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AT OUR BEST. 
 
 BY 
 
 / 
 
 SUMNER ELLIS. 
 
 "There are those whose spirits walk 
 Abreast of angels and the future here." 
 
 Bailey's Festus. 
 
 : OF Co^k 
 
 BOSTON: A 
 
 LEE AND SHEPARD. 
 
 NEW YORK : LEE, SHEPARD, AND DILLINGHAM. 
 
 1873. 
 
^ K 
 
 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by 
 
 SUMNER ELLIS, 
 
 In the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE: 
 PRESS OE JOHN WILSON AND SON. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 Chapter Page 
 
 I. At Our Best 3 
 
 II. Our Elect 42 
 
 ILL Daily Sunshine 76 
 
 IY. A Low Tone 112 
 
 V. Contentment . . . . ...... 140 
 
 VI. Courage 170 
 
 VII. The Home 210 
 
 VIII. Ourselves and Others 247 
 
 IX. On the Square . 292 
 
AT OTJR BEST. 
 
AT OUR BEST. 
 
 I. 
 
 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 • Though Time thy bloom is stealing, 
 There 's still beyond his art 
 The wild-flower wreath of feeling." 
 
 Halleck. 
 
 ( The soul of music slumbers in the shell, 
 Till wak'd and kindled by the master's spell; 
 And feeling hearts, touch them but lightly, pour 
 A thousand melodies unheard before." 
 
 Rogers's Human Life. 
 
 W 7"E have had many definitions of genius, 
 r and many refusals to attempt to define 
 
 it, as somewhat that is indefinable, a thing that 
 eludes and takes some other shape, and when we 
 think we have it we have it not. Like beauty, 
 inspiration, and instinct, it lies in a region of 
 uncertain and shifting lights ; is itself, and not 
 itself; appears to be this till another view 
 
4 AT OTJR BEST. 
 
 dawns, and it must be that : but the last will not 
 stick better than the first, in the presence of 
 some other revelation. But, after all the learned 
 clamor, what if genius were so simple a thing 
 as a larger and finer degree of sensibility, a plus 
 of vital heat, some more feeling and spirit among 
 our talents ! 
 
 Every one knows what advantage lies in be- 
 ing kindled. For he who could say nothing be- 
 fore can say anything now, and with rare logic, 
 imagination, and pertinency: sterility becomes 
 suddenly fertile, as if the desert were to bloom 
 and bear fruit at once ; cowardice gives place to 
 courage, or we have exchanged our fawn for 
 a lion. Am I the same man to-day I was yes- 
 terday ? — now so aerial and lithe, and full of 
 rapt visions, and eager for better communions, 
 having down my rare books for rare occasions, 
 or fleeing to gaze again, and worthily, at some 
 fine landscape or work of art, but then only 
 a mole without eyes in some dark corner, or 
 an oyster in the mud, or a foolish bat flying 
 blind in the day. The same, and not the same ; 
 the same plus a heat that has freed the frozen 
 and pent-up currents, or a quickened sensibil- 
 ity that gives me to myself, installs me in full 
 command of my powers, and befriends intu- 
 
AT OUB, BEST. 5 
 
 itions and spontaneities, as a better atmosphere 
 gives sharpness and range to the eye. 
 
 Every one is now and then above his talent, 
 and would be taken to be, not himself, but an- 
 other ; as the dray-horse, on occasions, rises into 
 airs and antics, and we must think some Flying 
 Childers or Arabian barb had slept within him 
 until now. The most ordinary minds ascend 
 into mounts they cannot keep, caught up and 
 borne aloft by some tidal wave of feeling. We 
 overtake our dreams, if speeded by a new and 
 powerful impulse. Once or twice, or oftener, in 
 a lifetime, we shall meet the universe aplomb 
 and level, and find open and easy and charm- 
 ing relations ; see eye to eye ; vibrate like harps 
 to the finer winds ; look into strange secrets 
 and break old illusions with a cool unconcern, 
 as if we were beforehand with these things, and 
 realize that we have given a moment's relief to 
 the usual condescensions in our favor. The an- 
 gels of every order seem on the point of pro- 
 claiming our peership. High legends and heroic 
 anecdotes read as if quite low in their tone ; be- 
 lief in miracles is at last easy ; and we should 
 expect, were the celebrated wits and wise men 
 back again, they would offer us their hand, and 
 ask us to dinner, and install us in their clubs. 
 
b AT OUR BEST. 
 
 We have suddenly broken into superior ranks. 
 And how Hope now plumes her wings ! Hence- 
 forth we have done with common clay ! Adieu, 
 ye lower walks and dull, foolish hours ! 
 
 But alas ! to-morrow will be another yester- 
 day. We all know the valley on the other side 
 of this mountain, and that our descent is too 
 sure to the old ways of plodding and jogging. 
 Here we are once more hammering cold iron, 
 for the fire has gone out in our forge ; again 
 bungling and botching at our tasks ; again at our 
 doom of forcing very ordinary results that but 
 just now came of themselves, and with a higher 
 beauty and charm. We have not the sensibility 
 for long elevation; cannot command at pleas- 
 ure the degree of feeling or inspiration that 
 insures a ready and easy success. Our April 
 tide ends in an August drought. 
 
 The fervent spirit cannot be too much counted 
 on or coveted, and especially by Englishmen 
 and Americans, who have inherited the coldness 
 and hardness of their Saxon ancestors. The first 
 petition in all our prayers might well be, — 
 " Give us more and finer feeling, O most vital 
 One ! " The outcry of Hafiz for ecstasy, which 
 he calls " wine," abating its Oriental verbiage, 
 might well enough be adopted by any of us, and 
 said before breakfast every morning : — 
 
AT OUR BEST. 7 
 
 " Quickly furnish me Solomon's ring ; 
 Alexander's weird glass be my meed ; 
 The philospher's stone to me bring ; 
 Also give me the cup of Jemschid : — 
 In one word, I but ask, Host of mine, 
 That thou fetch me a draught of thy wine ! 
 Bring me wine ! I would wash this old cowl 
 From the stains which have made it so foul. 
 Bring me wine ! By my puissant arm 
 The thick net of deceit and of harm, 
 Which the priests have spread over the world, 
 Shall be rent, and in laughter be hurled. 
 Bring me wine ! I the earth will subdue. 
 Bring me wine ! I the heaven will storm through. 
 Bring me wine, bring it quick, make no halt ! 
 To the throne of both worlds I will vault. 
 All is in the red streamlet divine. 
 Bring me wine ! O my Host, bring me wine ! " 
 
 Whilst the East delights to be drunk with 
 feeling, the West seems to have some dread of 
 fervor. It takes to one kind of intoxication 
 readily enough, but it is not that of the heart. 
 Emotion is at some discount with us, as if it 
 were not quite creditable or bankable. I be- 
 lieve laughter is down in the books as somewhat 
 vulgar ; and our religion seems to be in some 
 dread of pentecosts and loss of respectability, 
 through fervor. We have a conceit never to 
 show any signs of surprise ; for who would have 
 his neighbors know that he was not beforehand 
 with all secrets ? or that he does not stand level 
 
8 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 with all that may happen, and in a mood to 
 wonder rather that the fallings-out are so triv- 
 ial ? There is a modern pride of coldness and 
 stolidity, which is fatal to our poetry, and our 
 social ease and triumph, and the unction and 
 prevailing power of our prayers. We have made 
 an idol of dignity and deliberation. Even our 
 grief must conform, and mind the degrees and 
 shadings of its costume, punctiliously observing 
 the full and the half and the' quarter mourn- 
 ing, and we know not what smaller fractions. 
 
