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 HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO., BOSTOR.
 
 LECTURES 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES 
 
 RALPH WALDO EMERSON 
 
 BOSTON AND NEW YORK 
 HQTTGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY 
 
 fee EirtiereiDe Press,
 
 Copyright, 1883, 
 Bl EDWARD W. EMERSON. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
 The Riverside Press, Camiridge, Mass., U. S. A. 
 Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton & Company.
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 DEMONOLOGY 
 
 ARISTOCRACY 
 
 PERPETUAL, FORCES 
 
 CHARACTER 75 
 
 EDUCATION 
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE 129 
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS 
 
 THE PREACHER 
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS 
 
 THE SCHOLAR 
 
 PLUTARCH 22? 
 
 HISTORIC NOTES OF LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENG 
 LAND 
 
 THE CHARDON STREET CONVENTION .... 
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D 
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON, - - .307 
 
 SAMUEL HOAR 
 
 THOREAU 
 
 335 
 
 347 
 
 CAKLYLE 375
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 NIOHT-DBEAMS trace on Memory's wall 
 Shadows of the thoughts of day, 
 
 And thy fortunes as they fall 
 The bias of thy will betray.
 
 In the chamber, on the stairs. 
 
 Lurking dumb, 
 
 Go and come 
 Lemurs and Lars.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 1 
 
 THE name Demonology covers dreams, omens, coin 
 cidences, luck, sortilege, magic and other experiences 
 which shun rather than court inquiry, and deserve no 
 tice chiefly because every man has usually in a lifetime 
 two or three hints in this kind which are specially im 
 pressive to him. They also shed light on our structure. 
 
 The witchcraft of sleep divides with truth the empire 
 of our lives. This soft enchantress visits two children 
 lying locked in each other's arms, and carries them 
 asunder by wide spaces of land and sea, and wide inter 
 vals of time : 
 
 " There lies a sleeping city, God of dreams ! 
 What an unreal and fantastic world 
 Is going on below ! 
 
 Within the sweep of yon encircling wall 
 How many a large creation of the night, 
 Wide wilderness and mountain, rock and sea, 
 Peopled with busy, transitory groups. 
 Finds room to rise, and never feels the crowd." 
 
 'T is superfluous to think of the dreams of multitudes, 
 the astonishment remains that one should dream; that 
 we should resign so quietly this deifying Reason, and 
 
 1 From the course of lectures on " Human Life," read in Boston, 
 183SMO. Published in the North American Review, 1877.
 
 10 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 become the theatre of delirious shows, wherein time, 
 space, persons, cities, animals, should dance before us 
 in merry and mad confusion; a delicate creation out 
 doing the prime and flower of actual nature, antic 
 comedy alternating with horrid pictures. Sometimes 
 the forgotten companions of childhood reappear: 
 
 "They come, in dim procession led, 
 The cold, the faithless, and the dead, 
 As warm each hand, each brow as gay, 
 As if they parted yesterday : " 
 
 or we seem busied for hours and days in peregrinations 
 over seas and lands, in earnest dialogues, strenuous ac 
 tions for nothings and absurdities, cheated by spectral 
 jokes and waking suddenly with ghastly laughter, to be 
 rebuked by the cold, lonely, silent midnight, and to rake 
 with confusion in memory among the gibbering nonsense 
 to find the motive of this contemptible cachinnation. 
 Dreams are jealous of being remembered ; they dissi 
 pate instantly and angrily if you try to hold them. 
 When newly awaked from lively dreams, we are so 
 near them, still agitated by them, still in their sphere, 
 give us one syllable, one feature, one hint, and we should 
 repossess the whole; hours of this strange entertainment 
 would come trooping back to us; but we cannot get our 
 hand on the first link or fibre, and the whole is lost. 
 There is a strange wilfulness in the speed with which it 
 disperses and baffles our grasp. 
 
 A dislocation seems to be the foremost trait of dreams. 
 A painful imperfection almost always attends them. 
 The fairest forms, the most noble and excellent persons, 
 arc deformed by some pitiful and insane circumstance. 
 The very landscape and scenery in a dream seem not to 
 fit us, but like a coat or cloak of some other person to
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 11 
 
 overlap and encumber the wearer; so is the ground, the 
 road, the house, in dreams, too long or too short, and if 
 it served no other purpose would show us how accu 
 rately nature fits man awake. 
 
 There is one memory of waking and another of sleep. 
 In our dreams the same scenes and fancies are many 
 times associated, and that too, it would seem, for years. 
 In sleep one shall travel certain roads in stage-coaches 
 or gigs, which he recognizes as familiar, and has dreamed 
 that ride a dozen times; or shall walk alone in familiar 
 fields and meadows, which road or which meadow in 
 waking hours he never looked upon. This feature of 
 dreams deserves the more attention from its singular re 
 semblance to that obscure yet startling experience which 
 almost every person confesses in daylight, that particu 
 lar passages of conversation and action have occurred to 
 him in the same order before, whether dreaming or 
 waking ; a suspicion that they have been with precisely 
 these persons in precisely this room, and heard precisely 
 this dialogue, at some former hour, they know not when. 
 
 Animals have been called " the dreams of nature." 
 Perhaps for a conception of their consciousness we may 
 go to our own dreams. In a dream we have the in 
 stinctive obedience, the same torpidity of the highest 
 power, the same unsurprised assent to the monstrous as 
 these metamorphosed men exhibit. Our thoughts in a 
 stable or in a menagerie, on the other hand, may well re 
 mind us of our dreams. What compassion do these im 
 prisoning forms awaken! You may catch the glance of a 
 dog sometimes which lays a kind of claim to sympathy 
 and brotherhood. What! somewhat of me down there ? 
 Does he know it? Can he too, as I, go out of himself, 
 see himself, perceive relations? We fear lest the poor
 
 12 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 brute should gain one dreadful glimpse of his condition, 
 should learn in some moment the tough limitations of this 
 fettering organization. It was in this glance that Ovid 
 got the hint of his metamorphoses ; Calidasa of his trans 
 migration of souls. For these fables are our own thoughts 
 carried out. What keeps those wild tales in circulation 
 for thousands of years? What but the wild fact to 
 which they suggest some approximation of theory? Nor 
 is the fact quite solitary, for in varieties of our own 
 species where organization seems to predominate over 
 the genius of man, in Kalmuck or Malay or Flathead 
 Indian, we are sometimes pained by the same feeling; 
 and sometimes too the sharp-witted prosperous white 
 man awakens it. In a mixed assembly we have chanced 
 to see not only a glance of Abdiel, so grand and keen, 
 but also in other faces the features of the mink, of the 
 bull, of the rat, and the barn-door fowl. You think, 
 could the man overlook his own condition, he could not 
 be restrained from suicide. 
 
 Dreams have a poetic integrity and truth. This 
 limbo and dust-hole of thought is presided over by a 
 certain reason, too. Their extravagance from nature is 
 yet within a higher nature. They seem to us to suggest 
 an abundance and fluency of thought not familiar to the 
 waking experience. They pique us by independence 
 of us, yet we know ourselves in this mad crowd, and 
 owe to dreams a kind of divination and wisdom. My 
 dreams are not me ; they are not Nature, or the Not- 
 me : they are both. They have a double consciousness, 
 at once sub- and ob-jective. We call the phantoms 
 that rise, the creation of our fancy, but they act like 
 mutineers, and fire on their commander ; showing that 
 every act, every thought, every cause, is bi-polar, and
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 13 
 
 in the act is contained the counteraction. If I strike, 
 I am struck ; if I chase, I am pursued. 
 
 Wise and sometimes terrible hints shall in them be 
 thrown to the man out of a quite unknown intelligence. 
 He shall be startled two or three times in his life by 
 the justice as well as the significance of this phantas 
 magoria. Once or twice the conscious fetters shall 
 seem to be unlocked, and a freer utterance attained. 
 A prophetic character in all ages has haunted them. 
 They are the maturation often of opinions not con 
 sciously carried out to statements, but whereof we al 
 ready possessed the elements. Thus, when awake, I 
 know the character of Rupert, but do not think what 
 he may do. In dreams I see him engaged in certain 
 actions which seem preposterous, out of all fitness. 
 He is hostile, he is cruel, he is frightful, he is a pol 
 troon. It turns out prophecy a year later. But it was 
 already in my mind as character, and the sibyl dreams 
 merely embodied it in fact. Why then should not 
 symptoms, auguries, forebodings be, and, as one said, 
 the meanings of the spirit ? 
 
 We are let by this experience into the high region of 
 Cause, and acquainted with the identity of very unlike- 
 seeming effects. We learn that actions whose turpi 
 tude is very differently reputed proceed from one and 
 the same affection. Sleep takes off the costume of cir 
 cumstance, arms us with terrible freedom, so that every 
 will rushes to a deed. A skilful man reads his dreams 
 for his self-knowledge ; yet not the details, but the 
 quality. What part does he play in them, a cheerful, 
 manly part, or a poor drivelling part ? However mon 
 strous and grotesque their apparitions, they have a sub 
 stantial truth. The same remark may be extended to
 
 14 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 the omens and coincidences which may have astonished 
 us. Of all it is true that the reason of them is always 
 latent in the individual. Goethe said : " These whim 
 sical pictures, inasmuch as they originate from us, may 
 well have an analogy with our whole life and fate." 
 
 The soul contains in itself the event that shall pres 
 ently befall it, for the event is only the actualizing of 
 its thoughts. It is no wonder that particular dreams 
 and presentiments should fall out and be prophetic. 
 The fallacy consists in selecting a few insignificant hints 
 when all are inspired with the same sense. As if one 
 should exhaust his astonishment at the economy of his 
 thumb-nail, and overlook the central causal miracle of 
 his being a man. Every man goes through the world 
 attended with innumerable facts prefiguring (yes, dis 
 tinctly announcing) his fate, if only eyes of sufficient 
 heed and illumination were fastened on the sign. The 
 sign is always there, if only the eye were also ; just 
 as under every tree in the speckled sunshine and shade 
 no man notices that every spot of light is a perfect im 
 age of the sun, until in some hour the moon eclipses 
 the luminary ; and then first we notice that the spots of 
 light have become crescents, or annular, and correspond 
 to the changed figure of the sun. Things are signifi 
 cant enough, Heaven knows ; but the seer of the sign, 
 where is he ? We doubt not a man's fortune may 
 be read in the lines of his hand, by palmistry ; in the 
 lines of his face, by physiognomy ; in the outlines of 
 the skull, by craniology : the lines are all thore, but the 
 reader waits. The long waves indicate to the instructed 
 mariner that there is no near land in the direction from 
 which they come. Belzoni describes the three marks 
 which led him to dig for a door to the pyramid of Gbi-
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 15 
 
 zeh. What thousands had beheld the same spot for so 
 many ages, and seen no three marks ! 
 
 Secret analogies tie together the remotest parts of 
 nature, as the atmosphere of a summer morning is filled 
 with innumerable gossamer threads running in every 
 direction, revealed by the beams of the rising sun. All 
 life, all creation, is tell-tale and betraying. A man re 
 veals himself in every glance and step and movement 
 and rest : 
 
 " Head with foot hath private amity, 
 And both with moons and tides." 
 
 Not a mathematical axiom but is a moral rule. The 
 jest and byword to an intelligent ear extends its mean 
 ing to the soul and to all time. Indeed, all productions 
 of man are so anthropomorphous that not possibly can 
 he invent any fable tliat shall not have a deep moral 
 and be true in senses and to an extent never intended 
 by the inventor. Thus all the bravest tales of Homer 
 and the poets, modern philosophers can explain with 
 profound judgment of law and state and ethics. Lu- 
 cian has an idle tale that Pancrates, journeying from 
 Memphis to Coppus, and wanting a servant, took a 
 door-bar and pronounced over it magical words, and it 
 stood up and brought him water, and turned a spit, and 
 carried bundles, doing all the work of a slave. What 
 is this but a prophecy of the progress of art ? For 
 Pancrates write Watt or Fulton, and for "magical 
 words " write " steam ; " and do they not make an iron 
 bar and half a dozen wheels do the work, not of one, 
 but of a thousand skilful mechanics ? 
 
 " Nature," said Swedenborg, " makes almost as much 
 demand on our faith as miracles do." And I find noth 
 ing in fables more astonishing than my experience in
 
 16 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 every hour. One moment of a man's life is a fact so 
 stupendous as to take the lustre out of all fiction. The 
 lovers of marvels, of what we call the occult and un 
 proved sciences, of mesmerism, of astrology, of coin 
 cidences, of intercourse, by writing or by rapping or by 
 painting, with departed spirits, need not reproach us 
 with incredulity because we are slow to accept their 
 statement. It is not the incredibility of the fact, but 
 a certain want of harmony between the action and the 
 agents. We are used to vaster wonders than these 
 that are alleged. In the hands of poets, of devout and 
 simple minds, nothing in the line of their character and 
 genius would surprise us. But we should look for the 
 style of the great artist in it, look for completeness and 
 harmony. Nature never works like a conjuror, to sur 
 prise, rarely by shocks, but by infinite graduations ; so 
 that we live embosomed in sounds we do not hear, 
 scents we do not smell, spectacles we see not, and by 
 innumerable impressions so softly laid on that, though 
 important, we do not discover them until our attention 
 is called to them. 
 
 For Spiritism, it shows that no man, almost, is fit to 
 give evidence. Then I say to the amiable and sincere 
 among them, these matters are quite too important than 
 that I can rest them on any legends. If I have no 
 facts, as you allege, I can very well wait for them. I 
 am content and occupied with such miracles as I know, 
 such as my eyes and ears daily show me, such as hu 
 manity and astronomy. If any others are important 
 to me they will certainly be shown to me. 
 
 In times most credulous of these fancies, the sense 
 was always met and the superstition rebuked by the 
 grave spirit of reason and humanity. When Hector in 
 told that the omens are unpropitious, he replies,
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 17 
 
 " One oinen is the best, to fight for one's country." 
 Euripides said, " He is not the best prophet who guesses 
 well, and he is not the wisest man whose guess turns 
 out well in the event, but he who, whatever the event 
 be, takes reason and probability for his guide." " Swans', 
 horses, dogs and dragons," says Plutarch, " we distin 
 guish as sacred, and vehicles of the Divine foresight, 
 and yet we cannot believe that men are sacred and fa 
 vorites of Heaven." The poor shipmaster discovered a 
 sound theology, when in the storm at sea he made his 
 prayer to Neptune, " O God, thou mayst save me if 
 thou wilt, and if thou wilt thou mayst destroy me ; but, 
 however, I will hold my rudder true." Let me add 
 one more example of the same good sense, in a story 
 quoted out of Hecateus of Abdera : 
 
 " As I was once travelling by the Red Sea, there was 
 one among the horsemen that attended us named Ma- 
 sollam, a brave and strong man, and according to the 
 testimony of all the Greeks and barbarians, a very skil 
 ful archer. Now while the whole multitude was en the 
 way, an augur called out to them to stand still, and this 
 man inquired the reason of their halting. The augur 
 showed him a bird, and told him, ' if that bird remained 
 where he was, it would be better for them all to remain ; 
 if he flew on, they might proceed ; but if he flew back 
 they must return.' The Jew said nothing, but bent his 
 bow and shot the bird to the ground. This act offended 
 the augur and some others, and they began to utter im 
 precations against the Jew. But he replied, 'Where 
 fore ? Why are you so foolish as to take care of this 
 unfortunate bird ? How could this fowl give us any 
 wise directions respecting our journey, when he could 
 not save his own life ? Had he known anything of fu- 
 2
 
 18 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 turity, he would not have come here to be killed by the 
 arrow of Masollara the Jew.' " 
 
 It is not the tendency of our times to ascribe impor 
 tance to whimsical pictures of sleep, or to omens. But 
 the faith in peculiar and alien power takes another form 
 in the modern mind, much more resembling the ancient 
 doctrine of the guardian genius. The belief that par 
 ticular individuals are attended by a good fortune which 
 makes them desirable associates in any enterprise of 
 uncertain success, exists not only among those who take 
 part in political and military projects, but influences all 
 joint action of commerce and affairs, and a correspond 
 ing assurance in the individuals so distinguished meets 
 and justifies the expectation of others by a boundless 
 self-trust. " I have a lucky hand, sir," said Napoleon 
 to his hesitating Chancellor ; " those on whom I lay it 
 are fit for anything." This faith is familiar in one 
 form, that often a certain abdication of prudence and 
 foresight is an element of success ; that children and 
 young persons come off safe from casualties that would 
 have proved dangerous to wiser people. We do not 
 think the young will be forsaken ; but he is fast ap 
 proaching the age when the sub-miraculous external 
 protection and leading are withdrawn and he is com 
 mitted to his own care. The young man takes a leap 
 in the dark and alights safe. As he comes into man 
 hood he remembers passages and persons that seem, as 
 he looks at them now, to have been supernaturally de 
 prived of injurious influence on him. His eyes were 
 holden that he could not see. But he learns that such 
 risks he may no longer run. He observes, with pain, 
 not that he incurs mishaps here and there, but that his 
 genius, whose invisible benevolence was tower and 
 shield to him, is no longer present and active.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 19 
 
 In the popular belief, ghosts are a selecting tribe, 
 avoiding millions, speaking to one. In our traditions, 
 fairies, angels and saints show the like favoritism ; so 
 do the agents and the means of magic, as sorcerers and 
 amulets. This faith in a doting power, so easily sliding 
 into the current belief everywhere, and, in the particu 
 lar of lucky days and fortunate persons, as frequent 
 in America to-day as the faith in incantations and phil 
 ters was in old Rome, or the wholesome potency of the 
 sign of the cross in modern Rome, this supposed 
 power runs athwart the recognized agencies, natural and 
 moral, which science and religion explore. Heeded 
 though it be in many actions and partnership's, it is not 
 the power to which we build churches, or make liturgies 
 and prayers, or which we regard in passing laws, or found 
 college professorships to expound. Goethe has said in 
 his Autobiography what is much to the purpose : 
 
 " I believed that I discovered in nature, animate and 
 inanimate, intelligent and brute, somewhat which mani 
 fested itself only in contradiction, and therefore could 
 not be grasped by a conception, much less by a word. 
 It was not god-like, since it seemed unreasonable ; not 
 human, since it had no understanding ; not devilish, 
 since it was beneficent ; not angelic, since it is often a 
 marplot. It resembled chance, since it showed no se 
 quel. It resembled Providence, since it pointed at con 
 nection. All which limits us seemed permeable to that. 
 It seemed to deal at pleasure with the necessary ele 
 ments of our constitution ; it shortened time and ex 
 tended space. Only in the impossible it seemed to 
 delight, and the possible to repel with contempt. This, 
 which seemed to insert itself between all other things, 
 to sever them, to bind them, I named the Demoniacal,
 
 20 DEMONOLOGY". 
 
 after the example of the ancients, and of those who had 
 observed the like. 
 
 "Although every demoniacal property can manifest 
 itself in the corporeal and incorporeal, yes, in beasts too 
 in a remarkable manner, yet it stands specially in won 
 derful relations with men, and forms in the moral world, 
 though not an antagonistic, yet a transverse element, so 
 that the former may be called the warp, the latter the 
 woof. For the phenomena which hence originate there 
 are countless names, since all philosophies and religions 
 have attempted in prose or in poetry to solve this riddle, 
 and to settle the thing once for all, as indeed they may 
 be allowed -to do. 
 
 "But this demonic element appears most fruitful 
 when it shows itself as the determining characteristic in 
 an individual. In the course of my life I have been 
 able to observe several such, some near, some farther 
 off. They are not always superior persons, either in 
 mind or in talent. They seldom recommend themselves 
 through goodness of heart. But a monstrous force goes 
 out from them, and they exert an incredible power over 
 all creatures, and even over the elements ; who shall 
 say how far such an influence may extend ? All united 
 moral powers avail nothing against them. In vain do 
 the clear-headed part of mankind discredit them as de 
 ceivers or deceived, the mass is attracted. Seldom 
 or never do they meet their match among their contem 
 poraries ; they are not to be conquered save by the uni 
 verse itself, against which they have taken up arms. 
 Out of such experiences doubtless arose the strange, 
 monstrous proverb, ' Nobody against God but God.' " 1 
 
 It would be easy in the political history of every 
 1 Goethe, Wahrheit und DicMung, Book xx.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 21 
 
 time to furnish examples of this irregular success, men 
 having a force which without virtue, without shining 
 talent, yet makes them prevailing. No equal appears 
 in the field against them. A power goes out from them 
 which draws all men and events to favor them. The 
 crimes they commit, the exposures which follow, and 
 which would ruin any other man, are strangely over 
 looked, or do more strangely turn to their account. 
 
 I set down these things as I find them, but however 
 poetic these twilights of thought, I like daylight, and I 
 find somewhat wilful, some play at blindman's - buff, 
 when men as wise as Goethe talk mysteriously of the 
 demonological. The insinuation is that the known eter 
 nal laws of morals and matter are sometimes corrupted 
 or evaded by this gipsy principle, whicli chooses favor 
 ites and works in the dark for their behoof ; as if the 
 laws of the Father of the universe were sometimes 
 balked and eluded by a meddlesome Aunt of the uni 
 verse for her pets. You will observe that this extends 
 the popular idea of success to the very gods ; that they 
 foster a success to you which is not a success to all ; 
 that fortunate men, fortunate youths exist, whose good 
 is not virtue or the public good, but a private good, 
 robbed from the rest. It is a midsummer-madness, 
 corrupting all who hold the tenet. The demonologic is 
 only a fine name for egotism ; an exaggeration namely 
 of the individual, whom it is Nature's settled purpose 
 to postpone. " There is one world common to all who 
 are awake, but each sleeper betakes himself to one of 
 his own." x Dreams retain the infirmities of our char 
 acter. The good genius may be there or not, our- evil 
 genius is sure to stay. The Ego partial makes the 
 1 Heraclitus.
 
 22 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 dream ; the Ego total the interpretation. Life is also a 
 dream on the same terms. 
 
 The history of man is a series of conspiracies to win 
 from Nature some advantage without paying for it. It 
 is curious to see what grand powers we have a hint of 
 and are mad to grasp, yet how slow Heaven is to trust 
 us with such edge-tools. " All that frees talent without 
 increasing self-command is noxious." Thus the fabled 
 ring of Gyges, making the wearer invisible, which is 
 represented in modern fable by the telescope as used by 
 Schlemil, is simply mischievous. A new or private lan 
 guage, used to serve only low or political purposes ; the 
 transfusion of the blood ; the steam battery, so fatal as 
 to put an end to war by the threat of universal murder ; 
 the desired discovery of the guided balloon, are of this 
 kind. Tramps are troublesome enough in the city and 
 in the highways, but tramps flying through the air and 
 descending on the lonely traveller or the lonely farmer's 
 house or the bank-messenger in the country, can well be 
 spared. Men are not fit to be trusted with these talis 
 mans. 
 
 Before we acquire great power we must acquire wis 
 dom to use it well. Animal magnetism inspires the 
 prudent and moral with a certain terror ; so the divina 
 tion of contingent events, and the alleged second-sight 
 of the pseudo-spiritualists. There are many things of 
 which a wise man might wish to be ignorant, and these 
 are such. Shun them as you would the secrets of the 
 undertaker and the butcher. The best are never de 
 moniacal or magnetic ; leave this limbo to the Prince of 
 the power of the air. The lowest angel is better. It is 
 the height of the animal ; below the region of the di 
 vine. Power as such is not known to the angels.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 23 
 
 Great men feel that they are so by sacrificing their 
 selfishness and falling back on what is humane ; in re 
 nouncing family, clan, country, and each exclusive and 
 local connection, to beat with the pulse and breathe with 
 the lungs of nations. A Highland chief, an Indian sa 
 chem or a feudal baron may fancy tliat the mountains 
 and lakes were made specially for him Donald, or him 
 Tecumseh ; that the one question for history is the ped 
 igree of his house, and future ages will be busy with his 
 renown ; that he has a guardian angel ; that he is not in 
 the roll of common men, but obeys a high family des 
 tiny ; when he acts, unheard-of success evinces the pres 
 ence of rare agents ; what is to befall him, omens and 
 coincidences foreshow ; when he dies banshees will an 
 nounce his fate to kinsmen in foreign parts. What 
 more facile than to project this exuberant selfhood 
 into the region where individuality is forever bounded 
 by generic and cosmical laws ? The deepest flattery, 
 and that to which we can never be insensible, is the flat 
 tery of omens. 
 
 We may make great eyes if we like, and say of one 
 on whom the sun shines, "What luck presides over him! " 
 But we know that the law of the Universe is one for 
 each and for all. There is as precise and as describ- 
 able a reason for every fact occurring to him, as for any 
 occurring to any man. Every fact in which the moral 
 elements intermingle is not the less under the dominion 
 of fatal law. Lord Bacon uncovers the magic when he 
 says, " Manifest virtues procure reputation ; occult ones, 
 fortune." Thus the so-called fortunate man is one who, 
 though not gifted to speak when the people listen, or to 
 act with grace or with understanding to great ends, yet 
 is one who, in actions of a low or common pitch, relies
 
 24 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 on his instincts, and simply does not act where he should 
 not, but waits his time, and without effort acts when 
 the need is. If to this you add a fitness to the society 
 around him, you have the elements of fortune ; so that 
 in a particular circle and knot of affairs he is not so 
 much his own man as the hand of nature and time. 
 Just as his eye and hand work exactly together, and 
 to hit the mark with a stone he has only to fasten his 
 eye firmly on the mark and his arm will swing true, 
 so the main ambition and genius being bestowed in one 
 direction, the lesser spirits and involuntary aids within 
 his sphere will follow. The fault of most men is that 
 they are busybodies ; do not wait the simple movement 
 of the soul, but interfere and thwart the instructions of 
 their own minds. 
 
 Coincidences, dreams, animal magnetism, omens, sa 
 cred lots, have great interest for some minds. They 
 run into this twilight and say, " There 's more than is 
 dreamed of in your philosophy." Certainly these facts 
 are interesting, and deserve to be considered. But they 
 are entitled only to a share of attention, and not a large 
 share. NU magnificum, nil generosum sapit. Let their 
 value as exclusive subjects of attention be judged of by 
 the infallible test of the state of mind in which much 
 notice of them leaves us. Read a page of Cudworth or 
 of Bacon, and we are exhilarated and armed to manly 
 duties. Read demonology or Colquhoun's Report, and 
 we are bewildered and perhaps a little besmirched. We 
 grope. They who love them say they are to reveal to 
 us a world of unknown, unsuspected truths. But sup 
 pose a diligent collection and study of these occult facts 
 were made, they are merely physiological, semi-medi 
 cal, related to the machinery of man, opening to our cu.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 25 
 
 riosity how we live, and no aid on the superior problems 
 why we live, and what we do. While the dilettanti 
 have been prying into the humors and muscles of the 
 eye, simple men will have helped themselves and the 
 world by using their eyes. 
 
 And this is not the least remarkable fact which the 
 adepts have developed. Men who had never wondered 
 at anything, who had thought it the most natural thing 
 in the world that they should exist in this orderly and 
 replenished world, have been unable to suppress their 
 amazement at the disclosures of the somnambulist. The 
 peculiarity of the history of Animal Magnetism is that 
 it drew in as inquirers and students a class of persons 
 never on any other occasion known as students and in 
 quirers. Of course the inquiry is pursued on low prin 
 ciples. Animal magnetism peeps. It becomes in such 
 hands a black art. The uses of the thing, the commod 
 ity, the power, at once come to mind and direct the 
 course of inquiry. It seemed to open again that door 
 which was open to the imagination of childhood of 
 magicians and fairies and lamps of Aladdin, the trav 
 elling cloak, the shoes of swiftness and the sword of 
 sharpness that were to satisfy the uttermost wish of the 
 senses without danger or a drop of sweat. But as Na 
 ture can never be outwitted, as in the Universe no man 
 was ever known to get a cent's worth without paying in 
 some form or other the cent, so this prodigious proiniser 
 ends always and always will, as sorcery and alchemy 
 have done before, in very small and smoky performance. 
 
 Mesmerism is high life below stairs ; Momus playing 
 Jove in the kitchens of Olympus. 'T is a low curiosity 
 or lust of structure, and is separated by celestial diam 
 eters from the love of spiritual truths. It is wholly a
 
 26 DEMONOLOGY. 
 
 false view to couple these things in any manner with 
 the religious nature and sentiment, and a most danger 
 ous superstition to raise them to the lofty place of mo 
 tives and sanctions. This is to prefer halos and rain 
 bows to the sun and moon. These adepts have mis 
 taken flatulency for inspiration. Were this drivel which 
 they report as the voice of spirits really such, we must 
 find out a more decisive suicide. I say to the table- 
 rappers : 
 
 " I well believe 
 
 Thou wilt not utter what thou dost not know, 
 
 And so far will I trust thee, gentle Kate." 
 
 They are ignorant of all that is healthy and useful to 
 know, and by laws of kind , dunces seeking dunces in 
 the dark of what they call the spiritual world, pre 
 ferring snores and gastric noises to the voice of any 
 muse. I think the rappings a new test, like blue litmus 
 or other chemical absorbent, to try catechisms with. It 
 detects organic skepticism in the very heads of the 
 Church. 'T is a lawless world. We have left the ge 
 ometry, the compensation, and the conscience of the 
 daily world, and come into the realm or chaos of chance 
 and pretty or ugly confusion ; no guilt and no virtue, 
 but a droll bedlam, where everybody believes only after 
 his humor, and the actors and spectators have no con 
 science or reflection, no police, no foot-rule, no san 
 ity, nothing but whim and whim creative. 
 
 Meantime far be from me the impatience which can 
 not brook the supernatural, the vast ; far be from me 
 the lust of explaining away all which appeals to the im 
 agination, and the great presentiments which haunt 
 us. Willingly I too say, Hail ! to the unknown awful 
 powers which transcend the ken of the understanding.
 
 DEMONOLOGY. 27 
 
 And the attraction which this topic has had for me and 
 which induces me to unfold its parts before you is pre 
 cisely because I think the numberless forms in which 
 this superstition has re appeared in every time and every 
 people indicates the inextinguishableness of wonder in 
 man ; betrays his conviction that behind all your ex 
 planations is a vast and potent and living Nature, inex 
 haustible and sublime, which you cannot explain. He 
 is sure no book, no man has told him all. He is sure 
 the great Instinct, the circumambient soul which flows 
 into him as into all, and is his life, has not been 
 searched. He is sure that intimate relations subsist be 
 tween his character and his fortunes, between him and 
 his world : and until he can adequately tell them, he 
 will tell them wildly and fabulously. Demonology is 
 the shadow of Theology. 
 
 The whole world is an omen and a sign. Why look 
 so wistfully in a corner ? Man is the Image of God. 
 Why run after a ghost or a dream ? The voice of di 
 vination resounds everywhere and runs to waste un 
 heard, unregarded, as the mountains echo with the 
 Heatings of cattle.
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 Bur if thou do thy best, 
 
 Without remission, without rest, 
 
 And invite the sunbeam, 
 
 And abhor to feign or seem 
 
 Even to those who thee should love 
 
 And thy behavior approve ; 
 
 If thou go in thine own likeness, 
 
 Be it health or be it sickness, 
 
 If thou go as thy father's son, 
 
 If thou wear no mask or lie, 
 
 Dealing purely and nakedly,
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 1 
 
 THERE is an attractive topic, which never goes out of 
 vogue and is impertinent in no community, the per 
 manent fcraits of the Aristocracy. It is an interest of 
 the human race r and, as I look at it, inevitable, sacred 
 and to be found in every country and in every com 
 pany of men. My concern with it is that concern which 
 all well-disposed persons will feel, that there should be 
 model men, true instead of spurious pictures of ex 
 cellence, and, if possible, living standards. 
 
 I observe that the word gentleman is gladly heard in 
 all companies ; that the cogent motive with the best 
 young men who are revolving plans and forming reso 
 lutions for the future, is the spirit of honor, the wish 
 to be gentlemen. They do not yet covet political power 
 nor any exuberance of wealth, wealth that costs too 
 much ; nor do they wish to be saints ; for fear of par 
 ti alism ; but the middle term, the reconciling element, 
 the success of the manly character, they find in the 
 idea of gentleman. It is not to be a man of rank, but 
 a man of honor, accomplished in all arts and generosi 
 ties, which seems to them the right mark and the true 
 chief of our modern society. A reference to society is 
 
 1 First read as a lecture in England in 1848 ; here printed with 
 additions from other papers.
 
 32 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 part of the idea of culture ; science of a gentleman ; 
 art of a gentleman ; poetry in a gentleman : intellect 
 ually held, that is, for their own sake, for what they 
 are ; for their universal beauty and worth ; not for 
 economy, which degrades them, but not over-intellectu- 
 ally, that is, not to ecstasy, entrancing the man, but re 
 dounding to his beauty and glory. 
 
 In the sketches which I have to offer I shall not be 
 surprised if my readers should fancy that I am giving 
 them, under a gayer title, a chapter on Education. It 
 will not pain me if I am found now and then to rove 
 from the accepted and historic, to a theoreticopeerage : 
 or if it should turn out, what is true, that I am describ 
 ing a real aristocracy, a chapter of Templars who sit 
 indifferently in all climates and under the shadow of 
 all institutions, but so few, so heedless of badges, so 
 rarely convened, so little in sympathy with the pre 
 dominant politics of nations, that their names and do 
 ings are not recorded in any Book of Peerage, or any 
 Court Journal, or even Daily Newspaper of the world. 
 
 I find the caste in the man. The Golden Book of 
 Venice, the scale of European chivalry, the Barons of 
 England, the hierarchy of India with its impassable de 
 grees, is each a transcript of the decigrade or centi- 
 graded Man. A many-chambered Aristocracy lies al 
 ready organized in his moods and faculties. Room is 
 found for all the departments of the State in the moods 
 and faculties of each human spirit, with separate func 
 tion and difference of dignity. 
 
 The terrible aristocracy that is in nature. Real peo 
 ple dwelling with the real, face to face undaunted: 
 then, far down, people of taste, people dwelling in a re 
 lation, or rumor, or influence of good and fair, enter-
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 33 
 
 tained by it, superficially touched, yet charmed by these 
 shadows : and, far below these, gross and thoughtless, 
 the animal man, billows of chaos, down to the dancing 
 and menial organizations. 
 
 I observe the inextinguishable prejudice men have 
 in favor of a hereditary transmission of qualities. It 
 is in vain to remind them that Nature appears capri 
 cious. Some qualities she carefully fixes and transmits, 
 but some, and those the finer, she exhales with the 
 breath of the individual, as too costly to perpetuate. 
 But I notice also that they may become fixed and per 
 manent in any stock, by painting and repainting them 
 on every individual, until at last Nature adopts them 
 and bakes them into her porcelain. At all events I 
 take this inextinguishable persuasion in men's minds as 
 a hint from the outward universe to man to inlay as 
 many virtues and superiorities as he can into this swift 
 fresco of the day, which is hardening to an immortal 
 picture. 
 
 If one thinks of the interest which all men have in 
 beauty of character and manners; that it is of the last 
 importance to the imagination and affection, inspiring 
 as it does that loyalty and worship so essential to the 
 finish of character, certainly, if culture, if laws, if 
 primogeniture, if heraldry, if money could secure such 
 a result as superior and finished men, it would be the 
 interest of all mankind to see that the steps were taken, 
 the pains incurred. No taxation, no concession, no con 
 ferring of privileges never so exalted would be a price 
 too large. 
 
 The old French Revolution attracted to its first move 
 ment all the liberality, virtue, hope and poetry in Eu 
 rope. By the abolition of kingship and aristocracy, 
 3
 
 34 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 tyranny, inequality and poverty would end. Alas! no; 
 tyranny, inequality, poverty, stood as fast and fierce as 
 ever. We likewise put faith in Democracy ; in the Re 
 publican principle carried out to the extremes of prac 
 tice in universal suffrage, in the will of majorities. The 
 young adventurer finds that the relations of society, the 
 position of classes, irk and sting him, and he lends him 
 self to each malignant party that assails what is eminent. 
 He will one day know that this is not removable, but a 
 distinction in the nature of things; that neither the 
 caucus, nor the newspaper, nor the Congress, nor the 
 mob, nor the guillotine, nor fire, nor all together, can 
 avail to outlaw, cut out, burn, or destroy the offence of 
 superiority in persons. The manners, the pretension, 
 which annoy me so much, are not superficial, but built 
 on a real distinction in the nature of my companion. 
 The superiority in him is inferiority in me, and if this 
 particular companion were wiped by a sponge out of 
 nature, my inferiority would still be made evident to 
 me by other persons everywhere and every day. 
 
 No, not the hardest utilitarian will question the value 
 of an aristocracy if he love himself. For every man 
 confesses that the highest good which the universe pro 
 poses to him is the highest society. If a few grand na 
 tures should come to us and weave duties and offices 
 between us and them, it would make our bread am 
 brosial. 
 
 I affirm that inequalities exist, not in costume, but in 
 the powers of expression and action; a primitive aris 
 tocracy; and that we, certainly, have not come here to 
 describe well-dressed vulgarity. I cannot tell how Eng 
 lish titles are bestowed, whether on pure blood, or on 
 the largest holder in the three-per-cents. The English
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 35 
 
 government and people, or the French government, may 
 easily make mistakes; but Nature makes none. Every 
 mark and scutcheon of hers indicates constitutional 
 qualities. In science, in trade, in social discourse, as in 
 the state, it is the same thing. Forever and ever it 
 takes a pound to lift a pound. 
 
 It is plain that all the deference of modern society to 
 this idea of the Gentleman, and all the whimsical tyr 
 anny of Fashion which has continued to engraft itself 
 on this reverence, is a secret homage to reality and love 
 which ought to reside in every man. This is the steel 
 that is hid under gauze and lace, under flowers and 
 spangles. And it is plain that instead of this idolatry, 
 a worship ; instead of this impure, a pure reverence for 
 character, a new respect for the sacredness of the in 
 dividual man, is that antidote which must correct in our 
 country the disgraceful deference to public opinion, and 
 the insane subordination of the end to the means. From 
 the folly of too much association we must come back to 
 the repose of self-reverence and trust. 
 
 The game of the world is a perpetual trial of strength 
 between man and events. The common man is the vic 
 tim of events. Whatever happens is too much for him, 
 he is drawn this way and that way, and his whole life is 
 a hurry. The superior man is at home in his own mind. 
 We like cool people, who neither hope nor fear too 
 much, but seem to have many strings to their bow, and 
 can survive the blow well enough if stock should rise 
 or fall, if parties should be broken up, if their money 
 or their family should be dispersed; who can stand a 
 slander very well ; indeed on whom events make little 
 or no impression, and who can face death with firmness. 
 In short, we dislike every mark of a superficial life and 
 action, and prize whatever mark of a central life.
 
 36 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 What is the meaning of this invincible respect for 
 war, here in the triumphs of our commercial civiliza 
 tion, that we can never quite smother the trumpet and 
 the drum? How is it that the sword runs away with 
 all the fame from the spade and the wheel? How 
 sturdy seem to us in the history, those Merovingians, 
 Guelphs, Dorias, Sforzas, Burgundies and Guesclins of 
 the old warlike ages! We can hardly believe they were 
 all such speedy shadows as we ; that an ague or fever, 
 a drop of water or a crystal of ice ended them. We 
 give soldiers the same advantage to-day. From the 
 most accumulated culture we are always running back 
 to the sound of any drum and fife. And in any trade, 
 or in law-courts, in orchard and farm, and even in sa 
 loons, they only prosper or they prosper best who have 
 a military mind, who engineer in sword and cannon 
 style, with energy and sharpness. Why, but because 
 courage never loses its high price? Why, but because 
 we wish to see those to whom existence is most adorned 
 and attractive, foremost to peril it for their object, and 
 ready to answer for their actions with their life. 
 
 The existence of an upper class is not injurious, as 
 long as it is dependent on merit. For so long it is prov 
 ocation to the bold and generous. These distinctions 
 exist, and they are deep, not to be talked or voted 
 away. If the differences are organic, so are the merits, 
 that is to say the power and excellence we describe are 
 real. Aristocracy is the class eminent by personal quali 
 ties, and to them belongs without assertion a proper in 
 fluence. Men of aim must lead the aimless; men of 
 invention the uninventive. I wish catholic men, who by 
 their science and skill are at home in every latitude and 
 longitude, who carry the world in their thoughts; men
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 37 
 
 of universal politics, who are interested in things in pro 
 portion to their truth and magnitude; who know the 
 beauty of animals and the laws of their nature, whom 
 the mystery of botany allures, and the mineral laws; 
 who see general effects and are not too learned to love 
 the Imagination, the power and the spirits of Solitude; 
 men who see the dance in men's lives as well as in a 
 ball-room, and can feel and convey the sense which is 
 only collectively or totally expressed by a population; 
 men who are charmed by the beautiful Nemesis as well 
 as by the dire Nemesis, and dare trust their inspiration 
 for their welcome ; who would find their fellows in per 
 sons of real elevation of whatever kind of speculative 
 or practical ability. We are fallen on times so acquies 
 cent and traditionary that we are in danger of forget 
 ting so simple a fact as that the basis of all aristocracy 
 must be truth, the doing what elsewhere is pretended 
 to be done. One would gladly see all our institutions 
 rightly aristocratic in this wise. 
 
 I enumerate the claims by which men enter the su 
 perior class. 
 
 1. A commanding talent. In every company one 
 finds the best man; and if there be any question, it is 
 decided the instant they enter into any practical enter 
 prise. If the finders of glass, gunpowder, printing, 
 electricity, if the healer of small-pox, the contriver of 
 the safety lamp, of the aqueduct, of the bridge, of the 
 tunnel; if the finders of parallax, of new planets, of 
 steam power for boat and carriage, the finder of sul 
 phuric ether and the electric telegraph, if these men 
 should keep their secrets, or only communicate them to 
 each other, must not the whole race of mankind serve 
 them as gods? It only needs to look at the social as-
 
 38 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 pect of England and America and France, to see the 
 rank which original practical talent commands. 
 
 Every survey of the dignified classes, in ancient or 
 modern history, imprints universal lessons, and estab 
 lishes a nobility of a prouder creation. And the con 
 clusion which Roman Senators, Indian Brahmins, Per 
 sian Magians, European Nobles and great Americans 
 inculcate, that which they preach out of their ma 
 terial wealth and glitter, out of their old war and modern 
 land-owning, even out of sensuality and sneers, is, that 
 the radical and essential distinctions of every aristocracy 
 are moral. Do not hearken to the men, but to the Des 
 tiny in the institutions. An aristocracy is composed of 
 simple and sincere men for whom nature and ethics are 
 strong enough, who say what they mean and go straight 
 to their objects. It is essentially real. 
 
 The multiplication of monarchs known by telegraph 
 and daily news from all countries to the daily papers, 
 and the effect of freer institutions in England and 
 America, has robbed the title of king of all its romance, 
 as that of our commercial consuls as compared with the 
 ancient Roman. We shall come to add " Kings " in the 
 " Contents " of the Directory, as we do " Physicians," 
 " Brokers," etc. In simple communities, in the heroic 
 ages, a man was chosen for his knack ; got his name, 
 rank and living for that ; and the best of the best was 
 the aristocrat or king. In the Norse Edda it appears 
 as the curious but excellent policy of contending tribes, 
 when tired of war, to exchange hostages, and in reality 
 each to adopt from the other a first-rate man, who thus 
 acquired a new country ; was at once made a chief. 
 And no wrong was so keenly resented as any fraud in 
 this transaction. In the heroic ages, as we call them,
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 39 
 
 the hero uniformly has some real talent. Ulysses in 
 Homer is represented as a very skilful carpenter. He 
 builds the boat with which he leaves Calypso's isle, and 
 in his own palace carves a bedstead out of the trunk of 
 a tree and inlays it with gold and ivory. Epeus builds 
 the wooden horse. The English nation down to a late 
 age inherited the reality of the Northern stock. In 
 1373, in writs of summons of members of Parliament, 
 the sheriff of every county is to cause " two dubbed 
 knights, or the most worthy esquires, the most expert 
 in feats of arms, and no others ; and of every city, two 
 citizens, and of every borough, two burgesses, such aa 
 have greatest skill in shipping and merchandising, to 
 be returned." 
 
 The ancients were fond of ascribing to their nobles 
 gigantic proportions and strength. The hero must have 
 the force of ten men. The chief is taller by a head 
 than any of his tribe. Douglas can throw the bar a 
 greater cast. Richard can sever the iron bolt with his 
 sword. The horn of Roland, in the romance, is heard 
 sixty miles. The Cid has a prevailing health that will 
 let him nurse the leper, and share his bed without harm. 
 And since the body is the pipe through which we tap 
 all the succors and virtues of the material world, it is 
 certain that a sound body must be at the root of any ex 
 cellence in manners and actions ; a strong and supple 
 frame which yields a stock of strength and spirits for 
 all the needs of the day, and generates the habit of re 
 lying on a supply of power for all extraordinary exer 
 tions. When Nature goes to create a national man, she 
 puts a symmetry between the physical and intellectual 
 powers. She moulds a large brain, and joins to it a 
 great trunk to supply it ; as if a fine alembic were fed
 
 40 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 with liquor for its distillations from broad full vats in 
 the vaults of the laboratory. 
 
 Certainly, the origin of most of the perversities and ab 
 surdities that disgust us, primarily, is the want of health. 
 Genius is health and Beauty is health and Virtue is 
 health. The petty arts which we blame in the half- 
 great seem as odious to them also ; the resources of 
 weakness and despair. And the manners betray the 
 like puny constitution. Temperament is fortune, and 
 we must say it so often. In a thousand cups of life, 
 only one is the right mixture, a fine adjustment to 
 the existing elements. When that befalls, when the 
 well-mixed man is born, with eyes not too dull nor too 
 good, with fire enough and earth enough, capable of im 
 pressions from all things, and not too susceptible, 
 then no gift need be bestowed on him, he brings with 
 him fortune, followers, love, power. 
 
 " I think he'll be to Rome 
 As is the osprey to the fish, who takes it 
 By sovereignty of nature." 
 
 Not the phrenologist but the philosopher may well 
 say, Let me see his brain, and I will tell you if he shall 
 be poet, king, founder of cities, rich, magnetic, of a se 
 cure hand, of a scientific memory, a right classifier ; or 
 whether he shall be a bungler, driveller, unlucky, heavy, 
 and tedious. 
 
 It were to dispute against the sun, to deny this differ 
 ence of brain. I see well enough that when I bring one 
 man into an estate, he sees vague capabilities, wliat 
 others might, could, would, or should do with it. If I 
 bring another man, he sees what he should do with it. 
 He appreciates the water-privilege, land fit for orchard, 
 tillage, pasturage, wood -lot, cranberry - meadow ; but
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 41 
 
 just as easily he foresees all the means, all the steps of 
 the process, and could lay his hand as readily on one as 
 on another point in that series which opens the capa 
 bility to the last point. The poet sees wishfully enough 
 the result ; the well-built head supplies all the steps, 
 one as perfect as the other, in the series. Seeing this 
 working head in him, it becomes to me as 'certain that 
 he will have the direction of estates, as that there are 
 estates. If we see tools in a magazine, as a file, an an 
 chor, a plough, a pump, a paint-brush, a cider-press, a 
 diving-bell, we can predict well enough their destina 
 tion ; and the man's associations, fortunes, love, hatred, 
 residence, rank, the books he will buy, the roads he will 
 traverse, are predetermined in his organism. Men will 
 need him, and he is rich and eminent by nature. That 
 man cannot be too late or too early. Let him not hurry 
 or hesitate. Though millions are already arrived, his 
 seat is reserved. Though millions attend, they only 
 multiply his friends and agents. It never troubles the 
 Senator what multitudes crack the benches and bend 
 the galleries to hear. He who understands the art of 
 war, reckons the hostile battalions and cities, opportuni 
 ties and spoils. 
 
 An aristocracy could not exist unless it were organic. 
 Men are born to command, and it is even so " come 
 into the world booted and spurred to ride." The blood 
 royal never pays, we say. It obtains service, gifts, sup 
 plies, furtherance of all kinds from the love and joy of 
 those who feel themselves honored by the service they 
 render. 
 
 Dull people think it Fortune that makes one rich and 
 another poor. Is it ? Yes, but the fortune was earlier 
 tlian they think, namely, in the balance or adjustment
 
 42 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 between devotion to what is agreeable to-day and the 
 forecast of what will be valuable to-morrow. 
 
 Certainly I am not going to argue the merits of gra 
 dation in the universe ; the existing order of more or 
 less. Neither do I wish to go into a vindication of the 
 justice that disposes the variety of lot. I know how 
 steep the contrast of condition looks ; such excess here 
 and such destitution there ; like entire chance, like the 
 freaks of the wind, heaping the snow-drift in gorges, 
 stripping the plain ; such despotism of wealth and com 
 fort in banquet halls, whilst death is in the pots of the 
 wretched, that it behooves a good man to walk with 
 tenderness and heed amidst so much suffering. I only 
 point in passing to the order of the universe, which 
 makes a rotation, not like the coarse policy of the 
 Greeks, ten generals, each commanding one day and 
 then giving place to the next, or like our democratic 
 politics, my turn now, your turn next, but the consti 
 tution of things has distributed a new quality or talent 
 to each mind, and the revolution of things is always 
 bringing the need, now of this, now of that, and is sure 
 to bring home the opportunity to every one. 
 
 The only relief that I know against the invidiousness 
 of superior position is, that you exert your faculty ; for 
 whilst each does that, he excludes hard thoughts from 
 the spectator. All right activity is amiable. I never 
 feel that any man occupies my place, but that the reason 
 why I do not have what I wish, is, that I want the fac 
 ulty which entitles. All spiritual or real power makes 
 its own place. 
 
 We pass for what we are, and we prosper or fail by 
 what we are. There are men who may dare much and 
 will be justified in their daring. But it is because they
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 43 
 
 know they are in their place. As long as I am in my 
 place, I am safe. " The best lightning-rod for your pro 
 tection is your own spine." Let a man's social aims be 
 proportioned to his means and power. I do not pity 
 the misery of a man underplaced : that will right itself 
 presently : but I pity the man overplaced. A certain 
 quantity of power belongs to a certain quantity of fac 
 ulty. Whoever wants more power than is the legiti 
 mate attraction of his faculty, is a politician, and must 
 pay for that excess ; must truckle for it. This is the 
 whole game of society and the politics of the world. 
 Being will always seem well ; but whether possibly I 
 cannot contrive to seem, without the trouble of being ? 
 Every Frenchman would have a career. We English 
 are not any better with our love of making a figure. 
 " I told the Duke of Newcastle," says Bubb Dodding- 
 ton in his Memoirs, " that it must end one way or an 
 other, it must not remain as it was ; for I was deter 
 mined to make some sort of a figure in life ; I earnestly 
 wished it might be under his protection, but if that 
 could not be, I must make some figure ; what it would 
 be I could not determine yet ; I must look round me a 
 little and consult my friends, but some figure I was re 
 solved to make." 
 
 It will be agreed everywhere that society must have 
 the benefit of the best leaders. How to obtain them ? 
 Birth has been tried and failed. Caste in India has no 
 good result. Ennobling of one family is good for one 
 generation ; not sure beyond. Slavery had mischief 
 enough to answer for, but it had this good in it, the 
 pricing of men. In the South a slave was bluntly but 
 accurately valued at five hundred to a thousand dollars, 
 if a good field-hand ; if a mechanic, as carpenter or
 
 44 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 smith, twelve hundred or two thousand. In Rome or 
 Greece what sums would not be paid fer a superior 
 slave, a confidential secretary or manager, an educated 
 slave ; a man of genius, a Moses educated in Egypt ? 
 I don't know how much Epictetus was sold for, or 
 ./Esop, or Toussaint 1'Ouverture, and perhaps it was not 
 a good market-day. Time was, in England, when t'ae 
 state stipulated beforehand what price should be paid 
 for each citizen's life, if he was killed. Now, if it were 
 possible, I should like to see that appraisal applied to 
 every man, and every man made acquainted with the 
 true number and weight of every adult citizen, and that 
 he be placed where he belongs, with so much power 
 confided to him as he could carry and use. 
 
 In the absence of such anthropometer I have a per-i 
 feet confidence in the natural laws. I think that the 
 community every community, if obstructing laws 
 and usages are removed will be the best measure 
 and the justest judge of the citizen, or will in the long 
 run give the fairest verdict and reward ; better than 
 any royal patronage ; better than any premium on race ; 
 better than any statute elevating families to hereditary 
 distinction, or any class to sacerdotal education and 
 power. The verdict of battles will best prove the gen 
 eral ; the town-meeting, the Congress, will not fail to 
 find out legislative talent. The prerogatives of a right 
 physician are determined, not by his diplomas, but by 
 the health he restores to body and mind ; the powers 
 of a geometer by solving his problem ; of a priest by 
 the act of inspiring us with a sentiment which disperses 
 the grief from which we suffered. When the lawyer 
 tries his case in court he himself is also on trial, and his 
 own merits appear as well as his client's. When old
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 45 
 
 writers are consulted by young writers who have writ 
 ten their first book, they say, Publish it by all means ; 
 so only can you certainly know its quality. 
 
 But we venture to put any man in any place. It is 
 curious how negligent the public is of the essential qual 
 ifications of its representatives. They ask if a man is 
 a republican, a democrat ? Yes. Is he a man of tal 
 ent ? Yes. Is he honest and not looking for an office or 
 any manner of bribe ? He is honest. Well then choose 
 him by acclamation. And they go home and tell their 
 wives with great satisfaction what a good thing they 
 have done. But they forgot to ask the fourth question, 
 not less important than either of the others, and with 
 out which the others do not avail. Has he a will ? Can 
 he carry his points against opposition ? Probably not. 
 It is not sufficient that your work follows your genius, 
 or is organic, to give you the magnetic power over men. 
 More than taste and talent must go to the Will. That 
 must also be a gift of nature. It is in some ; it is not 
 in others. But I should say, if it is not in you, you had 
 better not put yourself in places where not to have it 
 is to be a public enemy. 
 
 The expectation and claims of mankind indicate the 
 duties of this class. Some service they must pay. We 
 do not expect them to be saints, and it is very pleasing 
 to see the instinct of mankind on this matter, how 
 much they will forgive to such as pay substantial ser 
 vice and work energetically after their kind ; but they 
 do not extend the same indulgence to those who claim 
 and enjoy the same prerogative but render no returns. 
 The day is darkened when the golden river runs down 
 into mud ; when genius grows idle and wanton and 
 reckless of its fine duties of being Saint, Prophet, In-
 
 46 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 spirer to its humble fellows, baulks their respect and 
 confounds their understanding by silly extravagances. 
 To a right aristocracy, to Hercules, to Theseus, Odin, 
 the Cid, Napoleon ; to Sir Robert Walpole, to Fox, 
 Chatham, Mirabeau, Jefferson, O'Connell ; to the 
 men, that is, who are incomparably superior to the pop 
 ulace, in ways agreeable to the populace, showing them 
 the way they should go, doing for them what they 
 wish done and cannot do ; of course everything will 
 be permitted and pardoned, gaming, drinking, light 
 ing, luxury. These are the heads of party, who can 
 do no wrong, everything short of infamous crime 
 will pass. But if those who merely sit in their places 
 and are not, like them, able ; if the dressed and per 
 fumed gentleman, who serves the people in no wise 
 and adorns them not, is not even not afraid of them, if 
 such an one go about to set ill examples and corrupt 
 them, who shall blame them if they burn his barns, in 
 sult his children, assault his person, and express their 
 unequivocal indignation and contempt ? He eats their 
 bread, he does not scorn to live by their labor, and after 
 breakfast he cannot remember that there are human 
 beings. To live without duties is obscene. 
 
 2. Genius, what is so called in strictness, the power 
 to affect the Imagination, as possessed by the orator, 
 the poet, the novelist, or the artist, has a royal right 
 in all possessions and privileges, being itself represent 
 ative and accepted by all men as their delegate. It has 
 indeed the best right, because it raises men above them 
 selves, intoxicates them with beauty. They are hon 
 ored by rendering it honor, and the reason of this 
 allowance is that Genius unlocks for all men the chains 
 of use, temperament and drudgery, and gives them a 
 sense of delicious liberty and power.
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 47 
 
 The first example that occurs is an extraordinary 
 gift of eloquence. A man who has that possession of 
 his means and that magnetism that he can at all times 
 carry the convictions of a public assembly, we must re 
 spect, and he is thereby ennobled. He has the freedom 
 of the city. He is entitled to neglect trifles. Like a 
 great general, or a great poet, or a millionaire, he may 
 wear his coat out at elbows, and his hat on his feet, if 
 he will. He has established relation, representative 
 ness. The best feat of genius is to bring all the vari 
 eties of talent and culture into its audience ; the medi 
 ocre and the dull are reached as well as the intelligent. 
 I have seen it conspicuously shown in a village. Here 
 are classes which day by day have no intercourse, noth 
 ing beyond perhaps a surly nod in passing. But I have 
 seen a man of teeming brain come among these men, 
 so full of his facts, so unable to suppress them, that he 
 has poured out a river of knowledge to all comers, and 
 drawing all these men round him, all sorts of men, in 
 terested the whole village, good and bad, bright and 
 stupid, in his facts ; the iron boundary lines had all 
 faded away ; the stupid had discovered that they were 
 not stupid ; the coldest had found themselves drawn to 
 their neighbors by interest in the same things. This 
 was a naturalist. 
 
 The more familiar examples of this power certainly 
 are those who establish a wider dominion over men's 
 minds than any speech can ; who think, and paint, and 
 laugh, and weep, in their eloquent closets, and then con 
 vert the world into a huge whispering gallery, to report 
 the tale to all men, and win smiles and tears from many 
 generations. The eminent examples are Shakspeare, 
 Cervantes, Bunyan, Burns, Scott and now we must add
 
 48 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 Dickens. In the fine arts, I find none in the present 
 age who have any popular power, who have achieved 
 any nobility by ennobling the people. 
 
 3. Elevation of sentiment, refining and inspiring the 
 manners, must really take the place of every distinc 
 tion whether of material power or of intellectual gifts. 
 The manners of course must have that depth and firm 
 ness of tone to attest their centrality in the nature of 
 the man. I mean the things themselves shall be judges, 
 and determine. In the presence of this nobility even 
 genius must stand aside. For the two poles of nature 
 are Beauty and Meanness, and noble sentiment is the 
 highest form of Beauty. He is beautiful in face, in 
 port, in manners, who is absorbed in objects which he 
 truly believes to be superior to himself. Is there any 
 parchment or any cosmetic or any blood that can obtain 
 homage like that* security of air presupposing so un- 
 doubtingly the sympathy of men in his designs ? What 
 is it that makes the true knight ? Loyalty to his 
 thought. That makes the beautiful scorn, the elegant 
 simplicity, the directness, the commanding port which 
 all men admire and which men not noble affect. For 
 the thought has no debts, no hunger, no lusts, no low 
 obligations or relations, no intrigue or business, no mur 
 der, no envy, no crime, but large leisures and an invit 
 ing future. 
 
 The service we receive from the great is a mutual 
 deference. If you deal with the vulgar, life is reduced 
 to beggary indeed. The astronomers are very eager to 
 know whether the moon has an atmosphere ; I am only 
 concerned that every man have one. I observe how 
 ever that it takes two to make an atmosphere. I an 
 acquainted with persons who go attended with this am-
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 49 
 
 bient cloud. It is sufficient that they come. It is not 
 important what they say. The sun and the evening 
 sky are not calmer. They seem to have arrived at the 
 fact, to have got rid of the show, and to be serene. 
 Their manners and behavior in the house and in the 
 field are those of men at rest : what have they to con 
 ceal ? what have they to exhibit ? Others I meet, who 
 have no deference, and who denude and strip one of all 
 attributes but material values. As much health and 
 muscle as you have, as much land, as much house-room 
 and dinner, avails. Of course a man is a poor bag of 
 bones. There is no gracious interval, not an inch al 
 lowed. Bone nibs against bone. Life is thus a Beg 
 gar's Bush. I know nothing which induces so base and 
 forlorn a feeling as when we are treated for our utilities, 
 as economists do, starving the imagination and the sen 
 timent. In this impoverishing animation, I seem to 
 meet a Hunger, a wolf. Rather let us be alone whilst 
 we live, than encounter these lean kine. Man should 
 emancipate man. He does so, not by jamming him, 
 but by distancing him. The nearer my friend, the more 
 spacious is our realm, the more diameter our spheres 
 have. It is a measure of culture, the number of things 
 taken for granted. When a man begins to speak, the 
 churl will take him up by disputing his first words, so 
 he cannot come at his scope. The wise man takes all 
 for granted until he sees the parallelism of that which 
 puzzled him with his own view. 
 
 I will not protract this discourse by describing the 
 duties of the brave and generous. And yet I will ven 
 ture to name one, and the same is almost the sole con 
 dition on which knighthood is to be won ; this, namely, 
 loyalty to your own order. The true aristocrat is he 
 4
 
 50 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 who is at the head of his own order, and disloyalty is to 
 mistake other chivalries for his own. Let him not di 
 vide his homage, but stand for that which he was born 
 and set to maintain. It was objected to Gustavus that 
 he did not better distinguish between the duties of a 
 carabine and a general, but exposed himself to all dan 
 gers and was too prodigal of a blood so precious. For 
 a soul on which elevated duties are laid will so realize 
 its special and lofty duties as not to be in danger of 
 assuming through a low generosity those which do not 
 belong to it. 
 
 There are all degrees of nobility, but amid the levity 
 and giddiness of people one looks round, as for a tower 
 of strength, on some self-dependent mind, who does not 
 go abroad for an estimate, and has long ago made up 
 its conclusion that it is impossible to fail. The great 
 Indian sages had a lesson for the Brahmin, which every 
 day returns to mind, " All that depends on another 
 gives pain ; all that depends on himself gives pleasure ; 
 in these few words is the definition of pleasure and 
 pain." The noble mind is here to teach us that failure 
 is a part of success. Prosperity and pound-cake are 
 for very young gentlemen, whom such things content ; 
 but a hero's, a man's success is made up of failures, 
 because he experiments and ventures every day, and 
 " the more falls he gets, moves faster on ; " defeated 
 all the time and yet to victory born. I have heard that 
 in horsemanship he is not the good rider who never was 
 thrown, but rather that a man never will be a good 
 rider until he is thrown ; then he will not be haunted 
 any longer by the terror that he shall tumble, and will 
 ride : that is his business, to ride, whether with falls 
 or whether with none, to ride unto the place whither he
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 51 
 
 is bound. And I know no such unquestionable badge 
 and ensign of a sovereign mind, as that tenacity of pur 
 pose which, through all change of companions, of par 
 ties, of fortunes, changes never, bates no jot of heart 
 or hope, but wearies out opposition, and arrives at its 
 port. In his consciousness of deserving success, the 
 caliph Ali constantly, neglected the ordinary means of 
 attaining it ; and to the grand interests, a superficial 
 success is of no account. It prospers as well in mistake 
 as in luck, in obstruction and nonsense as well as among 
 the angels ; it reckons fortunes mere paint ; difficulty 
 is its delight : perplexity is its noonday : minds that 
 make their way without winds and against tides. But 
 these are rare and difficult examples ; we can only indi 
 cate them to show how high is the range of the realm of 
 Honor. 
 
 I know the feeling of the most ingenuous and excel 
 lent youth in America ; I hear the complaint of the as 
 pirant that we have no prizes offered to the ambition of 
 virtuous young men ; that there is no Theban Band ; no 
 stern exclusive Legion of Honor, to be entered only by 
 long and real service and patient climbing up all the 
 steps. We have a rich men's aristocracy, plenty of 
 bribes for those who like them ; but a grand style of 
 culture, which, without injury, an ardent youth can pro 
 pose to himself as a Pharos through long dark years, 
 does not exist, and there is no substitute. The youth, 
 having got through the first thickets that oppose his 
 entrance into life, having got into decent society, is left 
 to himself, and falls abroad with too much freedom. 
 But in the hours of insight we rally against this skepti 
 cism. We then see that if the ignorant are around us, 
 the great are much more near ; that there is au order
 
 52 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 of men, never quite absent, who enroll no names in 
 their archives but of such as are capable of truth. They 
 are gathered in no one chamber ; no chamber would 
 hold them ; but, out of the vast duration of man's race, 
 they tower like mountains, and are present to every 
 mind in proportion to its likeness to theirs. The solita- 
 riest man who shares their spirit walks environed by 
 them ; they talk to him, they comfort him, and happy is 
 he who prefers these associates to profane companions. 
 They also take shape in men, in women. There is no 
 heroic trait, no sentiment or thought, that will not 
 sometime embody itself in the form of a friend. That 
 highest good of rational existence is always coming to 
 such as reject mean alliances. 
 
