everybody he met he unconsciously enriched, 
 and everywhere he went he instinctively organized ; 
 that everybody felt grateful to that genial exorcist, 
 who drove the devils of selfishness and pride from 
 the heart, and softly ensconced himself in their va- 
 cated seats. " His presence," he adds, " outvalued 
 everything in the room he gladdened with his beam- 
 ing face." 
 
 Captain Basil Hall, referring to the beguiling pres- 
 ence of Sir Walter Scott, describes the path where 
 he once walked with him, as " muddy and scarcely 
 passable," yet declares that he did not remember 
 ever to have seen any place so interesting as the 
 same narrow ravine was rendered by the skill of 
 that mighty magician. 
 
 Now, the presence-force, which was possessed in 
 the foregoing notable instances, was, at bottom, a 
 force such as all men have, in one measure or an- 
 other. When put to high use, it is the quiet way- 
 opener for the will. It makes clear a route by souls, 
 and over them, and in spite of them, subdues resist- 
 ance without noise and almost without seeming to 
 fight against it, turns lukewarm favorers into de- 
 voted allies, and enemies into friends. 
 
 In educating, evangelizing, civilizing men, how 
 could presence-force be spared ? It was this that 
 gave to Paul such access to the good graces of 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. ' 279 
 
 King Agrippa; this that secured to Columbus "the 
 patronage of the Queen of Spain ; this that helped, 
 more than any other earthly thing, in winning for 
 Luther his triumph before the Diet at Worms ; this 
 that sent the money-changers and the dove-sellers 
 scampering out of the Jerusalem temple. 
 
 Jesus, it must be conceded, had more presence- 
 force than the ablest of men have, because he was 
 ineffably superior to men. The " virtue " that went 
 out of him, whenever he held company with human 
 beings, did sometimes, under his direction, work 
 wonderful changes in bodies as well as in souls.* 
 It permeated to the sick vitals of pining invalids, 
 darted along their veins, arteries, nerves, and mus- 
 cular fibers, and through their rheumatic joints, 
 driving disease out of the parts where it had long 
 perpetrated its ravages, and making the breath of 
 the sad sufferers sweet with new-created health. 
 But, though men can, by the exertion of their souls, 
 emit nothing so marvelously potent as that effluence 
 which went from the sound and fine nature of the 
 Master, yet every one can have enough presence- 
 force to render himself interesting to those with 
 whom he converses. There is something which goes 
 forth from yourself, and which gives you an air of 
 your own — which creates for you a personal atmos- 
 phere expressive of your quality. It is something 
 which depends for its evolvement both on the out- 
 ward and on the inward man ; but which, though it 
 has its origin partly in the visible body, is referable 
 rather to the soul than to the corporeal frame. By 
 that something, whatever it may be, you are enabled 
 
 * See Luke vii. 
 
280 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 to produce effects on others, when you are utterly 
 silent, and even when you come near others, and 
 look on them, before they have discovered your ap- 
 proach. The reader of the pages of Les Miserables 
 finds himself, in a certain place, pondering over the 
 information that Marius, as he drew near at one 
 time to beautiful Cosette in the garden where she 
 was lingering, penetrated and moved her with his 
 presence-force, before he had spoken to her a word, 
 and even before she had caught an echo of his foot- 
 steps or a glimpse of his approaching form. " All 
 at once," says Victor Hugo, " she had that indescrib- 
 able feeling which people experience, even without 
 seeing, when some one is standing behind them." 
 
 Have you never thought how effective one can be, 
 without the movement of a limb or of a muscle? 
 There is ample scope for you and me to " communi- 
 cate our parts to others," independently of special 
 manners and much speaking. We say and do a mul- 
 titude of things to add to our impressiveness, which, 
 forsooth, do but serve to interrupt the outflow of 
 our expiratory energy, and, therefore, to make us 
 less impressive. Let us beware how we have re- 
 course to affectations, studied modes, strained exer- 
 tions, and the like, remembering that, instead of prov- 
 ing helps to personal forcibleness, such recourses 
 tend far more often to lessen it than to increase it. 
 To the unpretending and earnest, they are reasons 
 for attributing to us insincerity and lack of mental 
 depth. " Putting on airs " and straining after effect, 
 invariably show superficiality. Better is it, always, 
 to be nobly natural. We should trust our souls to 
 look out in their own way. Doing so, we uncon- 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 281 
 
 strainedly exert the secret source of personal power, 
 and render presence a quickened and quickening 
 medium of mental force. 
 
 It is not necessary to try hard to talk. How need- 
 lessly do many persons suffer, in their chairs, by rea- 
 son of the feeling that they say too little, or have 
 too little to say ! They seem to owe their embar- 
 rassment to the erroneous notion that, to be inter- 
 esting in conversation, one must inflict just so much 
 wear and tear on his vocal organs, and must just so 
 often say something even though he may mean noth- 
 ing. Let us be done with this false notion ! We 
 need but to have a lively presence, in the time of 
 conversation, to be deemed sociable. Little may you 
 give from your lips to him who comes to talk with 
 you ; few, indeed, may be the circumlocutions you 
 use with him ; you may- be hearer rather than speaker ; 
 but if you have an awakened soul just behind your 
 eyes, and there is a free emission of its own energy, 
 then your countenance will be expressive, your man- 
 ner communicative, and your society sufficiently 
 agreeable. 
 
282 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 II. 
 
 PERSONAL ATMOSPHERES: THEIR DISSIMILITUDE. 
 
 " We are no sooner presented to any one we never saw before, 
 but we are immediately struck with the idea of a proud, a reserved, 
 an affable, or a good-natured man; and upon our first going into 
 a company of strangers, our benevolence or aversion, awe or con- 
 tempt, rises naturally toward several particular persons, before we 
 have heard them speak a single word, or so much as know who 
 they are." The Spectator, No. 86. 
 
 Conceive a sphere of ethereal substance, with a 
 human being in its center ; and conceive every liv- 
 ing individual to be the center of such a sphere. 
 You will, then, have in mind that which will enable 
 you to form some clear idea of what is meant by 
 presence, when this word is employed in its deeper 
 sense. Men go about carrying with them invisible 
 spheres of the magnetism which emanates from 
 them ; and the spheric amount of magnetism around 
 each is his personal atmosphere. In Werner's Die 
 Schutzgeister (" Guardian Angels,") are the words : 
 
 " Every man, when awake and in good health, has an atmos- 
 phere which possesses a certain extension." 
 
 And says the learned George Bush : 
 
 " Every one is surrounded by an invisible aura or atmosphere, 
 which is constantly exhaling from his person and spreading to 
 some distance on every side, and bearing to him somewhat £he 
 same relation that the aerial atmosphere does to the earth." 
 
 The same author, speaking further concerning the 
 personal atmosphere, remarks that it " is not merely 
 the efflux of the corporeal system, but it emanates 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 283 
 
 also from the interior spirit, the seat of sentiments 
 and intellectual sympathies." 
 
 The use of the term atmosphere to denote the 
 aura or presence of a person, is, notwithstanding its 
 lack of absolute etymological fitness, amply war- 
 ranted by analogous applications of it which have, 
 from time to time, been made by scientists and phi- 
 losophers. They have employed it not only to sig- 
 nify the aeriform envelope of the earth, but also any 
 other circumjacent medium, whether gaseous or im- 
 ponderable. The electrician employs the term to 
 express the supposed medium around an electrical 
 body. The prying explorer, who resolutely searches 
 for nature's atomic secrets, makes use of it in defin- 
 ing the minute spaces which divide molecule from 
 molecule, throughout all the kingdoms of material 
 being — those spaces wherein occur the attractions 
 and the repulsions that explain cohesion and chemi- 
 cal affinity. It is also used to denote the character- 
 istic sphere around any body which has a marked 
 tendency to diffuse abroad its own peculiar substance. 
 Put a grain of musk in a room, and let it remain there 
 undisturbed for twenty years, and it will during all 
 that period render the apartment perceptibly odorous. 
 And so inconceivably fine will be the particles emanat- 
 ing from it, that if, at the end of the twenty years, the 
 single grain, yielding that musk-atmosphere, should 
 be weighed, no loss of weight would be detected. 
 The rose emits a fragrant effluence which creates for 
 it a sphere of unique perfume — a rose-atmosphere. 
 The water-lily exhales an unmatchable aroma, which 
 constitutes for it an envelope " eye hath not seen " 
 — a medium delicately rich and preciously sweet — 
 
284 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 its own consummate atmosphere. The honeysuckle 
 sends out molecules which make for it a hone} T suckle 
 atmosphere. The rank, unwholesome weed, rooted 
 in sterile soil, gives forth emanations which form for 
 it an atmosphere savoring of its own wild, evil, repul- 
 sive nature. 
 
 Now, just as it is a help in expressing any one of 
 these invisible material media, to call it the atmos- 
 phere of that to which it owes its existence and its 
 peculiarities, so it is a help in expressing the medium 
 around one's mental substance — that which bears 
 the decided flavor of one's personality, and in which 
 occur the attractions and the repulsions resulting 
 from the relation of one's own soul-evolved effluence 
 to the soul-evolved effluence of others — to call it 
 his personal atmosphere. But, whether there be 
 applied to it this appellation, or the more abstract 
 one of presence, it is trusted the reader discerns 
 sufficiently what is meant. 
 
 Swedenborg — he who has been called " the type 
 of the greatest possible spiritual ecstasy " — has 
 much to say in relation to personal atmospheres ; 
 and certainly, whatever may be thought concerning 
 his seership, his teachings in respect to such atmos- 
 pheres can, on no tenable ground, be deemed to be 
 valueless vaporings. In treating the subject, he 
 constantly employs the term sphere, to denote the 
 human aura. His generic affirmation is, that " every- 
 thing is surrounded by something similar to that 
 which is within it, and that this is continually ex- 
 haled from it." A viewless stream incessantly goes 
 out, in the manner of an efflux, from every man, 
 animal, flower, shrub, tree, specimen of fruit, and 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY, 285 
 
 even from ever} r metal and every. stone. In the case 
 of each human being, the effluent stream is in its 
 nature both spiritual and physical. " There flows 
 forth," he says, " yea, overflows from every man a 
 spiritual sphere, derived from the affections of his 
 love, — which encompasses him, and infuses itself 
 into the natural sphere derived from the body, so 
 that the two spheres are conjoined." 
 
 The aura of a person, so far as it is exclusively of 
 bodily origin, is (according to his teaching) " a 
 sphere of effluvias exuding from him," and is such 
 that it " is sensibly smelt by sagacious beasts ; " but, 
 so far as it is of spiritual origin, it is the image of 
 the person extended without him, and " is, indeed, 
 the image of all things appertaining to him." * His 
 
 * Possibly the true explanation of the presence-force and the 
 personal atmosphere, may be this: that the magnetic fluid, which 
 naturally emanates from the body, is made to take a determinate 
 direction and a specific intensity of motion, by the soul acting as a 
 moving cause in relation to that fluid, rather than as an emitter of 
 an effluence that mixes therewith. This explanation seems to be 
 plainly implied in the following words of Deleuze : " Nothing pre- 
 vents me from emitting it [the magnetic fluid] ; but there may be 
 in the individual upon whom I act, some obstacle which prevents 
 the effects I intend to produce, and then I experience a greater or 
 less resistance, in the same manner as when I employ my strength 
 to lift a burden that is too heavy ; this resistance may even be 
 invincible. The magnetic fluid is continually escaping from us, 
 and it forms an atmosphere round our bodies, which, having no 
 determinate direction, does not perceptibly act upon the individu- 
 als who are about us, but it is impelled and guided by our will ; it 
 moves forward with the whole of that force which we have im- 
 parted to it, like the luminous rays which issue from ignited sub- 
 stances. The principle which sets it in action exists in our souls, 
 in the same way as that which communicates strength to our arm, 
 and its nature is similar." 
 
 There may, however, be (and I am inclined to think there is) an 
 
286 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE, 
 
 doctrine of the soul-element included in presence, 
 is, that it is the exhalation flowing forth from the 
 life of the loves or affections, and that by it one 
 person has knowledge of the quality of another. I 
 quote from his writings a single passage more : 
 
 " Man does not know that, according to the life of his affections, 
 a certain spiritual sphere encompasses him, which sphere is more 
 perceptible to the angels than a sphere of odor is to the most ex- 
 quisite sense in the world. If his life has been in externals alone, 
 namely, in pleasures derived from hatreds against his neighbor, 
 from revenges and from cruelty thence, from adulteries, from 
 self- exaltation, and thence contempt of others, from clandestine 
 rapines, from avarice, from deceits, from luxury, and the like, the 
 spiritual sphere which encompasses him is as foul and offensive, 
 as is in the world the sphere of odors from dead bodies, from dung- 
 hills, from stinking filth, and the like. The man who has led such 
 a life, carries with him this sphere after death ; and because he is 
 entirely and wholly in that sphere, he cannot be anywhere but in 
 hell, where such spheres are. But they who are in internal things, 
 namely, avIio have had delight in benevolence and charity toward 
 their neighbor, and especially who have had blessedness in love to 
 the Lord, are encompassed with a grateful and pleasant sphere, 
 which is essentially heavenly, on which account they are in 
 heaven." 
 
 The dissimilitude which appertains to personal at- 
 mospheres, is a consideration of practical not less than 
 of philosophic importance. It embraces unlikenesses 
 which may be represented as existing in quantity, 
 quality, strength, keenness, and weight of presence, 
 as well as in a number of other particulars too recon- 
 dite, perhaps, to admit being expressed in single 
 terms. There are peculiarities of every specimen of 
 poetry, of romance, of history, of biography, of paint- 
 ethereal principle which is evolved by the soul from its own inner 
 and spiritual form, and which unites with the bodily magnetism, 
 and secures to the personal atmosphere the power of expressing 
 soul-quality. 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 287 
 
 ing, of sculpture, of music, of elocution, which can 
 be explained only by referring them to peculiarities 
 of personal effluence. That which constitutes the 
 presence that goes with one's body, constitutes also 
 a presence that goes with one's production.* In the 
 greatest of lexicons, I find among the phraseology 
 of definitions the words, " the fine diffusive quality 
 of intellectual power," and " the subtile aroma of 
 genius/' f The language is impressively suggestive 
 of the dissimilitude of the atmospheres which differ- 
 ent souls make to exist around them, and make to 
 exist also around all that they produce. The simple 
 truth is, the atmosphere which every person has, is 
 peculiar to him because it results from the issuing 
 
 * The position advanced is substantially like that which I find to be 
 set forth in a suggestive article on the Persistence of Force, which 
 was first published in the columns of The Golden Age, and wbich 
 was reprinted in The Christian Union (1873). The author of the 
 article maintains that the effluence, which is imparted by a person, 
 and which, in the case of genius, "has its source and hiding in the 
 most interior places of the personality, not only attends one's mien 
 and manners, utterances and gestures, but also one's works, and 
 that it persistently pervades as well as accompanies these, being 
 indestructible, and affording a new sanction and ground for faith 
 in personal immortality." " One of the most wonderful things in 
 life, in literature, in art," says that writer, "is the persistence of 
 the personality in its creations and emanations. The Iliad is not 
 merely so many cantos of inimitable verse; it is Homer. The sad, 
 solitary, grand heart of Dante palpitates in every verse of the Corn- 
 media. Every thought of Goethe reflects his personality in its 
 shining facets. The fascination of Carlyle's works consists almost 
 solely in the personal electricity with which they are charged. 
 The charm and power of Emerson's essays reside chiefly in the 
 spirit and aroma of his unique personality; the more colorless 
 they are in themselves, the more perfectly they mirror the features 
 and genius of their author." 
 
 f See Webster's Unabridged Pictorial Dictionary, p. 76. 
 
288 THE GREAT SLTGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 forth of the ''diffusive quality" of his own mental 
 power. See how this declaration is confirmed ! Sir 
 William Davenant, in his GondiberU says of Birtha: 
 
 " She ne'er saw courts, yet courts could have undone, 
 With untaught looks and an unpracticed heart." 
 
 Jean Paul speaks of " that holy maiden look which 
 is bright and attentive, but not searching." Heine, 
 describing a beautiful maid, presents the picture : 
 
 " Girl so garnered round with sweetness, 
 Never did a poet frame." 
 
 Victor Hugo says, " There is a loss of caloric in the 
 vicinity of cold persons." Whittier, in his Snoiv- 
 Bound, alludes to " the dear aunt " as one, 
 
 " Whose presence seemed the sweet income 
 And womanly atmosphere of home." 
 
 Anciently, it was believed of certain Scythian 
 women, that whenever they became enraged at any 
 one they killed the person by throwing their pres- 
 ence in a condensed form on him, and piercing him 
 with a look. 
 
 One person has a dry, tedious presence, which 
 makes you desire to get beyond its compass as soon 
 as possible, so that you may breathe more freely ; 
 another has a thick, sticky presence, something of 
 which disagreeably adheres to you, like pitch-pine 
 sap, when you have left him. Youth, if un with- 
 ered by disappointment, unblunted by tyranny, and 
 unpoisoned by vice, has a fresh, bright presence ; 
 age, on the contrary, unless great pains have been 
 taken to preserve its intellectual elasticity and to 
 keep its heart young, has, at best, an uninvigorating 
 presence. " Souls," says Montaigne, " are never or 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 289 
 
 very rarely seen, that, in growing old, do not smell 
 sour and inusty." The hypochondriac has a heavy, 
 abnormal presence, which oppresses and chokes you, 
 like unwholesome smoke or malarious night-air ; the 
 wit has an electric presence, which, whenever you 
 rub your soul against it, seems to flash and crackle, 
 like a cat's far when 3*011 rake it with your fingers. 
 One person has a grave, sedate presence; another 
 has a playful, humorous, mirth-awakening presence 
 Who has not known some individual whose habitual 
 outcome of magnetic energy was such that it would 
 have continually caused even the dignified to relax 
 to a gay mood, and be bo}*ishly facetious ? There 
 are those who seem not able to perform any act or 
 to assume any demeanor, that will make their pres- 
 ence less exciting to the susceptibility of mirth. If 
 you should see one of this class of persons weep, 
 you would feel to laugh ; if you should see him 
 suffer, you would feel to smile ; if you should see 
 him die, you would almost be tempted to allow 
 yourself to give place to emotions of jovialty, so 
 magically diverting would be the atmosphere of his 
 dear, clever spirit. 
 
 One person has a presence all imbued with the 
 winning melancholy which is inseparable from a 
 profound, gracious, and holy earnestness, and which 
 gives a "pensive depth" to the eye. Another has a 
 presence so pervaded with intellectual vitality, and 
 so charged with intellectual lightning, that it instan- 
 taneously elicits from all whom it meets, or who 
 meet it, an intense attention. 
 
 When Goethe came as a stranger to the Strasburg 
 dining-table, and unwittingly took his seat opposite 
 19 
 
290 THE GKEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Stilling and Herr Troost, his soul-evolved effluence 
 deeply penetrated them both, and Troost told the 
 opinion which they alike formed concerning the new- 
 comer, in his remark to Stilling, " That must be a 
 superior man." Subsequently, Troost's experience 
 of Goethe's magnetism at the same table, led him to 
 say to his friend, " Here it were best one sat seven 
 days silent." Stilling, in his Wander schaft, vividly 
 describes that masterly young German as he ap- 
 peared in those days. He had large, bright eyes, a 
 magnificent brow, a fine stature, and a gallant man- 
 ner of walking. From his place at the table, he 
 "now and then hurled over a look ; " and one result 
 of the presence-force which characterized him was, 
 that he " had the government of the table without 
 aiming at it." 
 
 The personal atmosphere possessed by Madame de 
 Stael was distinguished by a quality which made it 
 not less thrilling than that of Goethe. Zacharias 
 Werner once wrote concerning her: 
 
 "The men of intellect who live in her circle cannot withdraw 
 from it ; for she detains them by a species of magic. . . . She is a 
 vigorous brunette, and her countenance is not, strictly speaking, 
 handsome. But all that is forgotten when we meet her superb 
 eyes, wherein a great and divine soul not merely shines, but emits 
 fire and flame." 
 
 In reading Heinrich Steffens' Story of His Career 
 as Student and Professor, it is a high entertainment 
 to notice the dissimilitude of personal atmospheres, 
 indicated by him in his vivid references to the char- 
 acteristic traits of the great German scholars and 
 authors that were his contemporaries. He describes 
 Schelling, that brave elucidator of the unity of nature, 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 291 
 
 as having an air of decision, a countenance expres- 
 sive of energy, and large, clear eyes in which lay a 
 mighty power. His, we are left to infer, was the 
 presence of a firm, positive, fearless intellect. An- 
 tagonism found in it an impenetrable wall. To 
 timid and crouching opponents, it made him a 
 haughty adversary : to his disciples it rendered him 
 a hero-teacher, one whom they followed with a re- 
 vering and chivalric confidence, like that with which 
 loyal soldiers follow a tried and trusted captain. 
 
 Fichte is described by him as having sharp, au- 
 thoritative eyes, and as uttering sentences which 
 fell like strokes from a razor. Evidently his was the 
 imposing presence — that of the magisterial think- 
 er, the privileged denizen of the realm of clear 
 ideas and absolute principles. We must conceive 
 that his very silence was mandatory, and that the 
 commands which it dealt out were satisfiedly met 
 only with unhesitating obedience. When he said to 
 his pupils, "Gentlemen, withdraw within your- 
 selves ; enter into your own mind," there was doubt- 
 less that in his personal atmosphere which at once 
 made his words seem to be the words of one having 
 authority. 
 
 Steffens represents Goethe as revealing through 
 the medium of his presence a greatness like that 
 revealed in his works. When he first beheld his 
 noble figure, his admirable carriage, his speaking 
 eye, the indefinable composure manifest in all that 
 he did, and the majesty of his whole appearance, he 
 had to turn away to hide the tears resulting from 
 the spontaneous emotions which arose within him. 
 It seemed to him, as he looked on the face and the 
 
292 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 form of that grand man, he saw in him Egmont, 
 Orange, and Tasso. His description enables ns to 
 understand those epithets, applied to Goethe by 
 his German admirers : " The dear, dear man ! " 
 " The life-enjoying man ! " u The all-sided one ! " 
 " The representative of poetry on earth ! " " The 
 many-sided master-mind of Germany ! " * By invi- 
 tation, Steffens passed some days as Goethe's guest, 
 at Weimar; and those days, he affirms, were spent 
 by him in a kind of ecstasy. 
 
 Frederick Schlegel is portrayed, by the same de- 
 scril er, as a remarkable man of slender figure ; of 
 features regular, fair, and in the highest degree ex- 
 pressive ; of a quiet manner ; of quick and complete 
 comprehension ; and of strong personal influence. 
 His, we may infer, was the gentle, attractive pres- 
 ence of the calm, still lover of the abstract, of his- 
 tory, and of meditation. 
 
 From Steffens' delineation of Novalis, that peer- 
 lessly-refined soul whose passion for the sublime, the 
 mystical, and the mythic was his most marked trait, 
 one gathers that his presence was of a kind ethereally 
 sensitive. His countenance was dark, his lips thin, 
 his eyes deep, spiritual, and lighted with a lambent 
 glow, and his look sometimes ironical, but usually 
 serious. He continually showed that his mind's 
 most familiar haunts were in a hidden world, totally 
 unlike the common rugged one, and that his insight 
 into character, and into the relations of science and 
 of the fine arts, was most delicately intuitive. Won- 
 derful was that personal atmosphere of his, whereby 
 he could detect in a moment the presence of any 
 
 * See Longfellow's Hyperion, \>. 157. 
 
THE MYSTIC PEESONALTY. 293 
 
 nature not in unison with his own, and whereby, 
 when he met a kindred soul, he knew the fact as 
 readily as one knows the tender voice of a chosen 
 friend. 
 
 The same story-telling professor next recounts 
 some of the personal characteristics of Schleiermach- 
 er; and his narration warrants the inference that 
 the presence of Schleiermacher was such as univer- 
 sally belongs to souls that are immensely strong, 
 profoundly serene, and accustomed to constant and 
 perfect self-mastery. His movements were quick, 
 his features sharply defined, his lips firmly pressed 
 together, his eye keen and fiery. He seemed to 
 look his listener through. 
 
 Rahel, the celebrated Jewess of Berlin, was a 
 fine instance of that species of presence which par- 
 takes in a high degree of exalted and magical intel- 
 lectual power. Jean Paul describes her as " a 
 woman alone of her kind," and gives her the title of 
 " the winged one." It was at a period between the 
 years 1800 and 1833, that she appeared in the prime 
 of her strange luminosity of mind, and became famous 
 for the extraordinary manner in which she " commu- 
 nicated the life that was in her." Her youth had 
 been passed in studies, sorrows, and sicknesses. 
 When she had arrived at perhaps the age of forty- 
 three years, she became the wife of Varnhagen von 
 Ense, who has embalmed her name in his Memoirs. 
 Though she did not pretend to be the possessor of 
 beauty, yet she was unspeakably charming. Her 
 admirers included some of the most eminent scholars 
 and literary masters of the period in which she was 
 a distinguished center of attraction. She had a high 
 
294 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 brow, a curved mouth, and " still eyes full of con- 
 templation." She reached after and seized truths 
 of the most elevated order, simply by feeling and 
 reflection. Goethe, making mention of her, declared 
 her to be a " right woman," having not only the 
 strongest feelings that he had ever seen, but also the 
 completest control over them. And says the Mar- 
 quis de Custine : 
 
 "You could not speak with her a quarter of an hour without 
 drawing from that fountain of light a shower of sparkles. The 
 comic was at her command equally with the highest degree of the 
 sublime. The proof that she was natural is, that she understood 
 laughter as she did grief; she took it as a readier means of show- 
 ing truth; all had its resonance in her, and her manner of receiv- 
 ing the impressions which you wished to communicate to her mod- 
 ified them in yourself; you loved her at first because she had 
 admirable gifts ; and then, what prevailed over everything, because 
 she was entertaining. She was nothing for you or she was all ; and 
 she could be all to several at a time without exciting jealousy, so 
 much did her noble nature participate in the source of all life, of 
 
 all clearness Her friends asked of themselves, Whence 
 
 came these flashes of genius which she threw from her in con- 
 versation ? Was it the effect of long studies ? Was it the effect 
 of sudden inspirations? It was the intuition granted as recom- 
 pense by Heaven to souls that are true." 
 
 Of herself, she said, " To me it was appointed not 
 to write or act, but to live." And, certainly, those 
 who knew her, found in her presence alone, proof 
 that she did, in her way, transcendently live. Car- 
 lyle, after thinking long on the wondrous witchery 
 of the style of self-revealment, so free from blazon 
 and yet so expressive, which she represented, was 
 moved to say : 
 
 " Silence too is great; there should be great silent ones, too." 
 
 A personal atmosphere, which was of no such 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 295 
 
 exalted quality as that of Rahel, but which, notwith- 
 standing its comparative inferiority, was amazingly 
 spell-like to the object whereon it was unresistedly 
 brought to bear, was that possessed by Catherine 
 Sedley. Macaulaj-, in the second volume of his 
 History of England, refers to the power which she 
 exercised over King James, whenever he came within 
 the compass of her presence. Personal charms she 
 had not, with the exception only of her brilliant 
 eyes. Her form was spare and angular, and her 
 countenance was haggard. She was wont to make 
 a jest of her own homeliness of person. True, how- 
 ever, to that instinctive tendency to decoration, 
 which belongs to the soul of woman, she was fond 
 of attiring herself with gaudy adornments. 
 
 Catherine seems to have been astonished when she 
 thought of the great influence she exerted on the 
 king. And, as if seeking for an explanation of it, 
 she said, " It cannot be my beauty, for he must see 
 that I have none ; and it cannot be my wit, for he 
 has not enough to know that I have any." James 
 was so attracted and so bewitched by that slim, lean 
 woman, as to determine to advance her to the rank 
 of a countess. Queen Mary, having come to know 
 how he felt toward her, gave place to a deep re- 
 sentment, and would not be satisfied with anything 
 short of her departure into exile. James finally 
 agreed to this ; but when he sent her his command 
 to go away, and with it his farewell, he sent also the 
 words, "I know too well the power you have over 
 me. I have not strength of mind enough to keep 
 my resolution if I see you." 
 
296 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 III. 
 
 THE EYE, AS CONNECTED WITH PRESENCE. 
 
 " The rays, as some think, sent from the eyes, carry certain 
 spiritual vapors with them, and so infect the other party, and that 
 in a moment." Burton, Anatomy of Melancholy, p. 469. 
 
 " While thus he spake, his eye, dwelling on mine, 
 Drew me, with power upon me, till I grew 
 One with him, to believe as he believed." 
 
 Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 
 
 A FAMOUS thing in presence is the organ of vision. 
 In all historic times, the fact has been well known 
 that through this organ one mind can express its 
 thought, its feeling, its purpose, its energy or its 
 tire, if it have any, — can, indeed, throw either of 
 these forth with a special readiness and directness, 
 and powerfully influence therewith some other mind 
 or minds. Do you think the simple statement of this 
 fact would have surprised Jacob or the younger 
 daughter of Laban ? Do you believe it would have 
 seemed strange to Boaz or Ruth, to Menelaus or 
 Helen, to Antony or Cleopatra, to Swift or Stella? 
 Surely, ocular expression, as a fact included in pres- 
 ence, has been understood ever since love has been 
 a power in this world. And yet, only a little has 
 been said of it in any books save those of poets and 
 novelists, and all that has been said of it in these 
 seems to have made no great impression. Emerson 
 has given a page or two to the topic, and, according 
 to his custom as a writer, has said much in a little 
 space. Here is a selection, showing how suggestive- 
 ly he talks on it : 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 297 
 
 "The glance is natural magic. TVe look into the eyes to know 
 if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, hut 
 make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there. The revela- 
 tions are sometimes terrific. The confession of a low, usurping 
 devil is there made, and the observer shall seem to feel the stirring 
 of owls, and bats, and horned hoofs, where he looked for innocence 
 and simplicity." 
 
 There are two philosophic authors of English 
 fame who deserve honor for not having let the same 
 topic utterly escape their attention. I refer to Lord 
 Bacon and quaint Robert Burton. The former re- 
 marks that there are two affections which tend 
 especially to draw the spirits into the eyes, and that 
 they are love and envy. " The aspects," he says, 
 " which procure love are not gazings, but sadden 
 glances and dartings of the'eye." He teaches that 
 envy emits some malign and poisonous spirit, " which 
 taketh hold of the spirit of another," and is " of 
 greatest force when the cast of the e}-e is oblique." 
 
 But observe some of the striking instances cited 
 by Burton, as illustrative of the expression of 
 thought and passion through the eye. There was 
 Stratocles, a blear-eyed physician, who had been a 
 woman-hater all his years, and a bitter persecutor 
 of the entire female sex. Wherever he went, he 
 had been wont to mock them in vile terms. "Yet 
 this old doting fool," says Burton, "was taken at 
 last with that celestial and divine look of Myrilla, 
 the daughter of Anticles the gardener — that smirk- 
 ing wench, — that he shaved off his bushy beard, 
 painted his face, curled his hair, wore a laurel crown 
 to cover his bald pate, and for her love besides was 
 ready to run mad. 1 ' According to Plotinus, love is 
 derived from sight. One ancient writer calls the 
 
298 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 eyes the " harbingers of love," and another the 
 " hooks of love." The mistress of Philostratus 
 Lemnius had such power over him by her basilisk 
 eyes, that he once exclaimed to her, "What a tyr- 
 anny, what a penetration of bodies is this ! " Sue- 
 tonius describes the eyes of Augustus Caesar as 
 having possessed such brightness that they com- 
 pelled spectators to look away from them ; indeed, 
 spectators could no more endure them than they 
 could the direct beams of the sun. Euryalus and 
 Lucretia became enamored of each other by the eye, 
 and were thus prepared to entertain each other 
 before they had interchanged a word. And of the 
 Thracian Rodolphe, it is stated by Calisiris that if 
 she had but looked on' any one she would almost 
 have bewitched him, despite all his power of re- 
 sistance. 
 
 The eye, it must be admitted, is preeminently 
 intimate with the intellect. It is the shortest av- 
 enue between the inner man and the open world. 
 And, for this reason, there is propriety in calling it 
 the finest organ of the frame. How indicative it is 
 of mind ! How mind-like it is in its way of work- 
 ing ! One does not feel the sensation involved in 
 vision. The light reflected from an object to the 
 retina produces no titillation there. Who could 
 know, by any effect felt in his eye, that the image 
 of what he turns to behold is formed on a real sur- 
 face existing far back in that vitalized ball ? When 
 you perceive by the sense of touch, you feel, or 
 seem to feel, the impression made by the object on 
 your fingers before } t ou take cognizance of the ob- 
 ject with your mind ; and when you snuff an odor, 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 299 
 
 you are conscious of a sensation of smell as con- 
 nected with your nostrils, before you are conscious 
 of a recognition of smell by your knowing nature. 
 But when have you ever realized any distinction 
 whatever between sensation and perception in an 
 act of seeing ? 
 