 But where must we look, if not into this inner 
 world of feelings, if we would know both the ex- 
 tent and the rank of the life we have lived, and 
 are living ? What is the web we have spun, and 
 are spinning, with these quick threads ? Do we 
 feel only like the mollusk and snail, slightly and 
 at wide intervals ? Then our life is a mere 
 span, however long. It lacks vital states, and 
 is as near nothing as it can be and not be that. 
 On the contrary, have we many and fine mov- 
 ings of mind and heart, as we may suppose a 
 seraph to abound in ideas and emotions of a 
 high and delightful order ? Then our life shall 
 be rich and great, if it be short. Who has not 
 before now found the morning set at an immeas- 
 urable distance from the evening, by the many 
 
 
AT OUK BEST. 9 
 
 vicissitudes of the day? So much life in so 
 brief a time quite deludes memory ! This 
 morning is a week old to the soul that has been 
 through many scenes and experiences since its 
 dawn. " A fortnight ! what an eternity ! " ex- 
 claimed Mariana to Wilhelm, in Goethe's mysti- 
 cal but charming story : a quick and fertile love 
 had crowded the space with a world of thoughts, 
 sentiments, dreams, fancies, and activities, so 
 many and so happily full as to cause it to seem 
 out of all proportion to the few fleeting days. 
 Who does not frequently live two hours in one, 
 or even better than that ? And this is a mira- 
 cle of sensibility. The cultivated and fervid 
 spirit manufactures life with as much profusion 
 as the sun breeds clouds. And of a great and 
 vital nature, keen of sight and feeling, as an 
 e very-day advantage, the words of Thomas 
 Fuller were fitly spoken : "In seventy or eighty 
 years a man may have a deep gust of the 
 world." 
 
 The importance of sensibility, or holding our- 
 selves at our best, may be seen in the fact, which 
 can never be too much dwelt on, that the world 
 is ourselves over again, — thrown out, as it were, 
 from our vital states ; or, in other words, it is a 
 birth from the loins of our higher being, and 
 
10 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 true to its lineage. Has it not as many aspects 
 as spectators? since every beholder is under 
 some personal necessity of being its maker to 
 the extent of its relations to himself. To the 
 stone, which has no manufacturing power, it is 
 a blank world, — that is, nothing ; to the lower 
 orders it must look quite small and meaning- 
 less ; to cats it can be only a feline universe, and 
 to dogs a canine ; and to larks and lions it is 
 but that which their interpreting nature permits 
 it to be. And so to a Hottentot it is what his 
 meagreness can make of it, and no more and no 
 other ; whilst to Plato it was great as his great- 
 ness could create it, and as diverse as the powers 
 of his marvellous eye. The poetic sensibility 
 suffuses the universe with a charming pictur- 
 esqueness, as Johnson said of the poet of the 
 Seasons, " He could not see two candles without 
 forming a poetic image out of them." The poet 
 lives in a finer world than other people. He 
 overlays its prose with the ready poetry of his 
 own spirit. His eyes, " larger, other eyes than 
 ours," give roundness and ripple to all things. 
 His fancy dresses the plain and enlivens the 
 dull. To the spiritual the immensity is a spa- 
 cious tabernacle filled with God or gods, and 
 invites to a constant worship : whilst the un- 
 
AT OUR BEST. 11 
 
 spiritual nowhere see a higher presence, but 
 think the spaces are quite empty. 
 
 The practical man misses a thousand finer 
 graces from Nature, but perpetually delights in 
 the economies there displayed ; that the means 
 are so sure to the end ; that so much is accom- 
 plished with so little fuss ; and that the machinery 
 is always well oiled. He sees what a fine scaven- 
 ger the ocean is, coming up twice a day to the 
 back doors of the cities and carting off, in a de- 
 odorizing brine, all filthy offences. He cannot 
 too much dwell on the fact that water is so 
 variously and widely useful, that it is good to 
 drink, to have our hands clean, to run saw-mills, 
 to make roads of perfect grade from inland to 
 sea, to float clippers and steamers like shuttles 
 between continents, and to save an army with 
 watering-pots in our gardens and meadows. He 
 thinks how many candles the sun dispenses with, 
 and regards the night as very needful to the 
 hired men and spent horses and oxen, — remind- 
 ing one of the calculating Yankee who thought 
 Niagara a fine place to wash sheep. Of this 
 man it may be said, as of Wordsworth's Peter 
 Bell, and of all hard, matter-of-fact men: — 
 
 " The soft blue sky did never melt 
 Into his heart ; he never felt 
 The witchery of the soft blue sky." 
 
12 AT OUE BEST. 
 
 But here is our visionary, on whose stomach 
 every thing practical lies hard as not meant for 
 it, and who is under some constitutional bias 
 toward "airy nothings." He sees forests as the 
 home of nymphs ; is a devotee of alchemy and 
 astrology, to which chemistry and astronomy are 
 as a farthing-candle to the sun ; dreams dreams 
 like an ancient divinator, and the more romantic 
 they are, the more they are confided in ; in short, 
 he regards all things as what they are not. The 
 humor of his eye, or his visual sensibility, unlike 
 the practical man's, plays fantastical tricks and 
 clothes the universe in miraculous forms and 
 hues. To him there are no fairy stories, for 
 these are his truths ; he questions no myths ; he 
 sees chariots and horses, with marvellous trains, 
 rushing through every sky, on all sorts of strange 
 errands. What are the old plain truths and the 
 verdicts of exact science, in his estimate, com- 
 pared with those which are rapped out by spirits 
 and established by the wild dance of tables ! 
 Where is there integrity like that of a hazel 
 stick, or wisdom so wise and so much to the 
 point as that which is found at the bottom of 
 a teacup ! His world is his own make, and 
 indeed a marvel ! 
 
 I once went into a friend's cupola that over- 
 
AT OUR BEST. 13 
 
 looked the city and the sea and a broad horizon 
 of hills, and found he had glass windows of sev- 
 eral tints and various shadings, that he might 
 gratify his moods, — possibly modify them a 
 trifle. When he had on a verdant humor, he 
 would run to the green outlook ; when a saffron 
 whim, he as promptly indulged it; again, a 
 depression, begotten of an east wind, or late 
 supper of pork and beans, or a fall in stocks, 
 would send him to the blue lights ; at another 
 time he found himself invited to the dim relig- 
 ious shades ; and, in seasons of ardency and 
 glowing heat, he forsook all but the scarlet and 
 crimson hues. But I thought how unphilosoph- 
 ical was this philosopher, since his own moods 
 would supply adequate ochre, cochineal, log- 
 wood, indigo, jaundice, or what not, with w T hich 
 to decorate or daub the world. There is no 
 painter like the soul, and its colors are instant 
 and made on the spot. The eye is a fountain 
 of hues. 
 
 So Montaigne said, " The feast is in the pal- 
 ate ; " and it is evident, as a famous instance 
 shows, that sublimit}?- must be in the eye before 
 it can be seen looming on mountain or ocean, — 
 for whilst Byron, who "always liked to break 
 his mind on something craggy," was gazing in 
 
14 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 awe at Mont Blanc, from the Valley of Cha- 
 mouni, he overheard an Englishwoman remark 
 quite indifferently to her party, " Did you ever 
 see any thing more rural ? " And whoever 
 watches visitors at Niagara cannot fail to detect 
 that every one brings in his eye the Falls he 
 sees ; or, rather, that what they appear to one 
 and another is a matter already decided by the 
 order and measure of impressionability in each. 
 And should we not always go unattended to the 
 great scenes of nature, also to the masterpieces 
 of art, — especially if we have natural and ac- 
 quired gifts, — that our views may be entirely 
 free and our sensibility unperverted ? Should 
 we not shake off the frivolous, the conceited, 
 the cold, as we would exclude the profane from 
 our altars? The high meaning of Coleridge's 
 well-known lines will never be set aside : — 
 
 " We receive but what we give, 
 And in our life alone does Nature live ; 
 Ours is her wedding garment, ours her shroud ! 
 And would we aught behold of higher worth, 
 Than that inanimate cold world allowed 
 To the poor, loveless, ever-anxious crowd, 
 Ah ! from the soul itself must issue forth 
 A light, a glory, a fair luminous cloud, 
 
 Enveloping the earth. 
 And from the soul itself must there be sent 
 A sweet and potent voice, of its own birth, 
 Of all sweet sounds the life and element." 
 