 One trait more we must celebrate, the self-reliance 
 which is the patent of royal natures. It is so prized a 
 jewel that it is sure to be tested. The rules and disci 
 pline are ordered for that. The Golden Table never 
 lacks members ; all its seats are kept full ; but with 
 this strange provision, that the members are carefully 
 withdrawn into deep niches so that no one of them can 
 see any other of them, and each believes himself alone. 
 In the presence of the Chapter it is easy for each mem 
 ber to carry himself royally and well ; but in the ab 
 sence of his colleagues and in the presence of mean 
 people he is tempted to accept the low customs of towns. 
 The honor of a member consists in an indifferency to 
 the persons and practices about him, and in the pursu 
 ing undisturbed the career of a Brother, as if always 
 in their presence, and as if no other existed. Give 
 up, once for all, the hope of approbation from the peo 
 ple in the street, if you are pursuing great ends. How 
 can they guess your designs ?
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 53 
 
 All reference to models, all comparison with neigh 
 boring abilities and reputations, is the road to medioc 
 rity. The generous soul, on arriving in a new port, 
 makes instant preparation for a new voyage. By ex 
 periment, by original studies, by secret obedience, he 
 has made a place for himself in the world ; stands 
 there a real, substantial, unprecedented person, and 
 when the great come by, as always there are angels 
 walking in the earth, they know him at sight. Effect 
 ual service iu his own legitimate fashion distinguishes 
 the true man. For he is to know that the distinction 
 of a royal nature is a great heart ; that not Louis Qua- 
 torze, not Chesterfield, nor Byron, nor Bonaparte is the 
 model of the Century, but, wherever found, the old re 
 nown attaches to the virtues of simple faith and staunch 
 endurance and clear perception and plain speech, and 
 that there is a master grace and dignity communicated 
 by exalted sentiments to a human form, to which utility 
 and even genius must do homage. And it is the sign 
 and badge of this nobility, the drawing his counsel 
 from his own breast. For to every gentleman, grave 
 and dangerous duties are proposed. Justice always 
 wants champions. The world waits for him as its de 
 fender, for he will find in the well-dressed crowd, yes, 
 in the civility of whole nations, vulgarity of sentiment. 
 In the best parlors of modern society he will find the 
 laughing devil, the civil sneer ; in English palaces the 
 London twist, derision, coldness, contempt of the masses, 
 contempt of Ireland, dislike of the Chartist. The Eng 
 lish House of Commons is the proudest assembly of 
 gentlemen in the world, yet the genius of the House 
 of Commons, its legitimate expression, is a sneer. In 
 America he shall find depreciation of purism on all
 
 54 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 questions touching the morals of trade and of social 
 customs, and the narrowest contraction of ethics to the 
 one duty of paying money. Pay that, and you may 
 play the tyrant at discretion and never look back to the 
 fatal question, where had you the money that you 
 paid? 
 
 I know the difficulties in the way of the man of 
 honor. The man of honor is a man of taste and hu 
 manity. By tendency, like all magnanimous men, he 
 is a democrat. But the revolution comes, and does he 
 join the standard of Chartist and outlaw ? No, for 
 these have been dragged in their ignorance by furious 
 chiefs to the Red Revolution ; they are full of murder, 
 and the student recoils, and joins the rich. If he can 
 not vote with the poor, he should stay by himself. Let 
 him accept the position of armed neutrality, abhorring 
 the crimes of the Chartist, abhorring the selfishness of 
 the rich, and say, ' The time will come when these poor 
 enfans perdus of revolution will have instructed their 
 party, if only by their fate, and wiser counsels will pre 
 vail ; the music and the dance of liberty will come up 
 to bright and holy ground and will take me in also. 
 Then I shall not have forfeited my right to speak and 
 act for mankind.' Meantime shame to the fop of learn 
 ing and philosophy who suffers a vulgarity of speech 
 and habit to blind him to the grosser vulgarity of piti 
 less selfishness, and to hide from him the current of 
 Tendency ; who abandons his right position of being 
 priest and poet of these impious and unpoetic doers of 
 God's work. You must, for wisdom, for sanity, have 
 some access to the mind and heart of the common hu 
 manity. The exclusive excludes himself. No great 
 man has existed who did not rely on the sense and
 
 ARISTOCRACY. 55 
 
 heart of mankind as represented by the good sense of 
 the people, as correcting the modes and over-refine 
 ments and class-prejudices of the lettered men of the 
 world. 
 
 There are certain conditions in the highest degree 
 favorable to the tranquillity of spirit and to that magna 
 nimity we so prize. And mainly the habit of consid 
 ering large interests, and things in masses, and not too 
 much in detail. The habit of directing large affairs 
 generates a nobility of thought in every mind of aver 
 age ability. For affairs themselves show the way in 
 which they should be handled ; and a good head soon 
 grows wise, and does not govern too much. 
 
 Now I believe in the closest affinity between moral 
 and material power. Virtue and genius are always on 
 the direct way to the control of the society in which 
 they are found. It is the interest of society that good 
 men should govern, and there is always a tendency so 
 to place them. But, for the day that now is, a man of 
 generous spirit will not need to administer public of 
 fices or to direct large interests of trade, or war, or 
 politics, or manufacture, but he will use a high pru 
 dence in the conduct of life to guard himself from be 
 ing dissipated on many things. There is no need that 
 he should count the pounds of property or the numbers 
 of agents whom his influence touches ; it suffices that his 
 aims are high, that the interest of intellectual and moral 
 beings is paramount with him, that he comes into what 
 is called fine society from higher ground, and he has an 
 elevation of habit which ministers of empires will be 
 forced to see and to remember. 
 
 I do not know whether that word Gentleman, al 
 though it signifies a leading idea in recent civilization,
 
 56 ARISTOCRACY. 
 
 is a sufficiently broad generalization to convey the deep 
 and grave fact of self-reliance. To many the word ex 
 presses only the outsides of cultivated men, only 
 graceful manners, and independence in trifles ; but the 
 fountains of that thought are in the deeps of man, a 
 beauty which reaches through and through, from the 
 manners to the soul ; an honor which is only a name 
 for sanctity, a self-trust which is a trust in God him 
 self. Call it man of honor, or call it Man, the Ameri 
 can who would serve his country must learn the beauty 
 and honor of perseverance ; he must reinforce himself 
 by the power of character, and revisit the margin of 
 that well from which his fathers drew waters of life and 
 enthusiasm, the fountain I mean of the moral senti 
 ments, the parent fountain from which this goodly Uni 
 verse flows as a wave.
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 MORE servants wait on man 
 Than he '11 take notice of." 
 
 GEORGE HERBERT:
 
 EVER the Rock of Ages melts 
 
 Into the mineral air, 
 To be the quarry whence is built 
 
 Thought and its mansions fair*
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 1 
 
 THE hero in the fairy tales has a servant who can eat 
 granite rocks, another who can hear the grass grow, 
 and a third who can run a hundred leagues in half an 
 hour ; so man in nature is surrounded by a gang of 
 friendly giants who can accept harder stints than these, 
 and help him in every kind. Each by itself has a cer 
 tain omnipotence, but all, like contending kings and 
 emperors, in the presence of each other, are antagon 
 ized and kept polite and own the balance of power. 
 
 We cannot afford to miss any advantage. Never 
 was any man too strong for his proper work. Art is 
 long, and life short, and he must supply this dispropor 
 tion by borrowing and applying to his task the energies 
 of Nature. Reinforce his self - respect , show him his 
 means, his arsenal of forces, physical, metaphysical, 
 immortal. Show him the riches of the poor, show him 
 what mighty allies and helpers he has. And though 
 King David had no good from making his census out 
 of vain-glory, yet I find it wholesome and invigorating 
 to enumerate the resources we can command, to look 
 a little into this arsenal, and see how many rounds of 
 ammunition, what muskets, and how many arms better 
 than Springfield muskets, we can bring to bear. 
 
 1 Reprinted from the North American Review, No. 125, 1877.
 
 60 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 Go out of doors and get the air. Ah, if you knew 
 what was in the air. See what your robust neighbor, 
 who never feared to live in it, has got from it; strength, 
 cheerfulness, power to convince, heartiness and equality 
 to each event. 
 
 All the earths are burnt metals. One half the avoir 
 dupois of the rocks which compose the solid crust of 
 the globe consists of oxygen. The adamant is always 
 passing into smoke ; the marble column, the brazen 
 statue burn under the daylight, and would soon de 
 compose if their molecular structure, disturbed by the 
 raging sunlight, were not restored by the darkness of 
 the night. What agencies of electricity, gravity, light, 
 affinity combine to make every plant what it is, and 
 in a manner so quiet that the presence of these tre 
 mendous powers is not ordinarily suspected. Faraday 
 said, " A grain of water is known to have electric rela 
 tions equivalent to a very powerful flash of lightning." 
 The ripe fruit is dropped at last without violence, but 
 the lightning fell and the storm raged, and strata were 
 deposited and uptorn and bent back, and Chaos moved 
 from beneath, to create and flavor the fruit on your 
 table to-day. The winds and the rains come back a 
 thousand and a thousand times. The coal on your 
 grate gives out in decomposing to-day exactly the same 
 amount of light and heat which was taken from the 
 sunshine in its formation in the leaves and boughs of 
 the antediluvian tree. 
 
 Take up a spadeful or a buck-load of loam ; who can 
 guess what it holds ? But a gardener knows that it is 
 full of peaches, full of oranges, and he drops in a few 
 seeds by way of keys to unlock and combine its virtues ; 
 lets it lie in sun and rain, and by and by it has lifted 
 into the air its full weight in golden fruit.
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 61 
 
 The earliest hymns of the world were hymns to these 
 natural forces. The Vedas of India, which have a date 
 older than Homer, are hymns to the winds, to the clouds, 
 and to fire. They all have certain properties which ad 
 here to them, such as conservation, persisting to be 
 themselves, impossibility of being warped. The sun 
 has lost no beams, the earth no elements ; gravity is as 
 adhesive, heat as expansive, light as joyful, air as virtu 
 ous, water as medicinal as on the first day. * There is 
 no loss, only transference. When the heat is less here 
 it is not lost, but more heat is there. When the rain 
 exceeds on the coast, there is drought on the prairie. 
 When the continent sinks, the opposite continent, that 
 is to say, the opposite shore of the ocean, rises. When 
 life is less here, it spawns there. 
 
 These forces are in an ascending series, but seem to 
 leave no room for the individual ; man or atom, he only 
 shares them. ; he sails the way these irresistible winds 
 blow. But behind all these are finer elements, the 
 sources of them, and much more rapid and strong ; a 
 new style and series, the spiritual. Intellect and morals 
 appear only the material forces on a higher plane. The 
 laws of material nature run up into the invisible world 
 of the mind, and hereby we acquire a key to those sub 
 limities which skulk and hide in the caverns of human 
 consciousness. And in the impenetrable mystery which 
 hides and hides through absolute transparency the 
 mental nature, I await the insight which our advancing 
 knowledge of the material laws shall furnish. 
 
 But the laws of force apply to every form of it. The 
 husbandry learned in the economy of heat or light 02 
 steam or muscular fibre applies precisely to the use of 
 wit. What I have said of the inexorable persistence
 
 62 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 of every elemental force to remain itself, the impossi 
 bility of tampering with it or warping it, the same 
 rule applies again strictly to this force of intellect ; 
 that it is perception, a seeing, not making, thoughts. 
 The man must bend to the law, never the law to him. 
 The brain of man has methods and arrangements cor 
 responding to these material powers, by which he can 
 use them. See how trivial b the use of the world by 
 any othcAf its creatures. Whilst these forces act on 
 us from the outside and we are not in their counsel, we 
 call them Fate. The animal instincts guide the animal 
 as gravity governs the stone, and in man that bias or 
 direction of his constitution is often as tyrannical as 
 gravity. We call it temperament, and it seems to be 
 the remains of wolf, ape and rattlesnake in him. While 
 the reason is yet dormant, this rules; as the reflective 
 faculties open, this subsides. We come to reason and 
 knowledge ; we see the causes of evils and learn to parry 
 them and use them as instruments, by knowledge, being 
 inside of them and dealing with them as the Creator 
 does. It iz curious to see how a creature so feeble and 
 vulnerable as a man, who, unarmed, is no match for the 
 wild beasts, tiger, or crocodile, none for the frost, none 
 for the sea, none for a fog, or a damp air, or the feeble 
 fork of a poor worm, each of a thousand petty ac 
 cidents puts him to death every day, is yet able to 
 subdue to his will these terrific forces, and more than 
 these. His whole frame is responsive to the world, part 
 for part, every sense, every pore to a new element, so 
 that he seems to have as many talents as there are 
 qualities in nature. No force but is his force. He does 
 not possess them, he is a pipe through which their cur 
 rents flow. If a straw be held still in the direction of
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 63 
 
 the ocean-current, the sea will pour through it as 
 through Gibraltar. If he should measure strength with 
 them, ir he should fight the sea and the whirlwind with 
 his ship, he would snap his spars, tear his sails, and 
 swamp his bark; but by cunningly dividing the force, 
 tapping the tempest for a little side-wind, he uses the 
 monsters, and they carry him where he would go. Look 
 at him; you can give no guess at what power is in him. 
 It never appears directly, but follow him and see his 
 effects, see his productions. He is a planter, a miner, 
 a shipbuilder, a machinist, a musician, a steam-engine, a 
 geometer, an astronomer, a persuader of men, a law 
 giver, a builder of towns ; and each of these by dint 
 of a wonderful method or series that resides in him and 
 enables him to work on the material elements. 
 
 We are surrounded by human thought and labor. 
 Where are the farmer's days gone? See, they are hid 
 in that stone-wall, in that excavated trench, in the har 
 vest grown on what was shingle and pine-barren. He 
 put his days into carting from the distant swamp the 
 mountain of muck which has been trundled about until 
 it now makes the cover of fruitful soil. Labor hides it 
 self in every mode and form. It is massed and blocked 
 away in that stone house, for five hundred years. It is 
 twisted and screwed into fragrant hay which fills the 
 barn. It surprises in the perfect form and condition of 
 trees clean of caterpillars and borers, rightly pruned, 
 and loaded with grafted fruit. It is under the house in 
 the well; it is over the house in slates and copper and 
 water-spout; it grows in the corn; it delights us in the 
 flower-bed ; it keeps the cow out of the garden, the rain 
 out of the library, the miasma out of the town. It is in 
 dress, in pictures, in ships, in cannon; in every spec-
 
 64 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 tacle, in odors, in flavors, in sweet sounds, in works of 
 safety, of delight, of wrath, of science. 
 
 The thoughts, no man ever saw, but disorder becomes 
 order where he goes; weakness becomes power; sur 
 prising and admirable effects follow him like a creator. 
 All forces are his; as the wise merchant by truth in his 
 dealings finds his credit unlimited, he can use in turn, 
 as he wants it, all the property in the world, so a man 
 draws on all the air for his occasions, as if there were no 
 other breather; or all the water as if there were no 
 other sailor; he is warmed by the sun, and so of every 
 element; he walks and works by the aid of gravitation; 
 he draws on all knowledge as his province, on all beauty 
 for his innocent delight, and first or last he exhausts by 
 his use all the harvests, all the powers of the world. 
 For man, the receiver of all, and depositary of these 
 volumes of power, I am to say that his ability and per 
 formance are according to his reception of these various 
 streams of force. We define Genius to be a sensibility 
 to all the impressions of the outer world, a sensibility so 
 equal that it receives accurately ail impressions, and 
 can truly report them, without excess or loss, as it re 
 ceived. It must not only receive all, but it must render 
 all. And the health of man is an equality of inlet and 
 outlet, gathering and giving. Any hoarding is tumor 
 and disease. 
 
 If we were truly to take account of stock before 
 the last Court of Appeals, that were an inventory ! 
 What are my resources ? " Our stock in life, our real 
 estate, is that amount of thought which we have had," 
 and which we have applied, and so domesticated. 
 The ground we have thus created is forever a fund for 
 new thoughts. A few moral maxims confirmed by
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 65 
 
 much experience would stand high on the list, constitut 
 ing a supreme prudence. Then the knowledge unut 
 terable of our private strength, of where it lies, of its 
 accesses and facilitations, and of its obstructions. My 
 conviction of principles, that is great part of my pos 
 sessions. Certain thoughts, certain observations, long 
 familiar to me in night-watches and daylights, would 
 be my capital if I removed to Spain or China, or, by 
 stranger translation, to the planet Jupiter or Mars, or 
 to new spiritual societies. Every valuable person who 
 joins in an enterprise, is it a piece of industry, or 
 the founding of a colony or a college, the reform of 
 some public abuse, or some effort of patriotism, what 
 he chiefly brings, all he brings, is not his land or his 
 money or body's strength, but his thoughts, his way of 
 classifying and seeing things, his method. And thus 
 with every one a new power. In proportion to the 
 depth of the insight is the power and reach of the king 
 dom he controls. 
 
 It would be easy to awake wonder by sketching the 
 performance of each of these mental forces: as of the 
 diving-bell of the Memory, which descends into the 
 deeps of our past and oldest experience and brings up 
 every lost jewel; or of the Fancy, which sends its gay 
 balloon aloft into the sky to catch every tint and gleam 
 of romance ; of the Imagination, which turns every dull 
 fact into pictures and poetry, by making it an emblem 
 of thought. What a power, when, combined with the 
 analyzing understanding, it makes Eloquence; the art 
 of compelling belief, the art of making peoples' hearts 
 dance to his pipe ! And not less, method, patience, self- 
 trust, perseverance, love, desire of knowledge, the pas 
 sion for truth. These are the angels that take us by 
 5
 
 66 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 the hand, these our immortal, invulnerable guardians. 
 By their strength we are strong, and on the signal 
 occasions in our career their inspirations flow to us and 
 make the selfish and protected and tenderly-bred person 
 strong for his duty, wise in counsel, skilful in action, 
 competent to rule, willing to obey. 
 
 I delight in tracing these wonderful powers, the elec 
 tricity and gravity of the human world. The power of 
 persistence, of enduring defeat and of gaining victory 
 by defeats, is one of these forces which never loses its 
 charm. The power of a man increases steadily by con 
 tinuance in one direction. He becomes acquainted with 
 the resistances and with his own tools; increases his 
 skill and strength and learns the favorable moments 
 and favorable accidents. He is his own apprentice, and 
 more time gives a great addition of power, just as a 
 falling body acquires momentum with every foot of the 
 fall. How we prize a good contiuuer! I knew a manu 
 facturer who found his property invested in chemical 
 works which were depreciating in value. He under 
 took the charge of them himself, began at the begin 
 ning, learned chemistry and acquainted himself with all 
 the conditions of the manufacture. His friends dis 
 suaded him, advised him to give up the work, which 
 was not suited to the country. Why throw good money 
 after bad? But he persisted, and after many years suc 
 ceeded in his production of the right article for com 
 merce, brought up the stock of his mills to par, and 
 then sold out his interest, having accomplished the re 
 form that was required. 
 
 In each the talent is the perception of an order and 
 series in the department he deals with, of an order 
 and series which pre-existed in nature, and which this
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 67 
 
 mind sees and conforms to. The geometer shows us 
 the true order in figures ; the painter in laws of color ; 
 the dancer in grace. Bonaparte, with his celerity of 
 combination, mute, unfathomable, reads the geography 
 of Europe as if his eyes were telescopes ; his will is 
 an immense battery discharging irresistible volleys of 
 power always at the right point in the right time. 
 
 There was a story in the journals of a poor prisoner 
 in a Western police-court who was told he might be re 
 leased if he would pay his fine. He had no money, he 
 had no friends, but he took his flute out of his pocket 
 and began to play, to the surprise, and, as it proved, to 
 the delight of all the company ; the jurors waked up, 
 the sheriff forgot his duty, the judge himself beat time, 
 and the prisoner was by general consent of court and 
 officers allowed to go his way without any money. And 
 I suppose, if he could have played loud enough, we here 
 should have beat time, and the whole population of the 
 globe would beat time, and consent that he should go 
 without his fine. 
 
 I knew a stupid young farmer, churlish, living only 
 for his gains, and with whom the only intercourse you 
 could have was to buy what he had to sell. One day I 
 found his little boy of four years dragging about after 
 him the prettiest little wooden cart, so neatly built, and 
 with decorations too, and learned that Papa had made 
 it ; that hidden deep in that thick skull was this gentle 
 art and taste which the little fingers and caresses of his 
 son had the power to draw out into day ; he was no 
 peasant after all. So near to us is the flowering of Fine 
 Art in the rudest population. See in a circle of school 
 girls one with no beauty, no special vivacity, but she 
 can so recite her adventures that she is never alone, but
 
 68 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 at night or at morning wherever she sits the inevitable 
 circle gathers around her, willing prisoners of that won 
 derful memory and fancy and spirit of life. Would you 
 know where to find her ? Listen for the laughter, fol 
 low the cheerful hum, see where is the rapt attention, 
 and a pretty crowd all bright with one electricity; there 
 in the centre of fellowship and joy is Scheherazade 
 again. 
 
 See how rich life is ; rich in private talents, each of 
 which charms us in turn and seems the best. If we 
 hear music we give up all to that ; if we fall in with a 
 cricket-club and see the game masterly played, the best 
 player is the first of men ; if we go to the regatta, we 
 forget the bowler for the stroke oar ; and when the sol 
 dier comes home from the fight, he fills all eyes. But 
 the soldier has the same admiration of the great par 
 liamentary debater. And poetry and literature are 
 disdainful of all these claims beside their own. Like 
 the boy who thought in turn each one of the four sea 
 sons the best, and each of the three hundred and sixty- 
 five days in the year the crowner. The sensibility is 
 all. 
 
 Every one knows what are the effects of music to 
 put people in gay or mournful or martial mood. But 
 these are the effects on dull subjects, and only the hint 
 of its power on a keener sense. It is a stroke on a 
 loose or tense cord. The story of Orpheus, of Arion, 
 of the Arabian minstrel, are not fables, but experiments 
 on the same iron at white heat. 
 
 By this wondrous susceptibility to all the impressions 
 of Nature the man finds himself the receptacle of celes 
 tial thoughts, of happy relations to all men. The im 
 agination enriches him, as if there were no other ; the
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 69 
 
 memory opens all her cabinets and archives ; Science 
 her length and breadth ; Poetry her splendor and joy 
 and the august circles of eternal law. These are means 
 and stairs for new ascensions of the mind. But they 
 are nowise impoverished for any other mind, not tar 
 nished, not breathed upon ; for the mighty Intellect 
 did not stoop to him and become property, but he rose 
 to it and followed its circuits. " It is ours while we 
 use it, it is not ours when we do not use it." 
 
 And so, one step higher, when he comes into the 
 realm of sentiment and will. He sees the grandeur of 
 justice, the victory of love, the eternity that belongs to 
 all moral nature. He does not then invent his senti 
 ment or his act, but obeys a pre-existing right which he 
 sees. We arrive at virtue by taking its direction in 
 stead of imposing ours. 
 
 The last revelation of intellect and of sentiment is 
 that in a manner it severs the man from all other men ; 
 makes known to him that the spiritual powers are suffi 
 cient to him if no other being existed ; that he is to deal 
 absolutely in the world, as if he alone were a system 
 and a state, and though all should perish could make all 
 anew. 
 
 The forces are infinite. Every one has the might of 
 all, for the secret of the world is that its energies are 
 solidaires ; that they work together on a system of mu 
 tual aid, all for each and each for all ; that the strain 
 made on one point bears on every arch and foundation 
 of the structure. But if you wish to avail yourself of 
 their might, and in like manner if you wish the force of 
 the intellect, the force of the will, you must take their 
 divine direction, not they yours. Obedience alone gives 
 the right to command. It is like the village operator
 
 70 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 who taps the telegraph-wire and surprises the secrets 
 of empires as they pass to the capital. So this child of 
 the dust throws himself by obedience into the circuit of 
 the heavenly wisdom, and shares the secret of God. 
 
 Thus is the world delivered into your hand, but on 
 two conditions, not for property, but for use, use ac 
 cording to the noble nature of the gifts ; and not for 
 toys, not for self-indulgence. Things work to their 
 ends, not to yours, and will certainly defeat any adven 
 turer who fights against this ordination. 
 
 The effort of men is to use them for private ends. 
 They wish to pocket land and water and fire and air 
 and all fruits of these, for property, and would like to 
 have Aladdin's lamp to compel darkness, and iron- 
 bound doors, and hostile armies, and lions and serpents 
 to serve them like footmen. And they wish the same 
 service from the spiritual faculties. A man has a rare 
 mathematical talent, inviting him to the beautiful se 
 crets of geometry, and wishes to clap a patent on it ; or 
 has the fancy and invention of a poet, and says, ' I will 
 write a play that shall be repeated in London a hun 
 dred nights ; ' or a military genius, and instead of using 
 that to defend his country, he says, ' I will fight the 
 battle so as to give me place and political considera 
 tion ; ' or Canning or Thurlow has a genius of debate, 
 and says, ' I will know how with this weapon to defend 
 the cause that will pay best and make me Chancellor or 
 Foreign Secretary.' But this perversion is punished 
 with instant loss of true wisdom and real power. 
 
 I find the survey of these cosmical powers a doctrine 
 of consolation in the dark hours of private or public for 
 tune. It shows us the world alive, guided, incorrupti 
 ble ; that its cannon cannot be stolen nor its virtues
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 71 
 
 misapplied. It shows us the long Providence, the safe 
 guards of rectitude. It animates exertion ; it warns us 
 out of that despair into which Saxon men are prone to 
 fall, out of an idolatry of forms, instead of working 
 to simple ends, in the belief that Heaven always succors 
 us in working for these. This world belongs to the en 
 ergetical. It is a fagot of laws, and a true analysis of 
 these laws, showing how immortal and self-protecting 
 they are, would be a wholesome lesson for every time 
 and for this time. That band which ties them together 
 is unity, is universal good, saturating all with one being 
 and aim, so that each translates the other, is only the 
 same spirit applied to new departments. Things are 
 saturated with the moral law. There is no escape from 
 it. Violets and grass preach it ; rain and snow, wind 
 and tides, every change, every cause in Nature is noth 
 ing but a disguised missionary. 
 
 All our political disasters grow as logically out of 
 our attempts in the past to do without justice, as the 
 sinking of some part of your house comes of defect in 
 the foundation. One thing is plain ; a certain personal 
 virtue is essential to freedom ; and it begins to be doubt 
 ful whether our corruption in this country has not gone 
 a little over the mark of safety, so that when canvassed 
 we shall be found to be made up of a majority of reck 
 less self-seekers. The divine knowledge has ebbed out 
 of us and we do not know enough to be free. 
 
 I hope better of the state. Half a man's wisdom 
 goes with his courage. A boy who knows that a bully 
 lives round the corner which he must pass on his daily 
 way to school, is apt to take sinister views of streets 
 and of school-education. And a sensitive politician suf 
 fers his ideas of the part New York or Pennsylvania or
 
 72 PERPETUAL FORCES. 
 
 Ohio are to play in the future of the Union, to be fash 
 ioned by the election of rogues in some counties. But 
 we must not gratify the rogues so deeply. There is a 
 speedy limit to profligate politics. 
 
 Fear disenchants life and the world. If I have not 
 my own respect I am an impostor, not entitled to other 
 men's, and had better creep into my grave. I admire 
 the sentiment of Thoreau, who said, " Nothing is so 
 much to be feared as fear ; God himself likes atheism 
 better." For the world is a battle-ground ; every prin 
 ciple is a war-note, and the most quiet and protected 
 life is at any moment exposed to incidents which test 
 your firmness. The illusion tliat strikes me as the mas 
 terpiece in that ring of illusions which our life is, is the 
 timidity with which we assert our moral sentiment. We 
 are made of it, the world is built by it, tilings endure as 
 they share it ; all beauty, all health, all intelligence ex 
 ist by it ; yet we shrink to speak of it or to range our 
 selves by its side. Nay, we presume strength of him 
 or them who deny it. Cities go against it ; the college 
 goes against it, the courts snatch at any precedent, at 
 any vicious form of law to rule it out ; legislatures lis 
 ten with appetite to declamations against it, and vote it 
 down. Every new asserter of the right surprises us, 
 like a man joining the church, and we hardly dare be 
 lieve he is in earnest. 
 
 What we do and suffer is in moments, but the cause 
 of right for which we labor never dies, works in long 
 periods, can afford many checks, gains by our defeats, 
 and will know how to compensate our extremest sacri 
 fice. Wrath and petulance may have their short suc 
 cess, but they quickly reach their brief date and decom 
 pose, whilst the massive might of ideas is irresistible at
 
 PERPETUAL FORCES. 73 
 
 last. Whence does the knowledge come ? Where is 
 the source of power ? The soul of God is poured into 
 the world through the thoughts of men. The world 
 stands on ideas, and not on iron or cotton ; and the iron 
 of iron, the fire of fire, the ether and source of all the 
 elements is moral force. As cloud on cloud, as snow on 
 snow, as the bird on the air, and the planet on space in 
 its flight, so do nations of men and their institutions rest 
 on thoughts.
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 SHUN passion, fold the hands of thrift, 
 
 Sit still, and Truth is near ; 
 
 Suddenly it will uplift 
 
 Your eyelids to the sphere : 
 Wait a little, you shall see 
 The portraiture of things to be.
 
 FOR what need I of book or priest 
 Or Sibyl from the mummied East 
 When every star is Bethlehem Star, 
 I count as many as there are 
 Cinquefoils or violets in the grass, 
 So many saints and saviours, 
 So many high behaviours.
 
 CHARACTER. 1 
 
 MORALS respects what men call goodness, that which 
 all men agree to honor as justice, truth-speaking, good 
 will and good works. Morals respects the source or 
 motive of this action. It is the science of substances, 
 not of shows. It is the what, and not the how. It is 
 that which all men profess to regard, and by their real 
 respect for which recommend themselves to each other. 
 
 There is this eternal advantage to morals, that, in the 
 question between truth and goodness, the moral cause 
 of the world lies behind all else in the mind. It was 
 for good, it is to good, that all works. Surely it is not 
 to prove or show the truth of tilings, that sounds a 
 little cold and scholastic, no, it is for benefit, that all 
 subsists. As we say in our modern politics, catching at 
 last the language of morals, that the object of the State 
 is the greatest good of the greatest number, so, the 
 reason we must give for the existence of the world is, 
 that it is for the benefit of all being. 
 
 Morals implies freedom and will. The will consti 
 tutes the man. He has his life in Nature, like a beast : 
 but choice is born in him ; here is he that chooses ; here 
 is the Declaration of Independence, the July Fourth of 
 1 Reprinted from the North American Review of April, 1866.
 
 78 CHARACTER. 
 
 zoology and astronomy. He chooses, as the rest of 
 the creation does not. But will, pure and perceiving, is 
 not wilfulness. When a man, through stubbornness, in 
 sists to do this or that, something absurd or whimsical, 
 only because he will, he is weak ; he blows with his lips 
 against the tempest, he dams the incoming ocean with 
 his cane. It were an unspeakable calamity if any one 
 should think he had the right to impose a private will 
 on others. That is the part of a striker, an assassin. 
 All violence, all that is dreary and rebels, is not power 
 but the absence of power. 
 
 Morals is the direction of the will on universal ends. 
 He is immoral who is acting to any private end. He is 
 moral, we say it with Marcus Aurelius and with Kant, 
 whose aim or motive may become a universal rule, 
 binding on all intelligent beings ; and with Vauvenar- 
 gues, "the mercenary sacrifice of the public good to a 
 private interest is the eternal stamp of vice." 
 
 All the virtues are special directions of this motive ; 
 justice is the application of this good of the whole to 
 the affairs of each one ; courage is contempt of danger 
 in the determination to see this good of the whole en 
 acted ; love is delight in the preference of that ben 
 efit redounding to another over the securing of our own 
 share ; humility is a sentiment of our insignificance when 
 the benefit of the universe is considered. 
 
 If from these external statements we seek to come a 
 little nearer to the fact, our first experiences in moral 
 as in intellectual nature force us to' discriminate a uni 
 versal mind, identical in all men. Certain biases, tal 
 ents, executive skills, are special to each individual ; but 
 the high, contemplative, all - commanding vision, the 
 sense of Right and Wrong, is alike in all. Its attri-
 
 CHARACTER. 79 
 
 butes are self -existence, eternity, intuition and command. 
 It is the mind of the mind. We belong to it, not it to 
 us. It is in all men, and constitutes them men. In bad 
 men it is dormant, as health is in men entranced or 
 drunken ; but, however inoperative, it exists underneath 
 whatever vices and errors. The extreme simplicity of 
 this intuition embarrasses every- attempt at analysis. 
 We can only mark, one by one, the perfections which it 
 combines in every act. It admits of no appeal, looks to 
 no superior essence. It is the reason of things. 
 
 The antagonist nature is the individual, formed into 
 a finite body of exact dimensions, with appetites which 
 take from everybody else what they appropriate to 
 themselves, and would enlist the entire spiritual faculty 
 of the individual, if it were possible, in catering for 
 them. On the perpetual conflict between the dictate of 
 this universal mind and the wishes and interests of the 
 individual, the moral discipline of life is built. The one 
 craves a private benefit, which the other requires him 
 to renounce out of respect to the absolute good. Every 
 hour puts the individual in a position where his wishes 
 aim at something which the sentiment of duty forbids 
 him to seek. He that speaks the truth executes no pri 
 vate function of an individual will, but the world utters 
 a sound by his lips. He who doth a just action seeth 
 therein nothing of his own, but an inconceivable noble 
 ness attaches to it, because it is a dictate of the general 
 mind. We have no idea of power so simple and so en 
 tire as this. It is the basis of thought, it is the basis of 
 being. Compare all that we call ourselves, all our pri 
 vate and personal venture in the world, with this deep 
 of moral nature in which we lie, and our private good 
 becomes an impertinence, and we take part with hasty 
 shame against ourselves : -
 
 80 CHARACTER. 
 
 " High instincts, before which cur mortal nature 
 Doth tremble like a guilty thing surprised, 
 Which, be they what they may, 
 Are yet the fountain-light of all our day, 
 Are yet the master-light of all our seeing, 
 Uphold us, cherish, and have power to make 
 Our noisy years seem moments in the being 
 Of the eternal silence, truths that wake 
 To perish never." 
 
 The moral element invites man to great enlargements, 
 to find his satisfaction, not in particulars or events, but 
 in the purpose and tendency ; not in bread, but in his 
 right to his bread ; not in much corn or wool, but in its 
 communication. 
 
 Not by adding, then, does the moral sentiment help 
 us ; no, but in quite another manner. It puts us in 
 place. It centres, it concentrates us. It puts us at the 
 heart of Nature, where we belong, in the cabinet of sci 
 ence and of causes, there where all the wires terminate 
 which hold the world in magnetic unity, and so converts 
 us into universal beings. 
 
 This wonderful sentiment, which endears itself as it is 
 obeyed, seems to be the fountain of intellect ; for no tal 
 ent gives the impression of sanity, if wanting this ; nay, 
 it absorbs everything into itself. Truth, Power, Good 
 ness, Beauty, are its varied names, faces of one sub 
 stance, the heart of all. Before it, what are persons, 
 prophets, or seraphim but its passing agents, momen 
 tary rays of its light ? 
 
 The moral sentiment is alone omnipotent. There is 
 no labor or sacrifice to which it will not bring a man, 
 and which it will not make easy. Thus there is no man 
 who will bargain to sell his life, say at the end of a 
 year, for a million or ten millions of gold dollars in 
 hand, or for any temporary pleasures, or for any rank,
 
 CHARACTER. 81 
 
 as of peer or prince ; but many a man who does not hes 
 itate to lay down his life for the sake of a truth, or in 
 the cause of his country, or to save his son or his friend. 
 And under the action of this sentiment of the Right, his 
 heart and mind expand above himself, and above Nature. 
 
 Though Love repine, and Reason chafe, 
 There came a voice without reply, 
 " 'T is man's perdition to be safe, 
 
 When for the truth he ought to die." 
 
 Such is the difference of the action of the heart within 
 and of the senses without. One is enthusiasm, and the 
 other more or less amounts of horse-power. 
 
 Devout men, in the endeavor to express their convic 
 tions, have used different images to suggest this latent 
 force ; as, the light, the seed, the Spirit, the Holy Ghost, 
 the Comforter, the Daemon, the still, small voice, etc., 
 all indicating its power and its latency. It is se 
 renely above all mediation. In all ages, to all men, it 
 saith, / am and he who hears it feels the impiety of 
 wandering from this revelation to any record or to any 
 rival. The poor Jews of the wilderness cried : " Let not 
 the Lord speak to us ; let Moses speak to us." But the 
 simple and sincere soul makes the contrary prayer : ' Let 
 no intruder come between thee and me ; deal THOU 
 with me ; let me know it is thy will, and I ask no more.' 
 The excellence of Jesus, and of every true teacher, is, 
 that he affirms the Divinity in him and in us, not 
 thrusts himself between it and us. It would instantly 
 indispose us to any person claiming to speak for the Au 
 thor of Nature, the setting forth any fact or law which 
 we did not find in our consciousness. We should say 
 with Heraclitus : " Come into this smoky cabin ; God is 
 here also : approve yourself to him." 
 6
 
 82 CHARACTER. 
 
 We affirm that in all men is this majestic perception 
 and command ; that it is the presence of the Eternal in 
 each perishing man ; that it distances and degrades all 
 statements of whatever saints, heroes, poets, as obscure 
 and confused stammerings before its silent revelation. 
 They report the truth. It is the truth. When I think 
 of Reason, of Truth, of Virtue, I cannot conceive them 
 as lodged in your soul and lodged in my soul, but that 
 you and I and all souls are lodged in that ; and I may 
 easily speak of that adorable nature, there where only I 
 behold it in my dim experiences, in such terms as shall 
 seem to the frivolous, who dare not fathom their con 
 sciousness, as profane. How is a man a man ? How 
 can he exist to weave relations of joy and virtue with 
 other souls, but because he is inviolable, anchored at the 
 centre of Truth and Being ? In the ever returning 
 hour of reflection, he says : ' I stand here glad at heart 
 of all the sympathies I can awaken and share, clothing 
 myself with them as with a garment of shelter and 
 beauty, and yet knowing that it is not in the power of 
 all who surround me to take from me the smallest 
 thread I call mine. If all things are taken away, I 
 have still all things in my relation to the Eternal.' 
 
 We pretend not to define the way of its access to the 
 private heart. It passes understanding. There was a 
 time when Christianity existed in one child. But if the 
 child had been killed by Herod, would the element have 
 been lost ? God sends his message, if not by one, then 
 quite as well by another. W r hen the Master of the 
 Universe has ends to fulfil, he impresses his will on the 
 structure of minds. 
 
 The Divine Mind imparts itself to the single person: 
 his whole duty is to this rule and teaching. The aid
 
 CHARACTER. 83 
 
 which others give us is like that of the mother to the 
 child, temporary, gestative, a short period of lacta 
 tion, a nurse's or a governess's care; but on his arrival 
 at a certain maturity, it ceases, and would be hurtful 
 and ridiculous if prolonged. Slowly the body comes to 
 the use of its organs; slowly the soul unfolds itself in 
 the new man. It is partial at first, and honors only 
 some one or some few truths. In its companions it sees 
 other truths honored, and successively finds their foun 
 dation also in itself. Then it cuts the cord, and no 
 longer believes " because of thy saying," but because it 
 has recognized them in itself. 
 
 The Divine Mind imparts itself to the single person: 
 but it is also true that men act powerfully on us. There 
 are men who astonish and delight, men who instruct and 
 guide. Some men's words I remember so well that I 
 must often use them to express my thought. Yes, be 
 cause I perceive that we have heard the same truth, but 
 they have heard it better. That is only to say, there 
 is degree and gradation throughout Nature; and the 
 Deity does not break his firm laws in respect to impart 
 ing truth, more than in imparting material heat and 
 light. Men appear from time to time who receive with 
 more purity and fulness these high communications. 
 But it is only as fast as this hearing from another is 
 authorized by its consent with his own, that it is pure 
 and safe to each; and all receiving from abroad must 
 be controlled by this immense reservation. 
 
 It happens now and then, in the ages, that a soul is 
 born which has no weakness of self, which offers no im 
 pediment to the Divine Spirit, which comes down into 
 Nature as if only for the benefit of souls, and all its 
 thoughts are perceptions of things as they are, without
 
 84 CHARACTER. 
 
 any infirmity of earth. Such souls are as the apparition 
 of gods among men, and simply by their presence pass 
 judgment on them. Men are forced by their own self- 
 respect to give them a certain attention. Evil men 
 shrink and pay involuntary homage by hiding or apolo 
 gizing for their action. 
 
 When a man is born with a profound moral sentiment, 
 preferring truth, justice and the serving of all men to 
 any honors or any gain, men readily feel the superiority . 
 They who deal with him are elevated with joy and hope ; 
 he lights up the house or the landscape in which he 
 stands. His actions are poetic and miraculous in their 
 eyes. In his presence, or within his influence, every one 
 believes in the immortality of the soul. They feel that 
 the invisible world sympathizes with him. The Ara 
 bians delight in expressing the sympathy of the unseen 
 world with holy men. 
 
 When Omar prayed and loved, 
 
 Where Syrian waters roll, 
 Aloft the ninth heaven glowed and moved 
 
 To the tread of the jubilant soul. 
 
 A chief event of life is the day in which we have en 
 countered a mind that startled us by its large scope. I 
 am in the habit of thinking, not, I hope, out of a par 
 tial experience, but confirmed by what I notice in many 
 lives, that to every serious mind Providence sends 
 from time to time five or six or seven teachers who are 
 of the first importance to him in the lessons they have 
 to impart. The highest of these not so much give par. 
 ticular knowledge, as they elevate by sentiment and by 
 their habitual grandeur of view. 
 
 Great men serve us as insurrections do in bad govern 
 ments. The world would run into endless routine, and
 
 CHARACTER. 85 
 
 forms incrust forms, till the life was gone. But the 
 perpetual supply of new genius shocks us with thrills 
 of life, and recalls us to principles. Lucifer's wager 
 in the old drama was, " There is no steadfast man on 
 earth." He is very rare. " A man is already of con 
 sequence in the world when it is known that we can im 
 plicitly rely on him." See how one noble person dwarfs 
 a whole nation of underlings. This steadfastness we 
 indicate when we praise character. 
 
 Character denotes habitual self-possession, habitual 
 regard to interior and constitutional motives, a balance 
 not to be overset or easily disturbed by outward events 
 and opinion, and by implication points to the source of 
 right motive. We sometimes employ the word to ex 
 press the strong and consistent will of men of mixed 
 motive, but, when used with emphasis, it points to what 
 no events can change, that is, a will built on the reason 
 of things. Such souls do not come in troops: oftenest 
 appear solitary, like a general without his command, 
 because those who can understand and uphold such 
 appear rarely ; not many, perhaps not one, in a genera 
 tion. And the memory and tradition of such a leader 
 is preserved in some strange way by those who only 
 half understand him, until a true disciple comes, who 
 apprehends and interprets every word. 
 
 The sentiment never stops in pure vision, but will be 
 enacted. It affirms not only its truth, but its suprem 
 acy. It is not only insight, as science, as fancy, as 
 imagination is; or an entertainment, as friendship and 
 poetry are ; but it is a sovereign rule : and the acts 
 which it suggests as when it impels a man to go forth 
 and impart it to other men, or sets him on some as 
 ceticism or some practice of self-examination to hold
 
 86 CHARACTER. 
 
 him to obedience, or some zeal to unite men to abate 
 some nuisance, or establish some reform or charity 
 which it commands are the homage we render to this 
 sentiment, as compared with the lower regard we pay 
 to other thoughts : and the private or social practices 
 we establish in its honor we call religion. 
 
 The sentiment, of course, is the judge and measure 
 of every expression of it, measures Judaism, Stoicism, 
 Christianity, Buddhism, or whatever philanthropy, or 
 politics, or saint, or seer pretends to speak in its name. 
 The religions we call false were once true. They also 
 were affirmations of the conscience correcting the evil 
 customs of their times. The populace drag down the 
 gods to their own level, and give them their egotism ; 
 whilst in Nature is none at all, God keeping out of 
 sight, and known only as pure law, though resistless. 
 Chateaubriand said, with some irreverence of phrase, If 
 God made man in his image, man has paid him well 
 back. " Si Dieu a fait Vhomme a son image, I'homme Va 
 bien rendu." Every nation is degraded by the gob 
 lins it worships instead of this Deity. The Dionysia 
 and Saturnalia of Greece and Rome, the human sacrifice 
 of the Druids, the Sradda of Hindoos, the Purgatory, 
 the Indulgences, and the Inquisition of Popery, the vin 
 dictive mythology of Calvinism, are examples of this 
 perversion. 
 
 Every particular instruction is speedily embodied in 
 a ritual, is accommodated to humble and gross minds, 
 and corrupted. The moral sentiment is the perpetual 
 critic on these forms, thundering its protest, sometimes 
 in earnest and lofty rebuke ; but sometimes also it is the 
 source, in natures less pure, of sneers and flippant jokes 
 of common people, who feel that the forms and dogmas
 
 CHARACTER. 87 
 
 are not true for them, though they do not see where the 
 error lies. 
 
 The religion of one age is the literary entertainment 
 of the next. We use in our idlest poetry and discourse 
 the words Jove, Neptune, Mercury, as mere colors, and 
 can hardly believe that they had to the lively Greek the 
 anxious meaning which, in our towns, is given and re 
 ceived in churches when our religious names are used: 
 and we read with surprise the horror of Athens when, 
 one morning, the statues of Mercury in the temples 
 were found broken, and the like consternation was in 
 the city as if, in Boston, all the Orthodox churches 
 should be burned in one night. 
 
 The greatest dominion will be to the deepest thought. 
 The establishment of Christianity in the world does not 
 rest on any miracle but the miracle of being the broad 
 est and most humane doctrine. Christianity was once a 
 schism and protest against the impieties of the time, 
 which had originally been protests against earlier impi 
 eties, but had lost their truth. Varnhagen von Ense, 
 writing in Prussia in 1848, says : " The Gospels belong 
 to the most aggressive writings. No leaf thereof could 
 attain the liberty of being printed (in Berlin) to-day. 
 What Mirabeaus, Rousseaus, Diderots, Fichtes, Heines, 
 and many another heretic, one can detect therein ! " 
 
 But before it wae yet a national religion it was al 
 loyed, and, in the hands of hot Africans, of luxurious 
 Byzantines, of fierce Gauls, its creeds were tainted with 
 their barbarism. In Holland, in England, in Scotland, 
 it felt the national narrowness. How unlike our ha 
 bitual turn of thought was that of the last century in 
 this country ! Our ancestors spoke continually of angels 
 and archangels with the same good faith as they would
 
 CHARACTER. 
 
 have spoken of their own parents or their late minister. 
 Now the words pale, are rhetoric, and all credence is 
 gone. Our horizon is not far, say one generation, or 
 thirty years : we all see so much. The older see two 
 generations, or sixty years. But what has been running 
 on through three horizons, or ninety years, looks to all 
 the world like a law of Nature, and 't is an impiety to 
 doubt. Thus, 't is incredible to us, if we look into the 
 religious books of our grandfathers, how they held 
 themselves in such a pinfold. But why not ? As far 
 as they could see, through two or three horizons, noth 
 ing but ministers and ministers. Calvinism was one 
 and the same thing in Geneva, in Scotland, in Old and 
 New England. If there was a wedding, they had a 
 sermon ; if a funeral, then a sermon ; if a war, or small 
 pox, or a comet, or canker-worms, or a deacon died, 
 still a sermon : Nature was a pulpit ; the church-war 
 den or tithing-man was a petty persecutor ; the presby 
 tery, a tyrant ; and in many a house in country places 
 the poor children found seven sabbaths in a week. Fifty 
 or a hundred years ago, prayers were said, morning and 
 evening, in all families ; grace was said at table ; an 
 exact observance of the Sunday was kept in the houses 
 of laymen as of clergymen. And one sees with some 
 pain the disuse of rites so charged with humanity and 
 aspiration. But it by no means follows, because those 
 offices are much disused, that the men and women 
 are irreligious ; certainly not that they have less integ 
 rity or sentiment, but only, let us hope, that they see 
 that they can omit the form without loss of real ground ; 
 perhaps that they find some violence, some cramping of 
 their freedom of thought, in the constant recurrence of 
 the form.
 
 CHARACTER. 89 
 
 So of the changed position and manners of the clergy. 
 They have dropped, with the sacerdotal garb and man 
 ners of the last century, many doctrines and practices 
 once esteemed indispensable to their order. But the 
 distinctions of the true clergyman are not less decisive. 
 Men ask now, " Is he serious ? Is he a sincere man, 
 who lives as he teaches ? Is he a benefactor ? " So 
 far the religion is now where it should be. Persons are 
 discriminated as honest, as veracious, as illuminated, as 
 helpful, as having public and universal regards, or oth 
 erwise ; are discriminated according to their aims, 
 and not by these ritualities. 
 
 The changes are inevitable ; the new age cannot see 
 with the eyes of the last. But the change is in what is 
 superficial ; the principles are immortal, and the rally 
 on the principle must arrive as people become intellect 
 ual. I consider theology to be the rhetoric of morals. 
 The mind of this age has fallen away from theology to 
 morals. I conceive it an advance. I suspect, that, 
 when the theology was most florid and dogmatic, it was 
 the barbarism of the people, and that, in that very time, 
 the best men also fell away from theology, and rested 
 in morals. I think that all the dogmas rest on morals, 
 and that it is only a question of youth or maturity, of 
 more or less fancy in the recipient ; that the stern de 
 termination to do justly, to speak the truth, to be chaste 
 and humble, was substantially the same, whether under 
 a self-respect, or under a vow made on the knees at the 
 shrine of Madonna. 
 
 When once Selden had said that the priests seemed 
 to him to be baptizing their own fingers, the rite of bap 
 tism was getting late in the world. Or when once it is 
 perceived that the English missionaries in India put ob-
 
 90 CHARACTER. 
 
 stacles in the way of schools, (as is alleged,) do not 
 wish to enlighten but to Christianize the Hindoos, it 
 is seen at once how wide of Christ is English Christi 
 anity. 
 
 Mankind at large always resemble frivolous children : 
 they are impatient of thought, and wish to be amused. 
 Truth is too simple for us ; we do not like those who 
 unmask our illusions. Fontenelle said : " If the Deity 
 should lay bare to the eyes of men the secret system of 
 Nature, the causes by which all the astronomic results 
 are effected, and they finding no magic, no mystic num 
 bers, no fatalities, but the greatest simplicity, I am per 
 suaded they would not be able to suppress a feeling of 
 mortification, and would exclaim, with disappointment, 
 ' Is that all ? ' " And so we paint over the bareness of 
 ethics with the quaint grotesques of theology. 
 
 We boast the triumph of Christianity over Paganism, 
 meaning the victory of the spirit over the senses ; but 
 Paganism hides itself in the uniform of the Church. 
 Paganism has only taken the oath of allegiance, taken 
 the cross, but is Paganism still, outvotes the true men 
 by millions of majority, carries the bag, spends the 
 treasure, writes the tracts, elects the minister, and per 
 secutes the true believer. 
 
 There is a certain secular progress of opinion, which, 
 in civil countries, reaches everybody. One service 
 which this age has rendered is, to make the life and 
 wisdom of every past man accessible and available to 
 all. Socrates and Marcus Aurelius are allowed to be 
 saints ; Mahomet is no longer accursed ; Voltaire is no 
 longer a scarecrow ; Spinoza has come to be revered. 
 " The time will come," says Varnhagen von Ense. 
 " when we shall treat the jokes and sallies against the
 
 CHARACTER. 91 
 
 myths and church-rituals of Christianity say the sar 
 casms of Voltaire, Frederic the Great, and D'Alembert 
 
 good naturedly and without offence : since, at bot 
 tom, those men mean honestly, their polemics proceed 
 out of a religious striving, and what Christ meant and 
 willed is in essence more with them than with their op 
 ponents, who only wear and misrepresent the name of 
 Christ. . . . Voltaire was an apostle of Christian ideas ; 
 only the names were hostile to him, and he never knew 
 it otherwise. He was like the son of the vine-dresser 
 in the Gospel, who said No, and went ; the other said 
 Yea, and went not. These men preached the true God, 
 
 Him whom men serve by justice and uprightness ; 
 but they called themselves atheists." 
 
 When the highest conceptions, the lessons of religion, 
 are imported, the nation is not culminating, has not ge 
 nius, but is servile. A true nation loves its vernacular 
 tongue. A completed nation will not import its religion. 
 Duty grows everywhere, like children, like grass ; and 
 we need not go to Europe or to Asia to learn it. I am 
 not sure that the English religion is not all quoted. 
 Even the Jeremy Taylors, Fullers, George Herberts, 
 steeped, all of them, in Church traditions, are only 
 using their fine fancy to emblazon their memory. 'T is 
 Judaea, not England, which is the ground. So with the 
 mordant Calvinism of Scotland and America. But this 
 quoting, distances and disables them : since with every 
 rdpeater something of creative force is lost, as we feel 
 when we go back to each original moralist. Pythago 
 ras, Socrates, the Stoics, the Hindoo, Behmen, George 
 Fox, these speak originally ; and how many sentences 
 and books we owe to unknown authors, to writers who 
 were not careful to set down name or date or titles or 
 cities or postmarks in these illuminations !
 
 92 CHARACTER. 
 
 We, in our turn, want power to drive the ponderous 
 State. The constitution and law in America must be 
 written on ethical principles, so that the entire power 
 of the spiritual world can be enlisted to hold the loy 
 alty of the citizen, and to repel every enemy as by 
 force of Nature. The laws of old empires stood on the 
 religious convictions. Now that their religions are out 
 grown, the empires lack strength. Romanism in Eu 
 rope does not represent the real opinion of enlightened 
 men. The Lutheran Church does not represent in 
 Germany the opinions of the universities. In England, 
 the gentlemen, the journals, and now, at last, church 
 men and bishops, have fallen away from the Anglican 
 Church. And in America, where are no legal ties to 
 churches, the looseness appears dangerous. 
 
 Our religion has got on as far as Unitarianism. But 
 all the forms grow pale. The walls of the temple are 
 wasted and thin, and, at last, only a film of whitewash, 
 because the mind of our culture has already left our 
 liturgies behind. " Every age," says Varnhagen, " lias 
 another sieve for the religious tradition, and will sift it 
 out again. Something is continually lost by this treat 
 ment, which posterity cannot recover." 
 
 But it is a capital truth that Nature, moral as well as 
 material, is always equal to herself. Ideas always gen 
 erate enthusiasm. The creed, the legend, forms of wor 
 ship, swiftly decay. Morals is the incorruptible essence, 
 very heedless in its richness of any past teacher or wit 
 ness, heedless of their lives and fortunes. It does not 
 ask whether you are wrong or right in your anecdotes 
 of them ; but it is all in all how you stand to your own 
 tribunal. 
 
 The lines of the religious sects are very shifting;
 
 CHARACTER. 93 
 
 their platforms unstable ; the whole science of theology 
 of great uncertainty, and resting very much on the 
 opinions of who may chance to be the leading doctors 
 of Oxford or Edinburgh, of Princeton or Cambridge, to 
 day. No man can tell what religious revolutions await 
 us in the next years ; and the education in the divinity 
 colleges may well hesitate and vary. But the science 
 of ethics has no mutation ; and whoever feels any love 
 or skill for ethical studies may safely lay out all his 
 strength and genius in working in that mine. The pul 
 pit may shake, but this platform will not. All the vic 
 tories of religion belong to the moral sentiment. Some 
 poor soul beheld the Law blazing through such impedi 
 ments as he had, and yielded himself to humility and 
 joy. What was gained by being told that it was justi 
 fication by faith ? 
 
 The Church, in its ardor for beloved persons, clings 
 to the miraculous, in the vulgar sense, which has even 
 an immoral tendency, as one sees in Greek, Indian and 
 Catholic legends, which are used to gloze every crime. 
 The soul, penetrated with the beatitude which pours 
 into it on all sides, asks no interpositions, no new laws, 
 the old are good enough for it, finds in every cart- 
 path of labor ways to heaven, and the humblest lot 
 exalted. Men will learn to put back the emphasis per 
 emptorily on pure morals, always the same, not sub 
 ject to doubtful interpretation, with no sale of indul 
 gences no massacre of heretics, no female slaves, no 
 disfranchisement of woman, no stigma on race ; to 
 make morals the absolute test, and so uncover and drive 
 out the false religions. There is no vice that has not 
 skulked behind them. It is only yesterday that our 
 American churches, so long silent on Slavery, and noto-
 
 94 CHARACTER. 
 
 riously hostile to the Abolitionist, wheeled into line for 
 Emancipation. 
 
 I am far from accepting the opinion that the revela 
 tions of the moral sentiment are insufficient, as if it 
 furnished a rule only, and not the spirit by which the 
 rule is animated. For I include in these, of course, the 
 history of Jesus, as well as those of every divine soul 
 which in any place or time delivered any grand lesson 
 to humanity ; and I find in the eminent experiences in 
 all times a substantial agreement. The sentiment it 
 self teaches unity of source, and disowns every superi 
 ority other than of deeper truth. Jesus has immense 
 claims on the gratitude of mankind, and knew how to 
 guard the integrity of his brother's soul from himself 
 also ; but, in his disciples, admiration of him runs away 
 with their reverence for the human soul, and they ham 
 per us with limitations of person and text. Every ex 
 aggeration of these is a violation of the soul's right, and 
 inclines the manly reader to lay down the New Testa 
 ment, to take up the Pagan philosophers. It is not that 
 the Upanishads or the Maxims of Antoninus are better, 
 but that they do not invade his freedom ; because they 
 are only suggestions, whilst the other adds the inad 
 missible claim of positive authority, of an external 
 command, where command cannot be. This is the se 
 cret of the mischievous result that, in every period of 
 intellectual expansion, the Church ceases to draw into 
 its clergy those who best belong there, the largest and 
 freest minds, and that in its most liberal forms, when 
 such minds enter it, they are coldly received, and find 
 themselves out of place. This charm in the Pagan 
 moralists, of suggestion, the charm of poetry, of mere 
 truth, (easily disengaged from the historical accidents
 
 CHARACTER. 95 
 
 which nobody wishes to force on us,) the New Testa 
 ment loses by its connection with a church. Mankind 
 cannot long suffer this loss, and the office of this age is 
 to put all these writings on the eternal footing of equal 
 ity of origin in the instincts of the human mind. It is 
 certain that each inspired master will gain instantly by 
 the separation from the idolatry of ages. 
 
 To their great honor, the simple and free minds 
 among our clergy have not resisted the voice of Nature 
 and the advanced perceptions of the mind ; and every 
 church divides itself into a liberal and expectant class, 
 on one side, and an unwilling and conservative class on 
 the other. As it stands with us now, a few clergymen, 
 with a more theological cast of mind, retain the tradi 
 tions, but they carry them quietly. In general dis 
 course, they are never obtruded. If the clergyman 
 should travel in France, in England, in Italy, he might 
 leave them locked up in the same closet with his " oc 
 casional sermons " at home, and, if he did not return, 
 would never think to send for them. The orthodox 
 clergymen hold a little firmer to theirs, as Calvinism 
 has a more tenacious vitality ; but that is doomed also, 
 and will only die last ; for Calvinism rushes to be Uni- 
 tarianism, as Unitarianism rushes to be pure Thehm. 
 
 But the inspirations are never withdrawn. In the 
 worst times, men of organic virtue are born, men and 
 women of native integrity, and indifferently in high and 
 low conditions. There will always be a class of imag 
 inative youths, whom poetry, whom the love of beauty, 
 lead to the adoration of the moral sentiment, and these 
 will provide it with new historic forms and songs. Re 
 ligion is as inexpugnable as the use of lamps, or of wells, 
 or of chimneys. We must have days and temples and
 
 96 CHARACTER. 
 
 teachers. The Sunday is the core of our civilization, 
 dedicated to thought and reverence. It invites to the 
 noblest solitude and the noblest society, to whatever 
 means and aids of spiritual refreshment. Men may 
 well come together to kindle each other to virtuous 
 living. Confucius said, " If in the morning I hear of 
 the right way, and in the evening die, I can be happy." 
 The churches already indicate the new spirit in add 
 ing to the perennial office of teaching, beneficent ac 
 tivities, as in creating hospitals, ragged schools, offices 
 of employment for the poor, appointing almoners to 
 the helpless, guardians of foundlings and orphans. The 
 power that in other times inspired crusades, or the 
 colonization of New England, or the modern revivals, 
 flies to the help of the deaf-mute and the blind, to the 
 education of the sailor and the vagabond boy, to the 
 reform of convicts and harlots, as the war created 
 the Hilton Head and Charleston missions, the Sanitary 
 Commission, the nurses and teachers at Washington. 
 
 
 In the present tendency of our society, in the new 
 
 importance of the individual, when thrones are crum 
 bling and presidents and governors are forced every 
 moment to remember their constituencies ; when coun 
 ties and towns are resisting centralization, and the in 
 dividual voter his party, society is threatened with 
 actual granulation, religious as well as political. How 
 many people are there in Boston? Some two hundred 
 thousand. Well, then so many sects. Of course each 
 poor soul loses all his old stays; no bishop watches him, 
 no confessor reports that he has neglected the confes 
 sional, no class-leader admonishes him of absences, no 
 fagot, no penance, no tine, no rebuke. Is not this wrong?
 
 CHARACTER. 97 
 
 is not this dangerous? 'T is not wrong, but the law of 
 growth. It is not dangerous, any more than the moth 
 er's withdrawing her hands from the tottering babe, at 
 his first walk across the nursery-floor: the child fears 
 and cries, but achieves the feat, instantly tries it again, 
 and never wishes to be assisted more. And this infant 
 soul must learn to walk alone. At first he is forlorn, 
 homeless; but this rude stripping him of all support 
 drives him inward, and he finds himself unhurt; he 
 finds himself face to face with the majestic Presence, 
 reads the original of the Ten Commandments, the orig 
 inal of Gospels and Epistles; nay, his narrow chapel ex 
 pands to the blue cathedral of the sky, where he 
 
 " Looks in and sees each blissful deity, 
 Where he before the thunderous throne doth lie." 
 
 To nations or to individuals the progress of opinion is 
 not a loss of moral restraint, but simply a change from 
 coarser to finer checks. No evil can come from reform 
 which a deeper thought will not correct. If there is 
 any tendency in national expansion to form character, 
 religion will not be a loser. There is a fear that pure 
 truth, pure morals, will not make a religion for the 
 affections. Whenever the sublimities of character shall 
 be incarnated in a man, we may rely that awe and love 
 and insatiable curiosity will follow his steps. Character 
 is the habit of action from the permanent vision of truth. 
 It carries a superiority to all the accidents of life. It 
 compels right relation to every other man, domesti 
 cates itself with strangers and enemies. " But I, fa 
 ther," says the wise Prahlada, in the Vishnu Purana, 
 " know neither friends nor foes, for I behold Kesava in 
 all beings as in my own soul." It confers perpetual 
 insight. It sees that a man's friends and his foes are 
 7
 
 98 CHARACTER. 
 
 of liis own household, of his own person. What would 
 it avail me, if I could destroy my enemies ? There 
 would be as many to-morrow. That which I hate and 
 fear is really in myself, and no knife is long enough to 
 reach to its heart. Confucius said one day to Ke Kang : 
 " Sir, in carrying on your government, why should you 
 use killing at all? Let your evinced desires be for what 
 is good, and the people will be good. The grass must 
 bend, when the wind blows across it." Ke Kang, dis 
 tressed about the number of thieves in the state, inquired 
 of Confucius how to do away with them. Confucius 
 said, " If you, sir, were not covetous, although you 
 should reward them to do it, they would not steal." 
 
 Its methods are subtle, it works without means. It 
 indulges no enmity against any, knowing, with Prahlada 
 that " the suppression of malignant feeling is itself a re 
 ward." The more reason the less government. In a 
 sensible family, nobody ever hears the words " shall " 
 and "sha'n't;" nobody commands, and nobody obeys, 
 but all conspire and joyfully co-operate. Take off the 
 roofs of hundreds of happy houses, and you shall see 
 this order without ruler, and the like in every intelligent 
 and moral society. Command is exceptional, and marks 
 some break in the link of reason; as the electricity goes 
 round the world without a spark or a sound, until there 
 is a break in the wire or the water chain. Swedenborg 
 said, that, " in the spiritual world, when one wishes to 
 rule, or despises others, he is thrust out of doors." 
 Goethe, in discussing the characters in " Wilhelm Meis- 
 ter," maintained his belief that " pure loveliness and 
 right good-will are the highest manly prerogatives, be 
 fore which all energetic heroism, with its lustre and 
 renown, must recede." In perfect accord with this,
 
 CHARACTER. 99 
 
 Henry James affirms, that "to give the feminine ele 
 ment in life its hard-earned but eternal supremacy over 
 the masculine has been the secret inspiration of all past 
 history." 
 