 Consider, now, how weighty a fact we have ! All 
 day long the retina of a person receives impressions. 
 Ten thousand would be less than the number of 
 images formed on it between every morning and the 
 night which follows it. The person looks toward 
 the forest, and on that interior part of his eye it is 
 at once imprinted. He meets men, and in a moment 
 they are pictured there. He passes by horses and 
 vehicles, and quick as thought they are photo- 
 graphed there. The noble ox treads leisurely near 
 the quiet spot where this person pauses for observa- 
 tion, and lo ! an image of the robust animal instantly 
 comes into existence on the same interior surface. 
 What a variety of shapes are in rapid succession 
 delineated on that strange membrane, that marvel- 
 ous retina! On it is the figure of the little insect as 
 it flits ; the shape of the wind-tossed leaf as it nods ; 
 the form of the fair-feathered bird as it flies or as it 
 hops. There, too, as the process of seeing goes on, 
 are at one moment images of houses standing in their 
 pride ; at another moment, images of rocky heights, 
 towering in long and steep ranges, which are per- 
 haps shaggy with storm-scarred trees ; at still an- 
 other moment, images of fields of soft grass or of 
 young corn, steeping in the summer sunshine ; and 
 at still another moment, images of waters speeding 
 with cataract leaps down their circuitous course. 
 
300 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 And yet all these various imprints, shapes, images, 
 have not the least tiring effect — nay, have no felt 
 effect of any kind — on the retina. Surely, then, 
 there is a great intimacy between the eye and the 
 perceiving nature which is behind it. 
 
 Now, by reapon of this intimate relationship, the 
 visual organ is the most convenient, most direct, 
 and most available of all the physical channels of 
 soul-evolved effluence. What more renowned out- 
 let than that is there for the penetrating force which 
 makes presence effective ? Persons use their eyes 
 far oftener than they are aware for the purpose of 
 producing impressions on others. How many times 
 every day does one look at another who is near him 
 in order that he may, by so doing, influence him ! 
 How frequently is the eye employed to help words 
 do their bidding ! Wirt, in his biography of Patrick 
 Henry, tells of the aid which that orator was accus- 
 tomed, while making his forensic efforts, to derive 
 from his eyes. They were bluish-gray, and were 
 not large ; but they were full of spirit, were bril- 
 liant, and were marked by a rapidly-shifting and 
 potent manner of expression. At one time they 
 were "piercing and terrible as those of Mars, and 
 then again soft and tender as those of Pity herself." 
 By means of them he rendered his pauses exceed- 
 ingly impressive. "These came always," says that 
 biographer, " at the right moment, and were always 
 filled by the speaker with a matchless energy of 
 look, which drove the thought home through the 
 mind and through the heart." 
 
 Who has not noticed to what an extent oratory is 
 emasculated and cheapened by disallowing the eyes 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 301 
 
 their proper freedom in the hour of public address ? 
 The preacher who reads his sermons virtually ob- 
 structs the most convenient route through which 
 his intellectual power can be conveyed to assembled 
 men. And this is the result : much of the contents 
 of every one of his sermons dies on the dull air, 
 while not a few of his auditors, oblivious to what he 
 is saying, are letting their ungirded minds fly away 
 like birds or wander like bees. 
 
 See yonder sad and halting blind man. Very 
 poor in expression is his face. He smiles, but 
 scarcely a ray comes from his smile to move you. 
 He speaks, but his word is accompanied by no 
 power that renders it thrilling. You stand before 
 him in silence, and gaze at his blank countenance. 
 How still is his head ! What a bald solemnity, what 
 a dreariness, as of an herbless sand-plain, character- 
 izes his visage ! Why is his look, his utterance, his 
 manner, so unengaging? Why, in short, is his 
 presence so lacking in energizing force ? One rea- 
 son is the simple fact that he is destitute of the 
 chief channel through which the soul sheds mag- 
 netism ; and another is the fact that the absence of 
 that channel has occasioned a lack of exertion on 
 his part to cultivate personal impressiveness. He 
 might, though eyeless, have made for himself an 
 atmosphere invigorating to all that should have ap- 
 proached him ; but he either perceived not the pos- 
 sibility of so doing, or came short of being ad- 
 equately stimulated to realize the same. 
 
 Let the eye be wanting in any case, and, unless 
 other routes for soul-energy are cleared and kept 
 open, presence in the case will be incommunicative 
 
302 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 and bleak. Through the bright orb of sight there 
 comes something which fails not to command more 
 or less acknowledgment. " The eyes," says Salvia- 
 nus, "are the windows of our souls." Lord Bacon 
 affirms that "fascination is ever by the eye." 
 "Eyes," says Emerson, "are as bold as lions, roving, 
 running, leaping here and there, far and near. They 
 speak all languages. They wait for no introduction ; 
 they are no Englishmen — ask no leave of age or 
 rank ; they respect neither poverty nor riches, nei- 
 ther learning, nor power, nor virtue, nor sex, but 
 intrude and come again and go through and through 
 you in a moment of time. What inundation of life 
 and thought is discharged from one soul into another 
 through them ! " 
 
 The agent behind the eye — that self-knowing 
 substance which sends out through this channel the 
 magnetic principle — can use it mightily for good 
 purposes or mightily for bad ones. " He that hath 
 a clear eye," says Ficinus, "though he be otherwise 
 deformed, by often looking upon him will make one 
 mad, and tie him fast to him by the eye." Philos- 
 tratus relates of an Ephesian person, that he had so 
 pernicious an eye he poisoned all he looked steadily 
 on. And Burton (whose citations serve me so 
 well) quotes from Castilio the statement that wan- 
 dering, wanton, adulterous eyes lie still as so many 
 soldiers, and when they spy an innocent spectator 
 fixed on them, shoot him through and presently 
 bewitch him, especially when they shall gaze and 
 gloat as wanton lovers do one upon another, and 
 with a pleasant eye-conflict participate each other's 
 souls." In Hawthorne's novel, The Scarlet Letter, 
 
THE MYSTIC PEESONALTY. 303 
 
 Roger Chillingworth is pictured as making it his 
 continual task to read what was in the heart of 
 Arthur Dimrasdale, a fine-natured, eloquent min- 
 ister, who was guilty of a secret crime — that of un- 
 chastity. As he prosecuted that task, and day after 
 day, like a hound of fate, penetrated, by means of 
 his resolute, keen, irresistible eyes, into the recesses 
 of Dimmsclale's bosom, that unhappy man grew 
 faint and feeble, lost his interest in the wonders 
 wrought by his own eloquence, and became at 
 length almost insane. He is described as having 
 finally expired while in the act of confessing his 
 crime. 
 
 The eye admits of an availableness full as great 
 for praiseworthy ends. It can be used in putting 
 back impertinence, in shaming insolence, and in 
 driving the boldness out of baseness. Bad persons 
 have been shot down and riddled with glances. 
 The magnetic current which finds way. out through 
 this channel is sometimes like lightning, and some- 
 times like the effluent ball of a fire-lock weapon. 
 
 There is a look of peace and a look of trouble ; 
 there is a glance of confidence and a glance of shy- 
 ness. Through the eye passion always first comes 
 forth to make itself felt. The earliest manifestation 
 of courage when it has begun to glow, of impatience 
 when it has begun to be feverish, of enthusiasm 
 when it has begun to flame up, and of the desire of 
 revenge when it has begun to demand to be filled, 
 is there made. There Impulse, Fancy, Mirth, Joy, 
 Hope, and Fear soonest peep out and reveal them- 
 selves. And, in many an instance of the expression 
 of either of these through that organ, it would be 
 
304 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 only necessary to let fall the eyelid and to hold this 
 soft curtain down, in order to intercept completely 
 the revealment. "Love, anger, pride, and avarice, 
 all," says Addison, " visibly move in those little 
 orbs." He says, moreover, that he knew a young 
 lady who could not see a certain gentleman pass by 
 without indicating a secret wish to see him again by 
 a dance in her eyeballs ; nay, that she could not, for 
 the heart of her, help looking half a street's length 
 after any man in a gay dress. 
 
 All the tendencies, and all the guarded secrets of 
 the soul, are somehow expressed through the eye ; 
 and he who has skilled himself in reading, by means 
 of his own visual organ, what the mind or the heart 
 of another shows through his visual organ, will not 
 often read incorrectly. The polish of the refined 
 person can be quickest known by looking at his eye, 
 and the repulsive crudity of the vulgar sneak most 
 readily perceived by looking at his. Homer em- 
 ploys the phrase, "the ox-eyed, venerable Juno." 
 It is strikingly significant and admirably appropriate. 
 He had seen the serenity usually visible in the dark 
 eye of the grand ox, — that serenity which suggests the 
 repose of solid strength, and which implies a nature 
 large, deep, and hale. And knowing well that, in a 
 poet's ideal, the wife of Jupiter should not have an 
 eye like that of a cat, or like that of a hawk, or like 
 that of a sheep, but the eye of a goddess-queen, 
 whose soul was calm, gentle, and magnanimous, he 
 described her as ox-eyed and venerable. 
 
 To eye-expression and its results there appertain 
 unnumbered curious points. Go among strangers, 
 and you will for a time be disconcerted somewhat 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 305 
 
 by their gaze, and will find it difficult to appear like 
 your very self. Your eyes will often waver and 
 want a screen. In vain will you try to be rid cf 
 your uneasiness ; in vain will you endeavor to wear 
 a sunny and gladsome look. The knowledge that 
 bright vision-orbs are directed toward you, with an 
 expression which is the noiseless, persevering quest 
 of minds that would see what you are before either 
 trusting or distrusting you — this is the explanation 
 of your unrepose, your embarrassment. Oh, could 
 you be as self-collected as you wish you might be, 
 before the soul-lighted eyes that look at you, and 
 could you, in the sight of those living, moving, 
 shining spheres set beneath human brows, stand or 
 act with a spirit not in the least degree disquieted 
 — nay, with a simple, graceful ease, like that with 
 which you used to endure the studious gaze of 
 strangers when you were a child ! But this is im- 
 possible. Accordingly, to the cold, close-searching 
 scrutiny which goes on, you submit as well as you 
 can. Meanwhile, in every one of those prying eyes 
 an image of you is taken, and, in the secret place 
 where it is formed, is subjected over and over again 
 to a careful examination. 
 
 Just so has many a lonely wanderer into new 
 scenes and new society been discomposed and put 
 into a state of painful constraint, by minds peering 
 at him through eyes made frigid and hard by inquis- 
 itiveness. And who of all that have ever had this 
 experience, was able, while in the process of having 
 it, to avoid taking on looks and manners unusual to 
 him ? 
 
 There are, it is true, some persons who seem to be 
 20 
 
306 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 perfectly exempt from all liability to embarrassment 
 from the cause mentioned. They move about among 
 strangers, or stand before them, with eyes apparently 
 so endowed with strength that there is no wavering 
 on the part of them, and with inner susceptibilities 
 apparently under such control that they are in no 
 wdse disturbed. The art seems to be theirs, of hap- 
 pily receiving keen, exploring glances, and softening 
 to a mellow mildness the eyes out of which they are 
 darted. They do not sternly penetrate others with 
 their look. Jean Paul speaks of " an eye which not 
 so much penetrates as lets everything penetrate it." 
 Of the species thus described, are, perhaps, their 
 eyes. One could all day feel at ease, either in gazing 
 at them, or in being an object of their gaze. With 
 a pleasant sense of self-possession, one could arrange 
 a matter of business, talk on a topic of passing inter- 
 est, or remain silent, with any individual of the class. 
 Many of those comprised in it are 
 
 . . . "Broad and honest, 
 Breathing an easy gladness." 
 
 But who, after all, can think that such persons are 
 never stirred, never thrilled, never pained, never 
 agitated by force flung out through eyes ? Certain 
 it is, no human being has ever yet lived, that could, 
 while capable of sight and of thought, move among 
 others, or stand before them, and at the same time 
 be totally indifferent to their ocular expression. 
 
 Under mental power which has emanated by way 
 of the visual organ, what changes have come to 
 pass ! what affinities and alliances have sprung into 
 existence ! what repulsions and disruptions have 
 
THE MYSTIC PEBSONALTY. 307 
 
 occurred ! People have often felt that they were 
 pelted with looks ; and people have sometimes been 
 made to smart under looks, even more perhaps than 
 if there had been dealt to them successive strokes 
 of a lash formed of stern words, and having a sting- 
 ing rebuke for its cracker. By sudden glances, 
 hearts have been congealed ; and by sudden glances 
 hearts have been enkindled. Presence-force, exerted 
 through the eye, has resulted in joys and griefs, in- 
 spirations and depressions, successes and failures. 
 By it, heroes have been melted, cowardly spirits 
 have been benumbed, and tyrants have been as 
 much dismayed as if stricken with a scorpion whip. 
 Brave were the Roman soldiers in their pursuit after 
 the tranquil One, till they had found him. Then, as 
 he stepped forward, and met them, and looked at 
 them, and said, "I am he,'" they ivent backward and 
 fell to the ground. O eyes of Jesus ! how did men 
 and women receive, through them, rays that reproved 
 and rays that cheered, long centuries ago ! How, 
 through them, came that which drove Hypocrisy 
 away, blushing with shameful bewilderment, from 
 the erring female whom its cruel hands were about 
 to stone to death ! And how, through them, when 
 Lazarus lay in his grave and his two sisters were sor- 
 rowing over his decease, did there come for the com- 
 forting of their hearts an effluence thrillingly sweet! 
 All the brute-creatures look at man eye to eye. 
 Why is it so ? Why do they not peer at some other 
 part, rather than at that part, of the body ? If one 
 should travel to the banks of the Leeambj^e, in Cen- 
 tral Africa, and let the beautiful eland or zebra that 
 goes there to drink behold him ; or if he should wan- 
 
308 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 der far into some South American forest, and in the 
 depth thereof rouse a wild panther from its retreat ; 
 or if he should visit the famed Nile, and confront a 
 huge crocodile on its shore, — in each case, the gaze 
 of the startled beast would be aimed first at the 
 beaming orbs set beneath his forehead. Ah ! w T hat 
 is that which causes every animal under heaven that 
 looks at man, to peer directly into his eye ? It is 
 because the spirit shows itself chiefly there. 
 
 When a brute and a man look at each other, the 
 former plainly acknowledges the mental power of 
 the latter — at least so much of the same as it sees 
 in his gleaming eye. The cat, the dog, and every 
 other dumb creature, will, if you look steadily into 
 its eye, turn its head away from you. I know an 
 instance in which a dog was made to bark by noth- 
 ing more than the continuous gaze of its master, 
 fixed and concentrated on its visual organ. You have 
 read of the conquering force of a firm, unyielding 
 look of the human eye, when aimed at that of the 
 fierce, hungry beast of the forest or of the desert, 
 whose lithe form was in position for a deadly spring. 
 Is it unphilosophic to believe that brute-ferocity has 
 been thus overmastered ? Have not even ferocious 
 men sometimes been conquered in like manner, by 
 the look which would not yield to them ? 
 
 The continual and skillful use of the eye is indis- 
 pensable to success in conversation. How often does 
 ocular expression beautifully fill up the vacancies, 
 the gaps, and the hyatuses which occur along the 
 course of the talker's talk ! Moments there are 
 when one perfectly tells through his eye that which 
 he might find it impossible to tell otherwise. 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 309 
 
 A like use of the organ of sight is indispensable, 
 also, to success in the exercise of school-government. 
 All good teachers Lear sway over their pupils, chiefly 
 by emitting and projecting soul-energy — emitting 
 it in looks, projecting it in glances. 
 
 A similar employment of the eye is, as I have 
 already more than intimated, essential to success in 
 public speaking. The true orator does not speak by 
 his voice and his gestures alone ; he often speaks 
 chiefly by his eyes. When Webster, in his reply to 
 Hayne, referred pathetically to his own State, the 
 group of Massachusetts men that sat near him were 
 touched to the heart ; but their emotions did not rise 
 beyond their control till the grand orator turned his 
 eyes full on them, and then (as a describer of the 
 scene says) " they shed tears like girls." 
 
 I have already adverted to pulpit deliverances, 
 unaided by eye-expression. Here, I advert to them 
 again. Far too much preaching there is which 
 reaches not the souls of men, for the want of suffi- 
 cient mental force exerted through the eyes. Take 
 advice, ye scholarly clergymen, who read all your 
 sermons ! I know ye would not spend in vain your 
 intelligent breath before the people. Ye Avould utter, 
 I doubt not, from the consecrated desks behind which 
 you stand, words fitted to chase worldly cares out 
 of the hearts of men and women, and to produce in 
 those hearts the great longing which is the harbin- 
 ger of a better life. And }^e would have a health} 1 - 
 religious stir around you all the year. Now, why 
 have you so many "dear hearers," that hear with 
 attentiveness so little that ye say ? Hard enough 
 during the week do ye work to prepare for the Sab- 
 
310 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 bath — that day on which needy souls wait to be 
 spiritually fed by you ; and when the Sabbath comes, 
 ye cast forth the bread ye have made ready. But, 
 alas ! in the time of dispensing it, only a few have 
 any care to receive it. Oh, why do ye not acquire 
 the art of so delivering sermons that people must 
 attentively hear them ? — the art of so feeding your 
 bread to your flocks as to make them take it and be 
 glad? 
 
 The preacher needs a piercing glance to render his 
 utterance piercing, and a glance of mild earnestness 
 to render his utterance effectively tender. Very 
 weak are his words without something through his 
 eyes to help them. Less should he read from his 
 desk, and more should he speak therefrom — speak 
 as one who combines ocular expression with verbal ; 
 speak with the seeing organ as well as with the 
 vocal apparatus, and with soul-evolved effluence 
 making its way out through both at once. 
 
 Think what a failure Paul's effort on Mars' Hill 
 would have been, had he merely read to his audience 
 his thoughts concerning God and Christ, the resur- 
 rection and the judgment-day ! Think how little 
 like himself Patrick Henry would have appeared, 
 had he merely read to the assembly that was before 
 him his speech which ends with the words, "liberty 
 or death ! " Ah ! how pitiful a thing it is, that so 
 many true and fine sentiments have fallen stillborn 
 from the lips of toilsome sermon-readers in this 
 world ! And will not preachers learn to address 
 mortals in the better way ? Will they still hope to 
 move the present generation of earth-loving hearts, 
 by discoursing to them exclusively from a manu- 
 script ? 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 311 
 
 It is true, some reading preachers are successful ; 
 but their success will be found to depend, to no in- 
 considerable extent, on the occasional exertion of 
 their souls through their eyes. Running the risk of 
 repeating what has already been said on these pages, 
 I affirm that not by bare words can men be stirred 
 or roused ; and not even by words, assisted solely 
 by superior action. The look and the glance, the 
 awakening gaze and the electrifjdng gleam of the 
 eye, are needful in all efforts before audiences. 
 Blindfold a gifted orator, and you would disable him 
 for success in public speaking, almost as much as 
 Samson was disabled by the removal of his locks. 
 Webster could make a powerful speech while one 
 of his arms was in a sling ; for it is related that he 
 once did this. But does any one suppose Webster 
 could have spoken mightily, with his great black 
 e} r es fixed on a manuscript? 
 
 A few other points appertaining to ocular expres- 
 sion claim attention. Consider how many volumes 
 might be made up of what is this day silently com- 
 municated by one fond soul to another through the 
 eye. There lives a meaning which he who has never 
 been a lover scarcely knows how to appreciate, in 
 those words of Byron : 
 
 "And eyes looked love to eyes which spoke again." 
 
 " Thou hast ravished my heart with one of thine 
 eyes," says the author of Solomon s Song. And, in 
 this sentence, is there not told something that most 
 persons have felt ? 
 
 Interesting is it to observe what the poets and the 
 novelists have written concerning eyes. Some of 
 
312 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 them, we shall perhaps find, have duly recognized 
 the connection of the visual organ with presence. 
 "Vain and forgotten," says Emerson in one of his 
 pieces of poetic prose, " are all the fine offers and 
 offices of hospitality unless there is a holiday in the 
 eye." An Oriental writer likens wanton eyes to 
 " blue water-lilies agitated by the breezes." In Lalla 
 Rookh, Moore makes one of his characters pay a 
 tribute to a pair of eyes in these exquisite words : 
 
 "To see 
 Those virtuous eyes forever turned on me ; 
 And in their light rechastened silently, 
 Like the stained web that whitens in the sun, 
 Grow pure by being purely shone upon." 
 
 Sterne, in his Tristram Shandy, has an amusing pas- 
 sage respecting the expressiveness of love-lit eyes. 
 It is where he makes mention of the fact that 
 Widow Wadman, having pretended to Uncle Toby 
 that a troublesome mote had found way into her 
 eye, signified to him the wish that he would look 
 into it. And, " honest soul ! v says Sterne, " he did 
 look into it, with as much innocence of heart as 
 ever child looked into a raree-show box." But he 
 found no mote there — found, indeed, nothing but 
 "one lambent delicious fire, furtively shooting out 
 from every point of it, in all directions, into his 
 own." Moore, interpreting the language of the 
 black eye and of the blue, vivaciously says : 
 
 "The brilliant black eye 
 
 May in triumph let fly 
 All its darts without caring who feels 'em ; 
 
 But the soft eye of blue, 
 
 Though it scatter wounds too, 
 Is much better pleased when it heals 'em. 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 313 
 
 " The black eye may say, 
 
 ' Come and worship my ray — 
 By adoring, perhaps you may move me.' 
 
 But the blue eye, half hid, 
 
 Says from under its lid, 
 ' I love, and am yours if you love me.' " 
 
 The story which is on record in reference to the 
 famous engineer, George Stephenson, is interest- 
 ingly suggestive. Being asked what he considered 
 the most powerful force in nature, he said : " I will 
 answer that question. It is the eye of a woman to 
 the man that loves her ; for if a woman looks with 
 affection on a man, should he go to the uttermost 
 ends of the earth, the recollection of that look would 
 bring him back." There are those who many a time 
 have sat apart in mortal assemblies, indifferent to 
 whatever voice may have been exercised in their 
 hearing ; experiencing no weariness in their seats ; 
 remaining entirely quiet all the long while, and yet 
 being at one moment sad and at another moment glad, 
 now anxiously in doubt and now again in possession 
 of the clearest assurance, or perhaps now sweetly be- 
 wildered and now again eager for a repetition of the 
 same bewilderment. Dear loving souls ! how they 
 lived in each other ! How they told their feelings, 
 each to each, through their eyes ! Heaven bless all 
 such to the end of years ! 
 
314 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 THE WEIGHTY PRESENCE. 
 
 "Truth from his lips prevailed with double sway, 
 And fools, who came to scoff, remained to pray." 
 
 Goldsmith, The Deserted Village. 
 
 That species of presence which is chiefly char- 
 acterized by weight or weightiness, claims some meas- 
 ure of careful attention. There are weighty souls, 
 and there are light souls ; and the contrast between 
 the two classes, whenever it is known by experience, 
 seems as great as that which one would realize if 
 he should hold a lump of gold in his right hand and 
 a bunch of feathers in his left. All ability that is 
 substantial, tends to give ponderousness to presence. 
 Dignity, when it is without sign or symbol of pre- 
 tense, is the habitual bearing of an able, self-col- 
 lected, majestic nature. It is an abiding constituent 
 of the weighty presence. The really dignified are 
 they who have deep minds, and who are accustomed 
 to engage in noble business ; and whenever you 
 enter the circle of their personal atmospheres, you 
 become sedate, just as when you enter a solemn 
 forest you become so. This is what explains how 
 Pythagoras so won the regard of his pupils that one 
 of them lay down and died, because he reproved 
 him before his mates ; how Columbus overawed the 
 mutineers on the vessels of his fleet, and, in spite 
 of all their murderous discontent and plotting, man- 
 aged to reach the goal of his ambition ; how Napo- 
 leon the First wrought out of what seemed common 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 315 
 
 stuff such marshals as Ney ; and how Washington 
 was able to produce such emotions of reverence and 
 awe, in all who met him face to face. Emerson, in 
 his English Traits, quotes the terse remark of An- 
 tony Wood, concerning Sir Kenelm Digby, a valiant 
 courtier of Charles and of James, and " a model Eng- 
 lishman in his day," that, u had he been dropt out of 
 the clouds in any part of the world, he would have 
 made himself respected." 
 
 It is not dignity alone that works such wonders; 
 it is dignity aided by the magnetic " virtue" which 
 has its source in the interior region cf human nature. 
 The one is the constituent of the weighty presence, 
 which is felt ; the other is the constituent of it which 
 is seen. The one belongs to personality, the other to 
 person ; the one is force, the other accompaniment. 
 These two must ever go together to constitute a 
 fitness to command. The private soldiers will soon 
 learn to set at naught the authority of their leader, 
 if he have dignity without magnetism. The audience 
 will soon become indifferent to their speaker, if he 
 have oratory without soul-evolved effluence. The 
 pupils will not long delay to drown their teacher's 
 mandates and counsels in the buzzing, swelling noise 
 of their own unrestrained lips, nor long withhold 
 themselves, it may be, from the attempt to tumble 
 him out-doors, if he have the form of government 
 without the power thereof. And so it ever is when 
 presence has all its weigh tiness in assumed appear- 
 ances and modes. The finer prerequisite to success- 
 ful ascendency or sway, is always a penetrating 
 energy which goes forth from within. Shakespeare 
 brings out this truth in his play of Antony and Cleo- 
 
816 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 patra. He makes the Soothsayer tell some of his 
 private thoughts to Antony, thus : 
 
 " Soothsayer: 
 
 Therefore, O Antony, stay not by his side : 
 Thy demon, that's thy spirit which keeps thee, is 
 Noble, courageous, high, unmatchable, 
 Where Caesar's is not ; but near him, thy angel 
 Becomes a fear, as being o'er-powered; fherefore 
 Make space enough between you. 
 
 Antony : 
 
 Speak this no more. 
 
 Soothsayer : 
 
 To none but thee ; no more, but when to thee. 
 
 If thou dost play with him at any game 
 
 Thou art sure to lose ; and, of that natural luck, 
 
 He beats thee 'gainst the odds ; thy luster thickens 
 
 Whence shines by; I say again, thy spirit 
 
 Is all afraid to govern thee near him ; 
 
 But, he away, 'tis noble." 
 
 The same truth has a vivid illustration in the in- 
 stance of Caius Marius, who was taken prisoner in 
 the marshes of the Liris. His captors sent a Gallic 
 slave to him, with the commission to put him to 
 death. The servile deputy, when he announced his 
 fearful errand, found the great Roman sitting in 
 the darkest corner of his prison-chamber. Marius 
 looked at him with gleaming eyes, and in tones 
 mightier than any that were ever known to succeed 
 the lightning-flashes of material nature, answered 
 him. The man threw down his sword and tied, 
 declaring that it was impossible to kill the prisoner. 
 Thomas de Quincey briefly relates, in the following 
 words, the thrilling story : 
 
 " He fascinated the slave, as a rattlesnake does a bird. Stand- 
 ing ' like Teneriffe,' he smote him with his eye, and said, l Tunc, 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 317 
 
 homo, audes occidere C. Marium? — Dost thou, fellow, presume 
 to kill Caius Marius ? ' Whereat, the reptile, quaking under the 
 voice, nor daring to affront the consular eye, sank gently to the 
 ground, turned round on his hands and feet, and, crawling out of 
 the prison like any other vermin, left Marius standing in solitude 
 as steadfast and immovable as the eapitol." 
 
 Partem says of Daniel Webster, that Agamemnon 
 of orators : " His leading trait was his enormous 
 physical magnetism." He should have said personal 
 magnetism, instead of physical; for certainly, Web- 
 ster's leading trait was inexpressibly superior to 
 anything merely physical. To his description he 
 adds the suggestive passages: 
 
 " His presence overwhelmed criticism. It gave the public a 
 sense of repose. When he passed up or down State Street, with 
 his arm behind his back, business was brought to a stand-still." 
 
 And Tefft, in his Webster and his Masterpieces, 
 says of the same great orator and statesman : 
 
 " Seen where he might be, whether in the Senate, or on the 
 street, or in the largest gathering of the people, he was always the 
 most magnificent specimen of a man present. . . . His movement 
 was that of a superior being unconscious, or thoughtless, of his 
 superiority." 
 
 Once, after a political defeat, when his own New 
 Hampshire had proved to be one of the States that 
 had voted against him, Webster was traveling by 
 railway to his home in Franklin, twenty miles be- 
 yond Concord. At the latter place there was some 
 detention of the train which was bearing him ; and, 
 the report having spread through the town that he 
 was in one of the cars, a large body of the citizens 
 gathered at the depot, and called for him. His per- 
 
318 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 sistent refusal, for some time, to appear, caused the 
 throng to become almost angry ; and his friends 
 urged him to address them, even if he should say 
 but a few words. At length, just before the train 
 started, he came to the rear platform of the car, 
 and, folding his arms on his breast, stood silent, 
 looking with a stern, impressive eye on the crowd. 
 " Every voice," says a narrator of the incident, 
 " was hushed ; the loud cries died away into low 
 murmurs. The giant of our hills, standing thus for 
 a moment in silence before the people who had de- 
 serted him, spoke a grander oration than though he 
 had used many words, then slowly turned away, and 
 the door closed on him. The crowd dispersed almost 
 as silently." 
 
 When William Wilberforce made his first cam- 
 paign speech, in the county of York, against the 
 India bill and the coalition ministry, he was a mere 
 boy in appearance ; but he showed that he had the 
 personal force, the soul-evolved effluence, which 
 renders presence weighty and commanding. Bos- 
 well, describing him and his effort, says : 
 
 "I saw what seemed a shrimp mount on the table ; but, as I 
 listened, he grew and grew until the shrimp became a whale." 
 
 The examination of the weighty presence, with 
 its two unmistakable constituents, dignity and mag- 
 netism, — those prerequisites to the exercise of true 
 authoritativeness, — leads naturally to some reflec- 
 tions on that kind of ponderousness in presence, 
 which is superficial, affected, false. This is marked 
 by dignity and nothing better ; and when dignity 
 goes alone, it is invariably an unmitigated sham. 
 
THE MYSTJC PERSONALTY. 319 
 
 He that has no magnetic battery within himself, to 
 give real impressiveness to his presence, can put on 
 no .show of weight that will, to the eyes of wise 
 men, seem more than worthless mimicry or parade. 
 " Sham dignity " is the bearing with which he whose 
 presence is pitifully lacking in soul-evolved effluence 
 has learned to carry himself. In the case of aspiring 
 conceit, that has contrived to gain official position, 
 it is pomposity. In the case of wealth-blown medi- 
 ocrity, it is superciliousness — that disdain of the 
 ignoble rich for the toiling poor, which Victor Hugo 
 calls " the slap-in- the-face from a distance." In the 
 case of the religious pretender, it is sanctimonious- 
 ness. 
 
 Who has never noticed the style of that species 
 of solemn majesty, which confidently shakes hands 
 with Grandeur and with Fame, while its soul emits 
 no more magnetism than a gourd or a potato ? Ever 
 does the pretentious possessor of an inefficacious 
 and tiresome presence tell what he is by his make- 
 believe look and manner. Barren of that searching 
 force by which all fine persons are able noiselessly 
 to penetrate, to excite, and to thrill others, he pro- 
 duces an effect like that of damp air on fuel. The 
 latter gives forth too little of the element which 
 makes wood burn ; the former gives forth too little 
 of the element which makes souls burn. Many is 
 the stiff-necked official who better knows the art of 
 seeming to be something great when he is almost 
 nothing, than he does the fact that genuine solidity 
 of character is indicated by simplicity of bearing. 
 Many is the fashion-follower who is far more expert 
 in taking on airs of importance than in acting the 
 
320 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 part of a true man. Such, doubtless, was he who, 
 when Sir William Johnson returned the salutation 
 of a negro, reminded him that he had done what 
 was very unfashionable. " Perhaps so," replied Sir 
 William, " but I would not be outdone in good 
 manners by a negro." 
 
 V. 
 
 RELATION OF INDEPENDENT SELF-EXERTION TO 
 PRESENCE. 
 
 " Then Saul, who also is called Paul, ... set his eyes on him," &c. 
 
 Acts, xiii. 9. 
 
 " And as she spake 
 She sent the deathless passion in her eyes 
 Through him, and made him hers, and laid her mind 
 On him, and he believed in her belief." 
 
 Tenktson. 
 
 Sir Richard Steele, in describing the distin- 
 guished Prince Eugene, says he appeared to have 
 nothing in him but what every man should have in 
 him, the exertion of his very self, abstracted from the 
 circumstances in which fortune has placed him. Here 
 is told the secret whereby one's personal atmos- 
 phere may be made effective, and without which it 
 will be more or less deficient in forcibleness. All 
 the moving, stimulating, or controlling power which 
 one soul directly exerts on or over another, all the 
 penetrating energy conveyed by heroes in their 
 eagle glance, is something sent out by a mental 
 
THE MYSTIC PEKSOSALTY. 321 
 
 nature that has learned to be self-reliant. When 
 Jesus, in the familiar instance recorded in the 22d 
 chapter of Luke (v. 61, G2), " turned and looked upon 
 Peter," and, by so doing, reached as with a current 
 of fire to Peter's frozen heart and melted it, there 
 was an exertion of the great Master's very self, re- 
 sulting in the calm yet powerful expression which 
 wrought that effect. 
 