AT OUR BEST. 15 
 
 Books, arts, men, and conversation share 
 the fate that befalls the universe, from the pres- 
 ence of our creating and fashioning spirits, 
 that must see so or so, and not otherwise. It 
 was said, " Gibbon Gibbonized history ; " and I 
 suppose every one of us rubs his identity into 
 the book he reads, or reads himself as much as 
 his author, by being a sort of joint-composer. 
 It would be difficult to say to what extent the 
 meanings are the reader's, and not the writer's. 
 We can believe that many an old author would 
 be struck with wonder to know what wise mean- 
 ings, beyond all his intentions, his modern com- 
 mentator gets out of him, or puts into him. A 
 high sensibility befriends greatly the pages it 
 comes to, and all books have a heavy debt to 
 their good readers. A better logic improves the 
 argument ; a more perfect imagination finishes 
 the pictures. Only they who bring Bible to Bible, 
 or a superior literary sense to literature, do them 
 justice, or gladden themselves by their perusal. 
 After reading one of Southey's sonnets, with a 
 throbbing heart and eyes brimming with tears, 
 Dr. Channing handed it to a lady, who read it 
 and observed : " Doctor, I do think it is pretty." 
 "Pretty!" exclaimed the great divine, with 
 what of horror we may well imagine. But we 
 
16 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 have only to remember that he and she found 
 in the lines what they brought to them ; whilst 
 to one of conceivable lowness and stolidity they 
 would have been utterly desert lines. 
 
 All written and spoken jests, as we well know, 
 are quite lost on those natures that have not the 
 jest-creating humor, but must regard every 
 thing: through their solemn directness as much 
 like a statement under oath. They are jest- 
 blind, as some are color-blind. They cannot 
 discern, from constitutional defect, the jocular 
 side of a story. It is a famous anecdote in this 
 line, that of the young mother, w^ho, amid her 
 idolatry for her first-born, asked Charles Lamb, 
 the incorrigible but facetious bachelor, how he 
 liked babies, and when he replied, " Boiled, 
 ma'am," she thought him a cannibal who should 
 be straightway banished to the Fejee Islands. 
 
 Music is made by the skill and sensibility of 
 the listener, who takes the atmospheric motions 
 supplied him and works them up the best he 
 can. The instrument and voice furnish, as it 
 were, raw material, and the final manufacture 
 is in the ear and the soul, and according to their 
 music-making capacity and habit; as one man 
 can make a good shoe, and another only a bad, 
 out of the same piece of leather. Woe to the 
 
AT OUR BEST. 17 
 
 party that goes to the opera and is not prepared 
 to carry the opera ; for such an one will find 
 what a fellow-sufferer has called " the measured 
 malice of music." Dr. Johnson thought that if 
 he were to enjoy music, even in heaven, a new 
 sense must be given him ; and he signified his 
 rough disrelish by replying to a woman who 
 asked him if he did not think it was wonderful 
 that so many tunes could be made from eight 
 notes, — "No, I don't think it wonderful; but 
 I wish it had been impossible." Walter Scott 
 shared a similar defect. He only claimed to 
 have a " reasonable good ear for a jig, but that 
 solos and sonatas gave him the spleen." And 
 we have it from Julian Charles Young, the son 
 of the tragedian, who spent a short season at 
 Abbotsford, that "a young lady in the house 
 sang divinely ; but her singing gave Scott no 
 pleasure." 
 
 We know that a bad mill makes bad flour of 
 the best wheat ; whilst a fine power of grinding 
 and bolting renders another result for our tables. 
 And human nature is a laboratory with an equal 
 dependence on itself for the way the world is 
 worked up, the soul being a prime factor in all 
 vision, interpretation, and conclusion, and setting 
 a personal stamp on action. The ego intrudes 
 2 
 
18 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 in all we think and say and do. No man can 
 escape himself. Character crops out and changes 
 all things to its own complexion. Mrs. Siddons's 
 tragic genius turned the world into a stage, and, 
 we are told, she stabbed her potatoes and ordered 
 a broth with a histrionic air. And not less does 
 the spirit tell for itself in you and me, and give 
 shape and color to events ; and he who would 
 have a new universe must first make himself 
 over, and become another man. 
 
 Another miracle of sensibility is seen in the 
 magic power it exerts over others. There is no 
 limit to be set to the sway of the kindled and 
 earnest life ; as if it drew infinitude into its 
 service, or it were such a charm to yield to its 
 magnetism that we cannot and would not resist. 
 The enchanted are ever the enchanters. Momus 
 never misses his gift, nor Apollo, nor any one 
 else. The lawyer who has most of vital heat 
 has the jury; and even the judge, in spite of 
 himself, falls under the spell, as the bird plays 
 into the jaws of the snake. The wide-awake 
 boy or man is given the lead in all enterprises 
 and adventures. The battle may be lost ; 
 but some enthusiastic general, like Montluc or 
 Sheridan, arrives on the ground and charges 
 every soldier with his own courage and force 
 
AT OTJB, BEST. 19 
 
 — like multiplying himself by tens of thousand^ 
 
 — and the tide is turned. Sydney Smith easily 
 enough overcame the most dubious gravity with 
 his volumes of wit ; and every wag is a house- 
 warmer wherever he comes, and sets the most 
 glum silence into an uproar. When Whitefield 
 begged for charity, with his whole being frantic, 
 misers unbuttoned their pockets ; and so cool a 
 man as Dr. Franklin was lucky in not having his 
 whole estate along with him, to throw into the 
 contribution-box. Aflame with an idea, Peter 
 the Hermit melted Europe into the frenzy of 
 consent, and drew on the Crusades. These are 
 examples of the supremacy of sensibility, whose 
 magic wand touches and controls us daily, for 
 good or evil, — in the orator's voice, or the 
 friend's- persuasions, or the beggar's appeals. 
 What wilt thou have, my precious enthusiast ? 
 Time, toil, money, tears, submission, the sur- 
 render of reason, or my body for the pillory or 
 the flames? Take them, and be welcome. It 
 was said that when Brahma walked the earth, 
 the gold in its veins exclaimed, " Here am I, 
 O most Eminent ! take me, and do with me as 
 thou wilt." So we hasten to offer ourselves, 
 body and soul, to the magnet of high emotion ; 
 and may have need next year, or sooner, to 
 return on our too hasty steps. 
 
20 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 And it would almost seem that all those ob- 
 jects about which we apply ourselves, the mate- . 
 rials upon which we work, such as wood and 
 stone, brass and iron, truth and art, facts and 
 fancies, have a voluntary regard for the spirit 
 of genius ; for the inspired workman finds a 
 sort of mysterious concurrence on their part — 
 as it were, an advance to meet him half way, 
 and a desire to fall in with his purpose — that the 
 uninspired does not. The best work, of every 
 kind, is done with heat and a freedom from 
 painful effort, is a vital more than a mechanical 
 operation ; and there can be only low results in 
 the absence of high feeling. " Authors' moods " 
 are proverbial ; and what heavy prices are paid 
 for them I need not say. The haymakers find 
 a little stimulation at " 'leven o'clock " sharpens 
 the scythe or softens the grass, and makes an 
 acre look less than it is. The work in the 
 kitchen goes on well if there is spirit for it, and 
 ill if there is not. We all know the value of 
 the social impulse in society, and with what 
 stammering and discredit we come off without 
 it, forgetting our best thoughts and fine vocabu- 
 lary, and furnishing but a modicum of stale 
 bread to the invited feast. Honey-bees will yield 
 everything to this man, and sting the next ; and 
 
AT OUB, BEST. 21 
 
 there seems to be a like favoritism in all nature. 
 What partiality among the stupid fish toward 
 your hook, or mine ! How game puts itself in 
 the way of Nimrod, and is out of the way before 
 Benedict comes near ! But the secret of all 
 success is an inspiration in the work in hand, 
 which makes a jack-knife and gimlet better than 
 a kit of tools to a dullard. 
 