 There is no end to the sufficiency of character. It 
 can afford to wait ; it can do without what is called suc 
 cess ; it cannot but succeed. To a well-principled man 
 existence is victory. He defends himself against failure 
 in his main design by making every inch of the road to 
 it pleasant. There is no trifle, and no obscurity to him: 
 he feels the immensity of the chain whose last link he 
 holds in his hand, and is led by it. Having nothing, 
 this spirit hath all. It asks, with Marcus Aurelius, 
 " What matter by whom the good is done ? " It extols 
 humility, by every self-abasement lifted higher in the 
 scale of being. It makes no stipulations for earthly 
 felicity, does not ask, in the absoluteness of its trust, 
 even for the assurance of continued life.
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 WITH the key of the secret he marches faster 
 From strength to strength, and for night brings day. 
 While classes or tribes too weak to master 
 The flowing conditions of life, give way.
 
 EDUCATION. 
 
 A NEW degree of intellectual power seems cheap at 
 any price. The use of the world is that man may learn 
 its laws. And the human race have wisely signified 
 their sense of this, by calling wealth, means, Man be 
 ing the end. Language is always wise. 
 
 Therefore I praise New England because it is the 
 country in the woild where is the freest expenditure for 
 education. We have already taken, at the planting of 
 the Colonies, ( for aught I know for the first time in the 
 world, ) the initial step, which for its importance might 
 have been resisted as the most radical of revolutions, thus 
 deciding at the start the destiny of this country, this, 
 namely, that the poor man, whom the law does not al 
 low to take an ear of corn when starving, nor a pair oZ 
 shoes for his freezing feet, is allowed to put his hand 
 into the pocket of the rich, and say, You shall educate 
 me, not as you will, but as I will : not alone in the ele 
 ments, but, by further provision, in the languages, in sci 
 ences, in the useful and in elegant arts. The child shall 
 be taken up by the State, and taught, at the public cost, 
 the rudiments of knowledge, and, at last, the ripest re 
 sults of art and science. 
 
 Humanly speaking, the school, the college, society,
 
 104 EDUCATION. 
 
 make the difference between men. All the fairy tales 
 of Aladdin or the invisible Gyges or the talisman that 
 opens kings' palaces or the enchanted halls under 
 ground or in the sea, are only fictions to indicate the 
 one miracle of intellectual enlargement. When a man 
 stupid becomes a man inspired, when one and the same 
 man passes out of the torpid into the perceiving state, 
 leaves the din of trifles, tli3 stupor of the senses, to en- 
 tor into the quasi-omniscience of high thought, up 
 and down, around, all limits disappear. No horizon 
 shuts down. He sees things in their causes, all facts in 
 their connection. 
 
 One of the problems of history is the beginning of 
 civilization. The animals that accompany and serve 
 man make no progress as races. Those called domes 
 tic are capable of learning of man a few tricks of utility 
 or amusement, but they cannot communicate the skill 
 to their race. Each individual must be taught anew. 
 The trained dog cannot train another dog. And Man 
 him.self in many races retains almost the unteachable- 
 nc33 of the beast. For a thousand years the islands and 
 forests of a great part of the world have been filled 
 with savages who made no steps of advance in art or 
 skill beyond the necessity of being fed and warmed. 
 Certain nations with a better brain and usually in more 
 temperate climates, have made such progress as to com 
 pare with these as these compare with the bear and the 
 wolf. 
 
 Victory over tilings is the office of man. Of course, 
 until it is accomplished, it is the war and insult of tbingj 
 over him. His continual tendency, his great danger, u 
 to overlook the fact that the world is only his teacher, 
 and the nature of sun and moon, plant and animal onljr
 
 EDUCATION. 105 
 
 means of arousing his interior activity. Enamored of 
 their beauty, comforted by their convenience, he seeks 
 them as ends, and fast loses sight of the fact that they 
 have worse than no values, that they become noxious, 
 when he becomes their slave. 
 
 This apparatus of wants and faculties, this craving 
 body, whose organs ask all the elements and all the 
 functions of Nature for their satisfaction, educate the 
 wondrous creature which they satisfy with light, with 
 heat, with water, with wood, with bread, with wool. Tfie 
 necessities imposed by this most irritable and all-re 
 lated texture have taught Man hunting, pasturage, agri 
 culture, commerce, weaving, joining, masonry, geome 
 try, astronomy. Here is a world pierced and belted 
 with natural laws, and fenced and planted with civil 
 partitions and properties, which all put new restraints 
 on the young inhabitant. He too must come into this 
 magic circle of relations, and know health and sickness, 
 the fear of injury, the desire of external good, the 
 charm of riches, the charm of power. The household is 
 a school of power. There, within the door, learn the 
 tragi-comedy of human life. Here is the sincere thing, 
 the wondrous composition for which day and night go 
 round. In that routine are the sacred relations, the 
 passions that bind and sever. Here is poverty and all' 
 the wisdom its hated necessities can teach, here labor 
 drudges, here affections glow, here the secrets of char 
 acter are told, the guards of man, the guards of woman, 
 the compensations which, like angels of justice, pay ev 
 ery debt : the opium of custom, whereof all drink and 
 many go mad. Here is Economy and Glee and Hos 
 pitality and Ceremony and Frankness and Calamity and 
 Death and Hope.
 
 106 EDUCATION. 
 
 Every one has a trust of power, every man, every 
 boy a jurisdiction, whether it be over a cow or a rood of 
 a potato-field, or a fleet of ships, or the laws of a state. 
 And what activity the desire of power inspires ! What 
 toils it sustains ! How it sharpens the perceptions and 
 stores the memory with facts. Thus a man may well 
 spend many years of life in trade. It is a constant 
 teaching of the laws of matter and of mind. No dollar 
 of property can be creai.nl without some direct commu 
 nication with nature, and of course some acquisition of 
 knowledge and practical force. It is a constant contest 
 with the active faculties of men, a study of the issues of 
 one and another course of action, an accumulation of 
 power, and, if the higher faculties of the individual be 
 from time to time quickened, he will gain wisdom and 
 virtue from his business. 
 
 As every wind draws music out of the JEolian harp, 
 so doth every object in Nature draw music out of his 
 mind. Is it not true that every landscape I behold, ev 
 ery friend I meet, every act I perform, every pain I 
 suffer, leaves me a different being from that they found 
 me ? That poverty, love, authority, anger, sickness, 
 sorrow, success, all work actively upon our being and 
 unlock for us the concealed faculties of the mind ? 
 'Whatever private or petty ends are frustrated, this end 
 is always answered. Whatever the man does, or what 
 ever befalls him, opens another chamber in his soul, 
 that is, he has got a new feeling, a new thought, a new 
 organ. Do we not see how amazingly for this end man 
 is fitted to the world ? 
 
 What leads him to science ? Why does he track in 
 the midnight heaven a pure spark, a luminous patch 
 wandering from age to age, but because he acquires
 
 EDUCATION 107 
 
 thereby a majestic sense of power ; learning that in his 
 own constitution he can set the shining maze in order, 
 and finding and carrying their law in his mind, can, as 
 it were, see his simple idea realized up yonder in giddy 
 distances and frightful periods of duration. If Newton 
 come and first of men perceive that not alone certain 
 bodies fall to the ground at a certain rate, but that all 
 bodies in the Universe, the universe of bodies, fall al 
 ways, and at one rate ; that every atom in nature draws 
 to every other atom, he extends the power of his 
 mind not only over every cubic atom of his native 
 planet, but he reports the condition of millions of worlds 
 which his eye never saw. And what is the charm which 
 every ore, every new plant, every new fact touching 
 winds, clouds, ocean currents, the secrets of chemical 
 composition and decomposition possess for Humboldt ? 
 What but that much revolving of similar facts in his 
 mind has shown him that always the mind contains in 
 its transparent chambers the means of classifying the 
 most refractory phenomena, of depriving them of all 
 casual and chaotic aspect, and subordinating them to a 
 bright reason of its own, and so giving to man a sort of 
 property, yea, the very highest property in every dis 
 trict and particle of the globe. 
 
 By the permanence of Nature, minds are trained 
 alike, and made intelligible to each other. In our con 
 dition are the roots of language and communication, and 
 these instructions we never exhaust. 
 
 In some sort the end of life is that the man should 
 take up the universe into himself, or out of that quarry 
 leave nothing unrepresented. Yonder mountain must 
 migrate into his mind. Yonder magnificent astronomy 
 he is at last to import, fetching away moon, and planet,
 
 108 EDUCATION. 
 
 solstice, period, comet and binal star, by comprehending 
 their relation and law. Instead of the timid stripling 
 he was, he is to be the stalwart Archimedes, Pythago 
 ras, Columbus, Newton, of the physic, metaphysic and 
 ethics of the design of the world. 
 
 For truly the population of the globe has its origin in 
 the aims which their existence is to serve ; and so with 
 every portion of them. The truth takes flesh in forms 
 that can express it ; and tints in history an idea always 
 overhangs, like the moon, and rules the tide which rises 
 simultaneously in all the souls of a generation. 
 
 Whilst thus the world exists for the mind ; whilst 
 thus the man is ever invited inward into shining realms 
 of knowledge and power by the shows of the world, 
 which interpret to him the infinitude of his own con 
 sciousness, it becomes the office of a just education 
 to awaken him to a knowledge of this fact. 
 
 We learn nothing rightly until we learn the symbol 
 ical character of life. Day creeps after day, each full 
 of facts, dull, strange, despised things, that we cannot 
 enough despise, call heavy, prosaic and desert. The 
 time we seek to kill : the attention it is elegant to di 
 vert from things around us. And presently the aroused 
 intellect finds gold and gem* in one of these scorned 
 facts, then finds that the day of facts is a rock of dia 
 monds ; that a fact is an Epiphany of God. 
 
 We have our theory of life, our religion, our philoso 
 phy ; and the event of each moment, the shower, the 
 steamboat disaster, the passing of a beautiful face, the 
 apoplexy of our neighbor, are all tests to try our theory, 
 the approximate result we call truth, and reveal its de 
 fects. If I have renounced the search of truth, if I 
 have come into the port of some pretending dogmatism,
 
 EDUCATION. 109 
 
 some new church or old church, some Schelliug or 
 Cousin, I have died to all use of these new events that 
 are born out of prolific time into multitude of life every 
 hour. I am as a bankrupt to whom brilliant opportuni 
 ties offer in vain. He has just foreclosed his freedom, 
 tied his hands, locked himself up and given the key to 
 another to keep. 
 
 When I see the doors by which God enters into the 
 mind ; that there is no sot or fop, ruffian or pedant into 
 whom thoughts do not enter by passages which the in 
 dividual never left open, I can expect any revolution in 
 character. " I have hope," said the great Leibnitz, 
 " that society may be reformed, when I see how much 
 education may be reformed." 
 
 It is ominous, a presumption of crime, that this word 
 Education has so cold, so hopeless a sound. A treatise 
 on education, a convention for education, a lecture, a 
 system, affects us with slight paralysis and a certain 
 yawning of the jaws. We are not encouraged when the 
 law touches it with its fingers. Education should be as 
 broad as man. Whatever elements are in him that 
 should foster and demonstrate. If he be dexterous, his 
 tuition should make it appear ; if he be capable of di 
 viding men by the trenchant sword of his thought, edu 
 cation should unsheathe and sharpen it ; if he is one to 
 cement society by his all-reconciling aimiities, oh! hasten 
 their action ! If he is jovial, if he is mercurial, if he is 
 great-hearted, a cunning artificer, a strong commander, 
 a potent ally, ingenious, useful, elegant, witty, prophet, 
 diviner, society has need of all these. The imagina 
 tion must be addressed. Why always coast on the sur 
 face and never open the interior of nature, not by sci 
 ence, which is surface still, but by poetry ? Is not the
 
 110 EDUCATION. 
 
 Vast an element of the mind ? Yet what teaching, what 
 book of this day appeals to the Vast ? 
 
 Our culture has truckled to the times, to the senses. 
 It is not manwortliy. If the vast and the spiritual are 
 omitted, so are the practical and the moral. It does 
 not make us brave or free. We teach boys to be such 
 men as we are. We do not teach them to aspire to be 
 all they can. We do not give them a training as if we 
 believed in their noble nature. We scarce educate their 
 bodies. We do not train the eye and the hand. We 
 exercise their understandings to the apprehension and 
 comparison of some facts, to a skill in numbers, in 
 words ; we aim to make accountants, attorneys, engi 
 neers ; but not to make able, earnest, great-hearted 
 men. The great object of Education should be com 
 mensurate with the object of life. It should be a moral 
 one ; to teach self-trust : to inspire the youthful man 
 with an interest in himself ; with a curiosity touching 
 his own nature ; to acquaint him with the resources of 
 his mind, and to teach him that there is all his strength, 
 and to inflame him with a piety towards the Grand Mind 
 in which he lives. Thus would education conspire with 
 the Divine Providence. A man is a little thing whilst 
 he works by and for himself, but, when he gives voice 
 to the rules of love and justice, is godlike, his word is 
 current in all countries ; and all men, though his ene 
 mies, are made his friends and obey it as their own. 
 
 In affirming that the moral nature of man is the pre 
 dominant element and should therefore be mainly con 
 sulted in the arrangements of a school, I am very far 
 from wishing that it should swallow up all the other in 
 stincts and faculties of man. It should be enthroned 
 hi his mind, but if it monopolize the man he is not yet
 
 EDUCATION. Ill 
 
 sound, he does not yet know his wealth. He is in 
 danger of becoming merely devout, and wearisome 
 through the monotony of his thought. It is not less 
 necessary that the intellectual and the active faculties 
 should be nourished and matured. Let us apply to this 
 subject the light of the same torch by which we have 
 looked at all the phenomena of the time ; the infinitude, 
 namely, of every man. Everything teaches that. 
 
 One fact constitutes all my satisfaction, inspires all 
 my trust, viz., this perpetual youth, which, as long as 
 there is any good in us, we cannot get rid of. It is 
 very certain that the coming age and the departing age 
 seldom understand each other. The old man thinks the 
 young man has no distinct purpose, for he could never 
 get anything intelligible and earnest out of him. Per 
 haps the young man does not think it worth his while 
 to explain himself to so hard and inapprehensive a con 
 fessor. Let him be *ed up with a long-sighted for- 
 bsarance, and let not the sallies of his petulance or folly 
 bj checked with disgust or indignation or despair. 
 
 I call our system a system of despair, and I find all 
 the correction, all the revolution that is needed and that 
 the best spirits of this age promise, in one word, in Hope. 
 Nature, when she sends a new mind into the world, fills 
 it beforehand with a desire for that which she wishes it 
 to know and do. Let us wait and see what is this new 
 creation, of what new organ the great Spirit had need 
 when it incarnated this new Will. A new Adam in the 
 garden, he is to name all the beasts in the field, all the 
 gods in the sky. And jealous provision seems to have 
 been made in his constitution that you shall not invade 
 and contaminate him with the worn weeds of your lan 
 guage and opinions. The charui of life is this variety of
 
 112 EDUCATION. 
 
 genius, these contrasts and flavors by wliich Heaven has 
 modulated the identity of truth, and there is a perpetual 
 hankering to violate this individuality, to warp his ways 
 of thinking and behavior to resemble or reflect their 
 tliinking and behavior. A low self-love in the parent 
 desires that his child should repeat his character and 
 fortune ; an expectation which the child, if justice is 
 done him, will nobly disappoint. By working on the 
 thaory that this resemblance exists, we shall do what in 
 us lies to defeat his proper promise and produce the 
 ordinary and mediocre. I suffer whenever I see that 
 common sight of a parent or senior imposing his opinion 
 and way of thinking and being on a young soul to which 
 they are totally unfit. Cannot we let people be them 
 selves, and enjoy life in their own way ? You are try 
 ing to make that man another you. One 's enough. 
 
 Or we sacrifice the genius of the pupil, the unknown 
 possibilities of his nature, to a neat and safe uniform 
 ity, as the Turks whitewash the costly mosaics of an 
 cient art which the Greeks left on their temple walls. 
 Rather let us have men whose manhood is only the 
 continuation of their boyhood, natural characters still ; 
 such are able and fertile for heroic action ; and not 
 that sad spectacle with which we are too familiar, edu 
 cated eyes in uneducated bodies. 
 
 I like boys, the masters of the playground and of the 
 street, boys, who have the same liberal ticket of ad- 
 . mission to all shops, factories armories, town -meet 
 ings, caucuses, mobs, target-shootings, as flies have ; 
 quice unsuspected, coming in as naturally as the jani 
 tor, known to have no money in their pockets, and 
 tbeinselves not suspecting the value of this poverty ; 
 putting nobody on his guard, but seeing the inside of
 
 EDUCATION. 113 
 
 the show, hearing all the asides. There are no se 
 crets from them, they know everything that befalls in 
 the fire company, the merits of every engine and of 
 every man at the brakes, how to work it, and are 
 swift to try their hand at every part ; so too the 
 merits of every locomotive on the rails, and will coax 
 the engineer to let them ride with him and pull the 
 handles when it goes to the engine-house. They are 
 there only for fun, and not knowing that they are at 
 school, in the court-house, or the cattle-show, quite as 
 much and more than they were, an hour ago, in the 
 arithmetic class. 
 
 They know truth from counterfeit as quick as the 
 chemist does. They detect weakness in your eye and 
 behavior a week before you open your mouth, and have 
 given you the benefit of their opinion quick as a wink. 
 They make no mistakes, have no pedantry, but entire 
 belief on experience. Their elections at base-ball or 
 cricket are founded on merit, and are right. They don't 
 pass for swimmers until they can swim, nor for stroke- 
 oar until they can row : and I desire to be saved from 
 their contempt. If I can pass with them, I can manage 
 well enough with their fathers. 
 
 Everybody delights in the energy with which boys deal 
 and talk with each other ; the mixture of fun and ear 
 nest, reproach and coaxing, love and wrath, with which 
 the game is played ; the good-natured yet defiant in 
 dependence of a leading boy's behavior in the school 
 yard. How we envy in later life the happy youths to 
 whom their boisterous games and rough exercise fur 
 nish the precise element which frames and sets off 
 their school and college tasks, and teaches them, when 
 L'.ut they think it, the usu and meaning of these. In
 
 1 1 4 EDUCATION. 
 
 their fun and extreme freak they hit on the topmost 
 sense of Horace. The young giant, brown from his 
 hunting-tramp, tells his story well, interlarded with 
 lucky allusions to Homer, to Virgil, to college-songs, to 
 Walter Scott ; and Jove and Achilles, partridge and 
 trout, opera and binomial theorem, Csesar in Gaul, 
 Sherman in Savannah, and hazing in Holworthy, dance 
 through the narrative in merry confusion, yet the logic 
 is good. If he can turn his books to such picturesque 
 account in his fishing and hunting, it is easy to see how 
 his reading and experience, as he has more of both, will 
 interpenetrate each other. And every one desires that 
 this pure vigor of action and wealth of narrative, cheered 
 with so much humor and street rhetoric, should be car 
 ried into the habit of the young man, purged of its up 
 roar and rudeness, but with all its vivacity entire. His 
 hunting and campings-out have given him an indispen 
 sable base : I wish to add a taste for good company 
 through his impatience of bad. That stormy genius of 
 his needs a little direction to games, charades, verses of 
 society, song, and a correspondence year by year with 
 his wisest and best friends. Friendship is an order of 
 nobility; from its revelations we come more worthily 
 into nature. Society he must have or he is poor indeed ; 
 he gladly enters a school which forbids conceit, affecta 
 tion, emphasis and dulness, and requires of each only 
 the flower of his nature and experience ; requires good 
 will, beauty, wit, and select information ; teaches by 
 practice the law of conversation, namely, to hear as well 
 as to speak. 
 
 Meantime, if circumstances do not permit the high 
 social advantages, solitude has also its lessons. The ob 
 scure youth learns there the practice instead of the lit-
 
 KDt'CATION. 115 
 
 erature of his virtues; and, because of the disturbing 
 effect of passion and sense, which by a multitude of 
 trifles impede the mind's eve from the quiet search of 
 that fine horizon-line which truth keeps, the way to 
 knowledge and power has ever been an escape from too 
 much engagement with affairs and possessions; a way, 
 not through plenty and superfluity, but by. denial and 
 renunciation, into solitude and privation; and, the more 
 is taken away, the more real and inevitable wealth of 
 being is made known to us. The solitary knows the 
 essence of the thought, the scholar in society only its 
 fair face. There is no want of example of great men, 
 great benefactors, who have been monks and hermits in 
 habit. The bias of mind is sometimes irresistible in 
 that direction. The man is, as it were, born deaf and 
 dumb, and dedicated to a narrow and lonely life. Let 
 him study the art of solitude, yield as gracefully as he 
 can to his destiny. Why cannot he get the good of his 
 doom, and if it is from eternity a settled fact that he 
 and society shall be nothing to each other, why need he 
 blush so, and make wry faces to keep up a freshman's 
 seat in the fine world ? Heaven often protects valuable 
 souls charged witli great secrets, great ideas, by long 
 shutting them up with their own thoughts. And the 
 most genial and amiable of men must alternate society 
 with solitude, and learn its severe lessons. 
 
 There comes the period of the imagination to each, a 
 later youth; the power of beauty, the power of books, 
 of poetry. Culture makes his books realities to him, 
 their characters more brilliant, more effective on his 
 mind, than his actual mates. Do not spare to put 
 novels into the hands of young people as an occasional
 
 116 EDUCATION. 
 
 holiday and experiment; but, above all, good poetry in 
 all kinds, epic, tragedy, lyric. If we can touch the im 
 agination, we serve them, they will never forget it. Let 
 him read " Tom Brown at Rugby," read " Tom Brown 
 at Oxford," better yet, read " Hodsoii's Life " Hod- 
 son who took prisoner the king of Delhi. They teach 
 the same truth, a trust, against all appearam-es, 
 against all privations, in your own worth, and not in 
 tricks, plotting, or patronage. 
 
 I believe that our own experience instructs us that 
 the secret of Education lies in respecting the pupil. It 
 is not for you to choose what he shall know, what he 
 shall do. It is chosen and foreordained, and he only 
 holds the key to his own secret. By your tampering 
 and thwarting and too much governing he may be 
 hindered from his end and kept out of his own. Re 
 spect the child. Wait and see the new product of 
 Nature. Nature loves analogies, but not repetitions. 
 Respect the child. Be not too much his parent. Tres 
 pass not on his solitude. 
 
 But I hear the outcry which replies to this sugges 
 tion : Would you verily throw up the reins of public 
 and private discipline; would you leave the young child 
 to the mad career of his own passions and whimsies, 
 and call this anarchy a respect for the child's nature ? 
 I answer, Respect the child, respect him to the end, 
 but also respect yourself. Be the companion of his 
 thought, the friend of his friendship, the lover of his 
 virtue, but no kinsman of his sin. Let him find you 
 so true to yourself that you are the irreconcilable hater 
 of his vice and the imperturbable slighter of his trifling. 
 
 The two points in a boy's training are, to keep his 
 wturel and train off all but that : to keep his naturel,
 
 EDUCATION. 117 
 
 but stop off his uproar, fooling and horse-play; keep his 
 nature and arm it with knowledge in the very direction 
 in which it points. Here are the two capital facts, 
 Genius and Drill. The first is the inspiration in the 
 well-born healthy child, the new perception he has of 
 nature. Somewhat he sees in forms or hears in music 
 or apprehends in mathematics, or believes practicable in 
 mechanics or possible in political society, which no one 
 else sees or hears or believes. This is the perpetual 
 romance of new life, the invasion of God into the old 
 dead world, when he sends into quiet houses a young 
 soul with a thought which is not met, looking for some 
 thing which is not there, but which ought to be there: 
 the thought is dim, but it is sure, and he casts about 
 restless for means and masters to verify it; he makes 
 wild attempts to explain himself and invoke the aid and 
 consent of bystanders. Baffled for want of language 
 and methods to convey his meaning, not yet clear to 
 himself, he conceives that though not in this house or 
 town, yet in some other house or town is the wise mas 
 ter who can put him in possession of the rules and in 
 struments to execute his will. Happy this child with a 
 bias, with a thought which entrances him, leads him, 
 now into deserts, now into cities, the fool of an idea. 
 Let him follow it in good and in evil report, in good or 
 bad company; it will justify itself; it will lead him at 
 last into the illustrious society of the lovers of truth. 
 
 In London, in a private company, I became ac 
 quainted with a gentleman, Sir Charles Fellowes, who, 
 being at Xanthus, in the ^Egean Sea, had seen a Turk 
 point with his staff to some carved work on the corner 
 of a stone almost buried in tho so'l. Fellowes scraped 
 away the dirt, was struck with tiie ojauty of the sculp-
 
 118 EDUCATION. 
 
 tured ornaments, and, looking about him, observed more 
 blocks and fragments like this. He returned to the 
 spot, procured laborers and uncovered many blocks. 
 He went back to England, bought a Greek grammar 
 and learned the language; he read history and studied 
 ancient art to explain his stones; he interested Gibson 
 the sculptor; he invoked the assistance of the English 
 Government; he called in the succor of Sir Humphry 
 Davy to analyze the pigments; of experts in coins, of 
 scholars and connoisseurs ; and at last in his third visit 
 brought home to England such statues and marble re 
 liefs and such careful plans that he was able to re 
 construct, in the British Museum where it now stands, 
 the perfect model of the Ionic trophy-monument, fifty 
 years older than the Parthenon of Athens, and which 
 had been destroyed by earthquakes, then by iconoclast 
 Christians, then by savage Turks. But mark that in 
 the task he had achieved an excellent education, and 
 become associated with distinguished scholars whom he 
 had interested in his pursuit; in short, had formed a 
 college for himself; the enthusiast had found the mas 
 ter, the masters, whom he sought. Always genius seeks 
 genius, desires nothing so much as to be a pupil and to 
 find those who can lend it aid to perfect itself. 
 
 Nor are the two elements, enthusiasm and drill, in 
 compatible. Accuracy is essential to beauty. The very 
 definition of the intellect is Aristotle's: "that by which 
 we know terms or boundaries." Give a boy accurate 
 perceptions. Teach him the difference between the 
 similar and the same. Make him call tilings by their 
 righl; names. Pardon in him no blunder. Then he will 
 give you solid satisfaction as long as he lives. It is 
 better to teach the child arithmetic and Latin grammai
 
 EDUCATION. 11 & 
 
 than rhetoric or moral philosophy, because they require 
 exactitude of performance; it is made certain that the 
 lesson is mastered, and that power of performance is 
 worth more than the knowledge. He can learn any 
 thing which is important to him now that the power to 
 learn is secured : as mechanics say, when one has learned 
 the use of tools, it is easy to work at a new craft. 
 
 Letter by letter, syllable by syllable, the child learns 
 to read, and in good time can convey to all the domestic 
 circle the sense of Shakspeare. By many steps each 
 just as short, the stammering boy and the hesitating 
 collegian, in the school debate, in college clubs, in mock 
 court, comes at last to full, secure, triumphant unfold 
 ing of his thought in the popular assembly, with a ful 
 ness of power that makes all the steps forgotten. 
 
 But this function of opening and feeding the human 
 mind is not to be fulfilled by any mechanical or military 
 method ; is not to be trusted to any skill less large 
 than Nature itself. You must not neglect the form, 
 but you must secure the essentials. It is curious how 
 perverse and intermeddling we are, and what vast pains 
 and cost we incur to do wrong. Whilst we all know in 
 our own experience and apply natural methods in our 
 own business, in education our common sense fails 
 us, and we are continually trying costly machinery 
 against nature, in patent schools and academies and in 
 great colleges and universities. 
 
 The natural method forever confutes our experi 
 ments, and we must still come back to it. The whole 
 theory of the school is on the nurse's or mother's knee. 
 The child is as hot to learn as the mother is to impart. 
 There is mutual delight. The joy of our childhood in 
 hearing beautiful stories from some skilful aunt who
 
 120 EDUCATION. 
 
 loves to tell them, must be repeated in youth. The boy 
 wishes to learn to skate, to coast, to catch a fish in the 
 brook, to hit a mark with a snowball or a stone ; and a 
 boy a little older is just as well pleased to teach him 
 these sciences. Not less delightful is the mutual pleas 
 ure of teaching and learning the secret of algebra, or 
 of chemistry, or of good reading and good recitation 
 of poetry or of prose, or of chosen facts in history or 
 in biography. 
 
 Nature providsd for the communication of thought, 
 by planting with it in the receiving mind a fury to im 
 part it. 'T is so in every art, in every science. One 
 burns to tell the new fact, the other burns to hear it. 
 See how far a young doctor will ride or walk to witness 
 a new surgical operation. I have seen a carriage-mak 
 er's shop emptied of all its workmen into the street, to 
 scrutinize a new pattern from New York. So in litera 
 ture, the young man who has taste for poetry, for fine 
 images, for noble thoughts, is insatiable for this nourish 
 ment, and forgets all the world for the more learned 
 friend, who finds equal joy in dealing out his treas 
 ures. 
 
 Happy the natural college thus self-instituted around 
 every natural teacher : the young men of Athens 
 around Socrates ; of Alexandria around Plotinus ; of 
 Paris around Abelard ; of Germany around Fichte, or 
 Niebuhr, or Goethe : in short the natural sphere of 
 every leading mind. But the moment this is organized, 
 difficulties begin. The college was to be the nurse and 
 home of genius ; but, though every young man is born 
 with some determination in his nature, and is a poten 
 tial genius ; is at last to be one ; it is, in the most, ob 
 structed and delayed, and, whatever they may hereafter
 
 EDUCATION. 121 
 
 be, their senses are now opened in advance of their 
 minds. They are more sensual than intellectual. Ap 
 petite and indolence they have, but no enthusiasm. 
 These come in numbers to the college : few geniuses : 
 and the teaching comes to be arranged for these many, 
 and not for those few. Hence the instruction seems to 
 require skilful tutors, of accurate and systematic mind, 
 rather than ardent and inventive masters. Besides, the 
 youth of genius are eccentric, won't drill, are irritable, 
 uncertain, explosive, solitary, not men of the world, 
 not good for every-day association. You have to work 
 for large classes instead of individuals ; you must lower 
 your flag and reef your sails to wait for the dull sail 
 ors ; you grow departmental, routinary, military al 
 most with your discipline and college police. But what 
 doth such a school to form a great and heroic charac 
 ter ? What abiding Hope can it inspire ? What Re 
 former will it nurse ? What poet will it breed to sing 
 to the human race ? What discoverer of Nature's laws 
 will it prompt to enrich us by disclosing in the mind the 
 statute which all matter must obey ? What fiery soul 
 will it send out to warm a nation with his charity ? What 
 tranquil mind will it have fortified to walk with meek 
 ness in private and obscure duties, to wait and to suf 
 fer ? Is it not manifest that our academic institutions 
 should have a wider scope ; that they should not be 
 timid and keep the ruts of the last generation, but that 
 wise men thinking for themselves and heartily seeking 
 the good of mankind, and counting the cost of innova 
 tion, should dare to arouse the young to a just and 
 heroic life ; that the moral nature should be addressed 
 in the school-room, and children should be treated as 
 the high-born candidates of truth and virtue ?
 
 122 EDUCATION. 
 
 So to regard the young child, the young man, re 
 quires, no doubt, rare patience : a patiance that nothing 
 but faith in the remedial forces of the soul can give. 
 You see his sensualism ; you see his want of those tastes 
 and perceptions which make the power and safety of 
 your character. Very likely. But he has something 
 else. If he has his own vice, he has its correlative vir 
 tue. Every mind should be allowed to make its own 
 statement in action, and its balance will appear. In 
 these judgments one needs that foresight which was 
 attributed to an eminent reformer, of whom it was 
 said " his patience could see in the bud of the aloe the 
 blossom at the end of a hundred years." Alas for the 
 cripple Practice when it seeks to come up with the bird 
 Theory, which flies before it. Try your design on the 
 best school. Ths scholars are of all ages and tempera 
 ments and capacities. It is difficult to class them, 
 some are too young, some are slow, some perverse. 
 Each requires so much consideration, that the morning 
 hope of the teacher, of a day of love and progress, is 
 often close J at evening by despair. Each single case, 
 the more it is considered, shows more to be done ; and 
 the strict conditions of the hours, on one side, and the 
 number of tasks, on the other* Whatever becomes of 
 our method, the conditions stand fast, six hours, and 
 thirty, fifty, or a hundred and fifty pupils. Something 
 must be done, and done speedily, and in this distress the 
 wisest are tempted to adopt violent means, to proclaim 
 martial law, corporal punishment, mechanical arrange 
 ment, bribes, spies, wrath, main strength and ignorance, 
 in lieu of that wise genial providential influence they 
 had hoped, and yet hope at some future day to adopt. 
 Of course the devotion to details reacts injuriously oil
 
 EDUCATION. 1 23 
 
 the teacher. He cannot indulge his genius, he cannot 
 delight in personal relations with young friends, when 
 his eye is always on the clock, and twenty classes are to 
 be dealt with before the day is done. Besides, how can 
 he please himself with genius, and foster modest virtue? 
 A sure proportion of rogue and dunce finds its way into 
 every school and requires a cruel share of time, and the 
 gentle teacher, who wished to be a Providence to youth, 
 is grown a martinet, sore with suspicions ; knows as 
 much vice as the judge of a police court, and his love 
 of learning is lost in the routine of grammars and books 
 of elements. 
 
 A rule is so easy that it does not need a man to apply 
 it ; an automaton, a machine, can be made to keep a 
 school so. It facilitates labor and thought so much that 
 there is always the temptation in large schools to omit 
 the endless task of meeting the wants of each single 
 mind, and to govern by steam. But it is 'at frightful 
 cost. Our modes of Education aim to expedite, to 
 save labor ; to do for masses what cannot be done for 
 masses, what must be done reverently, one by one : say 
 rather, the whole world is needed for the tuition of 
 each pupil. The advantages of this system of emula 
 tion and display are so prompt and obvious, it is such a 
 time-saver, it is so energetic on slow and on bad na 
 tures, and is of so easy application, needing no sage or 
 poet, but any tutor or schoolmaster in his first term can 
 apply it, that it is not strange that this calomel of 
 culture should be a popular medicine. On the other 
 hand, total abstinence from this drug, and the. adoption 
 of simple discipline and the following of nature, in 
 volves at once immense claims on the time, the thoughts, 
 on tli3 life of tb.3 teacaer. It requires time, u&e, in-
 
 124 EDUCATION. 
 
 sight, event, all the great lessons and assistances of 
 God ; and only to think of using it implies character 
 and profoundness j to enter on this course of discipline 
 is to be good and great. It is precisely analogous to the 
 difference between the use of corporal punishment and 
 the methods of love. It is so easy to bestow on a bad 
 boy a blow, overpower him, and get obedience without 
 words, that in this world of hurry and distraction, who 
 can wait for the returns of reason and the conquest of 
 self ; in the uncertainty too whether that will ever 
 come ? And yet the familiar observation of the uni 
 versal compensations might suggsst the fear that so 
 summary a stop of a bad humor was more jeopardous 
 than its continuance. 
 
 Now the correction of tin's quack practice is to im 
 port into Education the wisdom of life. Leave this 
 military hurry and adopt the pace of Nature. Her se 
 cret is patience. Do you know how the naturalist 
 learns all the secrets of the forest, of plants, of birds, 
 of beasts, of reptiles, of fishes, of the rivers and the 
 sea ? When he goes into the woods the birds fly before 
 him and he finds none ; when he goes to the river bank, 
 the fish and the reptile swim away and leave him alone. 
 His secret is patience; he sits down, and sits still; he is 
 a statue; he is a log. These creatures have no value for 
 their time, and he must put as low a rate on his. By 
 dint of obstinate sitting still, reptile, fish, bird and beast, 
 which all wish to return to their haunts, begin to return. 
 He sits still ; if they approach, ho remains passive as 
 the stone he sits upon. They lose their fear. They 
 have curiosity too about him. By and by the curiosity 
 masters the fear, and they come swimming, creeping 
 and flying towards him ; and as he is still immovable,
 
 EDUCATION. 125 
 
 they not only resume their haunts and their ordinary 
 labors and manners, show themselves to him in their 
 work-day trim, but also volunteer some degree of ad 
 vances towards fellowship and good understanding with 
 a biped who behaves so civilly and well. Can you not 
 bailie tlie impatience and passion of the child by your 
 tranquillity ? Can you not wait for him, ?is Nature and 
 Providence do ? Can you not keep for bis mind and 
 ways, for his secret, the same curiosity you give to the 
 squirrel, snake, rabbit, and the sheldrake and the deer ? 
 He has a secret ; wonderful methods in him ; he is, 
 every child, a new style of man ; give him time and 
 opportunity. Talk of Columbus and Newton ! I tell 
 you the child just born in yonder hovel is the beginning 
 of a revolution as great as theirs. But you must have 
 the believing and prophetic eye. Have the self-com 
 mand you wish to inspire. Your teaching and disci 
 pline must have the reserve and taciturnity of Nature. 
 Teach them to hold their tongues by holding your own. 
 Say little ; do not snarl ; do not chide ; but govern by 
 the eye. See what they need, and that the right thing 
 is done. 
 
 I confess myself utterly at a loss in suggesting par 
 ticular reforms in our ways of teaching. No discretion 
 that can be lodged with a school-committee, with the 
 overseers or visitors of an academy, of a college, can at 
 all avail to reach these difficulties and perplexities, but 
 they solve themselves when we leave institutions and 
 address individuals. The will, the male power, organ 
 izes, imposes its own thought and wish on others, and 
 makes that military eye which controls boys as it con 
 trols men ; admirable in its results, a fortune to him 
 v-'ho has it, and only dangerous when it leads the work-
 
 1 2 ) EDUCATION. 
 
 man to overvalue and overuse it and precludes him 
 from finer means. Sympathy, the female force, 
 which they must use who have not the first, deficient 
 in instant control and the breaking down of resistance, 
 is more subtle and lasting and creative. I advise teach 
 ers to cherish mother-wit. I assume that you will keep 
 the grammar, reading, writing and arithmetic in order ; 
 'tis easy, and of course you will. But smuggle in a 
 little contraband wit, fancy, imagination, thought. If 
 you have a taste which you have suppressed because it 
 is not shared by those about you, tell them that. Set 
 this law up, whatever becomes of the rules of the school: 
 they must not whisper, much less talk ; but if one of 
 the young people says a wise thing, greet it, and let 
 all the children clap their hands. They shall have no 
 book but school-books in the room ; but if one has 
 brought in a Plutarch or Shakspeare or Don Quixote or 
 Goldsmith or any other good book, and understands 
 what he reads, put him at once at the head of the class. 
 Nobody shall bs disorderly, or leave his desk without 
 permission, but if a boy runs from his bench, or a girl, 
 because the fire falls, or to check some injury that a 
 little dastard is inflicting behind his desk on some help 
 less sufferer, take away the medal from the head of the 
 class and give it on the instant to the brave rescuer. If 
 a child happens to show that he knows any fact about 
 astronomy, or plants, or birds, or rocks, or history, that 
 interests him and you, hush all the classes and encour 
 age him to tell it so that all may hear. Then you have 
 made your school-room like the world. Of course you 
 will insist o i modesty in the children, *and respect to 
 their teachers, but if the boy stops you in your speech, 
 cries out that you are wrong and sets you right, hug 
 him !
 
 EDUCATION. 127 
 
 
 
 To whatsoever upright mind, to whatsoever beating 
 heart I speak, to you it is committed to educate men. 
 By simple living, by an illimitable soul, you inspire, you 
 correct, you instruct, you raise, you embellish all. By 
 your own act you teach the beholder how to do the 
 practicable. According to the depth from which you 
 draw your life, such is the depth not only of your stren 
 uous effort, but of your manners and presence. 
 
 The beautiful nature of the world has here blended 
 your happiness with your power. Work straight on in 
 absolute duty, and you lend an arm and an encourage 
 ment to all the youth of the universe. Consent your 
 self to be an organ of your highest thought, and lo ! 
 suddenly you put all men in your debt, and are the 
 fountain of an energy that goes pulsing on with waves 
 of benefit to the borders of society, to the circumference 
 of things.
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 WHEN wrath and terror changed Jove's regal port 
 And the rash-leaping thunderbolt fell short.
 
 For Art, for Music overtbrilled, 
 
 The wine-cup shakes, the wine is spilled.
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 1 
 
 THE doctrine of temperance is one of many degrees. 
 It is usually taught on a low platform, but one of great 
 necessity, that of meats and drinks, and its impor 
 tance cannot be denied and hardly exaggerated. But 
 it is a long way from the Maine Law to the heights of 
 absolute self-command which respect the conservatism 
 of the entire energies of the body, the mind, and the 
 soul. I wish to point at some of its higher functions as 
 it enters into mind and character. 
 
 There is a superlative temperament which has no 
 medium range, but swiftly oscillates from the freezing 
 to the boiling point, and which affects the manners of 
 those who share it with a certain desperation. Their 
 aspect is grimace. They go cearing, convulsed through 
 life, wailing, praying, exclaiming, swearing. We 
 talk, sometimes, with people whose conversation would 
 lead you to suppose that they had lived in a museum, 
 where all the objects were monsters and extremes. 
 Their good people are phoanixes ; their naughty are like 
 the prophet's figs. They use the superlative of gram 
 mar : " most perfect," " most exquisite," " most horri 
 ble." Like the French, they are enchanted, they are 
 desolate, because you have got or have not got a shoe~ 
 Reprinted from the Century of February, 1882.
 
 132 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 string or a wafer you happen to want, not perceiving 
 that superlatives are diminutives, and weaken ; that the 
 positive is the sinew of speech, the superlative the fat. 
 If the talker lose a tooth, he thinks the universal thaw 
 and dissolution of things has come. Controvert his 
 opinion and he cries " Persecution ! " and reckons him 
 self with Saint Barnabas, who was sawn in two. 
 
 Especially we note this tendency to extremes in the 
 pleasant excitement of horror-mongers. Is there some 
 thing so delicious in disasters and pain ? Bad news is 
 always exaggerated, and we may challenge Providence 
 to send a fact so tragical that we cannot contrive to 
 make it a little worse in our gossip. 
 
 All this comes of poverty. We are unskilful definers. 
 From want of skill to convey quality, we hope to move 
 admiration by quantity. Language should aim to de 
 scribe the fact. It is not enough to suggest it and 
 magnify it. Sharper sight would indicate the true 
 line. 'Tis very wearisome, this straining talk, these 
 experiences all exquisite, intense and tremendous, 
 " The best I ever saw ; " "I never in my life ! " One 
 wishes these terms gazetted and forbidden. Every 
 favorite is not a cherub, nor every cat a griffin, nor each 
 unpleasing person a dark, diabolical intriguer ; nor ago 
 nies, excruciations nor ecstasies our daily bread. 
 
 Horace Walpole relates that in the expectation, cur 
 rent in London a century ago, of a great earthquake, 
 some people provided themselves with dresses for the 
 occasion. But one would not wear earthquake dresses 
 or resurrection robes for a working jacket, nor make a 
 codicil to his will whenever he goes out to ride ; and 
 the secrets of death, judgment and eternity are tedious 
 when recurring as minute-guns. Thousands of people
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 133 
 
 live and die who were never, on a single occasion, hun 
 gry or thirsty, or furious or terrified. The books say, 
 " It made my hair stand on end ! " Who in our mu 
 nicipal life, ever had such an experience ? Indeed, 
 I believe that much of the rhetoric of terror, " It 
 froze my blood," " It made my knees knock," etc. 
 most men have realized only in dreams and night 
 mares. 
 
 Then there is an inverted superlative, or superlative 
 contrary, which shivers, like Demophoon, in the sun : 
 wants fan and parasol on the cold Friday ; is tired by 
 sleep ; feeds on drugs and poisons ; finds the rainbow a 
 discoloration ; hates birds and flowers. 
 
 The exaggeration of which I complain makes plain 
 fact the more welcome and refreshing. It is curious 
 that a face magnified in a concave mirror loses its ex 
 pression. All this overstatement is needless. A little 
 fact is worth a whole limbo of dreams, and I can well 
 spare the exaggerations which appear to me screens to 
 conceal ignorance. Among these glorifiers, the coldest 
 stickler for names and dates and measures cannot lament 
 his criticism and coldness of fancy. Think how much 
 piins astronomers and opticians have taken to procure 
 an achromatic lens. Discovery in the heavens has 
 waited for it ; discovery on the face of the earth not 
 less. I hear without sympathy the complaint of young 
 and ardent persons that they find life no region of ro 
 mance, with no enchanter, no giant, no fairies, nor even 
 muses. I am very much indebted to my eyes, and am 
 content that they should see the real world, always geo 
 metrically finished without blur or halo. The more I 
 am engaged with it the more it suffices. 
 
 How impatient we are, in these northern latitudes, of
 
 134 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 looseness and intemperance in speech ! Our measure 
 of success is the moderation and low level of an individ 
 ual's judgment. Dr. Channiiig's piety and wisdom had 
 such weight that, in Boston, the popular idea of relig 
 ion was whatever this eminent divine held. But I re 
 member that his best friend, a man of guarded lips, 
 speaking of him in a circle of his admirers, said : " I 
 have known him long, I have studied his character, and 
 I believe him capable of virtue." An eminent French 
 journalist paid a high compliment to the Duke of Wel 
 lington, when his documents were published : " Here 
 are twelve volumes of military dispatches, and the word 
 glory is not found in them." 
 
 The English mind is arithmetical, values exactness, 
 likes literal statement; stigmatizes any heat or hyper 
 bole as Irish, French, Italian, and infers weakness and 
 inconsequence of character in speakers who use it. It 
 does not love the superlative but the positive degree. 
 Our customary and mechanical existence is not favor 
 able to flights; long nights and frost hold us pretty fast 
 to realities. The people of English stock, in all coun 
 tries, are a solid people, wearing good hats and shoes, 
 and owners of land whose title-deeds are properly re 
 corded. Their houses are of wood, and briok, and stone, 
 not designed to reel in earthquakes, nor blow about 
 through the air much in hurricanes, nor to be lost under 
 sand-drifts, nor to be made bonfires of by whimsical 
 viziers; but to stand as commodious, rentable tenements 
 for a century or two. All our manner of life is on a 
 secure and moderate pattern, such as can last. Violence 
 and extravagance are, once for all, distasteful; compe 
 tence, quiet, comfort, are the agreed welfare. 
 
 Ever a low style is best. " I judge by every man's
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 135 
 
 truth of his degree of understanding," said Chesterfield. 
 And I do not know any advantage more conspicuous 
 which a man owes to his experience in markets and the 
 Exchange, or politics, than the caution and accuracy he 
 acquires in his report of facts. " Uncle Joel's news is 
 always true," said a person to me with obvious satisfac 
 tion, and said it justly; for the old head, after deceiving 
 ;iu;l being deceived many times, thinks, " What 's the 
 me of having to unsay to-day what I said yesterday ? 
 I will not be responsible ; I will not add an epithet. I 
 will be as moderate as the fact, and will use the same 
 expression, without color, which I received; and rather 
 repeat it several times, word for word, than vary it ever 
 so little." 
 
 The first valuable power in a reasonable mind, one 
 would say, was the power of plain statement, or the 
 power to receive things as they befall, and to transfer 
 the picture of them to another mind unaltered. 'T is a 
 good rule of rhetoric which Schlegel gives, "In good 
 prosi-, every word is under-scored;" which, I suppose, 
 msans, Never italicize. 
 
 Spartans, stoics, heroes, saints and gods use a short 
 and positive speech. They are never off their centres. 
 As soon as they swell and paint and find truth not 
 enough for them, softening of the brain has already be 
 gun. It seems as if inflation were a'disease incident to 
 too much use of words, and the remedy lay in recourse 
 to things. I ani daily struck with the forcible under 
 statement of people who have no literary habit. The 
 low expression is strong and agreeable. The citizen 
 dwells in delusions. His dress and draperies, house 
 and stables, occupy him. The poor countryman, having 
 uo circumstance of carpets, coaches, dinners, wine and
 
 136 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 dancing in his head to confuse him, is able to look 
 straight at you, without refraction or prismatic glories, 
 and he sees whether you see straight also, or whether 
 your head is addled by this mixture of wines. 
 
 The common people diminish: "a cold snap;" "it 
 rains easy;" " good haying weather." When a farmer 
 means to tell you that he is doing well with his farm, 
 he says, " I don't work as hard as I did, and I don't 
 mean to." When he wishes to condemn any treatment 
 of soils or of stock, he says, " It won't do any good." 
 Under the Catskill Mountains the boy in the steamboat 
 said, " Come up here, Tony; it looks pretty out-of- 
 doors." The farmers in the region do not call particular 
 summits, as Killington, Camel's Hump, Saddle-back, etc., 
 mountains, but only, " them 'ere rises," and reserve the 
 word mountains for the range. 
 
 I once attended a dinner given to a great state func 
 tionary by functionaries, men of law, state, and trade. 
 The guest was a great man in his own country and an 
 honored diplomatist in this. His health was drunk with 
 some acknowledgment of his distinguished services to 
 both countries, and followed by nine cold hurrahs. 
 There was the vicious superlative. Ther the great 
 official spoke and beat his breast, and declared that he 
 should remember this honor to the latest moment of his 
 existence. He was answered again by officials. Pity, 
 thought I, they should lie so about their keen sensibility 
 to the nine cold hurrahs and to the commonplace com 
 pliment of a dinner. Men of the world value truth, in 
 proportion to their ability; not by its sacredness, but 
 for its convenience. Of such, especially of diplomatists, 
 one has a right to expect wit and ingenuity to avoid the 
 lie if they must comply with the form. Now* I had
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 137 
 
 been present, a little before, in the country at a cattle- 
 show dinner, which followed an agricultural discourse 
 delivered by a farmer: the discourse, to say the truth, 
 was bad; and one of our village fathers gave at the 
 dinner this toast: "The orator of the day: his subject 
 deserves the attention of every farmer." The caution 
 of the toast did honor to our village father. I wish 
 great lords and diplomatists had as much respect for 
 truth. 
 
 But whilst thus everything recommends simplicity 
 and temperance of action; the utmost directness, the 
 positive degree, we mean thereby that " rightly to be 
 great is not to stir without great argument." When 
 ever the true objects of action appear, they are to be 
 heartily sought. Enthusiasm is the height of man; it is 
 the passing from the human to the divine. 
 
 The superlative is as good as the positive, if it be 
 alive. If man loves the conditioned, he also loves the 
 unconditioned. We don't wish to sin on the other side, 
 and to be purists, nor to check the invention of wit or 
 the sally of humor. 'T is very different, this weak and 
 wearisome lie, from the stimulus to the fancy which is 
 givtju by a romancing talker who does not mean to l)e 
 exactly taken, like the gallant skipper who com 
 plained to his owners that he had pumped the Atlantic 
 Ocean three times through his ship on the passage, and 
 ! t was common to strike seals and porpoises in the hold. 
 Or what was similarly asserted of the late Lord Jeffrey, 
 at the Scottish bar, an attentive auditor declaring on 
 one occasion after an argument of three hours, that he 
 had spoken the whole English language three times 
 over in his speech. 
 
 The objection to unmeasured speech is its lie. All
 
 138 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 men like an impressive fact. The astronomer shows 
 you in his telescope the nebula of Orion, that you may 
 look on that which is esteemed the farthest-off land in 
 visible nature. At the Bank of England they put a 
 scrap of paper that is worth a million pounds sterling 
 into the hands of the visitor to touch. Our travelling is 
 a sort of search for the superlatives or summits of art, 
 much more the real wonders of power in the hu 
 man forul. The arithmetic of Newton, the memory of 
 Magliabeccbi or Mirandola, the versatility of Julius 
 Csesar, the concentration of Bonaparte, the inspiration 
 of Shakspeare, are sure of commanding interest and 
 awe in every company of men. 
 
 The superlative is the excess of expression. We are 
 a garrulous, demonstrative kind of creatures, and can 
 not live without much outlet for all our sense and non 
 sense. And fit expression is so rare that mankind have 
 a superstitious value for it, and it would seem the whole 
 human race agree to value a man precisely in proportion 
 to his power of expression ; and to the most expressive 
 man that has existed, namely, Shakspeare, they have 
 awarded the highest place. 
 
 The expressbrs are the gods of the world, but the 
 men whom these expressors revere are the solid, bal 
 anced, undemonstrative citizens who make the reserved 
 guard, the central sense, of the world. For the lumin 
 ous object wastes itself by its shining, is luminous 
 because it is burning up ; and if the powers are disposed 
 for display, there is all the less left for use and creation. 
 The talent sucks the substance of the man. Superla 
 tives must be bought by too many positives. Gardens 
 of roses must be stripped to make a few drops of otto. 
 And these raptures of fire and frost, which indeed
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 139 
 
 cleanse pedantry out of conversation and make the 
 speech salt and biting, would cost me the days of well- 
 being which are now so cheap to me, yet so valued. I 
 like no deep stakes. I am a coward at gambling. I 
 will bask in the common sun a while longer. 
 
 Children and thoughtless people like exaggerated 
 event and activity ; like to run to a house on fire, to a 
 fight, to an execution ; like to talk of a marriage, of a 
 bankruptcy, of a debt, of a crime. The wise man shuns 
 all this. I knew a grave man who, being urged to go to 
 a church where a clergyman was newly ordained, said 
 " he liked him very well, but he would go when the in 
 teresting Sundays were over." 
 
 All rests at last on the simplicity of nature, or real 
 being. Nothing is for the most part less esteemed. We 
 are fond of dress, of ornament, of accomplishments, of 
 talents, but distrustful of health, of soundness, of pure 
 innocence. Yet nature measures her greatness by what 
 she can spare, by what remains when all superfluity and 
 accessories are shorn off. 
 
 Nor is there in nature itself any swell, any brag, any 
 strain or shock, but a firm common sense through all 
 her elephants and lions, through all her ducks and 
 geese ; a true proportion between her means and her 
 performance. Semper sibi similis. You shall not catch 
 her in any anomalies, nor swaggering into any monsters. 
 In all the years that I have sat in town and forest, I 
 never saw a winged dragon, a flying man, or a talking 
 fish, but ever the strictest regard to rule, and an absence 
 of all surprises. No ; nature encourages no looseness, 
 pardons no errors ; freezes punctually at 32, boils punct 
 ually at 212 ; crystallizes in water at one invariable 
 angle, in diamond at one, in granite at one ; and if you
 
 140 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 omit the smallest condition the experiment will not suc 
 ceed. Her communication obeys the gospel rule, yea 
 or nay. She never expatiates, never goes into the rea 
 sons. Plant beech-mast and it comes up, or it does not 
 come up. Sow grain, and it does not come np : put 
 lime into the soil and try again, and this time she says 
 Yea. To every question an abstemious but absolute re 
 ply. The like staidness is in her dealings with us. Na 
 ture is always serious, does not jest with us. Where 
 we have begun in folly we are brought quickly to plain 
 dealing. Life could not be carried on except by fidel 
 ity and good earnest ; and she brings the most heart 
 less trifler to determined purpose presently. The men 
 whom she admits to her confidence, the simple and 
 great characters, are uniformly marked by absence of 
 pretension and by understatement. The old and mod 
 ern sages of clearest insight are plain men, who have 
 held themselves hard to the poverty of nature. 
 
 The firmest and noblest ground on which people can 
 live is truth ; the real with the real ; a ground on which 
 nothing is assumed, but where they speak and think and 
 do what they must, because they are so and not other 
 wise. 
 
 But whilst the basis of character must be simplicity, 
 the expression of character, it must be remembered, is, 
 in great degree, a matter of climate. In the temperate 
 climates there is a temperate speech, in torrid climates 
 an ardent one. Whilst in Western nations the superla 
 tive in conversation is tedious and weak, and in charac 
 ter is a capital defect, N attire delights in showing us 
 that in the East it is animated, it is pertinent, pleasing, 
 poetic. Whilst she appoints us to keep within the sharp 
 boundaries of form as the condition of our strength, she
 
 THE SUPERLATIVE. 141 
 
 creates in the East the uncontrollable yearning to es 
 cape from limitation into the vast and boundless ; to 
 use a freedom of fancy which plays with all the works 
 of nature, great or minute, galaxy or grain of dust, as 
 toys and words of the mind ; inculcates the tenet of a 
 beatitude to be found in escape from all organization 
 and all personality, and makes ecstasy an institution. 
 
 Religion and poetry are all the civilization of the 
 Arab. " The ground of Paradise," said Mohammed, " is 
 extensive, and the plants of it are all hallelujahs." Re 
 ligion and poetry : the religion teaches an inexorable 
 destiny ; it distinguishes only two days in each man's 
 history, the day of his lot and the day of judgment. 
 The religion runs into asceticism and fate. The cos 
 tume, the articles in which wealth is displayed, are in 
 the same extremes. Thus the diamond and the pearl, 
 which are only accidental and secondary in their use 
 and value to us, are proper to the oriental world. The 
 diver dives a beggar and rises with the price of a king 
 dom in his hand. A bag of sequins, a jewel, a balsam, 
 a single horse, constitute an estate in countries where 
 insecure institutions make every one desirous of con- 
 cealable and convertible property. Shall I say, fur 
 ther, that the orientals excel in costly arts, in the cut 
 ting of precious stones, in working in gold, in weaving 
 on hand-looms costly stuffs from silk and wool, in spices, 
 in dyes and drugs, henna, otto and camphor, and in the 
 training of slaves, elephants and camels, things which 
 are the poetry and superlative of commerce. 
 
 On the other hand, and it is a good illustration of 
 the difference of genius, the European nations, and, 
 in general, all nations in proportion to their civilization, 
 understand the manufacture of iron. One of the ine
 
 142 THE SUPERLATIVE. 
 
 ters of the height to which any civility rose is the skill 
 in the fabric of iron. Universally, the better gold, the 
 worse man. The political economist defies us to show 
 any gold-mine country that is traversed by good roads : 
 or a shore where pearls are found on which good schools 
 are erected. The European civility, or that of 'the pos 
 itive degree, is established by coal-mines, by ventilation, 
 by irrigation and every skill in having water cheap 
 and pure, by iron, by agriculture for bread-stuffs, and 
 manufacture of coarse and family cloths. Our modern 
 improvements have been in the invention of friction 
 matches ; of India-rubber shoes ; of the famous two 
 parallel bars of iron ; then of the air-chamber of Watt, 
 and of the judicious tubing of the engine, by Stephen- 
 son, in order to the construction of locomotives. 
 
 Meantime, Nature, who loves crosses and mixtures, 
 makes these two tendencies necessary each to the other, 
 and delights to re-enforce each peculiarity by imparting 
 the other. The Northern genius finds itself singularly 
 refreshed and stimulated by the breadth and luxuriance 
 of Eastern imagery and modes of thinking, which go to 
 check the pedantry of our inventions and the excess of 
 our detail. There is no writing which has more elec 
 tric power to unbind and animate the torpid intellect 
 than the bold Eastern muse. 
 
 If it come back however to the question of final supe 
 riority, it is too plain that there is no question that the 
 star of empire rolls West : that the warm sons of the 
 Southeast have bent the neck under the yoke of the 
 cold temperament and the exact understanding of the 
 Northwestern races.
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 THESE rales were writ in human heart 
 By Him who built the day ; 
 
 The columns of the universe 
 Not firmer based than they.
 
 THOU shalt not try 
 To plant thy shrivelled pedantry 
 On the shoulders of the sky.
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 1 
 
 SINCE the discovery of Oersted that galvanism and 
 electricity and magnetism are only forms of one and 
 the same force, and convertible each into the other, we 
 have continually suggested to us a larger generaliza 
 tion : that each of the great departments of Nature 
 chemistry, vegetation, the animal life exhibits the 
 same laws on a different plane ; that the intellectual 
 and moral worlds are analogous to the material. There 
 is a kind of latent omniscience not only in every man 
 but in every particle. That convertibility we so admire 
 in plants and animal structures, whereby the repairs 
 and the ulterior uses are subserved, when one part is 
 wounded or deficient, by another ; this self-help anJ 
 self-creation proceed from the same original power 
 which "works remotely in grandest and meanest struct 
 ures by the same design, works in a lobster or a mite- 
 worm as a wise man would if imprisoned in that poor 
 form. 'T is the effort of God, of the Supreme Intellect, 
 in the extremest frontier of his universe. 
 
 As this unity exists in the organization of insect, beast 
 and bird, still ascending to man, and from lower type of 
 man to the highest yet attained, so it does not less de 
 clare itself in the spirit or intelligence of the brute. In 
 
 1 Reprinted from the North American Review of May, 1878. 
 10
 
 146 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 ignorant ages it was common to vaunt the human supe 
 riority by underrating the instinct of other animals ; but 
 a better discernment finds that the difference is only 
 less and more. Experiment shows that the bird and the 
 dog reason as the hunter does, that all the animals show 
 the same good sense in their humble walk that the man 
 who is their enemy or friend does ; and, if it be in 
 smaller measure, yet it is not diminished, as his often 
 is, by freak and folly. St. Pierre says of the animals 
 that a moral sentiment seems to have determined their 
 physical organization. 
 
 I see the unity of thought and of morals running 
 through all animated Nature ; there is no difference of 
 quality, but only of more and less. The animal who is 
 wholly kept down in Nature has no anxieties. By yield 
 ing, as he must do, to it, he is enlarged and reaches his 
 highest point. The poor grub, in the hole of a tree, by 
 yielding itself to Nature, goes blameless through its 
 low part and is rewarded at last, casts its filthy hull, 
 expands into a beautiful form with rainbow wings, and 
 makes a part of the summer day. The Greeks called 
 it Psyche, a manifest emblem of the soul. The man 
 down in Nature occupies himself in guarding, in feed 
 ing, in warming and multiplying his body, and, as long 
 as he knows no more, we justify him ; but presently 
 a mvstic change is wrought, a new perception opens, 
 and he is made a citizen of the world of souls : he 
 feels what is called duty ; he is aware that he owes 
 a higher allegiance to do and live as a good member 
 of this universe. In the measure in which he has this 
 sense he is a man, rises to the universal life. The high 
 intellect is absolutely at one with moral nature. A 
 thought is embosomed iu a sentiment, and the attempt
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 147 
 
 to detach and blazon the thought is like a show of cut 
 flowers. The moral is the measure of health, and in 
 the voice of Genius I hear invariably the moral tone, 
 even when it is disowned in words ; health, melody 
 and a wider horizon belong to moral sensibility. The 
 finer the sense of justice, the better poet. The believer 
 says to the skeptic : 
 
 " One avenue was shaded from thine eyes 
 Through which I wandered to eternal truth." 
 
 Humility is the avenue. To be sure, we exaggerate 
 when we represent these two elements as disunited ; 
 every man shares them both ; but it is true that men 
 generally are marked by a decided predominance of 
 one or of the other element. 
 
 In youth and in age we are moralists, and in mature 
 life the moral element steadily rises in the regard of 
 all reasonable men. 
 
 'Tis a sort of proverbial dying speech of scholars 
 (at least it is attributed to many) that which Anthony 
 Wood reports of Nathaniel Carpenter, an Oxford Fel 
 low. " It did repent him," he said, " that he had for- 
 merlv so much courted the maid instead of the mis 
 tress," (meaning philosophy and mathematics to the 
 neglect of divinity). This, in the language of our time, 
 would be ethics. 
 
 And when I say that the world is made up of moral 
 forces, these are not separate. All forces are found in 
 Nature united with that which they move : heat is not 
 separate, light is not massed aloof, nor electricity, nor 
 gravity, but they are always in combination. And so 
 moral powers ; they are thirsts for action, and the more 
 you accumulate, the more they mould and form.
 
 148 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 It is iu the stomach of plants that development be 
 gins, and ends in the circles of the universe. 'T is a long 
 scale from the gorilla to the gentleman from the go 
 rilla to Plato, Newton, Shakspeare to the sanctities 
 of religion, the refinements of legislation, the summits 
 of science, art and poetry. The beginnings are slow 
 and infirm, but it is an always-accelerated march. The 
 geologic world is chronicled by the growing ripeness of 
 the strata from lower to higher, as it becomes the abode 
 of more highly organized plants and animals. The civil 
 history of men might be traced by the successive meli 
 orations as marked in higher moral generalizations ; 
 virtue meaning physical courage, then chastity and tem 
 perance, then justice and love ; bargains of kings 
 with peoples, of certain rights to certain classes, then 
 of rights to masses, then at last came the day when, 
 as the historians rightly tell, the nerves of the world 
 were electrified by the proclamation that all men are 
 born free and equal. 
 
 Every truth leads in another. The bud extrudes the 
 old leaf, and every truth brings that which will supplant 
 it. In the court of law the judge sits over the culprit, 
 but in the court of life in the same hour the judge also 
 stands as culprit before a true tribunal. Every judge 
 is a culprit, every law an abuse. Montaigne kills off 
 bigots as cowhage kills worms ; but there is a higher 
 muse there sitting where he durst not soar, of eye so 
 keen that it can report of a realm in which all the wit 
 and learning of the Frenchman is no more than the 
 cunning of a fox. 
 