 To be engagingly significant, or, in other words, 
 to make known magnetically what is in your soul, 
 think not you must accumulate force, and then emit 
 it. Do thus, and you will make j 7 our presence poor 
 and attractionless. To arrest the outflow of energy 
 is to stop its rise. This energy, as much as gravity 
 or electricity, has its laws : and he who learns these 
 will find that it never fails to come forth, and be 
 itself, when the conditions of its complete arousal 
 and outcome are fulfilled. Would you emit much 
 of it ? Then bend } r our soul to the occasion, and 
 teach it to prove itself awake and capable. Urge 
 yourself out of the reverie-mood into that fresh, ani- 
 mated, vigorous state in which there is a youthful 
 eagerness for positive life. Not otherwise can one's 
 personal atmosphere become cogent. Not otherwise 
 can one render himself " radiant with arrowy vitali- 
 ties, vivacities, and ingenuities." 
 
 The true, virgin energy of souls is peculiar for 
 this one thing, that, to be effective, it must be in 
 the process of flowing or darting forth. The key to 
 its influentialness — that which explains its evolve- 
 ment from its native source, and all its service as a 
 means of invigoration or of awakening — is inde- 
 pendent self-exertion. As something out-sent, and, 
 21 
 
322 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 at the same time, aimed at a mark, it is always 
 availing, piercing, stimulating. But let it be held 
 back and barred in, as if it were a fluid whose vol- 
 ume can be increased by damming up its current, 
 and the result will be deficiency and dreaminess. 
 Potent effluxes of personal " virtue " can never be 
 secured merely by an accumulative process within. 
 There must be an essay of the soul outward — a 
 bestirring of the latent might of the inner man for a 
 purpose — an actual concentration of mental sub- 
 stance and power, to an end. One should never, 
 therefore, wait for the rise of energy. The way is 
 to put it forth. Make independent self-exertion 
 your rule, and then you will not fail to evoke some 
 measure of puissance into your presence. Then you 
 will show that you have an enterprising soul, that 
 your nature is rich in something of the same kind as 
 that which gives a gleam to heroes' eyes, and that 
 with 
 
 "High thought, and amiable words, 
 And courtliness, and the desire of fame, 
 And love of truth, and all that makes a man," 
 
 you are constituting yourself able and masterful. 
 
 That the evolvement by the soul of specially 
 quickening energy is ever the result of independent 
 self-exertion, will be evident on referring to the true 
 explanation of what is called dullness. The dull 
 presence is not rarely met ; and, perhaps, the most 
 comprehensive account of it that can be given is, 
 that it springs from a dearth or insufficiency of soul- 
 evolved effluence. There is, in the case, an inaction 
 of soul ; and that inaction occasions poverty on the 
 part of the personal atmosphere. This is the reason 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 323 
 
 of that wide difference in conversational impressive- 
 ness which existed between Goldsmith and Burke, 
 — Goldsmith, 
 
 '• Who wrote like an angel, but talked like poor Poll," 
 
 and Burke, whom (as Dr. Johnson once said) " no 
 man could meet by accident under a gateway to 
 avoid a shower, without being convinced that he 
 was the first man in England." Persons there are 
 whose souls seem to doze whenever they are in 
 company. Physically, they have burst the bands of 
 slumber ; but intellectuall} r , they are in the nest of 
 Morpheus, with their faculties dormant and dreaming. 
 Open eyes have they, but nothing soul-like looks 
 from within through them. Sound and unobstruct- 
 ed organs of speech have they, but nothing power- 
 like attends the exercise of them. 
 
 Thoreau says that " dullness is but another name 
 for tameness." And, indeed, who is not tame when 
 his soul gives forth no energy ? If 3*011 yield not 
 this enlivening product, how consentingly will you 
 be led from yes to yes, and from no to no, in every 
 instance of social intercourse ! With what lifeless 
 willingness will you be found agreeing with every 
 one who, with the least measure of magnetism in his 
 glance, thrusts his opinions on you ! Said the 
 ancient orator, Celius, to one who, while supping 
 with him, accepted all that he advanced in conver- 
 sation : " For the love of the gods ! contradict me in 
 something, that we may be two." Surely, to be 
 dull is to be tame ; for it is to be in that state of the 
 soul in which mere passiveness or neutrality has the 
 place of manly, vigorous, adequate action, and in 
 
324 THE GREAT SLIGHTED- FORTUNE. 
 
 which, consequently, there is a putting forth of 
 nothing adapted to render mien and manners, port 
 and speech, interesting. " If," says Montaigne, "it 
 [i. e. the soul] be left to itself, it flags and languish- 
 es: agitation only gives it grace and vigor." 
 
 We may, then, lay it down as a practical truth, 
 that the energetic presence and the dull presence 
 are in contrast with each other. The former implies 
 mental power in exercise ; the latter implies the 
 absence of exerted mental power. In the one case, 
 the personal atmosphere is like natural air in mo- 
 tion ; in the other case, it is like natural air when it 
 is sluggish and sultry, and when it causes those who 
 inhale it to look round for some means of "raising 
 a breeze." 
 
 VI. 
 
 FITFUL CONCENTRATION OF PERSONAL ENERGY. 
 
 " The flighty purpose never is o'ertook 
 
 Unless the deed go with it." Shakespeare. 
 
 " Masters of the situation never do things by halves." 
 
 James T. Fields, Lecture on Masters of the Situation. 
 
 It is important to understand that there are active 
 states of the inner man, resembling the one which 
 is attended and indicated by a true outcome of ener- 
 gy, while, forsooth, they are greatly unlike it. Com- 
 pared with it, they are sparcely more than an evanes- 
 cent burning or a dry briskness. While they are, 
 perhaps, superior to that tameness which implies 
 lack or absence of presence-force, they have not the 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 325 
 
 needful thing which supports endeavor till a com- 
 plete triumph is wrought. Of these, the one to 
 which I here direct attention, is that in which per- 
 sonal energy is fitfully concentrated. Force, in the 
 case, is freely and strikingly emitted; but the evolve- 
 ment of it is at the mercy of an unsteady, unperse- 
 vering mind. There are persons who, at times, 
 throw out jets of power. They start from a dreamy 
 intellectual torpor, and bestir themselves as if they 
 were about to bring to pass some excellent wonder ; 
 but what is the result ? By their intense self-exer- 
 tion they produce a part of the splendid whole which 
 they have designed, and then suffer their effluent 
 force to take a respite. The spasmodic effort is, 
 after a while, followed by a like effort at some fresh 
 task. There is, on the part of such persons, a con- 
 centration of energy ; but it is fitful. They make 
 brave attempts at doing, but invariably cease doing 
 before, anything is roundly done. 
 
 What an amount of promising intellectual strenu- 
 ousness there is in the world, which is no more 
 succeeded by solid performance than heat-lightning 
 is by thunder ! He who only freakishly concentrates 
 his personal force, falls far short of accomplishing 
 any one of his high undertakings. Vain is the fer- 
 vidness of his intellectual intensities. However 
 bravely he may adventure to gain magnificent ends, 
 he ever fails to reach them, — 
 
 " Like ships that sailed for sunny isles, 
 But never came to shore." 
 
 Apply yourself forcibly only by fits and starts, and 
 your best triumphs will deserve to be called failures. 
 
326 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE, 
 
 It is no flash-effluence ; it is continuous exertion of 
 interior " virtue," that gives rise to all fine fulfill- 
 ments. Emerson, in his Conduct of Life, tells of a 
 brave painter, who said to him : 
 
 "If a man has failed, you will find he has dreamed instead of 
 working. There is no way to success in our art, but to take off 
 your coat, grind paint, and work like a digger on the railroad, all 
 day, and every day." 
 
 The chief intellectual fault of Coleridge was, that 
 he was spasmodically energetic. His soul was one 
 of superior order — one which, whenever it gave 
 itself becomingly to action, evinced not only an intu- 
 itional gift and a quick-discerning analytic power 
 which were of exquisite quality, but also a poetic 
 genius which was entitled to take rank even with 
 that of Milton. It was a source of exalted magnet- 
 ism. Had he but possessed the concentrativeness of 
 a persevering thinker, had he but exemplified what 
 Bayne calls " a sustained self-mastery," he would 
 have wrought glorious productions, instead of mere 
 extraordinary fragments. A lack there was, on his 
 part, which kept him from continuing long enough 
 at any one of his well-begun tasks. Lapsing ever 
 too soon from exertion, he let himself come under a 
 " numbing spell," such as that to which he alludes 
 in his lines entitled The Garden of Boccaccio : 
 
 . . . . " Bereft alike of grief and glee, 
 I sate and cowered o'er my vacancy." 
 
 Whenever he spoke or wrote on a subject, he 
 emitted, in connection with his words, a winning 
 witchery of soul; but the trouble was, he always pre- 
 maturely discharged his theme. If there is any tree 
 in the world which bears enchanting fruit, but never 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 327 
 
 fails to drop its fruit to the ground before it has 
 ripened, Coleridge was like that tree. The Ettric 
 Shepherd, adverting to him in Nodes Ambrosianae, 
 says suggestively, though much too caustically: 
 "The author of Christabel and the Ancient Mariner 
 had better just continue to see visions and to dream 
 dreams, for he's no fit for the wakin' world." Doubt- 
 less Coleridge himself told his fault, more concisely 
 than any one else has ever done, when he said in his 
 table-talk : 
 
 "I have a smack of Hamlet myself, if I may say so." 
 
 VII. 
 
 UNIMPRESSIVE ENGAGEDNESS. 
 
 "A great statesman once shot at a glib advocate, who was say- 
 ing nothing with great fluency and at great length, by asking, 
 ' Who is this self-sufficient, all-sufficient, insufficient man? ' " 
 
 E. P. Whipple, Character and Characteristic Men. 
 
 " Correctly cold, and correctly dull, 
 
 Faultily faultless, icily regular, splendidly null." 
 
 Anonymous. 
 
 There is often manifested an active state of the 
 soul, which, by reason that it resembles while in 
 fact it has but little in common with a true mental 
 awakening, may be denoted by the name — unimpres- 
 sive engagedness. It is a state in which the magnetic 
 capability seems to be almost absolutely inactive. 
 The verbose haranguer, the affected, pimping talker, 
 and the tiresome gossip, each is an expmplifier of it. 
 
828 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Who bas not known inveterate retailers of verbiage 
 that said a thousand things which would have been 
 deemed rare and fine if they had not said them ? 
 Their thick-coming words were like the juiceless, 
 lifeless leaves which are wafted against one by the 
 wrinkling winds of autumn. Had they expressed 
 new thought, it would have seemed trite ; had they 
 told the most laughable anecdote in the world, it 
 would have seemed a poor, flat thing — so small a 
 measure of piercing, stirring energy did they put 
 forth with their streams and floods of words. They 
 had vocal activity, activity of features and of limbs, 
 and — it cannot be denied — activity of mind. What, 
 then, was wanting ? There was wanting the incisive 
 effluence from within, which gives spirit and life to 
 talk and manners, — the magnetic "virtue," which 
 the human soul, whenever truly awake and active, 
 evolves by the working of its own wondrous sub- 
 stance. Without this, all engageclness connected 
 with presence cannot but be unimpressive and 
 tedious. 
 
 How vain is oratory, and how like is it to " sound- 
 ing brass or a tinkling cymbal," when the same high- 
 born effluence flashes not in the speaker's eye, ani- 
 mates not his gesture, imparts not elasticity and 
 magic to his utterance ! Addison appropriately men- 
 tions, under the designation of " speaking statues," 
 the numerous wordy arguers and public debaters of 
 his day, who made displays of unimpressive engaged- 
 ness at bars and on platforms. The truth is, real 
 eloquence, without personal magnetism, is simply 
 impossible. There can be speech without this, — 
 speech, of the same nature as the prate of Ther- 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 329 
 
 sites, — speech, dry as the sunburnt dust of beaten 
 roads ; but the oratory which is eloquence, coming 
 with prevailing witchery from every feature and 
 every gesture, and from the tongue, — the oratory 
 that has 
 
 "A power which awakens and a grace that charms," — 
 
 this is inseparable from the magnetic principle. 
 
 Cleomenes, an ancient discriminator between false 
 eloquence and true, once burst out in laughter while 
 hearing an orator declaim on valor ; and, the orator 
 being moved to anger, Cleomenes said : " I should 
 do the same if it were a swallow that spoke of this 
 subject ; but if it were an eagle, I should willingly 
 hear him." Antiquity furnishes also the suggestive 
 instance, relative to the same point, of Polemon, a 
 debauched young Grecian, who went by chance to 
 hear one of the lectures of Xenocrates, and not only 
 brought away the knowledge of some fine matter, 
 but a more manifest and more solid profit, which was 
 the sjdden change and reformation of his life. No 
 unimpressive engagedness could have been there ; 
 but magnetism, — that which oratory must ever bor- 
 row in order to be potent and victorious, — magnet- 
 ism must have been there. 
 
 Henry Clay, by reason of the effluent "virtue" 
 which he had taught himself to evolve, had an effec- 
 tiveness in oratory that was indescribable. All his 
 faculties and passions seemed " united in one power 
 of personal impressiveness." And, "in Webster," 
 says Whipple, "passion was a "fire which fused intel- 
 lect and character into one tremendous personal force, 
 and then burst out that resistless eloquence in which 
 
330 THE GftEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 words have the might and meaning of things — that 
 true mental electricity not seen in dazzling zigzag 
 flashes, not heard in a grand reverberating peal over 
 the head, but in which, mingling the qualities of light 
 and sound, the blue bright flame startles and stings 
 the eye at the very moment the sharp crash pierces 
 and stuns the ear." 
 
 The effectiveness which Cromwell had in speech, 
 is one of the notable facts in his history. Consid- 
 ered according to the rules of elocutionary text-books, 
 he was no orator. Polish he had not ; splendor of 
 diction he had not. Who would ever think of mak- 
 ing a collection of his oratorical passages, under the 
 title of The Beauties of Cromwell? And yet, say 
 what you will of him, it is certain he was pre- 
 vailingly eloquent. Think of that occasion on which 
 he confronted the Rump Parliament, and, by his 
 powerful bearing and words, scattered them from 
 their seats ! The Dutch had become weary of fight- 
 ing against English war-ships, and had sued for peace ; 
 but the Parliament, believing that the co.ijinued 
 prosecution of the war would tend to restrict Crom- 
 well's power, were disinclined to grant peace. Crom- 
 well, knowing well the nature of the case, went, with 
 three hundred soldiers at his back, to the hall ; and 
 with an energy of will, of manner, and of utterance 
 which was all-conquering, he denounced the mem- 
 bers for their crimes against the public. He brought 
 to bear against them, in his presence and language, 
 the whole might of his soul. Stamping with his 
 foot, he exclaimed : 
 
 "For shame! Get you gone! Give place to honester men! 
 I tell you you are no longer a Parliament; the Lord hath done 
 with you ! " 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 331 
 
 Then, ordering that the mace, which he designated 
 as "that bauble," should be taken away, he and his 
 soldiers looked on while the members withdrew ; and, 
 to close the scene, he locked the door and put the 
 key in his pocket. 
 
 Now, this instance shows that the oratory which 
 is pervaded with true personal magnetism, however 
 much in conflict it may be with the rules of text- 
 books, is true oratory. It is true, because there is 
 that in it which causes men to yield and bend under 
 it. I wonder not that Thomas Carlyle, in his work 
 entitled Heroes and Hero -Worship, has expressed 
 such admiration of Cromwell. He who, by his mar- 
 velous presence-force, so deeply influenced men, could 
 not but win the admiring regard of that brave lover 
 of the brave. Among Carlyle's sayings of him are 
 these : " His heart was the heart of a man who 
 could pray." " With that rude, passionate voice, he 
 was always understood to mean something, and men 
 asked to know what." " If the words were true 
 words, they could be left to shift for themselves." 
 And the speeches of that hero he calls " rugged 
 bursts of earnestness." 
 
 The effect produced by Cromwell's orator}^, and 
 (to speak gen erically) the effect produced by all 
 moving oratory, has its comprehensive explanation 
 in that aphorism of Emerson : " Words have weight 
 when there is a man behind them." 
 
332 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 CHAOTIC DISCOMPOSURE. 
 
 " When all that is within him does condemn 
 Itself for being there." Shakespeare. 
 
 " Many a brave fellow, who has put his enemy to flight in the 
 field, has been in the utmost disorder on making a speech before a 
 body of his friends at home." The Spectator, No. 231. 
 
 "We are embarrassed when there is some bar or hinderance 
 upon us, which impedes our powers of thought, speech, or motion." 
 Webster's Unabridged Pictorial Dictionary ', p. 438. 
 
 " Presence of mind [is] a calm, collected state of the mind, with 
 its faculties under control; [an] undisturbed state of the thoughts, 
 which enables a person to speak or act without disorder or embar- 
 rassment in unexpected difficulties ; [a] freedom from the disturb- 
 ing or distracting influences which arise from fear or undue ex- 
 citement of any kind." Ibid., p. 1031. 
 
 Some consideration may well be given to that 
 state of the soul, frequently exemplified, in which it 
 is active only in the sense of actiug distractedly. I 
 do not refer, here, to the wild agitation of passion- 
 ate fury ; I refer, rather, to that bewilderment 
 wherein the intellectual faculties seem to have sud- 
 denly taken fright, and there is a wretched ebbing 
 of personal force. The state directly opposite to it 
 is commonly called presence of mind. The former 
 may be viewed as negative ; the latter as positive. 
 The one is the state of utter embarrassment, the 
 other the state of manly self-possession. 
 
 Have you never seen a person who was subject to 
 inner confusions ? Ah ! what a pallor and what 
 a trepidation did often characterize him ! What a 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 333 
 
 complete losing, for a time, of all consciousness of 
 capability, — what a scattering of thought — what a 
 crazing of the pulses — in short, what a chaotic dis- 
 composure on his part did he often experience ! A 
 human being, in the moment when his very will 
 seems to be panic-stricken and in process of fleeing 
 away, is a pitiful sight. There has, indeed, been a 
 serious lack in one's development, if he cannot with 
 some collecteclness and assurance abide any hour of 
 emergency. Said Seneca : 
 
 " He is most potent who has himself in his own power." 
 
 Useful is it to contemplate the manner in which 
 that noble representative of self-possession, Michael 
 Montaigne, was accustomed, in times of sudden trial 
 of soul, to maintain his mastery over himself, and by 
 so doing, preserve undiminished the efficaciousness 
 of his presence. There were unlooked-for seasons 
 of thrilling danger to his person and life, in which 
 his chances of safe escape were fearfully few, but in 
 which, by reason of his self-control and composure, 
 he obtained deliverance from circumstances wherein 
 others would have failed and fallen. " It has often 
 happened to me," he says, " that on the mere credit 
 of my presence and air, persons, who had no manner 
 of knowledge of me, have put a very great confi- 
 dence in me, whether in their own affairs or mine ; 
 and I have, in foreign parts, thence obtained favors 
 singular and rare." Once, while he was journeying 
 " through a very fickle country," he was arrested 
 by a band of soldiers, that knew not who he was. 
 They bore him into the depth of a neighboring for- 
 est, robbed him, and then for some time debated 
 
334 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 whether to deprive him of life. With unconfused 
 soul he insisted on having his liberty, grounding his 
 plea on a certain trace which had been newly pub- 
 lished in the army, and protesting against their 
 having more than the property they had already 
 wrested from him. After two or three hours, they 
 mounted him on a jaded horse, and, separating his 
 servants from him, led them off in different direc- 
 tions. But, by and by, the leader of the band re- 
 turned, and began to address him in milder language. 
 He restored to him, so far as it was possible, his 
 goods ; then, removing his visor and giving Mon- 
 taigne his name, he told him repeatedly that he 
 owed his deliverance to his countenance and the free- 
 dom and firmness of his words, which rendered him 
 worthy the continuance of his liberty and life. 
 
 There are many who have a just appreciation of 
 the trait of self-possession. Fathers can be found, 
 who are endeavoring so to train their sons that, in 
 the time that shall unexpectedly supply some ex- 
 traordinary test of their ability, they will not shrink, 
 and crouch, and become chaotically discomposed, 
 but will preserve the collected state of their facul- 
 ties. ''Presence of mind" is universally held in 
 honor ; and every wise man, to whom God has given 
 a well-made boy, will often be seen putting the in- 
 experienced youngster where he will be pressed 
 and proved by circumstances, and where he will be 
 likely to learn " to have himself in his own power." 
 Thus, in a manner, does the parent-eagle cause her 
 young to acquire the courage and the adroitness 
 essential to adventurous flight. She " stirreth up 
 her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreacleth 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 335 
 
 abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on 
 her wings," * that she may insure to them boldness 
 and skill. And this method of eagle-tuition suggests 
 much that is adapted to improve the good sense of 
 every father who would insure to his son firmness 
 of character and credit of presence. 
 
 IX. 
 
 THE EFFECT ON PRESENCE OF FASHION AND 
 FRIVOLITY. 
 
 " Custom would never conquer Nature, for she is ever invinci- 
 ble; but we have infected the mind with shadows, delights, wan- 
 tonness, negligence, and sloth, and with vain opinions and corrupt 
 manners rendered it effeminate and mean." Cicero. 
 
 To the meditative mind, ever saddening is it to 
 contemplate the truth that the evolvement by the 
 soul of availing personal force, is, in a multitude of 
 cases, either unwisely retarded or sillily prevented. 
 There are two lines of life in which, more often 
 perhaps than in any others, presence is found to be 
 weak and unincisive ; and they are (first) that of 
 the devotees of fashion, and (secondly) that of the 
 devotees of frivolity. 
 
 Who does not know the effect of mere mode, 
 when it has once gained the title of customary or 
 the epithet of stylish ? And who does not know 
 how this personified thing is independent of merit, 
 how it is subject to caprice, and how it keeps the 
 
 * Deuteronomy, xxxii. 11. 
 
336 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FOETUNE. 
 
 world in a perpetual flutter about the cut of clothes, 
 the lights and the shades of appearances, and the 
 details of manners ? Fashion has been aptly denned 
 by one writer, as "the race of the rich to get away 
 from the poor, who follow on as fast as they can." 
 Why does Miss Tabby Dormouse, of whom you may 
 read in Curtis' genteel Potipliar Papers, slip over 
 the letter ' r,' and let herself be heard saying, 
 " Some 'aw, 'uff man from the country ? " Why do 
 those Irishmen, of whom Thackeray speaks in his 
 Booh of Snobs, " ape Englishmen, and forget their 
 country, and try to forget their accent, or to smoth- 
 er the taste of it.? " He tells us of O'Dowd, of 
 Odowdstown, who says, " Come, dine with me, my 
 boy — you'll find us all English there ; " and from 
 whose lips the same words fall with a Celtic brogue, 
 which blabs the ridiculous absurdity of his attempt 
 to pass himself off as a genuine specimen of English 
 " high life." He cites, also, the instance of Mrs. 
 Captain M'Manus, who, in essaying to talk like an 
 English lady, betrays her nativity and her silliness 
 by saying I-ali-land, and fawther's esteet. The expla- 
 nation of these and of all similar attempts at show 
 and style, is, that there are some who are trying 
 to support splendid appearances and forms, which 
 shall make them distinct from others, while those 
 others are trying, by a continual aping of their fickle 
 splendors, to take rank with them. 
 
 Now, this strife after outward and meteor-like dis- 
 tinction affects, to a lamentable extent, the develop- 
 ment of souls and the value of personal atmospheres. 
 It results in the decay of presence-force. When 
 men's importance is generally estimated by artificial 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 337 
 
 brilliancies, how little must there be in popular life 
 to help sterling quality and vigorous expression ! 
 Devotion to fashion hinders genuine manners, and 
 brings counterfeit ones in their stead. It leads to 
 what Chalmers calls " that wretched competition of 
 extravagance which has banished from society all 
 the simplicity of kindness." Pope Clement XIV. 
 seems to have felt, when he first ascended to the 
 papal chair, the stirrings of a soul not infected by the 
 unmanning opinions and practices appertaining to 
 fashion ; and, therefore, on receiving the bow of the 
 ambassadors at his court, he manfully returned it by 
 bowing himself. But he was promptly informed by 
 the master of ceremonies, that he had done what it 
 was not customary for popes to do. " Oh," he re- 
 plied, " I beg your pardon ; I have not been pope 
 long enough to forget good manners." Alas ! how 
 do persons come to be mere imitating weaklings, by 
 reason of devoting themselves to conformity to style ! 
 How do people, for the sake of following the fash- 
 ions, check and keep down the only principle that 
 can give a charm to their presence ! Coleridge, as 
 he lingered once by the sea-shore, had a thought or 
 two of such people, which he penned thus : 
 
 "Fashion's pining sons and daughters, 
 That seek the crowd they seem to fly, 
 Trembling they approach thy waters, 
 And what cares Nature, if they die? " 
 
 I turn to speak of frivolity. It is intimately asso- 
 ciated with fashion ; and its emasculating effect on 
 the soul and on presence is usually coextensive 
 with that produced by its yoke-fellow. A friend, 
 who is accustomed to have ideas and sentiments of 
 22 
 
338 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 his own, once sent to the writer of these pages a 
 letter containing the following suggestive para- 
 graph : 
 
 "lam at times moved to actual contempt, when I look around 
 me and see how everything is conducted in society, especially in 
 that of young people. It makes no difference how good one's 
 character or how excellent one's undertakings may be ; if he does 
 not conform to the standard which suits a simpering frivolousness, 
 he is not counted in." 
 
 Under the foregoing words some positive thoughts 
 are here to be expressed. There was quite enough 
 to make the sigh of that correspondent sadder than 
 any common breathing of sorrow over the shallow- 
 ness of so much that is called modern society. In- 
 deed, there was that which might well have made it 
 a sigh from the deeper and darker region of feeling, 
 — a sigh even from the interior realm of nameless 
 pities. The truth is, the real u children of this 
 world " — so many of them as are to-da,j running 
 the race of pleasure-seekers — are almost as defi- 
 cient in solidity of character and in personal force, 
 as the finest bubbles are in actual amount and in 
 real strength of substance. Test them with one 
 veritable trial or with one masterly thought, and 
 they will burst like the showy orb which some child 
 has just blown from soap-water. Their mental na- 
 ture feeds on glee and tinsel. They prize gilded 
 garments above the humble nobleness whose voice 
 is still and small, and whose heart is brave and 
 grand. They converse never ; but they gossip eter- 
 nally. They account the delicate hand, which no 
 labor has ever hardened, a higher honor than the 
 worn palms that tell of deeds well done, the victo- 
 ries of cheerful toil. They never laugh ; but they 
 
THE MYSTIC PERSONALTY. 3S9 
 
 simper all the day. They are sincere only when 
 they are in quest of new dressing, or when they are 
 sick, or when they are mad. 
 
 Averments these are which can be easily main- 
 tained. I shall not need to reflect that I have ani- 
 madverted hastily. The career which more than 
 a million Americans are running at high speed, is 
 the career of the frivolous ; and often enough the 
 thoughtful observer of them is ready to sit down 
 and weep, that so many, of whom he did long to 
 think better things, have become identified with the 
 vast multitude of the flippant and simpering ones 
 who are pursuing after vain delights. The picked 
 company of this clay's most fashionable parlors, the 
 dazzling representatives of elegant movement that 
 create the gay hum of this day's most animated ball- 
 rooms, the frippery-loving young women who have 
 the stylish daintiness or archness that wins for them 
 the title of refined, the fast young men who are 
 admired for their exterior polish, their nimbleness, 
 and their volubility, — all that form the changeful, 
 kaleidoscopic scene of mere pleasure-seeking Ameri- 
 can society, are flitting, gossiping, fancy-sick adorers 
 of transient pleasures and of pretty trifles. And as ' 
 one stands aloof from them and witnesses their 
 worthless extravagances, how can he not be tempt- 
 ed to pronounce them the most brilliant shams that 
 ever careered to nothingness, in the thronged course 
 of vanity, levity, and illusion? Caring never for 
 the things which are strong and substantial, partak- 
 ing never of the food on which thought flourishes 
 and mind grows, communing never with Nature 
 and Silence and eternal Wisdom, they employ their 
 
340 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 whole being in a continual chase for pleasure, and 
 die at last, having lived as uselessly almost as mere 
 glittering insects. Ah ! what a relief it is to betake 
 one's self from the places where these squanderers 
 of time and neglecters of blood-bought opportunities 
 make their charmless din, to the wide, fresh, and 
 free scenes where the great Worker is unpretend- 
 ingly and majestically employed ! " Exalted Na- 
 ture ! " says Richter, " when we see and love thee, 
 we love our fellow-men more warmly ; and when we 
 must pity or forget them, thou still remainest with 
 us, reposing before the moist eye like a verdant 
 chain of mountains in the evening red." 
 
 But what can be done to save the million from 
 their soul-weakening devotion to trivial objects? 
 What can be done to deliver people from a mode of 
 life which evinces a folly similar to that of one who 
 should [as Sterling expresses it] " cover the fingers 
 with rings, and, at the same time, cut the sinews at 
 the wrist ? " This is the answer : Let every influen- 
 tial mind devote itself anew to thought, to truth, to 
 naturalness, to honesty ! Let all teachers and lead- 
 ers, all who are competent to aid in correcting false 
 popular opinions, and all who are fitted to guide the 
 unwise toward higher conditions of experience and 
 self-re vealment, nourish a noble scorn of " simpering 
 frivolousness," and cherish an ardent and courageous 
 ambition to be ever in harmony with the normal, the 
 reasonable, and the divine. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL 
 
 THAT WHICH MUST BE FULFILLED IN ORDER THAT THE 
 ENTIRE CAPITAL OF MAN AS MAN, OR, IN OTHER 
 WORDS, "THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE," 
 SHOULD BE TRULY TURNED TO AC- 
 COUNT, AND CONTINUALLY 
 AND INCREASINGLY 
 ENRICHED. 
 
 Totum in eo est, ut tibi imperes. 
 
 (" The whole secret is this, to command thyself.") 
 
 Cicero. 
 
 341 
 
Chapter VI. 
 KNOWING HOW TO BE ONE'S OWN. 
 
 AS RELATED TO INNER LUMINOSITY AND NOBLE- 
 MANSHIP. 
 
 " The greatest thing in the world is for a man to know how to 
 be his own." Montaigne, Essay on Solitude. 
 
 " When a man once knows that he has done justice to himself, 
 let him dismiss all terrors of aristocracy as superstitious, so far as 
 he is concerned." Emerson, English Traits, p. 189. 
 
 In the resorts of commonplace mortals, there is 
 seen, now and then, some person who is noticea- 
 ble — perhaps remarkable — for more or less about 
 him and in his style of life, that is interestingly 
 unique. His visage has a look of pensive buoyanc} T ; 
 his glance is quick and piercing ; his gesture is mag- 
 netic ; the clothing which he gives his ideas is in 
 happy contrast with all threadbare phraseological 
 garments ; and his ideas themselves are such that 
 one might sa}^ of them, as Coleridge says of the 
 thoughts and the sentiments of Wordsworth, " They 
 are fresh and have the dew upon them." While 
 nothing that appertains to that person seems to be 
 showy or overstrained, all that appertains to him 
 
 343 
 
344 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 seems to be in some sense invitingly new, or in 
 some degree attractively rare. He has the charm of 
 a peculiar spontaneity and expressiveness. He is 
 finely natural. Impossible is it for others to observe 
 his significant simplicity and his suggestive singu- 
 larity without receiving a clear impression there- 
 from ; accordingly, as often as he chooses to reveal 
 himself and to send out rays of his splendor, he does 
 somehow make his mark. They who converse with 
 l#m eye to eye, feel something coming like electrici- 
 ty from his soul into theirs. All who behold his 
 manifestations are intent on studying him ; and of 
 those who study him, some pa}' him the tribute of 
 a stare of wonderment, as if ready to confess they 
 cannot explain him, and some go their way, com- 
 menting on his characteristic traits, and perhaps re- 
 marking, " That man has a mind of his own." 
 
 Now, wherever there is an instance substantially 
 answering to the picture just drawn, that instance is 
 one of a class that has been known in all ages since 
 the human race began its succession of generations. 
 At certain epochs this class has doubtless been more 
 numerous than at others. Difficult certainly it is to 
 think that, in the period of the Grecian virtue and 
 in the era of the Roman kingliness, the number of 
 those representing it was not far larger than it was, 
 either in the Babylonian age or in the age when an 
 English lord could be " ignorant, cowardly, ugly, 
 silly, and old, without any harm to him therefrom." 
 