 Once more, it is feeling that rounds us into 
 persons, one by one, and into groups socially. 
 Temperament breaks up the uniformity of society 
 and groups us on the score of like and like. Our 
 magnetisms unite us. If we have nothing in 
 common, we shall be quite indifferent to each 
 other ; or, like all opposites, we shall repel and 
 fly asunder. My solitude is more companion- 
 able than the presence of ten or a thousand 
 who do not belong to me by deeper sympathies. 
 And unless in every party and neighborhood the 
 social distribution is a free process, and accord- 
 ing to this higher law, there shall be no ease or 
 satisfaction of intercourse. What is yours you 
 will find and enjoy, and what is not yours you 
 will gladly leave to him whose it may be ; and 
 it may happen that this inclusion and exclusion 
 shall drive one and another into the corner to 
 sit alone. And if it is contended that this is 
 
22 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 undemocratic and ill-usage of fellow-guests, we 
 must reply, it is idle to hold a quarrel with grav- 
 itation that groups stars and souls alike. 
 
 " For sparks electric only strike 
 On souls electrical alike ; 
 The flash of intellect expires, 
 Unless it meet congenial fires/' 
 
 Decorum and even a degree of tenderness, 
 on high grounds, are due to all, — yes, to bores 
 who come when they are not wanted and stay 
 till the crack of doom, and to fribbles and tri- 
 flers who chaffer in the face of every solemnity ; 
 but all Nature, tugging at her own, and seeking 
 the congenial alliances, excuses us from forced 
 social connections. It is a broad privilege, with 
 the highest sanction, this of " jackdaw to jack- 
 daw " and emmet to emmet. The whole world 
 is giving us this text daily. The affinities of 
 sensibility are to be guarded by reason, but are 
 not to be denied, since they are better guides 
 than our wits, and carry the prophecy of the 
 best society in respect of variety and elevation. 
 All miscellaneous life must be low and unpoetic ; 
 and, shall we not say, without the best moral 
 tone ? Spare us the feeling that is elective and 
 fastidious, and that draws us out of and above a 
 Chinese uniformity ! Let me seek and reject 
 
AT OUft BEST. 23 
 
 whom I must, with this sure sense of my being ; 
 and I will honor him who covets or shuns me. 
 For this he also has right and title in his con- 
 stitution, as well as in the better results that 
 will follow. 
 
 In short, the sharing of a high degree of fine 
 feeling, since it fills the time and place with 
 a happy sufficingness, multiplying and magnify- 
 ing vital conditions to our hearts' content, will 
 save all need of running after sensations. It is 
 the grace that helps us to stay at home with 
 more of realization and relish than any who 
 have it not can find in travel. It renews Eden 
 under any sky. It makes life seem great and 
 worth the while, and reconciles us to our being 
 and lot. We weary of dulness, but a fulness of 
 better emotions breeds contentment ; and we 
 would stay, like Peter, where the sacred tide so 
 abounds. Paradise will be happily busy, and 
 therefore we shall not want to run away. The 
 rapt student forgets to go to bed till some- 
 body blows out his candle. " Twelve o'clock ! 
 why, I thought it was just in the edge of the 
 evening," says the enchanted visitor, and halt- 
 ingly asks for his hat. 
 
 But how shall we reach an eminent vitality, 
 and its better wit and succession of transports ? 
 
24 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 How are we to hold ourselves at the top of 
 our emotional condition? How have our bat- 
 teries charged ? 
 
 The first requisite is a large share of quiet and 
 repose in our habits, to admit of a healthy and 
 full state of nerves, senses, animal spirits, 
 and of the finer reservoirs, — mind, heart, and 
 soul. There is not only more dignity but bet- 
 ter feeling in a serene bearing and a life of 
 pauses and waiting. Some of the best things 
 are not overtaken by pursuit, will not conde- 
 scend to a man out of breath, hate and fly the 
 insanity of haste, refuse to fellowship with ex- 
 haustion ; and few will need to be told that 
 among these best things is a perfect degree of 
 sensibility. By too much whirl we are jaded 
 and benumbed. Overwork leads to underfeel- 
 ing. Weariness has an effect like morphine. I 
 noticed that our party who walked up Mt. 
 Washington from the Glen House, and squan- 
 dered their powers, had much less of rapture on 
 the summit than those who rode up : we saw 
 with a blur, and felt after a sluggish fashion, or 
 were lying around the stove asleep, whilst the 
 others were on the fresh run for views, and 
 abounding with emotions ; that is, we had fool- 
 
AT OUR BEST. 25 
 
 ishly saved three dollars, and lost the clouds and 
 the most sublime of the sublimities. It is the 
 testimony of generals that tired soldiers are 
 much less capable of patriotic feelings and mili- 
 tary pride, and are unfit to meet the ardor and 
 courage of fresh troops. Excess of study dazes 
 the brain, and the idler is often the better 
 scholar, as having his powers highly charged 
 and in full play ; and so eloquence is not more 
 facts gathered by incessant delving, but more 
 feeling drawn from the open sky and the genial 
 walk. The unfinished sermon that steals the 
 minister's sleep on Saturday night makes pro- 
 lific return to his congregation on Sunday ; and 
 the man who walks five miles to worship is a 
 bad worshipper at church, however devout he 
 may be at home, for piety moves with the blood, 
 or the Holy Ghost respects a high state of health. 
 To come to the social circle from too many toils 
 and cares, from the hours of hard work, is to 
 incur the discredit of dotage and senility in 
 early life, with our heavy eyes and stupid "yes" 
 and " no" in the conversation. If my friend 
 comes a long way to see me, and has spent a 
 day and a night in the cars without sleep, I 
 will shake hands with him and send him to bed, 
 and turn the key on him for twenty-four hours ; 
 
26 AT OUB, BEST. 
 
 when, if he sleeps well and recovers himself, he 
 will be fit to be seen. Every one is reduced to 
 punk and deadness by too much exertion, as a 
 waste of vital heat in warming our bed leaves 
 us cold, or squandering it on an arctic or Alpine 
 temperature draws on stupor and death. The 
 wise miller husbands his headwater, — has the 
 gate shut more than it is open, to keep the 
 desired fulness ; and there should be equal 
 economy with the tide of life, if we would 
 not be empty cisterns. 
 
 What means this demand of our time for sen- 
 sational feats ? Why has a flash literature, hav- 
 ing neither beauty nor depth, crowded out a 
 better, and become a sort of necessity with our 
 readers ? Why does some loud and vulgar- 
 mouthed quack in the pulpit, where culture and 
 grace should alone be permitted, or on the ros- 
 trum, get a hearing that wisdom and worth like 
 St. Paul's could not command ? Why must our 
 theatres forsake the high and pure drama, which 
 was once in vogue and ample, and have instead 
 fireworks, nakedness, bar-room bluster, monkey 
 shows, and endless rout of claptrap, wherewith 
 to draw and entertain our ladies and gentlemen ? 
 What means this morbid demand for extrava- 
 ganza, as if sound was not sound till it becomes 
 
AT OUR BEST. 27 
 
 uproar, nor color color till it reaches the extreme 
 that has effect with savages ? Our politics have 
 become dramatic and puerile, a matter of torch- 
 lights, paper lanterns, boyish trappings, and 
 stump-speeches by Tom, Dick, and Harry, whose 
 only outfit is one of lungs, — as if citizens 
 were short of brains, and would vote with the 
 party that sounds the most trumpets ; as if, in 
 fact, the patriotic nerve were so nearly dead 
 that our republicans stand in need of being 
 played on by galvanic batteries to break their 
 stupor. We noticed, at the Coliseum, that a 
 fine symphony had a rather feeble effect, and 
 our weary populace took the time to yawn and 
 subside into vacancy; but the Anvil Chorus 
 pounded them into some degree of wakefulness, 
 and life came once more into their eyes and 
 faces. There has come to be a necessity for 
 extremes in the fashions, or the point is lost; 
 for both the wearer and the observer are de- 
 void of that better sense of the eye that notes 
 the truly artistic and fit in costumes. And it 
 was without surprise that we learned of a young 
 lady who, sharing the low dull sense of the time 
 for beauty, exchanged her modest diamonds, at 
 the dollar-store, for a quantity of showy glass and 
 gilt. We seem to be fast settling into a state 
 
28 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 that responds only to the firing of cannons and 
 bray of trumpets, or lapsing into a lower animal 
 condition, a sort of rhinoceros stupor, which is 
 moved only by red-hot irons or melted pitch. 
 The growing demand for sensations betrays our 
 present sad lapse ; and who shall tell the con- 
 sequent loss to the race of the finest and best 
 elements of life. 
 