 It is the same fact existing as sentiment and as will 
 in the mind, which works in Nature as irresistible law, 
 exerting influence over nations, intelligent beings, or
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 149 
 
 down in the kingdoms of brute or of chemical atoms. 
 Nature is a tropical swamp in sunshine, on whose pur 
 lieus we hear the song of summer birds, and see pris 
 matic dew-drops but her interiors are terrific, full of 
 h dras and crocodiles. In the pre-adamite she bred 
 valor only ; by-and-by she gets on to man, and adds 
 tenderness, and thus raises virtue piecemeal. 
 
 When we trace from the beginning, that ferocity has 
 uses ; only so are the conditions of the then world met, 
 and these monsters are the scavengers, executioners, 
 diggers, pioneers and fertilizers, destroying what is 
 more destructive than they, and making better life pos 
 sible. We see the steady aim of Benefit in view from 
 the first. Melioration is the law. The crudest foe is 
 a masked benefactor. The wars which make history 
 so dreary, have served the cause of truth and virtue. 
 There is always an instinctive sense of right, an obscure 
 idea which animates either party and which in long 
 periods vindicates itself at last. Thus a sublime confi 
 dence is fed at the bottom of the heart that, in spite of 
 appearances, in spite of malignity and blind self-interest 
 living for the moment, an eternal, beneficent necessity 
 is always bringing things right ; and, thougli we should 
 fold our arms, which we cannot do, for our duty re 
 quires us to be the very hands of this guiding sentiment, 
 and work in the present moment, the evils we suffer 
 will at last end themselves through the incessant oppo 
 sition of Nature to everything- hurtful. 
 
 The excellence of men consists in the completeness 
 with which the lower system is taken up into the higher, 
 a process of much time and delicacy, but in which 
 no point of the lower should be left untranslated ; so 
 that the warfare of beasts should be renewed in a finer
 
 150 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 field, for more excellent victories. Savage war gives 
 place to that of Turenue and Wellington, which has 
 limitations and a code. This war again gives place to 
 the finer quarrel of property, where the victory is wealth 
 and the defeat poverty. 
 
 The inevitabilities are always sapping every seeming 
 prosperity built on a wrong. No matter how you seem 
 to fatten on a crime, that can never be good for the bee 
 which is bad for the hive. See how these things look 
 in the page of history. Nations come and go, cities 
 rise and fall, all the instincts of man, good and bad, 
 work, and every wLli, appetite and passion rushes 
 into act and embodies itself in usages, protects itself 
 with laws. Some of them are useful and universally 
 acceptable, hinder none, help all, and these are honored 
 and perpetuated. Others are noxious. Community of 
 property is tried, as when a Tartar horde or an Indian 
 tribe roam over a vast tract for pasturage or hunting ; 
 but it is found at last that some establishment of prop 
 erty, allowing each on some distinct terms to fence and 
 cultivate a piece of land, is best for all. " For my 
 part," said Napoleon, " it is not the mystery of the in 
 carnation which I discover in religion, but the mys 
 tery of social order, which associates with heaven that 
 idea of equality which prevents the rich from destroy 
 ing the poor." 
 
 Shall I say then it were truer to see Necessity calm, 
 beautiful, passionless, without a smile, covered with en 
 signs of woe, stretching her dark warp across the uni 
 verse ? These threads are Nature's pernicious ele 
 ments, her deluges, miasma, disease, poison; her curdling 
 cold, her hideous reptiles and worse men, cannibals, and 
 the depravities of civilization; the secrets of the prisons
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 151 
 
 of tyranny, the slave and his master, the prouu man's 
 scorn, the orphan's tears, the vices of men, lust, cruelty 
 and pitiless avarice. These make the gloomy warp of 
 ages. Humanity sits at the dread loom and throws the 
 shuttle and fills it with joyful rainbows, until the sable 
 ground is flowered all over with a woof of human in 
 dustry and wisdom, virtuous examples, symbols of use 
 ful and generous arts, with beauty and pure love, cour 
 age and the victories of the just and wise over malice 
 and wrong. 
 
 Nature is not so helpless but it can rid itself at last 
 of every crime. An Eastern poet, in describing the 
 golden age, said that God had made justice so dear to 
 the heart of Nature that, if any injustice lurked any 
 where under the sky, the blue vault would shrivel to a 
 snake-skin and cast it out .by spasms. But the spasms 
 of Nature are years and centuries, and it will tax the 
 faith of man to wait so long. 
 
 Man is always throwing his praise or blame on events, 
 and does not see that he only is real, and the world his 
 mirror and echo. He imputes the stroke to fortune, 
 which in reality himself strikes. The student discovers 
 one day that he lives in enchantment: the house, the 
 works, the persons, the days, the weathers all that he 
 calls Nature, all that he calls institutions, when once his 
 mind is active are visions merely, wonderful allegories, 
 significant pictures of the laws of the mind ; and through 
 this enchanted gallery he is led by unseen guides to 
 read and learn the laws of Heaven. This discovery may 
 come early, sometimes in the nursery, to a rare child ; 
 later in the school, but oftener when the mind is more 
 mature ; and to multitudes of men wanting in mental 
 activity it never comes any more than poetry or art
 
 152 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 But it ought to come ; it belongs to the human intel 
 lect, and is an insight which we cannot spare. 
 
 The idea of right exists in the human mind, and lays 
 itself out in the equilibrium of Nature, in the equalities 
 and periods of our system, in the level of seas, in the 
 action and reaction of forces. Nothing is allowed to 
 exceed or absorb the rest ; if it do, it is disease, and is 
 quickly destroyed. It was an early discovery of the 
 mind, this beneficent rule. Strength enters just as 
 much as the moral element prevails. The strength of 
 the animal to eat and to be luxurious and to usurp is 
 rudeness and imbecility. The law is : To each shall be 
 rendered his own. As thou sowest, thou shalt reap. 
 Smite, and thou shalt smart. Serve, and thou shalt be 
 served. If you love and serve men, you cannot, by any 
 hiding or stratagem, escape the remuneration. Secret 
 retributions are always restoring the level, when dis 
 turbed, of the Divine justice. It is impossible to tilt 
 the beam. All the tyrants and proprietors and monop 
 olists of the world in vain set their shoulders to heave 
 the bar. Settles for evermore the ponderous equator to 
 its line, and man and mote and star and sun must range 
 with it, or be pulverized by the recoil. 
 
 It is a doctrine of unspeakable comfort. lie that 
 plants his foot here, passes at once out of the kingdom 
 of illusions. Others may well suffer in the hideous 
 picture of crime with which earth is filled and the life 
 of society threatened, but the habit of respecting that 
 great order which certainly contains and will dispose of 
 our little system, will take all fear from the heart. It 
 did itself create and distribute all that is created and 
 flistributed, and, trusting to its power, we cease to care 
 for what it will certainly order well. To good men, as
 
 THK SOYKUK1GNTY OF ETHICS. 153 
 
 we call good men, this doctrine of Trust is an unsounded 
 secret. They use the word, they have accepted the 
 notion of a mechanical supervision of human life, by 
 which that certain wonderful being whom they call God 
 does take up their aft'airs where their intelligence leaves 
 them, and somehow knits and co-ordinates the issues of 
 them in all that is beyond the reach of private faculty. 
 They do not see that He, that It, is there, next and 
 within ; the thought of the thought ; the affair of af 
 fairs ; that he is existence, and take him from them and 
 they would not be. They do not see that particulars 
 are sacred to him, as well as the scope and outline ; 
 that these passages of daily life are his work ; that in 
 the moment when they desist from interference, these 
 particulars take sweetness and grandeur, and become 
 the language of mighty principles. 
 
 A man should be a guest in his own house, and a 
 guest in his own thought. He is there to speak for 
 truth ; but who is he ? Some clod the truth has 
 snatched from the ground, and with fire has fashioned 
 to a momentary man. Without the truth, he is a clod 
 again. Let him find his superiority in not wishing 
 superiority ; find the riches of love which possesses that 
 which it adores ; the riches of poverty ; the height of 
 lowliness, the immensity of to-day ; and, in the passing 
 hour, the age of ages. Wondrous state of man ! never 
 so happy as when he has lost all private interests and 
 regards, and exists only in obedience and love of the 
 Author. 
 
 The fiery soul said : " Let me be a blot on this fair 
 world, the obscurest, the loneliest sufferer, with one 
 proviso, that I know it is His agency. I will love 
 him, though he shed frost and darkness on every way
 
 154 THE SOVKRKIGXTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 of mine." The emphasis of that blessed doctrine lay 
 in lowliness. The new saint gloried in infirmities. Who 
 or what was he ? His rise and his recovery were vica 
 rious. He has fallen in another ; he rises in another. 
 
 We perish, and perish gladly, if the law remains. I 
 hope it is conceivable that a man may go to ruin gladly, 
 if he see that thereby no shade falls on that he loves 
 and adores. We need not always be stipulating for 
 our clean shirt and roast joint per diem. We do not 
 believe the less in astronomy and vegetation, because 
 we are writhing and roaring in our beds with rheuma 
 tism. Cripples and invalids, we doubt not there are , 
 bounding fawns in the forest, and lilies with graceful, 
 springing stem ; so neither do we doubt or fail to love 
 the eternal law, of which we are such shabby prac- 
 tisers. Truth gathers itself spotless and unhurt after 
 all our surrenders and concealments and partisanship 
 never hurt by the treachery or ruin of its best defend 
 ers, whether Luther, or William Penn, or St. Paul. We 
 answer, when they tell us of the bad behavior of Luther 
 or Paul : " Well, what if he did ? Who was more pained 
 than Luther or Paul ? " Shall we attach ourselves vio 
 lently to our teachers and historical personalities, and 
 think the foundation shaken if any fault is shown in 
 their record ? But how is the truth hurt by their fall 
 ing from it ? The law of gravity is not hurt by every 
 accident., though our leg be broken. No more is the 
 law of justice by our departure from it. 
 
 We are to know that we are never without a pilot. 
 When we know not how to steer, and dare not hoist a 
 sail, we can drift. The current knows the way, though 
 we do not. When the stars and sun appear, when we 
 have conversed with navigators who know the coast,
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 155 
 
 we may begin to put out an oar and trim a sail. The 
 ship of heaven guides itself, and will not accept a 
 wooden rudder. 
 
 Have you said to yourself ever : ' I abdicate all 
 choice, I see it is not for me to interfere. I see that I 
 have been one of the crowd ; that I have been a pitiful 
 person, because I have wished to be my own master, 
 and to dress and order my whole way and system of 
 living. I thought I managed it very well. I see that 
 my neighbors think so. I have heard prayers, 1 have 
 prayed even, but I have never until now dreamed that 
 this undertaking the entire management of my own af 
 fairs was not commendable. I have never seen, until 
 now, that it dwarfed me. I have not discovered, until 
 this blessed ray flashed just now through my soul, that 
 there dwelt any power in Nature that would relieve me 
 of my load. But now I see.' 
 
 What is this intoxicating sentiment that allies this 
 scrap of dust to the whole of Nature and the whole of 
 Fate, that makes this doll a dweller in ages, mocker 
 at time, able to spurn all outward advantages, peer and 
 master of the elements ? I am taught by it that what 
 touches any thread in the vast web of being touches me. 
 I am representative of the whole ; and the good of the 
 whole, or what I call the right, makes me invulnerable. 
 
 How came this creation so magically woven that 
 nothing can do me mischief but myself, that an in 
 visible fence surrounds my being which screens me 
 from all harm that I will to resist ? If I will stand 
 upright, the creation cannot bend me. But if I violate 
 myself, if I commit a crime, the lightning loiters by 
 the speed of retribution, and every act is not hereafter 
 but instantaneously rewarded according to its quality,
 
 156 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 Virtue Is the adopting of this dictate of the universal 
 mind by the individual will. Character is the habit of 
 this obedience, and Religion is the accompanying emo 
 tion, the emotion of reverence which the presence of the 
 universal mind ever excites in the individual. 
 
 We go to famous books for our examples of charac 
 ter, just as we send to England for shrubs which grow 
 as well in our own door-yards and cow-pastures. Life 
 is always rich, and spontaneous graces and forces ele 
 vate it in every domestic circle, which are overlooked 
 while we are reading something less excellent in old 
 authors. From the obscurity and casualty of thoso 
 which I know, I infer the obscurity and casualty of the 
 like balm and consolation and immortality in a thousand 
 homes which I do not know, all round the world. And 
 I see not why to these simple instincts, simple yet 
 grand, all the heights and transcendencies of virtue 
 and of enthusiasm are not open. There is power 
 enough in them to move the world ; and it is not any 
 sterility or defect in ethics, but our negligence of these 
 line monitors, of these world-embracing sentiments, that 
 makes religion cold and life low. 
 
 While the immense energy of the sentiment of duty 
 and the awe of the supernatural exert incomparable in 
 fluence on the mind, yet it is often perverted, and the 
 tradition received with awe, but without" correspondent 
 action of the receiver. Then you find so many men 
 infatuated on that topic ! Wise on all other, they lose 
 their head the moment they talk of religion. It is the 
 sturdiest prejudice in the public mind that religion is 
 something by itself ; a department distinct from all 
 other experiences, and to which the tests and judgment 
 men are ready enough to show on other things, do not
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 157 
 
 apply. You may sometimes talk with the gravest and 
 best citizen, and the moment the topic of religion is 
 broached, he runs into a childish superstition. His face 
 looks infatuated, and his conversation is. When I 
 talked with an ardent missionary, and pointed out to 
 him that his creed found no support in my experience, 
 he replied, " It is not so in your experience, but is so 
 in the other world." I answer : Other world ! there 
 ij no other world. God is one and omnipresent ; here 
 or nowhere is the whole fact. The one miracle which 
 God works evermore is in Nature, and imparting him 
 self to the mind. When we ask simply, " What is true 
 in thought ? what is just in action ? " it is the yielding 
 of the private heart to the Divine mind, and all personal 
 preferences, and all requiring of wonders, are profane. 
 
 The word miracle, as it is used, only indicates the ig- 
 aorance of the devotee, staring with wonder to see water 
 turned into wine, and heedless of the stupendous fact of 
 his own personality. Here he stands, a lonely thought 
 harmoniously organized into correspondence with the 
 universe of mind and matter. What narrative of won 
 ders coming down from a thousand years ought to 
 charm his attention like this ? Certainly it is human 
 to value a general consent, a fraternity of believers, 
 a crowded church ; but as the sentiment purifies and 
 rises, it leaves crowds. It makes churches of two, 
 churches of one. A fatal disservice does this Sweden- 
 borg or other who offers to do my thinking for me. It 
 seems as if, when the Spirit of God speaks so plainly to 
 each soul, it were an impiety to be listening to one or 
 another saint. Jesus was better than others, because he 
 refused to listen to others and listened at home. 
 
 You are really interested in your thought. You have
 
 158 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 meditated in silent wonder on your existence in tins 
 world. You have perceived in the first fact of your 
 conscious life here a miracle so astounding, a miracle 
 comprehending all the universe of miracles to which 
 your intelligent life gives you access, as to exhaust 
 wonder, and leave you no need of hunting here or there 
 for any particular exhibitions of power. Then up comes 
 a man with a text of 1 John, v. 7, or a knotty sentence 
 from St. Paul, which he considers as the axe at the root 
 of your tree. You cannot bring yourself to care for it. 
 You say : " Cut away : my tree is Ygdrasil the tree 
 of life." He interrupts for the moment your peaceful 
 trust in the Divine Providence. Let him know by your 
 security that your conviction is clear and sufficient, and 
 if he were Paul himself, you also are here, and with 
 your Creator. 
 
 We all give way to superstitions. The house in 
 which we were born is not quite mere timber and stone ; 
 is still haunted by parents and progenitors. The creeds 
 into which we were initiated in childhood and youth no 
 longer hold their old place in the minds of thoughtful 
 men, but they are not nothing to us, and we hate to have 
 them treated with contempt. There is so much that we 
 do not know, that we give to these suggestions the ben 
 efit of the doubt. 
 
 It is a necessity of the human mind that he who looks 
 at one object should look away from all other objects. 
 He may throw himself upon some sharp statement of 
 one fact, some verbal creed, with such concentration as 
 to hide the universe from him : but the stars roll above; 
 the sun warms him. With patience and fidelity to truth 
 he may work his way through, if only by coming against 
 omebody who believes more fables than hs does ; and,
 
 THK SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 159 
 
 in trying to dispel the illusions of his neighbor, he opens 
 his own eyes. 
 
 In the Christianity of this country there is wide dif 
 ference of opinion in regard to inspiration, prophecy, 
 miracles, the future state of the soul ; every variety of 
 opinion, and rapid revolution in opinions, in the last 
 half-century. It is simply impossible to read the old 
 history of the first century as it was read in the ninth ; 
 to do so you must abolish in your mind the Isssons of 
 all the centuries from the ninth to the nineteenth. 
 
 Shall I make the mistake of baptizing the daylight, 
 and time, and space, by the name of John or Joshua, in 
 whose tent I chance to behold daylight, and space, and 
 time ? What anthropomorphists we are in this, that we 
 cannot let moral distinctions be, but must mould them 
 into human shape ! " Mere morality " means, not put 
 into a personal master of morals. Our religion is geo 
 graphical, belongs to our time and place ; respects and 
 mythologizes some one time and place and person and 
 people. So it is occasional. It visits us only on some 
 exceptional and ceremonial occasion, on a wedding or a 
 baptism, on a sick-bed, or at a funeral, or perhaps on a 
 sublime national victory or a peace. But that be sure 
 is not the religion of the universal unsleeping provi 
 dence, which lurks in trifles, in still, small voices, in the 
 secrets of the heart and our closest thoughts, as effi 
 ciently as in our proclamations and successes. 
 
 Far be it from me to underrate the men or the 
 churches that have fixed the hearts of men and organ 
 ized their devout impulses or oracles into good institu 
 tions. The Church of Rome had its saints, and inspired 
 the conscience of Europe St. Augustine, and Thomas 
 h Kempis, and Fenelon; the piety of the English Church
 
 160 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 in Cranmer, and Herbert, and Taylor ; the Reformed 
 Church, Scougal ; the mystics, Behmen and Sweden- 
 borg ; the Qnakers, Fox and James Naylor. I confess 
 our later generation appears ungirt, frivolous, compared 
 with the religions of the last or Calvinistic age. There 
 was in the last century a serious habitual reference to 
 the spiritual world, running through diaries, Utters and 
 conversation - yes, and into wills and legal instruments 
 also, compared with which our liberation looks a little 
 foppish and dapper. 
 
 The religion of seventy years ago was an iron belt to 
 the mind, giving it concentration and force. A rude 
 people were kept respectable by the determination of 
 thought on the eternal world. Now men fall abroad, 
 want polarity, suffer in character and intellect. A 
 sleep creeps over the great functions of man. Enthusi 
 asm goes out. In its stead a low prudence seeks to hold 
 society staunch, but its arms ai-e too short, cordage and 
 machinery never supply the plrtce of life. 
 
 Luther would cut his hand, off sooner than write 
 theses against the pope if he suspected that he was 
 bringing on with all his might tne pale negations of 
 Boston Unitarianism. I will not now go into the meta 
 physics of that reaction by which in history a period of 
 belief is followed by an age of criticism, in which wit 
 takes the place of faith in the leading spirits, and an 
 excessive respect for forms out of which the heart has 
 -departed becomes most obvious in the least religious 
 minds. I will not now explore the causes of the result, 
 but the fact must be conceded as of frequent recur 
 rence, and never more evident than in our American 
 church. To a self-denying, ardent church, delighting 
 in rites arid ordinances, lias succeeded a cold, intellect-
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 161 
 
 ual race, who analyze the prayer and psalm of their 
 forefathers, and the more intellectual reject every yoke 
 of authority and custom with a petulance unprecedented. 
 It is a sort of mark of probity and sincerity to declare 
 how little you believe, while the mass of the commu 
 nity indolently follow the old forms with childish scru 
 pulosity, and we have punctuality for faith, and good 
 taste for character. 
 
 But I hope the defect of faith with us is only appar 
 ent. We shall find that freedom has its own guards, 
 and, as soon as in the vulgar it runs to license, sets all 
 reasonable men on exploring those guards. I do not 
 think the summit of this age truly reached or expressed 
 unless it attain the height which religion and philosophy 
 reached in any former age. If I miss the inspiration 
 of the saints of Calvinism, or of Platonism, or Bud 
 dhism, our times are not up to theirs, or, more truly, 
 have not yet their own legitimate force. 
 
 Worship is the regard for what is above us. Men are 
 respectable only as they respect. We delight in chil 
 dren because of that religious eye which belongs to 
 them; because of their reverence for their seniors, and 
 for their objects of belief. The poor Irish laborer one 
 sees with respect, because he believes in something, in 
 his church, and in his employers. Superstitious per 
 sons we see with respect, because their whole existence 
 is not bounded by their hats and their shoes, but they 
 walk attended by pictures of the imagination, to which 
 they pay homage. You cannot impoverish man by tak 
 ing away these objects above him without ruin. It is 
 very sad to see men who think their goodness made of 
 themselves ; it is very grateful to see those who hold an 
 opinion the reverse of this. 
 11
 
 162 THE SOVKRKIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 All ages of belief have been great ; all of unbelief 
 have been mean. The Orientals believe in Fate. That 
 which shall befall them is written on the iron leaf ; 
 they will not turn on their heel to avoid famine, plague, 
 or the sword of the enemy. That is great, and gives a 
 great air to the people. We in America are charged 
 with a great deficiency in worship ; that reverence does 
 not belong to our character ; that our institutions, our 
 politics, and our trade, have fostered a self-reliance 
 which is small, liliputian, full of fuss and bustle ; we 
 look at and will bear nothing above us in the state, and 
 do exceedingly applaud and admire ourselves, and be 
 lieve in our senses and understandings, while our imag 
 ination and our moral sentiment are desolated. In re 
 ligion too we want objects above ; we are fast losing or 
 have already lost our old reverence ; new views of 
 inspiration, of miracles, of the saints, have supplanted 
 the old opinions, and it is vain to bring them again. 
 Revolutions never go backward, and in all churches a 
 certain decay of ancient piety is lamented, and all 
 threatens to lapse into apathy and indifferentism. It 
 becomes us to consider whether we cannot have a real 
 faith and real objects in lieu of these false ones. The 
 human mind, when it is trusted, is never false to itself. 
 If there be sincerity and good meaning if there be 
 really in us the wish to seek for our superiors, for that 
 which is lawfully above us, we shall not long look in 
 vain. 
 
 Meantime there is great centrality, a centripetencc 
 equal to the centrifugence. The mystic or theist is 
 never scared by any startling materialism. He knows 
 the laws of gravitation and of repulsion are deaf to 
 French talkers, be they never so witty. If theologj
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 163 
 
 shows that opinions are fast changing, it is not so with 
 the convictions of men with regard to conduct. These re 
 main. The most daring heroism, the most accomplished 
 culture, or rapt holiness, never exhausted the claim of 
 these lowly duties, never penetrated to their origin, 
 or was able to look behind their source. We cannot 
 disenchant, we cannot impoverish ourselves, by obe 
 dience ; but by humility we rise, by obedience we com 
 mand, by poverty we are rich, by dying we live. 
 
 We are thrown back on rectitude forever and ever, 
 only rectitude, to mend one ; that is all we can do. 
 But that the zealot stigmatizes as a sterile chimney- 
 corner philosophy. Now the first position I make is 
 that natural religion supplies still all the facts which 
 are disguised under the dogma of popular creeds. The 
 progress of religion is steadily to its identity with 
 morals. 
 
 How is the new generation to be edified ? How 
 should it not ? The life of those once omnipotent tra 
 ditions was really not in the legend, but in the moral 
 sentiment and the metaphysical fact which the legends 
 enclosed and these survive. A new Socrates, or Zeno, 
 or Swedenborg, or Pascal, or a new crop of geniuses like 
 those of the Elizabethan age, may be born in this age, 
 and, with happy heart and a bias for theism, bring 
 asceticism, duty, and magnanimity into vogue again. 
 
 It is true that Stoicism, always attractive to the intel 
 lectual and cultivated, has now no temples, no academy, 
 no commanding Zeno or Antoninus. It accuses us that 
 it has none: that pure ethics is not now formulated and 
 concreted into a cultus, a fraternity with assemblings 
 and holy-days, with song and book, with brick and 
 stone. Why have not those who believe in it and love
 
 104 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 it left all for this, and dedicated themselves to write out 
 its scientific scriptures to become its Vulgate for mill 
 ions ? I answer for one that the inspirations we catch 
 of this law are not continuous and technical, but joyful 
 sparkles, and are recorded for their beauty, for the de 
 light they give, not for their obligation ; and that is their 
 priceless good to men, that they charm and uplift, not 
 that they are imposed. It has not yet its first hymn. 
 But, that every line and word may be coals of true fire, 
 ages must roll, ere these casual wide-falling cinders can 
 be gathered into broad and steady altar-flame. 
 
 It does not yet appear what forms the religious feel 
 ing will take. It prepares to rise out of all forms to an 
 absolute justice and healthy perception. Here is now 
 a new feeling of humanity infused into public action. 
 Here is contribution of money on a more extended and 
 systematic scale than ever before to repair public dis 
 asters at a distance, and of .political support to oppressed 
 parties. Then there are the new conventions of social 
 science, before which the questions of the rights of 
 women, the laws of trade, the treatment of crime, regu 
 lation of labor, come for a hearing. If these are tokens 
 of the steady currents of thought and will in these 
 directions, one might well anticipate a new nation. 
 
 I know how delicate this principle is, how difficult 
 of adaptation to practical and social arrangements. It 
 cannot be profaned; it cannot be forced; to draw it out 
 of its natural current is to lose at once all its power. 
 Such experiments as we recall are those in which some 
 sect or dogma made the tie, and that was an artificial 
 element, which chilled and checked the union. But is 
 it quite impossible to believe that men should be drawn 
 to each other by the simple respect which each man
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 165 
 
 feels for another iu whom he discovers absolute honesty; 
 the respect he feels for one who thiuks life is quite too 
 coarse and frivolous, and that he should like to lift it a 
 little, should like to be the frieud of some man's virtue? 
 for another who, underneath his compliances with ar 
 tificial society, would dearly like to serve somebody, 
 to test his own reality by making himself useful and in 
 dispensable ? 
 
 Man does not live by bread alone, but by faith, by 
 admiration, by sympathy. 'T is very shallow to say 
 that cotton, or iron, or silver and gold are kings of the 
 world ; there are rulers that will at any moment make 
 these forgotten. Fear will. Love will. Character will. 
 Men live by their credence. Governments stand by 
 it, by the faith that the people share, whether it 
 comes from the religion in which they were bred, or 
 from an original conscience in themselves, which the 
 popular religion echoes. If government could only 
 stand by force, if the instinct of the people was to resist 
 the government, it is plain the government must be two 
 to one in order to be secure, and then it would not be 
 safe from desperate individuals. But no ; the old com 
 mandment, u Thou shalt not kill," holds down New 
 York, and London, and Paris, and not a police or horse- 
 guards. 
 
 The credence of men it is that moulds them, and 
 creates at will one or another surface. The mind as it 
 opens transfers very fast its choice from the circum 
 stance to the cause; from courtesy to love, from inven 
 tions to science, from London or Washington law, or 
 public opinion, to the self-revealing idea; from all that 
 talent executes to the sentiment that fills the heart and 
 dictates the future of nations- The commanding fact
 
 166 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 
 
 which I never do not see, is the sufficiency of the moral 
 sentiment. We buttress it up, in shallow hours or ages, 
 with legends, traditions and forms, each good for the 
 one moment in which it was a happy type or symbol of 
 the Power ; but the Power sends in the next moment a 
 new lesson, which we lose while our eyes are reverted 
 and striving to perpetuate the old. 
 
 America shall introduce a pure religion. Ethics are 
 thought not to satisfy affection. But all the religion 
 we have is the ethics of one or another holy person; as 
 soon as character appeal's, be sure love will, and ven 
 eration, and anecdotes and fables about him, and de 
 light of good men and women in him. And what deeps 
 of grandeur and beauty are known to us in ethical 
 truth, what divination or insight belongs to it i For in 
 nocence is a wonderful electuary for purging the eyes 
 to search the nature of those souls that pass before it. 
 What armor it is to protect the good from outward or 
 inward harm, and with what power it converts evil ac 
 cidents into benefits ; the power of its countenance ; the 
 power of its presence ! To it alone comes true friend 
 ship ; to it come grandeur of situation and poetic per 
 ception, enriching all it deals with. 
 
 Once men thought Spirit divine, and Matter diabolic ; 
 one Ormuzd, the other Ahriman. Now science and 
 philosophy recognize the parallelism, the approximation, 
 the unity of the two : how each reflects the other as 
 face answers to face in a glass : nay, how the laws of 
 both are one, or how one is the realization. We are 
 learning not to fear truth. 
 
 The man of this age must be matriculated in the uni 
 versity of sciences and tendencies flowing from all past 
 periods. He must not be one who can be surprised and
 
 THE SOVEREIGNTY OF ETHICS. 107 
 
 shipwrecked by every bold or subtile word which malig 
 nant and acute men may utter in his hearing, but should 
 be taught all skepticisms and unbeliefs, and made the 
 destroyer of all card-houses and paper walls, and the 
 sifter of all opinions, by being put face to face from his 
 infancy with Reality. 
 
 A man who has accustomed himself to look at all his 
 circumstances as very mutable, to carry his possessions, 
 his relations to persons, and even his opinions, in his 
 hand, and in all these to pierce to the principle and 
 moral law, and everywhere to find that, has put him 
 self out of the reach of all skepticism ; and it seems as 
 if whatever is most affecting and sublime in our inter 
 course, in our happiness, and in our losses, tended stead 
 ily to uplift ns to a life so extraordinary, and, one mighb 
 say, superhuman.
 
 THE PREACHER, 
 
 ASCENDING thorough just degrees 
 To a consummate holiness, 
 As angel blind to trespass done, 
 And bleaching all souls like the sun.
 
 THE PKEACHER. 1 
 
 IN the history of opinion, the pinch of falsehood 
 shows itself first, not in argument and formal protest, 
 but in insincerity, indifference and abandonment of the 
 Church or the scientific or political or economic institu 
 tion for other better or worse forms. 
 
 The venerable and beautiful traditions in which we 
 were educated are losing their hold on human belief, 
 day by day; a restlessness and dissatisfaction in the re 
 ligious world marks that we are in a moment of transi 
 tion; as when the Roman Church broke into Protestant 
 and Catholic, or, earlier, when Paganism broke into 
 Christians and Pagans. The old forms rattle, and the 
 new delay to appear ; material and industrial activity 
 have materialized the age, and the mind, haughty with 
 its sciences, disdains the religious forms as childish. 
 
 In consequence of this revolution in opinion, it ap 
 pears, for the time, as the misfortune of this period that 
 the cultivated mind has not the happiness and dignity 
 of the religious sentiment. We are born too late for 
 the old and too early for the new faith. I see in thoss 
 
 1 Originally written as a parlor lecture to some Divinity students, in 
 1867 ; afterwards enlarged from earlier writings, and read in its pres 
 ent form at the Divinity Chapel, Cambridge, May 5th, 1879. Reprinted 
 from the Unitarian Review for January, 1880.
 
 172 THE PREACHER. 
 
 classes and those persons in whom I am accustomed to 
 look for tendency and progress, for what is most posi 
 tive and most rich in human nature, and who contain 
 the activity of to-day and the assurance of to-morrow, 
 I see in them character, but skepticism; a clear enough 
 perception of the inadequacy of the popular religious 
 statement to the wants of their heart and intellect, and 
 explicit declarations of this fact. They have insight 
 and truthfulness ; they will not mask their convictions ; 
 they hate cant ; but more than this I do not readily 
 find. The gracious motions of the soul, piety, ado 
 ration, I do not find. Scorn of hypocrisy, pride of 
 personal character, elegance of taste and of manners 
 and pursuit, a boundless ambition of the intellect, will 
 ingness to sacrifice personal interests for the integrity 
 of the character, all these they have ; but that re 
 ligious submission and abandonment which give man 
 a new element and being, and make him sublime, it 
 is not in churches, it is not in houses. T see movement, 
 I hear aspirations, but I see not how the great God pre 
 pares to satisfy the heart in the new order of things. 
 No Church, no State emerges; and when we have ex 
 tricated ourselves from all the embarrassments of the 
 social problem, the oracle does not yet emit any light 
 on the mode of individual life. A thousand negatives 
 it utters, clear and strong, on all sides ; but the sacred 
 affirmative it hides in the deepest abyss. 
 
 We do not see that heroic resolutions will save men 
 from those tides which a most fatal moon heaps and 
 levels in the moral, emotive and intellectual nature. It 
 is certain that many dark hours, many imbecilities, 
 periods of inactivity, solstices when we make no prog 
 ress, but stand still, will occur. In those hours, we
 
 THE PREACHER. 173 
 
 ean find comfort in reverence of the highest power, and 
 only in that. We never do quite nothing, or never need. 
 It looks as if there were much doubt, much waiting, to 
 be endured by the best. Perhaps there must be austere 
 elections and determinations before any clear vision. 
 
 No age and no person is destitute of the sentiment, 
 but in actual history its illustrious exhibitions are inter 
 rupted and periodical, the ages of belief, of heroic 
 action, of intellectual activity, of men cast iii a higher 
 mould. 
 
 But the sentiment that pervades a nation, the nation 
 must react upon. It is resisted and corrupted by that 
 obstinate tendency to personify and bring under the 
 eyesight what should be the contemplation of Reason 
 alone. The Understanding will write out the vision in 
 a Confession of Faith. Art will embody this vanishing 
 Spirit in temples, pictures, sculptures and hymns. The 
 senses instantly transfer the reverence from the vanish 
 ing Spirit to this steadfast form. Ignoranoe and pas 
 sion alloy and degrade. In proportion to a man's want 
 of goodness, it seems to him another and not himself; 
 that is to say, the Deity becomes more objective, until 
 finally flat idolatry prevails. 
 
 Of course the virtuous sentiment appears arrayed 
 against the nominal religion, and the true men are 
 hunted as unbelievers, and burned. Then the good 
 sense of the people wakes up so far as to take tacit part 
 with them, to cast off reverence for the Church ; and 
 there follows an age of unbelief. 
 
 This analysis was inevitable and useful. But the 
 sober eye finds something ghastly in this empiricism. 
 At first, delighted with the triumph of the intellect, the 
 surprise of the results and the sense of power, we are
 
 174 THE PREACHER. 
 
 like hunters on the scent and soldiers who rush to bat 
 tle : but when the game is run down, when the enemy 
 lies cold in his blood at our feet, we are alarmed at our 
 solitude ; we would gladly recall the life that so of 
 fended us ; the face seems no longer that of an enemy. 
 
 I say the effect is withering ; for, this examination re 
 sulting in the constant detection of errors, the flattered 
 understanding assumes to judge all things, and to an 
 ticipate the same victories. In the activity of the un 
 derstanding, the sentiments sleep. The understanding 
 presumes in things above its sphere, and, because it has 
 exposed errors in a church, concludes that a church is 
 an error ; because it has found absurdities to which the 
 sentiment of veneration is attached, sneers at veneration ; 
 so that analysis has run to seed in unbelief. There is 
 no faith left. We laugh and hiss, pleased with our 
 power in making heaven and earth a howling wilder 
 ness. 
 
 Unlovely, nay, frightful, is the solitude of the soul 
 which is without God in the world. To wander all day 
 in the sunlight among the tribes of animals, unrelated 
 to anything better ; to behold the horse, cow and bird, 
 and to foresee an equal and speedy end to him and 
 them ; no, the bird, as it hurried by with its bold and 
 perfect flight, would disclaim his sympathy and declare 
 him an outcast. To see men pursuing in faith their va 
 ried action, warm-hearted, providing for their children, 
 loving their friends, performing their promises, what 
 are they to this chill, houseless, fatherless, aimless Cain, 
 the man who hears only the sound of his own footsteps 
 in God's resplendent creation ? To him, it is no crea 
 tion ; to him, these fair creatures are hapless spectres : 
 he knows not what to make of it. To him, heaven and
 
 THE PREACHER. 175 
 
 earth have lost their beauty. How gloomy is tha day, 
 and upon yonder shining pond what melancholy light ! 
 I cannot keep the sun in heaven, if you take away the 
 purpose that animates him. The ball, indeed, is there, 
 but his power to cheer, to illuminate the heart as well 
 as the atmosphere, is gone forever. It is a lamp-wick 
 for meanest uses. The words, great, venerable, have lost 
 their meaning; every thought loses all its depth and has 
 become mere surface. 
 
 But religion has an object. It does not grow thin or 
 robust with the health of the votary. The object of 
 adoration remains forever unhurt and identical. We 
 are in transition, from the worship of the fathers which 
 enshrined the law in a private and personal history, to 
 a worship which recognizes the true eternity of the law, 
 its presence to you and me, its equal energy in what is 
 called brute nature as in what is called sacred. The 
 next age will behold God in the ethical laws as man 
 kind begins to see them in this age, self -equal, self-ex 
 ecuting, instantaneous and self - affirmed ; needing no 
 voucher, no prophet and no miracle besides their own 
 irresistibility, and will regard natural history, private 
 fortunes and politics, not for themselves, as we have 
 done, but as illustrations of those laws, of that beati 
 tude and love. Nature is too thin a screen ; the glory 
 of the One breaks in everywhere. 
 
 Every movement of religious opinion is of profound 
 importance to politics and social life ; and this of to 
 day has the best omens as being of the most expansive 
 humanity, since it seeks to find in every nation and 
 creed the imperishable doctrines. I find myself always 
 struck and stimulated by a good anecdote, any trait of 
 heroism, of faithful service. I do not find that the age
 
 176 THE PREACHER. 
 
 or country makes the least difference ; no, nor the lan 
 guage the actors spoke, nor the religion which they pro 
 fessed, whether Arab in the desert, or Frenchman in the 
 Academy. I see that sensible men and conscientious 
 men all over the world were of one religion, the relig 
 ion of well-doing and daring, men of sturdy truth, men 
 of integrity and feeling for others. My inference is that 
 there is a statement of religion possible which makes all 
 skepticism absurd. 
 
 The health and welfare of man consist in ascent from 
 surfaces to solids; from occupation with details to 
 knowledge of the design; from self-activity of talents, 
 which lose their way by the lust of display, to the con 
 trolling and reinforcing of talents by the emanation of 
 character. All that we call religion, all that saints and 
 churches and Bibles from the beginning of the world 
 have aimed at, is to suppress this impertinent surface- 
 action, and animate man to central and entire action. 
 The human race are afflicted with a St. Vitus' dance ; 
 their fingers and toes, their members, their senses, their 
 talents, are supei-fluonsly active, while the torpid heart 
 gives no oracle. When that wakes, it will revolutionize 
 the world. Let that speak, and all these rebels will fly 
 to their loyalty. Nbw every man defeats his own ac 
 tion, professes this but practises the reverse ; with 
 one hand rows, and with the other backs water. A 
 man acts not from one motive, but from many shifting 
 fears and short motives ; it is as if he were ten or twenty 
 less men than himself, acting at discord with one 
 another, so that the result of most lives is zero. But 
 when he shall act from one motive, and all liis faculties 
 play true, it is clear mathematically, is it not, that this 
 will tell in the result as if twenty men had co-operated,
 
 THE PREACHER. 177 
 
 will give new senses, new wisdom of its own kind ; 
 that is, not more facts, nor new combinations, but divi 
 nation, or direct intuition of the state of men and 
 things ? 
 
 The lessons of the moral sentiment are, once for all, 
 an emancipation from that anxiety which takes the joy 
 out of all life. Tt teaches a great peace. It comes it 
 self from the highest place. It is that, which being in 
 all sound natures, and strongest in the best and most 
 gifted men, we know to be implanted by the Creator of 
 Men. It is a commandment at every moment and 
 in every condition of life to do the duty of that mo 
 ment and to abstain from doing the wrong. And it is 
 so near and inward and constitutional to each, that 
 no commandment can compare with it in authority. 
 All wise men regard it as the voice of the Creator him 
 self. 
 
 I know there are those to whom the question of what 
 shall be believed is the more interesting because they 
 are to proclaim and teach what they believe. 
 
 All positive rules, ceremonial, ecclesiastical, distinc 
 tions of race or of person, are perishable; only those 
 distinctions hold which are in the nature of things, not 
 matters of positive ordinance. As the earth we stand 
 upon is not imperishable, but is chemically resolvable 
 into gases and nebulae, so is the universe an infinite 
 series of planes, each of which is a false bottom ; and, 
 when we tliink our feet are planted now at last on ad&- 
 mant, the slide is drawn out from under us. 
 
 We must reconcile ourselves to the new order of 
 
 things. But is it a calamity ? The poet Wordsworth 
 
 greeted even the steam-engine and railroads ; and when 
 
 they came into his poetic Westmoreland, bisecting every 
 
 12
 
 178 THE PREACHER. 
 
 delightful valley, deforming every consecrated grove, 
 yet manned himself to say : 
 
 " In spite of all that Beauty may disown 
 In your harsh features, Nature doth embrace 
 Her lawful offspring iu man's art, and Time, 
 Pleased with your triumphs o'er his brother Space, 
 Accepts from your bold hands the proffered crown 
 Of hope, and smiles on you with cheer sublime." 
 
 And we can keep our religion, despite of the violent 
 railroads of generalization, whether French or German, 
 that block and intersect our old parish highways. 
 
 In matters of religion, men eagerly fasten their eyes 
 on the differences between their creed and yours, whilst 
 the charm of the study is in finding the agreements and 
 identities in all the religions of men. What is essen 
 tial to the theologian is, that whilst he is select in his 
 opinions, severe in his search for truth, he shall be broad 
 in his sympathies , not to allow himself to be excluded 
 from any church. He is to claim for his own whatever 
 eloquence of St. Chrysostom or St. Jerome or St. Ber 
 nard he has felt. So not less of Bishop Taylor or 
 George Herbert or Henry Scougal. He sees that what 
 is most effective in the writer is what is dear to his, the 
 reader's, mind. 
 
 Be not betrayed into undervaluing the churches which 
 annoy you by their bigoted claims. They too were real 
 churches. They answered to their times the same need 
 as your rejection of them does to ours. The Catholic 
 Church has been immensely rich in men and influences. 
 Augustine, a Kempis, Fenelon, breathe the very spirit 
 which now fires you. So with Cudworth, Moore, Bun- 
 yan. I agree with them more than I disagree. I agree 
 with their heart and motive ; my discontent is with their 
 limitations and surface and language. Their statement
 
 THE PREACHER. 179 
 
 is grown as fabulous as Dante's Inferno. Their purpose 
 is as real as Dante's sentiment and hatred of vice. Al 
 ways put the best interpretation on a tenet. Why not 
 on Christianity, wholesome, sweet and poetic ? It is 
 the record of a pure and holy soul, humble, absolutely 
 disinterested, a truth - speaker and bent on serving, 
 teaching and uplifting men. Christianity taught the 
 capacity, the element, to love the All-perfect without a 
 stingy bargain for personal happiness. It taught that 
 to love him was happiness, to love him in other's 
 virtues. 
 
 An era in human history is the life of Jesus ; and the 
 immense influence for good leaves all the perversion 
 and superstition almost harmless. Mankind have been 
 subdued to the acceptance of his doctrine, and cannot 
 spare the benefit of so pure a servant of truth and love. 
 
 Of course a hero so attractive to the hearts of mil 
 lions drew the hypocrite and the ambitious into his 
 train, and they used his name to falsify his history and 
 undo his work. I fear that what is called religion, but 
 is perhaps pew -holding, not obeys but conceals the 
 moral sentiment. I put it to this simple test : Is a rich 
 rogue made to feel his roguery among divines or liter 
 ary men ? No ? Then 't is rogue again under the cas 
 sock. What sort of respect can these preachers or 
 newspapers inspire by their weekly praises of texts and 
 saints, when we know that they would say just the same 
 things if Beelzebub had written the chapter, provided it 
 stood where it does in the public opinion ? 
 
 Anything but unbelief, anything but losing hold of 
 the moral intuitions, as betrayed in the clinging to a 
 form of devotion or a theological dogma ; as if it was 
 the liturgy, or the chapel, thaf was sacred, and not
 
 180 THE PREACHER. 
 
 justice and humility and the loving heart and serving 
 hand. 
 
 But besides the passion and interest which pervert; 
 is the shallowness which impoverishes. The opinions 
 of men lose all worth to him who perceives that they 
 are accurately predictable from the ground of their 
 sect. Nothing is more rare, in any man, than an act 
 of his own. The clergy are as like as peas. I cannot 
 tell them apart. It was said : They have bronchitis 
 because they read from their papers sermons with a 
 near voice, and then, looking at the congregation, they 
 try to speak with their far voice, and the shock is nox 
 ious. I think they do this, or the converse of this, 
 with their thought. They look into Plato, or into the 
 mind, and then try to make parish mince-meat of the 
 amplitudes and eternities, and the shock is noxious. It 
 is the old story again : once we had wooden chalices 
 and golden priests, now we have golden chalices and 
 wooden priests. 
 
 The clergy are always in danger of becoming wards 
 and pensioners of the so-called producing classes. Their 
 first duty is self-possession founded on knowledge. The 
 man of practice or worldly force requires of the preacher 
 a talent, a force, like his own ; the same as his own, 
 but wholly applied to the priest's things. He does not 
 forgive an application in the preacher to the merchant's 
 things. He wishes him to be such a one as he himself 
 should have been, had he been priest. He is sincere 
 and ardent in his vocation, and plunged in it. Let 
 priest or poet be as good in theirs. 
 
 The simple fact that the pulpit exists, that all over 
 this country the people are waiting to hear a sermon on 
 Sunday, assures that opportunity which is inestimable
 
 THE PREACHER. 181 
 
 to young men, students of theology, for those large 
 liberties. The existence of the Sunday, and the pulpit 
 waiting for a weekly sermon, give him the very con 
 ditions, the irov err< he wants. That must be filled, and 
 he is armed to fill it. Let him value his talent as a 
 door into Nature. Let him see his performances only 
 as limitations. Then, over all, let him value the sensi 
 bility that receives, that loves, that dares, that affirms. 
 
 There are always plenty of young, ignorant people, 
 though some of them are seven, and some of them 
 seventy years old, wanting peremptorily instruction; 
 but, in the usual averages of parishes, only one person 
 that is qualified to give it. It is only that person who 
 concerns me, him only that I see. The others are 
 very amiable and promising, but they are only neuters 
 in the hive, every one a possible royal bee, but not 
 now significant. It does not signify what they say or 
 think to-day ; 't is the cry and the babble of the nurs 
 ery, and their only virtue, docility. Buckminster, Chan- 
 ning, Dr. Lowell, Edward Taylor, Parker, Bushnell, 
 Chapin, it is they who have been necessary, and the 
 opinions of the tlo.iting crowd of no importance whatever. 
 
 I do not love sensation preaching, the personali 
 ties for spite, the hurrah for our side, the review of our 
 appearances and what others say of us ! That you may 
 read in the gazette. We come to church properly for 
 self-examination, for approach to principles to see how 
 it stands with us, with the deep and dear facts of right 
 and love. At the same time it is impossible to pay no 
 regard to the day's events, to the public opinion of the 
 times, to the stirring shouts of parties, to the calamities 
 and prosperities of our town and country ; to war and 
 peace, new events, great personages, to good harvests,
 
 182 THE PREACHER. 
 
 new resources, to bankruptcies, famines and desolations. 
 We are not stocks or stones, we are not thinking ma 
 chines, but allied to men around us, as really though 
 not quite so visibly as the Siamese brothers. And it 
 were inhuman to affect ignorance or indifference on 
 Sundays to what makes our blood beat and our coun 
 tenance dejected Saturday or Monday. No, these are 
 fair tests to try our doctrines by, and see if they are 
 worth anything in life. The value of a principle is the 
 number of things it will explain ; and there is no good 
 theory of disease which does not at once suggest a cure. 
 
 Man proposes, but God disposes. We shall not very 
 long have any part or lot in this earth, in whose affairs 
 we so hotly mix, and where we feel and speak so ener 
 getically of our country and our cause. It is a com 
 fort to reflect that the gigantic evils which seem to us 
 so mischievous and so incurable will at last end them 
 selves and rid the world of their presence, as all crime 
 sooner or later must. But be that event for us soon or 
 late, we are not excused from playing our short part in 
 the best manner we can, no matter how insignificant 
 our aid may be. Our children will be here, if we are 
 not; and their children's history will be colored by our 
 action. But if we have no children, or if the events in 
 which we have taken our part shall not see their solu 
 tion until a distant future, there is yet a deeper fact ; 
 that as much justice as we can see and practise is use 
 ful to men, and imperative, whether we can see it to be 
 useful or not. 
 
 The essential ground of a new book or a new sermon 
 is a new spirit. The author has a new thought, sees 
 the sweep of a more comprehensive tendency than others 
 are aware of ; falters never, but takes the victorious
 
 THE PREACHER. 183 
 
 tone. For power is not so much shown in talent as in 
 tone. And if I had to counsel a young preacher, I 
 should say : When there is any difference felt between 
 the foot-board of the pulpit and the floor of the parlor, 
 you have not yet said that which you should say. 
 
 Inspiration will have advance, affirmation, the for 
 ward foot, the ascending state ; it will be an opener of 
 doors ; it will invent its own methods : the new wine will 
 make the bottles new. Spirit is motive and ascending. 
 Only let there be a deep observer, and he will make 
 light of new shop and new circumstance that afflict 
 you ; new shop, or old cathedral, it is all one to him. 
 He will find the circumstance not altered, as deep a 
 cloud of mystery on the cause, as dazzling a glory on 
 the invincible law. Given the insight, and he will find 
 as many beauties and heroes and strokes of genius close 
 by him as Dante or Shakspeare beheld. A vivid thought 
 brings the power to paint it ; and in proportion to the 
 depth of its source is the force of its projection. We 
 are happy and enriched ; we go away invigorated, as 
 sisted each in our own work, however different, and 
 shall not forget to come again for new impulses. 
 
 The supposed embarrassments to young clergymen 
 exist only to feeble wills. They need not consider them. 
 The differences of opinion, the strength of old sects or 
 timorous literalists, since it is not armed with prisons 
 or fagots as in ruder times or countries, is not worth 
 considering except as furnishing a needed stimulus. 
 That gray deacon or respectable matron with Calvin- 
 istic antecedents, you can readily see, could not have 
 presented any obstacle to the march of St. Bernard or 
 of George Fox, of Luther or of Theodore Parker. And 
 though I observe the deafness to counsel among men,
 
 184 THE PREACHER. 
 
 yet the power of sympathy is always great ; and affirm 
 ative discourse, presuming assent, will often obtain it 
 when argument would fail. Such, too, is the active 
 power of good temperament. Great sweetness of tem 
 per neutralizes such vast amounts of acid ! As for 
 position, the position is always the same, insulting 
 the timid, and not taken by storm, but flanked, I may 
 say, by the resolute, simply by minding their own affair. 
 Speak the affirmative ; emphasize your choice by utter 
 ignoring of all that you reject ; seeing that opinions are 
 temporary, but convictions uniform and eternal, see 
 ing that a sentiment never loses its pathos or its per 
 suasion, but is youthful after a thousand years. 
 
 The inevitable course of remark for us. when we meet 
 each other for meditation on life and duty, is not so 
 much the enjoining of this or that cure or burning out 
 of our errors of practice, as simply the celebration of 
 the power and beneficence amid which and by which we 
 live, not critical, but affirmative. 
 
 All civil mankind have agreed in leaving one day for 
 contemplation against six for practice. I hope that day 
 will keep its honor and its use. A wise man advises 
 that we should see to it that we read and speak two or 
 three reasonable words, every day, amid the crowd of 
 affairs and the noise of trifles. I should say boldly that 
 we should astonish every day by a beam out of eternity ; 
 retire a moment to the grand secret we carry in our 
 bosom, of inspiration from heaven. But certainly on 
 this seventh let us be the children of liberty, of reason, 
 of hope ; refresh the sentiment ; think as spirits think, 
 who belong to the universe, whilst our feet walk in the 
 streets of a little town and our hands work in a small 
 knot of affairs. We shall find one result, I am sure,
 
 THE PREACHER. 185 
 
 a certain originality and a certain haughty liberty 
 proceeding out of our retirement and self-communion, 
 which streets can never give, infinitely removed from 
 all vaporing and bravado, and which yet is more than a 
 match for any physical resistance. It is true that which 
 they say of our New England cestrum, which will never 
 let us stand or sit, but drives us like mad through the 
 world. The calmest and most protected life cannot 
 save us. We want some intercalated days, to bethink 
 us and to derive order to our life from the heart. That 
 should be the use of the Sabbath, to check this head 
 long racing and put us in possession of ourselves once 
 more, for love or for shame. 
 
 The Sabbath changes its forms from age to age, but 
 the substantial benefit endures. We no longer recite 
 the old creeds of Athanasius or Arius, of Calvin or 
 Hopkins. The forms are flexible, but the uses not less 
 real. The old heart remains as ever with its old human 
 duties. The old intellect still lives, to pierce the shows 
 to the core. Truth is simple, and will not be antique ; 
 is ever present, and insists on being of this age and of 
 this moment. Here is thought and love and truth and 
 duty, new as on the first day of Adam and of angels. 
 
 " There are two pairs of eyes in man ; and it is req 
 uisite that the pair which are beneath should be closed 
 when the pair that are above them perceive ; and that 
 when the pair above are closed, those which are be 
 neath are opened." The lower eyes see only surfaces 
 and effects, the upper eyes behold causes and the con 
 nection of things. And when we go alone, or come into 
 the house of thought and worship, we come with pur 
 pose to be disabused of appearances, to see realities, the 
 great lines of our destiny, to see that life has no caprice
 
 186 THE PREACHER. 
 
 or fortune, is no hopping squib, but a growth after im 
 mutable laws under beneficent influences the most im 
 mense. The Church is open to great and small in all 
 nations ; and how rare and lofty, how unattainable, are 
 the aims it labors to set before men ! We come to 
 educate, come to isolate, to be abstractionists ; in fine, 
 to open the upper eyes to the deep mystery of cause 
 and effect, to know that though ministers of justice and 
 power fail, Justice and Power fail never. The open 
 secret of the world is the art of subliming a private soul 
 with inspirations from the great and public and divine 
 Soul from which we live.
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 ON Bravely through the sunshine and the showers, 
 Time hath his work to do, and we have ours.
 
 So nigh is grandeur to our dust, 
 
 So near is (ioa to man ; 
 When Duty whispers low ' Thou must,- 
 
 The youth replies, ' I can.'
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 IK ADDKESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE UTMtARY SOCIETIES OF WATERVILLE 
 COLLEGE, 1863. 
 
 GENTLEMEN OF THE LITERARY SOCIETIES: 
 
 Some of you are to-day saying your farewells to each 
 other, and to-morrow will receive the parting honors 
 of the College. You go to be teachers, to become phy 
 sicians, lawyers, divines ; in due course, statesmen, nat 
 uralists, philanthropists ; I hope, some of you, to be the 
 men of letters, critics, philosophers ; perhaps the rare 
 gift of poetry already sparkles, and may yet burn. At 
 all events, before the shadows of these times darken 
 over your youthful sensibility and candor, let me use 
 the occasion which your kind request gives me, to offer 
 you some counsels which an old scholar may without 
 pretension bring to youth, in regard to the career of 
 letters, the power and joy that belong to it, and its 
 high office in evil times. I offer perpetual congratula 
 tion to the scholar ; he has drawn the white lot in life. 
 The very disadvantages of his condition point at superi 
 orities. He is too good for the world ; he is in advance 
 of his race ; his function is prophetic. He belongs to 
 a superior society, and is born one or two centuries too 
 early for the rough and sensual population into which 
 he is throwu. But the Heaven which seut him hither
 
 100 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 knew that well enough, and sent him as a leader to 
 lead. Are men perplexed with evil times ? The invi 
 olate soul is in perpetual telegraphic communication 
 with the source of events. He has earlier information, 
 a private despatch which relieves him of the terror 
 which prasses on the rest of the community. He is a 
 learner of the laws of nature and the experiences of 
 history ; a prophet surrendered with self-abandoning 
 sincerity to the Heaven which pours through him its 
 will to mankind. 
 
 This is the theory, but you know how far this is from 
 the fact, that nothing has been able to resist the tide with 
 which the material prosperity of America in years past 
 has beat down the hope of youth, the piety of learning. 
 The country was full of activity, with its wheat, coal, 
 iron, cotton ; the wealth of the globe was here, too much 
 work and not men enough to do it. Britain, France, 
 Germany, Scandinavia sent millions of laborers ; still 
 the need was more. Every kind of skill was in de 
 mand, and the bribe came to men of intellectual culture, 
 Come, drudge in our mill. America at large exhib 
 ited such a confusion as California showed in 1849, when 
 the cry of gold was first raised. All the distinctions of 
 profession and habit ended at the mines. All the world 
 took off their coats and worked in shirt-sleeves. Law 
 yers went and came with pick and wheelbarrow; doc 
 tors of medicine turned teamsters ; stray clergymen 
 kept the bar in saloons ; professors of colleges sold ci 
 gars, mince-pies, matches, and so on. It is th'e perpet 
 ual tendency of wealth to draw on the spiritual class, 
 not in this coarse way, but in plausible and covert ways. 
 It is charged that all vigorous nations, except our own, 
 have balanced their labor by mental activity, and espe-
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 191 
 
 cially by the imagination, the cardinal human power, 
 the angel of earnest and believing ages. The subtle 
 Hindoo, who carried religion to ecstasy and philosophy 
 to idealism, produced the wonderful epics of which, in 
 the present century, the translations have added new 
 regions to thought. The Egyptian built Thebes and 
 Karnak on a scale which dwarfs our art, and by the 
 paintings on their interior walls invited us into the secret 
 of the religious belief whence he drew such power. The 
 Greek was so perfect in action and in imagination, his 
 poems, from Homer to Euripides, so charming in form 
 and so true to the human mind, that we cannot forget 
 or outgrow their mythology. The Hebrew nation com 
 pensated for the insignificance of its members and ter 
 ritory by its religious genius, its tenacious belief; its 
 poems and histories cling to the soil of this globe like 
 the primitive rocks. On the south and east shores of 
 the Mediterranean, Mahomet impressed his fierce genius 
 how deeply into the manners, language and poetry of 
 Arabia and Persia ! See the activity of the imagination 
 in the Crusades : the front of morn was full of fiery 
 shapes ; the chasm was bridged over ; heaven walked 
 on earth, and Earth could see with eyes the Paradise 
 and the Inferno. Dramatic " mysteries " were the en 
 tertainment of the people. Parliaments of Love and 
 Poesy served them, instead of the House of Commons, 
 Congress and the newspapers. In Puritanism, how the 
 whole Jewish history became flesh and blood in those 
 men, let Bunyan show. Now it is agreed that we are 
 utilitarian ; that we are skeptical, frivolous ; that with 
 universal cheap education we have stringent theology, 
 but religion is low. There is much criticism, not on 
 deep grounds, but an affirmative philosophy is wanting.
 
 192 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 Our profoundest philosophy (if it were not contradiction 
 in terms) is skepticism. The great poem of the age 
 is the disagreeable poem of " Faust," of which the 
 " Festus " of Bailey and the " Paracelsus " of Brown 
 ing are English variations. We have superficial sci 
 ences, restless, gossiping, aimless activity. We run to 
 Paris, to London, to Rome, to Mesmerism, Spiritualism, 
 to Pusey, to the Catholic Church, as if for the want of 
 thought, and those who would check and guide have a 
 dreary feeling that in the change and decay of the old 
 creeds and motives there was no offset to supply their 
 place. Our industrial skill, arts ministering to conven 
 ience and luxury, have made life expensive, and there 
 fore greedy, careful, anxious ; have turned the eyes 
 downward to the earth, not upward to thought. 
 
 Ernest Renan finds that Europe has thrice assembled 
 for exhibitions of industry, and not a poem graced the 
 occasion ; and nobody remarked the defect. A French 
 prophet of our age, Fourier, predicted that one day, 
 instead of by battles and (Ecumenical Councils, the 
 rival portions of humanity would dispute each other's 
 excellence in the manufacture of little cakes. 
 
 " In my youth," said a Scotch mountaineer, " a 
 Highland gentleman measured his importance by the 
 number of men his domain could support. After some 
 time the question was, to know how many great cat 
 tle it would feed. To-day we are come to count the 
 number of sheep. I suppose posterity will ask how 
 many rats and mice it will feed." 
 
 Dickens complained that in America, as soon as he 
 arrived in any of the Western towns, a committee 
 waited on him and invited him to deliver a temperance 
 lecture. Bowditch translated Laplace, and when he
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 193 
 
 removed to Boston, the Hospital Life Assurance Com 
 pany insisted that he should make their tables of annu 
 ities. Napoleon knows the art of war, but should not 
 be put on picket duty. Linnseus or Robert Brown 
 must not be set to raise gooseberries and cucumbers, 
 though they be excellent botanists. A shrewd broker 
 out of State Street visited a quiet countryman possessed 
 of all the virtues, and in his glib talk said, " With your 
 character now I could raise all this money at once, and 
 make an excellent thing of it." 
 
 There is an oracle current in the world, that nations 
 die by suicide. The sign of it is the decay of thought. 
 Niebuhr has given striking examples of that fatal por 
 tent ; as in the loss of power of thought that followed 
 the disasters of the Athenians in Sicily. 
 
 I cannot forgive a scholar his homeless despondency. 
 He represents intellectual or spiritual force. I wish 
 him to rely on the spiritual arm ; to live by his strength, 
 not by his weakness. A scholar defending the cause of 
 slavery, of arbitrary government, of monopoly, of the 
 oppressor, is a traitor to his profession. He has ceased 
 to be a scholar. He is not company for clean people. 
 The worst times only show him how independent he is 
 of times ; only relieve and bring out the splendor of his 
 privilege. Disease alarms the family, but the physi 
 cian sees in it a temporary mischief, which he can check 
 and expel. The. fears and agitations of men who watch 
 the markets, the crops, the plenty or scarcity of money, 
 or other superficial events, are not for him. He knows 
 that the world is always equal to itself ; that the forces 
 which uphold and pervade it are eternal. Air, water, 
 fire, iron, gold, wheat, eiectricity, animal fibre, have not 
 lost a particle of power, and no decay has crept over the 
 13
 
 194 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 spiritual force which gives bias and period to boundless 
 nature. Bad times, what are bad times ? Nature is 
 rich, exuberant, and mocks at the puny forces of destruc 
 tion. Man makes no more impression on her wealth 
 than the caterpillar or the cankerworm whose petty 
 ravage, though noticed in an orchard or a village, is 
 insignificant in the vast exuberance of the summer. 
 There is no unemployed force in Nature. All decom 
 position is recomposition. War disorganizes, but it is 
 to reorganize. Weeks, months pass a new harvest ; 
 trade springs up, and there stand new cities, new homes, 
 all rebuilt and sleepy with permanence. Italy, France, 
 a hundred times those countries have been trampled 
 with armies and burned over : a few summers, and they 
 smile with plenty and yield new men and new revenues. 
 
 If churches are effete, it is because the new Heaven 
 forms. You are here as the carriers of the power of 
 Nature, as Roger Bacon, with his secret of gun 
 powder, with his secret of the balloon and of steam ; as 
 Copernicus, with his secret of the true astronomy ; as 
 Columbus, with America in his log-book ; as Newton, 
 with his gravity ; Harvey, with his circulation ; Smith, 
 with his law of trade ; Franklin, with lightning ; Adams, 
 with Independence ; Kant, with pure reason ; Sweden- 
 borg, with his spiritual world. You are the carriers of 
 ideas which are to fashion the mind and so the history 
 of this breathing world, so as they shall be, and not 
 otherwise. 
 
 Every man is a scholar potentially, and does not need 
 any one good so much as this of right thought. 
 
 "Calm pleasures here abide, majestic pains." 
 
 Coleridge traces " three silent revolutions," of which
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 195 
 
 the first was " when the clergy fell from the Church." 
 A scholar was once a priest. But the Church clung to 
 ritual, and the scholar clung to joy, low as well as high, 
 and thus the separation was a mutual fault. But I 
 think it is a schism which must be healed. The true 
 scholar is the Church. Only the duties of Intellect 
 must be owned. Down with these dapper trimmers 
 and sycophants ! let us have masculine and divine men, 
 formidable lawgivers, Pythagoras, Plato, Aristotle, who 
 warp the churches of the world from their traditions, 
 and penetrate them through and through with original 
 perception. The intellectual man lives in perpetual 
 victory. As certainly as water falls in rain on the tops 
 of mountains and runs down into valleys, plains and 
 pits, so does thought fall first on the best minds, and 
 run down, from class to class, until it reaches the 
 masses, and works revolutions. 
 