 In no century, however, has the same interesting 
 class been numerous enough. The nations of the 
 earth might well wish that it to-day included ten 
 thousand more instances than it does. For the truth 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 345 
 
 is, that all the instances of it are genuine stars of 
 mankind ; they emit light which they themselves 
 possess, while other persons merely reflect light 
 which they have borrowed. Moreover, while all 
 the instances of it are distinguished after a manner 
 which is more or less unusual, surprising, and admi- 
 rable, no one of them is distinguished exactly after 
 the manner of any fellow-instance. David belonged 
 to it, and so did Solomon ; but the Daviclian lumi- 
 nosity was very different from the Solomonian. Or- 
 pheus belonged to it, and so did Homer ; but the 
 Orphic lustrousness was very different from the 
 Homeric. Confucius belonged to it, and so did Zoro- 
 aster ; but the Confucian soul-light was very differ- 
 ent from the Zoroastrian. Of these, each was in 
 some splendid sense a man by himself; each had a 
 personal magnificence such as no other mortal in the 
 world was fitted to have ; each exhibited a distinct 
 style of star-like brightness, which was demonstra- 
 tive of real noblemanship. 
 
 Indeed, there never yet lived a man of the brave 
 class of the welcomely untrite and the engagingly 
 peculiar, who had not made himself a real nobleman. 
 What a self-made nobleman was Chaucer, that 
 " perpetual fountain of good sense ! " — was Shakes- 
 peare, the bard, " not for an age but for all time," 
 who sung without being aware how grand was his 
 singing! — was Milton, who, in a period when " such 
 pitiful and stupid poetasters as Shad well and Settle 
 bore away the shining rewards of letters," rose sadly 
 but sublimely to greatness! — was Samuel John- 
 son, who " in all things and everywhere spoke out 
 in plain English from a soul wherein Jesuitism could 
 
846 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 find no harbor ! " — was the superb Goethe, "a poet 
 in such a sense as the late generations have wit- 
 nessed no other!" — was Schiller, that "high min- 
 istering servant at Truth's altar ! " — was Roger 
 Williams, the invincible colonist-apostle, whose clar- 
 ion voice rang out, two hundred and forty }^ears ago, 
 against bigotry and intolerance, and in defense of 
 " the great doctrine of intellectual liberty ! " — was 
 Benjamin Franklin, who was both a model republi- 
 can and " the most natural of all philosophers ! " 
 
 And the reason why can be easily told. I shall 
 signify it when I say that if you name any person, 
 whether of an ancient or a modern century, who, 
 after first learning how to be his own, had, during an 
 adequate time of wholesome mental training, exer- 
 cised an undiminishing self-mastery, then you will 
 name one who was a true human star, a real noble- 
 man. That person stifled not his own nature, but 
 grafted upon it, and helped it. He grew " rich of 
 himself, and not by borrowing." Knowing how to 
 be one's own, is the principal part of the explanation 
 of a rich, unique, lucid, impressive manhood. It is 
 that without which insipid commonness can never 
 be outgrown — that without which the mind can 
 never be made magnificent — that without which 
 genuine self-enrichment and self-ennoblement are 
 impossible. It is, forsooth, the prime condition of 
 true avail, in the case of the Great Fortune inher- 
 ited by humanity. 
 
 He who would please God and deserve the good 
 will of men needs to be very unlike the weakling 
 who belongs to everybody ; he must be an honest, 
 earnest, self -improving individual, who has learned 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 347 
 
 how to be his own. Knowing how to be one's own, 
 contributes more than anything else to enable one 
 to derive actual and high advantage both from what 
 has been bequeathed to him by nature and from 
 what he has acquired. It prevents beauty of coun- 
 tenance from turning out to be tame and flat, and it 
 saves honor from amounting to a misfortune. It is 
 a remedy for that diffidence which tends to the 
 decay of talent, and for that machine-like mental 
 action which is the result of an excessive dependence 
 on advice and authority. The proprietor of lands 
 and houses must know how to be his own, else he 
 will become an unhappy mortal, not so much pos- 
 sessing as being possessed by his property ; and the 
 knowledge-seeker must know how to be his own, 
 else his intellect will become a kind of warehouse, 
 and his learning a great collection of unassorted and 
 unappropriated intellectual goods. 
 
 Let a young man apply his energies in an honora- 
 ble path of action, and be qualified to exercise self- 
 mastery therein, and steadily and strikingly will he 
 advance toward superior attainments. No difficul- 
 ties will be able to dishearten him, no obstacles will 
 have power to fill him with dismay. He will not 
 allow his dread of ridicule or of contempt to hold 
 him in a "restless obscurit}^." If antagonists must 
 be encountered, he will meet them with an uncowed 
 front. Though at the risk of being denounced and 
 shunned, he will prove loyal to whom loyalty is due ; 
 and though at the hazard of being scoffed at and 
 persecuted, he will firmly stand, when the occasion 
 shall be such as to require it, 
 
 " In the right with two or three." 
 
348 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Knowing how to be one's own, is opposed to one's 
 becoming either a begging underling or a servile 
 imitator, either a fawning dependant or a showy 
 superficialist. It immensely contributes to withhold 
 one from lapsing into animalism. Little likely is 
 he who has ascertained how to be master of himself, 
 to suffer any one of his appetites to gain a beastly 
 strength, or any one of his passions to assume a 
 brutal ferocity. Had Herod been versed in self- 
 mastery, he would not have been a monster of cru- 
 elty ; and had Nero been versed in it, he would not 
 have out-Heroded Herod. The dissipation of George 
 Selwyn — that specimen of the English gentry of 
 another age, who is represented by Thackeray as 
 having been " carried to bed by two wretches at 
 midnight with three pints of claret in him " — was 
 principally owing to the fact that he did not know 
 how to be his own. 
 
 Knowing how to be one's own, is well adapted to 
 deter one from coming to have a disposition like that 
 of King Pyrrhus, who was wont (according to Mon- 
 taigne) " to truckle to the great, and to domineer 
 over the small." It preeminently conduces to deliver 
 one from fancifulness and fickleness, from dilettan- 
 teism and flunkyism, from the hollowness of the 
 trifler, and the wordiness of the gossip. Those lines 
 of an old song, 
 
 "Their minds are made of say, 
 Their love is like silk changeable," 
 
 are applicable to many mortals, but they are appli- 
 cable to such mortals only as have never found out 
 how to be their own. 
 
 He who has observed, from stage to stage in their 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 349 
 
 life-courses, two individuals, one of whom was ex- 
 perimentally acquainted with the science and the 
 art of being a self-mastered inhabitant of the world, 
 and the other utterly unschooled by experience as 
 to that science and that art, must have been deeply 
 impressed and much instructed. What differences 
 at different times arrested his attention ! He saw, 
 on the one hand, a person to whom solitude was 
 sweet, and, on the other, a person who was nearly 
 always lonely when alone. He noticed that the for- 
 mer had ever the dignity and the influence of a 
 leader ; but that the latter generally, with an easy, 
 vapid compliance, offered himself as ready to be led. 
 He perceived that the former habitually directed 
 and governed his feelings and tendencies, never 
 allowing them to exceed due bounds ; but that the 
 latter was wont to let his impulses and inclinations, 
 his partialities and fondnesses, run away with his 
 soul and body whenever they would. He beheld 
 that the former adhered with a rational tenacity to 
 the beliefs he had espoused and to the pursuits he 
 had undertaken ; but that the latter was ever liable 
 to be (as an apostle says) " carried about with every 
 wind of doctrine," and ever apt to be (as Dryden 
 has it) " everything by starts and nothing long." 
 He discovered that the former w T alked beneath the 
 heavens free from all superstitious apprehensions ; 
 but that the latter often had " an intense feeling 
 about himself which made the evening star shine at 
 him with a threat, and the blessing of a beggar [if 
 he chanced to meet one] encourage him." He ob- 
 served that the former always remained true to the 
 side which he had chosen, though he had to hold to it 
 
350 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 with the few; but that the latter, as often as he found 
 himself in the minority, "slank obliquely" out of the 
 same, and joined the larger party. And withal, he 
 saw that the former, whenever he stood before men 
 of special outward rank or men of- imposing material 
 wealth, stood erect and unconfused ; but that the 
 latter, on every occasion of entering into the pres- 
 ence of aristocrats or of millionaires, exchanged his 
 customary style of self-assurance for a style of cow- 
 ering humility. 
 
 And thus is it ever. While the figure which is 
 made in life by him who is well qualified as to self- 
 mastery, is, in some high sense, creditable, that which 
 is made by him who is unqualified in respect to the 
 same, is, in some saddening sense, discreditable. 
 
 All over the world, they who come short of know- 
 ing how to be their own, do also come short of 
 acquitting themselves manfully in any of the rela- 
 tionships, any of the positions, any of the exigencies 
 wherein their merit or their virtue is put to test. 
 Parents who know not how to be their own are 
 adult children. Teachers who know not how to be 
 their own misgovern rather than govern their pupils. 
 Friends who know not how to be their own fall 
 away, when their fidelity is tried, into neutrality or 
 undisguised falseness. Military commanders who 
 know not how to be their own abound, perhaps, 
 with rash daring, — perhaps with flourish and bra- 
 vado, — but never with cool and majestic courage. 
 Political officials who know not how to be their 
 own are mere trimmers, answering peradventure to 
 the description, 
 
 " Scarce men without, and less than girls within." 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 351 
 
 No one who has not yet come to know how to be 
 his own, is fitted to hold his way, unbewildered by 
 perplexities and nndistracted by tumults, unweak- 
 ened by adversity and unsolved by misuse. Learn 
 how to be master of thyself, and thou wilt prove 
 to be greater than thy body, greater than thy pains 
 or thy pleasures, thy hnmors or thy biases, thine 
 enthusiasms or thine ambitions, and greater than 
 thy circumstances. Whatsoever may be the con- 
 scious state whereinto thou art made to enter, thou 
 wilt show thyself to be mightier than it; and what- 
 soever may be the station or the situation which 
 thou art called to occupy, thou wilt show thyself to 
 be superior to it. 
 
 About nineteen hundred and twenty-five years 
 ago, there was a mariner who had charge of a 
 twelve-oared vessel in which voj^ages were made 
 over the Ionian Sea. One night, Julius Caesar, hab- 
 ited as a slave, embarked in that vessel, to be borne 
 from Apollonia to Brundusium. His purpose in seek- 
 ing to be transported to that place, was to hasten 
 forward troops whereon he depended for the discom- 
 fiture of Pompey, whose fleets were hovering along 
 the Ionian coast. As the vessel dropped down the 
 river Anias toward the sea, a violent gale suddenly 
 sprang up, and the waves dashed furiously against 
 one another, producing not only a great noise, but 
 also perilous eddies. The mariner was smitten with 
 terror, and he ordered the oarsmen to turn back. 
 At that moment, Csesar arose and revealed himself. 
 Said he : 
 
 "Go forward, my friend, and fear nothing; thou earnest Caesar 
 and his fortune." 
 
352 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 What a contrast was then and there to be seen ! 
 That seaman, because he understood not how to be 
 master of himself, had let his fear completely pre- 
 vail over him and bind him fast with its chains ; but 
 that Roman general, by reason of knowing how to 
 be his own, was able to stand unalarmed and com- 
 posed while the tempest raged round him. 
 
 The direct treatment of the topic which has thus 
 far occupied attention, has here an end ; but not 
 here is the topic itself suffered to drop from under 
 consideration. It shall be indirectly kept before the 
 mind, and more and more elucidated, as its weighti- 
 ness gives it right to be, all the way to the final close. 
 I now go on to specify and discuss the chief distin- 
 guishing peculiarities which depend on the great 
 condition or qualification expressed in the chapter- 
 head. Afterward, there will be presented some in- 
 stances specially and vividly illustrative of them. 
 
 II. 
 
 INDIVIDUALITY. 
 
 "If men would be content to graft upon Nature and assist her 
 operations, what mighty effects might we expect ! " 
 
 The Spectator, No. 404. 
 
 "As to the crowd of those who are faithfully stamped, like bank 
 notes, with the same marks, with the difference only of being worth 
 more guineas or fewer, they are mere particles of a glass, mere 
 pieces and bits of the great vulgar or the small." j OHN Foster 
 
 There is a certain trait which, being itself strongly 
 characteristic, imparts characteristicalness to every 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 353 
 
 trait that coexists with it. Not all, but compara- 
 tively only a small proportion of mankind, possess 
 it in any noteworthy degree. Its most widely-known 
 name is individuality. This trait explains how it is 
 that men, like Stephen Blackpool (who is portrayed 
 in Dickens' Hard Times), have, even in accepting a 
 present and in expressing thanks for the same, such 
 grace as " Lord Chesterfield could not have taught 
 his son in a century." It may be represented as 
 a settled, constant, habitual self-distinctiveness, or 
 rather as a fixed disposition to be ever and every- 
 where the one that one is by nature fitted to be. 
 It is found at its best in none but those who have 
 learned the science and the art of self-mastery. 
 
 In the discussion now opened, there is need to 
 give some account of those kinds of individuality 
 that are not admirable. I will speak particularly of 
 them. And the one first to be treated, is the merely 
 idiosyncratic individuality. It is exemplified by the 
 person who is wont to conform unresistingly to his 
 natural weaknesses and caprices. He who has it 
 evinces a self-distinctiveness when he is " tickled 
 with good success " or is pained by a mishap, when 
 he is generous or is crabbed ; but it is a self-distinc- 
 tiveness of an inferior order. Most people do too 
 often, so far as their foibles and faults are concerned, 
 reveal themselves characteristically. The hypocrite 
 has no assumed style when he is sullen, the prude 
 none when she is piqued. What unpretentious 
 changelings men are as to their infirmities, their 
 frailties, their irritable unevennesses ! Imitating 
 nobody, they put off one small temper and take on 
 another. Stopping not to see how others do, they 
 23 
 
854 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 pass, each in a way of his own, from amiability to 
 ill-naturedness, and then from ill-naturedness back 
 to amiability. Should they keep an account on the 
 pages of their diaries of the irregular ebbs and flows 
 which occur within them in consequence of their 
 conformity to their idiosyncratic failings, what a 
 series of singular jottings would they soon have for 
 perusal ! Now, there is nothing commendable in 
 thus granting to human nature the privilege of be- 
 ing in its own style childishly changeable — nothing 
 praiseworthy in thus complying with every little 
 constitutional turn or proclivit}^. The individuality 
 which mortals need is of that high species which is 
 associated ever with the habit of being one's own; 
 To acquire it, they may well patiently strive. But 
 let them endeavor to be as free as possible from the 
 cheap individuality which is so often exhibited in 
 times of annoyance or of illness, times of evil acci- 
 dent or of passionate excitement. For who that has 
 ever possessed this, was the better for having it ? 
 
 Another unadmirable kind of individuality is that 
 which is illustrated in the case of the extremely 
 queer person. It may properly be treated under 
 the epithet unwisely-singular. Foolish is he who 
 allows himself to gain notoriety by being uniquely 
 undignified, inconsistent, uncouth, or ludicrous. 
 Demophoon, the steward of Alexander the Great, 
 should not have been so odd as to sweat in the shade 
 and to shiver in the sunshine ; nor should Germani- 
 cus have been so strange as to have and to indulge 
 an immense antipathy to the sight and the crowing 
 of a cock. Henry the Third of France, it is related, 
 was accustomed to spend a hundred thousand crowns 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 355 
 
 a year on spaniels. Antisthenes, the founder of the 
 Cynic sect of philosophers, was fond of appearing 
 in public, clad in a threadbare and ragged cloak, 
 the tattered parts of which he took more pains to 
 display than he did to conceal. The one revealed 
 himself characteristically respecting dogs, the other 
 respecting his dress ; but neither the one nor the 
 other revealed a right characteristicalness. Once, 
 Antisthenes, while going about in his ridiculous old 
 cloak, met Socrates, and was tersely criticised by 
 him, thus : 
 
 "Why so ostentatious? Through your rags I see your vanity." 
 
 There was a certain man who had somehow ar- 
 rived at the conclusion that every thing merely orna- 
 mental is contrary to sacred Scripture, and therefore 
 should be discountenanced and repudiated. Well 
 known was he throughout a considerable region of 
 one of the States. He conceived it to be a sin to 
 adorn the body, and a sin to put gilding or trim- 
 mings on anything. He held that houses should 
 be built and finished without regard to fineness of 
 appearance ; that fences should be constructed for 
 the sake of their utility only; that one's garden 
 should be free from all plants that serve solely for 
 beautification ; and that one's stove, one's dishes, 
 one's chairs, one's clock, one's book-case, one's car- 
 riage, should be absolutely destitute of every species 
 and every manner of mere ornament. People, he 
 maintained, should, in the matter of clothing, be 
 governed entirely by considerations of healthfulness, 
 comfortableness, and durability. No one should 
 wear broadcloth or satin, silk or velvet, so long as 
 
356 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 he can procure some other equally wholesome kind 
 of dress, or dress-material, for less money. Such 
 were the curious views of that curious man. And 
 he supplemented his extreme queerness as to views, 
 with the extreme queerness inseparable from a re- 
 ducing of them to practice. It is not often that 
 men try very hard to carry into effect their avowed 
 notions ; but the person referred to was an excep- 
 tional instance. He eschewed all adornment, and 
 became notorious for a style of life wherein was 
 manifested a determined antagonism against making 
 the useful, for appearance's sake, beautiful. He 
 wore garments wrought of tow-thread, and had no 
 buttons on the hinder part of his coat. It was his 
 aim to allow nothing that was simply decorative in 
 its nature, to appertain either to his person or to his 
 premises. The anomalous plainness of his garb ren- 
 dered him wherever he went a droll spectacle. At 
 one time, when he was entering the city, a band of 
 lads in the street thought him crazy ; and, with star- 
 ing faces, they followed him about till his usually 
 mild temper failed him, and he wrathfully turned 
 and put them to rout. On the part of that earnest 
 and persevering laughing-stock, there was much 
 self-distinctiveness ; but it was of an unwisely-sin- 
 gular sort, and consequently not entitled to any 
 profound admiration. 
 
 I speak next of the unadmirable kind of individu- 
 ality which is evinced by the ill-balanced contem- 
 platist, who is either an extravagant believer or an 
 extravagant skeptic. There may be applied to it the 
 epithet erratically-intellectual. All one-idea men are 
 instances of this. Longfellow, in his Hyperion, rep- 
 
THE PKIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 357 
 
 resents the Baron of Hohenfels as speaking to Paul 
 Flemming thus : 
 
 " In solitude, some fixed idea will often take root in the mind, 
 and grow till it overshadow all one's thoughts. To this must all 
 opinions come ; no thought can enter there, which shall not be 
 wedded to the fixed idea. There it remains and grows. It is like 
 the watchman's wife, in the Tower of Waiblingen, who grew to 
 such a size, that she could not get down the narrow stair-case ; 
 and when her husband died, his successor was forced to marry the 
 fat widow in the Tower." 
 
 The comet of thinkers, the enthusiast of theoriz- 
 ers, the fanatic of investigators, and the quidcller of 
 metaphysicians — each is a one-idea man. The soul 
 of such a one seems to become by degrees dry and 
 light, and to be ever floating higher and higher in a 
 kind of ether, wherein it can abound with nothing 
 but abstract meditations and visionary reveries. 
 When Constantine, the Roman emperor, saw how 
 Acesius, the bishop of the Novatian sect, was affected 
 by his favorite tenet (the belief that there is no 
 temporal efficacy in repentance), he said to him, 
 "Acesius, take a ladder and get up to heaven by 
 yourself/' Suggestive reproof! Gibbon, alluding 
 to it, remarks, " Most of the Christian sects have, 
 by turns, borrowed the ladder of Acesius." 
 
 What strangeness of many a philosopher, what 
 weirdness of many a saint, does one-ideaism ex- 
 plain ! There was Philetas, that ancient puzzle- 
 headed scholar. It is written that he died of con- 
 sumption incurred in consequence of his study of 
 the sophism: 
 
 " If when you speak the truth, you say you lie, you lie : but you 
 say you lie when you speak the truth ; therefore, in speaking the 
 truth, you lie." 
 
358 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 There was Pyrrho, that ancient skeptic. His pet 
 idea was the non-reality of what men claimed to be 
 certainly known. This idea, by reason that he inces- 
 santly entertained and fostered it, grew in his mind 
 to prodigious dimensions. All his other ideas at- 
 tached themselves to it. Under its influence, he 
 denied the actual existence of the material world. 
 His friends, when they heard from his lips this ex- 
 treme negation, began to fear lest his one-ideaism as 
 a skeptic should result in the loss of his life ; and 
 they thenceforth accompanied him continually, in 
 his goings and comings, in order that he might not 
 receive fatal injury from any of the things along his 
 way. Very natural was it for them to think that, 
 with such a conclusion in his head as the nihilistic 
 one he had deduced, he was liable, unless protec- 
 tively attended, to walk off dry land into deep 
 water, to be run over by some vehicle, or to break 
 his neck by stepping from the brink of some preci- 
 pice. 
 
 There was Saint Anthony, that Egyptian ascetic 
 who, in the fourth centur}% founded, on a hill near 
 the Red Sea, the system of monachism. He had 
 wedded all his thoughts to the one idea that Chris- 
 tian purity is dependent on a retired mode of life. 
 This, as it grew day by da}^ within him, destroyed 
 his mental balance, and fitted him for amazing vaga- 
 ries. He sold his property and distributed the pro- 
 ceeds thereof among his relatives, abandoned all 
 familiar scenes, and betook himself to the ruins of 
 fallen tombs, and thence to the desert. He prac- 
 ticed not only severe abnegation but also self-flagel- 
 lation, dwelt much of the time with wild beasts, and 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 359 
 
 subsisted on fruits and herbs which were produced 
 by uncultivated nature. 
 
 There was Saint Thomas Aquinas, that scholastic 
 meditator and " loquacious metaphysician," who lived 
 in Italy in the thirteenth century. He had let him- 
 self become occupied and possessed by the single 
 idea of a reconciliation between the Aristotelian 
 philosophy and logic and the Bible. Being unre- 
 mittingly cherished by him, that idea could not but 
 increase to enormous proportions. It spread out, 
 like a gigantic tropical plant, which covers and 
 chokes with its rank branches and leaves everything 
 that tries to live near it. Something of it pervaded 
 all his perceptions, all his fancies, all his feelings. 
 Not a look did he wear on his countenance that was 
 not in some degree expressive of it : not a word did 
 he utter that did not in some manner signify it ; not 
 an act did he perform that could not be said to con- 
 vey some hint about it. His life has been aptly 
 described by Michelet, as " entirely one of abstrac- 
 tion." Such was his absorption in his daily employ- 
 ment as a hair-splitting philosophizer over the Scrip- 
 tures, that " when sleep closed the eyes of his body, 
 those of his soul remained open," and he uncon- 
 sciously, during the night-hours, broke the stillness 
 of his room with mumbled interpretations and com- 
 ments. The extent to which his one-ideaism en- 
 grossed his faculties was, in at least two particular 
 instances, astonishingly shown. On a certain day 
 when he was at sea, a fearful tempest passed over 
 without even diverting his attention from his task; 
 and at another time, while engaged in his usual 
 work, he held fast, without being aware of the con- 
 
360 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 tact of fire with his nerves, to a lighted candle 
 which was burning his fingers with its flame. 
 
 And there was (to cite one more instance) Igna- 
 tius Loyola, who, in the first half of the sixteenth 
 century, founded the order of Jesuits. He was born 
 and bred in Spain. For a period, he served as a 
 page to the Spanish king ; but, having acquired a 
 distaste for a courtier's life, he became a soldier. 
 When he had reached the age of thirty years, a book 
 entitled The Flower of the Saints, was one day placed 
 in his hands. He was at the time recovering from 
 a fever. In that book, he read vivid accounts of 
 Christian men who had chosen to lead lives of pain- 
 ful retirement, privation, and hardship. Some of 
 them were persons of rank. They had wandered 
 over the earth in coarse vestments ; they had worn 
 heavy iron chains ; they had dwelt in dreary deserts 
 or in horrible caves. As he contemplated the ascetic 
 rigorism practiced by those devout persons, there 
 became fixed in his mind the idea that, by imitating 
 their example, he could gain a sacred fame. This 
 idea rapidly grew within him ; for so powerfully had 
 he been impressed by the narratives which he had 
 perused, that he was in a mood to cherish it con- 
 tinually. It soon attained an overshadowing magni- 
 tude. Under its ever-increasing influence, he re- 
 solved to begin the career of a hermit-saint, and to 
 strive to outdo the most eminent of those who had 
 passed their years in a like career. He even deter- 
 mined that, in addition to other mortifying severities, 
 he would undertake to walk barefooted all the way 
 to the Holy Land. His brother, Don Martin, in 
 vain sought to dissuade him from taking the course 
 
THE PBIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 361 
 
 of pious extravagances toward which his soul was 
 set. He went forth from his home and his friends, 
 and, after vowing at Montserrat a vow of perpetual 
 chastit}', actually commenced the life of religious 
 austerity for which his one-ideaism had prepared 
 him. He covered his body with a sack. He found 
 a cave, and made it his dwelling-place. There he 
 slept on the cold earth, and confined himself to a 
 diet of bread and water. His hair and his finger- 
 nails were permitted by him to grow to a shocking 
 ]ength. He spent seven hours daily in vocal pra}-er, 
 fasted regularly, often went from door to door beg- 
 ging, and, withal, was accustomed to administer, 
 several times every day, a severe flogging to his 
 own person. So much did he disfigure his frame by 
 the last-named practice, that people pointed him out 
 and hooted at him when he appeared in the streets. 
 After a while melancholy seized him ; and then 
 sickness, and then delirium. He thought that he 
 was damned and in hell. Some monks came and 
 rescued him from his frightful haunt. He recovered 
 the customary use of his powers, and subsequently 
 became ambitious to be the founder of an oath- 
 bound order of itinerant Roman Catholic propa- 
 gandists. It may be said that he modified his first 
 one-ideaism by adding to it a fresh one-ideaism ; 
 and that the Jesuitic organization, which he estab- 
 lished in the year fifteen hundred and forty at 
 Venice, had its rise in the mixture of the two. 
 
 Still another unadmirable kind of individuality 
 awaits consideration. I shall treat it under the title 
 disdainfully -arbitrary. It is that which marks the 
 despotic type of character. The person of a cold 
 
362 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 loftiness and an excessive reserve, the arrogant aris- 
 tocrat, the self-exalted, imperious aspirer after glory, 
 and the cruelly-decisive wielder of power — each is 
 a representative of it. In Paradise Lost, Satan is 
 described as surveying his situation with a frigid 
 but majestic composure, and as saying : 
 
 " Better to reign in hell, than serve in heaven." 
 
 There have been men who have been, in a similar 
 manner, uniquely proud. Many is the conqueror, 
 many is the king, that chills while he dazes those on 
 whom he looks. Who has not seen some robed 
 priest, some towering statesman, or some magisterial 
 teacher, whose visage was fitted to make one say : 
 
 "He gilds it always, he warms it not ? " 
 
 It is related of Keate, a noted Eton head-master 
 whose pupil Tennyson is said to have once been, 
 that, on a certain morning when he was reading 
 to the school the Beatitudes, he commented on 
 the sixth one thus : " Mind that ! It is your duty 
 to be pure in heart. If you are not pure in heart, 
 I'll flog you." * About a century earlier, there was 
 a head-master of the same school who had a stern 
 lordliness which rendered him even more fearful to 
 his pupils than Keate was to his. His name was 
 Charles Roderick. In the one hundred and sixty- 
 eighth number of The Spectator occur these words 
 respecting him : 
 
 " So very dreadful had he made himself to me, that although it 
 is above twenty years since I felt his heavy hand, yet once a 
 month at least I dream of him, so strong an impression did he 
 make on my mind." 
 
 * See article on Eton College, in Harper's Magazine for Sep- 
 tember, 1876. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 363 
 
 And the writer adds the remark, that the fact of 
 his being thus continually haunted in his sleep was 
 an evidence that that master had formerly fully ter- 
 rified him when he was awake. 
 
 Of the species of self-distinctiveness here re- 
 ceiving attention there have been numerous historic 
 instances. It was illustrated by Nebuchadnezzar, 
 who, walking with a haughty step on the top of his 
 palace, said, " Is not this great Babylon that I have 
 built ... by the might of my power, and for the 
 honor of my majesty ? " It was illustrated by 
 Frederick the Great of Prussia, who " lavished with 
 unfeeling prodigality the blood of his soldiers." It 
 was illustrated by Napoleon the First, who, though 
 he shone dazzlingly, shone with a heatless efful- 
 gence, and who, though he had greatness, was great 
 only as a "demonic man." "I knew one," says 
 Erasmus, " so arrogant that he thought himself in- 
 ferior to no man living." So Hampden, after he had 
 
 " The little tyrant of his fields withstood," 
 
 could have said ; and so Johnson, after the com- 
 pletion of his dictionary, could have said — Johnson, 
 to whom the Earl of Chesterfield had been as " one 
 who looks with unconcern on a man struggling in 
 the water, and, when he has reached the ground, 
 encumbers him with help." 
 
 There have been, in the ages, inhuman specimens 
 of mankind, ferocious men. Their chief principle 
 of action was, that right is for one what one makes 
 right ; and their chief ideal was the ideal of superi- 
 ority in mere strength, that whereby (as Novalis 
 teaches) man becomes a beast-spirit, displaying a 
 
364 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 brutal wit which has for weaklings " a brutal power 
 of attraction." Some of them were " terrible be- 
 ings who exalted themselves above men. above mis- 
 fortune, above the earth, and above conscience, and 
 to whom it was all the same whatever human blood 
 they shed, whether another's or their own." And 
 all those men — those Hamans, Maximins, Tamer- 
 lanes, Neros, Borgias, Herods, Lauds, Robespierres, 
 whose leading traits may be declared to have been 
 wrought out of invisible iron — were instances of 
 the disdainfully-arbitrary kind of individuality. To 
 two of them I will more than cursorily allude. 
 They were Caligula and Sir George Jeffreys, — the 
 former a representative tyrant, the latter a repre- 
 sentative bully. 
 
 Of Caligula, see what is written in history ! He 
 was the fourth of the Roman emperors. As such, 
 he procured the death of several of his kindred. 
 He ordered criminals to be executed by inches, so 
 that they " might feel themselves to be dying." He 
 caused persons to be subjected to torture, that he 
 might, while taking his meals, be amused by their 
 expressions of agony. Once, at a circus, he com- 
 manded a considerable number of the spectators to 
 be seized and thrown before the wild beasts in the 
 arena. He obliged unoffending fathers to witness 
 the infliction of capital punishment on their sons. 
 He often intimated, while kissing the neck of a wife 
 or a mistress, how quickly, notwithstanding its pret- 
 tiness, he could have it severed if he chose. He 
 used to say of the people, whose detestation he knew 
 he had incurred, " Let them hate me, provided they 
 fear me ; " and on one occasion he signified the 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 365 
 
 wish that they had but one head, so that he might 
 kill the whole of them at a single blow. He caused 
 Apelles, a noted tragedian, to be cruelly whipped, 
 in order that he might, as he professed, hear the nat- 
 ural tones and accents of which that actor's voice was 
 capable. He married his own sister Drusilla. He pro- 
 claimed himself a god, and, erecting a temple to him- 
 self, appointed priests to pay worship to him therein. 
 He honored his favorite horse, Incitatus, with a 
 stable of marble and a rack of ivory. He ordered a 
 huge platform, more than three miles long, to be 
 constructed on the sea, and to be covered with 
 earth, mason-work, and buildings ; and, when the 
 strange project was accomplished, he celebrated the 
 achievement with a banquet, which he gave in the 
 middle of the vast floating bridge, and the close of 
 which he signalized by causing many of the guests 
 to be pushed off into the water, and kept under by 
 means of oars and poles. He led the Roman army 
 into Gaul, pretending that he was going on an ex- 
 pedition against Britain ; and, after impoverishing 
 that country by extortion and plunder, he set out 
 with the troops homeward, and, in the course of the 
 march, pompously drew them up in battle-array on 
 the sea-shore, commanded them to fill their helmets 
 with shells, and then called those shells the spoils he 
 had taken as conqueror of the ocean ! 
 