 In other words, I accuse the age of a crim- 
 inal weariness and exhaustion, through its stress 
 of competitions, cares, running to and fro, and 
 habitual overwork ; and so, as the sot loses his 
 acute taste, and must have brandy and burn- 
 ing-fluid to raise an appreciable effect, we who 
 have dulled the proper and desirable keenness 
 and quickness of our impressionability crave the 
 vulgar degrees in all things. We are spent, and 
 why should we not be dull ? Our night has not its 
 olden quiet ; our day is not peaceful as once ; our 
 life is fretted and worn and wasted ; crushed out 
 and cut short in its midst, it may be ; offered up 
 to Pluto and the Furies ; and thus, devoid of a 
 composed and sensitive fulness, it is but a poor, 
 played-out, and cheap life. We rush through and 
 die, giving ourselves no healthy and invigorat- 
 ing leisure by the way ; and let us hope when 
 we are utterly out of breath we shall then have 
 
AT OUR BEST. 29 
 
 time to breathe, and enter leisurely, as we should, 
 into more vital and precious relations with the 
 universe. But why not have some serenity and 
 poetic transports every day? Why not now 
 slacken into greater speed ? Are we not like 
 the insane crowd, whose rush to get out of 
 church only hinders ? If we attempted to live 
 less, should we not live more and better, as the 
 artist's frequent throwing aside of his brush, 
 to recover fresh spirit and power, is his only 
 hope of merit? Weariness is weakness, and 
 must have two days instead of one ; and all its 
 victories will be indifferent, a little below the best, 
 force-puts, and not free and abounding thoughts 
 and deeds. The finest crystals come quick, 
 from the full life of Nature. Our railroads 
 have found it economy of machinery to make 
 less speed and take more time ; but our men 
 and women drive the wheels of their being at a 
 fatal pace, and are spent at forty. The game is 
 then up with them. There is no more appetite 
 or keen zest. To spare is to gain ; but they 
 learn the secret too late. 
 
 It is also a condition we must respect, to the 
 end of the best measures of spirit and power, 
 — I mean self-reliance, and, if need be, non-con- 
 formity. It is pitiful, the amount of feeling 
 
30 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and vital being that are bartered for custom and 
 established usage. The play is largely carried 
 on outside of us, and is a dull performance. Let 
 us be crushed into the popular type, however 
 absurd, as the " heathen Chinee " has his foot, 
 or wadded and padded to the pattern which is 
 just now in style ! Teach us the attitudes and 
 draw us into exact line with the rank and 
 file, ye friendly powers ! and we will ask no 
 question about the cost in the fine coin of Na- 
 ture and precious experiences ! Spare us from 
 being original and true to ourselves ! But self- 
 fidelity and freedom are the price of genuine 
 and gladdening feeling. The emotions flow 
 " best in their native channels, as rubber and tar 
 are fluent in the tree, but harden in any artificial 
 duct. We do nothing heartily and happily that 
 we do not do honestly, with a single eye and 
 perfect self-reliance. If our faith and word 
 and act are our own, as the flower belongs to 
 the stem, or the limb to the body, then shall 
 they seem deep and full, and it may be of infinite 
 value as bringing us into fellowship with the ages 
 and the stars ; but if they are only echoes and 
 imitations we shall fall asleep under their influ- 
 ence, and to-morrow awake in the likeness of 
 all sceptics who have tried to hold faith at sec- 
 
AT OTJK, BEST. 31 
 
 ond hand. The lawyer never makes his best 
 plea on the wrong side of the case, since he is 
 thus displaced from his active centre and sense 
 of justice which, as it were, would make the 
 cause his own, and his words above a money- 
 value. 
 
 A company of personalities, each true to 
 itself, is a great social success : here shall be 
 beauty, poetry, heat, volumes of real feeling ; but 
 overshadow and reduce them by some whim of 
 ceremonial usage, — that is, draw on mannerism, 
 — and no affair could be more stupid. They are 
 now only wax figures and puppets ; and would 
 fall to yawning, if that also were not an undue 
 freedom and comfort. One often wishes, in 
 such cramp and benumbed condition, that some- 
 body would have a hysterical fit, or overturn a 
 table, or knock a vase or two off the mantel, or do 
 some other charitable act to make us forgetful and 
 free, and set us once more at our ease and joy. 
 Conformity often holds the flow of emotions as 
 ice does the flow of waters, and the likeness in 
 the two cases extends even to temperature. 
 
 Nature is sensitive in every fibre and fila- 
 ment, is all life and genial flow ; and so every 
 one's proneness must be allowed its own way, or 
 subjected to the fewest checks possible, in order 
 
32 AT OTJB BEST. 
 
 to his best feeling. Let the poet sing his songs, 
 the explorer have his ships and furnishings and 
 long voyages, the hero his blood-stirring and 
 hair-lifting ventures, the scientist his bugs and 
 bottles, the jockey his old horses, the wag his 
 waggery, the lazy their easy seats, lovers their 
 secluded stroll and the moonlight, the scholar 
 his library ; and all hands, save thieves and 
 sots, as much of what they want as can be fur- 
 nished. Let us even be tender of this man's 
 conceit and that woman's caprice ; for, if we in- 
 dulge them, our own liberty is a little securer, 
 and we all live much in some pet crotchet or 
 obstinate freak which, like an unsightly wart, 
 is a part of us. Let those have poodles and 
 rabbits who can enjoy them ; and if your friend 
 takes to rattlesnakes, humor his liking and 
 keep him a little ahead in every wild tramp, — 
 what is his relish may prove your rescue. We 
 can never too much admire how the Greeks re- 
 spected Diogenes in his tub, and Socrates in his 
 old coat. If Madame Bloomer will wear bloom- 
 ers, we can afford to let her have this pleasure, 
 and only betray by how much she is our supe- 
 rior if we condescend to sneer or join the boys 
 who run after her on the street. It was a great 
 advance of law when there came to be no law 
 
AT OUR BEST. 33 
 
 concerning creeds and costumes and customs, but 
 all people came to be protected alike in their good 
 sense and vagaries, since this was a step gained 
 in favor of nature and sensibility. Liberty is the 
 key to life. The wild strawberry has the better 
 flavor, and quart for quart will drive your forced 
 Seedlings and Hoveys from the table. The 
 country youth is beautiful as a fawn on the hills, 
 but is dwarfed in a city parlor. The best livers 
 in the land are the born and bred yeomen, so 
 long as they keep to their rural instincts and 
 habits ; but they are smitten with a lingering 
 death the moment they move to New York or 
 Paris, and try to be fashionable at Saratoga and 
 Long Branch. Indeed ! Here is Jonas asleep 
 at the soiree, and Patience has heedlessly 
 dropped her domino at the masquerade ! 
 
 My style is not yours. Your problem is not 
 mine. Personalities are as various as the peo- 
 ple are numerous, as there are no two leaves 
 alike in all the forest. And the short and sure 
 road to dulness and death is a forced con- 
 formity. " Hands off ! " is what every soul must 
 sternly say to all who would divert and drag it 
 to some other end, if it would be and do its 
 best ; for in that in which it naturally differs lies 
 its hope of superiority. 
 
34 AT OTTK BEST. 
 
 Furthermore, the better feelings are set in play 
 by the favoring influences that surround them, 
 as music is drawn by running the fingers over 
 the key-board. We daily observe the happy 
 effect of occasions, — friends, books, sermons, 
 clouds, pictures and statues, flowers and waves ; 
 for — 
 
 " Spirits are not finely touched 
 But to fine issues." 
 