 Nature says to the American : " I understand men 
 suration and numbers ; I compute the ellipse of the 
 moon, the ebb and flow of waters, the curve and the 
 errors of planets, the balance of attraction and recoil. 
 I have measured out to you by weight and tally the 
 powers you need. I give you the land and sea, the 
 forest and the mine, the elemental forces, nervous 
 energy. When I add difficulty, I add brain. See to it 
 that you hold and administer the continent for mankind. 
 One thing you have rightly done. You have offered a 
 patch of land in the wilderness to every son of Adam 
 who will till it. Other things you have begun to do, 
 to strike off the chains whicli snuffling hypocrites had 
 bound on the weaker race. You are to imperil your 
 lives and fortunes for a principle. The ambassador is 
 held to maintain the dignity of the Republic which he
 
 196 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 represents. But what does the scholar represent ? 
 The organ of ideas, the subtle force which creates Na 
 ture and men and states ; consoler, upholder, impart 
 ing pulses of light and shocks of electricity, guidance 
 and courage. So let his habits be formed, and all his 
 economies heroic ; no spoiled child, no drone, no epicure, 
 but a stoic, formidable, athletic, knowing how to be 
 poor, loving labor, and not flogging his youthful wit 
 with tobacco and wine; treasuring his youth. I wish 
 the youth to be an armed and complete man ; no help 
 less angel to be slapped in the face, but a man dipped 
 in the Styx of human experience, and made invulner 
 able so, self-helping. A redeeming trait of the Soph 
 ists of Athens, Hippias and Gorgias, is that they made 
 their own clothes and shoes. Learn to harness a horse, 
 to row a boat, to camp down in the woods, to cook your 
 supper. I chanced lately to be at West Point, and, 
 after attending the examination in scientific classes, I 
 went into the barracks. The chamber was in perfect 
 order ; the mattress on the iron camp-bed rolled up, as 
 if ready for removal. I asked the first Cadet, " Who 
 makes your bed ? " "I do." "Who fetches your wa 
 ter ? " "I do." " Who blacks your shoes ? " "I do." 
 It was so in every room. These are first steps to power. 
 Learn of Samuel Johnson or David Hume, that it is a 
 primary duty of the man of letters to secure his inde 
 pendence. 
 
 Stand by your order. 'T is some thirty years since 
 the days of the Reform Bill in England, when on the 
 walls in London you read everywhere placards, " Down 
 with the Lords." At that time, Earl Grey, who was 
 leader of Reform, was asked, in Parliament, his policy 
 on the measures of the Radicals. He replied, " I shall
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 197 
 
 stand by my order." Where there is no vision, the peo 
 ple perish. The fault lies with the educated class, the 
 men of study and thought. There is a very low feeling 
 of duty : the merchant is true to the merchant, the noble 
 in England and Europe stands by his order, the poli 
 tician believes in his arts and combinations; but the 
 scholar does not stand by his order, but defers to the 
 men of this world. 
 
 Gentlemen, I am here to commend to you your art 
 and profession as thinkers. It is real. It is the secret 
 of power. It is the art of command. All superiority 
 is this, or related to this. " All that the world admires 
 comes from within." Thought makes us men ; ranks 
 us ; distributes society ; distributes the work of the 
 world ; is the prolific source of all arts, of all wealth, of 
 all delight, of all grandeur. Men are as they believe. 
 Men are as they think, and the man who knows any 
 truth not yet discerned by other men, is master of all 
 other men so far as that truth and its wide relations are 
 concerned. 
 
 Intellect measures itself by its counteraction to any 
 accumulation of material force. There is no mass which 
 it cannot surmount and dispose of. The exertions of 
 this force are the eminent experiences, out of a long 
 life all that is worth remembering. These are the mo 
 ments that balance years. Does any one doubt between 
 the strength of a thought and that of an institution ? 
 Does any one doubt that a good general is better than a 
 park of artillery ? See a political revolution dogging 
 a book. See armies, institutions, literatures, appearing 
 in the train of some wild Arabian's dream. 
 
 There is a proverb that Napoleon, when the Mame 
 luke cavalry approached the French lines, ordered the
 
 198 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 grenadiers to the front, and the asses and the savans 
 to fall into the hollow square. It made a good story, 
 and circulated in that day. But how stands it now ? 
 The military expedition was a failure. Bonaparte him 
 self deserted, and the army got home as it could, all 
 fruitless ; not a trace of it remains. All that is left of 
 it is the researches of those savans on the antiquities of 
 Egypt, including the great work of Denon, which led 
 the way to all the subsequent studies of the English and 
 German scholars on that foundation. Pytheas of .ZEgina 
 was victor in the Pancratium of the boys, at the Isth 
 mian games. He came to the poet Pindar and wished 
 him to write an ode in his praise, and inquired what 
 was the price of a poem. Pindar replied that he should 
 give him one talent, about a thousand dollars of our 
 money. " A talent ! " cried Pytheas ; " why, for so much 
 money I can erect a statue of bronze in the temple." 
 " Very likely." On second thoughts, he returned and 
 paid for the poem. And now not only all the statues 
 of bronze in the temples of -ZEgina are destroyed, but 
 the temples themselves, and the very walls of the city 
 are utterly gone, whilst the ode of Pindar, in praise of 
 Pytheas, remains entire. 
 
 The treachery of scholars ! They are idealists, and 
 should stand for freedom, justice and public good. 
 The scholar is bound to stand for all the virtues and all 
 the liberties, liberty of trade, liberty of the press, 
 liberty of religion, and he should open all the prizes 
 of success and all the roads of Nature to free competi 
 tion. 
 
 The country complains loudly of the inefficiency of 
 the army. It was badly led. But, before this, it was 
 not the army alone, it was the population that was badly
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 199 
 
 led. The clerisy, the spiritual guides, the scholars, the 
 seers have been false to their trust. 
 
 Rely on yourself. There is respect due to your teach 
 ers, but every age is new, and has problems to solve, in 
 soluble by the last age. Men over forty are no judges of 
 a book written in a new spirit. Neither your teachers, 
 nor the universal teachers, the laws, the customs or dog 
 mas of nations, neither saint nor sage, can compare with 
 that counsel which is open to you. No, it is not na 
 tions, no, nor even masters, not at last a few individuals 
 or any heroes, but himself only, the large equality to 
 truth of a single mind, as if, in the narrow walls of 
 a human heart, the wide realm of truth, the world of 
 morals, the tribunal by which the universe is judged, 
 found room to exist. 
 
 Our people have this levity and complaisance, they 
 fear to offend, do not wish to be misunderstood ; do not 
 wish, of all things, to be in the minority. God and Na 
 ture are altogether sincere, and Art should be as sin 
 cere. It is not enough that the work should show a 
 skilful hand, ingenious contrivance and admirable polish 
 and finish ; it should have a commanding motive in the 
 time and condition in which it was made. We should 
 see in it the great belief of the artist, which caused him 
 to make it so as he did, and not otherwise ; nothing 
 frivolous, nothing that he might do or not do, as he 
 chose, but somewhat that must be done then and there 
 by him ; he could not take his neck out of that yoke, 
 and save his soul. And this design must shine through 
 the whole performance. Sincerity is, in dangerous times, 
 discovered to be an immeasurable advantage. I dis 
 trust all the legends of great accomplishments or per 
 formance of unprincipled men. Very little reliance
 
 200 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 
 
 must be put on the common stories that circulate of this 
 great senator's or that great barrister's learning, their 
 Greek, their varied literature. That ice won't bear. 
 Reading ! do you mean that this senator or this law 
 yer, who stood by and allowed the passage of infamous 
 laws, was a reader of Greek books ? That is not the 
 question ; but to what purpose did they read ? I allow 
 them the merit of that reading which appears in their 
 opinions, tastes, beliefs and practice. They read that 
 they might know, did they not ? Well, these men did 
 not know. They blundered ; they were utterly igno 
 rant of that which every boy or girl of fifteen knows 
 perfectly, the rights of men and women. And this 
 big-mouthed talker, among his dictionaries and Leipsic 
 editions of Lysias, had lost his knowledge. But the 
 President of the Bank nods to the President of the In 
 surance Office, and relates that at Virginia Springs this 
 idol of the forum exhausted a trunkf nl of classic authors. 
 There is always the previous question, How came you 
 on that side ? You are a very elegant writer, but you 
 can't write up what gravitates down. 
 
 It is impossible to extricate one's self from the ques 
 tions in which our age is involved. All of us have 
 shared the new enthusiasm of country and of liberty 
 which swept like a whirlwind through all souls at the 
 outbreak of war, and brought, by ennobling us, an off 
 set for its calamity. 
 
 War, seeking for the roots of strength, comes upon 
 the moral aspects at once. In quiet times, custom sti 
 fles this discussion as sentimental, and brings in the 
 brazen devil, as by immemorial right. The war uplifted 
 us into generous sentiments. War ennobles the age. We 
 do not often have a moment of grandeur in these hur-
 
 THE MAN OF LETTERS. 201 
 
 ried, slipshod lives, but the behavior of the young men 
 has taught us much. We will not again disparage 
 America, now that we have seen what men it will bear. 
 Battle, with the sword, has cut many a Gordian knot in 
 twain which all the wit of East and West, of Northern 
 and Border statesmen could not untie. 
 
 I learn with joy and with deep respect that this col 
 lege has sent its full quota to the field. I learn with 
 grief, but with honoring pain, that you have had your 
 sufferers in the battle, and that the noble youth have 
 returned wounded and maimed. The times are dark, 
 but heroic. The times develop the strength they need. 
 Boys are heroes. Women have shown a tender patriot 
 ism and inexhaustible charity. And on each new threat 
 of faction, the ballot of the people has been unexpect 
 edly right. But the issues already appearing overpay 
 the cost. Slavery is broken, and, if we use our advan 
 tage, irretrievably. For such a gain, to end once for 
 all that pest of all our free institutions, one generation 
 might well be sacrificed ; perhaps it will ; that this con 
 tinent be purged and a new era of equal rights dawn on 
 the universe. Who would not, if it could be made cer 
 tain that the new morning of universal liberty should 
 rise on our race by the perishing of one generation, 
 who would not consent to die ?
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 FOR thought, and not praise, 
 
 Thought is the wages 
 For which I sell days, 
 
 Will gladly sell ages 
 
 And willing grow old. 
 
 Deaf and dumb, blind and cold, 
 Melting matter into dreams, 
 
 Panoramas which I saw, 
 And whatever glows or seems 
 
 Into substance, into Law.
 
 THE sun and moon shall fall amain 
 Like sowers' seeds into his brain, 
 There quickened to be born again.
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 AN ORATION DELIVERED BEFORE THE WASHINGTON AND JEFFERSON SOCIETIES 
 AT TUB UNIVERSITY OP VIRGINIA, 28TH JUNE, 1876. 
 
 GENTLEMEN : 
 
 The Athenians took an oath, on a certain crisis in 
 their affairs, to esteem wheat, the vine and the olive the 
 bounds of Attica. The territory of scholars is yet 
 larger. A stranger but yesterday to every person pres 
 ent, I find myself already at home, for the society of 
 lettered men is a university which does not bound it 
 self with the walls of one cloister or college, but gath 
 ers in the distant and solitary student into its strictest 
 amity. Literary men gladly acknowledge these ties 
 which find for the homeless and the stranger a welcome 
 where least looked for. But in proportion as we are 
 conversant with the laws of life, we have seen the like. 
 We are used to these surprises. This is but one oper 
 ation of a more general law. As in coming among 
 strange faces we find that the love of letters makes us 
 friends, so in strange thoughts, in the worldly habits 
 which harden us, we find with some surprise that learn 
 ing and truth and beauty have not let us go ; that the 
 spiritual nature is too strong for us ; that those excel 
 lent influences which men in all ages have called the 
 Muse, or by some kindred name, come in to keep us
 
 206 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 warm and true ; that the face of Nature remains irre 
 sistibly alluring. We have strayed from the territo 
 rial monuments of Attica, but here still are wheat and 
 olives and the vine. 
 
 I do not now refer to that intellectual conscience which 
 forms itself in tender natures, and gives us many twinges 
 for our sloth and unf aithf ulness : the influence I speak 
 of is of a higher strain. Stung by this intellectual con 
 science, we go to measure our tasks as scholars, and screw 
 ourselves up to energy and fidelity, and our sadness is 
 suddenly overshone by a sympathy of blessing. Beauty, 
 the inspirer, the cheerful festal principle, the leader of 
 gods and men. which draws by being beautiful, and not 
 by considerations of advantage, comes in and puts a 
 new face on the world. I think the peculiar office of 
 scholars in a careful and gloomy generation is to be (as 
 the poets were called in the Middle Ages) Professors of 
 the Joyous Science, detectors and delineators of oc 
 cult symmetries and unpublished beauties ; heralds of 
 civility, nobility, learning and wisdom ; affirmers of the 
 one law, yet as those who should affirm it in music and 
 dancing ; expressors themselves of that firm and cheer 
 ful temper, infinitely removed from sadness, which 
 reigns through the kingdoms of chemistry, vegetation, 
 and animal life. Every natural power exhilarates ; a 
 true talent delights the possessor first. A celebrated 
 musician was wont to say, that men knew not how much 
 more he delighted himself with his playing than he did 
 others ; for if they knew, his hearers would rather de 
 mand of him than give him a reward. The scholar is 
 here to fill others with love and courage by confirming 
 their trust in the love and wisdom which are at the 
 heart of all things ; to affirm noble sentiments ; to hear
 
 .THE SCHOLAR. 207 
 
 them wherever spoken, out of the deeps of ages, out of 
 the obscurities of barbarous life, and to republish them : 
 
 to untune nobody, but to draw all men after the 
 truth, and to keep men spiritual and sweet. 
 
 Language can hardly exaggerate the beatitude of the 
 intellect flowing into the faculties. This is the power 
 that makes the world incarnated in man, and laying 
 again the beams of heaven and earth, setting the north 
 and the south, and the stars in their places. Intellect 
 is the science of metes and bounds ; yet it sees no bound 
 to the eternal proceeding of law forth into nature. All 
 the sciences are only new applications each translatable 
 into the other, of the one law which his mind is. 
 
 This, gentlemen, is the topic on which I shall speak, 
 
 the natural and permanent function of the Scholar, 
 as he is no permissive or accidental appearance, but an 
 organic agent in nature. He is here to be the beholder 
 of the real ; self-centred amidst the superficial ; here 
 to revere the dominion of a serene necessity and be its 
 pupil and apprentice by tracing everything home to a 
 cause ; here to be sobered, not by the cares of life, as 
 men say, no, but by the depth of his draughts of the 
 cup of immortality. 
 
 One is tempted to affirm the office and attributes of 
 the scholar a little the more eagerly, because of a fre 
 quent perversity of the class itself. Men are ashamed 
 of their intellect. The men committed by profession as 
 well as by bias to study, the clergyman, the chemist, the 
 astronomer, the metaphysician, the poet, talk hard and 
 worldly, and share the infatuation of cities. The poet 
 and the citizen perfectly agree in conversation on the 
 wise life. The poet counsels his own son as if he were 
 a inerciiant. The poet with poets be troys no amiable
 
 208 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 weakness. They all chime in, and are as inexorable as 
 bankers on the subject of real life. They have no toler 
 ation for literature ; art is only a fine word for appear 
 ance in default of matter. And they sit white over 
 their stoves, and talk themselves hoarse over the mis 
 chief of books and the effeminacy of book-makers. But 
 at a single strain of a bugle out of a grove, or at the 
 dashing among the stones of a brook from the hills ; at 
 the sound of some subtle word that falls from the lips 
 of an imaginative person, or even at the reading in soli 
 tude of some moving image of a wise poet, this grave 
 conclusion is blown out of memory ; the sun shines, and 
 the worlds roll to music, and the poet replaces all this 
 cowardly Self-denial and God-denial of the literary class 
 with the conviction that to one poetic success the world 
 will surrender on its knees. Instantly he casts in his 
 lot with the pearl - diver and the diamond - merchant. 
 Like them he will joyfully lose days and months, and 
 estates and credit, in the profound hope that one restor 
 ing, all-rewarding, immense success will arrive at last, 
 which will give him at one bound a universal dominion. 
 And rightly ; for if his wild prayers are granted, if he 
 is to succeed, his achievement is the piercing of the brass 
 heavens of use and limitation, and letting in a beam of 
 the pure eternity which burns up this limbo of shadows 
 and chimeras in which we dwell. Yes, Nature is too 
 strong for us ; she will not be denied ; she has balsams 
 for our hurts, and hellebores for our insanities. She 
 does not bandy words with us, but comes in with a new 
 ravishing experience and makes the old time ridiculous. 
 Every poet knows the unspeakable hope, and represents 
 its audacity. 
 
 I am not disposed to magnify temporary differences,
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 209 
 
 but for the moment it appears as if in former times 
 learning and intellectual accomplishments had secured 
 to the possessor greater rank and authority. If this 
 were only the reaction from excessive expectations from 
 literature, now disappointed, it were a just censure. It 
 was superstitious to exact too much from philosophers 
 and the literary class. The Sophists, the Alexandrian 
 grammarians, the wits of Queen Anne, the philoso 
 phers and diffusion-societies have not much helped us. 
 Granted, freely granted. Men run out of one supersti 
 tion into an opposite superstition, and practical people 
 in America give themselves wonderful airs. The cant 
 of the time inquires superciliously after the new ideas ; 
 it believes that ideas do not lead to the owning of stocks ; 
 they are perplexing and effeminating. 
 
 Young men, I warn you against the clamors of these 
 self-praising frivolous activities, against these busy- 
 bodies ; against irrational labor ; against chattering, 
 meddlesome, rich and official people. If their doing 
 came to any good end! Action is legitimate and good ; 
 forever be it honored ! right, original, private, necessary 
 action, proceeding new from the heart of man, and go 
 ing forth to beneficent and as yet incalculable ends. 
 Yes ; but not a petty fingering and running, a senseless 
 repeating of yesterday's fingering and running ; an ac 
 ceptance of the method and frauds of other men ; an 
 overdoing and busy-ness which pretends to the honors 
 of action, but resembles the twitches of St. Vitus. The 
 action of these men I cannot respect, for they do not re 
 spect it themselves. They were better and more re 
 spectable abed and asleep. All the best of this class, 
 all who have any insight or generosity of spirit, are fre 
 quently disgusted, and fain to put it behind them. 
 14
 
 210 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 Gentlemen, I do not wish to check your impulses to 
 action : I would not hinder you of one swing of your 
 arm. I do not wish to see you effeminate gownsmen, 
 taking hold of the world with the tips of your fingers, 
 or that life should be to you as it is to many, optical, 
 not practical. Far otherwise : I rather wish you to 
 experiment boldly and give play to your energies, but 
 not, if I could prevail with you, in conventional ways. 
 I should wish your energy to run in works and emer 
 gencies growing out of your personal character. Na 
 ture will fast enough instruct you in the occasion and 
 the need, and will bring to each of you the crowded 
 hour, the great opportunity. Love, Rectitude, ever 
 lasting Fame, will come to each of you in loneliest 
 places with their grand alternatives, and Honor watches 
 to see whether you dare seize the palms. 
 
 I have no quarrel with action, only I prefer no action 
 to misaction, and I reject the abusive application of the 
 term practical to those lower activities. Let us hear 
 no more of the practical men, or I will tell you some 
 thing of th 3m, tlu's, namely, that the scholar finds in 
 them unlooked-for acceptance of his most paradoxical 
 experience. There is confession in their eyes, and if 
 they parade their business and public importance, it is 
 by way of apology and palliation for not being the stu 
 dents and obeyers o those diviner laws. Talk frankly 
 with them and you learn that you have little to tell 
 them ; that the Spirit of the Age has been before you 
 with influences impossible to parry or resist. The dry- 
 goods men and the brokers, the lawyers and the manu 
 facturers are idealists, and only differ from the philos 
 opher in the intensity of the charge. We are all con 
 temporaries and bones of one body.
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 211 
 
 The shallow clamor against theoretic men comes 
 from the weak. Able men may sometimes affect a 
 contempt for thought, which no able man ever feels. 
 For what alone in the history of this world interests all 
 men in proportion as they are men ? What but truth, 
 and perpetual advance in knowledge of it, and brave 
 obedience to it in right action ? Every man or woman 
 who can voluntarily or involuntarily give them any in 
 sight or suggestion on these secrets they will hearken 
 after. The poet writes his verse on a scrap of paper, 
 and instantly the desire and love of all mankind take 
 charge of it, as if it were Holy Writ. What need has 
 he to cross the sill of his door ? Why need he meddle 
 with politics ? His idlest thought, his yesternight's 
 dream is told already in the Senate. What the Genius 
 whispered him at night he reported to the young men 
 at dawn. He rides in them, he traverses sea and land. 
 The engineer in the locomotive is waiting for him ; the 
 steamboat is hissing at the wharf, and the wheels whirl 
 ing to go. 'T is wonderful, 't is almost scandalous, this 
 extraordinary favoritism shown to poets. I do not mean 
 to excuse it. I admit the enormous partiality. It only 
 shows that such is the gulf between our perception and 
 our painting, the eye is so wise, and the hand so clumsy, 
 that all the human race have agreed to value a man ac 
 cording to his power of expression. For him arms, art, 
 politics, trade waited like menials, until the lord of the 
 manor should arrive. Even the demonstrations of na 
 ture for millenniums seem not to have attained their 
 end, until this interpreter arrives. " I," said the great 
 hearted Kepler, " may well wait a hundred years for a 
 reader, since God Almighty has waited six thousand 
 years for an observer like myself."
 
 212 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 Genius is a poor man and has no house, but see. this 
 proud landlord who has built the palace and furnished 
 it so delicately, opens it to him and beseeches him to 
 make it honorable by entering there and eating bread. 
 Where is the palace in England whose tenants are not 
 too happy if it can make a home for Pope or Addison 
 or Swift or Burke or Canning or Tennyson ? Or if 
 wealth has humors and wishes to shake off the yoke and 
 assert itself, oh, by all means let it try ! Will it 
 build its fences very high, and make its Almacks too 
 narrow for a wise man to enter ? Will it be independ 
 ent ? I incline to concede the isolation which it asks, 
 that it may learn that it is not independent but para 
 sitical. 
 
 There could always be traced, in the most barbarous 
 tribes, and also in the most character-destroying civil 
 ization, some vestiges of a faith iu genius, as in the ex 
 emption of a priesthood or bards or artists from taxes 
 and tolls levied on other men ; or in civic distinction ; 
 or in enthusiastic homage ; or in hospitalities ; as if 
 men would signify their sense that genius and virtue 
 should not pay money for house and land and bread, 
 because they have a royal right in these and in all 
 things, a first mortgage that takes effect before 
 the right of the present proprietor. For they are the 
 First Good, of which Plato affirms that " all things 
 are for its sake, and it is the cause of everything beau 
 tiful." 
 
 This reverence is the re-establishment of natural or* 
 der ; for as the solidest rocks are made up of invisible 
 gases, as the world is made of thickened light and ar 
 rested electricity, so men know that ideas are the pa 
 rents of men and things ; there was never anything
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 21 S 
 
 that did not proceed from a thought. The scholar has 
 a deep ideal interest in the moving show around him. 
 He knew the motley system in its egg. We have 
 have we not ? a real relation to markets and brokers 
 and currency and coin. " Gold and silver," says one 
 of the Platonists, " grow in the earth from the celestial 
 gods, an effluxion from them." The unmentionable 
 dollar itself has at last a high origin in moral and meta 
 physical nature. Union Pacific stock is not quite pri 
 vate property, but the quality and essence of the universe 
 is in that also. Have we less interest in ships or ill 
 shops, in manual work or in household affairs ; in any 
 object of nature or in any handiwork of man ; iu any 
 relation of life or custom of society ? The scholar is to 
 show, in each, identity and connection ; he is to show its 
 origin in the brain of man, and its secret history and 
 issues. He is the attorney of the world, and can never 
 be superfluous where so vast a variety of questions are 
 ever coming up to be solved, and for ages. 
 
 I proceed to say that the allusions just now made to 
 the extent of his duties, the manner in which every 
 day's events will find him in work, may show that his 
 place is no sinecure. The scholar, when he comes, will 
 be known by an energy that will animate all who see 
 him. The labor of ambition and avarice will appear 
 fumbling beside his. In the right hands, literature is 
 not resorted to as a consolation, and by the broken and 
 decayed, but as a decalogue. In this country we are 
 fond of results and of short ways to them ; and most in 
 this department. In our experiences, learning is not 
 learned, nor is genius wise. The name of the Scholar 
 is taken in vain. We who should be the channel of 
 that unweariable Power which never sleeps, must give
 
 214 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 our diligence no holidays. Other men are planting and 
 building, baking and tanning, running and sailing, heav 
 ing and carrying, each that he may peacefully execute 
 the fine function by which they all are helped. Shall 
 he play, whilst their eyes follow him from far with 
 reverence, attributing to him the delving in great fields 
 of thought, and conversing with supernatural allies ? 
 If he is not kindling his torch or collecting oil, he will 
 fear to go by a workshop ; he will not dare to hear the 
 music of a saw or plane ; the steam-engine will rep 
 rimand, the steam - pipe will hiss at him ; he cannot 
 look a blacksmith in the eye ; in the field he will be 
 shamed by mowers and reapers. The speculative man, 
 the scholar, is the right hero. He is brave, because he 
 sees the omnipotence of that which inspires lu'm. Is 
 there only one courage and one warfare ? I cannot 
 manage sword and rifle ; can I not therefore be brave ? 
 I thought there were as many courages as men. Is an 
 armed man the only hero ? Is a man only the breech 
 of a gun or the haft of a bowie-knife ? Men of thought 
 fail in fighting down malignity, because they wear 
 other armor than their own. Let them decline hence 
 forward foreign methods and foreign courages. Let 
 them do that which they can do. Let them fight by 
 their strength, not by their weakness. It seems to me 
 that the thoughtful man needs no armor but this 
 concentration. One thing is for him settled, that he is 
 to come at his ends. He is not there to defend himself, 
 but to deliver his message ; if his voice is clear, then 
 clearly ; if husky, than huskily ; if broken, he can at 
 least scream ; gag him, he can still write it ; bruise, 
 mutilate him, cut off his hands and feet, he can still 
 crawl towards his object ou his stumps. It is the cor
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 215 
 
 tnption of our generation that men value a long life, 
 and do not esteem life simply as a means of expressing 
 a sentiment. 
 
 The great English patriot Algernon Sidney wrote to 
 his father from his prison a little before his execution : 
 " I have ever had 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 has come when I should resign it." Beauty be 
 longs to the sentiment, and is always departing from 
 those who depart out of that. The hero rises out of all 
 comparison with contemporaries and with ages of men, 
 because he disesteems old age, and lands, and money, 
 and power, and will oppose all mankind at the call of 
 that private and perfect Right and Beauty in which he 
 lives. 
 
 Man is a torch borne in the wind. The ends I have 
 hinted at made the scholar or spiritual man indispen 
 sable to the Republic or Commonwealth of Man. Na 
 ture could not leave herself without a seer and ex 
 pounder. But he could not see or teach without organs. 
 The same necessity then that would create him reap 
 pears in his splendid gifts. There is no power in the 
 mind but in turn becomes an instrument. The descent 
 of genius into talents is part of the natural order and 
 history of the world. The incarnation must be. We 
 cannot eat the granite nor drink hydrogen. They must 
 be decompounded and recompounded into corn and water 
 before they can enter our flesh. There is a great deal 
 of spiritual energy in the universe, but it is not palpa 
 ble to us until we can make it up into man. There is 
 plenty of air, but it is worth nothing until by gathering 
 it into sails we can get it into shape and service to carry
 
 216 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 as and our cargo across the sea. Then it is paid for 
 by hundreds of thousands of our money. Plenty of 
 water also, sea full, sky full ; who cares for it ? But 
 when we can get it where we want it, and in measured 
 portions, on a mill-wheel, or boat-paddle, we will buy 
 it with millions. There is plenty of wild azote and car 
 bon unappropriated, but it is nought till we have made 
 it up into loaves and soup. So we find it in higher rela 
 tions. There is plenty of wild wrath, but it steads not 
 until we can get it racked off, shall I say ? and bottled 
 into persons ; a little pure, and not too much, to every 
 head. How many young geniuses we have known, and 
 none but ourselves will ever hear of them for want in 
 them of a little talent ! 
 
 Ah, gentlemen, I own I love talents and accomplish 
 ments ; the feet and hands of genius. As Burke said, 
 " it is not only our duty to make the right known, but 
 to make it prevalent." So I delight to see the God 
 head in distribution ; to see men that can come at their 
 ends. These shrewd faculties belong to man. I love 
 to see them in play, and to see them trained : this mem 
 ory carrying in its caves the pictures of the past, and 
 rendering them in the instant when they can serve the 
 possessor ; the craft of mathematical combination, 
 which carries a working-plan of the heavens and of the 
 earth in a formula. I am apt to believe, with the Em 
 peror Charles V., that " as many languages as a man 
 knows, so many times is he a man." I like to see a 
 man of that virtue that no obscurity or disguise can con 
 ceal, who wins all souls to his way of thinking. I de 
 light in men adorned and weaponed with manlike arts, 
 who could alone, or with a few like them, reproduce 
 Europe and America, the result of our civilization.
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 217 
 
 It is excellent when the individual is ripened to that 
 degree that he touches both the centre and the circum 
 ference, so that he is not only widely intelligent, but 
 carries a counsel in his breast for the emergency of to 
 day ; and alternates the contemplation of the fact in 
 pure intellect, with the total conversion of the intel 
 lect into energy ; Jove, and the thunderbolt launched 
 from his hand. Perhaps I value power of achievement 
 a little more because in America there seems to be a 
 certain indigence in this respect. I think there is no 
 more intellectual people than ours. They are very ap 
 prehensive and curious. But there is a sterility of tal 
 ent. These iron personalities, such as in Greece and 
 Italy and once in England were formed to strike fear 
 into kings and draw the eager service of thousands, 
 rarely appear. We have general intelligence, but no 
 Cyclop arms. A very little intellectual force makes a 
 disproportionately great impression, and when one ob 
 serves how eagerly our people entertain and discuss a 
 new theory, whether home-born or imported, and how 
 little thought operates how great an effect, one would 
 draw a favorable inference as to their intellectual and 
 spiritual tendencies. It seems as if two or three per 
 sons coming who should add to a high spiritual aun 
 great constructive energy, would carry the country with 
 them. 
 
 In making this claim of costly accomplishments for 
 the scholar, I chiefly wish to infer the dignity of his 
 work by the lustre of his appointments. He is not 
 cheaply equipped. The universe was rifled to furnish 
 him. He is to forge out of coarsest ores the sharpest 
 weapons. But if the weapons are valued for them- 
 telves, if his talents assume an independence, and come
 
 218 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 to work for ostentation, they cannot serve him. It was 
 said of an eminent Frenchman, that " he was drowned 
 in his talents." The peril of every fine faculty is the 
 delight of playing with it for pride. Talent is com 
 monly developed at the expense of character, and the 
 greater it grows, the more is the mischief and mislead 
 ing ; so that presently all is wrong, talent is mistaken 
 for genius, a dogma or system for truth, ambition for 
 greatness, ingenuity for poetry, sensuality for art ; and 
 the young, coming up with innocent hope, and looking 
 around them at education, at the professions and em 
 ployments, at religious and literary teachers and teach 
 ing, finding that nothing outside corresponds to the 
 noble order in the soul, are confused, and become skep 
 tical and forlorn. Hope is taken from youth unless 
 there be, by the grace of God, sufficient vigor in their 
 instinct to say, " All is wrong and human invention. I 
 declare anew from Heaven that truth exists new and 
 beautiful and profitable forevermore." Order is heav 
 en's first law. These gifts, these senses, these facilities 
 are excellent as long as subordinated ; all wasted and 
 mischievous when they assume to lead and not obey. 
 What is the use of strength or cunning or beauty, or 
 musical voice, or birth, or breeding, or money, to a ma 
 niac ? Yet society, in which we live, is subject to fits 
 of frenzy ; sometimes is for an age together a maniac, 
 with birth, breeding, beauty, cunning, strength and 
 money. And there is but one defence against this 
 principle of chaos, and that is the principle of order, 01 
 brave return at all hours to an infinite common-sense, 
 to the mother-wit, to the wise instinct, to the pure in 
 tellect. 
 
 When a man begins to dedicate himself to a partic*
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 219 
 
 nlar function, as his logical, or his remembering, or his 
 oratorical, or his arithmetical skill ; the advance of his 
 character and genius pauses ; he has run to the end of 
 his line ; seal the book ; the development of that mind 
 is arrested. The scholar is lost in the showman. So 
 ciety is babyish, and is dazzled and deceived by the 
 weapon, without inquiring into the cause for which it 
 is drawn ; like boys by the drums and colors of the 
 troops. 
 
 The objection of men of the world to what they call 
 the morbid intellectual tendency in our young men at 
 present, is not a hostility to their truth, but to this, its 
 shortcoming, that the idealistic views unfit their chil 
 dren for business in their sense, and do not qualify them 
 for any complete life of a better kind. They threaten 
 the validity of contracts, but do not prevail so far as to 
 establish the new kingdom which shall supersede con 
 tracts, oaths, and property. " We have seen to weari 
 ness what you cannot do ; now show us what you can 
 and will do," asks the practical man, and with perfect 
 reason. 
 
 We are not afraid of new truth, of truth never, 
 new, or old, no, but of a counterfeit. Everybody 
 hates imbecility and shortcoming, not new methods. 
 The astronomer is not ridiculous inasmuch as he is an 
 astronomer, but inasmuch as he is not an astronomer. 
 Be that you are: be that cheerly and sovereignly. Plo- 
 tinus makes no apologies; he says roundly, " the knowl 
 edge of the senses is truly ludicrous." " Body and its 
 properties belong to the region of nonentity, as if more 
 of body was necessarily produced where a defect of 
 being happens in a greater degree." "Matter," says 
 Plutarch, " is privation." Let the man of ideas at this
 
 220 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 hour be as direct, and as fully committed. Have you a 
 thought in your heart ? There was never such need of 
 it as now. As we read the newspapers, as we see the 
 effrontery with which money and power carry their ends 
 and ride over honesty and good-meaning, patriotism and 
 religion seem to shriek like ghosts. We will not speak 
 for them, because to speak for them seems so weak and 
 hopeless. We will hold fast our opinion and die in 
 silence. But a true orator will make us feel that the 
 states and kingdoms, the senators, lawyers and rich men 
 are caterpillars' webs and caterpillars, when seen in the 
 light of this despised and imbecile truth. Then we feel 
 what cowards we have been. Truth alone is great. 
 The orator too becomes a fool and a shadow before this 
 light which lightens through him. It shines backward 
 and forward, diminishes and annihilates everybody, and 
 the prophet so gladly feels his personality lost in this 
 victorious life. The spiritual nature exhibits itself so 
 in its counteraction to any accumulation of material 
 force. There is no mass that can be a counterweight 
 for it. This makes one man good against mankind. 
 This is the secret of eloquence, for it is the end of elo 
 quence in a half-hour's discourse, perhaps by a few 
 sentences, to persuade a multitude of persons to re 
 nounce their opinions, and change the course of life. 
 They go forth not the men they came in, but shriven, 
 convicted, and converted. 
 
 We have many revivals of religion. We have had 
 once what was called the Revival of Letters. I wish to 
 see a revival of the human mind: to see men's sense of 
 duty extend to the cherishing and use of their intel 
 lectual powers : their religion should go with their 
 thought and hallow it. Whosoever looks with heed
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 221 
 
 into his thoughts will find that our science of the mind 
 has not got far. He will find there is somebody within 
 him that knows more than he does, a certain dumb life 
 hi life ; a simple wisdom behind all acquired wisdom ; 
 somewhat not educated or educable ; not altered or al 
 terable; a mother- wit which does not learn by experi 
 ence or by books, but knew it all already; makes no 
 progress, but was wise in youth as in age. More or less 
 clouded it yet resides the same in all, saying Ay, ay, or 
 No, no to every proposition. Yet its grand Ay and its 
 grand No are more musical than all eloquence. No 
 body has found the limit of its knowledge. Whatever 
 object is brought before it is already well known to it. 
 Its justice is perfect; its look is catholic and universal, 
 its light ubiquitous like the sun. It does not put forth 
 organs, it rests in presence : yet trusted and obeyed in 
 happy natures it becomes active and salient, and makes 
 new means for its great ends. 
 
 The scholar then is unfurnished who has only literary 
 weapons. He ought to have as many talents as he can; 
 memory, arithmetic, practical power, manners, temper, 
 lion-heart, are all good things, and if he has none of 
 them he can still manage, if he have the main-mast, 
 if he is anything. But he must have the resource of 
 resources, and be planted on necessity. For the sure 
 months are bringing him to an examination - day in 
 which nothing is remitted or excused, and for which no 
 tutor, no book, no lectures, and almost no preparation 
 can be of the least avail. He will have to answer cer 
 tain questions, which, I must plainly tell you, cannot 
 be staved off. For all men, all women, Time, your 
 country, your condition, the invisible world, are the in 
 terrogators: Who are you ? What do you ? Can you ob-
 
 222 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 tain what you wish ? Is there method in your conscious 
 ness ? Can you see tendency in your life ? Can you help 
 any soul f 
 
 Can he answer these questions ? can he dispose of 
 them ? Happy if you can answer them mutely in the 
 order and disposition of your life ! Happy for more 
 than yourself, a benefactor of men, if you can answer 
 them iu works of wisdom, art, or poetry; bestowing on 
 the general mind of men organic creations, to be the 
 guidance and delight of all who know them. These 
 questions speak to Genius, to that power which is under 
 neath and greater than all talent, and which proceeds 
 out of the constitution of every man: to Genius, which 
 is an emanation of that it tells of; whose private coun 
 sels are not tinged with selfishness, but are laws. Men 
 of talent fill the eye with their pretension. They go out 
 into some camp of their own, and noisily persuade so 
 ciety that this thing which they do is the needful cause 
 of all men. They have talents for contention, and they 
 nourish a small difference into a loud quarrel. But the 
 world is wide, nobody will go there after to-morrow. 
 The gun they have pointed can defend nothing but itself, 
 nor itself any longer than the man is by. What is the 
 use of artificial positions ? But Genius has no taste for 
 weaving sand, or for any trifling, but flings itself on 
 real elemental things, which are powers, self-def ensive ; 
 which first subsist, and then resist unweariably forever- 
 more all that opposes. Genius has truth and clings to 
 it, so that what it says and does is not in a by-road, 
 visited only by curiosity, but on the great highways of 
 nature, which were before the Appian Way, and which 
 all souls must travel. Genius delights only in state 
 ments which are themselves true, which attack and
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 223 
 
 wound any who opposes them, whether he who brought 
 them here remains here or not ; which are live men, 
 and do daily declare fresh war against all falsehood 
 and custom, and will not let an offender go; which so 
 ciety cannot dispose of or forget, but which abide there 
 and will not down at anybody's bidding, but stand 
 frowning and formidable, and will and must be finally 
 obeyed and done. 
 
 The scholar must be ready for bad weather, poverty, 
 insult, weariness, repute of failure, and many vexations. 
 He must have a great patience, and ride at anchor and 
 vanquish every enemy whom his small arms cannot 
 reach, by the grand resistance of submission, of ceasing 
 to do. He is to know that in the last resort he is not 
 here to work, but to be worked upon. He is to eat in 
 sult, drink insult, be clothed and shod in insult until he 
 has learned that this bitter bread and shameful dress is 
 also wholesome and warm, is in short indifferent; is of 
 the same chemistry as praise and fat living; that they 
 also are disgrace and soreness to him who has them. I 
 think much may be said to discourage and dissuade the 
 young scholar from his career. Freely be that said. 
 Dissuade all you can from the lists. Sift the wheat, 
 frighten away the lighter souls. Let us keep only the 
 heavy-armed. Let those come who cannot but come, 
 and who see that there is no choice here, no advantage 
 and no disadvantage compared with other careers. For 
 the great Necessity is our patron, who distributes sun 
 and shade after immutable laws. 
 
 Yes, he has his dark days, he has weakness, he has 
 waitings, he has bad company, he is pelted by storms 
 of cares, untuning cares, untuning company. Well, let 
 him meet them. He has not consented to the frivolity,
 
 224 THE SCHOLAR. 
 
 nor to the dispersion. The practical aim is forever 
 higher than the literary aim. He shall not submit to 
 degradation, but shall bear these crosses with what 
 grace he can. He is still to decline how many glitter 
 ing opportunities, and to retreat, and wait. So shall 
 you find in this penury and absence of thought a purer 
 splendor than ever clothed the exhibitions of wit. I 
 invite you not to cheap joys, to the flutter of gratified 
 vanity, to a sleek and rosy comfort ; no, but to bare 
 ness, to power, to enthusiasm, to the mountain of vision, 
 to true and natural supremacy, to the society of the 
 great, and to love. Give me bareness and poverty so 
 that I know them as the sure heralds of the Muse. 
 Not in plenty, not in a thriving, well-to-do condition, 
 she delighteth. He that would sacrifice at her altar 
 must not leave a few flowers, an apple, or some symbolic 
 gift. No ; he must relinquish orchards and gardens, 
 prosperity and convenience ; he may live on a heath 
 without trees ; sometimes hungry, and sometimes rheu 
 matic with cold. The fire retreats and concentrates 
 within into a pure flame, pure as the stars to which it 
 mounts. 
 
 But, gentlemen, there is plainly no end to these ex 
 pansions. I have exhausted your patience, and I have 
 only begun. I had perhaps wiselier adhered to my first 
 purpose of confining my illustration to a single topic, 
 but it is so much easier to say many things than to ex 
 plain one. Well, you will see the drift of all my 
 thoughts, this namely that the scholar must be much 
 more than a scholar, that his ends give value to every 
 means, but he is to subdue and keep down his methods ; 
 that his use of books is occasional, and infinitely subor 
 dinate ; that he should read a little proudly, as one who
 
 THE SCHOLAR. 225 
 
 knows the original, and cannot therefore very highly 
 value the copy. In like manner he is to hold lightly 
 every tradition, every opinion, every person, out of his 
 piety to that Eternal Spirit which dwells unexpressed 
 with him. He shall think very highly of his destiny. 
 He is here to know the secret of Genius ; to become, 
 not a reader of poetry, but Homer, Dante, Milton, 
 Shakspeare, Swedenborg, in the fountain, through that. 
 If one man could impart his faith to another, if I could 
 prevail to communicate the incommunicable mysteries, 
 you should see the breadth of your realm ; that ever 
 as you ascend your proper and native path, you receive 
 the keys of Nature and history, and rise on the same 
 stairs to science and to joy. 
 15
 
 PLUTARCH. 
 
 THE soul 
 
 Shall have society of its own rank : 
 Be great, be true, and all the Scipios, 
 The Catos, the wise patriots of Rome, 
 Shall flock to you and tarry by your side, 
 And comfort you with their high company.
 
 PLUTAKCH.i 
 
 IT is remarkable that of an author so familiar as 
 Plutarch, not only to scholars, but to all reading men, 
 aiid whose history is so easily gathered from his works, 
 no accurate memoir of his life, not even the dates of 
 his birth and death, should have come down to us. 
 Strange that the writer of so many illustrious biogra 
 phies should wait so long for his own. It is agreed 
 that he was born about the year 50 of the Christian 
 era. He has been represented as having been the tu 
 tor of the Emperor Trajan, as dedicating one of his 
 books to him, as living long in Rome in great esteem, 
 as having received from Trajan the consular dignity, 
 and as having been appointed by him the governor of 
 Greece. He was a man whose real superiority had no 
 need of these flatteries. Meantime, the simple truth is, 
 that he was not the tutor of Trajan, that he dedicated 
 no book to him, was not consul in Rome, nor governor 
 of Greece ; appears never to ha . e been in Rome but 
 on two occasions, and then on business of the people of 
 his native city, Chaeronea ; and though he found or 
 made friends at Rome, and read lectures to some 
 friends or scholars, he diJ not know or learn the Latin 
 language there ; with one or two doubtful exceptions, 
 1 This paper was originally printed as an introduction to Plutarch's 
 Morals, edited by Professor William W. (> >odwin, and published, in 
 1871, by Messrs. Little, Brown & Co., through whose courtesy it is 
 included in this edition.
 
 230 PLUTARCH. 
 
 never quotes a Latin book ; and though the contempo 
 rary, in his youth or in his old age, of Persius, Juvenal, 
 Lucan and Seneca, of Quintilian, Martial, Tacitus, 
 Suetonius, Pliny the Elder and the Younger, he does 
 not cite them, and, in return, his name is never men 
 tioned by any Roman writer. It would seem that the 
 community of letters and of personal news was even 
 more rare at that day than the want of printing, of 
 railroads and telegraphs, would suggest to us. 
 
 But this neglect by his contemporaries has been com 
 pensated by an immense popularity in modern nations. 
 Whilst his books were never known to th-3 world iu 
 their own Greek tongue, it is curious that the " Lives " 
 were translated and printed in Latin, thence into Ital 
 ian, French and English, more than a century before 
 the original " Works " were yet printed. For whilst the 
 " Lives " were translated in Rome in 1470, and the 
 "Morals," part by part, soon after, the first printed 
 edition of the Greek " Works " did not appear until 
 1572. Hardly current in his own Greek, these found 
 learned interpreters in the scholars of Germany, Spain 
 and Italy. In France, in the middle of the most turbu 
 lent civil wars, Amyot's translation awakened general 
 attention. His genial version of the " Lives " in 1559, 
 of the " Morals " in 1572, had signal success. King 
 Henry IV. wrote to his wife, Marie de Medicis : " Vive 
 Dieu. As God liveth, you could not have sent me any 
 thing which could be more agreeable than the news of 
 the pleasure you have taken in this reading. Plutarch 
 always delights me with a fresh novelty. To love him 
 is to love me ; for he has been long time the instructor 
 of my youth. My good mother, to whom I owe all, 
 and who would not wish, slu said, to see her son au
 
 PLUTARCH. 231 
 
 illustrious dunce, put this book into my hands almost 
 when I was a child at the breast. It has been like my 
 conscience, and has whispered in my ear many good 
 suggestions and maxims for my couduct and the gov 
 ernment of my affairs." Still earlier, Rabelais cites 
 him with due respect. Montaigne, in 1589, says : " We 
 dunces had been lost, had not this book raised us out 
 of the dirt. By this favor of his we dare now speak 
 and write. The ladies are able to read to school 
 masters. 'T is our breviary." Montesquieu drew from 
 him his definition of law, and, in his Pense'es, declares, 
 " I am always charmed with Plutarch ; in his writings 
 are circumstances attached to persons, which give great 
 pleasure ; " and adds examples. Saint Evremond read 
 Plutarch to the great Conde under a tent. Rollin, so 
 long the historian of antiquity for France, drew un 
 hesitatingly his history from him. Voltaire honored 
 him, and Rousseau acknowledged him as his master. 
 In England, Sir Thomas North translated the " Lives " 
 in 1579, and Holland the " Morals " in 1603, in time 
 to be used by Shakspeare in his plays, and read by 
 Bacon, Dryden, and Cudworth. 
 
 Then, recently, there has been a remarkable revival, 
 in France, in the taste for Plutarch and his contem 
 poraries ; led, we may say, by the eminent critic Sainte- 
 Beuve. M. Octave Greard, in a critical work on the 
 " Morals," has carefully corrected the popular legends 
 and constructed from the works of Plutarch himself his 
 true biography. M. Leveque has given an exposition of 
 his moral philosophy, under the title of " A Physician 
 of the Soul," in the Revue des Deux Mondes ; and M. 
 C. Martha, chapters on the genius of Marcus Aurelius, 
 of Persius, and Lucretius, in the same journal ; whilst
 
 232 PLUTARCH. 
 
 M. Fustel de Coulanges has explored from its roots in 
 the Aryan race, then in their Greek and Roman de 
 scendants, the primeval religion of the household. 
 
 Plutarch occupies a unique place in literature as an 
 encyclopaedia of Greek and Roman antiquity. What 
 ever is eminent in fact or in fiction, in opinion, in char 
 acter, in institutions, in science natural, moral, or 
 metaphysical, or in memorable sayings, drew his atten 
 tion and came to his pen with more or less fulness of 
 record. He is, among prose-writers, what Chaucer is 
 among English poets, a repertory for those who want 
 the story without searching for it at first hand, a com- 
 pend of all accepted traditions. And all this without 
 any supreme intellectual gifts. He is not a profound 
 mind ; not a master in any science ; not a lawgiver, like 
 Lycurgus or Solon ; not a metaphysician, like Parmen- 
 ides, Plato, or Aristotle ; not the founder of any sect or 
 community, like Pythagoras or Zeno ; not a naturalist, 
 like Pliny or Linnaeus ; not a leader of the mind of a 
 generation, like Plato or Goethe. But if he had not the 
 highest powers, he was yet a man of rare gifts. He had 
 that universal sympathy with genius which makes all 
 its victories his own ; though he never used verse, he 
 had many qualities of the poet in the power of his im 
 agination, the speed of his mental associations, and his 
 sharp, objective eyes. But what specially marks him, 
 he is a chief example of the illumination of the intellect 
 by the force of morals. Though the most amiable of 
 boon-companions, this generous religion gives him aper- 
 cus like Goethe's. 
 
 Plutarch was well-born, well-taught, well-conditioned ; 
 a self-respecting, amiable man, who knew how to better 
 a good education by travels, by devotion to affairs pri-
 
 PLUTARCH. 233 
 
 vate and public ; a master of ancient culture, he read 
 books with a just criticism ; eminently social, he was a 
 king in his own house, surrounded himself with select 
 friends, and knew the high value of good conversation ; 
 and declares in a letter written to his wife that " he 
 finds scarcely an erasure, as in a book well-written, in 
 the happiness of his life." 
 
 The range of mind makes the glad writer. The rea 
 son of Plutarch's vast popularity is his humanity. A 
 man of society, of affairs ; upright, practical ; a good 
 son, husband, father and friend, he has a taste for 
 common life, and knows the court, the camp and the 
 judgment-hall, but also the forge, farm, kitchen and 
 cellar, and every utensil and use, and with a wise man's 
 or a poet's eye. Thought defends him from any deg 
 radation. He does not lose his way, for the attrac 
 tions are from within, not from without. A poet in 
 verse or prose must have a sensuous eye, but an in 
 tellectual co-perception. Plutarch's memory is full, 
 and his horizon wide. Nothing touches man but he 
 feels to be his ; he is tolerant even of vice, if he finds it 
 genial ; enough a man of the world to give even the 
 Devil his due, and would have hugged Robert Burns, 
 when he cried : 
 
 " O wad ye tak' a thought and mend ! " 
 
 He is a philosopher with philosophers, a naturalist with 
 naturalists, and sufficiently a mathematician to leave 
 some of his readers, now and then, at a long distance 
 behind him, or respectfully skipping to the next chap 
 ter. But this scholastic omniscience of our author en 
 gages a new respect, since they hope he understands his 
 own diagram. 
 
 He perpetually suggests Montaigne, who was the
 
 234 PLUTARCH. 
 
 best reader he has ever found, though Montaigne ex 
 celled his master in the point and surprise of his sen 
 tences. Plutarch had a religion which Montaigne 
 wanted, and which defends him from wantonness ; and 
 though Plutarch is as plain-spoken, his moral sentiment 
 is always pure. What better praise has any writer re 
 ceived than he whom Montaigne finds " frank in giving 
 things, not words," dryly adding, " it vexes me that he 
 is so exposed to the spoil of those that are conversant 
 with him." It is one of the felicities of literary history, 
 the tie which inseparably couples these two names across 
 fourteen centuries. Montaigne, whilst he grasps fitienne 
 de la Boece with one hand, reaches back the other to 
 Plutarch. These distant friendships charm us, and 
 honor all the parties, and make the best example of the 
 universal citizenship and fraternity of the human mind. 
 I do not know where to find a book to borrow a 
 phrase of Ben Jonson's " so rammed with life," and 
 this in chapters chiefly ethical, which are so prone to 
 be heavy and sentimental. No poet could illustrate his 
 thought with more novel or striking similes or happier- 
 anecdotes. His style is realistic, picturesque and varied ; 
 his sharp objective eyes seeing everything that moves, 
 shines, or threatens in nature or art, or thought or 
 dreams. Indeed, twilights, shadows, omens and spec 
 tres have a charm for him. He believes in witchcraft 
 and the evil eye, in demons and ghosts, but prefers, 
 if you please, to talk of these in the morning. His 
 vivacity and abundance never leave him to loiter or 
 pound on an incident. I admire bis rapid and crowded 
 style, as if he had such store of anecdotes of his heroes 
 that he is forced to suppress more than he recounts, in 
 order to keep up with the hasting history.
 
 PLUTARCH. 235 
 
 His surprising merit is the genial facility with which 
 he deals with his manifold topics. There is no trace of 
 labor or pain. He gossips of heroes, philosophers and 
 poets ; of virtues and genius ; of love and fate and em 
 pires. It is for his pleasure that he recites all that ia 
 best in his reading : he prattles history. But he is no 
 courtier, and no Boswell : he is ever manly, far from 
 fawning, and would be welcome to the sages and war 
 riors he reports, as one having a native right to admire 
 and recount these stirring deeds and speeches. I find 
 him a better teacher of rhetoric than any modern. His 
 superstitions are poetic, aspiring, affirmative. A poet 
 might rhyme all day with hints drawn from Plutarch, 
 page on page. No doubt, this superior suggestion for 
 the modern reader owes much to the foreign air, the 
 Greek wine, the religion and history of antique heroes. 
 Thebes, Sparta, Athens and Rome charm us away from 
 the disgust of the passing hour. But his own cheerful 
 ness and rude health are also magnetic. In his im 
 mense quotation and allusion we quickly cease to dis 
 criminate between what he quotes and what he invents. 
 We sail on his memory into the ports of every nation, 
 enter into every private property, and do not stop to 
 discriminate owners, but give him the praise of all. 
 'T is all Plutarch, by right of eminent domain, and all 
 property vests in this emperor. This facility and abun 
 dance make the joy of his narrative, and he is read to 
 the neglect of more careful historians. Yet he inspires 
 a curiosity, sometimes makes a necessity, to read them. 
 He disowns any attempt to rival Thucydides ; but I 
 suppose he has a hundred readers where Thucydides 
 finds one, and Thucydides must often thank Plutarch 
 ior that one. He has preserved for us a multitude of
 
 236 PLUTARCH. 
 
 precious sentences, in prose or verse, of authors whose 
 books are lost ; and these embalmed fragments, through 
 his loving selection alone, have come to be proverbs of 
 later mankind. I hope it is only my immense ignorance 
 that makes me believe that they do not survive out 
 of his pages, not only Thespis, Polemos, Euphorion, 
 Ariston, Evenus, etc., but fragments of Menander and 
 Pindar. At all events, it is in reading the fragments 
 he has saved from lost authors that I have hailed an 
 other example of the sacred care which has unrolled in 
 our times, and still searches and unrolls papyri from 
 ruined libraries and buried cities, and has drawn atten 
 tion to what an ancient might call the politeness of Fate, 
 we will say, more advisedly, the benign Providence 
 which uses the violence of war, of earthquakes and 
 changed water-courses, to save underground through 
 barbarous ages the relics of ancient art, and thus allows 
 us to witness the upturning of the alphabets of old 
 races, and the deciphering of forgotten languages, so to 
 complete the annals of the forefathers of Asia, Africa 
 and Europe. 
 
 His delight in poetry makes him cite with joy the 
 speech of Gorgias, " that the tragic poet who deceived 
 was juster than he who deceived not, and he that was 
 deceived was wiser than he who was not deceived." 
 
 It is a consequence of this poetic trait in his mind, 
 that I confess that, in reading him, I embrace the par 
 ticulars, and carry a- faint memory of the argument or 
 general design of the chapter ; but he is not less wel 
 come, and he leaves the reader with a relish and a 
 necessity for completing his studies. Many examples 
 might be cited of nervous expression and happy allu 
 sion, that indicate a poet and an orator, though he is not
 
 PLUTARCH. 237 
 
 ambitious of these titles, and cleaves to the security of 
 prose narrative, and only shows his intellectual sym 
 pathy with these ; yet I cannot forbear to cite one or 
 two sentences which none who reads them will forget. 
 In treating of the style of the Pythian Oracle, he 
 says : 
 
 " Do you not observe, some one will say, what a grace 
 there is in Sappho's measures, and how they delight and 
 tickle the ears and fancies of the hearers ? Whereas 
 the Sibyl, with her frantic grimaces, uttering sentences 
 altogether thoughtful and serious, neither f ucused nor 
 perfumed, continues her voice a thousand years through 
 the favor of the Divinity that speaks within her." 
 
 Another gives an insight into his mystic tenden 
 cies : 
 
 " Early this morning, asking Epaminoudas about the 
 manner of Lysis's burial, I found that Lysis had taught 
 him as far as the incommunicable mysteries of our sect, 
 and that the same Daemon that waited on Lysis, pre 
 sided over him, if I can guess at the pilot from the sail 
 ing of the ship. The paths of life are large, but in few 
 are men directed by the Daemons. When Theanor had 
 said this, he looked attentively on Epaminondas, as if he 
 designed a fresh search into his nature and inclinations." 
 
 And here is his sentiment on superstition, somewhat 
 condensed in Lord Bacon's citation of it : "I had rather 
 a great deal that men should say, There was no such 
 man at all as Plutarch, than that they should say that 
 there was one Plutarch that would eat up his children 
 as soon as they were born, as the poets speak of Sat 
 urn." 
 
 The chapter " On Fortune " should be read by poets, 
 and other wise men ; and the vigor of his pen appears
 
 238 PLUTARCH. 
 
 in the chapter "Whether the Athenians were more 
 Warlike or Learned," and in his attack upon Usurers. 
 
 There is, of course, a wide difference of time in the 
 writing of these discourses, and so in their merit. Many 
 of them are mere sketches or notes for chapters in prep 
 aration, which were never digested or finished. Many 
 are notes for disputations in the lecture-room. His poor 
 indignation against Herodotus was perhaps a youthful 
 prize essay : it appeared to me captious and labored ; 
 or perhaps, at a rhetorician's school, the subject of He 
 rodotus being the lesson of the day, Plutarch was ap 
 pointed by lot to take the adverse side. 
 
 The plain-speaking of Plutarch, as of the ancient 
 writers generally, coming from the habit of writing for 
 one sex only, has a great gain for brevity, and, in our 
 new tendencies of civilization, may tend to correct a 
 false delicacy. 
 
 We are always interested in the man who treats the 
 intellect well. We expect it from the philosopher, 
 from Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza and Kant ; but we know 
 that metaphysical studies in any but minds of large 
 horizon and incessant inspiration have their dangers. 
 One asks sometimes whether a metaphysician can treat 
 the intellect well. The central fact is the superhuman 
 intelligence, pouring into us from its unknown fountain, 
 to be received with religious awe, and defended from 
 any mixture of our will. But this high Muse comes 
 and goes ; and the danger is that, when the Muse is 
 wanting, the student is prone to supply its place with 
 microscopic subtleties and logomachy. It is fatal to 
 spiritual health to lose your admiration. " Let others 
 wrangle," said St. Augustine ; " I will wonder." Plato 
 and Plotinus are enthusiasts, who honor the race ; but
 
 PLUTARCH. 239 
 
 the logic of the sophists and materialists, whether Greek 
 or French, fills us with disgust. Whilst we expect this 
 awe and reverence of the spiritual power from the 
 philosopher in his closet, we praise it in the man of the 
 world ; the man who lives on quiet terms with exist 
 ing institutions, yet indicates his perception of these 
 high oracles ; as do Plutarch, Montaigne, Hume and 
 Goethe. These men lift themselves at once from the 
 vulgar and are not the parasites of wealth. Perhaps 
 they sometimes compromise, go out to dine, make and 
 take compliments ; but they keep open the source of 
 wisdom and health. Plutarch is uniformly true to this 
 centre. He had not lost his wonder. He is a pro 
 nounced idealist, who does not hesitate to say, like 
 another Berkeley, "Matter is itself privation;" and 
 again, " The Sun is the cause that all men are ignorant 
 of Apollo, by sense withdrawing the rational intellect 
 from that which is to that which appears." He thinks 
 that " souls are naturally endowed with the faculty of 
 prediction ; " he delights in memory, with its miracu 
 lous power of resisting time. He thinks that " Alex 
 ander invaded Persia with greater assistance from Aris 
 totle than from his father Philip." He thinks that " he 
 who has ideas of his own is a bad judge of another man's, 
 it being true that the Eleans would be the most proper 
 judges of the Olympic games, were no Eleans game 
 sters." He says of Socrates, that he endeavored to 
 bring reason and things together, and make truth con 
 sist with sober sense. He wonders with Plato at that 
 nail of pain and pleasure which fastens the body to the 
 mind. The mathematics give him unspeakable pleas 
 ure, but he chiefly liked that proportion which teaches 
 ns to account that which is just, equal ; and not that 
 which is equal, just.
 
 240 PLUTARCH. 
 
 Of philosophy he is more interested in the results 
 than in the method. He has a just instinct of the pres 
 ence of a master, and prefers to sit as a scholar with 
 Plato, than as a disputant ; and, true to his practical 
 character, he wishes the philosopher not to hide in a 
 corner, but to commend himself to men of public re 
 gards and ruling genius : " for, if he once possess such 
 a man with principles of honor and religion, he takes a 
 compendious method, by doing good to one, to oblige 
 a great part of mankind." 'T is a temperance, not an 
 eclecticism, which makes him adverse to the severe 
 Stoic, or the Gymnosophist, or Diogenes, or any other 
 extremist. That vice of theirs shall not hinder him 
 from citing any good word they chanced to drop. He 
 is an eclectic in such sense as Montaigne was, willing 
 to be an expectant, not a dogmatist. 
 
 In many of these chapters it is easy to infer the rela 
 tion between the Greek philosophers .and those who 
 came to them for instruction. This teaching was no 
 play nor routine, but strict, sincere and affectionate. 
 The part of each of the class is as important as that 
 of the master. They are like the base-ball players, to 
 whom the pitcher, the bat, the catcher and the scout 
 are equally important. And Plutarch thought, with 
 Ariston, " that neither a bath nor a lecture served any 
 purpose, unless they were purgative." Plutarch has 
 such a keen pleasure in realities that he has none in 
 verbal disputes ; he is impatient of sophistry, and de 
 spises the Epicharmian disputations : as, that he who 
 ran in debt yesterday owes nothing to-day, as being 
 another man ; so, he that was yesterday invited to sup 
 per, the next night comes an unbidden guest, for that 
 he is quite another person.
 
 PLUTARCH. 241 
 
 Except as historical curiosities, little can be said in 
 behalf of the scientific value of the " Opinions of the 
 Philosophers," the " Questions " and the " Symposiacs." 
 They are, for the most part, very crude opinions ; many 
 of them so puerile that one would believe that Plutarch 
 in his haste adopted the notes of his younger auditors, 
 some of them jocosely misreporting the dogma of the 
 professor, who laid them aside as memoranda for future 
 revision, which he never gave, and they were posthu 
 mously published. Now and then there are hints of 
 superior science. You may cull from this record of 
 barbarous guesses of shepherds and travellers, state 
 ments that are predictions of facts established in mod 
 ern science. Usually, when Thales, Anaximenes or An- 
 aximander are quoted, it is really a good judgment. 
 The explanation of the rainbow, of the floods of the Nile, 
 and of the remora, etc., are just ; and the bad guesses 
 are not worse than many of Lord Bacon's. 
 
 His Natural History is that of a lover and poet, and 
 not of a physicist. His humanity stooped affectionately 
 to trace the virtues which he loved in the animals also. 
 " Knowing and not knowing is the affirmative or nega 
 tive of the dog ; knowing you is to be your friend ; not 
 knowing you, your enemy." He quotes Thucydides' 
 saying that " not the desire of honor only never grows 
 old, but much less also the inclination to society and af 
 fection to the State, which continue even in ants and 
 bees to the very last." 
 
 But, though curious in the questions of the schools on 
 the nature and genesis of things, his extreme interest in 
 every trait of character, and his broad humanity, lead 
 him constantly to Morals, to the study of the Beautiful 
 and Good. Hence his love of heroes, bis rule of life, 
 16
 
 242 PLUTARCH. 
 
 and his clear convictions of the high destiny of the soul. 
 La Harpe said that " Plutarch is the genius the most 
 naturally moral that ever existed." 
 