 The foregoing delineation is to be followed by 
 one which, though ifc will contain fewer details, will 
 not be less striking. I am to try to depict the atro- 
 cious Sir George Jeffreys, who was the chief justice 
 of the King's Bench during the deplorable reign of 
 James the Second, of England. To portray him 
 
366 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 clearly, one needs to borrow from the vivid picture 
 given by Macaulay. His style as a lawyer he had 
 acquired at the Old Baile}^ bar, where it was the 
 custom to tolerate almost any degree of looseness or 
 waywardness in speech. There he had for years 
 exercised his powers in doing business, principally 
 for wretches and villains. In serving such clients — 
 persons that were numbered among the worst knaves 
 of London — he had grown expert in browbeating 
 and badgering, in audacious ridicule and abusive 
 bombast. The result was, that he had come to be 
 " the most consummate bully ever known in his 
 profession." The general expression of his face 
 was unprepossessing, and the sound of his voice 
 was disagreeable. Impudence and ferocity (so one 
 learns from Macaulay) sat on his brow ; the glare 
 of his e}^es had a fascination for the unhappy vic- 
 tim on whom they were fixed ; more terrible even 
 than his brow and eye were the savage lines which 
 marked his mouth: and his yell of fury was sug- 
 gestive of the thunder of the judgment-day. The 
 insatiable zeal and the overbearing bravado of that 
 base judge secured the conviction of two compas- 
 sionate women, Lady Lisle and Mrs. Gaunt, for 
 having afforded refuge in their houses to certain 
 fugitives from Monmouth's defeated army ; and 
 when he had contrived to bring to pass a verdict 
 against them, he made himself instrumental in 
 causing them to be literally burned alive. The 
 saintly Richard Baxter was one of those who suf- 
 fered from his insolent hardihood and his ventings 
 of furious scorn. He had been arraigned for some 
 condemnatory comments which, in one of his works, 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 367 
 
 he had incidentally made on the persecution of dis- 
 senters. Jeffreys, with " forehead of brass and 
 tongue of venom," mocked that good man, by 
 raising his clasped hands, and singing through his 
 nose, " Lord, we are thy people, thy peculiar people, 
 thy dear people." It was proposed by him that 
 Baxter should be tied to the cart's tail and whipped 
 through London. But a less severe punishment 
 was inflicted. The pious author was only fined and 
 imprisoned. 
 
 Genuine and admirable individuality may be said 
 to consist in being true, in true ways, to one's own 
 nature. Would you know whether a man has it or 
 not ? Then trouble not yourself to inquire whence 
 he has come — where he was born, reared, or edu- 
 cated — what degree of distinction appertained to 
 his near or remote ancestors — what positions he 
 has held — what diplomas, titles, or testimonials he 
 can exhibit — what noteworthy performances he has 
 wrought — how he gets his living — how much ma- 
 terial wealth he possesses ; but ask, first of all, 
 What is he in himself? Just as an arrow, shot in 
 earnest and surely aimed, goes to the blood, so this 
 question will go to the pith of the case. 
 
 Mr. Hughes, in his Tom Broivris School-Bays at 
 Rugby, represents Squire Brown (Tom's father) as 
 loving to propound the belief that " a man is to be 
 valued wholly and solely for that which he is in 
 himself, for that which stands up in the four fleshly 
 walls of him, apart from clothes, rank, fortune, and 
 all externals whatsoever." To find out what one is 
 in himself, is to find out more than what man is in 
 
368 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 general ; it is to ascertain what one is as a certain 
 one. He who has true individuality has a clear 
 importance and worth, additional to the importance 
 and the worth which belong to his soul in common 
 with other souls. To his character there belong 
 admirable points of uniqueness. An unborrowed 
 inner wealth is his. While in much he is like all,' 
 in much he is like none. He is a human unit in 
 possession of inimitable distinguishing marks. At 
 home, abroad, among the small, among the great, 
 everywhere, he maintains a hale and manly state of 
 singleness. He " always marches along as a stream 
 with its own waves through the sea of the world." 
 In no circle of society does he cease from being 
 worthily independent ; in no mass of people does 
 he become ''indistinct as water is in water." Give 
 him a congenial associate, and with him he will con- 
 fidingly walk ; yet, as the forefinger of the hand 
 preserves its separate consequence, notwithstanding 
 its continual contact with the finger next to it, so 
 he, notwithstanding his intimacy with his friend, 
 will keep good the light, the importance, the worth 
 peculiar to his manhood. Between him and com- 
 monplace mortals, what differences ! They are sym- 
 bolized by "bricks in a wall, or marbles in a bag;" 
 he, by some " throbbing star." 
 
 " They strive to seem, and never care to be ; " 
 
 he is solidly significant and eternally real. They 
 infatuatedly gaze on the glittering apparel and the 
 imposing train of "pageant power;" he is ready to 
 say with Emerson, " Give me health and a June 
 day, and I will make the pomp of kings ridiculous." 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 369 
 
 Your commonplace mortal is unable by gaudy 
 attire, stylish manners, or any other means, to com- 
 pensate his or her lack of a right self-distinctive- 
 ness. Behold that one ! Her person shines with 
 diamonds. But is the diamond brilliance her bril- 
 liance ? Is she, with all her precious ornaments, 
 anything more than what she is? — anything, that 
 is to say, but a being whose best self-shed light is a 
 stale splendor? Dickens makes David Copperfield 
 say of the fashionable but commonplace Mrs. Water- 
 brook, that she was either a large lady or she wore 
 a large dress, he didn't know which ; for he couldn't 
 determine which was dress and which was lady. 
 Mrs. Waterbrook may be taken as the type of a 
 class ; and that class is composed of those who, 
 for the want of individuality, are scarcely distin- 
 guishable from their furbelovved, fringy, and garish 
 clothes. There are a thousand and a thousand 
 women and men who are glorying in a glory which 
 is not their own. Not one fine beam of fresh ra- 
 diance from themselves mixes with it. It is wholly 
 produced by things outside of them. And they, 
 how much better are they for having it? Certainly 
 no better at all. Their commonplace souls are just 
 as monotonous and insipid as they would be with- 
 out it. Thackeray, in a chapter on" Dinner-going 
 Snobs," speaks of persons "who trail a peacock's 
 feather behind them, and think to simulate the gor- 
 geous bird whose nature it is to strut on palace- 
 terraces, and to flaunt his magnificent fantail in the 
 sunshine." Such instances of poor-silly-jayism suc- 
 ceed not, nor do any other instances of simulated 
 importance succeed in proving to be more than they 
 24 
 
370 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 are. Now, on the other hand, the person who is 
 habitually and decidedly individual could not, were 
 he to attempt so to do, hide the fact that he is a 
 distinct source of light and influence. His full- 
 grown habit of doing justice to himself, his sterling 
 " ownness of impulse and insight," does and will 
 have an undirn expression. Wherever he may be, 
 he will, in not a little that commands respect, ap- 
 pear as nobody else. The author of English Traits 
 tersely says of the typical Englishman, " He is a 
 king in a plain coat." The same averment may 
 emphatically be made of any wearer of a plain coat 
 anywhere in this world who has learned how to be 
 his own. " A healthy soul," says Carlyle, u im- 
 prison it as you will in squalid garrets, shabby coat, 
 bodily sickness, or whatever else, will assert its 
 heaven-granted, indefeasible freedom, its right to 
 conquer difficulties, to do work, even to feel glad- 
 ness." 
 
 The man of true individuality has in his own self- 
 knowing substance a fortified center. He holds 
 that center as a garrison holds a citadel. Nothing 
 can be there that is not his own. His soul, with its 
 faculties, while recognized by him as his, is con- 
 stantly felt by him to be him. People call him 
 eccentric. Reason why : he is a distinct man, who, 
 from the roots of his nature up, is peculiar. The 
 hunger of his intellect will not be satisfied with 
 precisely the aliment that satisfies other intellects. 
 Most minds feed on appearances ; his feeds only on 
 what it finds good for it beneath appearances. Ob- 
 serve him, and see wherein and how he is eccentric. 
 lie surprises mortals with things fresh and quick- 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 371 
 
 ening, which have emanated from his mental matrix. 
 His presence is different from every other presence. 
 He stirs others with spontaneities which are some- 
 times keen and piquant, and sometimes blunt. 
 Often he overwhelms others with rich gushes of 
 strange eloquence. His thoughts come not till they 
 are ready ; but when they do come, they present 
 themselves as if they had leaped into the vehicles 
 which carry them. When he speaks and when he 
 writes, he expresses either himself or what belongs 
 to himself. He scorns to appropriate, after the 
 manner of the literary pilferer, the ideas and the 
 ideals, the conceptions and the sentiments of others. 
 It was such a one as he that invented the compass ; 
 it was such a one as he that ran out and cried, ''Eu- 
 reka ! " on occasion of the discovery of the law of 
 specific gravity ; it was such a one as he that com- 
 posed the story of the Pilgrim's Progress ; it was 
 such a one as he that wrote the imperishable max- 
 ims of Poor Richard's Almanac. In the general 
 sense in which he is eccentric, Joshua, the pioneer 
 warrior of the Holy Land, was eccentric ; Daniel, 
 the prophet, whose eye thrilled lions, was eccentric ; 
 William Tell, the deliverer of the Swiss cantons 
 from tyranny, was eccentric. 
 
 Eccentricity, when it implies genuine individual- 
 ity, is neither to be contemned nor to be ridiculed ; 
 it is to be respected. They that are practical illus- 
 trators of that olden heroism which was symbolized 
 in the firm, gritty material of the few mighty moun- 
 tains of the earth that triumphantly resisted the 
 scouring agencies of the drift-period ; they that are 
 accustomed to think profoundly and to declare their 
 
372 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 thoughts self-reliantly ; they that dare to assail pop- 
 ular evils at the risk of being reproached and de- 
 famed b}^ a selfish multitude ; they that, with a sad 
 disgust for the circles where vanity and folly ex- 
 hibit themselves, retire to solitary places, and there, 
 as explorers, as writers, or as artists, devote their 
 powers for the improvement of mankind, — all these 
 are eccentric. And they are so because they have 
 true self-clistinctiveness. It may be said that all 
 the prized things which are suggested by that word 
 "civilization," testify to the important significance 
 of a solidly-sustained eccentricity. He who is de- 
 termined to be, at all times and everywhere, a 
 brave, earnest, irrepressible man, honest for hon- 
 esty's rather than for policy's sake, unswerving from 
 the course of duty as a planet from its path, and 
 never stooping to do a mean deed, must expect to 
 be called eccentric. What is wanted on the part of 
 people in this age — what is specially wanted on the 
 part of American men and women in this age — is 
 pride in being worthily eccentric. There is too 
 much ground for the complaint thrown out by 
 Emerson that "our tendency is to make all alike, 
 and to extinguish individuality." A hundred thou- 
 sand souls, marked each by an interesting distinct- 
 ness of character, are needed in our nation. The 
 ranks of the starlike should be recruited ; who is he 
 that, by being himself truly individual, will con- 
 tribute toward filling them up?* 
 
 * A very few of the thoughts presented in the last two para- 
 graphs are almost the same as some expressed by me in an article 
 entitled Derived Men and Radical Men, which was published in 
 the National Magazine for September. 1855. And here I will 
 
THE PEIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 373 
 
 III. 
 
 MASTERFULNESS AND TENDERNESS. 
 
 " He only is advancing in life whose heart is getting softer, 
 whose blood warmer, whose brain quicker, whose spirit is entering 
 into living peace. And the men who have this life in them, are the 
 true lords or kings of the earth— they, and they only." 
 
 Rcskin, Sesame and Lilies, p. 67. 
 
 " The man most man, with tenderest human hands, 
 Works best for men, — as God in Nazareth." 
 
 Mrs. Browning, Aurora Leigh, p. 348. 
 
 The person that has bred himself to self-mastery 
 is one who, should he travel round the globe, would 
 everywhere show, not only an admirable swaying 
 power, but also a lovable loving power. He is 
 sweet-souled as well as high-souled, merciful as 
 well as strong, a tender fellow-mortal as well as a 
 masterful human being. There are those who, in 
 proportion as they cultivate and enrich their minds, 
 become unemotional and frigid ; but not so does he. 
 There are those who, in order to attain to superior 
 importance, sacrifice pity to dignity, and leave their 
 lovingness to dry up under the influence of a parch- 
 ing ambition ; but not so does he. Assign to this 
 man duties in war, and he will be a Washington-like 
 
 state, that a year ago, while on the Pacific coast, it was my sin- 
 gular lot to see, in a San Francisco paper, under the heading of 
 Types of Men, and over the signature of some regular contributor, 
 nearly the whole of said article, appearing as if it were that con- 
 tributor's own production. Should the plagiarist ever read this 
 marginal note, it is hoped his recollection of his literary theft will 
 result in some wholesome twinges of his conscience. 
 
374 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 fighter ; intrust to him tasks in peace, and he will 
 be a Franklin-like achiever. Should he be provoked 
 to wrath, he would have (to use the language of 
 Algernon Sidney) " a look full of amiable fierce- 
 ness, as in whom choler could not take away the 
 sweetness." The elder Cato, one of those old-time 
 pattern Romans who were " kingly in their thoughts," 
 was wont to say that he preferred the character of a 
 good husband to that of a great senator. " When 
 he had a son born," says Plutarch, "no business, 
 however urgent, except it related to the public, 
 could hinder him from being present while his wife 
 washed and swaddled the infant." Phocion, who 
 lived a hundred }'ears before Cato, was not less mas- 
 terful nor less tender than he. On one occasion, 
 Chares, the orator, by way of disparaging him, 
 made mention, in a speech to the Athenians, of his 
 dignified brow. The noble Greek replied : 
 
 " This brow of mine never gave one of you an hour of sorrow; 
 but the laughter of these sneerers has cost their country many a 
 tear." 
 
 Says Jean Paul : " Do we not admire it in great phi- 
 losophers, e. g., Malebranche, and great generals, 
 e. g., Scipio, that, after the greatest achievements 
 which they made in the kingdom of truths, or in a 
 geographical, they betook themselves to the nursery, 
 and there carried on real child's fooleries, in order 
 gently to relax the bow wherewith they had shot so 
 many lies and liars to the ground ? " And Jean 
 Paul himself — Jean Paul, who has been justly 
 called "a colossal spirit," — could have been seen, 
 at one time and another, tenderly feeding his pet 
 mouse, or his pet spider, or his pet tree-frog. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 375 
 
 I like to read of Epaminondas, the most masterful 
 of the Greeks, yet one of the tenderest of them. 
 He declared that the satisfaction which exceeded 
 every other lie had ever felt, was his satisfaction 
 when he saw the pleasure of his father and mother 
 over his victory at Leuctra. Cicero was accustomed, 
 after delivering his splendid orations, to find delight 
 in calling together his children, and having a romp 
 with them. Montaigne, though he associated with 
 kings, was of such habits and such a temper as 
 " smoothed his intercourse even with the lowest." 
 When the citizens of Bordeaux had elected him as 
 counselor, he told them frankly what he thought to 
 he his deficiencies, but added that he was " without 
 hatred, without ambition, without avarice, and with- 
 out violence." Sir John Franklin was (according to 
 Sir Edward Parry) " a man who never turned his 
 back on a danger, yet of that tenderness that he 
 would not brush away a mosquito." Lord Macaulay, 
 while he was intellectually grand and regnant, was, 
 as his friends knew, fascinatingly tender, and, as his 
 sisters knew, adorably so. 
 
 That unparalleled American, Daniel Webster, 
 traveled many miles over a rough road, to an ob- 
 scure village, in order to see old John Colby, his 
 brother-in-law, who, after a long life as a brawny 
 sinner, had become a Christian. " He won't know 
 me," said Webster, "and I shall not him; and I 
 don't intend to make myself known at first." 
 When Colby, who was found reading his Scott's 
 family Bible, came to understand that his visitor 
 was the great orator and statesman whom he re- 
 membered as " the little black lad that used to ride 
 
6 lb THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the horse to water," he said, " Is it possible that you 
 have come up here to see me ? " They embraced 
 each other, and wept. And Daniel Webster, at 
 John Colby's request, knelt down and prayed. 
 Webster solicited the favor of a bowl of bread and 
 milk ; and to his friend Peter Harvey, who accom- 
 panied him, and who partook with him of the same 
 kind of refreshment, he remarked, with a pathetic 
 simplicity, after they had finished eating, " Didn't it 
 taste like old times ? " 
 
 Of William H. Seward, the Montesquieu of the 
 United States, it is fitting to say, How great he was, 
 and how amiable he was ! Thus did men of lands 
 far-off and strange — dusky-visaged dignitaries who 
 had met him and conversed with him, as he went 
 journeying in his simple, kingly fashion from conti- 
 nent to continent, and from nation to nation around 
 the varied world — feel to exclaim, when they heard 
 that his fertilizing and civilizing life had ended. In 
 the case of Stanle} 7 also, — Stanlej^, the enterprising, 
 dauntless, indefatigable explorer of the Congo, — 
 there has been illustrated the fact that the man who 
 knows how to be his own possesses the two qual- 
 ities, masterfulness and tenderness.* Think of him 
 as sailing toward the dreadful unknown, in sight 
 
 * What is said here might seem to be belied by the affair at 
 Bumbireh, known as that in which Stanley punished severely the 
 wicked natives belonging to one part of the coast of the great 
 interior African lake. But after meditating on that affair in all its 
 recorded particulars, the author of this book has failed to find 
 reason in it for imputing to the explorer a lack of mercifulness or 
 tenderness. They who think otherwise would probably deem it 
 cruelty to shoot down a burglar while he is in the act of house- 
 robbery. 
 
THE PKIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 377 
 
 and in hearing of swarms of wild Africans on the 
 shore, who fiercely shout to him to turn back. 
 Think of him as pausing at the first series of fearful 
 cataracts, and looking ahead into a region of diffi- 
 culties and perils reputed to be impassable, and 
 calmly resolving, since it is impracticable to return, 
 to go forward, and, if death cannot be avoided, to 
 "show manliness and die." Think of him as mov- 
 ing his boats for thirteen miles on rollers laid for 
 them in a road cut through the tropic jungles at the 
 river's side. Think of him as afterward reaching 
 and passing a series of cataracts comprising ten 
 times as man}' as the first one, and once at least 
 taking his boats over a mountain two thousand feet 
 high. And think of him as at last, in spite of can- 
 nibals, and of cataracts, and of toils, strains, and 
 privations, which made him " an old man in his 
 thirty-fifth year," proving successful, and standing 
 forth the one and only pathfinder adown the Mis- 
 sissippi of Africa ! Men who listened to his unaf- 
 fected story of that amazing voyage perceived that 
 he was "gentle-voiced and gentle-mannered ; " and 
 they wonderingly asked themselves whether it were 
 a fact or a dream that they were beholding and 
 hearing the invincible successor of the great Living- 
 stone — the evermore illustrious Stanley. 
 
 So it ever is: he who is rightly individual and 
 unique fulfills the aphorism of Marcus Aurelius, 
 " A man must stand erect, not be kept erect by 
 others;" he also unbends and relaxes, showing that 
 within him is a heart not made of metal or of rock, 
 of wood or of leather, but made of flesh. 
 
THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 IV. 
 
 DESIRE OF EXERTION. 
 
 " The wise for cure on exercise depend." — Dryden. 
 "Who wrestles in his soul must victor be." — Bayard Taylor. 
 
 To him whose soul is in a healthy state, idleness 
 is endlessly distasteful, its opposite endlessly sweet. 
 He is bent on bestirring himself. Budgell, a writer 
 who lived in the days of Steele and Addison, re- 
 marks that nothing so much shows the nobleness of 
 the soul, as the fact that "its felicity consists in 
 action." Be this however it may, certain it is that 
 he who is my hero and my nobleman, he who under- 
 stands the science and the art of self-mastery, has 
 among his distinguishing peculiarities an undying 
 desire of exertion. This he rejoices to supply, just 
 as one who is thirsty rejoices to drink. Accordingly, 
 he is ever busy at some mental or pl^sical task, ever 
 heartily 
 
 "Employed about some honest thing." 
 
 Plutarch speaks of a person who refused to let him- 
 self be satisfied in a certain path of investigation, 
 because he found so much delight in his studies and 
 researches therein. " I would rather," said Seneca, 
 " be sick than idle." Philip the Good, an honored 
 duke of Burgundy, while passing the period of a 
 royal marriage celebration at Bruges in Flanders, so 
 pined for something to do, that, to find relief, he 
 walked during the evenings in disguise all about the 
 town. Such was Jean Paul's love of exertion, that 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 379 
 
 he was moved to sa}^, " It is not the goal, but the 
 course, which makes us happy ; " and such was 
 Lessing's love of it, that he extravagantly said : 
 " Did the Almighty, holding in His right hand 
 Truth, and in His left Search after Truth, deign to 
 proffer me the one I might prefer, in all humility, 
 but without hesitation, I should request Search after 
 Truth." 
 
 Now, such fondness for exercise and effort as that 
 which these men had is surely not a characteristic 
 of people in general. Look around on the many ! 
 They will be seen to be feverish and restless, yet 
 undesirous of any application adapted to tax the 
 brain or to test the muscles. The one thing they 
 least long for is work. When they have a task 
 to perform, their first thought is, how to dispatch it 
 at the smallest possible cost of exertion. Every 
 occasion of intense employment makes them either 
 sad or sulky. They would rather shed a gill of 
 tears than a thimble-full of sweat ; and, should any 
 specimen of them carry a bag of flour or of meal 
 from a gate to a kitchen-door on his shoulders, he 
 would groan as if he deemed himself to be Atlas 
 with the world on his back. A person needs to 
 take care, lest he by accident give offense to some 
 man of commonplace respectability, who has ten 
 minutes of digging, or chopping, or lifting to do ; 
 for patience and exertion, in the case of such a one 
 as he, are on the worst of terms with each other. 
 Could there not be counted by the hundred, farm- 
 ers, mechanics, merchants, physicians, lawyers, who 
 would be well pleased to reap success without doing 
 anything to earn it? Could there not be numbered 
 
380 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 by the score students, who would be glad to secure 
 college-honors, if it were possible to do so merely 
 by droning about the college-hive? " How many 
 men," says Emerson, " would fain go to bed dunces, 
 to be waked up Solomons ! " 
 
 By the majority of those that figure in any depart- 
 ment of modern life, exertion is regarded with a kind 
 of horror, as if it were a terrible monster, hanker- 
 ing after flesh, and blood, and all else that belongs 
 to the physical man. Thinking of them, one is re- 
 minded of the ambition of that Frenchman who is 
 represented by Edmund About as wishing to marry 
 his daughter into a family that had performed no 
 work for four hundred years. Mistaken mortals ! 
 They consider not that, from history's morning till 
 this hour, the human race has been, by virtue of 
 human exertion, kept from running down to a sleepy 
 flatness and a simpering inanity. Solid character, 
 triumphant manhood, blissful life — these, in all 
 ages, have been products of work. No patriarch or 
 prophet, no evangelist or apostle, could without 
 work have grown radiant and great. From it have 
 sprung all abiding books, all models of fine art, all 
 useful tools and machines, all discoveries which, like 
 that grand Newtonian one, have exalted mankind's 
 ideas of creation. 
 
 The true man — he who has learned how to be 
 his own — is a work-lover. Fain is he, wheresoever 
 he may be, to be up and doing. In words, such as 
 those ascribed by Tennyson to Ulysses, he is ready 
 to say : 
 
 " How dull it is to pause, to make an end, 
 To rust unlurnished, not to shine in use ! " 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 381 
 
 Ineffable is the pity with which he looks on brain- 
 sick loungers and humdrum dreamers, on sluggish 
 prodigals and thriftless gamesters. Waiting not for 
 the future to become the present, he goes straight 
 to his task, and, like Dickens' Mr. Peggotty, in all 
 things wherein he wants help does his own part 
 faithfully, and helps himself. He does not scorn 
 recreation ; for no dreary, self-grinding mortal is he. 
 Kuskin makes the remark, that, "when men are 
 rightly occupied their amusement grows out of their 
 work, as the color -petals out of a fruitful flower." 
 Beautifully is this said. It is, however, not true 
 that exemplary workers derive all their amuse- 
 ment from their work. They betimes withdraw 
 from their tasks, and hunt, fish, stroll, ride, sail, 
 climb, swim, swing the ax, or wield the garden- 
 hoe. They at least travel, with willing heart, far 
 out, 
 
 " To see the pleasant fields, the crystal fountains, 
 And take the gentle air among the mountains." 
 
 The true man's desire of exertion renders him 
 genuinely energetic. And to be so, let it be noticed, 
 is not merely to be forceful. The former term is 
 expressive of sustained and continued endeavor, the 
 latter of irregular effort. The former term suggests 
 what John Foster calls " the calmness of an inten- 
 sity kept uniform by the nature of the human mind 
 forbidding it to be more, and by the character of 
 the individual forbidding it to be less;" the latter 
 suggests an unregulated, fitful might, a species of 
 puissance which is liable to make its way with the 
 flash and the noise of a sudden and vehement stren- 
 uousness. He who is energetic steadily and surely, 
 
382 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 like gleaming embers of anthracite, produces posi- 
 tive effects ; but he who is forceful rather than ener- 
 getic, is apt to be impetuous like a stream swollen 
 by a soaking rain-fall, or explosive like cotton which 
 has been saturated with a detonating mixture, or 
 eruptive like the hidden fire-fluid of the earth when 
 it is hungry for volcanic vent. 
 
 Let it be noticed, also, that to be energetic is not 
 merely to be active. One may be continually active, 
 and yet be as destitute of genuine energy as a wheel 
 that incessantly, but to little purpose, whirls round 
 on a dry axis. How many quick-moving doers there 
 are that never victoriously do anything ! According 
 to an Anglo-American authority, there are not a few 
 bustling Anglo-Americans that " would readily risk 
 their lives for the chance of arriving anywhere five 
 minutes before anybody else." Ten thousand mor- 
 tals can be found that have an unremitting tendency 
 to motion, but a very fickle tendency to true exer- 
 tion. A person can be exceedingly busy, without 
 being effectually operative. A person can be all the 
 day and every day self-urging and hurrying, without 
 being accustomed to experience any such thing as 
 a real inner awakening, or a "level-eyed, heroic 
 mood." 
 
 The energetic person manfully evokes the latent 
 caloric of his nature, and gives it manifestation in 
 looks, words, and deeds ; he unfussily puts forth the 
 power of doing work ; he calmly shows himself to be 
 efficaciously alive. All leaders of mankind, molders 
 of the masses, reformers, nation-builders, pattern- 
 heroes, answer to this account. Epaminondas had 
 to be efficaciously alive, before he could become the 
 
THE PEIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 383 
 
 sublime Greek that he was ; Julius Caesar had to be 
 thus alive, before he could become the master-Roman 
 that he was ; Luther had to be thus alive, before he 
 could become qualified to relieve Christianity as he 
 did, of the hold and the pressure of the sharp-nailed 
 papal paw. Find me a man of genius who lazily 
 exists rather than efficaciously lives, and I will con- 
 vince you that he is no man of genius. Genius — 
 what is it ? It is a native basis of competency, 
 which is of finer quality than usual, or more suscep- 
 tible of being turned to wide advantage than usual, 
 and which is demonstrated in vivid and striking 
 expressions of concentrated energy. Not anything 
 is it that can appertain to a person, and yet remain 
 forever quiescent or dormant. If there be that in a 
 man which, in no instance, is roused and made to 
 reveal itself in a process of effort, be assured it is 
 resolvable either into something totally unlike ge- 
 nius, or into nothing. To say that one has genius 
 but never exerts it, is virtually to say that he has it 
 not. " Genius unexerted," declares Emerson, " is no 
 more genius than a bushel of acorns is a forest of 
 oaks." 
 
 How wonderful soever may be the gifts attributed 
 to a man, he will in vain be expected to do one won- 
 derful act, nay, even one impressive common act, 
 unless he have genuine energy. A copper wire 
 stretched between two towns might just as reasona- 
 bly be expected to serve for telegraphic communi- 
 cation without the help of an electric current. Only 
 they that are energetic are thoroughly awake. Only 
 they that are energetic are entitled to be ranked with 
 the really living. The indolent person scarcely has 
 
384 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 his soul's eyes open. He is destitute of the desire 
 of exertion, and consequently is uniformly unener- 
 getic. The power of doing work is in a state of 
 slumber within him, and that slumber tends to be- 
 come a kind of death. Of one who idles away his 
 time in arid retirement, or lingers listlessly amid the 
 hum of wholesome business, choosing day by day to 
 avoid every task that he can, it may truly be said 
 that he is not alive like other men. By reason of 
 the lack of stir in him, he does at most but faintly 
 live. A fit symbol of him is some water-pool which 
 has been still so long that it has become stagnant. 
 Every inhabitant of this rugged planet who is prov- 
 ing to be in possession of himself, is energetic — 
 energetic in the sense of being evenly-zealous in a 
 straightforward, " deedful life," — energetic, 
 
 " Like as a star, 
 That maketh not haste, 
 That taketh not rest," — 
 
 energetic, after the manner of cheerful, perennial 
 workers, who have "no Indian taste for a tomahawk- 
 dance, no French taste for a badge or a proclama- 
 tion," or after the manner of the fine athletes of 
 ancient Greece, whose very fibers seemed to be con- 
 scious. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OE AVAIL. 385 
 
 V. 
 
 DECISION, DETERMINATION, RESOLUTION. 
 
 ..." What he will, he does." 
 
 Shakespeare, Troilus and Cressida. 
 
 " He resolved henceforward not to lean on others, but to walk 
 self-confident and self-possessed — no longer to waste his years in 
 vain regrets, nor wait the fulfillment of boundless hopes and indis- 
 creet desires ; but to live in the present wisely, alike forgetful of 
 the past and careless of what the mysterious future might bring. 
 And from that moment he was calm and strong; he was reconciled 
 with himself." Longfellow, Hyperion, p. 359. 
 
 Among the distinguishing peculiarities of him 
 who knows how to be his own, will be found to 
 be three closely-allied traits, each of which is a 
 characteristic habit of the will. They are all aptly 
 named in this forcible saying, which I quote from 
 an authoritative lexical page : * " Martin Luther was 
 equally distinguished for his prompt decision, his 
 steadfast determination, and his inflexible resolution" 
 
 The one of them first to be considered, is decision. 
 We shall be helped to discover the full meaning of 
 the term, by glancing at its etymology. It is of 
 famous ancestry ; for the Latin preposition de (from), 
 and something of the Latin verb caedere (to cut), 
 are perceivable in its composition. The elements 
 which mingle in the blood of the word, are, there- 
 fore, evidently such as make it literally signify a 
 cutting off. Of course, an inward rather than an 
 
 * Webster's Dictionary Unabridged, illustrated edition, 1878, 
 p. 341. 
 
 25 
 
386 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 outward act is meant. Decision, as a trait of manly 
 character, is the habit of cutting of! or cutting short, 
 after a due time, reasonings, calculations, forecast- 
 ings, ponderings, doubts, and all other mental occa- 
 sions of delay or hesitation, by that exercise of the 
 Avill which is known as the forming of a choice or a 
 volition. In such a sense as that here stated, it is 
 the theme of one of John Foster's sinewy and valua- 
 ble essays — that one of five divisions, all which 
 bristle with thought as the shelves of a Gibraltar 
 arsenal do with arms. He therein suggestively re- 
 marks : 
 
 " A man without decision can never be said to belong to himself, 
 since, if he dared to assert that he did, the puny force of some 
 cause, about as powerful, you would have supposed, as a spider, 
 may make a capture of the hapless boaster the very next moment, 
 and triumphantly exhibit the futility of the determinations by 
 which he was to have proved the independence of his understand- 
 ing and his will. He belongs to whatever can seize him; and in- 
 numerable things do actually verify their claim on him, and arrest 
 him as he tries to go along, as twigs and chips, floating near the 
 edge of a river, are intercepted by every weed, and whirled in 
 every little eddy." 
 
 In the case of self-mastered souls, decision is re- 
 markably unlike any habit of short-cutting by pre- 
 cipitate or reckless choosing. Many is the person 
 who is wont to end mental dekys by mental strokes 
 dictated neither by understanding nor by reason, but 
 by vanity, by ill-bred pride, or by brutal impulse. 
 He that is self-conceited decides always superficially 
 and overforwardly. His choices are made in defiance 
 of his judgment. He has an upstart will. He that 
 is intolerant has an intense, belligerent, rancorous 
 method of deciding. His choices can scarcely be 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 387 
 
 said to end mental delays, but rather to be so acri- 
 moniously hasty as to disallow them. His is a rash 
 will which is a fiery foe to all opinions that differ 
 from his own. He that is insolent has a blunt, rude, 
 contemptuous way of deciding. In forming his voli- 
 tions, he is vehemently prompt and roughly petu- 
 lant. The chief qualities of his will seem to be a 
 coarse stoutness and a mean boldness. He that is a 
 ferocious despot, he that is a lurking desperado, and 
 he that is a roaming savage — each has a wild, ma- 
 levolent, hyena-like mode of deciding. The choices 
 of such beings are made with a vigor awful to con- 
 ceive — the vigor of a will which is monstrous and 
 murderous. 
 
 True decision of character is ever accompanied by 
 a habit of careful, accurate, earnest deliberation. 
 Not too soon, not too late, does its possessor exert 
 his will in a cutting-off act, a conclusive choice. 
 He wisely waits to " make up his mind ; " but when 
 he has waited till he can wait wisely no longer, then, 
 as summarily as a warrior draws his scabbarded 
 weapon, so summarily he forms his volition, and it 
 is as clear as a sword-blade wrought of damask 
 steel. 
 