 The most signal fact of our being is its impres- 
 sionability, as if we were perfect harps waiting 
 to be breathed upon. Our nature is mobile and 
 reactionary. We answer to frictions, as two 
 sticks may be rubbed to a flame. Our respon- 
 siveness is something marvellous, and not 
 without peril, as exposing us to tortures and 
 temptations ; whilst it is the source of what con- 
 stant and various delights ! Every sense lies 
 open to the world and gives a swift report ; cer- 
 tifies us of our surroundings; knows sweet 
 from bitter, soft from hard, the blue sky from 
 the black cloud, the flute and harp from the 
 dinner-gong ; and happy they who respect the 
 choice of the senses. But not less is the soul 
 conscious, and unprotected. It always knows 
 where it is, and with whom ; and all things are 
 its occasions. 
 
AT OUR BEST, 35 
 
 Would you see what conversation does ? Ob- 
 serve that knot of excited men on the corner of 
 the street, who met without any flow in their 
 blood or color on their faces, but have now got the 
 full tide on, and tongues and elbows all going at 
 once. Whose languor will not a lyric, read or 
 sung, refresh like a cup of sparkling water ? Is 
 not Shakespeare the best of all tonics? The 
 notes of the flute, floating on the night air, make 
 us superior to sleep. The ring of the door-bell 
 and the announcement of a friend draw us out 
 of our after-dinner nap, and we exchange a dead 
 hour for a living one, with some degree of grati- 
 tude toward the intruder. We yield to small 
 matters of influence as to magic, which may well 
 lead us to hope that, even when the apparently 
 strongest persuasions fail, there is some adaptive 
 trifle that shall succeed ; and that there is a key, 
 if we can but find it, to every heart, as Achilles 
 was vulnerable in his heel, and Baldur the son of 
 Odin could be hit with an arrow of mistletoe. 
 May it not be that the conversion of the worst 
 soul, and drawing on of its lost, purity, is after 
 all an easy affair, if we but knew the secret of 
 time and instrument ? It is said of an Italian 
 bandit, hardened by years of robbery, that, 
 chancing to hear a parrot pronounce the name 
 
36 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 of his mother, it overwhelmed him with memo- 
 ries and emotions, gave instant supremacy to his? 
 earlier and better habits, and sent him straight- 
 way to her whose name thus opportunely and 
 strangely sounded had saved him. How the 
 soul answers to a home-strain of music in a for- 
 eign land ! A chance note of the nightingale or 
 whippoorwill often surprises us into an intense 
 sensibility. What ! in tears that a ray of sun- 
 light has strayed into the parlor and fallen on 
 some precious keepsake ! Even so. A word 
 may be greater than an oration. Omnipotence 
 is in this or that trifle, and our whole being 
 thrills at its touch. And this is a revelation 
 of our wonderful accessibility, and an advice to 
 find favoring relations, as we set the harp in the 
 wind. 
 
 It was the morning sun that daily awoke Mem- 
 non's statue to music ; and the old fable has an 
 ever new application, for still the rosy dawn of 
 the day inspires song, and any advent of beauty 
 and grace has a kindred value. Who does not 
 find fresh air very favorable to buoyancy of spir- 
 its ? An open window is often a means of more 
 grace and better prayers, — which led an impious 
 preacher of our time to claim that the wt Holy 
 Ghost is nothing but oxygen." The celebrated 
 
AT OUB BEST. 37 
 
 landscape painter, Claude, filled his eye with new 
 beauty and his soul with fresh emotion every 
 time he visited Nature, and hastened back to 
 his canvas to transfix the vision and glow ; 
 and I suppose all hearts answer back to the 
 hills and valleys, have other and higher emo- 
 tions when face to face with them, which is the 
 reason, no doubt, that the ancients thought 
 there must be finer presences here, — divinities, 
 muses, nymphs, and genii, — and that poets and 
 philosophers and sages should come out from the 
 close and stifled air of cities, and write and teach 
 in groves. There is certainly no better fortune 
 than to be set into close union with Nature, and 
 yield our life lovingly to her charged batteries. 
 There is grace for us in her breath. Gardens 
 and grass-plats serve well to stir the gentler and 
 finer feelings which befit our every-day needs ; 
 and our suburbans have an untold advantage 
 over our city populations. But the shovel and 
 hoe and rake cannot make the earth grand and 
 moving. Our hearts crave the rough and un- 
 tamed world, to draw on their latent energies 
 and strong emotions. What stirs us like the 
 mountains, Niagara, the prairie, the ocean, and 
 the midnight heavens ? What sets us at our best 
 like the solitudes of forest and lake? as if a 
 
38 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 better genius took charge of us and gave us other 
 and higher secrets. And we must not neglect 
 these wild favors, and only sip at the honey- 
 dew on the hedges and flowers at our front 
 doors. 
 
 Our modern life seems to want poetic range 
 through Nature's better provinces. It is too 
 much withdrawn into a domain of petty details. 
 The aboriginal world is likely to be lost to our 
 civilization, and with it the race of heroes and 
 saints. Our wisdom is weakness. We are be- 
 coming cosmopolitan dwarfs, city dolls, slaves 
 to the trivial and frivolous, which our arts have 
 multiplied beyond all need; and we should be 
 set back into simpler and rougher ways, and 
 bred anew to plain and strong habits of thought 
 and feeling. Our parlors belittle us, and we 
 need to be driven out to suck life from the full 
 and flowing pores of the universe. 
 
 Even our science limits and restrains to dry 
 and dusty specimens and the details of the ter- 
 restrial carpentry, noting where are the joints, 
 and how many pieces in the mechanism, and in 
 what way they can be taken apart and put to- 
 gether again. It is a sign of the loss of sensi- 
 bility and better appreciation, when we count 
 the stamens of the painted flower instead of 
 
AT OUR BEST. 39 
 
 catching the floral influence, which is the main 
 thing, as the soul is more than the body, or the 
 spirit than the letter. But are we not subject- 
 ing Nature to a similar cold enumeration and 
 analysis ? It is a universe of powers, and not 
 of names; but modern science looks as if set 
 up too exclusively in the interest of dissection 
 and lower discoveries, — a post-mortem treat- 
 ment of a dead Nature. It takes note of statics 
 at the expense of dynamics : it is all eye for the 
 mechanical, but shares a blunted sense of the 
 spiritual and real. 
 
 What is worse than an empty and pretentious 
 nomenclature, — a botany of terms and not of 
 powers and graces, or a geology of dust that 
 ignores divinity ? Is it not like the study of 
 poetry with an eye to scanning and metre simply ? 
 or architecture, with reference only to its per- 
 pendiculars and horizontals ? Is it not as if one 
 should see in the tears that bead themselves on 
 the cheek, what science has lately defined them : 
 " Water rendered slightly saline by common 
 salt, and containing also a little albumen com- 
 bined with soda " ? It may be true still that 
 " the deceived are wiser than the undeceived." 
 The clouds are more to the poet or the peasant 
 or the child than to the exact scholar who reads 
 
40 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 out the illusion. If to know more is to know 
 less, then spare us the negative wisdom. Leave 
 us our primers, if you must take with them our 
 first fresh sense of the world. At any rate, sci- 
 ence shall render small service if it do not foster 
 our higher sensibilities and give us a living and 
 speaking world, with God immanent in every 
 atom and process. 
 
 Some one has said, " If you would seek life, 
 seek it not." But I think it was better sense 
 in the boy who, being accosted by a comrade as 
 to his errand, said, " I'm going after fun." Our 
 waiting hearts suggest our duty in this matter 
 of finding the best and most promising relations. 
 We must seek life. We must hunt for this fine 
 game. We must strive to have ourselves set at 
 our best. Shall we not come out under the sky 
 and into the sunshine ? Shall we not stroll in 
 the September moonlight, give a frequent hour 
 to a friend, hang some more pictures on our 
 walls, go to the opera, take a solitary or social 
 walk, as we need and can best enjoy, keep a 
 carriage, cultivate flowers or fish or hens, or do 
 a thousand things, just to gain one more happy 
 beat of life's pulse ? Is not our heedlessness of 
 the conditions much to our detriment and dis- 
 credit ? 
 