 'T is almost inevitable to compare Plutarch with Sen 
 eca, who, born fifty years earlier, was for many years 
 his contemporary, though they never met, and their 
 writings were perhaps unknown to each other. Plu 
 tarch is genial, with an endless interest in all human 
 and divine things ; Seneca, a professional philosopher, a 
 writer of sentences, and, though he keep a sublime path, 
 is less interesting, because less humane ; and when we 
 have shut his book, we forget to open it again. There 
 is a certain violence in his opinions, and want of sweet 
 ness. He lacks the sympathy of Plutarch. He is tire 
 some through perpetual didactics. He is not happily 
 living. Cannot the simple lover of truth enjoy the vir 
 tues of those he meets, and the virtues suggested by 
 them, so to find himself at some time purely contented ? 
 Seneca was still more a man of the world than Plu 
 tarch ; and, by his conversation with the Court of Nero, 
 and his own skill, like Voltaire's, of living* with men of 
 business and emulating their address in affairs by great 
 accumulation of his own property, learned to temper his 
 philosophy with facts. He ventured far, apparently 
 too far, for so keen a conscience as he inly had. Yet 
 we owe to that wonderful moralist illustrious maxims ; 
 as if the scarlet vices of the times of Nero had the nat 
 ural effect of driving virtue to its loftiest antagonisms. 
 " Seneca," says L'Estrange, " was a pagan Christian, 
 and is very good reading for our Christian pagans." 
 He was Buddhist in his cold abstract virtue, with a cer 
 tain impassibility beyond humanity. He called pity, 
 " that fault of narrow souls." Yet what noble words
 
 PLUTARCH. 243 
 
 we owe to him : " God divided man into men, that they 
 might help each other ; " and again, " The good man 
 differs from God in nothing but duration." His thoughts 
 are excellent, if only he had the right to say them. Plu 
 tarch, meantime, with every virtue under heaven, thought 
 it the top of wisdom to philosophize yet not appear to 
 do it, and to reach in mirth the same ends which the 
 most serious are proposing. 
 
 Plutarch thought " truth to be the greatest good that 
 man can receive, and the goodliest blessing that God 
 can give." " When you are persuaded in your mind 
 that you cannot either offer or perform anything more 
 agreeable to the gods than the entertaining a right no 
 tion of them, you will then avoid superstition as a no 
 less evil than atheism." He cites Euripides to affirm, 
 " If gods do aught dishonest, they are no gods," and the 
 memorable words of Antigone, in Sophocles, concerning 
 the moral sentiment : 
 
 " For neither now nor yesterday began 
 These thoughts, which have been ever, nor yet can 
 A man be found who their first entrance knew." 
 
 His faith in the immortality of the soul is another 
 measure of his deep humanity. He reminds his friends 
 that the Delphic oracles have given several answers the 
 same in substance as that formerly given to Corax the 
 
 Naxian : 
 
 "It sounds profane impiety 
 To teach that human souls e'er die." 
 
 He believes that the doctrine of the Divine Providence, 
 and that of the immortality of the soul, rest on one and 
 the same basis. He thinks it impossible either that a 
 man beloved of the gods should not be happy, or that a 
 irise and just man should not be beloved of the gods.
 
 244 PLUTARCH. 
 
 To him the Epicureans are hateful, who held that the 
 soul perishes when it is separated from the body. " The 
 soul, incapable of death, suffers in the same manner in 
 the body, as birds that are kept in a cage." He believes 
 " that the souls of infants pass immediately into a bet 
 ter and more divine state." 
 
 I can easily believe that an anxious soul may find in 
 Plutarch's chapter called " Pleasure not attainable by 
 Epicurus," and his " Letter to his Wife Timoxena," a 
 more sweet and reassuring argument on the immortal 
 ity than in the Phsedo of Plato ; for Plutarch always ad 
 dresses the question on the human side, and not on the 
 metaphysical ; as Walter Scott took hold of boys and 
 young men, in England and America, and through them 
 of their fathers. His grand perceptions of duty lead 
 him to his stern delight in heroism ; a stoic resistance 
 to low indulgence ; to a fight with fortune ; a regard 
 for truth ; his love of Sparta, and of heroes like Aris- 
 tides, Phocion and Cato. He insists that the highest 
 good is in action. He thinks that the inhabitants of Asia 
 came to be vassals to one, only for not having been able 
 to pronounce one syllable ; which is, No. So keen is his 
 sense of allegiance to right reason, that he makes a fight 
 against Fortune whenever she is named. At Rome he 
 thinks her wings were clipped : she stood no longer on 
 a ball, but on a cube as large as Italy. He thinks it 
 was by superior virtue that Alexander won his battles in 
 Asia and Africa, and the Greeks theirs against Persia. 
 
 But this Stoic in his fight with Fortune, with vices, 
 effeminacy and indolence, is gentle as a woman when 
 other strings are touched. He is the most amiable of 
 men. " To erect a trophy in the soul against anger is 
 that which none but a great and victorious puissance is
 
 PLUTARCH. 245 
 
 able to achieve." " Anger turns the mind out of doors, 
 and bolts the door." He has a tenderness almost to 
 tears when he writes on " Friendship," on the " Train 
 ing of Children," and on the "Love of Brothers." 
 "There is no treasure," he says, "parents can Tive to 
 their children, like a brother ; 't is a friend given by 
 nature, a gift nothing can supply ; once lost, not to be 
 replaced. The Arcadian prophet, of whom Herodotus 
 speaks, was obliged to make a wooden foot in place of 
 that which had been chopped off. A brother, embroiled 
 with his brother, going to seek in the street a stranger 
 who can take his place, resembles him who will cut off 
 his foot to give himself one of wood." 
 
 All his judgments are noble. He thought, with Epi 
 curus, that it is more delightful to do than to receive a 
 kindness. " This courteous, gentle, and benign dispo 
 sition and behavior is not so acceptable, so obliging or 
 delightful to any of those with whom we converse, as it 
 is to those who have it." There is really no limit to his 
 bounty : " It would be generous to lend our eyes and 
 ears, nay, if possible, our reason and fortitude to oth 
 ers, whilst we are idle or asleep." His excessive and 
 fanciful humanity reminds one of Charles Lamb, whilst 
 it much exceeds him. When the guests are gone, he 
 " would leave one lamp burning, only as a sign of the 
 respect he bore to fires, for nothing so resembles an ani 
 mal as fire. It is moved and nourished by itself, and 
 by its brightness, like the soul, discovers and makes 
 everything apparent, and in its quenching shows some 
 power that seems to proceed from a vital principle, for 
 it makes a noise and resists, like an animal dying, or vio 
 lently slaughtered ; " and he praises the Romans, who, 
 when the feast was over, " dealt well with the lamps,
 
 246 PLUTARCH. 
 
 and did not take away the nourishment they had given, 
 but permitted them to live and shine by it." 
 
 I can almost regret that the learned editor of the 
 present republication has not preserved, if only as a 
 piece of history, the preface of Mr. Morgan, the editor 
 and in part writer of this Translation of 1718. In his 
 dedication of the work to the Archbishop of Canterbury, 
 Wm. Wake, he tells the Primate that " Plutarch was the 
 wisest man of his age, and, if he had been a Christian, 
 one of the best too ; but it was his severe fate io flourish 
 in those days of ignorance, which, 't is a favorable opinion 
 to hope that the Almighty will sometime wink at that our 
 souls may be with these philosophers together in the same 
 state of bliss." The puzzle in the worthy translator's 
 mind between his theology and his reason well appears 
 in the puzzle of his sentence. 
 
 I know that the chapter of " Apothegms of Noblo 
 Commanders " is rejected by some critics as not a gen 
 uine work of Plutarch ; but the matter is good, and is so 
 agreeable to his taste and genius, that if he had found 
 it, he would have adopted it. If he did not compile 
 the piece, many, perhaps most of the anecdotes were 
 already scattered in his works. If I do not lament 
 that a work not his should be ascribed to him, I regret 
 that he should have suffered such destruction of his 
 own. What a trilogy is lost to mankind in his Lives of 
 Scipio, Epamimondas and Pindar ! 
 
 His delight in magnanimity and self-sacrifice has 
 made his books, like Homer's Iliad, a bible for heroes ; 
 and wherever the Cid is relished, the legends of Arthur, 
 Saxon Alfred and Richard the Lion-hearted, Robert 
 Bruce, Sydney, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, Cromwell, 
 Nelson, Bonaparte, and Walter Scott's chronicles iu
 
 PLUTARCH. 247 
 
 prose or verse, there will Plutarch, who told the 
 story of Leonidas, of Agesilaus, of Aristides, Phocion, 
 Themistocles, Demosthenes, Epaminondas, Caesar, Cato 
 and the rest, sit as the bestower of the crown of noble 
 knighthood, and laureate of the ancient world. 
 
 The chapters " On the Fortune of Alexander," in the 
 " Morals," are an important appendix to the portrait in 
 the " Lives." The union in Alexander of sublime cour 
 age with the refinement of his pure tastes, making him 
 the carrier of civilization into the East, are in the spirit 
 of the ideal hero, and endeared him to Plutarch. That 
 prince kept Homer's poems not only for himself under 
 his pillow in his tent, but carried these for the delight 
 of the Persian youth, and made them acquainted also 
 with the tragedies of Euripides and Sophocles. He 
 persuaded the Sogdians not to kill, but to cherish their 
 aged parents ; the Persians to reverence, not marry 
 their mothers ; the Scythians to bury, and not eat their 
 dead parents. What a fruit and fitting monument of 
 his best days was his city Alexandria, to be the birth 
 place or home of Plotinus, St. Augustine, Synesius, 
 Posidonius, Ammonius, Jamblichus, Porphyry, Origen, 
 Aratus, Apollonius and Apuleius. 
 
 If Plutarch delighted in heroes, and held the balance 
 between the severe Stoic and the indulgent Epicurean, 
 his humanity shines not less in his intercourse with his 
 personal friends. He was a genial host and guest, and 
 delighted in bringing chosen companions to the supper- 
 table. He knew the laws of conversation and the laws 
 of good-fellowship quite as well as Horace, and has set 
 them down with such candor and grace as to make them 
 good reading to-day. The guests not invited to a pri 
 vate board by the entertainer, but introduced by a guest
 
 248 PLUTARCH. 
 
 as his companions, the Greek called shadoivs and the 
 question is debated whether it was civil to bring them, 
 and he treats it candidly, but concludes : " Therefore, 
 when I make an invitation, since it is hard to break the 
 custom of the place, I give my guests leave to bring 
 shadows ; but when I myself am invited as a shadow, I 
 assure you I refuse to go." He has an objection to the 
 introduction of music at feasts. He thought it wonder 
 ful that a man having a muse in his own breast, and all 
 the pleasantness that would fit an entertainment, would 
 have pipes and harps play, and by that external noise 
 destroy all the sweetness that was proper and his own. 
 
 I cannot close these notes without expressing my sense 
 of the valuable service which the Editor has rendered 
 to his Author and to his readers. Professor Goodwin 
 is a silent benefactor to the book, wherever I have com 
 pared the editions. I did not know how careless and 
 vicious in parts the old book was, until, in recent read 
 ing of the old text, on coming on anything absurd or 
 unintelligible, I referred to the new text and found a 
 clear and accurate statement in its place. It is the 
 vindication of Plutarch. The correction is not only of 
 names of authors and of places grossly altered or mis 
 spelled, but of unpardonable liberties taken by the trans 
 lators, whether from negligence or freak. 
 
 One proof of Plutarch's skill as a writer is that he 
 bears translation so well. In spite of its carelessness 
 and manifold faults, which, I doubt not, have tried the 
 patience of its present learned editor and corrector, I 
 yet confess my enjoyment of this old version, for its 
 vigorous English style. The work of some forty or fifty 
 University men, some of them imperfect in their Greek, 
 it is a monument of the English language at a period of
 
 PLUTARCH. 249 
 
 singular vigor and freedom of style. I hope the Com 
 mission of the Philological Society in London, charged 
 with the duty of preparing a Critical Dictionary, will 
 not overlook these volumes, which show the wealth of 
 their tongue to greater advantage than many books of 
 more renown as models. It runs through the whole 
 scale of conversation in the street, the market, the cof 
 fee-house, the law courts, the palace, the college and 
 the church. There are, no doubt, many vulgar phrases, 
 and many blunders of the printer ; but it is the speech 
 of business and conversation, and in every tone, from 
 lowest to highest. 
 
 We owe to these translators many sharp perceptions 
 of the wit and humor of their author, sometimes even 
 to the adding of the point. I notice one, which, al 
 though the translator has justified his rendering in a 
 note, the severer criticism of the Editor has not re 
 tained. " Were there not a sun, we might, for all the 
 other stars, pass our days in the Reverend Dark, as 
 Heraclitus calls it." I find a humor in the phrase which 
 might well excuse its doubtful accuracy. 
 
 It is a service to our Republic to publish a book that 
 can force ambitious young men, before they mount the 
 platform of the county conventions, to read the " La 
 conic Apothegms " and the " Apothegms of Great Com 
 manders." If we could keep the secret, and commu 
 nicate it only to a few chosen aspirants, we might confide 
 that, by this noble infiltration, they would easily carry 
 the victory over all competitors. But, as it was the 
 desire of these old patriots to fill with their majestic 
 spirit all Sparta or Rome, and not a few leaders only, 
 we hasten to offer them to the American people.
 
 250 PLUTARCH. 
 
 Plutarch's popularity will return in rapid cycles. If 
 over-read in this decade, so that his anecdotes and opin 
 ions become commonplace, and to-day's novelties are 
 sought for variety, his sterling values will presently re 
 call the eye and thought of the best minds, and his 
 books will be reprinted and read anew by coming gen 
 erations. And thus Plutarch will be perpetually redis 
 covered from time to time as long as books last.
 
 HISTORIC NOTES OF LIFE AND 
 LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 ' OF old things all are over old, 
 
 Of good things none are good enough ; 
 We '11 show that we can help to frame 
 A world of other stuff." 
 
 WORDSWORTH.
 
 FOR Joy and Beauty planted it 
 With faerie gardens cheered, 
 
 And boding Fancy haunted it 
 With men and women weird.
 
 HISTORIC NOTES OF LIFE AND LET 
 TERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 
 
 THE ancient manners were giving way. There grew 
 a certain tenderness on the people, not before remarked. 
 Children had been repressed and kept in the back 
 ground ; now they were considered, cosseted and pam 
 pered. I recall the remark of a witty physician who 
 remembered the hardships of his own youth ; he said, 
 " It was a misfortune to have been born when children 
 were nothing, and to live till men were nothing." 
 
 There are always two parties, the party of the Past 
 and the party of the Future ; the Establishment and the 
 Movement. At times the resistance is reanimated, the 
 schism runs under the world and appears in Literature, 
 Philosophy, Church, State, and social customs. It is 
 not easy to date these eras of activity with any preci 
 sion, but in this region one made itself remarked, say 
 in 1820 and the twenty years following. 
 
 It seemed a war between intellect and affection ; a 
 crack in nature, which split every church in Christen 
 dom into Papal and Protestant ; Calvinism into Old 
 and New schools ; Quakerism into Old and New ; 
 brought new divisions in politics ; as the new conscience 
 touching temperance and slavery. The key to the
 
 254 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 period appeared to be that the mind had become aware 
 of itself. Men grew reflective and intellectual. There 
 -#as a new consciousness. The former generations acted 
 under the belief that a shining social prosperity was the 
 beatitude of man, and sacrificed uniformly the citizen 
 to the State. The modern mind believed that the na 
 tion existed for the individual, for the guardianship and 
 education of every man. This idea, roughly written in 
 revolutions and national movements, in the mind of the 
 philosopher had far more precision ; the individual is 
 the world. 
 
 This perception is a sword such as was never drawn 
 before. It divides and detaches bone and marrow, soul 
 and body, yea, almost the man from himself. It is the 
 age of severance, of dissociation, of freedom, of analy 
 sis, of detachment. Every man for himself. The pub 
 lic speaker disclaims speaking for any other ; he an 
 swers only for himself. The social sentiments are 
 weak ; the sentiment of patriotism is weak ; veneration 
 is low ; the natural affections feebler than they were. 
 People grow philosophical about native land and par 
 ents and relations. There is an universal resistance to 
 ties and ligaments once supposed essential to civil soci 
 ety. The new race is stiff, heady and rebellious ; they 
 are fanatics in freedom ; they hate tolls, taxes, turn 
 pikes, banks, hierarchies, governors, yea, almost laws. 
 They have a neck of unspeakable tenderness ; it winces 
 at a hair. They rebel against theological as against po 
 litical dogmas ; against mediation, or saints, or any no 
 bility in the unseen. 
 
 The age tends to solitude. The association of the 
 time is accidental and momentary and hypocritical, the 
 detachment intrinsic and progressive. The association
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 255 
 
 is for power, merely, for means ; the end being the 
 enlargement and independency of the individual. An 
 ciently, society was in the course of things. There was 
 a Sacred Band, a Theban Phalanx. There can be none 
 now. College classes, military corps, or trades-unions 
 may fancy themselves indissoluble for a moment, over 
 their wine ; but it is a painted hoop, and has no girth. 
 The age of arithmetic and of criticism has set in. The 
 structures of old faith in every department of society 
 a few centuries have sufficed to destroy. Astrology, 
 magic, palmistry, are long gone. The very last ghost is 
 laid. Demonology is on its last legs. Prerogative, gov 
 ernment, goes to pieces day by day. Europe is strewn 
 with wrecks ; a constitution once a week. In social 
 manners and morals the revolution is just as evident. 
 In the law courts, crimes of fraud have taken the place 
 of crimes of force. The stockholder has stepped into 
 the place of the warlike baron. The nobles shall not 
 any longer, as feudal lords, have power of life and 
 death over the churls, but now, in another shape, as 
 capitalists, shall in all love and peace eat them up as 
 before. Nay, government itself becomes the resort of 
 those whom government was invented to restrain. " Are 
 there any brigands on the road ? " inquired the travel 
 ler in France. " Oh, no, set your heart at rest on that 
 point," said the landlord ; " what should these fellows 
 keep the highway for, when they can rob just as effectu 
 ally, and much more at their ease, in the bureaus of of 
 fice ? " 
 
 In literature the effect appeared in the decided ten 
 dency of criticism. The most remarkable literary work 
 of the age has for its hero and subject precisely this in 
 troversion : I mean the poem of Faust. In philosophy,
 
 256 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 Immanuel Kant has made the best catalogue of the hu 
 man faculties and the best analysis of the mind. Hegel 
 also, especially. In science the French savant, exact, 
 nitiless, with barometer, crucible, chemic test and calcu 
 lus in hand, travels into all nooks and islands, to weigh, 
 to analyze and report. And chemistry, which is the 
 analysis of matter, has taught us that we eat gas, drink 
 gas, tread on gas, and are gas. The same decomposi 
 tion has changed the whole face of physics ; the like in 
 all arts, modes. Authority falls, in Church, College, 
 Courts of Law, Faculties, Medicine. Experiment is 
 credible ; antiquity is grown ridiculous. 
 
 It marked itself by a certain predominance of the 
 intellect in the balance of powers. The warm swart 
 Earth-spirit which made the strength of past ages, 
 mightier than it knew, with instincts instead of science, 
 like a mother yielding food from her own breast in 
 stead of preparing it through chemic and culinary skill, 
 warm negro ages of sentiment and vegetation, all 
 gone ; another hour had struck and other forms arose. 
 Instead of the social existence which all shared, was 
 now separation. Every one for himself ; driven to find 
 all his resources, hopes, rewards, society and deity 
 within himself. 
 
 The young men were born with knives in their brain, 
 a tendency to introversion, self-dissection, anatomizing 
 of motives. The popular religion of our fathers had 
 received many severe shocks from the new times ; from 
 the Arminians, which was the current name of the back 
 sliders from Calvinism, sixty years ago ; then from the 
 English philosophic theologians, Hartley and Priestley 
 and Belsham, the followers of Locke ; and then I 
 should say much later from the slow but extraordinary
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 257 
 
 influence of Swedenborg ; a man of prodigious mind, 
 though as I think tainted with a certain suspicion of 
 insanity, and therefore generally disowned, but exert 
 ing a singular power over an important intellectual 
 class ; then the powerful influence of the genius and 
 character of Dr. Channing. 
 
 Germany had created criticism in vain for us until 
 1820, when Edward Everett returned from his five 
 years in Europe, and brought to Cambridge his rich 
 results, which no one was so fitted by natural grace and 
 the splendor of his rhetoric to introduce and recom 
 mend. He made us for the first time acquainted with 
 Wolff's theory of the Homeric writings, with the criti 
 cism of Heyne. The novelty of the learning lost noth 
 ing in the skill and genius of his relation, and the 
 rudest undergraduate found a new morning opened to 
 him in the lecture-room of Harvard Hall. 
 
 There was an influence on the young people from the 
 genius of Everett which was almost comparable to that 
 of Pericles in Athens. He had an inspiration which 
 did not go beyond his head, but which made him the 
 master of elegance. If any of my readers were at that 
 period in Boston or Cambridge, they will easily remem 
 ber his radiant beauty of person, of a classic style, his 
 heavy large eye, marble lids, which gave the impression 
 of mass which the slightness of his form needed ; sculp 
 tured lips ; a voice of such rich tones, such precise and 
 perfect utterance, that, although slightly nasal, it was 
 the most mellow and beautiful and correct of all the 
 instruments of the time. The word that he spoke, in 
 the manner in which he spoke it, became current and 
 classical in New England. He had a great talent for 
 collecting facts, and for bringing those he had to bear 
 IT
 
 258 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 with ingenious felicity on the topic of the moment. Let 
 him rise to speak on what occasion soever, a fact had 
 always just transpired which composed, with some other 
 fact well known to the audience, the most pregnant and 
 happy coincidence. It was remarked that for a man 
 who threw out so many facts he was seldom convicted 
 of a blunder. He had a good deal of special learning, 
 and all his learning was available for purposes of the 
 hour. It was all new learning, that wonderfully took 
 and stimulated the young men. It was so coldty and 
 weightily communicated from so commanding a plat 
 form, as if in the consciousness and consideration of all 
 history and all learning, adorned with so many sim 
 ple and austere beauties of expression, and enriched 
 with so many excellent digressions and significant quo 
 tations, that, though nothing could be conceived before 
 hand less attractive or indeed less fit for green boys 
 from Connecticut, New Hampshire and Massachusetts, 
 with their unripe Latin and Greek reading, than exeget- 
 ical discourses in the style of Voss and Wolff and Ruhn- 
 ken, on the Orphic and Ante-Homeric remains, yet 
 this learning instantly took the highest place to our im 
 agination in our unoccupied American Parnassus. All 
 his auditors felt the extreme beauty and dignity of 
 the manner, and even the coarsest were contented to 
 go punctually to listen, for the manner, when they had 
 found out that the subject-matter was not for them. In 
 the lecture-room, he abstained from all ornament, and 
 pleased himself with the play of detailing erudition in 
 a style of perfect simplicity. In the pulpit (for he was 
 then a clergyman) he made amends to himself and his 
 auditor for the self-denial of the professor's chair, and, 
 with an infantine simplicity still, of manner, he gave 
 the reins to his florid, quaint and affluent fancy.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 259 
 
 Then was exhibited all the richness of a rhetoric 
 which we have never seen rivalled in this country. 
 Wonderful how memorable were words made which 
 were only pleasing pictures, and covered no new or 
 valid thoughts. He abounded in sentences, in wit, in 
 satire, in splendid allusion, hi quotation impossible to 
 forget, in daring imagery, in parable and even in a sort 
 of defying experiment of his own wit and skill in giv 
 ing an oracular weight to Hebrew or Rabbinical words ; 
 feats which no man could better accomplish, such 
 was his self-command and the security of his manner. 
 All his speech was music, and with such variety and in 
 vention that the ear was never tired. Especially beauti 
 ful were his poetic quotations. . He delighted in quoting 
 Milton, and with such sweet modulation that he seemed 
 to give as much beauty as he borrowed ; and whatever 
 he has quoted will be remembered by any who heard 
 him, with inseparable association with his voice and ge 
 nius. He had nothing in common with vulgarity and 
 infirmity, but, speaking, walking, sitting, was as much 
 aloof and uncommon as a star. The smallest anecdote 
 of his behavior or conversation was eagerly caught and 
 repeated, and every young scholar could recite brilliant 
 sentences from his sermons, with mimicry, good or bad, 
 of his voice. This influence went much farther, for he 
 who was heard with such throbbing hearts and spark 
 ling eyes in the lighted and crowded churches, did not 
 let go his hearers when the church was dismissed, but 
 the bright image of that eloquent form followed the 
 boy home to his bed-chamber ; and not a sentence was 
 written in academic exercises, not a declamation at 
 tempted in the college chapel, but showed the omni 
 presence of his genius to youthful heads. This made
 
 200 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 every youth his defender, and boys filled their mouths 
 with arguments to prove that the orator had a heart. 
 This was a triumph of Rhetoric. It was not the intel 
 lectual or the moral principles which he had to teach. 
 It was not thoughts. When Massachusetts was full of 
 his fame it was not contended that he had thrown any 
 truths into circulation. But his power lay in the magic 
 of form ; it was in the graces of manner ; in a new 
 perception of Grecian beauty, to which he had opened 
 our eyes. There was that finish about this person 
 which is about women, and which distinguishes every 
 piece of genius from the works of talent, that these 
 last are more or less matured in every degree of com 
 pleteness according to the time bestowed on them, but 
 works of genius in their first and slightest form are 
 still wholes. In every public discourse there was noth 
 ing left for the indulgence of his hearer, no marks of 
 late hours and anxious, unfinished study, but the god 
 dess of grace had breathed on the work a last fragrancy 
 and glitter. 
 
 By a series of lectures largely and fashionably at 
 tended for two winters in Boston he made a beginning 
 of popular literary and miscellaneous lecturing, which 
 in that region at least had important results. It is ac 
 quiring greater importance every day, and becoming a 
 national institution. I am quite certain that this purely 
 literary influence was of the first importance to the 
 American mind. 
 
 In the pulpit Dr. Frothingham, an excellent classical 
 and German scholar, had already made us acquainted, 
 if prudently, with the genius of Eichhorn's theologic 
 criticism. And Professor Norton a little later gave 
 form and method to the like studies in the then infant
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 261 
 
 Divinity School. But I think the paramount source of 
 the religious revolution was Modern Science ; beginning 
 with Copernicus, who destroyed the pagan fictions of 
 the Church, by showing mankind that the earth on 
 which we live was not the centre of the Universe, 
 around which the sun and stars revolved every day, 
 and thus fitted to be the platform on which the Drama 
 of the Divine Judgment was played before the assem 
 bled Angels of Heaven, " the scaffold of the divine 
 vengeance " Saurin called it, but a little scrap of a 
 planet, rushing round the sun in our system, which in 
 turn was too minute to be seen at the distance of many 
 stars which we behold. Astronomy taught us our in 
 significance in Nature ; showed that our sacred as our 
 profane history had been written in gross ignorance of 
 the laws, which were far grander than we knew ; and 
 compelled a certain extension and uplifting of our views 
 of the Deity and his Providence. This correction of 
 our superstitions was confirmed by the new science of 
 Geology, and the whole train of discoveries in every de 
 partment. But we presently saw also that the religious 
 nature in man was not affected by these errors in his 
 understanding. The religious sentiment made nothing 
 of bulk or size, or far or near ; triumphed over time as 
 well as space ; and every lesson of humility, or justice, 
 or charity, which the old ignorant saints had taught 
 him, was still forever true. 
 
 Whether from these influences, or whether by a re 
 action of the general mind against the too formal 
 science, religion and social life of the earlier period, 
 there was, in the first quarter of our nineteenth century, 
 a certain sharpness of criticism, an eagerness for reform, 
 which showed itself in every quarter. It appeared in
 
 262 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 the popularity of Lavater's Physiognomy, now almost 
 forgotten. Gall and Spurzheim's Phrenology laid a 
 rough hand on the mysteries of animal and spiritual 
 nature, dragging down every sacred secret to a street 
 show. The attempt was coarse and odious to scientific 
 men, but had a certain truth in it ; it felt connection 
 where the professors denied it, and was a leading to a 
 truth which had not yet been announced. On the heels 
 of this intruder came Mesmerism, which broke into the 
 inmost shrines, attempted the explanation of miracle 
 and prophecy, as well as of creation. What could be 
 more revolting to the contemplative philosopher ! But 
 a certain success attended it, against all expectation. 
 It was human, it was genial, it affirmed unity and con 
 nection between remote points, and as such was excel 
 lent criticism on the narrow and dead classification of 
 what passed for science ; and the joy with which it was 
 greeted was an instinct of the people which no true 
 philosopher would fail to profit by. But while society 
 remained in doubt between the indignation of the old 
 school and the audacity of the new, a higher note 
 sounded. Unexpected aid from high quarters came to 
 iconoclasts. The German poet Goethe revolted against 
 the science of the day, against French and English 
 science, declared war against the great name of New 
 ton, proposed his own new and simple optics : in bot 
 any, his simple theory of metamorphosis ; the eye of 
 a leaf is all ; every part of the plant from root to fruit 
 is only a modified leaf, the branch of a tree is nothing 
 but a leaf whose serratures have become twigs. Ho 
 extended this into anatomy and animal life, and his 
 views were accepted. The revolt became a revolution. 
 Schelling and Oken introduced their ideal natural phi<
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 263 
 
 losophy, Hegel his metaphysics, and extended it to Civil 
 History. 
 
 The result in literature and the general mind was a 
 return to law ; in science, in politics, in social life ; as 
 distinguished from the profligate manners and politics 
 of earlier times. The age was moral. Every immo 
 rality is a departure from nature, and is punished by 
 natural loss and deformity. The popularity of Combe's 
 Constitution of Man ; the humanity which "was the aim 
 of all the multitudinous works of Dickens ; the tendency 
 even of Punch's caricature, was all on the side of the 
 people. There was a breath of new air, much vague 
 expectation, a consciousness of power not yet finding its 
 determinate aim. 
 
 I attribute much importance to two papers of Dr. 
 Channing, one on Milton and one on Napoleon, which 
 were the first specimens in this country of that large 
 criticism which in England had given power and fame 
 to the Edinburgh Review. They were widely read, and 
 of course immediately fruitful in provoking emulation 
 which lifted the style of Journalism. Dr. Channing, 
 whilst he lived, was the star of the American Church, 
 and we then thought, if we do not still think, that he 
 left no successor in the pulpit. He could never be 
 reported, for his eye and voice could not be printed, 
 and his discourses lose their best in losing them. He 
 was made for the public ; his cold temperament made 
 him the most unprofitable private companion ; but all 
 America would have been impoverished in wanting him. 
 We could not then spare a single word he uttered in 
 public, not so much as the reading a lesson in Scripture, 
 or a hymn, and it is curious that his printed writings 
 are almost a history of the times ; as there was no great
 
 264 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 public interest, political, literary, or even economical 
 (for he wrote on the Tariff), on which he did not leave 
 some printed record of his brave and thoughtful opinion. 
 A poor little invalid all his life, he is yet one of those 
 men who vindicate the power of the American race to 
 produce greatness. 
 
 Dr. Channing took counsel in 1840 with George Rip- 
 ley, to the point whether it were possible to bring cul 
 tivated, thoughtful people together, and make society 
 that deserved the name. He had earlier talked with 
 Dr. John Collins Warren on the like purpose, who ad 
 mitted the wisdom of the design and undertook to aid 
 him in making the experiment. Dr. Chauiiing repaired 
 to Dr. Warren's house on the appointed evening, with 
 large thoughts which he wished to open. He found 
 a well-chosen assembly of gentlemen variously distin 
 guished ; there was mutual greeting and introduction, 
 and they were chatting agreeably on indifferent matters 
 and drawing gently towards their great expectation, 
 when a side-door opened, the whole company streamed 
 in to an oyster supper, crowned by excellent wines ; and 
 so ended the first attempt to establish aesthetic society 
 in Boston. 
 
 Some time afterwards Dr. Channing opened his mind 
 to Mr. and Mrs. Ripley, and with some care they in 
 vited a limited party of ladies and gentlemen. I had 
 the honor to be present. Though I recall the fact, I do 
 not retain any instant consequence of this attempt, or 
 any connection between it and the new zeal of the 
 friends who at that time began to be drawn together 
 by sympathy of studies and of aspiration. Margaret 
 Fuller, George Ripley, Dr. Convers Francis, Theodore 
 Parker, Dr. Hedge, Mr. Brownson, James Freeman
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 265 
 
 Clarke, William H. Channing, and many others, grad 
 ually drew together and from time to time spent an af 
 ternoon at each other's houses in a serious conversation. 
 With them was always one well-known form, a pure 
 idealist, not at all a man of letters, nor of any practical 
 talent, nor a writer of books ; a man quite too cold and 
 contemplative for the alliances of friendship, with rare 
 simplicity and grandeur of perception, who read Plato 
 as an equal, and inspired his companions only in pro 
 portion as they were intellectual, whilst the men of 
 talent complained of the want of point and precision in 
 this abstract and religious thinker. 
 
 These fine conversations, of course, were incompre 
 hensible to some in the company, and they had their 
 revenge in their little joke. One declared that "It 
 seemed to him like going to heaven in a swing ; " an 
 other reported that, at a knotty point in the discourse, 
 a sympathizing Englishman with a squeaking voice in 
 terrupted with the question, " Mr. Alcott, a lady near 
 me desires to inquire whether omnipotence abnegates 
 attribute ? " 
 
 I think there prevailed at that time a general belief 
 in Boston that there was some concert of doctrinaires to 
 establish certain opinions and inaugurate some move 
 ment in literature, philosophy and religion, of which 
 design the supposed conspirators were quite -innocent ; 
 for there was no concert, and only here and there two 
 or three men or women who read and wrote, each alone, 
 with unusual vivacity. Perhaps they only agreed in hav 
 ing fallen upon Coleridge and Wordsworth and Goethe, 
 then on Carlyle, with pleasure and sympathy. Other 
 wise, their education and reading were not marked, but 
 had the American superficialness, and their studies
 
 266 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 were solitary. I suppose all of them were surprised at 
 this rumor of a school or sect, and certainly at the name 
 of Transcendentalism, given nobody knows by whom, or 
 when it was first applied. As these persons became in 
 the common chances of society acquainted with each 
 other, there resulted certain strong friendships, which 
 of course were exclusive in proportion to their heat : 
 and perhaps those persons who wefe mutually the best 
 friends were the most private and had no ambition of 
 publishing their letters, diaries, or conversation. 
 
 From that time meetings were held for conversation, 
 with very little form, from house to house, of people 
 engaged in studies, fond of books, and watchful of all 
 the intellectual light from whatever quarter it flowed. 
 Nothing could be less formal, yet the intelligence and 
 character and varied ability of the company gave it 
 some notoriety and perhaps waked curiosity as to its 
 aims and results. 
 
 Nothing more serious came of it than the modest 
 quarterly journal called " The Dial " which, under the 
 editorship of Margaret Fuller, and later of some other, 
 enjoyed its obscurity for four years. All its papers 
 were unpaid contributions, and it was rather a work of 
 friendship among the narrow circle of students than the 
 organ of any party. Perhaps its writers were its chief 
 readers : yet it contained some noble papers by Mar 
 garet Fuller, and some numbers had an instant exhaust 
 ing sale, because of papers by Theodore Parker. 
 
 Theodore Parker was our Savonarola, an excellent 
 scholar, in frank and affectionate communication with 
 the best minds of his day, yet the tribune of the people, 
 and the stout Reformer to urge and defend every cause 
 of humanity with and for the humblest of mankind.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 267 
 
 He was no artist. Highly refined persons might easily 
 miss in him the element of beauty. What he said was 
 mere fact, almost offended you, so bald and detached ; 
 little cared he. He stood altogether for practical truth , 
 and so to the last. He used every day and hour of his 
 short life, and his character appeared in the last mo 
 ments with the same firm control as in the mid-day of 
 strength. I habitually apply to him the words of a 
 French philosopher who speaks of " the man of Nature 
 who abominates the steam-engine and the factory. His 
 vast lungs breathe independence with the air of the 
 mountains and the woods." 
 
 The vulgar politician disposed of this circle cheaply as 
 " the sentimental class." State Street had an instinct 
 that they invalidated contracts and threatened the sta 
 bility of stocks ; and it did not fancy brusque manners. 
 Society always values, even in its teachers, inoffensive 
 people, susceptible of conventional polish. The clergy 
 man who would live in the city may have piety, but 
 must have taste, whilst there was often coming, among 
 these, some John the Baptist, wild from the woods, 
 rude, hairy, careless of dress and quite scornful of the 
 etiquette of cities. There was a pilgrim in those days 
 walking in the country who stopped at every door where 
 he hoped to find hearing for his doctrine, which was, 
 Never to give or receive money. He was a poor prin 
 ter, and explained with simple warmth the belief of 
 himself and five or six young men with whom he agreed 
 in opinion, of the vast mischief of our insidious coin. 
 He thought every one should labor at some necessary 
 product, and as soon as he had made more than enough 
 for himself, were it corn, or paper, or cloth, or boot 
 jacks, he should give of the commodity to any appli-
 
 268 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 cant, and in turn go to his neighbor for any article 
 which he had to spare. Of course we were curious to 
 know how he sped in his experiments on the neighbor, 
 and his anecdotes were interesting, and often highly 
 creditable. But he had the courage which so stern a 
 return to Arcadian manners required, and had learned 
 to sleep, in cold nights, when the fanner at whose door 
 he knocked declined to give him a bed, on a wagon 
 covered with the buffalo-robe under the shed, or un 
 der the stars, when the farmer denied the shed and the 
 buffalo-robe. I think he persisted for two years in his 
 brave practice, but did not enlarge his church of be 
 lievers. 
 
 These reformers were a new class. Instead of the 
 fiery souls of the Puritans, bent on hanging the Quaker, 
 burning the witch and banishing the Romanist, these 
 were gentle souls, with peaceful and even with genial 
 dispositions, casting sheep's eyes even on Fourier and 
 his houris. It was a time when the air was full of re 
 form. Robert Owen of Lanark came hither from Eng 
 land in 1845, and read lectures or held conversations 
 wherever he found listeners ; the most amiable, san 
 guine and candid of men. He had not the least doubt 
 that he had hit on a right and perfect socialism, or that 
 all mankind would adopt it. He was then seventy 
 years old, and being asked, " Well, Mr. Owen, who is 
 your disciple ? How many men are there possessed of 
 your views who will remain after you are gone, to put 
 them in practice ? " " Not one," was his reply. Rob 
 ert Owen knew Fourier in his old age. He said that 
 Fourier learned of him all the truth he had ; the rest of 
 his system was imagination, and the imagination of a 
 banker. Owen made the best impression by bis rare
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 269 
 
 benevolence. His love of men made us forget his 
 "Three Errors." His charitable construction of men 
 and their actions was invariable. He was the better 
 Christian in his controversy with Christians, and he in 
 terpreted with great generosity the act* of the " Holy 
 Alliance," and Prince Metternich, with whom the per 
 severing doctrinaire had obtained interviews ; " Ah," he 
 said, " you may depend on it there are as tender hearts 
 and as much good will to serve men, in palaces, as in 
 colleges." 
 
 And truly I honor the generous ideas of the Socialists, 
 the magnificence of their theories, and the enthusiasm 
 with which they have been urged. They appeared the 
 inspired men of their time. Mr. Owen preached his 
 doctrine of labor and reward, with the fidelity and de 
 votion of a saint, to the slow ears of his generation. 
 Fourier, almost as wonderful an example of the mathe 
 matical mind of France as La Place or Napoleon, 
 turned a truly vast arithmetic to the question of social 
 misery, and has put men under the obligation which a 
 generous mind always confers, of conceiving magnificent 
 hopes and making great demands as the right of man. 
 He took his measure of that which all should and might 
 enjoy, from no soup - society or charity - concert, but 
 from the refinements of palaces, the wealth of univer 
 sities, and the triumphs of artists. He thought nobly. 
 A man is entitled to pure air, and to the air of good 
 conversation in his bringing up, and not, as we or so 
 many of us, to the poor-smell and musty chambers, 
 cats and fools. Fourier carried a whole French Revo 
 lution in his head, and much more. Here was arith 
 metic on a huge scale. His ciphering goes where cipher 
 ing never went before, namely, into stars, atmospheres,
 
 270 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 and animals, and men and women, and classes of every 
 character. It was the most entertaining of French ro 
 mances, and could not but suggest vast possibilities of 
 reform to the coldest and least sanguine. 
 
 We had afl opportunity of learning something of 
 these Socialists and their theory, from the indefatigable 
 apostle of the sect in New York, Albert Brisbane. Mr. 
 Brisbane pushed his doctrine with all the force of mem 
 ory, talent, honest faith and importunacy. As we list 
 ened to his exposition it appeared to us the sublime of 
 mechanical philosophy ; for the system was the perfec 
 tion of arrangement and contrivance. The force of ar 
 rangement could no farther go. The merit of the plan 
 was that it was a system ; that it had not the partiality 
 and hint - and - fragment character of most popular 
 schemes, but was coherent and comprehensive of facts 
 to a wonderful degree. It was not daunted by distance, 
 or magnitude, or remoteness of any sort, but strode 
 about nature with a giant's step, and skipped no fact, 
 but wove its large Ptolemaic web of cycle and epicycle, 
 of phalanx and phalanstery, with laudable assiduity. 
 Mechanics were pushed so far as fairly to meet spirit 
 ualism. One could not but be struck with strange co 
 incidences betwixt Fourier and Swedenborg. Genius 
 hitherto has been shamefully misapplied, a mere trifler. 
 It must now set itself to raise the social condition of man 
 and to redress the disorders of the planet he inhabits. 
 The Desert of Sahara, the Campagna di Roma, the 
 frozen Polar circles, which by their pestilential or hot 
 or cold airs poison the temperate regions, accuse man. 
 Society, concert, co-operation, is the secret of the com 
 ing Paradise. By reason of the isolation of men at the 
 present day, all work is drudgery. By concert and the
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 271 
 
 allowing each laborer to choose his own work, it be 
 comes pleasure. " Attractive Industry " would speedily 
 subdue, by adventurous scientific and persistent tillage, 
 the pestilential tracts ; would equalize temperature, 
 give health to the globe and cause the earth to yield 
 " healthy imponderable fluids " to the solar system, as 
 now it yields noxious fluids. The hyaena, the jackal, 
 the gnat, the bug, the flea, were all beneficent parts of 
 the system ; the good Fourier knew what those creat 
 ures should have been, had not the mould slipped, 
 through the bad. state of the atmosphere ; caused no 
 doubt by the same vicious imponderable fluids. All 
 these shall be redressed by human culture, and the use 
 ful goat and dog and innocent poetical moth, or the 
 wood - tick to consume decomposing wood, shall take 
 their place. It takes sixteen hundred and eighty men 
 to make one Man, complete in all the faculties ; that is, 
 to be sure that you have got a good joiner, a good cook, 
 a barber, a poet, a judge, an umbrella-maker, a mayor 
 and alderman, and so on. ' Your community should con 
 sist of two thousand persons, to prevent accidents of 
 omission ; and each community should take up six 
 thousand acres of land. Now fancy the earth planted 
 with fifties and hundreds of these phalanxes side by 
 side, what tillage, what architecture, what refectories, 
 what dormitories, what reading-rooms, what concerts, 
 what lectures, what gardens, what baths ! What is not 
 in one will be in another, and many will be within easy 
 distance. Then know you one and all, that Constanti 
 nople is the natural capital of the globe. There, in the 
 Golden Horn, will the Arch-Phalanx be established ; 
 there will the Omniarch reside. Aladdin and his ma 
 gician, or the beautiful Scheherezade can alone, in these
 
 272 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 prosaic times before the sight, describe the material 
 splendors collected there. Poverty shall be abolished ; 
 deformity, stupidity and crime shall be no more. Gen 
 ius, grace, art, shall abound, and it is not to be doubted 
 but that in the reign of " Attractive Industry " all men 
 will speak in blank verse. 
 
 Certainly we listened with great pleasure to such gay 
 and magnificent pictures. The ability and earnestness 
 of the advocate and his friends, the comprehensiveness 
 of their theory, its apparent directness of proceeding to 
 the end they would secure, the indignation they felt 
 and uttered in the presence of so much social misery, 
 commanded our attention and respect. It contained so 
 much truth, and promised in the attempts that shall be 
 made to realize it so much valuable instruction, that we 
 are engaged to observe every step of its progress. Yet 
 in spite of the assurances of its friends that it was new 
 and widely discriminated from all other plans for the 
 regeneration of society, we could not exempt it from 
 the criticism which we apply to so many projects for 
 reform with which the brain of the age teems. Our 
 feeling was that Fourier had skipped no fact but one, 
 namely Life. He treats man as a plastic thing, some 
 thing that may be put up or down, ripened or retarded, 
 moulded, polished, made into solid or fluid or gas, at the 
 will of the leader ; or perhaps as a vegetable, from 
 which, though now a poor crab, a very good peach can 
 by manure and exposure be in time produced, but 
 skips the faculty of life, which spawns and scorns sys 
 tem and system-makers ; which eludes all conditions ; 
 which makes or supplants a thousand phalanxes and 
 New Harmonies with each pulsation. There is an order 
 in which in a sound mind the faculties always appear,
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 273 
 
 and which, according to the strength of the individual, 
 they seek to realize in the surrounding world. The 
 value of Fourier's system is that it is a statement of 
 such an order externized, or carried outward into its 
 correspondence in facts. The mistake is that this par 
 ticular order and series is to be imposed, by force or 
 preaching and votes, on all men, and carried into rigid 
 execution. But what is true and good must not only 
 be begun by life, but must be conducted to its issues by 
 life. Could not the conceiver of this design have also 
 believed that a similar model lay in every mind, and 
 that the method of each associate might be trusted, as 
 well as that of his particular Committee and General 
 Office, No. 200 Broadway ? Nay, that it would be bet 
 ter to say, Let us be lovers and servants of that which 
 is just, and straightway every man becomes a centre of 
 a holy and beneficent republic, which he sees to include 
 all men in its law, like that of Plato, and of Christ. 
 Before such a man the whole world becomes Fourier- 
 ized or Christized or humanized, and in obedience to 
 his most private being he finds himself, according to his 
 presentiment, though against all sensuous probability, 
 acting in strict concert with all others who followed 
 their private light. 
 
 Yet, in a day of small, sour and fierce schemes, one is 
 admonished and cheered by a project of such friendly 
 aims and of such bold and generous proportion ; there 
 is an intellectual courage and strength in it which is su 
 perior and commanding ; it certifies the presence of so 
 much truth in the theory, and in so far is destined to be 
 fact. 
 
 It argued singular courage, the adoption of Fourier's 
 system, to even a limited extent, with his books lying 
 18
 
 274 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 before the world only defended by the thin veil of the 
 French language. The Stoic said, Forbear : Fourier 
 said, Indulge. Fourier was of the opinion of St. Evre- 
 mond ; abstinence from pleasure seemed to him a great 
 sin. Fourier was very French indeed. He labored un 
 der a misapprehension of the nature of women. The 
 Fourier marriage was a calculation how to secure the 
 greatest amount of kissing that the infirmity of human 
 constitution admitted. It was false and prurient, full 
 of absurd French superstitions about women ; ignorant 
 how serious and how moral their nature always is ; how 
 chaste is their organization ; how lawful a class. 
 
 It is the worst of community that it must inevitably 
 transform into charlatans the leaders, by the endeavor 
 continually to meet the expectation and admiration of 
 this eager crowd of men and women seeking they know 
 not what. Unless he have a Cossack roughness of clear 
 ing himself of what belongs not, charlatan he must be. 
 
 It was easy to see what must be the fate of this fine 
 system in any serious and comprehensive attempt to set 
 it on foot in this country. As soon as our people got 
 wind of the doctrine of Marriage held by this master, it 
 would fall at once into the hands of a lawless crew who 
 would flock in troops to so fair a game, and, like the 
 dreams of poetic people on the first outbreak of the old 
 French Revolution, so theirs would disappear hi a slime 
 of mire and blood. 
 
 There is of course to every theory a tendency to run 
 to an extreme, and to forget the limitations. In our 
 free institutions, where every man is at liberty to choose 
 his home and his trade, and all possible modes of work 
 ing and gaining are open to him, fortunes are easily 
 made by thousands, as in no other country. Then prop-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 275 
 
 erty proves too much for the man, and the men of sci 
 ence, art, intellect, are pretty sure to degenerate into 
 selfish housekeepers, dependent on wine, coffee, fur 
 nace-heat, gas-light and fine furniture. Then instantly 
 things swing the other way, and we suddenly find that 
 civilization crowed too soon ; that what we bragged as 
 triumphs were treacheries : that we have opened the 
 wrong door and let the enemy into the castle ; that civ 
 ilization was a mistake ; that nothing is so vulgar as a 
 great warehouse of rooms full of furniture and trump 
 ery ; that, in the circumstances, the best wisdom were 
 an auction or a fire. Since the foxes and the birds have 
 the right of it, with a warm hole to keep out the 
 weather, and no more, a pent-house to fend the sun 
 and rain is the house which lays no tax on the owner's 
 time and thoughts, and which he can leave, when the 
 sun is warm, and defy the robber. This was Thoreau's 
 doctrine, who said that the Fourierists had a sense of 
 duty which led them to devote themselves to their sec 
 ond-best. And Thoreau gave in flesh and blood and 
 pertinacious Saxon belief the purest ethics. He was 
 more real and practically believing in them than any 
 of his company, and fortified you at all times with an 
 affirmative experience which refused to be set aside. 
 Thoreau was in his own person a practical answer, al 
 most a refutation, to the theories of the socialists. He 
 required no Phalanx, no Government, no society, almost 
 no memory. He lived extempore from hour to hour, 
 like the birds and the angels ; brought every day a new 
 proposition, as revolutionary as that of yesterday, but 
 different : the only man of leisure in his town ; and his 
 independence made all others look like slaves. He was 
 a good Abbot Sampson, and carried a counsel in hia
 
 276 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 breast. " Again and again I congratulate myself on my 
 so-called poverty, I could not overstate this advantage." 
 " What you call bareness and poverty, is to me simplic 
 ity. God could not be unkind to me if he should try. 
 I love best to have each thing in its season only, and 
 enjoy doing without it at all other times. It is the 
 greatest of all advantages to enjoy no advantage at all. 
 I have never got over my surprise that I should have 
 been born into the most estimable place in all the world, 
 and in the very nick of time too." There 's an optimist 
 for you. 
 
 I regard these philanthropists as themselves the 
 effects of the age in which we live, and, in common with 
 so many other good facts, the efflorescence of the period, 
 and predicting a good fruit that ripens. They were 
 not the creators they believed themselves, but they were 
 unconscious prophets of a true state of society ; one 
 which the tendencies of nature lead unto, one which 
 always establishes itself for the sane soul, though not in 
 that manner in which they paint it ; but they were de- 
 scribers of that which is really being done. The large 
 cities are phalansteries ; and the theorists drew all their 
 argument from facts already taking place in our expe 
 rience. The cheap way is to make every man do what 
 he was born for. One merchant to whom I described 
 the Fourier project, thought it must not only succeed, 
 but that agricultural association must presently fix the 
 price of bread, and drive single farmers into association 
 of self-defence, as the great commercial and manufac 
 turing companies had done. Society in England and 
 in America is trying the experiment again in small 
 pieces, in co-operative associations, in cheap eating- 
 houses, as well as in the economies of club-houses and 
 in cheap reading-rooms.
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 277 
 
 It chanced that here in one family were two brothers, 
 one a brilliant and fertile inventor, and close by him 
 his own brother, a man of business, who knew how to 
 direct his faculty and make it instantly and perma 
 nently lucrative. Why could not the like partnership 
 be formed between the inventor and the man of execu 
 tive talent everywhere ? Each man of thought is sur 
 rounded by wiser men than he, if they cannot write as 
 well. Cannot he and they combine ? Talents supple 
 ment each other. Beaumont and Fletcher and many 
 French novelists have known how to utilize such part 
 nerships. Why not have a larger one, and with more 
 various members ? 
 
 Housekeepers say, " There are a thousand things to 
 everything," and if one must study all the strokes to 
 be laid, all the faults to be shunned in a building or 
 work of art, of its keeping, its composition, its site, its 
 color, there would be no end. But the architect, a<ft- 
 ing under a necessity to build the house for its purpose, 
 finds himself helped, he knows not how, into all these 
 merits of detail, and steering clear, though in the dark, 
 of those dangers which might have shipwrecked him. 
 
 BROOK FARM. 
 
 The West Roxbury association was formed in 1841, 
 by a society of members, men and women, who bought 
 a farm in West Roxbury, of about two hundred acres, 
 and took possession of the place in April. Mr. George 
 Ripley was the President, and I think Mr. Charles 
 Dana (afterwards well known as one of the editors 
 of the New York Tribune), was the secretary. Many 
 members took shares by paying money, others held 
 shares by their labor. An old house on the place was
 
 278 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 enlarged, and three new houses built. William Allen 
 was at first and for some time the head farmer, and the 
 work was distributed in orderly committees to the men 
 and women. There were many employments more or 
 less lucrative found for, or brought hither by these 
 members, shoemakers, joiners, sempstresses. They 
 had good scholars among them, and so received pupils 
 for their education. The parents of the children in 
 some instances wished to live there, and were received 
 as boarders. Many persons attracted by the beauty of 
 the pLice and the culture and ambition of the commu 
 nity, joined them as boarders, and lived there for years. 
 I think the numbers of this mixed community soon 
 reached eighty or ninety souls. 
 
 It was a noble and generous movement in the pro 
 jectors, to try an experiment of better living. They 
 had the feeling that our ways of living were too con- 
 ^ntional and expensive, not allowing each to do what 
 he had a talent for, and not permitting men to combine 
 cultivation of mind and heart with a reasonable amount 
 of daily labor. At the same time, it was an attempt to 
 lift others with themselves, and to share the advantages 
 they should attain, with others now deprived of them. 
 
 There was no doubt great variety of character and 
 purpose in the members of the community. It consisted 
 in the mam of young people, few of middle age, and 
 none old. Those who inspired and organized it were of 
 course persons impatient of the routine, the uniformity, 
 perhaps they would say, the squalid contentment of 
 society around them, which was so timid and skeptical 
 of any progress. One would say then that impulse was 
 the rule in the society, without centripetal balance ; 
 perhaps it would not be severe to say, intellectual sans-
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 279 
 
 culottism, an impatience of the formal, routinary charac 
 ter of our educational, religious, social and economical 
 life in Massachusetts. Yet there was immense hope in 
 these young people. There was nobleness ; there were 
 self-sacrificing victims who compensated for the levity 
 and rashness of their companions. The young people 
 lived a great deal in a short time, and came forth some 
 of them perhaps with shattered constitutions. And a 
 few grave sanitary influences of character were happily 
 there, which, I was assured, were always felt. 
 
 George W. Curtis of New York, and his brother, of 
 English Oxford, were members of the family from the 
 first. Theodore Parker, the near neighbor of the farm 
 and the most intimate friend of Mr. Ripley, was a fre 
 quent visitor. Mr. Ichabod Morton of Plymouth, a plain 
 man formerly engaged through many years in the fish 
 eries with success, eccentric, with a persevering in 
 terest in Education, and of a very democratic religion, 
 came and built a house on the farm, and he, or members 
 of his family, continued there to the end. Margaret 
 Fuller, with her joyful conversation and large sym 
 pathy, was often a guest, and always in correspondence 
 with her friends. Many ladies, whom to name were 
 to praise, gave character and varied attraction to the 
 place. 
 
 In and around Brook Farm, whether as members, 
 boarders, or visitors, were many remarkable persons, for 
 character, intellect, or accomplishments. I recall one 
 youth of the subtlest mind, I believe I must say the 
 subtlest observer and diviner of character I ever met, 
 living, reading, writing, talking there, perhaps as long 
 as the colony held together ; his mind fed and overfed 
 by whatever is exalted in genius, whether in Poetry or
 
 280 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 Art, in Drama or Music, or in social accomplishment 
 and elegancy ; a man of no employment or practical 
 aims, a student and philosopher, who found his daily 
 enjoyment not with the elders or his exact contempora 
 ries so much as with the fine boys who were skating 
 and playing ball or bird-hunting ; forming the closest 
 friendships with such, and finding his delight in the 
 petulant heroisms of boys ; yet was he the chosen coun 
 sellor to whom the guardians would repair on any hitch 
 or difficulty that occurred, and draw from him a wise 
 counsel. A fine, subtle, inward genius, puny in body 
 and habit as a girl, yet with an aplomb like a general, 
 never disconcerted. He lived and thought, in 1842, 
 such worlds of life ; all hinging on the thought of Be 
 ing or Reality as opposed to consciousness ; hating in 
 tellect with the ferocity of a Swedenborg. He was the 
 Abbe or spiritual father, from his religious bias. His 
 reading lay in ^schylus, Plato, Dante, Calderon, Shak- 
 speare, and in modern novels and romances of merit. 
 There too was Hawthorne, with his cold yet gentle 
 genius, if he failed to do justice to this temporary 
 home. There was the accomplished Doctor of Music, 
 who has presided over its literature ever since in our 
 metropolis. Rev. William Henry Channing, now of 
 London, was from the first a student of Socialism in 
 France and England, and in perfect sympathy with 
 this experiment. An English baronet, Sir John Cald- 
 well, was a frequent visitor, and more or less directly 
 interested in the leaders and the success. 
 
 Hawthorne drew some sketches, not happily, as I 
 think ; I should rather say, quite unworthy of his genius. 
 No friend who knew Margaret Fuller could recognize 
 her rich and brilliant genius under the dismal mask
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 281 
 
 which the public fancied was meant for her in that disa 
 greeable story. 
 
 The Founders of Brook Farm should have this praise, 
 that they made what all people try to make, an agree 
 able place to live in. All comers, even the most fas 
 tidious, found it the pleasantest of residences. It is 
 certain that freedom from household routine, variety 
 of character and talent, variety of work, variety of 
 means of thought and instruction, art, music, poetry, 
 reading, masquerade, did not permit sluggishness or 
 despondency ; broke up routine. There is agreement 
 in the testimony that it was, to most of the asso 
 ciates, education ; to many, the most important period 
 of their life, the birth of valued friendships, their first 
 acquaintance with the riches of conversation, their train 
 ing in behavior. The art of letter-writing, it is said, 
 was immensely cultivated. Letters were always flying 
 not only from house to house, but from room to room. 
 It was a perpetual picnic, a French Revolution in small, 
 an Age of Reason in a patty-pan. 
 
 In the American social communities, the gossip found 
 such vent and sway as to become despotic. The insti 
 tutions were whispering-galleries, in which the adored 
 Saxon privacy was lost. Married women I believe uni 
 formly decided against the community. It was to them 
 like the brassy and lacquered life in hotels. The com 
 mon school was well enough, but to the common nur 
 sery they had grave objections. Eggs might be hatched 
 in ovens, but the hen on her own account much pre 
 ferred the old way. A hen without her chickens was 
 but half a hen. 
 
 It was a curious experience of the patrons and leaders 
 of this noted community, in which the agreement with
 
 282 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 many parties was that they should give so many hours 
 of instruction in mathematics, in music, in moral arid 
 intellectual philosophy, and so forth, that in every in 
 stance the new comers showed themselves keenly alive 
 to the advantages of the society, and were sure to avail 
 themselves of every means of instruction ; their knowl 
 edge was increased, their manners refined, but they 
 became in that proportion averse to labor, and were 
 charged by the heads of the departments with a certain 
 indolence and selfishness. 
 
 In practice it is always found that virtue is occa 
 sional, spotty, and not linear or cubic. Good people are 
 as bad as rogues if steady performance is claimed ; the 
 conscience of the conscientious runs in veins, and the 
 most punctilious in some particulars are latitudinarian 
 in others. It was very gently said that people on whom 
 beforehand all persons would put the utmost reliance 
 were not responsible. They saw the necessity that the 
 work must be done, and did it not, and it of course fell 
 to be done by the few religious workers. No doubt 
 there was in many a certain strength drawn from the 
 fury of dissent. Thus Mr. Ripley told Theodore Parker, 
 
 " There is your accomplished friend : he would hoe 
 
 corn all Sunday if I would let him, but all Massachu 
 setts could not make him do it on Monday." 
 
 Of course every visitor found that there was a comic 
 side to this Paradise of shepherds and shepherdesses. 
 There was a stove in every chamber, and every one 
 might burn as much wood as he or she would saw. The 
 ladies took cold on washing - day ; so it was ordained 
 that the gentlemen-shepherds should wring and hang 
 out clothes ; which they punctually did. And it would 
 sometimes occur that when they danced in the evening
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 283 
 
 elothes - pins dropped plentifully from their pockets. 
 The country members naturally were surprised to ob 
 serve that one man ploughed all day and one looked 
 out of the window all day. and perhaps drew his pic 
 ture, and both received at night the same wages. One 
 would meet also some modest pride in their advanced 
 condition, signified by a frequent phrase, " Before we 
 Came out of civilization." 
 
 The question which occurs to you had occurred much 
 earlier to Fourier : " How in this charming Elysium is 
 the dirty work to be done ? " And long ago Fourier 
 had exclaimed, " Ah ! I have it," and jumped with joy. 
 " Don't you see," he cried, " that nothing so delights the 
 young Caucasian child as dirt ? See the mud-pies that 
 all children will make if you will let them. See how 
 much more joy. they find in pouring their pudding on 
 the table-cloth than into their beautiful mouths. The 
 children from six to eight, organized into companies 
 with flags and uniforms, shall do this last function of 
 civilization." 
 
 In Brook Farm was this peculiarity, that there was 
 no head. In every family is the father ; in every fac 
 tory, a foreman ; in a shop, a master ; in a boat, the 
 skipper ; but in this Farm, no authority ; each was 
 master or mistress of his or her actions ; happy, hapless 
 anarchists. They expressed, after much perilous ex 
 perience, the conviction that plain dealing was the best 
 defence of manners and moral between the sexes. Peo 
 ple cannot live together in any but necessary ways. 
 The only candidates who will present themselves will 
 be those who have tried the experiment of independ 
 ence and ambition, and have failed ; and none others 
 will barter for the most comfortable equality the chance
 
 284 HISTORIC NOTES OF 
 
 of superiority. Then all communities have quarrelled. 
 Few people can live together on their merits. There 
 must be kindred, or mutual economy, or a common ii> 
 terest in their business, or other external tie. 
 
 The society at Brook Farm existed, I think, about six 
 or seven years, and then broke up, the Farm was sold, 
 and I believe all the partners came out with pecuniary 
 loss. Some of them had spent on it the accumulations 
 of years. I suppose they all, at the moment, regarded 
 it as a failure. I do not think they can so regard it 
 now, but probably as an important chapter in their ex 
 perience which has been of lifelong value. What knowl 
 edge of themselves and of each other, what various 
 practical wisdom, what personal power, what studies of 
 character, what accumulated culture many of the mem-, 
 bers owed to it ! What mutual measure they took of 
 each other ! It was a close union, like that in a ship's 
 cabin, of clergymen, young collegians, merchants, me 
 chanics, farmers' sons and daughters, with men and 
 women of rare opportunities and delicate culture, yet 
 assembled there by a sentiment which all shared, some 
 of them hotly shared, of the honesty of a life of labor 
 and of the beauty of a life of humanity. The yeoman 
 saw refined manners in persons who were his friends ; 
 and the lady or the romantic scholar saw the continuous 
 strength and faculty in people who would have dis 
 gusted them but that these powers were now spent in 
 the direction of their own theory of life. 
 
 I recall these few selected facts, none of them of much 
 independent interest, but symptomatic of the times and 
 country. I please myself with the thought that our 
 American mind is not now eccentric or rude in its 
 strength, but is beginning to show a quiet power, drawn
 
 LIFE AND LETTERS IN NEW ENGLAND. 285 
 
 from wide and abundant sources, proper to a Continent 
 and to an educated people. If I have owed much to 
 the special influences I have indicated, I am not less 
 aware of that excellent and increasing circle of masters 
 in arts and in song and in science, who cheer the in 
 tellect of our cities and this country to-day, whose 
 genius is not a lucky accident, but normal, and with 
 broad foundation of culture, and so inspires the hope 
 of steady strength advancing on itself, and a day with 
 out night.
 
 THE CHARDON STREET CONVEN 
 TION.
 