 Alexander the Great, though not a model man, 
 often vividly illustrated in his life the nature of the 
 habit commended on this page. One day, while that 
 hero was yet a young man, the Thessalian horse, 
 Bucephalus, was undergoing trial before King Philip 
 and a company of his court-officers. The grooms 
 had failed to govern the animal, and Philip had con- 
 cluded not to purchase him. Indeed, he had, with 
 manifestations of displeasure, ordered them to take 
 
388 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 him away. Alexander, having keenly observed all 
 the circumstances of the case, curtly and crisply 
 said, " What a horse are they losing, for want of 
 skill and spirit to manage him ! " This he several 
 times repeated, showing, as he did so, much uneasi- 
 ness : whereupon Philip replied, " Young man, you 
 find fault with your elders, as if you knew more 
 than they or could manage the horse better." " And 
 I certainly could," said Alexander. " If you should 
 not be able," rejoined Philip, "to ride him, what 
 forfeiture will you submit to for your rashness ? " 
 "I will pay," said Alexander, "the price of the 
 horse." The whole company laughed. But the 
 young man speedily took the horse by the bridle, and 
 led him for some distance toward the sun — that is 
 to say, in the direction in which the animal could 
 not be perplexed by his own shadow. By gentle 
 words and soft strokings, he subdued the fury of 
 Bucephalus. Then, dropping his mantle, he mounted 
 adroitly on the beast's back, held the reins loosely, 
 and soon began to apply the spur. The beholders 
 gazed at the scene with a distressful intentness, till 
 they saw the brave rider return safe and triumphant. 
 It is needless to allude to the fact that they received 
 him with passionate plaudits. Plutarch states that 
 Philip wept for joy, and, kissing the youth, gave 
 utterance to the words : " Seek another kingdom, 
 my son, that may be worthy of thy abilities; for 
 Macedonia is too small for thee." Well might ex- 
 ploits, prodigious and splendid, have been expected 
 of a stripling, who had thus shown himself qualified 
 to say, " I can and I will ! " 
 
 Decision precludes vacillation and fickleness, those 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 389 
 
 habits of weaklings and whimlings. It implies a 
 soldier-like directness in union with a soldier-like 
 energy. Henry the Third, of England, had it not; 
 and the result was, he was so prone to inconstancy 
 and self-contradiction, that " men neither valued his 
 friendship nor dreaded his resentment." His mental 
 life consisted in little more than a passing from 
 freak to freak, and his reign was childishly feeble 
 and notoriously imprudent. He gave place to fool- 
 ish antipathies and preposterous partialities, levied 
 wild exactions and made absurd bargains, gave 
 promises which he did not try to keep, and took 
 oaths which he did not trouble himself to remember. 
 As an instance in contrast with him, I name Ethel- 
 wald, that English king of the eleventh century, 
 who, locating himself at Wimborne, declared he 
 would " there live or there lie." I name the Earl 
 of Hereford, who, when the oppressive Edward the 
 First ordered him to go and take command of troops 
 in Gascony, saying, " Sir earl, you shall either go or 
 hang ! " replied, " Sir king, I will neither go nor 
 hang ! " I name Lady Jane Grey, who, when her 
 aged friend, Ascham, came to her prison, bringing a 
 poisonous drug, which he besought her to swallow 
 that she might avoid death on the scaffold, gently 
 but promptly repulsed his hand, and reminded him 
 that " to look steadily on our fate is more noble 
 than to turn from it." I name Ledyard, the heroic 
 traveler, who, when Sir Joseph Banks, after sub- 
 mitting to him the plan of a journey into Africa, 
 asked him when he would set out, answered, " To- 
 morrow morning." 
 
 Cleomenes, the Spartan king, exemplified true 
 
390 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 decision. Certain ambassadors once visited him for 
 the purpose of inducing him to go to war against the 
 tyrant Polycrates. By the mouth of a spokesman 
 they told their mission and presented their argu- 
 ments. He listened to the elaborate and lengthy 
 address which was delivered, and laconically re- 
 plied : 
 
 " As to the exordium, I remember it not, nor consequently the 
 middle of your speech; and as to your conclusion, I will not do 
 what you desire." 
 
 Julius Caesar also exemplified it. Imagine him as 
 he stands on the shore of the Rubicon, and gazes 
 from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy. He is contemplat- 
 ing an undertaking of momentous consequence — 
 that of crossing over and advancing, with a view to 
 the establishment of himself in absolute power at 
 Rome. According to Plutarch, the very immensity 
 of the project staggers him ; he lingers to weigh 
 within himself its inconveniences ; he silentty re- 
 volves the arguments on both sides ; he many times 
 changes his opinion. Not willing to deliberate alone 
 on his plan, he la3 7 s it before his friends. With 
 them, he talks of the difficulties and the perils which, 
 should he pass to the other shore of that dividing 
 stream, and thence go forward and Romeward, 
 would have to be encountered, of the calamities 
 which the movement might bring upon mankind, 
 and of the thoughts which posterity might entertain 
 concerning it. Finally, he cuts short his reflections 
 and reasonings, exclaims, " The die is cast ! " and, 
 marching across the river, hastens to meet whatever 
 may impede or resist him in the stupendous course 
 he has chosen. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OE AVAIL. 391 
 
 Every man who seeks a rare elevation in life, 
 must reach a Rubicon. Would he be able, when he 
 shall have arrived at it, to decide like a man ? Then 
 let him become accustomed to choose for himself 
 after the manner of that Ccssar. 
 
 There is next to be considered the habit signified 
 by the word determination. Its kinship to deci- 
 sion is such as that which exists between fruit 
 and plant, or between a stream and its source. The 
 term employed to denote it has for its native con- 
 stituents the Latin preposition de (from), and the 
 root of the Latin verb terminare (to limit) ; there- 
 fore, it literally means a limiting off. Determina- 
 tion, when it expresses a single act, implies the 
 limiting of a choice, so that it shall stand out 
 distinct in the mind ; and not only the limiting of 
 it thus, but also the keeping of it thus limited by 
 holding "fast to it. Determination, when it expresses 
 a habit, implies that one is continually disposed to 
 make sharply-defined purposes of choices which he 
 has formed, and to adhere with firmness to those 
 purposes. 
 
 Let this habit be at its best, and it will " seem to 
 assume rank with the great laws of nature." Its 
 possessor is a marked individual. How he differs 
 from the dreamy theorist ! How unlike he is to the 
 loud-promising espouser ! His style is quiet. He 
 exemplifies the meaning of David Copperfield's apho- 
 rism, that " a man who has any good reason to believe 
 in himself never flourishes himself before the faces 
 of other people, in order that they may believe in 
 him."' He says, " I can ! " but never noisily declares 
 
392 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 how much he can ; he says, " I will ! " but never 
 boastfully tells how much he will. In his very calm- 
 ness, men read something equivalent to the words 
 " masterfully constant." A strong, steady, persist- 
 ent mortal he is, who, to his opinions, his beliefs, his 
 obligations, his plans, his pursuits, 
 
 " Keeps faithful with a singleness of aim." 
 
 Readily distinguishable is determination, as a trait 
 of true character, from every kind of mere stubborn- 
 ness. There is a constancy of will, which " resem- 
 bles less the reaction of a powerful spring than the 
 gravitation of a big stone." Contumacious simple- 
 tons and perverse brute-animals are alike represent- 
 atives of it. It is shown by many a lad who is bent 
 on having his own way in spite of the authority of 
 his parents ; it is shown, also, by many a horse that 
 is wont sulkily to stop in his harness, and refuse to 
 obey his driver. I find on record such an incident 
 as this : At a meeting held by some colored minis- 
 ters, one of the number made a decided opposition 
 to a certain measure which the others fully sanc- 
 tioned. He could be moved neither by explanation 
 nor by argument. Every attempt at persuasion 
 drew from him the brusk utterance, " I am conscien- 
 tiously opposed to it." The presiding officer, at 
 length, became impatient at his frowardness, and 
 said, " Brother, how are you aware that it is your 
 conscience that will not permit you to join us in this 
 matter ? How do you know that some other motive 
 may not influence you? " " All I can tell you," re- 
 plied the untractable preacher (laying his hand on 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 393 
 
 his breast), " is, that I feel something here, which 
 says, c I won't ! I won't ! I won't ! ' " 
 
 Genuine determination is not only unmistakably 
 dissimilar to absolute willfulness, but also to the 
 stolid firmness of the bigot, and the foolish pertinac- 
 ity of the fanatical and fribbling stickler. Not a 
 few persons have a habit of will such as appertained 
 to that Scotchman of Boston, who said, " I'm open 
 to conviction ; but I'd like to see the man that can 
 convince me." Benjamin Lay, one of the earliest 
 advocates of the emancipation of enslaved negroes, 
 was a determined person ; but he was far from being 
 a pattern instance of determination. A little short 
 man he was, with slender legs and a hunchback, a 
 long white beard and a grave countenance, a benev- 
 olent heart and a whimsical mind, a good conscience 
 and a stubbornly persistent will. For many years 
 he dwelt in a cave and practiced vegetarianism. He 
 rejected all articles of food and all materials for cloth- 
 ing, that had been produced either by slave-labor or 
 at the cost of animal life ; and he wore tow gar- 
 ments, the warp and the woof of which he had spun 
 with his own hands. At one time he concluded 
 that it was his duty to copy after Christ, in the 
 matter of fasting for forty clays and forty nights. 
 This supposed duty he undertook to perform, and 
 actually persevered for three weeks in endeavoring 
 to accomplish the undertaking. He ceased fasting 
 only when it was impossible for him to fast longer, — 
 that is to say, only when both his physical strength 
 and the use of his mental faculties failed him. In 
 that one case, his ill success seems to have broken 
 the grip with which his will held to his purpose. 
 
394 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Among the various orders of illiterate sectarian 
 zealots, hundreds of persons could be found who 
 have a constancy of will like that which was evinced 
 by the father of Buckthorne, of whom one may read 
 in Washington Irving's Tales of a Traveler. That 
 author attributes to Buckthorne these expressive 
 words : 
 
 " My father was amazingly ignorant, so ignorant, in fact, as not 
 to know that he knew nothing. ... I sometimes posed him a lit- 
 tle, but then he had one argument that always settled the question ; 
 he would threaten to knock me down." 
 
 Determination, in all praiseworthy instances, im- 
 plies, not that the will is fixedly set in behalf of 
 some blind passion or preconceived opinion, but that 
 it is vigorously and steadfastly exerted to gain some 
 reasonable end. In no respect does it resemble 
 either mere animal persistence, or the grit of a nar- 
 row and notional mind. It is the valuable habit 
 which gives continuity to the endeavor of achievers 
 and to the energy of conquerors. Without it, never 
 was there, never could there have been, anything 
 nobly begun and nobly done. Without it, prosper- 
 ous animation and thrifty intensity in business, would 
 nowhere be possible. Without it, men would live 
 "lives blown hither and thither like empty ships." 
 It explains the perseverance of Caesar, who, after 
 his victory on the plains of Pharsalia, said : 
 
 " I will forget this, in order to obtain such another day." 
 
 It explains the perseverance of Ledyard, who, on 
 the morning of his departure for Africa, remarked 
 to his friends : 
 
 "I am accustomed to hardships. My distresses have been 
 greater than I have ever owned or ever will own to any man. Such 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL 395 
 
 evils are terrible to bear, but tbey never yet had power to turn me 
 from my purpose. If I live, I will faithfully perform, in its utmost 
 extent, my engagement to the Society [the Society for the Promo- 
 tion of African Exploration] ; and if I perish in the attempt, my 
 honor wiil still be safe, for death cancels all bonds." 
 
 The habit of will which remains to be discussed, 
 is the one designated by the term resolution. This 
 word is derived from the Latin prefix re (again), 
 and the Latin verb solvere (to loosen) ; hence it car- 
 ries the sense of a loosening added to a loosening, or 
 a scattering. When used to signify a trait of charac- 
 ter, it implies that one is accustomed, after forming 
 a purpose and taking a firm hold thereon, to scatter 
 from him everything that tends to hinder or with- 
 hold him from accomplishing that purpose, and to 
 press forward courageously and inflexibly till the 
 desired object is gained. The resolute man is the 
 determined man, throwing out his soul in strife and 
 in struggle. The Rubicon has been crossed, and the 
 strong chooser is in the process of his hero-march. 
 " Daring," says Victor Hugo, "is the price paid for 
 progress." The resolute man pays that price and 
 goes ahead. If there is no way for him, he makes 
 one. Difficulties and obstacles seem to have a sort 
 of fascination for him ; and concerning dangers, he 
 evidently cherishes a doctrine equivalent to that 
 brave sentiment expressed by Bushnell : 
 
 " Our human world would be an amazingly stupid place, and life 
 itself a wretchedly profitless experience, if there were no dangers 
 in it." 
 
 Seneca speaks of a mariner, who, in the midst of an 
 appalling tempest, said to Neptune, the deity of the 
 sea : " O god ! thou mayest save me if thou wilt, and 
 
396 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 if thou wilt thou mayest destroy me ; but, whether 
 or no, I will steer my rudder true." People used to 
 hear from the lips of Magoon a never-to-be-forgotten 
 incident relative to a young married man on the 
 frontier, whose house was once attacked by Indians. 
 While he was guarding the doors and the windows, 
 an assailant, who was somewhat more bold than his 
 fellows, attempted to enter by way of the chimne} T . 
 His wife, hearing the rattling noise made by the 
 down-coming savage, called to her companion to 
 trust in God. The 3'oung head of the family, as he 
 kept perforating the red devil with a long sharp 
 spear, answered, " Yes, wife, I'm trusting in God ! " 
 Thus it always is. He who is truly resolute does 
 not object to relying on Omnipotence ; but while 
 he seeks aid from heaven, he strikingly helps himself. 
 
 The botanist teaches that the root of a tree per- 
 forms at least these two offices : it holds the tree 
 firm, so that passing winds and impinging objects 
 cannot overthrow it ; and it enables the tree to de- 
 rive from the earth the elements necessary to the 
 fulfillment of its design. In like manner, the will 
 of every true man serves to keep him steadfast, 
 while it empowers him to obtain the things essential 
 to the realization of his aim. Many a tree there is 
 which has so little healthy root-power, it is not 
 much more than a weak unsteady stem with an 
 almost sapless top; and many a man there is who 
 has so little healthy will-power, he is not much more 
 than (to repeat some words used by Carlyle) " a 
 most shriveled, wind-dried, dyspeptic, chill-shivering 
 individual." 
 
 It is worth while to notice how John Foster speaks 
 
THE PEDIE CONDITION OF AVAIL. 397 
 
 of the class of mortals that evince genuine and high 
 resolution. They are not disposed, he tells us, to be 
 content in a region of mere ideas, when they ought 
 to be advancing into the field of corresponding 
 realities. They are to be found almost uniformly in 
 determined pursuit of some object on which they fix 
 a keen and stead} 7 look, and which the} 7 never lose 
 sight of, while they follow it through the confused 
 multitude of other things. They dare to do all that 
 may become a man. They have, in their sublime 
 states of firmness, a heroism like that of Shadrach, 
 Meshach, and Abeclnego, like that of Daniel, like 
 that of John Huss, like that of Luther, like that of 
 Milton's Abdiel, — each of whom dismissed, at the 
 very threshold of his great enterprise, " every wish 
 to stipulate for safety with his destiny." 
 
 To most people, poverty seems to be a condition, 
 woful and abhorrent. But to him who has sterling 
 resolution, what is it? Only a wholesome chance to 
 obtain nobleness by battling a while with circum- 
 stances. " If it be ill,'-' declares Seneca, "to live in 
 necessity, there is at least no necessity to live in 
 necessity." That is to say, all that one needs in 
 order to rise above poverty, is to be resolute, and 
 come right up out of it. " Poverty in youth," says 
 Victor Hugo, "when it succeeds, has the magnifi- 
 cent result of turning the whole will to effort and 
 the whole soul to aspiration." To most people, mis- 
 fortune seems to be something that has an unre- 
 lieved terribleness. Mention to them even naught 
 but the word itself, and a vague, painful idea will 
 spring up in their minds ; they will feel a twinge as 
 if an evil omen had flitted by them. But what is 
 
398 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 misfortune to resolute souls? Let the words of 
 Bernardine de St. Pierre be an answer : 
 
 " Misfortune resembles the black mountain of Bember, situated 
 at the extremity of the burning kingdom of Lahor : while we as- 
 cend it, we see before us only barren rocks; but no sooner do we 
 reach the summit, than we perceive the heavens over our head, 
 and the kingdom of Cachemire at our feet." 
 
 Let also the words of Novalis be an answer : 
 
 " Every misfortune is, as it were, the obstruction of a stream 
 which, after overcoming this obstruction, but bursts through with 
 the greater force." 
 
 To most people, death seems to be the one event 
 least of all bearable and most of all lamentable. 
 Are there not a host of commonplace mortals that 
 would prefer any day to do some detestable deed 
 rather than die ? But surely the choice of death is 
 better than that of deserving to be branded as vilely 
 faithless or cringingly craven. He who has bred 
 himself to high resolution neither recklessly exposes 
 his life nor holds to it at the expense of his self- 
 respect. Less cares he to live than to behave nobly 
 while he does live. He is no mendicant seeker after 
 safety. Never looks he into the future with the 
 cowering spirit of one ready at all times to patch 
 up some life-prolonging compromise. He dares not 
 be dishonorable or mean, disloyal or treacherous, but 
 
 ... "If he be called upon to face 
 Some awful moment to which Heaven has joined 
 Great issues, good or bad for human kind, 
 Is happy as a lover, and attired 
 With sudden brightness, like a man inspired." 
 
 Macaulay relates concerning the weak revolution- 
 ist, Monmouth, that, after being captured in New 
 Forest, near Sedgemoor, and brought before King 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 399 
 
 James the Second, he threw himself on the ground, 
 crawled toward the king's feet, wept, and " begged 
 for life, onh 7 life, life at any price." Compare him 
 with that virtuous man and scholarly chancellor, 
 Sir Thomas More, who, deeming it far better to 
 fade in a dungeon and to die on the block than to 
 speak or act in defiance of his holy conscience, tran- 
 quilly endured his fate, and, in so doing, "found 
 strength in that fire of the soul which is inexhausti- 
 ble because it is eternal ! " Or, compare him with 
 Muli Moluc, that Moorish emperor, who, when he 
 saw his army yielding to his country's invaders and 
 the battle going against him, flung himself from the 
 litter on which he lay suffering, and, rallying his 
 disorganized troops, led them to a great and victori- 
 ous charge, and then died content ! Said Algernon 
 Sidney, " I have ever had it in my mind that, when 
 God should cast me into such a condition as that I 
 cannot save my life but by doing an indecent thing, 
 He shows me the time is come when I should re- 
 sign it." And said that divine martyr-woman, Lady 
 Jane Grey, shortly after the execution of her hus- 
 band on the same scaffold where she herself was 
 to die : 
 
 "Oh, holy death! gift of heaven as well as life! thou art now 
 my tutelary angel ! thou restorest me to serenity ! my sovereign 
 Master has disposed of me, but since He will reunite me to my 
 husband, He has demanded nothing of me surpassing my strength, 
 and I replace my soul without fear in His hands ! " 
 
400 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 VI. 
 
 INDEPENDENCE OF THOUGHT. 
 
 " An ounce of a man's own wit is worth a ton of other people's." 
 
 Sterne. 
 "There is a certain noble pride through which merits shine 
 brighter than through modesty." Jean Paul. 
 
 The person who has learned how to possess him- 
 self has a marked habit of thinking for himself. He 
 exercises that freedom which belongs alike to all 
 human beings — the freedom of the mind to have 
 just what way it will in the realm of reflection and 
 belief. Not opinionated is he, but he has his opin- 
 ions. Not averse is he to guidance, but he will not 
 be in leading-strings. He loves knowledge, and it 
 is a joy to him 
 
 ..." Converse deep to hold 
 With all the famous sons of old." 
 
 Not satisfied, however, is he merely to acquire 
 knowledge ; he is intent on making it, as fast as he 
 acquires it, serve as intellectual nutriment, and tend 
 to add to the vitality and the value of his intellec- 
 tual character. All proper studies are viewed by 
 him as means of educating as well as means of in- 
 forming the conscious self. He extracts " that sea- 
 soned life of man preserved and stored up in books," 
 not simply that he may enjoy the taste of it, but 
 that he may derive from it an improvement of men- 
 tal capability, and an increase of mental power. 
 Unlike the bookworm, whose learning lies cold and 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 401 
 
 juiceless in the mental store-room whereinto it has 
 been huddled, he cares less to accumulate learning 
 than to be a wise and successful appropriator of it. 
 Unlike the literary gourmand, who peruses books 
 solely for gratification's sake, he reads that his intel- 
 lect may be enriched rather than filled, that he may 
 know more rather than indulge himself more. Un- 
 like the pedant, whose mind is (as Montaigne says) 
 " swelled and puffed up with vain and empty shreds 
 and snatches of learning," he not only learns but 
 thinks, and, as he does so, seems ever to conform to 
 the great lesson wrapped up in those euigmatic 
 words of Confucius : 
 
 "Knowledge consists in knowing what we know, and also in 
 knowing what we do not know." 
 
 Unlike the visionary contemplatist, who, when not 
 poring over volumes which afford materials for ex- 
 travagant ideals, is passing his time in futile philos- 
 ophizing or aimless musing, he is a candid inquirer 
 who is determined not to take fancies for facts, and 
 a vigorous reasoner who is bent on accurately 
 distinguishing truth from error. 
 
 The independent thinker keeps abreast with the 
 times. Not willing is he to be ignorant of the latest 
 inventions and discoveries ; not content is he to be 
 indifferent to the grand progress-waves which roll 
 over the ocean of human life. Remarkable is the 
 contrast which exists between him and those people 
 who go only to their almanacs to get information 
 about the sky; who are wise in respect to breadstuffs 
 and dry-goods, but stupid in respect to the nations ; 
 who buy numerous baubles and sweetmeats, but 
 26 
 
402 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 almost never buy a valuable book ; who, if they should 
 be told that the planet Mars has two moons, or that 
 vocal sounds can be conveyed from city to city by tel- 
 ephone, or that speech can be taken down and re- 
 peated by phonograph, or that the explorer Stanley 
 traced the Congo River of Africa twenty-eight hun- 
 dred miles from its source toward its mouth, would 
 doubtless be ready dreamily to say, " Why, where 
 did you learn it ? " 
 
 He is also in contrast with all unimproving con- 
 servatives. Those who have seen the pine stumps 
 which tenaciously hold to the soil on Pennsylvanian 
 or Michigan highlands, have beheld symbols of this 
 class of mortals. They are instances of inveterate 
 standstillism. As to their opinions on various sub- 
 jects and questions, they stand precisely where they 
 stood half a lifetime ago. Goldsmith mentions one 
 of them that was a theologian. The man's unmanly 
 fixedness in respect to what he held to be sound 
 doctrine was evinced in the declaration : 
 
 " When I say religion, I, of course, mean the Christian reli- 
 gion; and when I say Christian religion, I would have you know, 
 sir, that I mean the Church of England." 
 
 Montaigne refers to a very singular specimen of 
 the same class of conservatives. The person was a 
 certain stiff-minded son, who, having been seen to 
 beat his father, and having been reproved for so 
 doing, replied that it was a custom which had come 
 down along the family line ; that, in like manner, 
 his father had beaten his grandfather, and his grand- 
 father his great-grandfather. And, in passing, I am 
 moved to cite one more instance. It is that of a 
 venerable lady, of Worcester County, Massachu- 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 403 
 
 setts, who refused the gift of a load of fuel from a 
 tree which had been struck by lightning, because 
 she so fixedly held to the belief that some of the 
 electric fluid yet remained in the wood, unfitting it 
 to be safely used in her kitchen-stove. 
 
 True independence of thought does not and can- 
 not coexist with habitual unprogressiveness. When 
 Melancthon, the colaborer of Luther, was once 
 chided for renouncing a belief which he had some 
 time before avowed and advocated, he answered: 
 
 " Do you think that I have been studying for thirty years with- 
 out learning anything ? " 
 
 The eminent geologist, Hugh Miller, alluding to his 
 change of opinion respecting the length of the 
 demiurgic days, says that, after in some degree com- 
 mitting himself to the other side, he had yielded to 
 evidence which he had found it impossible to resist. 
 " And such in this matter," he adds, " has been my 
 inconsistency — an inconsistency of which the world 
 has furnished examples in all the sciences, and will, 
 I trust, in its onward progress, continue to furnish 
 manj T more." Narrow and dry is the mind that is 
 set in its notions. That man is meanly courageous 
 who battles for an old conviction which ought to be 
 displaced by a new conclusion. Let him think of 
 the Galileos and the Bacons, the Howards and the 
 Wilberforces, and the other heroes who have broken 
 mankind's hold on errors, and be ashamed of his 
 courage ! In all ages, have not the most persevering 
 antagonists of civilizers been dingers to antiquated 
 whims and dogmas ? There is a land where such 
 persons might be counted by the million. It is 
 
404 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 China. Those doughty antipodes will not let go 
 the musty notion that, if they were to open their 
 coal-mines by underground workings, they would 
 destroy the equilibrium of the earth, and turn the 
 Celestial Empire upside down. 
 
 The point last to be brought out in the treatment 
 of the present topic is this : he who is wont to think 
 independently is wont to think liberally. It may be 
 said of him, in the language of Cicero, that he is 
 " neither abject nor overbearing." Magnanimously 
 does he carry himself toward opponents, and gen- 
 erously does he treat even impudent fools. He 
 scorns to hate a man for disagreeing with him in 
 idea or in belief ; and of all oppressors, the tyrant- 
 bigot who would fain force his opinions on those 
 who see fit to refuse them is the one whom he re- 
 gards with the least patience. " He who is his own 
 friend," says Seneca, "is a friend to eveiybody else." 
 Such, in a high sense, was the Puritan liberalist, 
 Roger Williams, who maintained that heresy should 
 be left " unharmed by law, and orthodoxy unpro- 
 tected by the terrors of penal statutes." And such 
 was William Penn, the self-mastered Quaker, whose 
 way it was to meet all men, not excepting Indians, 
 " on the broad pathway of good faith and good 
 will," and whose life was an illustration of the 
 truth expressed by Elizabeth Barrett Browning: 
 
 " Great is he 
 Who uses his greatness for all." 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 405 
 
 VII. 
 
 ORIGINALITY AND CREATIYENESS. 
 
 "He organizes the hours, and gives them a soul; and that, the 
 very essence of which is to fleet away, and evermore to have been, 
 he takes up into his own permanence, and communicates to it the 
 imperishableness of a spiritual nature." Coleridge. 
 
 "Even the insignificant grows great under his creating hand." 
 
 Schiller. 
 
 Commonplace mortals contain ideas, but do not 
 originate thoughts. They speak and act, sometimes 
 in one mode and sometimes in another ; but, as 
 speakers and actors, they are the real authors of not 
 one distinctive element of their expression, they 
 make for themselves no part of their style. When 
 they think, they do but review what they have read 
 or have heard. When they write, they do but use 
 words after the same manner in which somebody 
 else has used them. When they perform a piece of 
 work, they do but copy some other piece of work. 
 They are imitators, borrowers, followers. Jean 
 Paul must have meant them, when he wrote in his 
 Titan the words : 
 
 "Men, in respect to ceremonies, modes, and laws, like a flock 
 of sheep, will, in a body, provided the bell-wether can only be got 
 to leap over a pole, continue to leap carefully over the same place 
 when the pole has been taken away." 
 
 The simple truth is, commonplace mortals have no 
 originality, no creativeness. I use the terms here 
 italicized not synonymously, but as significant each 
 of a distinct trait of character. Let it be under- 
 
406 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 stood that, on these pages, the former is employed 
 to denote the habit of evolving new thought and 
 giving rise to new combinations of thought ; the 
 latter, to denote the habit of clothing or embodying 
 thought in a new garb or in new forms. 
 
 Both these fine habits mark the person who has 
 learned how to be master of himself. That such a 
 one is an instance of originality, is implied in the 
 two facts that he is characteristically individual as a 
 man, and that he is characteristically independent 
 as a thinker. He abounds with ideas which are 
 peculiar to him. On the loom of his mind, he 
 weaves for himself wefts of argumentation, and 
 obtains deductions which are his own. He puts 
 together for himself the materials out of which 
 creeds are made, and derives beliefs which are his 
 own. He looks for himself "through nature up to 
 nature's God," and comes to have an ideal of the 
 " Over-Soul" which is his own. His wisdom and 
 wit, his gayety and humor, his hopes and trusts, his 
 aspirations and plans, are all " of his own growth, 
 not the echo or infusion of other men." And how 
 can a person answer to this description, and not be 
 original? 
 
 The self-mastered seeker after knowledge returns 
 from his researches laden with thoughts, all of which 
 are uncommon, and many of which are new. In 
 directions of his own choosing and by routes of his 
 own making, he penetrates into that which is to him 
 the unknown. Often he spends the hours of the 
 day as if, when he awoke in the morning, he had 
 said to his faculties (in that language attributed by 
 Tennyson to Ulysses), 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 407 
 
 " Come, my friends, 
 'Tis not too late to seek a newer world." 
 
 From pattern instances he gladly draws inspiration, 
 } T et is not willing to be eternally imitating them. 
 He admires the luster and the gleam of great souls, 
 yet scorns to be ever content to drink in their rich 
 beams and thrilling rays without emitting any light 
 or any lightning that has been born in himself. It 
 is written concerning Aristotle, whom Plato pro- 
 nounced the ornament of his academy, that while his 
 companions in study evinced the " languid persever- 
 ance" of intellects satisfied to be subordinate and to 
 imbibe implicitly what Plato chose to impart, he 
 would only let himself be stimulated in the pursuit 
 after truth by the teachings and the eloquence of 
 that peerless master. 
 
 To read before beginning to think is beneficial ; 
 but the exemplifier of originality does thus rather 
 that he may be spurred up to think thoughts all his 
 own, than that he may provide himself with anoth- 
 er's thoughts. To compare one's thoughts with 
 those of eminent authors, and to quote such sayings 
 of eminent authors as are adapted to confirm or elu- 
 cidate one's thoughts, — these are acts proper and 
 handsome. Not only is the latter a help to the end 
 mentioned, but it is, I think, a genteel tribute due 
 to excellent and famous penmen. Do thou, however, 
 beware, lest thou become accustomed to quote after 
 the manner of the pedantic skimmer, who procures 
 from books crutches and props for his weak and in- 
 sipid ideas. Be sure, first of all, that thou hast 
 thoughts which are thine own, and that there is 
 some reason for deeming them not unworthy to be 
 
408 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 in company with noble men's thoughts. Montaigne, 
 speaking of quotations, says wisely that he would 
 not have them totally cover and hide him ; that he 
 would make a show of nothing not his own ; and 
 that "there is a great and incomparable preference 
 in the honor of invention to that of quotation." 
 They who admirably quote are productive, merito- 
 rious thinkers, that have been holding silent com- 
 munion with similar thinkers, through the medium 
 of their published words. 
 
 And at this point it is fitting to remark, that every 
 mind that possesses true originality, has a quick- 
 answering sympathy toward other such minds. Ac- 
 cordingly, Scipio honored as he did the gifted soul 
 of Marias, and Ben Jonson and David Garrick 
 set the estimate they did on the exhaustless intel- 
 lect of Shakespeare. Said Jean Paul: " Goethe 
 is a consecrated head ; he has a place of his own 
 high above us all." And thus he showed that he 
 had a genius spontaneously responsive to Goethe's 
 genius. Coleridge wrote to Wordsworth : 
 
 " O friend ! my comforter and guide ! 
 Strong in thyself, and powerful to give strength ! " 
 
 And thus he showed that he had a genius spontane- 
 ously responsive to Wordsworth's genius. " In 
 natures as in seas," says Dickens, " depth answers 
 unto depth." Why did Voltaire say of Shakespeare's 
 wonderful Hamlet, " One would think this play the 
 work of the imagination of a drunken savage ? " 
 Evidently because he had not genius enough to ap- 
 preciate Shakespearean intellectuality and thought. 
 Why did the poet Waller say, " The old blind school- 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 409 
 
 master, John Milton, hath published a tedious poem 
 on the fall of man ; if its length be not considered a 
 merit, it has no other ? " Evidently because his un- 
 originating mind, with its cheap conceptions and 
 tame views, was not qualified to respond to the high 
 spirit of the bard who " yoked the heathen mythol- 
 ogy in triumph to his subject, and clothed himself 
 in the spoils of superstition." To him, Paradise 
 Lost was useless, for reasons very much like those 
 which made the spectacles useless to the mole in the 
 fable. It will be remembered that the mother of 
 the latter, when she saw him vainly fumbling the 
 goodly ocular instrument he had received, informed 
 him that " spectacles, though they might help the 
 eyes of a man, could be of no use to a mole." 
 
 Originality implies that one has an unfailing real- 
 ness as a thinker. His ideas are as unassumed as is 
 the happiness of children. His intellect is a genu- 
 ine soil, and it has a genuine productivity. Some- 
 thing in harmony with this representation is ex- 
 pressed in those words of Rahel, the wife of Varn- 
 hagen von Ense : 
 
 " Original, I grant, every man might be, and must be, if men 
 did not almost always admit mere undigested hearsays into their 
 head, and fling them out again undigested. Whoever honestly 
 questions himself, and faithfully answers, is busied continually 
 with all that presents itself in life, and is incessantly inventing, 
 had the thing been invented never so long before. Honesty be- 
 longs as a first condition to good thinking; and there are almost 
 as few absolute dunces as geniuses. Genuine dunces would 
 always be original, but there are none of them genuine : they 
 have almost always understanding enough to be dishonest." 
 