AT OUR BEST. 41 
 
 Let me, in conclusion, commend Mr. Emer- 
 son's lesson, in these significant lines, as one 
 we may well heed : — 
 
 " Was never form and never face 
 So sweet to Seyd as only grace, 
 Which did not slumber like a stone, 
 But holered gleaming and was gone. 
 Beauty chased he everywhere, 
 In flame, in storm, in clouds of air. 
 He smote the lake to feed his eye 
 With the beryl beam of the broken wave; 
 He flung the pebbles in to hear 
 The moment's music which they gave/' 
 
II. 
 
 OUR ELECT. 
 
 " We were so close within each other's breast, 
 The rivets were not found that join'd us first. 
 That does not reach us yet : we are so mix'd, 
 As meeting streams, — both to ourselves were lost. 
 "We were one mass, we could not give or take, 
 But from the same: for he was I; I, he." 
 
 Drydeit. 
 
 " Old friends, like old swords, still are trusted best." 
 
 Webster's Duchess of Malfy. 
 
 " Turn him, and see his threads : look, if he be 
 Fri' nd to himself, that would be friend to thee; 
 For that is first requir'd, a man be his own ; 
 But he that 's too much that is friend to none." 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 COMPANIONSHIP is an ever-lessening and 
 ^■^ rising ring ; begins with the crowd on the 
 street, and ends with the elect, which is often a 
 company of two, — a double self : such pairs as 
 Damon and Pythias, Beaumont and Fletcher, 
 Tennyson and Hallam, and the two school-girls, 
 who for the present recline and dally in each 
 other's arms, and like Juno's swans are never 
 seen apart. 
 
 The social instinct in ripening severs and 
 withdraws, as the tree ascends and matures by 
 
OUR ELECT. 43 
 
 shedding its lower limbs. Its history is parallel 
 to that of reproduction, where the count les- 
 sens as the type rises, until, on the best levels, 
 the births narrow to three, two, and one. Nat- 
 ure mounts by limitations, or attempts less to 
 accomplish more. The heart obeys this law of 
 ascent, and comes to the best relations by a 
 system of exclusions, as the orator is successful 
 with emphasis by sparing on the mass of words 
 and concentrating on a few. That which is 
 finite can be great only in this way. And so 
 we can readily agree with Aristotle, who said, 
 " He who boasts a multitude of friends hath 
 none ; " or, with Saadi, in his witty observation, 
 that " friendship, like iron, is fragile, if ham- 
 mered too thin ; and as for heat, holds it not." 
 
 Companionship begins with the crowd on the 
 sidewalk, as Ave have said ; but only begins. 
 With a few there is not even this dawn of fel- 
 lowship, as of the first gray of the morning. 
 Eather, they stand in the mass as repellant 
 units. They are the victims of some idiosyn- 
 crasy or whim or conceit that banishes them to 
 their own centres. At the other end of the 
 scale are those who, like Socrates and Gold- 
 smith, have their arms around everybody with 
 the utmost good- will. They greet humanity as 
 
44 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 a lover his beloved. They are apparently as 
 impartial as the sun, and as broad in their benig- 
 nity as Providence. Shall we say they have some 
 higher gift, and see the beautiful human type 
 under every diversity ? Or do they not, rather, 
 hold all human traits in such happy distribution 
 in their own characters that they instantly find 
 points of sympathy with all they meet ? But 
 most of us find in the crowd only glances of 
 fellowship, the genial contact and recognition 
 of a few eyes, the magnetic touch of now and 
 then a heart, like sunny beams through rifts 
 in a cloud. 
 
 Between kindred souls there takes place at 
 sight a fine flow of feeling, a mutual intelli- 
 gence and adoption, which lingers like a poetic 
 thrill. There are choice faces to be met in every 
 crowd, which stay in our memory like an image 
 impressed on the eye. They come again in our 
 dreams. A regret steals over us at their passing, 
 as if some damage had been done to our hearts. 
 They invest the sidewalk with a charm, and 
 often we may be forced to forsake a circle of 
 dull acquaintances to enjoy this better com- 
 panionship of strangers on the street or in the 
 public assembly. 
 
 The wayside companionships, when drawn 
 
OUR ELECT. 45 
 
 into closer relations, as may happen in travel, 
 or at the house of a mutual friend, or at an 
 evening's entertainment, or in the chance ways 
 of life, will eclipse, for the moment, the glow 
 of better grounded friendships. They are the 
 rare outbursts of the social nature — rapt cli- 
 maxes of thought and feeling. In the meeting 
 of two strangers timed to each other is found, 
 no doubt, the most perfect poetry and power of 
 our social life. All the tides are set in full 
 flow. It is a holiday with our faculties and 
 sentiments. A new companion of this elect 
 order we meet as on Olympus or in Elysian 
 Fields. For, let it be said, these are times and 
 opportunities to enjoy anew what is at length 
 excluded among old friends. Long intimacy 
 narrows the topics, demands silences, forbids 
 even our pet points. " Go to ! I have heard 
 this before," is the unspoken verdict that will 
 be respected. The old is old, between friend 
 and friend ; and we must spare on these things, 
 and pass on to the new, though it be to discuss 
 the latest nothings of the clay, and prognosti- 
 cate what idle events are due to-morrow. Our 
 best story must not be retold to the same party, 
 however intimate the relations, — indeed, be- 
 cause they are intimate. The familiar theme 
 
46 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 may burn in our heart, but it must be kept 
 from the tongue, as a lover painfully hides his 
 maiden's name. But we may draw the gate at 
 these casual interviews, and hold nothing back ; 
 for then all is new. And here, moreover, is 
 the charm of two lives in a state of mutual 
 transfer of ideas and sympathies: it is a fine 
 game of surprises. What delight to watch the 
 new phases as they come ! What joy in this 
 fresh chapter of life which we are writing out 
 for each other ! Let us run to our journal and 
 make record of another ecstasy, and declare for 
 the hundredth time that one more ordinary 
 mortal has proved to be an angel ! In look- 
 ing over my old diary, the other clay, I was 
 attracted by the heading, " A happy discov- 
 ery in a horse-car!" which proved to be the 
 rare wit and virtue of a man I had long known 
 at a distance, only to deem him a very common 
 specimen of our race. 
 
 But whilst in some things this is the social 
 climax, it is not of that perfect order which the 
 best degree of friendship secures. The meteor 
 is a bad substitute for the fixed star, however we 
 run to greet it for the moment. The heat of 
 the new birth is something suspicious, as sug- 
 gesting a speedy burning out. Is there not a pas- 
 
OUR ELECT. 47 
 
 sional play in these wayside intoxications ; and, 
 in most cases, a slight dash of mutual conceit 
 and curiosity ? Have we not exchanged too fine 
 portraits, and left each other somewhat deceived 
 by disclosures better than our average ? Has it 
 not been a meeting in costume, and a hiding of our 
 rags ? I know I am not what my chance com- 
 panion takes me to be ; and he appears to me in 
 a holiday disguise. The dealing is not wholly 
 plain and fair, like that which takes place 
 when old friends meet and have on their every- 
 day qualifications ; and the truest conscience 
 would like to say at parting, " I am not the 
 angel you fancy I am." Have we not a secret 
 wish, or something like it, not to meet these 
 parties again on whose easy faith we have so 
 finely imposed, lest next time they will see 
 through us and accuse us ? Would we like to 
 have these dupes know the real facts ? 
 