 THE CHARDON STREET CONVEN 
 TION. 1 
 
 IN the month of November, 1840, a Convention of 
 Friends of Universal Reform assembled in the Char- 
 don Street Chapel in Boston, in obedience to a call in 
 the newspapers, signed by a few individuals, inviting 
 all persons to a public discussion of the institutions 
 of the Sabbath, the Church and the Ministry. The 
 Convention organized itself by the choice of Edmund 
 Quincy as Moderator, spent three days in the consider 
 ation of the Sabbath, and adjourned to a day in March 
 of the following year, for the discussion of the second 
 topic. In March, accordingly, a three-days' sessions 
 was holden in the same place, on the subject of the 
 Church, and a third meeting fixed for the following 
 November, which was accordingly holden ; and the 
 Convention debated, for three days again, the remain 
 ing subject of the Priesthood. This Convention never 
 printed any report of. its deliberations, nor pretended 
 to arrive at any result by the expression of its sense in 
 formal resolutions ; the professed objects of those 
 persons who felt the greatest interest in its meetings 
 being simply the elucidation of truth through free dis 
 cussion. The daily newspapers reported, at the time, 
 
 1 The IHal, vol. iii., p. 100. 
 19
 
 290 THE CHARDON STREET CONVENTION. 
 
 brief sketches of the course of proceedings, and the 
 remarks of the principal speakers. These meetings 
 attracted a great deal of public attention, and were 
 spoken of in' different circles in every note of hope, of 
 sympathy, of joy, of alarm, of abhorrence and of merri 
 ment. The composition of the assembly was rich and 
 various. The singularity and latitude of the summons 
 drew together, from all parts of New England and also 
 from the Middle States, men of every shade of opinion 
 from the straitest orthodoxy to the wildest heresy, and 
 many persons whose church was a church of one mem 
 ber only. A great variety of dialect and of costume 
 was noticed ; a great deal of confusion, eccentricity, and 
 freak appeared, as well as of zeal and enthusiasm. If 
 the assembly was disorderly, it was picturesque. Mad 
 men, madwomen, men with beards, Bunkers, Muggle- 
 tonians, Come-outers, Groaners, Agrarians, Seventh-day- 
 Baptists, Quakers, Abolitionists, Calvinists, Unitarians 
 and Philosophers, all came successively to the top, 
 and seized their moment, if not their hour, wherein to 
 chide, or pray, or preach, or protest. The faces were a 
 study. The most daring innovators and the champions- 
 until-death of the old cause sat side by side. The still- 
 living merit of the oldest New England families, glow 
 ing yet after several generations, encountered the 
 founders of families, fresh merit, emerging, and ex 
 panding the brows to a new breadth, and lighting a 
 clownish face with sacred fire. The assembly was char 
 acterized by the predominance of a certain plain, sylvan 
 strength and earnestness, whilst many of the most in 
 tellectual and cultivated persons attended its councils. 
 Dr. C banning, Edward Taylor, Bronson Alcott, Mr. 
 Garrison, Mr. May, Theodore Parker, H. C. Wright,
 
 THE CHARDON STREET CONVENTION. 291 
 
 Dr. Osgood, William Adams, Edward Palmer, Jones 
 Very, Maria W. Chapman, and many other persons of 
 a mystical or sectarian or philanthropic renown, were 
 present, and some of them participant. And there was 
 no want of female speakers ; Mrs. Little and Mrs. Lucy 
 Sessions took a pleasing and memorable part in the 
 debate, and that flea of Conventions, Mrs. Abigail Fol- 
 som, was but too ready with her interminable scroll. 
 If there was not parliamentary order, there was life, 
 and the assurance of that constitutional love for relig 
 ion and religious liberty which, in all periods, charac 
 terizes the inhabitants of this part of America. 
 
 There was a great deal of wearisome speaking in 
 each of those three-days' sessions, but relieved by sig 
 nal passages of pure eloquence, by much vigor of 
 thought, and especially by the exhibition of character, 
 and by the victories of character. These men and wo 
 men were in search of something better and more 
 satisfying than a vote or a definition, and they found 
 what they sought, or the pledge of it, in the attitude 
 taken by individuals of their number of resistance to 
 the insane routine of parliamentary usage ; in the lofty 
 reliance on principles, and the prophetic dignity and 
 transfiguration which accompanies, even amidst opposi 
 tion and ridicule, a man whose mind is made up to 
 obey the great inward Commander, and who does not 
 anticipate his own action, but awaits confidently the 
 new emergency for the new counsel. By no means the 
 least value of this Convention, in our eye, was the scope 
 it gave to the genius of Mr. Alcott, and not its least 
 instructive lesson was the gradual but sure ascendency 
 of his spirit, in spite of the incredulity and derision with 
 which he is at first received, and in spite, we might add,
 
 292 THE CHARDON STREET CONVENTION. 
 
 of his own failures. Moreover, although no decision 
 was had, and no action taken on all the great points 
 mooted in the discussion, yet the Convention brought 
 together many remarkable persons, face to face, and 
 gave occasion to memorable interviews and conversa 
 tions, in the hall, in the lobbies, or around the doors.
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 WE love the venerable house 
 
 Our fathers built to God : 
 In Heaven are kept their grateful vows, 
 
 Their dust endears the sod. 
 
 From humble tenements around 
 
 Came up the pensive train 
 And in the church a blessing found 
 
 That filled their homes again.
 
 fii ^L/^^^- 1 ' ^ k 
 
 0^'/f d^^ik 
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 1 
 
 EZRA RIPLEY was born May 1, 1751 (O. S.), at 
 Woodstock, Connecticut. He was the fifth of the nine 
 teen children of Noah and Lydia (Kent) Rlpley. Sev 
 enteen of these nineteen children married, and it is 
 stated that the mother died leaving nineteen children, 
 one hundred and two grandchildren and ninety -six 
 great-grandchildren. The father was born at Hing- 
 ham, on the farm purchased by his ancestor, William 
 Ripley, of England, at the first settlement of the town ; 
 which farm has been occupied by seven or eight gener 
 ations. Ezra Ripley followed the business of farming 
 till sixteen years of age, when his father wished him to 
 be qualified to teach a grammar school, not thinking 
 himself able to send one son to college without injury 
 to his other children. With this view, the father agreed 
 with the late Rev. Dr. Forbes of Gloucester, then min 
 ister of North Brookfield, to fit Ezra for college by the 
 time he should be twenty-one years of age, and to have 
 
 1 This sketch was written for the Social Circle, a club in Concord 
 now more than a century old, and said to be the lineal descendant of 
 the Committee of Safety in the Revolution. Mr. Emerson was a mem 
 ber for many years and greatly valued its weekly evening meetings, 
 held, during the winter, at the houses of the members. After the 
 death of Dr. Ripley, an early member and connected with him by mar 
 riage, Mr. Emerson was asked to prepare the customary Memoir for 
 the Club Book.
 
 296 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 him labor during the time sufficiently to pay for his in 
 struction, clothing and books. 
 
 But, when fitted for college, the son could not be 
 contented with teaching, which he had tried the preced 
 ing winter. He had early manifested a desire for learn 
 ing, and could not be satisfied without a public educa 
 tion. Always inclined to notice ministers, and fre 
 quently attempting, when only five or six years old, to 
 imitate them by preaching, now that he had become a 
 professor of religion he had an ardent desire to be a 
 preacher of the gospel. He had to encounter great dif 
 ficulties, but, through a kind providence and the patron 
 age of Dr. Forbes, he entered Harvard University, July, 
 1772. The commencement of the Revolutionary War 
 greatly interrupted his education at college. In 1775, 
 in his senior year, the college was removed from Cam 
 bridge to this town. The studies were much broken 
 up. Many of the students entered the army, and the 
 class never returned to Cambridge. There were an un 
 usually large number of distinguished men in this class 
 of 1776 : Christopher Gore, Governor of Massachusetts 
 and Senator in Congress ; Samuel Sewall, Chief Justice 
 of Massachusetts ; George Thacher, Judge of the Su 
 preme Court ; Royall Tyler, Chief Justice of Vermont ; 
 and the late learned Dr. Prince, of Salem. 
 
 Mr. Ripley was ordained minister of Concord No 
 vember 7, 1778. He married, November 16, 1780, 
 Mrs. Phoebe (Bliss) Emerson, then a widow of thirty- 
 nine, with five children. They had three children : 
 Samuel, born May 11, 1783 ; Daniel Bliss, born August 
 1, 1784 ; Sarah, born April 8, 1789. He died Septem 
 ber 21, 1841. 
 
 To these facts, gathered chiefly from his own diary,
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 297 
 
 and stated nearly in his own words, I can only add a 
 few traits from memory. 
 
 He was identified with the ideas and forms of the 
 New England Church, which expired about the same 
 time with him, so that he and his coevals seemed the 
 rear guard of the great camp and army of the Puri 
 tans, which, however in its last days declining into 
 formalism, in the heyday of its strength had planted 
 and liberated America. It was a pity that his old meet 
 ing-house should have been modernized in his time. I 
 am sure all who remember both will associate his form 
 with whatever was grave and droll in the old, cold, un- 
 painted, uncarpeted, square-pewed meeting-house, with 
 its four iron-gray deacons in their little box under the 
 pulpit, with Watts's hymns, with long prayers, rich 
 with the diction of ages ; and not less with the report 
 like musketry from the movable seats. He and his con 
 temporaries, the old New England clergy, were be 
 lievers in what is called a particular providence, cer 
 tainly, as they held it, a very particular providence, 
 following the narrowness of King David and the Jews, 
 who thought the universe existed only or mainly for 
 their church and congregation. Perhaps I cannot bet 
 ter illustrate this tendency than by citing a record from 
 the diary of the father of his predecessor, 1 the minister 
 of Maiden, written in the blank leaves of the almanac 
 for the year 1735. The minister writes against Janu 
 ary 31st : " Bought a shay for 27 pounds, 10 shillings. 
 The Lord grant it may be a comfort and blessing to 
 my family." In March following he notes : " Had a 
 safe and comfortable journey to York." But April 
 24th, we find : " Shay overturned, with my wife and I 
 1 Rev. Joseph Emerson.
 
 298 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 in it, yet neither of us much hurt. Blessed be our gra-r 
 cious Preserver. Part of the shay, as it lay upon one 
 side, went over my wife, and yet she was scarcely any 
 thing hurt. How wonderful the preservation." Then 
 again, May 5th : " Went to the beach with three of the 
 children. The beast, being frightened when we were 
 all out of the shay, overturned and broke it. I desire 
 (I hope I desire it) that the Lord would teach me suita 
 bly to repent this Providence, to make suitable remarks 
 on it, and to be suitably affected with it. Have I done 
 well to get me a shay ? Have I not been proud or too 
 fond of this convenience ? Do I exercise the faith in 
 the Divine care and protection which I ought to do ? 
 Should I not be more in my study and less fond of di 
 version ? Do I not withhold more than is meet from 
 pious and charitable uses ? " Well, on 15th May we 
 have this : " Shay brought home ; mending cost thirty 
 shillings. Favored in this respect beyond expectation." 
 16th May : " My wife and I rode together to Rumney 
 Marsh. The beast frighted several times." And at 
 last we have this record, June 4th : " Disposed of my 
 shay to Rev. Mr. White." 
 
 The same faith made what was strong and what was 
 weak in Dr. Ripley and his associates. He was a per 
 fectly sincere man, punctual, severe, but just and char 
 itable, and if he made his forms a strait-jacket to oth 
 ers, he wore the same himself all his years. Trained 
 in this church, and very well qualified by his natural 
 talent to work in it, it was never out of his mind. He 
 looked at every person and thing from the parochial 
 point of view. I remember, when a boy, driving about 
 Concord with him, and in passing each house he told the 
 story of the family that lived in it, and especially he
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 299 
 
 gave me anecdotes of the nine church members who had 
 made a division in the church in the time of his prede 
 cessor, and showed me that every one of the nine had 
 come to bad fortune or to a bad end. His prayers 
 for rain and against the lightning, "that it may not 
 lick up our spirits ; " and for good weather ; and against 
 sickness and insanity ; " that we have not been tossed to 
 and fro until the dawning of the day, that we have not 
 been a terror to ourselves and others ; " are well re 
 membered, and his own entire faith that these petitions 
 were not to be overlooked, and were entitled to a favor 
 able answer. Some of those around me will remember 
 one occasion of severe drought in this vicinity, when the 
 late Rev. Mr. Goodwin offered to relieve the Doctor of 
 the duty of leading in prayer ; but the Doctor suddenly 
 remembering the season, rejected his offer with some 
 humor, as with an air that said to all the congrega 
 tion, " This is no time for you young Cambridge men ; 
 the affair, sir, is getting serious. I will pray myself." 
 One August afternoon, when I was in his hayfield helping 
 him with his man to rake up his hay, I well remember 
 his pleading, almost reproachful looks at the sky, when 
 the thunder gust was coming up to spoil his hay. He 
 raked veiy fast, then looked at the cloud, and said, " We 
 are in the Lord's hand ; mind your rake, George ! We 
 are in the Lord's hands ; " and seemed to say, " You 
 know me ; this field is mine, Dr. Ripley's, thine 
 own servant ! " 
 
 He used to tell the story of one of his old friends, 
 the minister of Sudbury, who, being at the Thursday 
 lecture in Boston, heard the officiating clergyman pray 
 ing for rain. As soon as the service was over, he went 
 to the petitioner, and said, " You Boston ministers, as
 
 800 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 soon as a tulip wilts under your windows, go to church 
 and pray for rain, until all Concord and Sudbury are 
 under water." I once rode with him to a house at Nine 
 Acre Corner to attend the funeral of the father of a 
 family. He mentioned to me on the way his fears that 
 the oldest son, who was now to succeed to the farm, 
 was becoming intemperate. We presently arrived, and 
 the Doctor addressed each of the mourners separately: 
 " Sir, I condole with you." " Madam, I condole with 
 you." " Sir, I knew your great-grandfather. When I 
 came to this town, your great-grandfather was a sub 
 stantial farmer in this very place, a member of the 
 church, and an excellent citizen. Your grandfather 
 followed him, and was a virtuous man. Now your 
 father is to be carried to his grave, full of labors and 
 virtues. There is none of that large family left but 
 you, and it rests with you to bear up the good name 
 and usefulness of your ancestors. If you fail, Icha- 
 bod, the glory is departed. Let us pray." Right manly 
 he was, and the manly thing he could always say. I 
 can remember a little speech he made to me, when the 
 last tie of blood which held me and my brothers to his 
 house was broken by the death of his daughter. He 
 said, on parting, " I wish you and your brothers to come 
 to this house as you have always done. You will not 
 like to be excluded ; I shall not like to be neglected." 
 When " Put " Merriam, after his release from the 
 state prison, had the effrontery to call on the doctor as 
 an old acquaintance, in the midst of general conversa 
 tion Mr. Frost came in, and the Doctor presently said, 
 " Mr. Merriam, my brother and colleague, Mr. Frost, 
 has come to take tea with me. I regret very much the 
 causes (which you know very well) which make it iin
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 301 
 
 possible for me to ask you to stay and break bread 
 with us." With the Doctor's views it was a matter of 
 religion to say thus much. He had a reverence and 
 love of society, and the patient, continuing courtesy, 
 carrying out every respectful attention to the end, 
 which marks what is called the manners of the old 
 school. His hospitality obeyed Charles Lamb's rule, and 
 " ran fine to the last." His partiality for ladies was 
 always strong, and was by no means abated by time. 
 He claimed privilege of years, was much addicted to 
 kissing ; spared neither maid, wife, nor widow, and, as 
 a lady thus favored remarked to me, " seemed as if he 
 was going to make a meal of you." 
 
 He was very credulous, and as he was no reader of 
 books or journals, he knew nothing beyond the columns 
 of his weekly religious newspaper, the tracts of his 
 sect, and perhaps the Middlesex Yeoman. He was the 
 easy dupe of any tonguey agent, whether colonizationist 
 or anti-papist, or charlatan of iron combs, or tractors, 
 or phrenology, or magnetism, who went by. At the 
 time when Jack Downing's letters were in every paper, 
 he repeated to me at table some of the particulars of 
 that gentleman's intimacy with General Jackson, in a 
 manner that betrayed to me at once that he took the 
 whole for fact. To undeceive him, I hastened to recall 
 some particulars to show the absurdity of the thing, as 
 the Major and the President going out skating on the 
 Potomac, etc. "Why," said the Doctor with perfect 
 faith, " it was a bright moonlight night ; " and I am 
 not sure that he did not die in the belief in the real 
 ity of Major Downing. Like other credulous men, he 
 was opinionative, and, as I well remember, a great 
 browbeater of the poor old fathers who still survived
 
 302 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 from the 19th of April, to the end that they should 
 testify to his history as he had written it. 
 
 He was a man so kind and sympathetic, his character 
 was so transparent, and his merits so intelligible to all 
 observers, that he was very justly appreciated in this 
 community. He was a natural gentleman, no dandy, 
 but courtly, hospitable, manly, and public-spirited ; his 
 nature social, his house ope a to all men. We remem 
 ber the remark made by the old farmer who used to 
 travel hither from Maine, that no horse from the East 
 ern country would go by the Doctor's gate. Travellers 
 from the West and North and South bear the like tes 
 timony. His brow was serene and open to his visitor, 
 for he loved men, and he had no studies, no occupations, 
 which company could interrupt. His friends were his 
 study, and to see them loosened his talents and his 
 tongue. In his house dwelt order and prudence and 
 plenty. There was no waste and no stint. He was 
 open-handed and just and generous. Ingratitude and 
 meanness in his beneficiaries did not wear out his com 
 passion ; he bore the insult, and the next day his basket 
 for the beggar, his horse and chaise for the cripple, 
 were at their door. Though he knew the value of a 
 dollar as well as another man, yet he loved to buy 
 dearer and sell cheaper than others. He subscribed to 
 all charities, and it is no reflection on others to say that 
 he was the most public-spirited man in the town. The 
 late Dr. Gardiner, in a funeral sermon on some parish 
 ioner whose virtues did not readily come to mind, hon 
 estly said, "He was good at fires." Dr. Ripley had 
 many virtues, and yet all will remember that even in 
 his old age, if the fire-bell was rung, he was instantly 
 on horseback with bis buckets and bag.
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 303 
 
 He showed even in his fireside discourse traits of that 
 pertinency and judgment, softening ever and anon into 
 elegancy, which make the distinction of the scholar, and 
 which, under better discipline, might have ripened into 
 a Bentley or a Person. Jle had a foresight, when he 
 opened his mouth, of all that he would say, and he 
 inarched straight to the conclusion. In debate in the 
 vestry of the Lyceum, the structure of his sentences 
 was admirable ; so neat, so natural, so terse, his words 
 fell like stones ; and often, though quite unconscious of 
 it, his speech was a satire on the loose, voluminous, drag 
 gle-tail periods of other speakers. He sat down when 
 he had done. A man of anecdote, his talk in the parlor 
 was chiefly narrative. We remember the remark of a 
 gentleman who listened with much delight to his con 
 versation at the time when the Doctor was preparing to 
 go to Baltimore and Washington, that " a man who 
 could tell a story so well was company for kings and 
 Jolm Quincy Adams." 
 
 Sage and savage strove harder in him than in any of 
 my acquaintances, each getting the mastery by turns, 
 and pretty sudden turns : " Save us from the extremity 
 of cold and these violent sudden changes." " The soci 
 ety will meet after the Lyceum, as it is difficult to bring 
 people together in the evening, and no moon." " Mr. 
 N. F. is dead, and I expect to hear of the death of Mr. 
 B. It is cruel to separate old people from their wives 
 in this cold weather." 
 
 With a very limited acquaintance with books, his 
 knowledge was an external experience, an Indian wis 
 dom, the observation of such facts as country life for 
 nearly a century could supply. He watched with inter 
 est the garden, the field, the orchard, the house and
 
 304 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 
 
 the barn, horse, cow, sheep and dog, and all the common 
 objects that engage the thought of the farmer. He 
 kept his eye on the horizon, and knew the weather like 
 a sea-captain. The usual experiences of men, birth, 
 marriage, sickness, death, bugial ; the common tempta 
 tions ; the common ambitions ; he studied them all, 
 and sympathized so well in these that he was excellent 
 company and counsel to all, even the most humble and 
 ignorant. With extraordinary states of mind, with 
 states of enthusiasm or enlarged speculation, he had no 
 sympathy, and pretended to none. He was sincere, and 
 kept to his point, and his mark was never remote. His 
 conversation was strictly personal and apt to the party 
 and the occasion. An eminent skill he had in saying 
 difficult and unspeakable things ; in delivering to a man 
 or a woman that which all their other friends had ab 
 stained from saying, in uncovering the bandage from a 
 sore place, and applying the surgeon's knife with a truly 
 surgical spirit. Was a man a sot, or a spendthrift, or 
 too long time a bachelor, or suspected of some liidden 
 crime, or had he quarrelled with his wife, or collared 
 his father, or was there any cloud or suspicious circum 
 stances in his behavior, the good pastor knew his way 
 straight to that point, believing himself entitled to a full 
 explanation, and whatever relief to the conscience of 
 both parties plain speech could effect was sure to be 
 procured. In all such passages he justified himself to 
 the conscience, and commonly to the love, of the per 
 sons concerned. He was the more competent to those 
 searching discourses from his knowledge of family his 
 tory. He knew everybody's grandfather, and seemed 
 to address each person rather as the representative of 
 his house and name, than as an individual. In him have
 
 EZRA RIPLEY, D. D. 305 
 
 perished more local and personal anecdotes of this vil 
 lage and vicinity than are possessed by any survivor. 
 This intimate knowledge of families, and this skill of 
 speech, and still more, his sympathy, made him incom 
 parable in his parochial visits, and in his exhortations 
 and prayers. He gave himself up to his feelings, and 
 said on the instant the best things in the world. Many 
 and many a felicity he had in his prayer, now forever 
 lost, which defied all the rules of all the rhetoricians. He 
 did not know when he was good in prayer or sermon, 
 for he had no literature and no art ; but he believed, 
 and therefore spoke. He was eminently loyal in his 
 nature, and not fond of adventure or innovation. By 
 education, and still more by temperament, he was en 
 gaged to the old forms of the New England Church. 
 Not speculative, but affectionate ; devout, but with an 
 extreme love of order, he adopted heartily, though in its 
 mildest form, the creed and catechism of the fathers, 
 and appeared a modern Israelite in his attachment to 
 the Hebrew history and faith. He was a man very easy 
 to read, for his whole life and conversation were con 
 sistent. All his opinions and actions might be securely 
 predicted by a good observer on short acquaintance. 
 My classmate at Cambridge, Frederick King, told me 
 from Governor Gore, who was the Doctor's classmate, 
 that in college he was called Holy Ripley. 
 
 And now, in his old age, when all the antique Hebra-! 
 ism and its customs are passing away, it is fit that he 
 too should depart, most fit that in the fall of laws a 
 loyal man should die. 
 20
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 THE yesterday doth never smile, 
 
 To-day goes drudging through the while, 
 
 Yet in the name of Godhead, I 
 
 The morrow front and can defy ; 
 
 Though I am weak, yet God, when prayed, 
 
 Cannot withhold his conquering aid. 
 
 Ah me ! it was my childhood's thought, 
 
 If He should make my web a blot 
 
 On life's fair picture of delight, 
 
 My heart's content would find it right. 
 
 But O, these waves and leaves, 
 
 When happy, stoic Nature grieves, 
 
 No human speech so beautiful 
 
 As their murmurs mine to lull. 
 
 On this altar God hath built 
 
 I lay my vanity and guilt ; 
 
 Nor me can Hope or Passion urge, 
 
 Hearing as now the lofty dirge 
 
 Which blasts of Northern mountains hymn, 
 
 Nature's funeral high and dim, 
 
 Sable pageantry of clouds, 
 
 Mourning summer laid in shrouds. 
 
 Many a day shall dawn and die, 
 
 Many an angel wander by, 
 
 And passing, light my sunken turf, 
 
 Moist perhaps by ocean surf, 
 
 Forgotten amid splendid tombs, 
 
 Yet wreathed and hid by summer blooms. 
 
 On earth I dream ; I die to be : 
 
 Time ! shake not thy bald head at me. 
 
 I challenge thee to hurry past, 
 
 Or for my turn to fly too fast.
 
 [ LUCY PERCY, Countess of Carlisle, the friend of Stratford and of 
 Pym, is thus described by Sir Toby Matthews : ] 
 
 " She is of too high a mind and dignity not only to seek, but almost 
 to wish, the friendship of any creature. They whom she is pleased to 
 choose are such as are of the most eminent condition both for power 
 and employment, not with any design towards her own particular, 
 either of advantage or curiosity, but her nature values fortunate per 
 sons. She prefers the conversation of men to that of women ; not but 
 she can talk on the fashions with her female friends, but she is too soon 
 sensible that she can set them as she wills ; that preeminence shortens 
 all equality. She converses with those who are most distinguished for 
 their conversational powers Of Love freely will she discourse, listen 
 to all its faults and mark its power : and will take a deep interest for 
 persons of celebrity."
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 1 
 
 I WISH to meet the invitation with which the ladies 
 have honored me by offering them a portrait of real 
 life. It is a representative life, such as could hardly 
 have appeared out of New England ; of an age now 
 past, and of which I think no types survive. Perhaps 
 I deceive myself and overestimate its interest. It has 
 to me a value like that which many readers find in 
 Madame Guyon, in Rahel, in Eugenie de Guerin, but it 
 is purely original and hardly admits of a duplicate. 
 Then it is a fruit of Calvinism and New England, and 
 marks the precise time when the power of the old 
 creed yielded to the influence of modern science and 
 humanity. 
 
 I have found that I could only bring you this por 
 trait by selections from the diary of my heroine, pre 
 mising a sketch of her time and place. I report some 
 of the thoughts and soliloquies of a country girl, poor, 
 solitary, "a goody " as she called herself, growing 
 from youth to age amid slender opportunities and usu 
 ally very humble company. 
 
 1 Aunt of Mr. Emerson, and a potent influence on the lives of him 
 and his brothers. This paper was read before the " Woman's Club," in 
 Boston, hi 1869, under the title "Amita," which was also the original 
 superscription of the "Nun's Aspiration," in his Poems; a rendering 
 into verse of a passage in Miss Emerson's diary. Part of this poem 
 forms the motto of this chapter.
 
 310 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 Mary Moody Emerson was born just before the out 
 break of the Revolution. When introduced to La 
 fayette at Portland, she told him that she was " in 
 arms " at the Concord Fight. Her father, the minister 
 of Concord, a warm patriot in 1775, went as a chaplain 
 to the American army at Ticonderoga : he carried his 
 infant daughter, before he went, to his mother in Mai 
 den and told her to keep the child until he returned. 
 He died at Rutland, Vermont, of army-fever, the next 
 year, and Mary remained at Maiden with her grand 
 mother, and, after her death, with her father's sister, in 
 whose house she grew up, rarely seeing her brothers 
 and sisters in Concord. This aunt and her husband 
 lived on a farm, were getting old, and the husband a 
 shiftless, easy man. There was plenty of work for the 
 little niece to do day by day, and not always bread 
 enough in the house. 
 
 One of her tasks, it appears, was to watch for the ap 
 proach of the deputy-sheriff, who might come to confis 
 cate the spoons or arrest the uncle for debt. Later, 
 another aunt, who had become insane, was brought 
 hither to end her days. More and sadder work for this 
 young girl. She had no companions, lived in entire 
 solitude with these old people, very rarely cheered by 
 short visits from her brothers and sisters. Her mother 
 had married again, married the minister who suc 
 ceeded her husband in the parish at Concord, [Dr. Ezra 
 Ripley,] and had now a young family growing up 
 around her. 
 
 Her aunt became strongly attached to Mary, and per 
 suaded the family to give the child up to her as a 
 daughter, on some terms embracing a care of her future 
 interests. She would leave the farm to her by will.
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 311 
 
 This promise was kept ; she came into possession of the 
 property many years after, and her dealings with it gave 
 her no small trouble, though they give much piquancy to 
 her letters in after years. Finally it was sold, and its 
 price invested in a share of a farm in Maine, where she 
 lived as a boarder with her sister, for many years. It 
 was in a picturesque country, within sight of the White 
 Mountains, with a little lake in front at the foot of a 
 high hill called Bear Mountain. Not far from the 
 house was a brook running over a granite floor like the 
 Franconia Flume, and noble forests around. Every 
 word she writes about this farm (" Elm Vale," Water- 
 ford), her dealings and vexations about it, her joys and 
 raptures of religion and Nature, interest like a romance, 
 and to those who may hereafter read her letters, will 
 make its obscure acres amiable. 
 
 In Maiden she lived through all her youth and early 
 womanhood, with the habit of visiting the families of 
 her brothers and sisters on any necessity of theirs. Her 
 good will to serve in time of sickness or of pressure was 
 known to them, and promptly claimed, and her attach 
 ment to the youths and maidens growing up in those 
 families was secure for any trait of talent or of charac 
 ter. Her sympathy for young people who pleased her 
 was almost passionate, and was sure to make her arrival 
 in each house a holiday. 
 
 Her early reading was Milton, Young, Akenside, Sam 
 uel Clarke, Jonathan Edwards, and always the Bible. 
 Later, Plato, Plotinus, Marcus Antoninus, Stewart, Cole 
 ridge, Cousin, Herder, Locke, Madame De Stael, Chan- 
 ning, Mackintosh, Byron. Nobody can read in her 
 manuscript, or recall the conversation of old -school 
 people, without seeing that Milton and Young had a
 
 312 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 religious authority in their mind, and nowise the slight, 
 merely entertaining quality of modern bards. And 
 Plato, Aristotle, Plotinus, how venerable and organic 
 as Nature they are in her mind ! What a subject is her 
 mind and life for the finest novel ! When I read Dante, 
 the other day, and his paraphrases to signify with more 
 adequateness Christ or Jehovah, whom do you think I 
 was reminded of ? Whom but Mary Emerson and her 
 eloquent theology ? She had a deep sympathy with 
 genius. When it was unhallowed, as in Byron, she had 
 none the less, whilst she deplored and affected to de 
 nounce him. But she adored it when ennobled by char 
 acter. She liked to notice that the greatest geniuses 
 have died igaorant of their power and influence. She 
 wished you to scorn to shine. " My opinion," she writes, 
 (is) " that a mind like Byron's would never be satisfied 
 with modern Unitarianism, that the fiery depths of 
 Calvinism, its high and mysterious elections to eternal 
 bliss, beyond angels, and all its attendant wonders would 
 have alone been fitted to fix his imagination." 
 
 Her wit was so fertile, and only used to strike, that 
 she never used it for display, any more than a wasp 
 would parade his sting. It was ever the will and not 
 the phrase that concerned her. Yet certain expressions, 
 when they marked a memorable state of mind in her 
 experience, recurred to her afterwards, and she would 
 
 vindicate herself as having said to Dr. R or Uncle 
 
 L so and so, at such a period of her life. But they 
 
 were intensely true when first spoken. All her lan 
 guage was happy, but inimitable, unattainable by talent, 
 as if caught from some dream. She calls herself " the 
 puny pilgrim, whose sole talent is sympathy." " I like 
 that kind of apathy that is a triumph to overset."
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 313 
 
 She writes to her nephew Charles Emerson, in 1833 : 
 "I could never have adorned the garden. If I had 
 been in aught but dreary deserts, I should have idolized 
 my friends, despised the world and been haughty. I 
 never expected connections and matrimony. My taste 
 was formed in romance, and I knew I was not destined 
 to please. I love God and his creation as, I never else 
 could. I scarcely feel the sympathies of this life 
 enough to agitate the pool. This in general, one case 
 or so excepted, and even this is. a relation to God 
 through you. 'T was so in my happiest early days, 
 when you were at my side." 
 
 Destitution is the Muse of her genius, Destitution 
 and Death. I used to propose that. her epitaph should 
 be : " Here lies the angel of Death." And wonderf ully 
 as she varies and poetically repeats that image in every 
 page and day, yet not less fondly and sublimely she re 
 turns to the other, the grandeur of humility and pri 
 vation, as thus ; " The chief witness which I have had 
 of a Godlike principle of action and feeling is in the 
 disinterested joy felt in others' superiority. For the 
 love of superior virtue is mine own gift from God." 
 " Where were thine own intellect if others had not 
 lived ? " 
 
 She had many acquaintances among the notables of 
 the time ; and now and then in her migrations from 
 town to town in Maine and Massachusetts, in search of 
 a new boarding-place, discovered some preacher with 
 sense or piety, or both. For on her arrival at any new 
 home she was likely to steer first to the minister's house 
 and pray his wife to take a boarder ; and as the minister 
 found quickly that she knew all his books and many 
 more, and made shrewd guesses at his character and
 
 314 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 possibilities, she would easily rouse his curiosity, as a 
 person who could read his secret and tell him his for 
 tune. 
 
 She delighted in success, in youth, in beauty, in ge 
 nius, in manners. When she met a young person who 
 interested her, she made herself acquainted and inti 
 mate with him or her at once, by sympathy, by flattery, 
 by raillery, by anecdotes, by wit, by rebuke, and stormed 
 the castle. None but was attracted or piqued by her 
 interest and wit and .wide acquaintance with books and 
 with eminent names. She said she gave herself full 
 swing in these sudden intimacies, for she knew she 
 should disgust them soon, and resolved to have their 
 best hours. " Society is shrewd to detect those who do 
 not belong to her train, and seldom wastes her atten 
 tions." She surprised, attracted, chided and denounced 
 her companion by turns, and pretty rapid turns. But 
 no intelligent youth or maiden could have once met her 
 without remembering her with interest, and learning 
 something of value. Scorn trifles, lift your aims : do 
 what you are afraid to do : sublimity of character must 
 come from sublimity of motive : these were the lessons 
 which were urged with vivacity, in ever new language. 
 But if her companion was dull, her impatience knew 
 no bounds. She tired presently of dull conversations, 
 and asked to be read to, and so disposed of the visitor. 
 If the voice or the reading tired her, she would ask the 
 friend if he or she would do an errand for her, and so 
 dismiss them. If her companion were a little ambi 
 tious, and asked her opinions on books or matters on 
 which she did not wish rude hands laid, she did not 
 hesitate to stop the intruder with " How 's your cat, 
 Mrs. Tenner ? "
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 315 
 
 " I was disappointed," she writes, " in finding my lit 
 tle Calvinist no companion, a cold little thing who lives 
 in society alone, and is looked up to as a specimen of 
 genius. I performed a mission in secretly undermining 
 his vanity, or trying to. Alas ! never done but by mor 
 tifying affliction." From the country she writes to her 
 sister in town, " You cannot help saying that my epistle 
 is a striking specimen of egotism. To which I can only 
 answer that, in the country, we converse so much more 
 with ourselves, that we are almost led to forget every 
 body else. The very sound of your bells and the rat 
 tling of the carriages have a tendency to divert self 
 ishness." " This seems a world rather of trying each 
 others' dispositions than of enjoying each others' vir 
 tues." 
 
 She had the misfortune of spinning with a greater 
 velocity than any of the other tops. She would tear 
 into the chaise or out of it, into the house or out of it, 
 into the conversation, into the thought, into the charac 
 ter of the stranger, disdaining all the graduation by 
 which her fellows time their steps : and though she 
 might do very happily in a planet where others moved 
 with the like velocity, she was offended here by the 
 phlegm of all her fellow-creatures, and disgusted them 
 by her impatience. She could keep step with no hu 
 man being. Her nephew [R. W. E.] wrote of her : " I 
 am glad the friendship with Aunt Mary is ripening. 
 As by seeing a high tragedy, reading a true poem, or a 
 novel like ' Corinne,' so, by society with her, one's mind 
 is electrified and purged. She is no statute-book of 
 practical commandments, nor orderly digest of any 
 system of philosophy, divine or human, but a Bible, 
 miscellaneous in its parts, but one in its spirit, wherein
 
 316 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 are sentences of condemnation, promises and covenants 
 of love that make foolish the wisdom of the world with 
 the power of God." 
 
 Our Delphian was fantastic enough, Heaven knows, 
 yet could always be tamed by large and sincere conver 
 sation. Was there thought and eloquence, she would 
 listen like a child. Her aspiration and prayer would 
 begin, and the whim and petulance in which by diseased 
 habit she had grown to indulge without suspecting it, 
 was burned up in the glow of her pure and poetic spirit, 
 which dearly loved the Infinite. 
 
 She writes : " August, 1847 : Vale. My oddities 
 were never designed effect of an uncalculating con 
 stitution, at first, then through isolation ; and as to 
 dress, from duty. To be singular of choice, without 
 singular talents and virtues, is as ridiculous as ungrate 
 ful." " It is so universal with all classes to avoid con 
 tact with me that I blame none. The fact has gen 
 erally increased piety and self-love." " As a traveller 
 enters some fine palace and finds all the doors closed, 
 and he only allowed the use of some avenues and pas 
 sages, so have I wandered from the cradle bver the 
 apartments of social affections, or the cabinets of nat 
 ural or moral philosophy, the recesses of ancient and 
 modern love. All say Forbear to e;iter the pales of 
 the initiated by birth, wealth, talents and patronage. 
 I submit with delight, for it is the echo of a decree 
 from above ; and from the highway hedges where I get 
 lodging, and from the rays which burst forth when the 
 crowd are entering these noble saloons, whilst I stand 
 in the doors, I get a pleasing vision which is an earnest 
 of the interminable skies where the mansions are pre 
 pared for the poor."
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 317 
 
 " To live to give pain rather than pleasure (the lat 
 ter so delicious) seems the spider-like necessity of my 
 being on earth, and I have gone on my queer way with 
 joy, saying, " Shall the clay interrogate ? " But in 
 every actual case, 't is hard, and we lose sight of the 
 first necessity, here too amid works red with default 
 in all great and grand and infinite aims. Yet with in 
 tentions disinterested, though uncontrolled by proper 
 reverence for others." 
 
 When Mrs. Thoreau called on her one day, wearing 
 pink ribbons, she shut her eyes, and so conversed with 
 her for a time. By and by she said, " Mrs. Thoreau, I 
 don't know whether you have observed that my eyes 
 are shut." " Yes, Madam, I have observed it." " Per 
 haps you would like to know the reasons ? " " Yes, I 
 should." " I don't like to see a person of your age 
 guilty of such levity in her dress." 
 
 When her cherished favorite, E. H., was at the Vale, 
 and had gone out to walk in the forest with Hannah, 
 her niece, Aunt Mary feared they were lost, and found 
 a man in the next house and begged -him to go and 
 look for them. The man went and returned saying that 
 he could not find them. " Go and cry, ' Elizabeth ! ' ' 
 The man rather declined this service, as he did not 
 know Miss H. She was highly offended, and exclaimed, 
 " God has given you a voice that you might use it in 
 the service of your fellow-creatures. Go instantly and 
 call 'Elizabeth' till you find them." The man went 
 immediately, and did as he was bid, and having found 
 them apologized for calling thus, by telling what Miss 
 Emerson had said to him. 
 
 When some ladies of my acquaintance by an unusual 
 chance found themselves in her neighborhood and vis
 
 SI 8 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 ited her, I told them that she was no whistle that every 
 mouth could play on, bnt a quite clannish instrument, 
 a pibroch, for example, from which none bnt a native 
 Highlander could draw music. 
 
 In her solitude of twenty yean, with fewest books 
 and those only sermons, and a copy of " Paradise Lost," 
 without covers or title-page, so that later, when she 
 heard much of Milton and sought his work, she found 
 it was her very book which she knew so well, she 
 was driven to find Nature her companion and solace. 
 She speaks of " her attempts in Maiden, to wake up the 
 soul amid the dreary scenes of monotonous Sabbaths, 
 when Nature looked like a pulpit. 
 
 "Maiden, November 15th, 1805. What a rich day, 
 so fully occupied in pursuing truth that I scorned to 
 touch a novel which for so many years I have wanted. 
 How insipid is fiction to a mind touched with immortal 
 views ! November 16th. I am so small in my expecta 
 tions, that a week of industry delights. Rose before light 
 every morn ; visited from necessity once, and again for 
 books ; read Butler's Analogy ; commented on the Scrip 
 tures ; read in a little book, Cicero's Letters, a few : 
 touched Shakspeare, washed, carded, cleaned house, 
 and baked. To-day cannot recall an error, nor scarcely 
 a sacrifice, bnt more fulness of content in the labors of 
 a day never was felt. There is a sweet pleasure in 
 bending to circumstances while superior to them. 
 
 " Maiden, September, 1807. The rapture of feel 
 ing I would part from, for days more devoted to higher 
 discipline. But when Nature beams with such excess 
 of beauty, when the heart thrills with hope in its Au 
 thor, feels that it is related to him more than by any 
 ties of Creation, it exults, too fondly perhaps for a
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 319 
 
 state of trial. Bat in dead of night, nearer morning, 
 when the eastern stars glow or appear to glow with 
 more indescribable lustre, a lustre which penetrates the 
 spirit with wonder and curiosity, then, however awed, 
 
 who can fear ? Since Sabbath, Aunt B [the insane 
 
 aunt] was brought here. Ah ! mortifying sight ! in 
 stinct perhaps triumphs over reason, and every digni 
 fied respect to herself, in her anxiety about recovery, 
 and the smallest means connected. Not one wish of 
 others detains her, not one care. But it alarms me not, 
 I shall delight to return to God. His name my fullest 
 confidence. His sole presence ineffable pleasure. 
 
 " I walked yesterday five or more miles, lost to men 
 tal or heart existence, through fatigue, just fit for the 
 society I went into, all mildness and the most common 
 place virtue. The lady is celebrated for her cleverness, 
 and she was never so good to me. Met a lady in the 
 morning walk, a foreigner, conversed on the accom 
 plishments of Miss T. My mind expanded with novel 
 and innocent pleasure. Ah ! were virtue, and that of 
 dear heavenly meekness attached by any necessity to a 
 lower rank of genteel people, who would sympathize 
 with the exalted with satisfaction ? But that is not the 
 case, I believe. A mediocrity does not seem to me 
 more distant from eminent virtue than the extremes of 
 station ; though after all it must depend on the nature 
 of the heart. A mediocre mind will be deranged in 
 either extreme of wealth or poverty, praise or censure, 
 society or solitude. The feverish lust of notice perhaps 
 in all these cases would injure the heart of common 
 refinement and virtue." 
 
 Later she writes of her early days in Maiden : 
 " When I get a glimpse of the revolutions of nations
 
 320 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 that retribution which seems forever going on in this 
 part of creation, I remember with great satisfaction 
 that from all the ills suffered, in childhood and since, 
 from others, I felt that it was rather the order of things 
 than their individual fault. It was from being early 
 impressed by my poor unpractical aunt, that Providence 
 and Prayer were all in all. Poor woman ! Could her 
 own temper in childhood or age have been subdued, 
 how happy for herself, who had a warm heart ; but for 
 me would have prevented those early lessons of forti 
 tude, which her caprices taught me to practise. Had I 
 prospered in life, what a proud, excited being, even to 
 feverishuess, I might have been. Loving to shine, flat 
 tered and flattering, anxious, and wrapped in others, 
 frail and feverish as myself." 
 
 She alludes to the early days of her solitude, sixty 
 years afterward, on her own farm in Maine, speaking 
 sadly the thoughts suggested by the rich autumn land 
 scape around her : " Ah ! as I walked out this after 
 noon, so sad was wearied Nature that I felt her whis 
 per to me, ' Even these leaves you use to think my 
 better emblems have lost their charm on me too, and I 
 weary of my pilgrimage, tired that I must again be 
 clothed in the grandeurs of winter, and anon be be 
 dizened in flowers and cascades. Oh, if there be a 
 power superior to me, and that there is, my own 
 dread fetters proclaim, when will He let my lights 
 go out, my tides cease to an eternal ebb ? Oh for 
 transformation ! I am not infinite, nor have I power 
 or will, but bound and imprisoned, the tool of mind, 
 even of the beings I feed and adorn. Vital, I feel not : 
 not active, but passive, and cannot aid the creatures 
 which seem my progeny, myself. But you are in-
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 321 
 
 grate to tire of me, now you want to look beyond. 
 'T was I who soothed your thorny childhood, though you 
 knew me not, and you were placed in my most leafless 
 waste. Yet I comforted thee when going on the daily 
 errand, fed thee with my mallows, on the first young 
 day of bread failing. More, I led thee when thou 
 knewest not a syllable of my active Cause, (any more 
 than if it had been dead eternal matter,) to that Cause ; 
 and from the solitary heart taught thee to say, at first 
 womanhood, Alive with God is enough, 't is rapt 
 ure.' " 
 
 " This morning rich in existence ; the remembrance 
 of past destitution in the deep poverty of my aunt, 
 and her most unhappy temper ; of bitterer days of 
 youth and age, when my senses and understanding 
 seemed but means of labor, or to learn my own unpop 
 ular destiny, and that but no more ; joy, hope and 
 resignation unite me to Him whose mysterious Will 
 adjusts everything, and the darkest and lightest are 
 alike welcome. Oh ! could this state of mind continue, 
 death would not be longed for." " I felt, till above 
 twenty years old, as though Christianity were as neces 
 sary to the world as existence ; was ignorant that it 
 was lately promulgated, or partially received." Later : 
 " Could I have those hours in which in fresh youth I 
 said, To obey God is joy, though there were no here 
 after, I should rejoice, though returning to dust." 
 
 "Folly follows me as the shadow does the form. 
 Yet my whole life devoted to find some new truth will 
 link me closer to God. And the simple principle 
 which made me say, in youth and laborious poverty, 
 that, should He make me a blot on the fair face of his 
 Creation, I should rejoice in His will, has never been 
 21
 
 322 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 equalled, though it returns in the long life of destitu 
 tion like an Angel. I end days of fine health and cheer 
 fulness without getting upward now. How did I use 
 to think them lost ! If more liberal views of the di 
 vine government make me think nothing lost which 
 carries me to His now hidden presence, there may be 
 danger of losing and causing others the loss of that awe 
 and sobriety so indispensable." 
 
 She was addressed and offered marriage by a man 
 of talents, education and good social position, whom 
 she respected. The proposal gave her pause and much 
 to think, but after consideration she refused it, I know 
 not on what grounds : but a few allusions to it in her 
 diary suggest that it was a religious act, and it is easy 
 to see that she could hardly promise herself sympathy 
 in her religious abandonment with any but a rarely- 
 found partner. 
 
 " 1807. Jan. 19, Maiden [alluding to the sale of her 
 farm]. Last night I spoke two sentences about that 
 foolish place, which I most bitterly lament, not be 
 cause they were improper, but they arose from anger. 
 It is difficult, when we have no kind of barrier, to com 
 mand our feelings. But this shall teach me. It hum 
 bles me beyond anything I have met, to find myself 
 for a moment affected with hope, fear, or especially 
 anger, about interest. But I did overcome and return 
 kindness for the repeated provocations. What is it ? 
 My uncle has been the means of lessening my property. 
 Ridiculous to wound him for that. He was honestly 
 seeking his own. But at last, this very night, the bar 
 gain is closed, and I am delighted with myself : my 
 dear self has done well. Never did I so exult in a 
 trifle. Happy beginning of my bargain, though the sale
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 323 
 
 of the place appears to me one of the worst things for 
 me at this time." 
 
 " Jan. 21. Weary at times of objects so tedious to 
 hear and see. O the power of vision, then the delicate 
 power of the nerve which receives impressions from 
 sounds ! If ever I am blest with a social life, let the 
 accent be grateful. Could I at times be regaled with 
 music, it would remind me that there are sounds. Shut 
 up in this severe weather with careful, infirm, afflicted 
 age, it is wonderful, my spirits : hopes I can have none. 
 Not a prospect but is dark on earth, as to knowledge 
 and joy from externals : but the prospect of a dying 
 bed reflects lustre on all the rest. 
 
 " The evening is fine, but I dare not enjoy it. The 
 moon and stars reproach me, because I had to do with 
 mean fools. Should I take so much care to save a few 
 dollars ? Never was I so much ashamed. Did I say 
 with what rapture I might dispose of them to the poor ? 
 Pho ! self-preservation, dignity, confidence in the fu 
 ture, contempt of trifles ! Alas, I am disgraced. Took 
 a momentary revenge on for worrying me." 
 
 " Jan. 30. I walked to Captain Dexter's. Sick. 
 Promised never to put that ring on. Ended miserably 
 the month which began so worldly. 
 
 " It was the choice of the Eternal that gave the glow 
 ing seraph his joys, and to me my vile imprisonment. 
 I adore Him. It was His will that gives my superiors 
 to shine in wisdom, friendship and ardent pursuits, while 
 I pass my youth, its last traces, in the veriest shades of 
 ignorance and complete destitution of society. I praise 
 Him, though when my strength of body falters, it is a 
 trial not easily described." 
 
 " True, I must finger the very farthing candle-ends,
 
 324 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 the duty assigned to my pride ; and indeed so poor 
 are some of those allotted to join me on the weary 
 needy path, that 't is benevolence enjoins self-deiiial. 
 Could I but dare it in the bread - and - water diet ! 
 Could I but live free from calculation, as in the first 
 half of life, when my poor aunt lived. I had ten dol 
 lars a year for clothes and charity, and I never re 
 member to have been needy, though I never had but 
 two or tliree aids in those six years of earning my home. 
 That ten dollars my dear father earned, and one hun 
 dred dollars remain, and I can't bear to take it, and 
 don't know what to do. Yet I would not breathe to 
 
 or my want. 'T is only now that I would 
 
 not let pay my hotel-bill. They have enough to 
 
 do. Besides, it would send me packing to depend for 
 anything. Better anything than dishonest dependence, 
 which robs the poorer, and despoils friendship of equal 
 connection." 
 
 In 1830, in one of her distant homes, she reproaches 
 herself with some sudden passion she has for visiting 
 her old home and friends in the city, where she had 
 lived for a while with her brother [Mr. Emerson's 
 father] and afterwards with his widow. " Do I yearn 
 to be in Boston ? 'T would fatigue, disappoint ; I, who 
 have so long despised means, who have always found it 
 a sort of rebellion to seek them ? Yet the old desire 
 for the worm is not so greedy as [mine] to find my 
 self in my old haunts." 
 
 " 1833. The difficulty of getting places of low board 
 for a lady, is obvious. And, at moments, I am tired 
 out. Yet how independent, how better than to hang 
 on friends ! And sometimes I fancy that I am emptied 
 and peeled to carry some seed to the ignorant, which
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 325 
 
 no idler wind can so well dispense." " Hard to con 
 tend for a health which is daily used in petition for a 
 final close." " Am I, poor victim, swept on through 
 the sternest ordinations of nature's laws which slay ? 
 yet I '11 trust." " There was great truth in what a 
 pious enthusiast said, that, if God should cast him into 
 hell, he would yet clasp his hands around Him." 
 
 " Newburyport, Sept. 1822. High, solemn, entranc 
 ing noon, prophetic of the approach of the Presiding 
 Spirit of Autumn. God preserve my reason ! Alone, 
 feeling strongly, fully, that I have deserved nothing ; 
 according to Adam Smith's idea of society, ' done noth 
 ing ; ' doing nothing, never expect to ; yet joying in ex 
 istence, perhaps striving to beautify one individual of 
 God's creation. 
 
 " Our civilization is not always mending our poetry. 
 It is sauced and spiced with our complexity of arts and 
 inventions, but lacks somewhat of the grandeur that be 
 longs to a Doric and unphilosophical age. In a relig 
 ious contemplative public it would have less outward 
 variety, but simpler and grander means ; a few pulsa 
 tions of created beings, a few successions of acts, a few 
 lamps held out in the firmament enable us to talk of 
 Time, make epochs, write histories, to do more, to 
 date the revelations of God to man. But these lamps 
 are held to measure out some of the moments of eter 
 nity, to divide the history of God's operations in the 
 birth and death of nations, of worlds. It is a goodly 
 name for our notions of breathing, suffering, enjoying, 
 acting. We personify it. We call it by every name 
 of fleeting, dreaming, vaporing imagery. Yet it is 
 nothing. We exist in eternity. Dissolve the body and 
 the night is gone, the stars are extinguished, and we
 
 326 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 measure duration by the number of our thoughts, by 
 the activity of reason, the discovery of truths, the ac 
 quirement of virtue, the approach to God. And the 
 gray-headed god throws his shadows all around, and 
 his slaves catch, now at this, now at that, one at the 
 halo he throws around poetry, or pebbles, bugs, or bub 
 bles. Sometimes they climb, sometimes creep into the 
 meanest holes but they are all alike in vanishing, like 
 the shadow of a cloud." 
 
 To her nephew Charles : " War ; what do I think of 
 it ? Why in your ear I think it so much better than 
 oppression that if it were ravaging the whole geography 
 of despotism it would be an omen of high and glorious 
 import. Channing paints its miseries, but does he know 
 those of a worse war, private animosities, pinching, 
 bitter warfare of the human heart, the cruel oppression 
 of the poor by the rich, which corrupts old worlds ? 
 How much better, more honest, are storming and con 
 flagration of towns ! They are but letting blood which 
 corrupts into worms and dragons. A war-trump would 
 be harmony to the jars of theologians and statesmen 
 such as the papers bring. It was the glory of the 
 Chosen People, nay, it is said there was war in Heaven. 
 War is among the means of discipline, the rough meli- 
 orators, and no worse than the strife with poverty, mal 
 ice and ignorance. War devastates the conscience of 
 men, yet corrupt peace does not less. And if you tell 
 me of the miseries of the battle-field, with the sensi 
 tive Channing, (of whose love of life I am ashamed,) 
 what of a few days of agony, what of a vulture being 
 the bier, tomb and parson of a hero, compared to the 
 long years of sticking on a bed and wished away ? 
 For the widows and orphans Oh, 1 could give facts of
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 327 
 
 the long-drawn years of imprisoned minds and hearts, 
 which uneducated orphans endure ! 
 
 " O Time ! Thou loiterer. Thou, whose might has 
 laid low the vastest and crushed the worm, restest on 
 thy hoary throne, with like potency over thy agitations 
 and thy graves. When will thy routines give way to 
 higher and lasting institutions ? When thy trophies 
 and thy name and all its wizard forms be lost in the 
 Genius of Eternity ? In Eternity, no deceitful prom 
 ises, no fantastic illusions, no riddles concealed by thy 
 shrouds, none of thy Arachnean webs, which decoy and 
 destroy. Hasten to finish thy motley work, on which 
 frightful Gorgons are at play, in spite of holy ghosts. 
 'T is already moth-eaten and its shuttles quaver, as the 
 beams of the loom are shaken. 
 
 " Sat. 25. Hail requiem of departed Time ! Never 
 was incumbent's funeral followed by expectant heir 
 with more satisfaction. Yet not his hope is mine. For 
 in the weary womb are prolific numbers of the same sad 
 hour, colored by the memory of defeats in virtue, by the 
 prophecy of others, more dreary, blind and sickly. Yet 
 He who formed thy web, who stretched thy warp from 
 long ages, has graciously given man to throw his shut 
 tle, or feel he does, and irradiate the filling woof with 
 many a flowery rainbow, labors, rather evanescent 
 efforts, which will wear like flowerets in brighter soils ; 
 has attuned his mind in such unison with the harp of 
 the universe, that he is never without some chord of 
 hope's music. 'T is not in the nature of existence, while 
 there is a God, to be without the pale of excitement. 
 When the dreamy pages of life seem all turned and 
 folded down to every weariness, even this idea of those 
 who fill the hour with crowded virtues, lifts the spectar
 
 328 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 tor to othei worlds, and he adores the eternal purposes 
 of Him who lifteth up and casteth down, bringeth to 
 dust, and raiseth to the skies. 'T is a strange deficiency 
 in Brougham's title of a System of Natural Theology, 
 when the moral constitution of the being for whom 
 these contrivances were made is not recognized. The 
 wonderful inhabitant of the building to which unknown 
 ages were the mechanics, is left out as to that part where 
 the Creator had put his own lighted candle, placed a 
 vice-gerent. Not to complain of the poor old earth's 
 chaotic state, brought so near in its long and gloomy 
 transmutings by the geologist. Yet its youthful charms 
 as decked by the hand of Moses' Cosmogony, will linger 
 about the heart, while Poetry succumbs to Science. Yet 
 there is a sombre music in the whirl of times so long 
 gone by. And the bare bones of this poor embryo earth 
 may give the idea of the Infinite far, far better than 
 when dignified with arts and industry : its oceans, 
 when beating the symbols of ceasless ages, than when 
 covered with cargoes of war and oppression. How 
 grand its preparation for souls, souls who were to 
 feel the Divinity, before Science had dissected the emo 
 tions, and applied its steely analysis to that state of be 
 ing which recognizes neither psychology nor element. 
 
 " September, 1836. Vale. The mystic dream which 
 is shed over the season. O, to dream more deeply ; to 
 lose external objects a little more ! Yet the hold on 
 them is so slight, that duty is lost sight of perhaps, at 
 times. Sadness is better than walking talking acting 
 somnambulism. Yes, this entire solitude with the Be 
 ing who makes the powers of life ! Even Fame, which 
 lives in other states of Virtue, palls. Usefulness, if it 
 requires action, seems less like existence than the desire
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 329 
 
 of being absorbed in God, retaining consciousness. 
 Number the waste-places of the journey, the secret 
 martyrdom of youth, heavier than the stake, I thought, 
 the narrow limits which know no outlet, the bitter dregs 
 of the cup, and all are sweetened by the purpose of 
 Him I love. The idea of being no mate for those intel- 
 lectualists I Ve loved to admire, is no pain. Hereafter 
 the same solitary joy will go with me, were I not to live, 
 as I expect, in the vision of the Infinite. Never do the 
 feelings of the Infinite, and the consciousness of finite 
 frailty and ignorance, harmonize so well as at this mys 
 tic season in the deserts of life. Contradictions, the 
 modern German says, of the Infinite and finite." 
 
 I sometimes fancy I detect in her writings, a certain 
 shall I say polite and courtly homage to the name 
 and dignity of Jesus, not at all spontaneous, but grow 
 ing out of her respect to the Revelation, and really veil 
 ing and betraying her organic dislike to any interfer 
 ence, any mediation between her and the Author of her 
 being, assurance of whose direct dealing with her she 
 incessantly invokes : for example, the parenthesis " Sav 
 ing thy presence, Priest and Medium of all this approach 
 for a sinful creature ! " " Were it possible that the 
 Creator was not virtually present with the spirits and 
 bodies which He has made : if it were in the nature 
 of things possible He could withdraw himself, I 
 would hold on to the faith, that, at some moment of His 
 existence, I was present : that, though cast from Him, 
 my sorrows, my ignorance and meanness were a part of 
 His plan ; my death, too, however long and tediously 
 delayed to prayer, was decreed, was fixed. Oh how 
 weary in youth more so scarcely now, not whenever 
 I can breathe, as it seems, the atmosphere of the Om-
 
 330 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 nipresence : then I ask not faith nor knowledge ; honors, 
 pleasures, labors, I always refuse, compared to this di 
 vine partaking of existence ; but how rare, how de 
 pendent on the organs through which the soul operates ! 
 
 " The sickness of the last week was fine medicine ; 
 pain disintegrated the spirit, or became spiritual. I 
 rose, I felt that I had given to God more perhaps 
 than an angel could, had promised Him in youth that 
 to be a blot on this fair world, at His command, would 
 be acceptable. Constantly offer myself to continue the 
 obscurest and loneliest thing ever heard of, with one 
 proviso, His agency. Yes, love Thee, and all Thou 
 dost, while Thou sheddest frost and darkness on every 
 path of mine." 
 
 For years she had her bed made in the form of a 
 coffin ; and delighted herself with the discovery of the 
 figure of a coffin made every evening on their sidewalk, 
 by the shadow of a church tower which adjoined the 
 house. 
 
 Saladin caused his shroud to be made, and carried it 
 to battle as his standard. She made up her shroud, 
 and death still refusing to come, and she thinking it a 
 pity to let it lie idle, wore it as a night-gown, or a day- 
 gown, nay, went out to ride in it, on horseback, in her 
 mountain roads, until it was worn out. Then she had 
 another made up, and as she never travelled without 
 being provided for this dear and indispensable contin 
 gency, I believe she wore out a great many. 
 
 " 1833. I have given up, the last year or two, the 
 hope of dying. In the lowest ebb of health nothing is 
 ominous ; diet and exercise restore. So it seems best 
 to get that very humbling business of insurance. I en 
 ter my dear sixty the last of this mouth."
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 331 
 
 " 1835, June 16. Tedious indisposition : hoped, as 
 it took a new form, it would open the cool, sweet grave. 
 Now existence itself in any form is sweet. Away with 
 knowledge ; God alone. He communicates this our 
 condition and humble waiting, or I should never per 
 ceive Him. Science, Nature, O, I Ve yearned to open 
 some page ; not now, too late. Ill health and nerves. 
 O dear worms, how they will at some sure time take 
 down this tedious tabernacle, most valuable companions, 
 instructors in the science of mind, by gnawing away the 
 mashes which have chained it. A very Beatrice in show 
 ing the Paradise. Yes, I irk under contact with forms 
 of depravity, while I am resigned to being nothing, 
 never expect a palm, a laurel, hereafter." 
 
 " 1826, July. If one could choose, and without crime 
 be gibbeted, were it not altogether better than the 
 long drooping away by age without mentality or devo 
 tion ? The vulture and crow would caw caw, and, un 
 conscious of any deformity in the mutilated body, would 
 relish their meal, make no grimace of affected sympa 
 thy, nor suffer any real compassion. I pray to die, 
 though happier myriads and mine own companions press 
 nearer to the throne. His coldest beam will purify and 
 render me forever holy. Had I the highest place of 
 acquisition and diffusing virtue here, the principle of 
 human sympathy would be too strong for that rapt emo 
 tion, that severe delight which I crave ; nay for that 
 kind of obscure virtue which is so rich to lay at the feet 
 of the Author of morality. Those economists (Adam 
 Smith) who say nothing is added to the wealth of a na 
 tion but what is dug out of the earth, and that, what 
 ever disposition of virtue may exist, unless something is 
 done for society, deserves no fame, why I am content
 
 332 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 
 
 with such paradoxical kind of facts ; but one secret sen* 
 timent of virtue, disinterested (or perhaps not), is wor 
 thy, and will tell, in the world of spirits, of God's imme 
 diate presence, more than the blood of many a martyr 
 who has it not." " I have heard that the greatest gen 
 iuses have died ignorant of their power and influence on 
 the arts and sciences. I believe thus much, that their 
 large perception consumed their egotism, or made it im 
 possible for them to make small calculations." 
 
 " That greatest of all gifts, however small my power 
 of receiving, the capacity, the element to love the 
 All-perfect, without regard to personal happiness : 
 happiness ? 't is itself." She checks herself amid 
 her passionate prayers for immediate communion with 
 God ; "I who never made a sacrifice to record, I 
 cowering in the nest of quiet for so many years ; I 
 indulge the delight of sympathizing with great vir 
 tues, blessing their Original : Have I this right ? " 
 " While I am sympathizing in the government of God 
 over the world, perhaps I lose nearer views. Well, I 
 learned his existence a priori. No object of science or 
 observation ever was pointed out to me by my poor 
 aunt, but His Being and commands ; and oh how much 
 I trusted Him with every event till I learned the or 
 der of human events from the pressure of wants." 
 
 " What a timid, ungrateful creature ! Fear the deep 
 est pit-falls of age, when pressing on, in imagination at 
 least, to Him with whom a day is a thousand years, 
 with whom all miseries and irregularities are conform 
 ing to universal good ! Shame on me who have learned 
 within three years to sit whole days in peace and en 
 joyment without the least apparent benefit to any, or 
 knowledge to myself ; resigned, too, to the memory
 
 MARY MOODY EMERSON. 333 
 
 of long years of slavery passed in labor and ignorance, 
 to the loss of that character which I once thought and 
 felt so sure of, without ever being conscious of acting 
 from calculation." 
 
 Her friends used to say to her, " I wish you joy of 
 the worm." And when at last her release arrived, the 
 event of her death had really such a comic tinge in the 
 eyes of every one who knew her, that her friends feared 
 they might, at her funeral, not dare to look at each 
 other, lest they should forget the serious proprieties of 
 the hour. 
 
 She gave high counsels. It was the privilege of cer 
 tain boys to have this immeasurably high standard in 
 dicated to their childhood ; a blessing which nothing 
 else in education could supply. It is frivolous to ask, 
 " And was she ever a Christian in practice ? " Cas 
 sandra uttered, to a frivolous, skeptical time, the ar 
 cana of the Gods : but it is easy to believe that Cassan 
 dra domesticated in a lady's house would have proved 
 a troublesome boarder. Is it the less desirable to have 
 the lofty abstractions because the abstractionist is nerv 
 ous and irritable ? Shall we not keep Flamsteed and 
 Herschel in the observatory, though it should even be 
 proved that they neglected to rectify their own kitchen 
 clock ? It is essential to the safety of every mackerel 
 fisher that latitudes and longitudes should be astronom 
 ically ascertained ; and so every banker, shopkeeper and 
 wood-sawyer has a stake in the elevation of the moral 
 code by saint and prophet. Very rightly, then, the 
 Christian ages, proceeding on a grand instinct, have 
 said : Faith alone, Faith alone.
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 " Magno ae judir:e quisque tuetur ; 
 Tictrix causa Deis placuit sed victa Catoni. 1 
 
 A YEAR ago, how often did we meet, 
 
 Beneath these elms, once more in sober bloom, 
 Thy tall, sad figure pacing down the street, 
 
 And now tLe robin sings above thy tomb ! 
 Thy name on otter shores may ne'er be known, 
 
 Though Rome austere no graver consul knew, 
 But Massachusetts her true eon shall own ; 
 
 Out of her soil thy hardy virtue grew. 
 She loves the man that chose the conquered cause, 
 
 With upright soul that bowed to God alone ; 
 The clean hands that upheld her equal laws, 
 
 The old religion ne'er to be outgrown ; 
 The cold demeanor, the warm heart beneath, 
 The simple grandeur of thy life and death. 
 