 Pericles exercised his mind originative^, when, 
 after being followed to his door by an impudent 
 
410 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FOETTOE. 
 
 man, who all the way had railed at and insulted 
 him, he ordered one of his servants (as Plutarch 
 states) " to take a candle and light the man home." 
 Montaigne, that quaint, frank, genial, versatile author 
 whom I so often name on my pages, was original in 
 such an admirable and breezy sense as but few men 
 have ever been. His ideas, though sometimes unrea- 
 sonable, are always fresh. Even those of them that 
 are ill-flavored are quickening, and even those of 
 them that are but whimseys are suggestive. They 
 all show that they were born of a nature used to 
 " sound and vigorous raptures and delights." Read 
 his preface, and you will be impressed with the 
 uniqueness of his plan. He proposes to give traces 
 of his quality and humor, thereby to nourish in his 
 relatives and friends a more entire and lively recol- 
 lection of him. He would fain be seen in his simple, 
 natural, and ordinary garb, without study or artifice. 
 It is himself he is to paint. " My defects," he an- 
 nounces, "will appear to the life, in all their native 
 form, as far as consists with respect to the public." 
 Now, open his volumes at random, and notice the 
 spring-like newness, juiciness, and sparkle of his 
 thoughts. * Doing thus for myself, I meet in his 
 chapter on Idleness, this: "The soul that has no 
 established limit to circumscribe it, loses itself ; for, 
 as the epigrammatist says, ' He that is everywhere 
 is nowhere.' ' And in his reflections on Cato the 
 Younger, this : " 'Tis the duty of good men to draw 
 virtue as beautiful as they can, and there would be 
 no impropriety in the case should our passion a little 
 transport us in favor of so sacred a form." And in 
 his essay on Anger, this : " He who is hungry uses 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 411 
 
 meat ; but he that will make use of correction should 
 have no appetite, either of hunger or thirst, for it." 
 And in his discussion of Repentance, this : " In my 
 opinion, 'tis 'the happy living,' and not, as Antis- 
 thenes said, ' the happy dying,' in which human 
 felicity consists." And in his remarks on Experience, 
 this : " To attempt to kick against natural necessity, 
 is to represent the folly of Ctesiphon, who undertook 
 to out-kick his mule." 
 
 An instance of originality not less entitled than 
 Montaigne to admiration and honor, is Emerson. 
 His thoughts are evidently designed less to serve as 
 information than to serve as means of incitement. 
 They are not materials of which to build character, 
 but products fitted to spur up, to stimulate, and 
 to inspire character-builders. Subtilty, naturalness, 
 sinewiness, richness, amplitude, and withal a some- 
 thing that exhilarates like morning air breathed on 
 the green shore of a new land — these are among 
 the qualities which give Emerson's thoughts their 
 power. I care little for what, in the estimation of 
 dogmatic critics, he lacks. Enough is it that I find in 
 his books so much to invigorate my faculties. Froude, 
 in his review of Emerson's Rep>resentative Men, nar- 
 rowly asserts that the Emersonian attitude will con- 
 fuse success with greatness, or turn our ethics into a 
 chaos of absurdity. This is criticism, but not justice. 
 The Emersonian attitude is neither that of a former 
 of theories, nor that of an expounder of morals. It 
 is simply that of an energizing suggester. Emerson 
 aims rather to make men think than to provide 
 opinions for them. He is more an electrifier of his 
 readers, than he is a teacher of them. He does not 
 
412 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 indoctrinate souls, he increases their life. And one 
 may say of him (as he himself sajs of Montaigne) : 
 
 " He is never dull, never insincere, and has the genius to make 
 the reader care for all that he cares for." 
 
 Here I turn to treat the other habit referred to, 
 — namely, creativeness. By this is meant an apti- 
 tude either for expressing ideas in a style comprising 
 peculiar niceties, elegancies, or other striking quali- 
 ties of composition, or for embodying ideas in unique 
 and superior achievements wrought in the domain 
 of art. They who possess creativeness are producers 
 of things which are new to human eyes or ears, 
 and which, at the same time, are highly significant 
 and excellent. Some of them are writers, some of 
 them painters, some of them sculptors, some of them 
 engravers, some of them architects, some of them 
 musicians. Persons they all are who have struck 
 out paths for themselves, leading from the antiquat- 
 ed and the stale to the desirably fresh and the agree- 
 ably surprising. There is an inextinguishable long- 
 ing in them to bring to pass newer works, that shall 
 be interesting objects of sense-perception ; and that 
 longing is soothed and appeased by nothing short of 
 the successful actualization of noble meanings and 
 ideals. 
 
 Every mortal who devises and accomplishes a 
 sterling improvement, is creative. James Watt, had 
 he not been so, could never have bettered, as he 
 did, the Newcomen steam-engine. Victor Hugo uses 
 the phrase, " creating after the Creator ; " and it 
 conveys a signification not difficult to apprehend. I 
 take the words to be applicable to any person who 
 
THE PEIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 413 
 
 newly improves any one of the entities of unculti- 
 vated nature. He who first grafted a higher kind 
 of apple-bearing plant upon a lower, and he who 
 first drained a swamp and turned it into a fair 
 meadow, — both created after the Creator. Henry 
 Bessemer, when he first made steel by blowing air 
 on liquid iron as it came from the smelting furnace, 
 was creating after the Creator. 
 
 Men speak of creative talent : they mean ability 
 to express or to body forth, in one's own way, the 
 rare and the beautiful of the intellectual world. 
 Men speak of creative genius : they mean qualifica- 
 tion partly native and partly acquired, for putting 
 either old thoughts or new ones in transcendent 
 words or in wonderful forms. Happy for mankind 
 is it that there are representatives of that and of 
 this. Persons that are creative institute better 
 modes of speaking and of doing. They bless the 
 race with useful inventions. They impart attrac- 
 tiveness to the uncared-for and the obscure. They 
 give rise to a budding and a blossoming, a flush and 
 a glory, on the part of bald scenes of toil and trial. 
 Indeed, w T herever they fling the influence of their 
 productive capabilities, life becomes young, and that 
 wdiich has seemed trite, and dull, and dreary, de- 
 rives a halo of magical light. Carlyle says of genius, 
 that there is in it " that alchemy which converts all 
 metals into gold ; w 7 hich from suffering educes 
 strength, from error clearer wisdom, from all things 
 good." Precious alchemy ! Did he not mean bj^ it 
 creativeness, the high creativeness which enhances 
 crude circumstances and illustrates the worth of dis- 
 regarded opportunities, which freshens the familiar 
 
414 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 and brings the unprized into a felicitous subservience 
 to human need ? The telescope, the steam-engine, 
 the printing-press, each owed its existence, in the 
 first instance, to creativeness sustained b}' an able 
 will. This habit, brought to bear on glass and light, 
 produced the one ; — brought to bear on water and 
 heat, produced the other ; — brought to bear on 
 some letters cut on the rind of a beech-tree, produced 
 the third. 
 
 The soul that thirsts to express or embody in nota- 
 ble creations its ideas and ideals, seems to be ever 
 seeking to give rise to some system which shall tell 
 its thoughts, just as the solar system tells the 
 thoughts of God. Why did Archimedes invent the 
 astonishing machines which secured to him " the rep- 
 utation of a man endowed with divine rather than 
 human knowledge ? " This is the answer : that he 
 might have in them systems that would all the time 
 declare his great mathematical demonstrations. And 
 how impressively were these told by that array of 
 batteries, in relation to which the Syracusans (ac- 
 cording to Plutarch) were no more than the body, 
 while he himself was the informing soul ! The Prot- 
 estant Reformation is the system wherein one may 
 read the thoughts of Luther ; the Anatomy of Melan- 
 choly, the system wherein one may read the thoughts 
 of Robert Burton ; the Constitution of Rhode Island, 
 the system wherein one may read the thoughts of 
 Roger Williams ; Methodism, the system wherein 
 one may read the thoughts of Wesley ; St. Paul's 
 Cathedral, the system wherein one may read the 
 thoughts of Sir Christopher Wren. James Fergu- 
 son, the Scotch astronomer, when he was a shepherd 
 
THE PKIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 415 
 
 boy in the service of farmer Glashan, used at night 
 to go into the fields and lie on his back in a blanket, 
 and study the sky. By means of a thread, which 
 had sliding beads on it, he determined the positions 
 of the planets and the stars, and then, placing the 
 thread on a piece of paper, marked the positions 
 thereon, and formed a little astronomic map. When 
 he was some years older, he made a wooden orrery, 
 which so much interested Professor McLaurin of 
 Edinburgh, that he requested the young man to 
 give a lecture on it to his class in mathematics. And 
 those creations — what were they but systems de- 
 signed to tell the clear conceptions which that vig- 
 orous student of nature entertained concerning the 
 harmonious spheres? 
 
 Some persons, by reason of their creativeness, are 
 worthy to be called splendid magicians, who contin- 
 ually attract without ever deceiving. They seem to 
 evoke exuberance and inflorescence along every tire- 
 some path which they enter. The forgotten is res- 
 cued by them to a gladsome remembrance. That 
 which is tame they make to be as welcome as vernal 
 verdure, and that which is uninviting they render as 
 delightful as summer diversity. They work changes 
 which are marvels of improvement. It might almost 
 be said that they need but to utter a few words, in 
 order to give their listeners a new view of the 
 engaging power of speech ; need but to write a few 
 sentences, in order to elicit from their readers expres- 
 sions of gratitude on account of the existence of the 
 art of composition ; need but to touch the common 
 dust, in order to cause something fresh and beautiful 
 to spring up out of it. It is these that are triumphant 
 
416 THE GEE AT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 illustrators of the value of creative genius. Roscom- 
 mon aptly suggests the difference between common- 
 place mortals and such persons, in his paraphrase of 
 two noted lines in the Ars Poetica of Horace : 
 
 " One with a flash begins, and ends in smoke ; 
 Another out of smoke brings glorious light, 
 And, without raising expectation high, 
 Surprises us with dazzling miracles." 
 
 Creativeness is not always associated with origi- 
 nality. John Locke was unmistakably original; but 
 the length and the complexity of many of his sen- 
 tences show that he was not creative. To be fitted 
 to produce works preeminently unique in meaning 
 as well as in structure, a man must have both habits. 
 It was by reason of the union of the two in Angelo 
 and Canova, Haydn and Mozart, that they wrought, 
 as artists, such consummate wonders. Shakespeare 
 and Milton had them both ; and so did Ronsard and 
 Du Bellay, Goethe and Schiller, Wordsworth and 
 Coleridge. They coexist, also, in Victor Hugo and 
 George Eliot, and in those fine poets, Tennysou and 
 Longfellow, who, 
 
 .... " Kobe all creation 
 In colors celestial of amber and blue ; 
 Magnify littleness and glorify commonness, 
 Pull down the false and establish the true." 
 
 I have spoken of Montaigne and Emerson as in- 
 stances of originality ; I shall now speak of them as 
 instances of creativeness. The former, though in 
 his Essay on Vanity he professes to write " for few 
 men and for few years," has ever a style of his own, 
 which must have cost him, earlier or later, a nice 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 417 
 
 i 
 
 and brave toil. See some of his hints concerning it. 
 He says : 
 
 "The way of speaking that I love is natural and plain, as well 
 in writing as speaking, and a sinewy and significant way of ex- 
 pressing one's self, short and pithy, and not so elegant and artifi- 
 cial as prompt and vehement. Haec demum sapiet dictio, quae 
 feriet, — ' The language which strikes the mind will please it.' 
 Rather hard than harsh, free from affectation; irregular, incontin- 
 uous, and bold, where every piece makes up an entire body; not 
 like a pedant, a preacher, or a pleader, but rather a soldier-like 
 style, as Suetonius calls that of Julius Caesar ; and yet I see no 
 reason why he should call it so." 
 
 In another place, he remarks that a thing well 
 said, whether it go before or come after a good sen- 
 tence, is always in season ; that, even "if it neither 
 suit well with what went before, nor have any very 
 close coherence with what follows after, it is good 
 in itself." And in still another place, he condemns 
 the smothering and losing of life and marrow, as in 
 Cicero's way of writing, before coming to that which 
 is the real theme, or " that wherein the force of the 
 argument lies," and declares himself to be in favor 
 of discourses which " give the first charge into the 
 heart of the doubt," rather than of those that lan- 
 guish about the subjects to which they relate, and 
 that delay expectation. Thus does that renowned 
 essayist intimate the leading elements of his pointed, 
 sententious, abrupt, and lively mode of composition. 
 
 The style in which Emerson writes, while it is 
 altogether peculiar, has for its chief feature an artis- 
 tic and elegant condensation. He suggests a great 
 deal in a few words. Ideas, " on the scale of a con- 
 tinent," are compressed by him into short sayings. 
 His essays all show themselves to be the productions 
 27 
 
418 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 of a careful master, who is wont to mold and to 
 fashion, to curtail and to abbreviate, the language 
 that occurs to him, till he has exactly fitted it to 
 express the deep things with which his mind is 
 familiar. His custom of condensing is adapted to 
 remind one of an anecdote recorded of Phocion. 
 One day when the people were ready to be ad- 
 dressed by him, he was discovered behind the plat- 
 form absorbed in thought. " What ! at your medi- 
 tations, Phocion ? " said the person who had observed 
 him. " Yes," he replied, " I am considering whether 
 I cannot shorten what I have to say to the Athen- 
 ians." Plutarch, who relates this circumstance, ssljs 
 that Phocion's speeches " were to be estimated like 
 coins, not for the size, but for the intrinsic value." 
 And so may it be said of Emerson's sentences. 
 Notice how he talks about the sea : 
 
 " The sea is masculine, the type of active strength. Look, what 
 egg-shells are drifting all over it, each one . . . filled with men in 
 ecstasies of terror, alternating with cockney conceit, as the sea is 
 rough or smooth. Is this sad-colored circle an eternal cemetery? 
 In our graveyards we scoop a pit, but this aggressive water opens 
 mile-wide pits and chasms, and makes a mouthful of a fleet.'' 
 
 Notice, also, how he talks about the poet Words- 
 worth : 
 
 " He lived long enough to witness the revolution he had wrought, 
 and ' to see what he foresaw.' There are torpid places in his mind, 
 there is something hard and sterile in his poetry, want of grace 
 and variety, want of due catholicity and cosmopolitan scope : he 
 had conformities to English politics and traditions; he had egotis- 
 tic puerilities in the choice and treatment of his subjects ; but let 
 us say of hirn, that, alone in his time, he treated the human mind 
 well, and with an absolute trust. His adherence to his poetic 
 creed rested on real inspirations. The Ode on Immortality is the 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 419 
 
 high-water-mark which the intellect has reached in this age. New 
 means were employed, and new realms added to the empire of the 
 muse, by his courage." 
 
 And here is another specimen of his writing : 
 
 " The flower of civilization is the finished man of sense, of ac- 
 complishments, of social power — a gentleman." 
 
 Emerson's style is not only remarkable for a con- 
 densation which is at war with all excrescences, but 
 also for an exquisite piquancy, and for a force that 
 often penetrates like electricity. Accordingly, Prof. 
 John Nichol, in his account of it in the Encyclopae- 
 dia Britannica, attributes to it epigrams which are 
 electric shocks, — a terse refinement of phrase, and 
 trenchant illustrations. To. read his prose, seems 
 equivalent to being led along a wonderful new path, 
 wherein, at every little distance, is enjoyed a fresh, 
 rich, and inspiriting treat ; and to read his poetry, 
 seems equivalent to being borne for the first time 
 on an expanse of pellucid and perfumed waters, from 
 one beautiful cove to another, and from one myste- 
 rious landing-place to another. The only trouble is 
 that the reader, in the one case, is generally led into 
 the midst of a weird forest of uncertainties, and, in 
 the other, into a wild thicket of mysteries, and left 
 there. 
 
420 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 VIII. 
 
 SOCRATES. 
 
 " We have enough wherewithal to do it, and we ought never to 
 be* weary of representing the image of this great man in all the 
 patterns and forms of perfection." Montaigne. 
 
 As an ancient instance, illustrative, in a surpass- 
 ing manner, of the great thing it is to know how to 
 be one's own, I name " that saint of sages," who was 
 the son of Sophroniscus, the husband of Xanthippe, 
 and the educator of Plato. About twenty-three 
 hundred and twenty-two years ago, there went about 
 in Athens a Greek philosopher, who exhibited such 
 fidelity to truth and to nature, such patience, such 
 tranquillity, such power as a thinker, such aptness 
 and eloquence as a conversationist, such clearness 
 as a reasoner, such innocence of heart, such maj- 
 esty in the midst of satirical defamers and tyrannical 
 foes, and such fearlessness of death, as were fitted to 
 secure to him. for all ages, a sacred renown. He 
 allowed no troublesome accidents of life to break 
 his admirable equipoise. Those with whom he was 
 wont to converse were requested by him, if at any 
 time the}^ should perceive in him even the incipient 
 emotions of anger, to give him immediate notice of 
 the discovery. According to the testimony of Xeno- 
 phon, he was so pious he undertook nothing without 
 invoking divine counsel, so just he never did an 
 injury to any mortal, so temperate he never pre- 
 ferred pleasure to virtue, and so wise he was able, 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 421 
 
 in the most difficult cases, to judge what was expe- 
 dient aud right. His mission was to incite men to 
 be wise and virtuous. In accomplishing this, he 
 unfolded what was wrong in opinions and characters, 
 reproved the vicious for their vices, and dealt out 
 sound instruction. 
 
 It was specially his delight to teach the Athenian 
 youth, who daily gathered round him, and who — 
 excepting only those of them that were immoral — 
 were more enticed by his discourses than by any of 
 their diversions. He showed that fancied knowl- 
 edge usually amounts to foolishness. Speaking of 
 an unworthy man, who was represented to him as 
 not having been improved by his travels, he said, 
 " I very well believe it ; for he took himself along 
 with him." The principal office of wisdom was 
 affirmed by him to be the distinguishing of good 
 from evil. When told that the god of wisdom had 
 assigned to him the title of sage, he searched and 
 examined himself, and drew the conclusion that his 
 best doctrine was the doctrine of ignorance, and his 
 best wisdom simplicity. His own superiority as 
 compared with others, he attributed to the fact that 
 he did not overweeningly presume that he was wise. 
 Being asked what he knew, he replied : 
 
 " I know this, that I know nothing." 
 
 It was his wont to receive with a smiling composure 
 the contradictions with which others sometimes met 
 his arguments. He often prayed, " Give me the 
 interior beauty of the soul ! " but, more often, his 
 prayer was the petition, that there might be given 
 him what was best for him. His chosen motto was, 
 
422 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 " According to what a man can." 
 
 Once, when mention was made to him of something 
 ill that people were saying concerning him, he briefly 
 answered, " Not at all ; there is nothing in me of 
 what they say." On one occasion, a physiognomist 
 examined his face without knowing it was the face 
 of Socrates, and pronounced it indicative of lewd- 
 ness, libidinousness, and drunkenness. There was 
 an outburst of laughter on the part of the audience. 
 But the great sage promptly declared that naturally 
 he was inclined to the vices which his face had been 
 said to betray, and that by the aid of philosophy 
 and discipline he had subdued his unfortunate pro- 
 pensity. 
 
 He had his own amusements. Even in his mature 
 years, he thought it good to take lessons in dancing 
 and in the use of musical instruments. Many a time 
 did he join in playing cobnut with the little folk ; 
 and not rarely did he fulfill his role with them in 
 hobby-horsical sport. In endurance of toil, few 
 could surpass him ; in self-control, few have ever 
 equalled him. At feasts, he ate according to the 
 degree of his need, not according to the supply 
 before him. So sound and hale was the state in 
 which, by regularity and moderation, he kept his 
 frame and brain, that, though he fled not from the 
 plagues which during his life visited Athens, his 
 vital energy effectually repelled every seed and 
 every germ of infection. 
 
 He had genuine valor. In the midst of a battle, 
 when Alcibiades his tent-mate had been wounded 
 and was at the point of being captured by the enemy, 
 Socrates hastened to him alone, shielded him with 
 
THE PJEtlME CONDITION OIT AVAIL. 423 
 
 his own body, defended him in sight of the whole 
 army, and saved his life and his armor. And when 
 the thirty tyrants were, by their guards, haling The- 
 ramenes to the place of death, Socrates was foremost 
 in a heroic and strenuous movement to rescue him ; 
 and he desisted not from his undertaking till he was 
 prevailed on to do so by the expostulations of The- 
 ramenes himself. 
 
 He had his own way of thinking, and his own 
 ideas, views, and beliefs. Sometimes, when engaged 
 in profound thought, he seemed like one rapt in a 
 marvelous transport. Plato relates of him, that, one 
 day during the period in which he was connected 
 with the army, he began suddenly to meditate with 
 a steady abstractedness, and continued to do so till 
 noon, without moving from the spot where he stood. 
 The soldiers, having observed him, watched with 
 interest to see how long his musing mood would 
 last. The afternoon and the entire night passed, 
 and still he stood absorbed in reflection. Not till 
 the sun had risen in the morning, did his contem- 
 plative ecstasy end. Then, after saluting that glow- 
 ing orb, he went his way. 
 
 The enemies of Socrates, knowing that the senate 
 were predisposed to condemn him, charged him 
 before that body with " not acknowledging the gods 
 that were acknowledged bj r the state, with intro- 
 ducing new deities, and with violating the laws by 
 corrupting the youth." Anylus, the chief accuser, 
 avowed a willingness to withdraw the charges, if 
 Socrates would cease animadverting on his conduct; 
 but the noble philosopher promptly replied, that, so 
 long as he lived, he would never either disguise 
 
424 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the truth, or speak anything other than what his 
 duty required. Plato, on the day of the trial, arose 
 to plead for him, but was not allowed to speak. 
 Socrates made without assistance his own defense, and 
 it was a memorable unmasking of the guilty and 
 malicious souls of those who had determined that he 
 should die. After he had been sentenced, his friends 
 laid a plan for his escape ; but he refused to be 
 delivered from execution in the mode proposed by 
 them, declaring that it would be an unbecoming in- 
 fraction of the laws. To his wife, who cried out in 
 his presence, " Oh, how unjustly do these wicked 
 judges put him to death ! " he quietly said, " Why, 
 hadst thou rather they should execute me justly?" 
 While he held in his hand the appointed cup of 
 hemlock, he discoursed with a saintly serenity con- 
 cerning the fate decreed to him, expressing the con- 
 fident trust that something of men remains after 
 death, and that the condition of the good will then 
 be better than that of the bad. " Whether or no," 
 he remarked, " God will approve my actions, I know 
 not ; but this I am sure of, that I have at all times 
 made it my endeavor to please him, and I have a 
 good hope that this my endeavor will be accepted 
 by him." The thoughtful and amiable Erasmus, 
 alluding to these words, says : 
 
 "When I reflect on such a speech pronounced by such a per- 
 son, I can scarce forbear crying out, Sancte Socrates, ora pro 
 nobis ! — ' O holy Socrates, pray for us ! ' " 
 
 Thus passed away that glorious Greek, that model 
 individual of the old ages, who " would neither be 
 nor be like any other thing " than a man ; and who, 
 as a man, lived a life in the highest sense unique. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 425 
 
 IX. 
 
 THOREAU. 
 
 " A square-set man and honest; and his eyes, 
 An out-door sign of all the warmth within, 
 Smiled with his lips — a smile beneath a cloud, 
 But heaven had meant it for a sunny one." 
 
 Tennyson, The Holy Grail. 
 
 I AM to speak here of a person who, though he 
 was a singular lover of solitude, was one of the 
 most interesting of meditative men. He was a resi- 
 dent of the town of Concord, Massachusetts ; and 
 there, about sixteen years ago, he died. His funeral 
 was attended and participated in by some of the 
 deepest souls on the American continent. The im- 
 pressions produced by his distinct style of manhood 
 on those who were more than superficially acquainted 
 with him, had given rise in them to an affectionate 
 admiration, such as is rare in this world. Emerson, 
 commemorating the noblemanship of the departed 
 man, said, with an inimitable pathos : 
 
 " The scale on which his studies proceeded was so large as to 
 require longevity, and we were the less prepared for his sudden 
 disappearance. The country knows not yet, or in the least part, how 
 great a son it has lost. It seems an injury that he should leave in 
 the midst his broken task, which none else can finish — a kind of 
 indignity to so noble a soul that it should depart out of nature 
 before yet he has been really shown to his peers for what he is. 
 But he at least is content. His soul was made for the noblest 
 society; he had in a short life exhausted the capabilities of this 
 world; wherever there is knowledge, wherever there is virtue, 
 wherever there is beauty, he will find a home." 
 
426 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Thoreau lived apart from general society. He was 
 a cheerful recluse, a hermit who was characterized 
 by an ardent ambition to illustrate simplicity, and 
 by a fascinating " childishness of goodness." His 
 stature was comparatively short, his hair flaxen, his 
 nose aquiline, his eyes purely bright, and his expres- 
 sion that of a man of perfect sincerity. His dress 
 was the gray garb of a huntsman. 
 
 " He took the color of his vest 
 From rabbit's coat and grouse's breast." 
 
 He showed what it is worth to know how to possess 
 one's self — showed this, in a life which, notwith- 
 standing it was usually solitary, was free alike from 
 evidences of sickly sentimentalism, and from proofs 
 of misanthropic bitterness. Not deficient in schol- 
 arly acquirements was this man. He had graduated 
 at Harvard, had read the English classics and the 
 old English chronicles, the standard books of voy- 
 ages, the Oriental Scriptures, Wordsworth, Coleridge, 
 Goethe, Carlyle, De Quince} 7 , Ruskin, Emerson, and 
 was a recognized naturalist and poet. From his pen 
 emanated several volumes, to peruse which has been 
 said to be " like walking through morning meadows 
 or amid the mystic wolds of nightingales." Notice 
 the titles of his works : A Week on the Concord and 
 Merrimack Rivers ; Walden; Excursions; Cape Cod ; 
 The Maine Woods. He was industrious and skillful 
 in ways of his own. His father's occupation was that 
 of a maker of lead-pencils, and under his guidance 
 he learned the same craft. To that employment he 
 applied himself till he had manufactured a better 
 lead-pencil than any that had previously been in 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 427 
 
 use ; but when he was congratulated in view of the 
 possibility of amassing a fortune in the business, he 
 answered that " he should never make another lead- 
 pencil, since he did not wish to do again what he 
 had done once." He refused to aim at distinction 
 in any of the courses from among which educated 
 young men generally chose their pursuits ; yet there 
 was manifested by him no tendency either to idle- 
 ness or to indifferentism. It was perceived that he 
 was busy " about something, none knew what, in 
 the woods around Concord." He was a good sur- 
 veyor, and could ingeniously turn his hand in con- 
 structing a boat or a fence, or in making a garden. 
 There had become fixed in his mind the determina- 
 tion to be free from a multitude of common needs, 
 so that he might not be obliged to lay out in the 
 acquisition of the means of a livelihood, the ener- 
 gies he wished to devote to higher objects. Invita- 
 tions to dinner-parties were declined by him, because 
 he could not (as he thought) " meet individuals at 
 them to any purpose." It was his wont, when asked 
 at table which dish he preferred, to say, " The near- 
 est." His singularity of life was in a marked degree 
 methodical. He constantly aimed to exemplify the 
 point that men can and should, by virtue of more 
 natural simplicity, have fewer wants whereon to sac- 
 rifice their time and their strength; and this fact 
 explains the manner in which, 
 
 " Eemote from all the pleasures of the world," 
 
 he exercised his powers. In 1845, he built with his 
 own hands a cabin, on the shore of the little lake 
 called Walden, situated not far from Concord. He 
 
428 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 thought that there is the same fitness in a man's 
 building his house that there is in a bird's building 
 its nest; and, if men were generally to do so, and 
 simply and honestly to provide food for themselves 
 and their families, he conceived that the poetic 
 faculty would be generally developed in them : they 
 would sing as birds do when so engaged. The cost 
 of his house he found to be twenty-eight dollars 
 and twelve and a half cents. It was tight-shingled 
 and plastered, was ten feet wide by fifteen long, had 
 eight-feet posts, a garret, a closet, a large window 
 on each side, two trap-doors, one door at the end, 
 and a brick fireplace opposite. The timber, stones, 
 and sand he had claimed by squatter's right. To 
 his house he added a small wood-shed, building the 
 same out of the materials left after the main struc- 
 ture had been completed. About two and a half 
 acres of the ground about his cabin were planted by 
 him with beans, potatoes, peas, and maize ; and of 
 the produce which resulted, he sold an amount, 
 above what he needed for his own use, that brought 
 him eight dollars and seventy-one and a half cents. 
 That forest-cottage was his home for almost two 
 years. When the first of them had passed, he com- 
 pared himself with the Concord farmers in the mat- 
 ter of independence, and described himself as better 
 off than they, since he was not anchored to house or 
 land, but was free to follow the bent of his genius 
 every moment, and since, if fire had consumed his 
 house or if his crops had failed, he would have 
 lacked but little of being nearly as well off as be- 
 fore. In eight months, while dwelling at Walden, 
 he spent for food eight dollars and seventy-four cents, 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 429 
 
 and for clothing eight dollars and forty and three- 
 fourth cents. His entire expenses during the whole 
 time of his residence in his recluse home, amounted 
 to sixty-one dollars and ninety-nine and three-fourth 
 cents, of which the sum of thirty-six dollars and 
 seventy-eight cents was met by his earnings. The 
 experiment convinced him that, to maintain one's 
 self on this planet, will prove a pastime rather than 
 a hardship, if one will but live simply and wisely. 
 
 Thoreau's novel hermitage was a center, from 
 which he was accustomed daily to go forth for the 
 purpose of becoming better acquainted with the 
 features, the habits, and the manners of nature's 
 varied offspring. He was ever gaining fresh knowl- 
 edge about animals or plants. The quick-moving 
 ants and the battles they sometimes fought on the 
 little elevations and in the little depressions of his 
 woodyard, were observed by him with interest. 
 When he walked in the forest, he took with him a 
 spy-glass and a microscope, together with an old 
 book wherein to place botanical specimens. Thus 
 equipped, he freely ranged. Sometimes he went a 
 quarter of a mile or further, to see some favorite 
 flower; sometimes he listened to catch weighty mean- 
 ings from slight sounds or far-sent echoes ; sometimes 
 he drew the fishes to him without hook or line; and 
 sometimes he fished " in the sky whose bottom is 
 pebbly with stars." The brutes seemed to him to be 
 "rudimental burrowing men, still standing on their 
 defense, awaiting their transformation." He paid 
 them a kindly respect, which, by many of them, 
 was wonderfully returned. A mouse entered into 
 friendship with him, and ate from his hand ; a chick- 
 
430 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 adee alighted on an armful of wood which he was 
 carrying, and picked at the sticks without fear ; a 
 phoebe built its nest in his wood-shed ; robins fre- 
 quented a pine which grew inside his house ; and 
 partridges hovered near, waiting for crumbs of food. 
 At evening and after nightfall, rabbits gathered 
 regularly to feast on what he gave them ; and he 
 was continually entertained by the maneuvers of 
 red squirrels. The latter grew to be so familiar, 
 that occasionally they stepped over his shoe, "when 
 that was the nearest way." Hares came, at dusk, 
 and nibbled the potato-parings he had thrown out. 
 
 " He saw the partridge drum in the woods ; 
 He heard the wood-cock's evening hymn; 
 He found the tawny thrush's broods, 
 
 And the shy hawk did wait for him. 
 What others did at distance hear, 
 
 And guessed within the thicket's gloom, 
 Was shown to this philosopher, 
 
 And at his bidding seemed to come." 
 
 Emerson. 
 
 Over the door of his cabin he put the words : 
 
 " Entertainment for man, but not for beast." 
 
 Some of his human visitors he gratefully received, 
 and with them delightedly communed and strolled ; 
 but such of them as were actuated by the vulgar 
 curiosity which begets intrusiveness, he regarded 
 with a positive disgust. In the latter category he 
 numbered those who never knew when their visits 
 were at an end ; those who, on account of their 
 one-ideaism, were like a hen with but one chicken, 
 and that a duckling ; those who had a thousand 
 ideas and unkempt heads, like hens that have charge 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 431 
 
 each of a hundred chickens, all in pursuit of one 
 bag ; intellectual centipedes ; absorbed men of busi- 
 ness ; preoccupied men of restless spirit, who were 
 wont to sacrifice all their time either in getting or 
 in keeping a living ; ministers of the narrow-minded 
 order, who spoke of God as if they enjoyed a monop- 
 oly of the theme ; uneasy, inquisitive persons, who 
 pried about his cupboard ; } T oung men who had 
 ceased to be young, and had concluded that the 
 beaten track is the safest ; and self-styled reformers 
 — a sort of persons whom he pronounced the great- 
 est bores of all. 
 