 F. B. SANBOKH. 
 \pril, 1857.
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 WRITTEN AT CONCORD, 4TH NOV. [ELECTION DAY], 1856. 
 
 HERE is a day on which more public good or evil is 
 to be done than was ever done on any day. And this 
 is the pregnant season, when our old Roman, Samuel 
 Hoar, has chosen to quit this world. Ab iniquo certa- 
 mine indignabundus recessit. 
 
 He was born under a Christian and humane star, full 
 of mansuetude and nobleness, honor and charity ; and, 
 whilst he was willing to face every disagreeable duty, 
 whilst he dared to do all that might beseem a man, his 
 self-respect restrained him from any foolhardiness. The 
 Homeric heroes, when they saw the gods mingling in 
 the fray, sheathed their swords. So did not he feel any 
 call to make it a contest of personal strength with mobs 
 or nations ; but when he saw the day and the gods went 
 against him, he withdrew, but with an unaltered belief. 
 All was conquered prceter atrocem animum Catonis. 
 
 At the time when he went to South Carolina as the 
 Commissioner of Massachusetts, in 1844, whilst staying 
 in Charleston, pending his correspondence with the gov 
 ernor and the legal officers, he was repeatedly warned 
 that it was not safe for him to appear in public, or to 
 take his daily walk, as he had done, unattended by bis
 
 388 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 friends, in the streets of the city. He was advised to 
 withdraw to private lodgings, which were eagerly offered 
 him by friends. He rejected the advice, and refused 
 the offers, saying that he was old, and his life was not 
 worth much, but he had rather the boys should troll his 
 old head like a foot-ball in their streets, than that he 
 should hide it. And he continued the uniform practice 
 of his daily walk into all parts of the city. But when 
 the mob of Charleston was assembled in the streets be 
 fore -his hotel, and a deputation of gentlemen waited 
 upon him in the hall to say they had come with the 
 unanimous voice of the State to remove him by force, 
 and the carriage was at the door, he considered his duty 
 discharged to the last point of possibility. The force 
 was apparent and irresistible ; the legal officer's part 
 was up ; it was now time for the military officer to be 
 sent ; and he said, " Well, gentlemen, since it is your 
 pleasure to use force, I must go." But his opinion was 
 unchanged. 
 
 In like manner now, when the votes of the Free 
 States, as shown in the recent election in the State of 
 Pennsylvania, had disappointed the hopes of mankind 
 and betrayed the cause of freedom, he considered the 
 question of justice and liberty, for his age, lost, and had 
 no longer the will to drag his days through the dishon 
 ors of the long defeat, and promptly withdrew, but with 
 unaltered belief. 
 
 He was a, very natural, but a very high character ; a 
 'man of simple tastes, plain and true in speech, with 
 a clear perception of justice, and a perfect obedience 
 thereto in his action ; of a strong understanding, precise 
 and methodical, which gave him great eminence in the 
 legal profession. It was rather his reputation for severe
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 339 
 
 method in his intellect than any special direction in his 
 studies, that caused him to be offered the mathematical 
 chair in Harvard University, when vacant in 1806. The 
 severity of his logic might have inspired fear, had it not 
 been restrained by his natural reverence, which made 
 him modest and courteous, though his courtesy had a 
 grave and almost military air. He combined a uniform 
 self-respect with a natural reverence for every other 
 man ; so that it was perfectly easy for him to associate 
 with farmers, and with plain, uneducated, poor men, 
 and he had a strong, unaffected interest in farms, and 
 crops, and weathers, and the common incidents of rural 
 life. It was just as easy for him to meet on the same 
 floor, and with the same plain courtesy, men of distinc 
 tion and large ability. He was fond of farms and trees, 
 fond of birds, and attentive to their manners and habits ; 
 addicted to long and retired walks ; temperate to ascet 
 icism, for no lesson of his experience was lost on him, 
 and his self-command was perfect. Though rich, of a 
 plainness and almost poverty of personal expenditure, 
 yet liberal of his money to any worthy use, readily lend 
 ing it to young men, and industrious men, and by no 
 means eager to reclaim of them either the interest or 
 the principal. He was open-handed to every charity, 
 and every public claim that had any show of reason in 
 it. When I talked with him one day of some inequality 
 of taxes in the town, he said it was his practice to pay 
 whatever was demanded ; for, though he might think 
 the taxation large and very unequally proportioned, yet 
 he thought the money might as well go in this way as 
 in any other. 
 
 The strength and the beauty of the man lay in the 
 natural goodness and justice of his mind, which, in man-
 
 340 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 hood and in old age, after dealing all his life with 
 weighty private and public interests, left an infantile 
 innocence, of which we have no second or third example, 
 the strength of a chief united to the modesty of a 
 child. He returned from courts or congresses to sit 
 down, with unaltered humility, in the church or in the 
 town -house, on the plain wooden bench where honor 
 came and sat down beside him. 
 
 He was a man in whom so rare a spirit of justice 
 visibly dwelt, that if one had met him in a cabin or in 
 a forest he must still seem a public man, answering as 
 sovereign 'state to sovereign state ; and might easily 
 suggest Milton's picture of John Bradshaw, that "he 
 was a consul from whom the fasces did not depart witli 
 the year, but in private seemed ever sitting in judgment 
 on kings." Everybody knew where to find him. What 
 he said, that would he do. But he disdained any arts 
 in his speech : he was not adorned with any graces of 
 
 rhetoric, 
 
 " But simple truth his utmost skill." 
 
 So cautious was he, and tender of the truth, that he 
 sometimes wearied his audience with the pains he took 
 to qualify and verify his statements, adding clause on 
 clause to do justice to all his conviction. He had little 
 or no power of generalization. But a plain way he had 
 of puttirg his statement with all his might, and now and 
 then borrowing the aid of a good story, or a farmer's 
 phrase, whose force had imprinted it on his memory, 
 and, by the same token, his hearers were bound to re 
 member his point. 
 
 The impression he made on juries was honorable to 
 him and them. For a long term of years, he was at 
 the head of the bar in Middlesex, practising, also, iu
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 341 
 
 the adjoining counties. He had one side or the other 
 of every important case, and his influence was reckoned 
 despotic, and sometimes complained of as a bar to pub 
 lic justice. Many good stories are still told of the per 
 plexity of jurors who found the law and the evidence 
 on one side, and yet Squire Hoar had said that he be 
 lieved, on his conscience, his client entitled to a verdict. 
 And what Middlesex jury, containing any God-fearing 
 men in it, would hazard an opinion in flat contradiction 
 to what Squire Hoar believed to be just ? He was 
 entitled to this respect ; for he discriminated in the 
 business that was brought to him, and would not argue 
 a rotten cause ; and he refused very large sums offered 
 him to undertake the defence of criminal persons. 
 
 His character made him the conscience of the com 
 munity in which he lived. And in many a town it was 
 asked, " What does Squire Hoar think of this ? " and 
 in political crises, he was entreated to write a few lines 
 to make known to good men in Chelmsford, or Marl- 
 borough, or Shirley, what that opinion was. I used to 
 feel that his conscience was a kind of meter of the de 
 gree of honesty in the country, by which on each occa 
 sion it was tried, and sometimes found wanting. I am 
 sorry to say he could not be elected to Congress a second 
 time from Middlesex. 
 
 And in his own town, if some important end was to 
 be gained, as, for instance, when the county commis 
 sioners refused to rebuild the burned court-house, on 
 the belief that the courts would be transferred from 
 Concord to Lowell, all parties combined to send Mr. 
 Hoar to the Legislature, where his presence and speech, 
 of course, secured the rebuilding ; and, of course also, 
 having answered our end, we passed him by and elected 
 somebody else at the next term.
 
 342 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 His head, with singular grace in its lines, had a re 
 semblance to the bust of Dante. He retained to the 
 last the erectness of his tall but slender form, and not 
 less the full strength of his mind. Such was, in old age, 
 the beauty of his person and carriage, as if the mind 
 radiated, and made the same impression of probity on 
 all beholders. His beauty was pathetic and touching 
 in these latest days, and, as now appears, it awakened 
 a certain tender fear in all who saw him, that the costly 
 ornament of our homes and halls and streets was 
 speedily to be removed. Yet how solitary he looked, 
 day by day in the world, this man so revered, this man 
 of public life, of large acquaintance and wide family 
 connection ! Was it some reserve of constitution, or 
 was it only the lot of excellence, tha't with aims so pure 
 and single, he seemed to pass out of life alone, and, as 
 it were, unknown to those who were his contemporaries 
 and familiars ? 
 
 [The following sketch of Mr. Hoar from a slightly different 
 point of view, was prepared by Mr. Emerson, shortly after the 
 above sketch appeared in " Putnam's Magazine," December, 
 1856, at the request of the Editor of the " Monthly Religious 
 Magazine," and was printed there, January, 1857. It is. here 
 appended as giving some additional traits of a characteristic 
 figure which may serve as a pendant in some respects to that of 
 Dr. Ripley.] 
 
 Mr. Hoar was distinguished in his profession by the 
 grasp of his mind, and by the simplicity of his means. 
 His ability lay in the clear apprehension and the pow 
 erful statement of the material points of his case. He 
 soon possessed it, and he never possessed it better, and 
 he was equally ready at any moment to state the facts.
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 343 
 
 He saw what was essential and refuted whatever was 
 not, so that no man embarrassed himself less with a 
 needless array of books and evidences of contingent 
 value. 
 
 These tactics of the lawyer were the tactics of his 
 life. He had uniformly the air of knowing just what 
 he wanted and of going to that in the shortest way. It 
 is singular that his character should make so deep an 
 impression, standing and working as he did on so com 
 mon a ground. He was neither spiritualist nor man 
 of genius nor of a literary nor an executive talent. In 
 strictness the vigor of his understanding was directed 
 on the ordinary domestic and municipal well-being. So 
 ciety had reason to cherish him, for he was a main pil 
 lar on which it leaned. The useful and practical super- 
 abounded in his mind, and to a degree which might be 
 even comic to young and poetical persons. If he spoke 
 of the engagement of two lovers, he called it a contract. 
 Nobody cared to speak of thoughts or aspirations to a 
 black-letter lawyer, who only studied to keep men out 
 of prison, and their lands out of attachment. Had you 
 read Swedeuborg or Plotinus to him, he would have 
 waited till you had done, and answered you out of the 
 Revised Statutes. He had an affinity for mathematics, 
 but it was a taste rather than a* pursuit, and of the 
 modern sciences he liked to read popular books on 
 geology. Yet so entirely was this respect to the ground 
 plan and substructure of society a natural ability, and 
 from the order of his mind, and not for " tickling com 
 modity," that it was admirable, as every work of nature 
 is, and like one of those opaque crystals, big beryls 
 weighing tons, which are found in Acworth, New Hamp 
 shire, not less perfect in their angles and structure, and
 
 344 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 only less beautiful, than the transparent topazes and 
 diamonds. Meantime, whilst his talent and his profes 
 sion led him to guard the material wealth of society, a 
 more disinterested person did not exist. And if there 
 were regions of knowledge not open to him, he did not 
 pretend to them. His modesty was sincere. He had a 
 childlike innocence and a native temperance, which left 
 him no temptations, and enabled him to meet every 
 comer with a free and disengaged courtesy that had no 
 memory in it 
 
 " Of wrong and outrage with which earth is filled." 
 
 No person was more keenly alive to the stabs which the 
 ambition and avarice of men inflicted on the common 
 wealth. Yet when politicians or speculators approached 
 him, these memories left no scar ; his countenance had 
 an unalterable tranquillity a,nd sweetness ; he had noth 
 ing to repent of, let the cloud rest where it might, he 
 dwelt hi eternal sunshine. 
 
 He had his birth and breeding in a little country 
 town, where the old religion existed in strictness, and 
 spent all his energy in creating purity of manners and 
 careful education. No art or practice of the farm was 
 unknown to him, and the farmers greeted him as one of 
 themselves, whilst 'they paid due homage to his powers 
 of mind and to his virtues. 
 
 He loved the dogmas and the simple usages of his 
 church ; was always an honored and sometimes an ac 
 tive member. He never shrunk from a disagreeable 
 duty. In the time of the Sunday laws he was a tithing- 
 man ; under the Maine Law he was a prosecutor of the 
 liquor dealers. It seemed as if the New England 
 church had formed him to be its friend and defender ;
 
 SAMUEL HOAR. 345 
 
 the lover and assured friend of its parish by-laws, of its 
 ministers, its rites and its social reforms. He was a 
 model of those formal but reverend manners which 
 make what is called a gentleman of the old school, so 
 called under an impression that the style is passing 
 away, but which, I suppose, is an optical illusion, as 
 there are always a few more of the class remaining, 
 and always a few young men to whom these manners 
 are native. 
 
 I have spoken of his modesty ; he had nothing to say 
 about himself ; and his sincere admiration was com 
 manded by certain heroes of the profession, like Judge 
 Parsons and Judge Marshall, Mr. Mason and Mr. Web 
 ster. When some one said, in his presence, that Chief 
 Justice Marshall was failing in his intellect, Mr. Hoar 
 remarked that "Judge Marshall could afford to lose 
 brains enough to furnish three or four common men, 
 before common men would find it out." He had a 
 huge respect for Mr. Webster's ability, with whom he 
 had often occasion to try his strength at the bar, and a 
 proportionately deep regret at Mr. Webster's political 
 course in his later years. 
 
 There was no elegance in his reading or tastes beyond 
 the crystal clearness of his mind. He had no love of 
 poetry ; and I have heard that the only verse that he 
 was ever known to quote was the Indian rule : 
 
 " When the oaks are in the gray, 
 Then, farmers, plant away." 
 
 But I find an elegance in his quiet but firm withdrawa* 
 from all business in the courts which he could drop 
 without manifest detriment to the interests involved 
 (and this when in his best strength), and his self-dedi-
 
 346 SAMUEL HOAR. 
 
 cation thenceforward to unpaid services of the Temper 
 ance and Peace and other philanthropic societies, the 
 Sunday Schools, the cause of Education, and specially 
 of the University, and to such political activities as a 
 strong sense of duty and the love of order and of free 
 dom urged him to forward. 
 
 Perfect in his private life, the husband, father, friend, 
 he was severe only with himself. He was as if on terms 
 of honor with those nearest him, nor did he think a life 
 long familiarity could excuse any omission of courtesy 
 from him. He carried ceremony finely to the last. But 
 his heart was all gentleness, gratitude and bounty. 
 
 With beams December planets dart, 
 
 His cold eye truth and conduct scanned ; 
 July was in his sunny heart, 
 October in his liberal hand.
 
 THOREAU. 
 
 A QUEEN rejoices in her peers, 
 And wary Nature knows her own, 
 By court and city, dale and down, 
 
 And like a lover volunteers, 
 And to her son will treasures more, 
 And more to purpose, freely pour 
 In one wood walk, than learned men 
 Will find with glass in ten times ten.
 
 IT seemed as if the breezes brought him, 
 It seemed as if the sparrows taught him. 
 As if by secret sign he knew 
 Where in far fields the orchis grew.
 
 THOREAU. 1 
 
 HENRY DAVID THOREAU was the last male descend 
 ant of a French ancestor who came to this country from 
 the Isle of Guernsey. His character exhibited occa 
 sional traits drawn from this blood, in singular combi 
 nation with a very strong Saxon genius. 
 
 He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, on the 12th 
 of July, 1817. He was graduated at Harvard College 
 in 1837, but without aay literary distinction. An icon 
 oclast in literature, he seldom thanked colleges for their 
 service to him, holding them in small esteem, whilst yet 
 his debt to them was important. After leaving, the 
 University, he joined his brother in teaching a private 
 school, which he soon renounced. His father was a 
 manufacturer of lead-pencils, and Henry applied him 
 self for a time to this craft, believing he could make a 
 better pencil than was then in use. After completing 
 his experiments, he exhibited his work to chemists and 
 artists in Boston, and having obtained their certificates 
 to its excellence and to its equality with the best Lon 
 don manufacture, he returned home contented. His 
 friends congratulated him that he had now opened his 
 way to fortune. But he replied, that he should never 
 
 1 Part of this paper was the Address delivered by Mr. Emerson at the 
 funeral of Mr. Thoreau, in Miy, 18C2. In the following summer it was 
 enlarged and printed in the Atlantic Monthly in its present form.
 
 350 THOREAU. 
 
 make another pencil. " Why should I ? I would not 
 do again what I have done once." He resumed his 
 endless walks and miscellaneous studies, making every 
 day some new acquaintance with Nature, though as yet 
 never speaking of zoology or botany, since, though very 
 studious of natural facts, he was incurious of technical 
 and textual science. 
 
 At this time, a strong, healthy youth, fresh from col 
 lege, whilst all his companions were choosing their pro 
 fession, or eager to begin some lucrative employment, 
 it was inevitable that his thoughts should be exercised 
 on the same question, and it required rare decision to 
 refuse all the accustomed paths and keep his solitary 
 freedom at the cost of disappointing the natural expec 
 tations of his family and friends : all the more difficult 
 that he had a perfect probity, was exact in securing his 
 own independence, and in holding every man to the like 
 duty. But Thoreau never faltered. He was a born 
 protestant. He declined to give up his large ambition 
 of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profes 
 sion, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the 
 art of living well. If he slighted and defied the opin 
 ions of others, it was only that he was more intent to 
 reconcile his practice with his own belief. Never idle 
 or self-indulgent, he preferred, when he wanted money, 
 earning it by some piece of manual labor agreeable to 
 him, as building a boat or a fence, planting, grafting, 
 surveying, or other short work, to any long engage 
 ments. With his hardy habits and few wants, his skill 
 in wood-craft, and his powerful arithmetic, he was very 
 competent to live in any part of the world. It would 
 cost him less time to supply his wants than another. He 
 was therefore secure of his leisure.
 
 THOREAU. 351 
 
 A natural skill for mensuration, growing out of his 
 mathematical knowledge and his habit of ascertaining 
 the measures and distances of objects which interested 
 him, the size of trees, the depth and extent of ponds 
 and rivers, the height of mountains, and the air-line dis 
 tance of his favorite summits, this, and his intimate 
 knowledge of the territory about Concord, made him 
 drift into the profession of laud-surveyor. It had the 
 advantage for him that it led him continually into new 
 and secluded grounds, and helped his studies of Nature. 
 His accuracy and skill in this work were readily appre 
 ciated, and he found all the employment he wanted. 
 
 He could easily solve the problems of the surveyor, 
 but he was daily beset with graver questions, which he 
 manfully confronted. He interrogated every custom, 
 and wished to settle all his practice on an ideal founda 
 tion. He was a protestant a outrance, and few lives 
 contain so many renunciations. He was bred to no pro 
 fession ; he never married ; he lived alone ; he never 
 went to church ; he never voted ; he refused to pay a 
 tax to the State ; he ate no flesh, he drank no wine, he 
 never knew the use of tobacco ; and, though a natural 
 ist, he used neither trap nor gun. He chose, wisely no 
 doubt for himself, to be the bachelor of thought and 
 Nature. He had no talent for wealth, and knew how 
 to be poor without the least hint of squalor or inele 
 gance. Perhaps he fell into his way of living without 
 forecasting it much, but approved it with later wisdom. 
 " I am often reminded," he wrote in his journal, " that 
 if I had bestowed on me the wealth of Croesus, my aims 
 must be still the same, and my means essentially the 
 same." He had no temptations to fight against, no 
 appetites, no passions, no taste for elegant trifles. A
 
 352 THOREAU. 
 
 fine house, dress, the manners and talk of highly culti 
 vated people were all thrown away on him. He much 
 preferred a good Indian, and considered these refine 
 ments as impediments to conversation, wishing to meet 
 his companion on the simplest terms. He declined in 
 vitations to dinner-parties, because there each was in 
 every one's way, and he could not meet the individuals 
 to any purpose. " They make their pride," he said, " in 
 making their dinner cost much ; I make my pride in 
 making my dinner cost little." When asked at table 
 what dish he preferred, he answered, " The nearest." 
 He did not like the taste of wine, and never had a vice 
 in his life. He said, "I have a faint recollection of 
 pleasure derived from smoking dried lily-stems, before 
 I was a man. I had commonly a supply of these. I 
 have never smoked anything more noxious." 
 
 He chose to be rich by making his wants few, and 
 supplying them himself. In his travels, he used the 
 railroad only to get over so much country as was unim 
 portant to the present purpose, walking hundreds of 
 miles, avoiding taverns, buying a lodging in farmers' 
 and fishermen's houses, as cheaper, and more agreeable 
 to him, and because there he could better find the men 
 and the information he wanted. 
 
 There was somewhat military in his nature, not to be 
 subdued, always manly and able, but rarely tender, as 
 if he did not feel himself except in opposition. He 
 wanted a fallacy to expose, a blunder to pillory, I may 
 say required a little sense of victory, a roll of the drum, 
 to call his powers into full exercise. It cost him noth 
 ing to say No ; indeed he found it much easier than to 
 say Yes. It seemed as if his first instinct on hearing a 
 proposition was to controvert it, so impatient was he of
 
 THOREAU. 353 
 
 the limitations of our daily thought. This habit, of 
 course, is a little chilling to the social affections ; and 
 though the companion would in the end acquit him of 
 any malice or untruth, yet it mars conversation. Hence, 
 no equal companion stood in affectionate relations with 
 one so pure and guileless. " I love Henry," said one of 
 his friends, " but I cannot like him : and as for taking 
 his arm, I should as soon think of taking the arm of an 
 elm-tree." 
 
 Yet, hermit and stoic as he was, he was really fond of 
 sympathy, and threw himself heartily and childlike into 
 the company of young people whom he loved, and whom 
 he delighted to entertain, as he only could, with the va 
 ried and endless anecdotes of his experiences by field 
 and river : and he was always ready to lead a huckle 
 berry-party or a search for chestnuts or grapes. Talk 
 ing, one day, of a public discourse, Henry remarked, 
 that whatever succeeded with the audience was bad. I 
 said, "Who would not like to write something which 
 all can read, like Robinson Crusoe ? and who does not 
 see with regret that his page is not solid with a right 
 materialistic treatment, which delights everybody ? " 
 Henry objected, of course, and vaunted the better lec 
 tures which reached only a few persons. But, at supper, 
 a young girl, understanding that he was to lecture a 
 the Lyceum, sharply asked him, " Whether his lecture 
 would be a nice, interesting story, such as she wished to 
 hear, or whether it was one of those old philosophical 
 things that she did not care about." Henry turned to 
 her, and bethought himself, and, I saw, was trying to 
 believe that he had matter that might fit her and her 
 brother, who were to sit up and go to the lecture, if it 
 was a good one for them. 
 23
 
 354 THOREAU. 
 
 He was a speaker and actor of the truth, born such, 
 and was ever running into dramatic situations from this 
 cause. In any circumstance it interested all by-standers 
 to know what part Henry would take, and what he 
 would say ; and he did not disappoint expectation, but 
 used an original judgment on each emergency. In 1845 
 he built himself a small framed house on the shores of 
 Walden Pond, and lived there two years alone, a life of 
 labor and study. This action was quite native and fit 
 for him. No one who knew him would tax him with 
 affectation. He was more unlike his neighbors in his 
 thought than in his action. As soon as he had exhausted 
 the advantages of that solitude, he abandoned it. In 
 1847, not approving some uses to which the public ex 
 penditure was applied, he refused to pay his town tax, 
 and was put in jail. A friend paid the tax for him, and 
 he was released. The like annoyance was threatened 
 the next year. But, as his friends paid the tax, not 
 withstanding his protest, I believe he ceased to resist. 
 No opposition or ridicule had any weight with him. He 
 coldly and fully stated his opinion of the company. It 
 was of no consequence if every one present held the 
 opposite opinion. On one occasion he went to the Uni 
 versity Library to procure some books. The librarian 
 refused to lend them. Mr. Thoreau repaired to the 
 President, who stated to him the rules and usages, which 
 permitted the loan of books to resident graduates, to 
 clergymen who were alumni, and to some others resi 
 dent within a circle of ten miles' radius from the Col 
 lege. Mr. Thoreau explained to the President that the 
 railroad had destroyed the old scale of distances, 
 that the library was useless, yes, and President and Col 
 lege useless, on the terms of his rules, that the one
 
 THOREAU. 355 
 
 benefit he owed to the College was its library, that, 
 at this moment, not only his want of books was impera 
 tive but he wanted a large number of books, and as 
 sured him that he, Thoreau, and not the librarian, was 
 the proper custodian of these. In short, the President 
 found the petitioner so formidable, and the rules get 
 ting to look so ridiculous, that he ended by giving him 
 a privilege which in his hands proved unlimited there 
 after. 
 
 No truer American existed than Thoreau. His pref 
 erence of his country and condition was genuine, and 
 his aversation from English and European manners and 
 tastes almost reached contempt. He listened impa 
 tiently to news or bon-mots gleaned from London cir 
 cles ; and though he tried to be civil, these anecdotes 
 fatigued him. The men were all imitating each other, 
 and on a small mould. Why can they not live as far 
 apart as possible , and each be a man by himself ? What 
 he sought was the most energetic nature ; and he wished 
 to go to Oregon, not to London. "In every part of 
 Great Britain," he wrote in his diary, " are discovered 
 traces of the Romans, their funereal urns, their camps, 
 their roads, their dwellings. But New England, at 
 least, is not based on any Roman ruins. We have not 
 to lay the foundations of our houses on the ashes of a 
 former civilization." 
 
 But, idealist as he was, standing for abolition of slav 
 ery, abolition of tariffs, almost for abolition of govern 
 ment, it is needless to say he found himself not only 
 unrepresented in actual politics, but almost equally op 
 posed to every class of reformers. Yet he paid the 
 tribute of his uniform respect to the Anti-Slavery party. 
 One man, whose personal acquaintance he had formed,
 
 356 THOREAU. 
 
 he honored with exceptional regard. Before the first 
 friendly word had been spoken for Captain John Bro-.vn, 
 he sent notices to most houses in Concord that he would 
 speak in a public hall on the condition and character of 
 John Brown, on Sunday evening, and invited all people 
 to come. The Republican Committee, the Abolitionist 
 Committee, sent him word that it was premature and 
 not advisable. He replied, "I did not send to you 
 for advice, but to announce that I am to speak." The 
 hall was filled at an early hour by people of all par 
 ties, and his earnest eulogy of the hero was heard by all 
 respectfully, by many with a sympathy that surprised 
 themselves. 
 
 It was said of Plotinus that he was ashamed of his 
 body, and 't is very likely he had good reason for it, 
 that his body was a bad servant, and he had not skill 
 in dealing with the material world, as happens often 
 to men of abstract intellect. But Mr. Thoreau was 
 equipped with a most adapted and serviceable body. 
 He was of short stature, firmly built, of light complex 
 ion, with strong, serious blue eyes, and a grave aspect, 
 his face covered in the late years with a becoming 
 beard. His senses were acute, his frame well-knit and 
 hardy, his hands strong and skilful in the use of tools. 
 And there was a wonderful fitness of body and mind. 
 He could pace sixteen rods more accurately than an 
 other man could measure them with rod and chain. He 
 could find his path in the woods at night, he said, better 
 by his feet than his eyes. He could estimate the meas 
 ure of a tree very well by his eye ; he could estimate 
 the weight of a calf or a pig, like a dealer. From a 
 box containing a bushel or more of loose pencils, he 
 could take up with his hands fast enough just a dozen
 
 THOREAU. 357 
 
 pencils at every grasp. He was a good swimmer, run 
 ner, skater, boatman, and would probably outwalk most 
 countrymen in a day's journey. And the relation of 
 body to mind was still finer than we have indicated. 
 He said he wanted every stride his legs made. The 
 length of his walk uniformly made the length of his 
 writing. If shut up in the house he did not write at 
 all. 
 
 He had a strong common-sense, like that which Rose 
 Flammock, the weaver's daughter in Scott's romance, 
 commends in her father, as resembling a yardstick, 
 which, whilst it measures dowlas and diaper, can equally 
 well measure tapestry and cloth of gold. He had al 
 ways a new resource. When I was planting forest 
 trees, and had procured half a peck of acorns, he said 
 that only a small portion of them would be sound, and 
 proceeded to examine them and select the sound ones. 
 But finding this took time, he said, " I think if you put 
 them all into water the good ones will sink ; " which 
 experiment we tried with success. He could plan a 
 garden or a house or a barn ; would have been com 
 petent to lead a Pacific Exploring Expedition ; could 
 give judicious counsel in the gravest private or public 
 affairs. 
 
 He lived for the day, not cumbered and mortified by 
 his memory. If he brought you yesterday a new prop 
 osition, he would bring you to-day another not less rev 
 olutionary. A very industrious man, and setting, like 
 all highly organized men, a high value on his time, he 
 seemed the only man of leisure in town, always ready 
 for any excursion that promised well, or for conversa 
 tion prolonged into late hours. His trenchant sense 
 was never stopped by his rules of daily prudence, but
 
 358 THOREAU. 
 
 was always up to the new occasion. He liked and used 
 the simplest food, yet, when some one urged a vegeta 
 ble diet, Thoreau thought all diets a very small mat 
 ter, saying that " the man who shoots the buffalo lives 
 better than the man who boards at the Graham House." 
 He said, " You can sleep near the railroad, and never 
 be disturbed : Nature knows very well what sounds are 
 worth attending to, and has made up her mind not to 
 hear the railroad-whistle. But things respect the de 
 vout mind, and a mental ecstasy was never inter 
 rupted." He noted what repeatedly befell him, that, 
 after receiving from a distance a rare plant, he would 
 presently find the same in his own haunts. And those 
 pieces of luck which happen only to good players hap 
 pened to him. One day, walking with a stranger, who 
 inquired where Indian arrow-heads could be found, he 
 replied, " Everywhere," and, stooping forward, picked 
 one on the instant from the ground. At Mount Wash 
 ington, in Tuckerman's Ravine, Thoreau had a bad fall, 
 and sprained his foot. As he was in the act of getting 
 np from his fall, he saw for the first time the leaves of 
 the Arnica mollis. 
 
 His robust common sense, armed with stout hands, 
 keen perceptions and strong will, cannot yet account 
 for the superiority which shone in his simple and hidden 
 life. I must add the cardinal fact, that there was an 
 excellent wisdom in him, proper to a rare class of men, 
 which showed him the material world as a means and 
 symbol. This discovery, which sometimes yields to 
 poets a certain casual and interrupted light, serving for 
 the >rnament of their writing, was in him an unsleeping 
 insight ; and whatever faults or obstructions of tem 
 perament might cloud it, he was not disobedient to the
 
 THOREAU. 359 
 
 heavenly vision. In his youth, he said, one day, " The 
 other world is all my art ; my pencils will draw no 
 other ; my jack-knife will cut nothing else ; I do not 
 use it as a means." This was the muse and genius 
 that ruled his opinions, conversation, studies, work and 
 course of life. This made him a searching judge of 
 men. At first glance he measured his companion, and, 
 though insensible to some fine traits of culture, could 
 very well report his weight and calibre. And this made 
 the impression of genius which his conversation some 
 times gave. 
 
 He understood the matter in hand at a glance, and 
 saw the limitations and poverty of those he talked with, 
 so that nothing seemed concealed from such terrible 
 eyes. I have repeatedly known young men of sen 
 sibility converted in a moment to the belief that this 
 was the man they were in search of, the man of men, 
 who could tell them all they should do. His own deal 
 ing with them was never affectionate, but superior, 
 didactic, scorning their petty ways, very slowly con 
 ceding, or not conceding at all, the promise of his so 
 ciety at their houses, or even at his own. " Would he 
 not walk with them ? " " He did not know. There 
 was nothing so important to him as his walk ; he had 
 no walks to throw away on company." Visits were 
 offered him from respectful parties, but he declined 
 them. Admiring friends offered to carry him at their 
 own cost to the Yellowstone River, to the West In 
 dies, to South America. But though nothing could 
 be more grave or considered than his refusals, they re 
 mind one, in quite new relations, of that fop Brummel's 
 reply to the gentleman who' offered him his carriage in 
 a shower, " But where will you ride, then ? " and
 
 360 THOREAU. 
 
 what accusing silences, and what searching and irresis 
 tible speeches, battering down all defences, his compan 
 ions can remember ! 
 
 jf Mr. Thoreau dedicated his genius with such entire 
 love to the fields, hills and waters of his native town, 
 that he made them known and interesting to all reading 
 Americans, and to people over the sea. The river on 
 whose banks he was born and died he knew from its 
 springs to its confluence with the Merrimack. He had 
 made summer and winter observations on it for many 
 years, and at every hour of the day and night. The re 
 sult of the recent survey of the Water Commissioners 
 appointed by the State of Massachusetts he had reached 
 by his private experiments, several years earlier. Every 
 fact which occurs in the bed, on the banks, or in the air 
 over it ; the fishes, and their spawning and nests, their 
 manners, their food ; the shad-flies which fill the air on 
 a certain evening once a year, and which are snapped 
 at by the fishes so ravenously that many of these die of 
 repletion ; the conical heaps of small stones on the 
 river-shallows, the huge nests of small fishes, one of 
 which will sometimes overfill a cart ; the birds which 
 frequent the stream, heron, duck, sheldrake, loon, os- 
 prey ; the snake, muskrat, otter, woodchuck and fox, on 
 the banks ; the turtle, frog, hyla and cricket, which 
 make the banks vocal, were all known to him, and, 
 as it were, townsmen and fellow-creatures ; so that he 
 felt an absurdity or violence in any narrative of one of 
 these by itself apart, and still more of its dimensions 
 on an inch-rule, or in the exhibition of its skeleton, 01 
 t -\the specimen of a squirrel or a bird in brandy. He 
 liked to speak of the manners of the river, as itself a 
 Jawful creature, yet with exactness, and always to an
 
 THOREAU. 361 
 
 observed fact. As he knew the river, so the ponds in 
 this region. 
 
 One of the weapons he used, more important to him 
 than microscope or alcohol-receiver to other investiga 
 tors, was a whim which grew on him by indulgence, yet 
 appeared in gravest statement, namely, of extolling his 
 own town and neighborhood as the most favored centre 
 for natural observation. He remarked that the Flora 
 of Massachusetts embraced almost all the important 
 plants of America, most of the oaks, most of the wil 
 lows, the best pines, the ash, the maple, the beech, the 
 nuts. He returned Kane's " Arctic Voyage " to a friend 
 of whom he had borrowed it, with the remark, that 
 " Most of the phenomena noted might be observed in 
 Concord." He seemed a little envious of the Pole, for 
 the coincident sunrise and sunset, or five minutes' day 
 after six months : a splendid fact, which Annursuuc had 
 never afforded him. He found red snow in one of his 
 walks, and told me that he expected to find yet the Vic 
 toria regia in Concord. He was the attorney of the in 
 digenous plants, and owned to a preference of the weeds 
 to the imported plants, as of the Indian to the civilized 
 man, and noticed, with pleasure, that the willow bean 
 poles of his neighbor had grown more than his beans. 
 " See these weeds," he said, " which have been hoed at 
 by a million farmers all spring and summer, and yet 
 have prevailed, and just now come out triumphant over 
 all lanes, pastures, fields and gardens, such is their 
 vigor. We have insulted them with low names, too, 
 as Pigweed, Wormwood, Chickweed, Shad-blossom." 
 He says, "They have brave names, too, Ambrosia, 
 Stellaria, Amelanchier, Amaranth, etc." 
 
 I think his fancy for referring everything to the
 
 362 THOREAU. 
 
 meridian of Concord did not grow out of any ignorance 
 or depreciation of other longitudes or latitudes, but was 
 rather a playful expression of his conviction of the in- 
 differency of all places, and that the best place for each 
 is where he stands. He expressed it once in this wise : 
 "I think nothing is to be hoped from you, if this bit 
 of mould under your feet is not sweeter to you to eat 
 than any other in this world, or in any world." 
 
 The other weapon with which he conquered all ob 
 stacles in science was patience. He knew how to sit 
 immovable, a part of the rock he rested on, until the 
 bird, the reptile, the fish, which had retired from him, 
 should come back and resume its habits, nay, moved by 
 curiosity, should come to him and watch him. 
 
 It was a pleasure and a privilege to walk with him. 
 He knew the country like a fox or a bird, and passed 
 through it as freely by paths of his own. He knew 
 every track in the snow or on the ground, and what 
 creature had taken this path before him. One must 
 submit abjectly to such a guide, and the reward was 
 great. Under his arm he carried an old music-book to 
 press plants ; in his pocket, his diary and pencil, a spy 
 glass for birds, microscope, jack-knife and twine. (He 
 wore a straw hat, stout shoes, strong gray trousers, to 
 brave scrub-oaks and smilax, and to climb a tree for a 
 hawk's or a squirrel's nest. He waded into the pool 
 for the water-plants, and his strong legs were no insig 
 nificant part of his armor.^ On the day I speak of he 
 . looked for the Menyanthes, detected it across the wide 
 pool, and, on examination of the florets, decided that it 
 had been in flower five days. He drew out of his 
 breast-pocket his diary, and read the names of all the 
 plants that should bloom on this day, whereof he kept
 
 THOREAU. 363 
 
 account as a banker when his notes fall due. The Cy- 
 pripedium not due till to-morrow. He thought that, if 
 waked up from a trance, in this swamp, he could tell ] 
 by the plants what time of the year it was within two >> 
 days. The redstart was flying about, and presently the 
 fine grosbeaks, whose brilliant scarlet "makes the rash 
 gazer wipe his eye," and whose fine clear note Thoreau 
 compared to that of a tanager which has got rid of its 
 hoarseness. Presently he heard a note which he called 
 that of the night-warbler, a bird he had never identified, 
 had been in search of twelve years, which always, when 
 he saw it, was in the act of diving down into a tree or 
 bush, and which it was vain to seek ; the only bird 
 which sings indifferently by night and by day. I told 
 him he must beware of finding and booking it, lest life 
 should have nothing more to show him. He said, 
 " What you seek in vain for, half your life, one day you 
 come full upon, all the family at dinner. You seek it 
 like a dream, and as soon as you find it you become its 
 
 P re J-" v 
 
 His interest in the flower or the bird lay very deep in\ 
 
 his mind, was connected with Nature, and the mean 
 ing of Nature was never attempted to be defined by 
 him. He would not offer a memoir of his observations 
 to the Natural History Society. " Why should I ? To 
 detach the description from its connections in my mind 
 would make it no longer true or valuable to me : and 
 they do not wish what belongs to it." His power of ob 
 servation seemed to indicate additional senses. He saw 
 as with microscope, heard as with ear-trumpet, and his 
 memory was a photographic register of all he saw and 
 heard. And yet none knew better than he that it is not 
 the fact that imports, but the impression or effect of the
 
 364 THOREAU. 
 
 fact on your mind. Every fact lay in glory in his mind, 
 a type of the order and beauty of the whole. 
 
 His determination on Natural History was organic. He 
 confessed that he sometimes felt like a hound or a pan 
 ther, and, if born among Indians, would have been a fell 
 hunter. But, restrained by his Massachusetts culture, 
 he played out the game in this mild form of botany and 
 ichthyology. His intimacy with animals suggested what 
 Thomas Fuller records of Butler the apiologist, that 
 " either he had told the bees things or the bees had told 
 him." Snakes coiled round his leg ; the fishes swam 
 into his hand, and he took them out of the water ; he 
 pulled the woodchuck out of its hole by the tail and 
 took the foxes under his protection from the hunters. 
 Our naturalist had perfect magnanimity ; he had no se 
 crets : he would carry you to the heron's haunt, or even 
 to his most prized botanical swamp, possibly knowing 
 that you could never find it again, yet willing to take 
 his risks. 
 
 No college ever offered him a diploma, or a profes 
 sor's chair ; no academy made him its corresponding 
 secretary, its discoverer, or even its member. Perhaps 
 these learned bodies feared the satire of his presence. 
 Yet so much knowledge of Nature's secret and genius 
 few others possessed ; none in a more large and religious 
 synthesis. For not a particle of respect had he to the 
 opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely 
 to the truth itself ; and as he discovered everywhere 
 among doctors some leaning of courtesy, it discredited 
 them. He grew to be revered and admired by his 
 townsmen, who had at first known him only as an oddity. 
 The farmers who employed him as a surveyor soon dis 
 covered his rare accuracy and skill, his knowledge of
 
 THOREAU. 365 
 
 their lands, of trees, of birds, of Indian remains and the 
 like, which enabled him to tell every farmer more than 
 he knew before of his own farm ; so that he began to 
 feel a little as if Mr. Thoreau had better rights in his 
 land than he. They felt, too, the superiority of charac 
 ter which addressed all men with a native authority. 
 
 Indian relics abound in Concord, arrow-heads, stone 
 chisels, pestles, and fragments of pottery ; and on the 
 river- bank, large heaps of clam-shells and ashes mark 
 spots which savages frequented. These, and every cir 
 cumstance touching the Indian, were important in his 
 eyes. His visits to Maine were chiefly for love of the 
 Indian. He had the satisfaction of seeing the manu 
 facture of the bark- canoe, as well as of trying his hand 
 in its management on the rapids. He was inquisitive 
 about the making of the stone arrow-head, and in his 
 last days charged a youth setting out for the Rocky 
 Mountains to find an Indian who could tell him that : 
 " It was well worth a visit to California to learn it." Oc 
 casionally, a small party of Penobscot Indians would 
 visit Concord, and pitch their tents for a few weeks in 
 summer on the river-bank. He failed not to make ac 
 quaintance with the best of them ; though he well knew 
 that asking questions of Indians is like catechizing 
 beavers and rabbits. In his last visit to Maine he had 
 great satisfaction from Joseph Polis, an intelligent In 
 dian of Oldtown, who was his guide for some weeks. 
 
 He was equally interested in every natural fact. The \ 
 depth of his perception found likeness of law through- ; 
 out Nature, and I know not any genius who so swiftly J 
 inferred universal law from the single fact. He was no 
 pedant of a department. His eye was open to beauty, 
 and his ear to music. He found these, not in rare con-
 
 866 THOREAU. 
 
 ditions, but wheresoever he went. He thought the best 
 of music was in single strains ; and he found poetic sug 
 gestion in the humming of the telegraph-wire. 
 
 His poetry might be bad or good ; he no doubt wanted 
 a lyric facility and technical skill, but he had the source 
 of poetry in his spiritual perception. He was a good 
 reader and critic, and his judgment on poetry was to 
 the ground of it. He could not be deceived as to the 
 presence or absence of the poetic element in any compo 
 sition, and his thirst for this made him negligent and 
 perhaps scornful of superficial graces. He would pass 
 by many delicate rhythms, but he would have detected 
 every live stanza or line in a volume, and knew very 
 well where to find an equal charm in prose. He was so 
 enamored of the spiritual beauty that he held all actual 
 written poems in very light esteem in the comparison. 
 He admired ^schylus and Pindar ; but, when some one 
 was commending them, he said that ^Eschylus and the 
 Greeks, in describing Apollo and Orpheus, had given no 
 song, or no good one. " They ought not to have moved 
 trees, but to have chanted to the gods such a hymn as 
 would have sung all their old ideas out of their heads, 
 and new ones in." His own verses are often rude and 
 defective. The gold does not yet run pure, is drossy 
 and crude. The thyme and marjoram are not yet 
 honey. But if he want lyric fineness and technical 
 merits, if he have not the poetic temperament, he never 
 lacks the causal thought, showing that his genius was 
 better than his talent. He knew the worth of the Im 
 agination for the uplifting and consolation of human 
 life, and liked to throw every thought into a symbol. 
 The fact you tell is of no value, but only the impression. 
 For this reason his presence was poetic, always piqued
 
 THOREAU. 367 
 
 the curiosity to know more deeply the secrets of his 
 mind. He had many reserves, an unwillingness to ex 
 hibit to profane eyes what was still sacred in his own, 
 and knew well how to throw a poetic veil over his ex 
 perience. All readers of " Walden " will remember his 
 mythical record of his disappointments : 
 
 " I long ago lost a hound, a bay horse and a turtle 
 dove, and am still on their trail. Many are the travel 
 lers I have spoken concerning them, describing their 
 tracks, and what calls they answered to. I have met 
 one or two who have 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." * 
 
 His riddles were worth the reading, and I confide 
 that if at any time I do not understand the expression, 
 it is yet just. Such was the wealth of his truth that it 
 was not worth his while to use words in vain. His poem 
 entitled " Sympathy " reveals the tenderness, under that 
 triple steel of stoicism, and the intellectual subtility it 
 could animate. His classic poem on " Smoke " suggests 
 Simonides, but is better than any poem of Simonides. 
 His biography is in his verses. His habitual thought 
 makes all his poetry a hymn to the Cause of causes, the 
 Spirit which vivifies and controls his own : 
 
 " I hearing get, who had but ears, 
 And sight, who had but eyes before ; 
 I moments live, who lived but years, 
 And truth discern, who knew but learning's lore." 
 
 And still more in these religious lines : 
 
 " Now chiefly is my natal hour, 
 And only now my prime of life 
 
 Walden : p. 2tt
 
 368 THOREAU. 
 
 I will not doubt the love untold, 
 Which not my worth or want have bought, 
 Which wooed me young, and wooes me old, 
 And to this evening hath nie brought." 
 
 Whilst he used in his writings a certain petulance of 
 remark in reference to churches or churchmen, he was 
 a person of a rare, tender and absolute religion, a per 
 son incapable of any profanation, by act or by thought. 
 Of course, the same isolation which belonged to his 
 original thinking and living detached him from the 
 social religious forms. This is neither to be censured 
 iior regretted. Aristotle long ago explained it, when 
 he said, " One who surpasses his fellow-citizens in vir 
 tue is no longer a part of the city. Their law is not for 
 him, since he is a law to himself." 
 
 Thoreau was sincerity itself, and might fortify the 
 convictions of prophets in the ethical laws by his holy 
 living. It was an affirmative experience which refused 
 to be set aside. A truth-speaker he, capable of the most 
 deep and strict conversation ; a physician to the wounds 
 of any soul ; a friend, knowing not only the secret of 
 friendship, but almost worshipped by those few persons 
 who resorted to him as their confessor and prophet, and 
 knew the deep value of his mind and great heart. He 
 thought that without religion or devotion of some kind 
 nothing great was ever accomplished : and he thought 
 that the bigoted sectarian had better bear this in mind. 
 
 His virtues, of course, sometimes ran into extremes. 
 It was easy to trace to the inexorable demand on all 
 for exact truth that austerity which made this willing 
 hermit more solitary even than he wished. Himself of 
 a perfect probity, he required not less of others. He 
 had a disgust at crime, and no worldly success would
 
 THOREAU. 369 
 
 cover it. He detected paltering as readily in dignified 
 and prosperous persons as in beggars, and with equal 
 scorn. Such dangerous frankness was in his dealing 
 that his admirers called him " that terrible Thoreau," 
 as if he spoke when silent, and was still present when 
 he had departed. I think the severity of his ideal in 
 terfered to deprive him of a healthy sufficiency of hu 
 man society. 
 
 The habit of a realist to find things the reverse of 
 their appearance inclined him to put every statement in 
 a paradox. A certain habit of antagonism defaced his 
 earlier writings, a trick of rhetoric not quite out 
 grown in his later, of substituting for the obvious word 
 and thought its diametrical opposite. He praised wild 
 mountains and winter forests for their domestic air, in 
 snow and ice he would find sultriness, and commended 
 the wilderness for resembling Rome and Paris. " It 
 was so dry, that you might call it wet." 
 
 The tendency to magnify the moment, to read all the 
 laws of Nature in the one object or one combination 
 under your eye, is of course comic to those who do not 
 share the philosopher's perception of identity. To him 
 there was no such thing as size. The pond was a small 
 ocean ; the Atlantic, a large Walden Pond. He re 
 ferred every minute fact to cosmical laws. Though 
 he meant to be just, he seemed haunted by a certain 
 chronic assumption that the science of the day pre 
 tended completeness, and he had just found out that the 
 savans had neglected to discriminate a particular botani 
 cal variety, had failed to describe the seeds or count the 
 sepals. " That is to say," we replied, "the blockheads 
 were not born in Concord ; but who said they were ? 
 It was their unspeakable misfortune to be born in Lon- 
 24
 
 870 THOREAU. 
 
 don, or Paris, or Rome ; but, poor fellows, they did 
 what they could, considering that they never saw Bate- 
 man's Pond, or Nine-Acre Corner, or Becky Stow's 
 Swamp ; besides, what were you sent into the world 
 for, but to add this observation ? " 
 
 Had his genius been only contemplative, he had been 
 fitted to his life, but with his energy and practical 
 ability he seemed born for great enterprise and for 
 command ; and I so much regret the loss of his rare 
 powers of action, that I cannot help counting it a fault 
 in him that he had no ambition. Wanting this, instead 
 of engineering for all America, he was the captain of a 
 huckleberry-party. Pounding beans is good to the end 
 of pounding empires one of these days ; but if, at the 
 end of years, it is still only beans ! 
 
 But these foibles, real or apparent, were fast vanish 
 ing in the incessant growth of a spirit so robust and 
 wise, and which effaced its defeats with new triumphs. 
 His study of Nature was a perpetual ornament to him, 
 and inspired his friends with curiosity to see the world 
 through his eyes, and to hear his adventures. They 
 possessed every kind of interest. 
 
 He had many elegancies of his own, whilst he scoffed 
 at conventional elegance. Thus, he could not bear to 
 hear the sound of his own steps, the grit of gravel ; and 
 therefore never willingly walked in the road, but in the 
 grass, on mountains and in woods. His senses were 
 acute, and he remarked that by night every dwelling- 
 house gives out bad air, like a slaughter-house. He 
 liked the pure fragrance of melilot. He honored cer 
 tain plants with special regard, and, over all, the pond- 
 lily, then, the gentian, and the Mikania scandens, and 
 u life-everlasting," and a bass - tree which he visited
 
 THOREAU. 371 
 
 every year when it bloomed, in the middle of July. 
 He thought the scent a more oracular inquisition than 
 the sight, more oracular and trustworthy. The scent, 
 of course, reveals what is concealed from the other 
 senses. By it he detected earthiness. He delighted in 
 echoes, and said they were almost the only kind of 
 kindred voices that he heard. He loved Nature so 
 well, was so happy in her solitude, that he became very 
 jealous of cities and the sad work which their refine 
 ments and artifices made with man and his dwelling. 
 The axe was always destroying his forest* " Thank 
 God," he said, " they cannot cut down the clouds ! " 
 " All kinds of figures are drawn on the blue ground 
 with this fibrous white paint." 
 
 I subjoin a few sentences taken from his unpublished 
 manuscripts, not only as records of his thought and feel 
 ing, but for their power of description and literary ex 
 cellence : 
 
 " Some circumstantial evidence is ''very strong, as 
 when you find a trout in the milk." 
 
 " The chub is a soft fish, and tastes like boiled brown 
 paper salted." 
 
 " The youth gets together his materials to build a 
 bridge to the moon, or, perchance, a palace or temple 
 on the earth, and, at length the middle-aged man con 
 cludes to build a wood-shed with them." 
 
 " The locust z-ing." 
 
 " Devil's-needles zigzagging along the Nut-Meadow 
 brook." 
 
 " Sugar is not so sweet to the palate as sound to the 
 healthy ear." 
 
 " I put on some hemlock-boughs, and the rich salt 
 crackling of their leaves was like mustard to the ear,
 
 372 THOREAU. 
 
 the crackling of uncountable regiments. Dead trees 
 love the fire." 
 
 " The bluebird carries the sky on his back." 
 
 " The tanager flies through the green foliage as if it 
 would ignite the leaves." 
 
 " If I wish for a horse-hair for my compass-sight I 
 must go to the stable ; but the hair-bird, with her sharp 
 eyes, goes to the road." 
 
 " Immortal water, alive even to the superficies." 
 
 " Fire is the most tolerable third party." 
 
 " Nature made ferns for pure leaves, to show what 
 she could do in that line." 
 
 " No tree has so fair a bole and so handsome an in 
 step as the beech." 
 
 " How did these beautiful rainbow-tints get into the 
 shell of the fresh-water clam, buried in the mud at the 
 bottom of our dark river ? " 
 
 " Hard are the times when the infant's shoes are 
 second-foot." 
 
 " We are strictly confined to our men to whom we 
 give liberty." 
 
 " Nothing is so much to be feared as fear. Atheism 
 may comparatively be popular with God himself." 
 
 " Of what significance the things you can forget ? A 
 little thought is sexton to all the world." 
 
 " How can we expect a harvest of thought who have 
 not had a seed-time of character ? " 
 
 " Only he can be trusted with gifts who can present 
 a face of bronze to expectations." 
 
 " I ask to be melted. You can 6nly ask of the metals 
 that they be tender to the fire that melts them. To 
 nought else can they be tender." 
 
 There is a flower known to botanists, one of the same
 
 THOREAU. 373 
 
 genus with our summer plant called " Life-Everlast 
 ing," a Gnaphalium like that, which grows on the most 
 inaccessible cliffs of tbe Tyrolese mountains, where the 
 chamois dare hardly venture, and which the hunter, 
 tempted by its beauty, and by his love (for it is im 
 mensely valued by the Swiss maidens) climbs the cliffs 
 to gather, and is sometimes found dead at the foot, with 
 the flower in his hand. It is called by botanists the 
 Gnaphalium leontopodium, but by the Swiss Edelweisse, 
 which signifies Noble Purity. Thoreau seemed to me 
 living in the hope to gather this plant, which belonged 
 to him of right. The scale on which his studies pro 
 ceeded was so large as to require longevity, and we were 
 the less prepared for his sudden disappearance. I 
 country knows not yet, or hi 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 kiud of indignity to so noble a soul that he 
 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 capabili 
 ties of this world ; wherever there is knowledge, where- \ 
 ever there is virtue, wherever there is beauty, he will > 
 find a home. f
 
 CAKLYLE. 
 
 HOLD with the Maker, not the Made. 
 Sit with the Cause, or grim or glad.
 
 CARLYLE. 1 
 
 THOMAS CARLYLE is an immense talker, as extraor 
 dinary in his conversation as in his writing, I think 
 even more so. 
 
 He is not mainly a scholar, like the most of my ac 
 quaintances, but a practical Scotchman, such as you 
 would find in any saddler's or iron-dealer's shop, and 
 then only accidentally and by a surprising addition, the 
 admirable scholar and writer he is. If you would know 
 precisely how he talks, just suppose Hugh Whelan (the 
 gardener) had found leisure enough in addition to all 
 his daily work to read Plato and Shakspeare, Augustine 
 and Calvin, and, remaining Hugh Whelan all the time, 
 should talk scornfully of all this nonsense of books that 
 he had been bothered with, and you shall have just 
 the tone and talk and laughter of Carlyle. I called 
 him a trip-hammer with " an ^Eolian attachment." He 
 has, too, the strong religious tinge you sometimes find 
 in burly people. That, and all his qualities, have a 
 certain virulence, coupled though it be in his case with 
 the utmost impatience of Christendom and Jewdom and 
 all existing presentments of the good old story. He 
 
 1 From a letter written soon after Mr. Emerson's visit to Carlyle in 
 1848. Read before the Massachusetts Historical Society at their meet 
 ing after the death of Carlyle, February, 1881. Published in their 
 Proceedings, and also in Scribner's Magazine, May, 1881.
 
 378 CARLYLE. 
 
 talks like a very unhappy man, profoundly solitary, 
 displeased and hindered by all men and things about 
 him, and, biding his time, meditating how to undermine 
 and explode the whole world of nonsense which torments 
 him. He is obviously greatly respected by all sorts of 
 people, understands his own value quite as well as Web 
 ster, of whom his behavior sometimes reminds me, and 
 can see society on his own terms. 
 
 And, though no mortal in America could pretend to 
 talk with Carlyle, who is also as remarkable in England 
 as the Tower of London, yet neither would he in any 
 manner satisfy us (Americans), or begin to answer the 
 questions which we ask. He is a very national figure, 
 and would by no means bear transplantation. They 
 keep Carlyle as a sort of portable cathedral-bell, which 
 they like to produce in companies where he is unknown, 
 and set a-swinging, to the surprise and consternation 
 of all persons, bishops, courtiers, scholars, writers, 
 and, as in companies here (in England) no man is 
 named or introduced, great is the effect and great the 
 inquiry. Forster of Rawdon described to me a dinner 
 at the table d'hote of some provincial hotel where he 
 carried Carlyle, and where an Irish canon had uttered 
 something. Carlyle began to talk, first to the waiters, 
 and then to the walls, and then, lastly, unmistakably to 
 the priest, in a manner that frightened the whole com 
 pany. 
 
 Young men, especially those holding liberal opinions, 
 press to see him, but it strikes me like being hot to see 
 the mathematical or Greek professor before they have 
 got their lesson. It needs something more than a clean 
 shirt and reading German to visit him. He treats them 
 with contempt ; they profess freedom and he stands foi
 
 CARLYLE. 379 
 
 slavery ; they praise republics and he likes the Russian 
 Czar ; they admire Cobden and free trade and he is a 
 protectionist in political economy ; they will eat vegeta 
 bles and drink water, and he is a Scotchman who thinks 
 English national character has a pure enthusiasm for 
 beef and mutton, describes with gusto the crowds of 
 people who gaze at the sirloins in the dealer's shop- 
 window, and even likes the Scotch night - cap ; they 
 praise moral suasion, he goes for murder, money, capital 
 punishment, -and other pretty abominations of English 
 law. They wish freedom of the press, and he thinks 
 the first thing he would do, if he got into Parliament, 
 would be to turn out the reporters, and stop all man 
 ner of mischievous speaking to Buncombe, and wind 
 bags. " In the Long Parliament," he says, " the only 
 great Parliament, they sat secret and silent, grave as 
 an ecumenical council, and I know not what they would 
 have done to anybody that had got in there and at 
 tempted to tell out of doors what they did." They 
 go for free institutions, for letting things alone, and 
 only giving opportunity and motive to every man ; he 
 for a stringent government, that shows people what 
 they must do, and make them do it. " Here," he says, 
 " the Parliament gathers up six millions of pounds every 
 year to give to the poor, and yet the people starve. I 
 think if they would give it to me, to provide the poor 
 with labor, and with authority to make them work or 
 shoot them, and I to be hanged if I did not do it, 
 I could find them in plenty of Indian meal." 
 
 He throws himself readily on the other side. If you 
 urge free trade, he remembers that every laborer is a 
 monopolist. The navigation laws of England made its 
 commerce. " St. John was insulted by the Dutch ; he
 
 380 CARLYLE. 
 
 came home, got the law passed that foreign vessels 
 should pay high fees, and it cut the throat of the Dutch, 
 and made the English trade." If you boast of the 
 growth of the country, and show him the wonderful re 
 sults of the census, he finds nothing so depressing as the 
 sight of a great mob. He saw once, as he told me, three 
 or four miles of human beings, and fancied that " the 
 airth was some great cheese, and these were mites." If 
 a tory takes heart at his hatred of stump-oratory and 
 model republics, he replies, "Yes, the idea of a pig 
 headed soldier who will obey orders, and fire on his 
 own father at the command of his officer, is a great 
 comfort to the aristocratic mind." It is not so much 
 that Carlyle cares for this or that dogma, as that he. 
 likes genuineness (the source of all strength) in his 
 companions. 
 
 If a scholar goes into a camp of lumbermen or a gang 
 of riggers, those men will quickly detect any fault of 
 character. Nothing will pass with them but what is 
 real and sound. So this man is a hammer that crushes 
 mediocrity and pretension. He detects weakness on the 
 instant, and touches it. He has a vivacious, aggressive 
 temperament, and unimpressionable. The literary, the 
 fashionable, the political man, each fresh from triumphs 
 in his own sphere, comes eagerly to see this man, whose 
 fun they have heartily enjoyed, sure of a welcome, and 
 are struck with despair at the first onset. His firm, 
 victorious, scoffing vituperation strikes them with chill 
 and hesitation. His talk often reminds you of what 
 was said of Johnson : " If his pistol missed fire he 
 would knock you down with the butt-end." 
 
 Mere intellectual partisanship wearies him ; he de 
 tects in an instant if a man stands for any cause to
 
 CARLYLE. 381 
 
 which he is not born and organically committed. A 
 natural defender of anything, a lover who will live and 
 die for that which he speaks for, and who does not care 
 for him or for anything but his own business, he re 
 spects ; and the nobler this object, of course, the better. x - 
 He hates a literary trifler, and if, after Guizot had been 
 a tool of Louis Philippe for years, he is now to come 
 and write essays on the character of Washington, on 
 " The Beautiful," and on " Philosophy of History," he 
 thinks that nothing. 
 
 Great is his reverence for realities, for all such\ 
 traits as spring from the intrinsic nature of the actor. 
 He humors this into the idolatry of strength. A strong 
 nature has a charm for him, previous, it would seem, to 
 all inquiry whether the force be divine or diabolic. He 
 preaches, as by cannonade, the doctrine that every no 
 ble nature was made by God, and contains, if savage 
 passions, also fit checks and grand impulses, and, how 
 ever extravagant, will keep its orbit and return from 
 far. 
 
 Nor can that decorum which is the idol of the Eng 
 lishman, and in attaining which the Englishman exceeds 
 all nations, win from him any obeisance. He is eaten 
 up with indignation against such as desire to make a 
 fair show in the flesh. 
 
 Combined with this warfare on respectabilities, and, 
 indeed, pointing all bis satire, is the severity of his 
 moral sentiment. In proportion to the peals of laughter 
 amid which he strips the plumes of a pretender and 
 shows the lean hypocrisy to every vantage of ridicule, 
 does he worship whatever enthusiasm, fortitude, love, 
 or other sign of a good nature is in a man. 
 
 There is nothing deeper in his constitution than his
 
 382 CARLYLE. 
 
 humor, than the considerate, condescending good-nature 
 with which he looks at every object in existence, as a 
 man might look at a mouse. He feels that the perfec 
 tion of health is sportiveness, and will not look grave 
 even at dulness or tragedy. 
 
 His guiding genius is his moral sense, his perception 
 of the sole importance of truth and justice ; but that 
 is a truth of character, not of catechisms. He says, 
 " There is properly no religion in England. These idle 
 nobles at Tattersall's there is no work or word of 
 serious purpose in them ; they have this great lying 
 Church ; and life is a humbug." He prefers Cambridge 
 to Oxford, but he thinks Oxford and Cambridge educa 
 tion indurates the young men, as the Styx hardened 
 Achilles, so that when they come forth of them, they 
 say, " Now we are proof ; we have gone through all the 
 degrees, and are case-hardened against the veracities of 
 the Universe ; nor man nor God can penetrate us." 
 
 Wellington he respects as real and honest, and as 
 having made up his mind, once for all, that he will not 
 have to do with any kind of a lie. Edwin Chadwick is 
 one of his heroes, who proposes to provide every 
 house in London with pure water, sixty gallons to every 
 head, at a penny a week ; and in the decay and down 
 fall of all religions, Carlyle thinks that the only relig 
 ious act which a man nowadays can securely perform is 
 to wash himself well. 
 
 Of course the new French revolution of 1848 was 
 the best thing he had seen, and the teaching this great 
 swindler, Louis Philippe, that there is a God's justice in 
 the Universe, after all, was a great satisfaction. Czar 
 Nicholas was his hero ; for in the ignominy of Europe, 
 when all thrones fell like card-houses, and no man was
 
 CARLYLE. 383 
 
 found with conscience enough to fire a gun for his 
 crown, but every one ran away in a coucou, with his 
 head shaved, through the Barriere de Passy, one man 
 remained who believed he was put there by God Al 
 mighty to govern his empire, and, by the help of God, 
 had resolved to stand there. 
 
 He was very serious about the bad times : he had 
 seen this evil coming, but thought it would not come in 
 his time. But now 't is coming, and the only good he 
 sees in it is the visible appearance of the gods. He 
 thinks it the only question for wise men, instead of art 
 and fine fancies and poetry and such things, to address 
 themselves to the problem of society. This confusion 
 is the inevitable end of such falsehoods and nonsense as 
 they have been embroiled with. 
 
 Carlyle has, best of all men in England, kept the 
 manly attitude in his time. He has stood for scholars, 
 asking no scholar what he should say. Holding an 
 honored place in the best society, he has stood for the 
 people, for the Chartist, for the pauper, intrepidly and 
 scornfully teaching the nobles their peremptory duties. 
 
 His errors of opinion are as nothing in comparison 
 with this merit, in my judgment. This aplomb cannot 
 be mimicked ; it is the speaking to the heart of the 
 thing. And in England, where the morgue of aristoc 
 racy has very slowly admitted scholars into society, 
 a very few houses only in the high circles being ever 
 opened to them, he has carried himself erect, made 
 himself a power confessed by all men, and taught schol 
 ars their lofty duty. He never feared the face of man.
 
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