 Thoreau's writings contain many sayings which 
 are worthy to be reiterated often and remembered 
 forever. Here are a few of them : 
 
 " Men cannot conceive a state of things so fair that it cannot he 
 realized." " If I had the wealth of Croesus bestowed on me, my 
 aims must still be the same, and my means essentially the same." 
 "The heavens are as deep as our aspirations are high." "How 
 can we have a harvest of thought who have not had a seed-time of 
 character?" "Let our meanness be our footstool, not our cush- 
 ion." " Only that day dawns to which we are awake." "The 
 newest is but the oldest made visible to our senses." "Men rev- 
 erence one another, not yet God." " Now-a-nights, I go on to 
 the hill to see the sun set, as one would go home at evening." 
 "All these sounds — the crowing of cocks, the baying of dogs, 
 and the hum of insects at noon — are the evidence of nature's 
 health." " Men are not concealed under habits, but are revealed 
 by them; they are, their clothes." " I raise my fairest and fresh- 
 est flowers in the old mold." " If we take the ages into the ac- 
 count, may there not be a civilization going on among brutes as 
 well as men?" "It is strange that men will talk of miracles, 
 revelation, and the like, as things past, while love remains." " I 
 want the flower and fruit of a man, that some fragrance be wafted 
 over from him to me, and some ripeness flavor our intercourse." 
 " The Vedas and their Angas are not so ancient as serene contem- 
 plation." " We make conquest only of husks and shells for the 
 
432 THE GEEAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 most part — at least apparently ; but sometimes these are cinna- 
 mon and spices." " The philanthropist too often surrounds man- 
 kind with the remembrance of his own cast-off griefs as an atmos- 
 phere, and calls it sympathy." " Nothing makes the earth seem 
 so spacious as to have friends at a distance; they make the lati- 
 tudes and longitudes." "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing 
 in." "Rescue the drowning, and tie your shoe-strings," "Our 
 sadness is not sad, but our cheap joys." "How often, when we 
 have been nearest each other bodily, have we really been furthest 
 off!" " What wealth is it to have such friends that we cannot 
 think of them without elevation! " "Let nothing come between 
 you and the light. Respect men as brothers only. When you 
 travel to the Celestial City, carry no letter of introduction. When 
 you knock, ask to see God — none of the servants." " Aim above 
 morality. Be not simply good; be good for something." "I 
 long ago lost a hound, a bay-horse, and a turtle-dove, and am 
 still on their trail. Many are the travelers I have spoken con- 
 cerning them, describing their tracks, and what calls they answered 
 to. I have met one or two who had heard the hound and the tramp 
 of the horse, and even seen the dove disappear behind a cloud, 
 and they seemed as anxious to recover .them as if they had lost 
 them themselves." 
 
 Futile would it be to attempt to show that Thoreau 
 was faultless. On not a few questions he seems to 
 have held extreme opinions. The sound of Sabbath- 
 bells was not welcome to his ears. Once, when a 
 Christian woman, w T ho had heard him express him- 
 self, said, " Why, Mr. Thoreau, it seems to me that 
 jou are going backward to paganism," he replied, 
 " Say, rather, forward to paganism, madam." It is 
 due, however, to affirm, that those outspeakings of 
 his, which, to some persons, were suggestive of 
 strange heresy, were, to those who knew how to 
 understand him, simply enigmatical declarations that 
 had a wholesome meaning. Such, for example, was 
 his averment, that it is u necessary not to be Chris- 
 tian, to appreciate the beauty and significance of the 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 433 
 
 life of Christ." Like all great thinkers that have 
 been dissatisfied with man}' existing human realities, 
 he often put forth valuable truths in abrupt and 
 startling hyperboles. Let him, then, be estimated, 
 not according to hasty interpretations of some par- 
 ticular words of his, but according to the tenor of 
 his career and the drift of his thought. And far 
 hence be the day when there shall be none to honor 
 the name of that Concord nobleman whose mission 
 it was to exalt simple and natural things, and who 
 thanked God that men cannot cut down the clouds ! 
 
 X. 
 
 LINCOLN. 
 
 Natura lo fece, e poi ruppe la stampa. 
 (" Nature made him, and then broke the - mold.") 
 
 Italian Adage. 
 
 " The kindly, earnest, brave, foreseeing man, 
 Sagacious, patient, dreading praise not blame, 
 New birth of our new soil, the first American." 
 
 Lowell. 
 
 " Mr. Lincoln was modest, kind, and unobtrusive, but had nev- 
 ertheless sturdy intellectual independence, wonderful self-reliance, 
 and, in his unpretending way, great individuality." 
 
 Hon. Gideon Welles. 
 
 Not likely is it there will ever be a generation of 
 men on earth that will omit to mention with tender 
 reverence the slain President. In him, ruggedness 
 was associated with profundit} 7 , and angularity was 
 in union with elevation. He had not only great- 
 28 
 
434 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 ness, but goodness also — that which makes human 
 character warm. He was at once child-like and 
 majestic ; at once the simple-hearted brother of 
 men, and the gifted and glorious citizen of his na- 
 tion. Was he versed in self-mastery? Who can 
 doubt it ? Was his life a vivid illustration of the 
 importance of knowing how to be one's own ? Who 
 will deny it ? 
 
 Lincoln possessed sterling genius. " Like Crom- 
 well and Napoleon," says a noted individual who 
 knew him well, " he grew in rugged manhood in 
 the world of privacy and experience, and came into 
 great affairs wkh powers which scholarship and 
 effete rhetoric can never equal." And the same 
 person adds the remark, that such men as he are the 
 men " whose deeds shadow the imagination with 
 divine agency, and whom the philosopher loves to 
 contemplate as the highest evolution of nature's 
 forces, and the most glorious development of the 
 human mind." * The exemplification of genius which 
 Lincoln gave, was practical and true. He was nei- 
 ther inconsistently eccentric nor unnaturally anoma- 
 lous. Genius has sometimes been represented as a 
 possession of questionable value. There have been 
 those who were disposed to treat it as travelers 
 treat the greatest of the Egyptian pyramids — that 
 cold pile of stone, the strength and the loftiness of 
 which serve the inferior purpose of grandly showing 
 to what an extent man can be original without being 
 wise, and can be creative without being reasonable. 
 But Lincoln's career showed that genius deserves 
 not to be disparaged thus ; that it is, forsooth, ever 
 
 * Hon. Cassius M. Clay. Letter in the N. Y. Tribune, 1873. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OE AVAIL. 435 
 
 an excellent bestowment ; that it is innocent of de- 
 plorable failings like those of a Tamerlane or a 
 Napoleon, a Rousseau or a Byron ; and that the 
 random and reckless life of the possessor of genius 
 who misapplies his power.-, is not to be charged to 
 genius, but to a corrupt self pushed to action by an 
 unbending will. It showed, also, that genius is 
 never necessarily associated with a stern, egotistical 
 grandeur, such as makes ordinary minds crouch and 
 feel poor in its presence. "Instead of feeling a 
 poverty," says Emerson, " when we encounter a 
 great man, let us treat the new-comer like a trav- 
 eling geologist who passes through our estate and 
 shows us good slate, or anthracite, or limestone, in 
 our brush pasture." Lincoln was one of those 
 great men that could be thus treated. 
 
 There was, on his part, nothing that seemed in 
 conflict with nature. His unpretentiousness was 
 like that of the mountains. Honestly did he let 
 himself reveal himself, and he deemed it not his 
 duty to ask leave to seem to be what he was. All 
 eminent men have been delineated by other men 
 according as they were viewed from different stand- 
 points, or through eyes differently colored by tem- 
 perament, prejudice, or culture. Thus he was delin- 
 eated. The carping critic, the enthusiastic but un- 
 discriminating admirer, and the calm, penetrating, 
 educated thinker — each gave his pen-portrait of 
 him ; and not too much is it to sa}^, that every such 
 representation which was free from the elements of 
 caricature, whether it came from an opponent or 
 from a panegyrist, had its attraction on account of 
 what it suggested in respect to the uniqueness of 
 
436 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 the man. The studious eye of Nathaniel Hawthorne, 
 that rigorously tasteful novelist, once read Lincoln's 
 physiognomy, and surveyed his form in " the Presi- 
 dent's room," and here is the substance of the 
 graphic sketch which resulted : * 
 
 His figure was tall and loose-jointed. He was 
 about the homeliest man he (Hawthorne) had ever 
 seen, yet was by no means repulsive or disagreeable. 
 He appeared the essential representative of all 
 Yankees, and the veritable specimen, physically, of 
 what the world seems determined to regard as the 
 characteristic qualities of Americans. His lengthy 
 awkwardness, and the uncouthness of his move- 
 ments, were indescribable ; nevertheless it seemed 
 to him (Hawthorne) as if he had been in the habit 
 of seeing him daily, and had shaken hands with him 
 a thousand times in some village street, so true was 
 he to the aspect of the pattern American, modified by 
 a certain extravagance. If put to guess his calling, 
 he (Hawthorne) would have taken him for a country 
 schoolmaster, as soon as for anything else. He was 
 dressed in a rusty black frock coat and in pan- 
 taloons which were unbrushed ; and so faithfully 
 had the suit been worn, it had adapted itself to the 
 curves and the angularities of his form, and had 
 grown to be an outer skin of the man. He had 
 shabby slippers on his feet. His hair was black, 
 ungrizzled, stiff, and somewhat bushy ; and, that 
 morning, it had apparently been acquainted with 
 neither brush nor comb, since the disarrangement 
 of the pillow. His complexion was dark and sal- 
 
 * The sketch, in its full form, may be found in one of the vol- 
 umes of the Atlantic Monthly. 
 
THE PKIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 437 
 
 low, his eyebrows thick and black, his brow im- 
 pending, his nose large, and the lines about his 
 mouth very strongly defined. His whole physiog- 
 nom} r was as coarse a one as would be met anywhere 
 in the length and breadth of the States ; but, withal, 
 it was redeemed, illuminated, softened, and bright- 
 ened, by a kindly though serious look out of the 
 eyes, and an expression of homely sagacity that 
 seemed weighted with rich results of village expe- 
 rience. He gave indications of being the possessor, 
 not of bookish cultivation and not of refinement, 
 but of a great deal of native sense, of a thoroughly 
 honest heart, and of a tact and a wisdom that were 
 akin to craft, and that would have led him to take 
 an antagonist in flank rather than in front. On the 
 whole, his sallow, queer, sagacious visage, with the 
 homely human sympathies that warmed it, was 
 pleasing, and was fitted to produce the conviction 
 that he was as good a ruler as any man would have 
 proved whom it might have been practicable to put 
 in his place. 
 
 The views expressed in the foregoing delineation 
 were those of a literary man of high aesthetic accom- 
 plishment and of exacting sensibility. Let them be 
 estimated, reader, only for what they are worth. 
 
 Lincoln's occupancy of the highest position in his 
 country did not in the least degree lessen his real 
 and peculiar noblemanship. To that position he 
 brought a strong, wholesome manhood ; and he kept 
 it good. He was at the greatest possible distance 
 from exemplifying the effect which exalted office has 
 on vain and ill-ballasted minds. He aped no one, 
 whether living or dead. Wherever he acted, he 
 
488 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 acted entirely in a way of his own ; and in whatever 
 company he was, he shone in it entirely with a light 
 of his own. The true emblem of his soul was 
 neither a planet nor a satellite, but a star. And 
 Professor Tyndall unwittingly told the style of this 
 great civilian, when, in one of his lectures, he said : 
 
 "Every star declares by its light its own undamaged individ- 
 uality, as if it alone had sent its thrills through space." 
 
 By fashionable gentlemen, whose excellence, like 
 the brightness of the moon, was wholly borrowed, 
 he was deemed over-much humorous and unfortu- 
 nately odd; and the grand old story-teller of the 
 White House was often enough the theme of their 
 Lilliputian criticisms. He was indeed humorous ; 
 but the considerate observer did not fail to see that 
 his expressions of humor had unsounded depths 
 beneath them, as is the case with those lusty fishes 
 that, from time to time, sportively leap up out of 
 the sea. And what wonder was it that so genuine 
 and healthy a character had its odd revealings ? To 
 criticise him because he had his own ideas and 
 fancies, and did not w T ear some other man's pecu- 
 liarities, is about as reasonable as it would be to 
 find fault with the wind for blowing where it listeth. 
 k< To condemn Caiiyle and Macaulay," suggestively 
 says Mr. Whipple, " because they do not run their 
 thoughts into the molds of Addison and Burke, is 
 equivalent to condemning a bear because he does 
 not digest stones like an ostrich, or a chicken be- 
 cause it goes on two legs instead of four." 
 
 Lincoln was the condensed, matured result of free 
 labor, free speech, and free opportunity. From his 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 439 
 
 career the world has learned the lesson, that a 
 sturdy rail-splitter on a western prairie and a strong- 
 armed sculler of flat-boats on the Mississippi, can 
 attain to distinguished elevation without being 
 trained in famous halls of learning, and without 
 being finished off in circles of fastidious society. 
 Though as to all his external characteristics he was 
 unrefined and rustic, and though all smoothing pro- 
 cesses left him still what Shakespeare calls " a plain, 
 blunt man," yet, considered with respect to his 
 inner nature, it is certain that no far-sought mine 
 of the earth has ever proved richer in gold than he 
 was in mental resources. His heart was indigenous 
 to the western hemisphere, and was New-World- 
 like. Emerson has pronounced him the true repre- 
 sentative of the American continent. I call him 
 the great, good American, who treated everybody, 
 whether black or white, whether poor or rich, as 
 his brother. 
 
 In the first part of Victor Hugo's Les 3£iserahles, 
 one may find a picture, drawn with the pen, which 
 is well adapted to give rise to a conception of a 
 character strikingly similar to that of Lincoln. It 
 is the picture of the good bishop Myriel. Seeing a 
 wealthy but parsimonious man bestowing alms on a 
 beggar, he said, " Look at M. Geborand, buying a 
 halfpenny's worth of Paradise ! " He taught that 
 the least possible amount of sin is the law of man, 
 no sin at all the dream of angels. Into the cell of 
 a condemned murderer he went, and there taught 
 him, there made himself father, brother, and friend 
 to him. On the day of that criminal's execution, 
 he rode with him in the cart. Mounting the scaf- 
 
440 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 fold, he stood at his side ; and when the scene was 
 over, and he descended from the place of death, 
 there was something in his glance which made the 
 people open a path for him. In drawing-rooms, it 
 was said that his goodness was affectation ; but those 
 who knew his heart, and who " did not regard holy 
 actions maliciously," tenderly admired him. He 
 called himself a physician, having for his patients 
 the sick and the unhappy. When a mountain par- 
 ish which he had been accustomed to visit was as- 
 certained to be frequented by Cravatte and his 
 brigand band, he declared the intention to go to it 
 without an escort. " Monseigneur, you will not do 
 that," said the mayor. He answered, "They want 
 to hear about heaven every now and then, and what 
 would they think of a bishop who was afraid ? " 
 " But, Monseigneur, the brigands!" "Ah," he 
 replied, " you are right ; I may meet them. They 
 too must want to hear about heaven." " Mon- 
 seigneur, they will plunder you." "I have noth- 
 ing," said he. " They will kill you." " Nonsense," 
 he rejoined ; " what good would that do them ? I 
 would ask them for alms for my poor." " Mon- 
 seigneur, do not go. In heaven's name, do not, for 
 you expose jouv life." " My good sir," said he, " is 
 that all ? I am not in this world to save my life, 
 but to save souls." Once, while looking on a large, 
 black, hairy, and horrible spider, he pathetically 
 said to himself, " Poor brute, it is not thy fault." 
 He incurred, one day, the pang of a sprain, because 
 he did not wish to crush an ant. There was a 
 man — Jean Valjean — who, after passing nineteen 
 years as a galley-slave, had been set at liberty. At 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 441 
 
 every place in the town where he sought hospitality, 
 or begged for shelter, he was turned coldly awa}% 
 till he came to this bishop's door. There he was 
 received and treated like a man. " Why," asked 
 Myriel, "do I want to know your name? Besides, 
 before you told it to me, you had one which I 
 knew." And he gently assured him that he was 
 his brother. What an instance of benevolence, 
 wide-reaching and profound ! What an embodiment 
 of benignity, unstrained and sweet ! And who can- 
 not see that the unselfishness, the kindliness, the 
 sympathy — in short, the broad, warm manhood of 
 Myriel, was entirely Lincoln-like ? 
 
 That humble yet deep-souled American evidently 
 made it the law of his life to be true rather than 
 false, to be plain rather than show} r , and to be good 
 rather than successful. ' No wintry dignity marked 
 his bearing. There was on his part an unmistaka- 
 ble grandeur ; but it was ever softened by his mani- 
 festations of generous feeling, and ever rendered 
 sunny by his genial jovialty. Said he to a friend, 
 who visited him at the W T hite House, " I should be 
 glad if you would stay and dine with me, but I 
 have no idea of what we are going to have for din- 
 ner, because when Mrs. Lincoln is away I browse 
 around." And one pleasant clay, while walking 
 with his secretary, he stopped by the side of a small 
 shrub, and looked into it ; then, bending himself 
 down, he with the utmost gentleness of manner put 
 his hand among the leaves and the twigs, as if to 
 take out something that was there. " What do you 
 find, Mr. Lincoln ? " asked the secretary.. " Why," 
 
442 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 he answered, "here is a little bird fallen from its 
 nest, and I am trying to put it back again." 
 
 Such was the slain President. So lived that self- 
 made nobleman of the prairies, who was 
 
 "Limbed like the old heroic breeds, 
 
 Not forced to frame excuses for his birth." 
 
 XI. 
 
 DEMPSTER.* 
 
 " He fought his doubts and gathered strength, 
 He would not make his judgment blind, 
 He faced the specters of the mind 
 And laid them : thus he came at length 
 To find a stronger faith his own." 
 
 Tennyson, In Memoriam. 
 
 He was my friend. Looking back through more 
 than a score of years, I recall with reverent emotions 
 how, during a period of study under his guidance, 
 there came to exist between his soul and mine a 
 relationship, such as often, in the groves of ancient 
 schools, sprang up between teacher and learner. It 
 was not given him to gain a world-wide fame. 
 His education, like that of Benjamin Franklin and 
 that of Horace Greeley, had to be eked out under 
 unpropitious circumstances. He grew to be a noble 
 scholar, but lacked the finished accomplishments 
 
 * The Rev. John Dempster, D. D., principal professor of the- 
 ology for some years at Concord, N. H., and afterward at Evans- 
 ton, 111. He was born January 2, 1794, and died November 28, 
 1863. The author was named after him. 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 443 
 
 which result from collegiate culture and from a 
 thorough and polishing literary drill. He, however, 
 attained a bright eminence, and earned for his 
 name a far choicer place in ten thousand mem- 
 ories than that which, in this age of hurried lives 
 and unserene souls, has been awarded it. I write 
 here a monograph of him, in order to show, as in a 
 mirror, the fine, unborrowed manhood which he 
 made sure to himself by coming to Tcnoiv hoiv to be 
 his own. 
 
 His individuality was apparent in all that he did. 
 He was ever majestically self-possessed. Whether 
 at home or abroad, whether exercising his persuasive 
 voice in table-talk or lifting it in prayer, whether 
 dealing out ponderous oracles in the lecture-room, 
 or using his familiar hoe in the rich loam of his gar- 
 den, he had an impressive way which was unique. 
 He evinced a character, firmly bottomed and bravely 
 built up — a character, the materials of which he 
 had carefully selected and tested before using them. 
 Never did he seem to lapse from a high and beauti- 
 ful mood. There was that on his part which was 
 Pythagorean. Accordingly, whenever he acted, 
 Avhenever he spoke, and even whenever he simply 
 looked, he commanded respect. A self-mastered self 
 was habitually revealed by him. He dared to be in 
 his own fashion a man ; hence he was often quietly 
 defiant of the authority of custom. He taught men, 
 by his unpunctiliousness as to matters of garb, that 
 he was not to be estimated according to such things 
 as an ill-fitting coat or an old-fashioned hat. Re- 
 gardless of what any number of persons might 
 think, he made his exit from every evening company 
 
444 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 or party, at nine o'clock, the time when (as he be- 
 lieved) people ought to go to bed. 
 
 He was a man of immense intellectual strength, 
 and had a noteworthy facility in extemporaneously 
 putting it forth. He had genius ; but it was genius 
 consecrated to holy ends, and therefore free from 
 all wild eccentricities or oddities. His mind was 
 uncommonly clear-seeing, as well as uncommonly 
 strong. He had not only superior analytic power, 
 but also superior synthetic power, and was at once 
 an acute metaphysician and a cogent logician. His 
 lecture on Divine Providence, delivered at Concord, 
 New Hampshire, in 1854, was a powerful exhibition 
 of his argumentative ability. Ever were his reason- 
 ings condensed and sweeping. Each sentence, in 
 one of his logical disquisitions, was a strong part of 
 a mighty whole. 
 
 He displayed great richness and beauty in conver- 
 sation. With a remarkable ease, he generalized as 
 he talked. I have never listened to a man who, in 
 a little time, said so much that was worthy to be 
 remembered. He helped along the one who hesi- 
 tated or stumbled in expression, and, in a short 
 finished sentence, uttered all that such a one was 
 trying hard to say. He was not less discreet and 
 elevated in conversation than he was instructive. 
 No hero, it has been said, is a hero to his valet de 
 chambre. But Dempster was a man whom, it would 
 seem, his most familiar servant must have regarded 
 with unbroken reverence. As one would shrink 
 from a serpent, so shrank he from vulgarisms. With 
 a surprising spontaneit} r , he met one's observations 
 or inquiries on any topic, uttering as he did so sen- 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 445 
 
 tences that seemed as if they were at the mo- 
 ment coined and evened for immortality. His con- 
 stant use of chaste language in which much thought 
 was compressed, never had any resemblance to af- 
 fectation. He spoke naturally as well as genteelly 
 and comprehensively. For him to utter rich say- 
 ings was to talk in his easiest manner. It would 
 have cost him as much effort to be flippant, as it 
 would have cost a gossiping lady of fashion to 
 squeeze a word or two of wisdom through her prim 
 lips. The father of the present writer used often to 
 entertain, at his home in one of the counties of 
 Western New York, that excellent man ; and he 
 was wont to say of him, that he was the most like 
 what Jesus might well be supposed to have been, 
 of all the men he had ever seen. Dempster inva- 
 riably conversed in a large, manly way. His wit 
 was never petty — it was noble. I, have stood at 
 his side, on a Saturday afternoon, while, with his 
 feet hid in high India-rubber boots, he was digging 
 potatoes in his garden, the dark mellow soil of which 
 he loved to " tickle with a hoe," and have heard 
 him use the words "objective" and "subjective" 
 (chosen words with him) jovially, yet with a rare 
 suggestiveness. Once, when some one in his class 
 asked why it is written of Isaac Newton that, in 
 theology, " he went out like a common man," he 
 answered, " Probably because he had never attended 
 a Biblical Institute." Being, with some visitors, in 
 the room where was kept the great Chinese god and 
 his black attendant, when allusion was made to the 
 god's ornaments, he remarked that, " as the god had 
 no intrinsic excellence, the deficiency had to be made 
 
446 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 up in extrinsic adornment ; " and when he saw one 
 of the company examining the god's internal struc- 
 ture, he said, " The mysteries are all on the out- 
 side." To a young man, who, in proposing to cor- 
 respond with him, intimated that he would inclose 
 postage stamps, he replied, " Let me have the stamp 
 of your mind, and I will not ask for any other." 
 On one occasion, while conversing, he said, " A 
 man's concealment is often his revealment." Bid- 
 ding farewell to a student, he said, " I will make 
 you a channel of my kind remembrances to your 
 parents." At one time, when the present writer 
 informed him that his father had sent, in a letter, a 
 word of love for him, he answered, " Tell him, in 
 your reply, that I have put it in my bosom ; " and 
 at another time, speaking to the present writer, he 
 said, " When you write home, fold me up in your 
 sheet." In the course of a conversation which oc- 
 curred at his house, he referred to American slavery, 
 saying, " It is one of the most comprehensive sys- 
 tems of villainy ever hatched by depraved minds." 
 
 As a writer, his diction was select and flowing, 
 and his ideas and illustrations fresh and original. 
 Though he had great readiness in framing musical 
 sentences, yet he scarcely ever had a single sentence 
 more than was needful. From any one of his pub- 
 lished lectures or discourses there may be culled fine 
 aphorisms. Notice some specimens : 
 
 " You may as well blot out the sun and hope for the light of day, 
 as contract the mind and hope for progress." " Was there ever a 
 real worshiper, in any world, without an object invested with his 
 own highest qualities — the same in kind, vastly transcending in 
 degree? " " Only half the man is availing, who alternately acts 
 on competing objects." "The diffused sunbeams may paint the 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 447 
 
 flowers with beauty and enrich the clouds with splendor, but they 
 can glow in the melted metal they dissolve, only when converged 
 to a point by the lens which collects them." " The determined 
 soul, like the well-formed arch, derives strength from the weight 
 pressing upon it." 
 
 As a worker, he was a paragon for young men. 
 His maxim was, Unity of pursuit. From the 
 beginning of his career, he kept true to his aim, and 
 was indefatigable in the prosecution of his under- 
 takings. Though trammeled by unusual disadvan- 
 tages, he rose steadily from obscurity to distinction. 
 He became a resolute self-educator, and drilled his 
 faculties according to tactics of his own devising. 
 Of his time he was as careful as if he deemed every 
 moment to be more than golden. He subjected 
 himself to a rigid disciplinary procedure. No mere 
 luxury was allowed for a moment to divert him. 
 He strove continually in two struggles, one of which 
 was that of a fighter against poverty, and the other 
 that of a fighter for knowledge and qualification. 
 After a while, he found that his health was giving 
 way. Then he began to maintain an uncommon 
 dietetic scrupulosity. He thought to make up, by 
 strict regularity and simplicity of living, what he 
 must lose by assiduity. It was thus this man grew 
 to his greatness. Everything that he could control 
 was pressed by him into subservience to his high 
 purpose. Said he to the writer, in a letter dated 
 June 3, 1858 : 
 
 " It has been the deepest question of my life, how I could best 
 combine the greatest self-sacrifice with the utmost efficiency of 
 action; and I have felt ennobled as this rule has been my guide." 
 
 All along the path of his endeavors, he economized 
 his hours, and practiced a punctuality which was 
 
448 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 absolute. There were days on which he met his 
 class, though suffering an almost intolerable dis- 
 tress of body, and though, in order to discharge his 
 professorial task, he had to betake himself from a 
 process of severe external medical treatment at his 
 house. 
 
 Summing up his characteristic traits, I pronounce 
 them to have been his brave constancy in educating 
 himself in spite of oppressive difficulties, his regular 
 and simple style of life, the singleness and the exalt- 
 edness of his aim, his individuality, his keenness in 
 metaphysical investigation, his condensation and 
 sweepingness in dialectic reasoning, his richness, 
 chasteness, and dignity in conversation, his original- 
 ity in thought and in illustration, his aptitude for 
 conciseness in union with a harmonious flowingness 
 in composition, and the calm indomitability with 
 which he ever held to his course, notwithstanding 
 the unfavorable circumstances and the enfeebling 
 infirmities wherewith he had to contend. 
 
 In person [I speak of him as he appeared at the 
 age of sixty-five years], he bore the marks of un- 
 common toils and agonies. A wig covered his head. 
 He had the worn and furrowed face of a veteran 
 hero. His nose was slightly aquiline. His eyes had 
 a bright, winsome luster, which was most clearly 
 seen in his moments of eloquence. His voice was 
 distinct and melodious. His temperament was the 
 nervous-bilious. His complexion was, in a degree, 
 saffron-colored and shaded. He was, as to his frame, 
 like some honored ship which, after making many 
 voyages, after enduring again and again 
 
 " The dread sweep of the down-streaming seas," 
 
THE PRIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 449 
 
 is about to go forth to brave the beating of the 
 winds, the waves, and the billows onee more, when, 
 unexpectedly, the might of the elements overcomes 
 it, and it gradually and calmly sinks clown, its costly 
 and precious freight all being saved. 
 
 XII. 
 
 THE MASTER-SOUL. 
 
 An Ideal Instance wherein many Noble Real Instances 
 are Typified. 
 
 ..." A king complete 
 Within" . . . 
 
 Milton, Paradise Regained. 
 
 Despair, dark-winged, seemed brooding o'er the 
 earth, 
 
 Peace sat and sighed, with unnerved, vacant hand ; 
 The days went slowly by, and Joy and Mirth 
 
 Had ceased to sing in all the lonely land. 
 But suddenly, there echoed wide the voice — 
 
 " Lo ! one hath come who works whate'er he 
 wills!" 
 Then did men take new courage and rejoice, 
 
 Their hearts upspringing with delightful thrills. 
 
 Another epoch, and a humming scene 
 
 Of prosperous'life cheered hill, and vale, and air ; 
 Peace walked erect, and wore a sunny mien, 
 
 And Joy and Mirth breathed music everywhere. 
 29 
 
450 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 That Master-Soul had changed the face of earth, 
 Had brought forth beauty, had reduced to form 
 
 The formless, made fine marvels spring to birth, 
 And pressed to use the dust, the tide, the storm. 
 
 Like the famed Thunderer of th' Olympian height, — 
 
 Father and king, so called, of gods and men, — 
 He dared to test his power by matter's might, 
 
 And to probe deep all mysteries in his ken. 
 Viceroy of Nature, he did never fear 
 
 Nature's resistance to his potent will ; 
 Things seemed, like men, his presence to revere — 
 
 He conquered, and went on to conquer still. 
 
 He boldly sailed across the treach'rous main, 
 
 And trod upon a new-found, gorgeous coast ; 
 The sky he read, and made its mysteries plain — 
 
 He caught the secret of the starry host. 
 Earth's hoary strata he explored, and told 
 
 Where slept both minerals rare and ores rich- 
 fraught ; 
 He traced the proofs, a myriad ages old, 
 
 Of what, ere man was formed, the God-Mind 
 thought. 
 
 And, bent on still a mightier life than this, 
 
 He drew the subtile Forces to his side, 
 Subdued them by that magic which was his, 
 
 And made them own him as their rightful guide. 
 To service great the seething steam he turned ; 
 
 He grasped the lightning, and tied fast its wing, 
 And then, that wild, fleet agent'from him learned, 
 
 Thought-freighted messages to bear and bring. 
 
THE PKIME CONDITION OF AVAIL. 451 
 
 When there was need, he bore the warrior's part, 
 
 And in the fierce fight shrank not from the van ; 
 Though others fainted, he kept hope and heart, 
 
 Wielding his tried sword for the rights of man. 
 He could not brook to see th' oppressor's yoke 
 
 Galling the poor, or wearying the weak ; 
 For wronged men, crying for redress, he spoke 
 
 By deeds — the way the brave are wont to speak. 
 
 And in a strife which was not waged with swords, — 
 
 The bloodless battle of conflicting thought, — 
 He spread dismay through Error's vaunting hordes, 
 
 His soul with pure and lofty courage fraught. 
 Through Superstition's ranks he dashed right on, 
 
 Sparing no outgrown creed along his way ; 
 'Round mitered forms he knew not how to fawn — 
 
 'Twas his to give the world a better day. 
 
 He found high joy in quest of hidden truth — 
 
 Such joy as ne'er was felt in Fashion's halls ; 
 In noble searchings he renewed his youth, 
 
 And had no heart to heed vain Pleasure's calls. 
 Often when Night's grand stillness was complete, 
 
 He pondered long beneath the wondrous sky, 
 And sometimes on the sea-shore took his seat, 
 
 And mused while proud old ships sailed slowly by. 
 
 His calm heart had a worship all its own : 
 
 He sought the place of mighty God-made things, 
 
 And 'mid huge trees and spoils of mountain stone, 
 Paid fervent homage to the King of kings. 
 
452 THE GREAT SLIGHTED FORTUNE. 
 
 Did Nature in her storm-mood o'er him scowl? 
 
 On her he gazed, with child-like wondering look ; 
 Unterrified, he heard the tempest's howl, 
 
 And tranquil stood, though earth and ocean shook. 
 
 His words, how small soe'er they were, had weight, 
 
 His presence shed strange richness on the air ; 
 And moved were all who met him to relate 
 
 What nameless dignity his brow did wear. 
 Had scornful foemen chained his body down, 
 
 Hoping to break his marvelous might of will, 
 He would have thrilled them with his kingly frown, 
 
 And proved, though bound, a glorious master still. 
 
 Oh, where art thou, thou Muse of glowing song? 
 
 Have I not watched in silent haunts for thee, 
 Pining for lofty inspiration long ? 
 
 And must my hero yet half-honored be ? 
 Ah ! who can fully sketch the Master-Soul ? 
 
 The outline can be drawn, and that alone. 
 I add the plain conclusion of the whole — 
 
 Wbuldst be most man f Learn how to be thine own. 
 
 THE END. 
 

 
 
 
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