 The companionships among neighbors, and 
 in clubs, coteries, churches, and every kind of 
 permanent and close association, have still better 
 qualities. If there is not in them so much of 
 an April freshness, there is more of an October 
 ripeness. The views of each other are broader, 
 the familiarity is more assured and justified, 
 and the good-will and mutual interest are the 
 
48 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 more solid and refined products of time. These 
 are happy free-masonries, and enchantments 
 of the social landscape which do not pass away 
 whilst you are gazing. We miss any face from 
 these groups. We ask with anxiety, where is 
 the old man whose benignant face has daily 
 passed our window for years, and now is seen 
 no more ? as if our familiar, friendly glances had 
 mutually surrendered us to each other. We 
 follow any of these better known and better 
 loved parties in their travails or travels with our 
 benisons. We hasten to exchange sympathies 
 and congratulations. We pause as we read 
 their names in the daily papers, and would 
 know how it fares with them. We gladly con- 
 fess our debt to them for the speed and joy of 
 many an hour which had else been wingless and 
 sober. And from this better grade of fellowship 
 usually springs the highest and best. 
 
 But what is friendship ? What is this final 
 state of the social instinct which has been for 
 ages the subject of discussion, as if it trans- 
 cended easy definition, and the theme of song, 
 as if it were entitled to the highest tribute and 
 celebration ? What is this that one has called 
 the " chief joy of souls " ? When does the swell- 
 ing bud break into its perfect bloom ? A child 
 
OUR ELECT. 49 
 
 may raise this question, but have we the man who 
 is sure of his answer ? Of all the arrows shot by 
 the host of archers at this old mark has any 
 gone further than Cicero's ? His definition is 
 virtually this : Friendship is the mutual embrace 
 and intercourse of corresponding attributes, qual- 
 ities, tastes, aspirations, with an absence from 
 them of a jealous and envious egotism ; or it 
 is the sweet accord of natures akin, and espe- 
 cially of natures of a high order, cultivated, 
 moral, generous, plain, stable, and with some 
 degree of poetic sympathy. The first law is 
 likeness, with elevation as a guaranty of a supe- 
 rior type of amity, as diamonds are more perfect 
 crystals than quartz ; and the second is unself- 
 ishness or magnanimity, which admits two of a 
 kind to come into full relations. " Whoever is in 
 possession of a true friend," wrote this great Ro- 
 man, " sees the counterpart of his own soul." 
 And upon this note he rings repeated changes. 
 He plants himself here like one who stands on 
 hardpan. " A friend is another self," he adds ; 
 and this saying has been quoted with favor by 
 Montaigne, Shaftesbury, Sir Thomas Browne, and 
 others. " Friendship is one soul in two bodies," 
 is another of his happy hits, which the writers 
 have freely adopted. And the origin of this 
 
 4 
 
50 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 state he announces in the following terms : " To 
 have similar likes and dislikes is the first cement 
 of friendship." 
 
 But Cicero was not alone among the ancients, 
 neither was he first, in holding this view. For 
 in Plato's Gorgias, Socrates is set forth as say- 
 ing, " To me every man appears to be most the 
 friend of him who is most like him, — like to 
 like, as the ancient sages say." Did he quote 
 the priests of Isis, or whom ? In his fine chapter, 
 " How to know a Flatterer from a Friend," 
 Plutarch has said, " Friendship takes origin 
 from a concurrence of like humors and incli- 
 nations ; and the same passions, the same aver- 
 sions and desires, are the first cement of a true 
 and lasting friendship." " Equality and simi- 
 larity," according to Aristotle, " constitute 
 friendship ; " whilst Homer, in the translation 
 which I have at hand, is thus rendered : — 
 
 " Heaven with a secret principle endued 
 Mankind to seek their own similitude." 
 
 Every hero knows every hero from primal 
 sources of wisdom : they see eye to eye, as we 
 say ; and there arise mutual interest and esteem 
 on the most central conditions, which will ripen 
 to a fine friendship with a heroic flavor if circum- 
 
OUll ELECT. 51 
 
 stances should permit. Great generals of the 
 opposition would rush into each other's arms and 
 hobnob on the eve of battle, but for pruden- 
 tial ends. On personal grounds they would 
 each give the victory to the other. The ancient 
 legends are for ever pairing and grouping the 
 heroes. In the Norse theology Valhalla is 
 their common heaven, or, rather, the heaven 
 of as many of them as are slain in battle. The 
 valiant brotherhood were invited to that high 
 and exclusive fellowship for which their common 
 nature and experience so eminently fit them. 
 Where but in the Court of King Arthur, and at 
 his famous Round Table, 
 
 " Heroes to heroes facing," 
 
 should we look for the intrepid Sir Kay, Sir 
 Galahad, Sir Tristram, Sir Gawain, Sir Bo- 
 hort, Sir Lionel, and all the elect of daring 
 blood ? Their union is in full accord with the 
 first law of Nature, and begotten of it, and is 
 a supreme joy. It is magnetic, and sweet as 
 nectar. And with not less of reason did the 
 Orientals marry their fabulous hero and hero- 
 ine : " Who but Temeenah, the daughter of 
 the Shah, and tamer of lions and tigers, should 
 be wife to Roostem, that makest the air to weep 
 
52 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 with his sword; in dread of whom the eagle 
 ventures not to fly ; and who drawest the sea- 
 snake out of the deep ? " The match is thus 
 perfect, like the balance of the solar system, 
 or the due equipoise of nations ; and we see, at 
 a glance, what a train of interchanging intelli- 
 gences, respects, and sympathies must follow. 
 Unlikeness of tastes and habits and tempers is 
 the rock on which the domestic ship is oftenest 
 wrecked ; and Temeenah and Roostem are given 
 as a high text to be applied to wedlock through 
 all grades of society. 
 
 Thus every quality knows and seeks its own, 
 its fellow and peer ; that is, if the quality is itself 
 high and self-respecting, and there is an absence 
 of selfishness and jealousy. Hence, child takes 
 to child, through mutual sparkle and innocence ; 
 veteran to veteran, on grounds of well-earned 
 laurels ; the pure to the pure, as sunbeams blend 
 or angels go in flocks ; the plain and solid people 
 to such as share a kindred good-sense and fair- 
 dealing; and poet to poet, as Aubrey informs 
 us that "there was a wonderful similarity of 
 fancy between Beaumont and Fletcher, which 
 caused that dearness of friendship between 
 them." 
 
 We will not stand pledged for the good-fellow- 
 
OUPv ELECT. 53 > 
 
 ship of blacklegs, fribbles, fashionables, game- 
 sters, politicians, speculators, or other self-seek- 
 ers, by reason of any similarity between them. 
 We will not guarantee the amity of a red-hair 1 
 club because of this common color ; nor of a 
 sewing-circle, because it is composed of only 
 women ; nor of West Point graduates in the army, . 
 because they have a kindred skill in military tac- 
 tics. It is not a question of likeness without 
 reference to rank; for where there is not self- 
 respect, there cannot be mutual respect among 
 those of a kind. We demur at Addison's state- 
 ment, that " the friendships of the world are often 
 confederacies in vice." For this divine league 
 runs not so low. The perfect co-ordinations are 
 worthy. Friends shall be able to look each 
 other in the face without mutual crimination. 
 We must not feel ashamed of our company, and 
 have a desire to apologize and run. This high 
 cohesion is as moral as gravitation or the Ten 
 Commandments; and not, in any instance, a 
 bond among rogues or rascals, who, for some 
 paltry pittance, will desert as readily as they 
 enlist. 
 
 Beau Nash was badly fleeced by his sharp 
 friends at York, who offered fifty pounds of his 
 money back if he would stand a half-hour in a 
 
54 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 sheet at the door of the cathedral. Whilst doing 
 so, he was recognized by a priest, who rallied 
 him on his strange behavior. The dupe replied 
 that he was " doing a Yorkshire penance for 
 having bad friends." But who will fare better 
 that angles in this treacherous water? He who 
 mates with sharpers, though he be himself a two- 
 edged blade, must expect to do penance sooner 
 or later. Nothing is to be counted on where 
 there is absence of moral principle, — not the 
 love of a mother, nor the affection of a father, 
 nor the pledged fealty of a church-member. It 
 is virtue that gives soundness and security to 
 all the sentiments ; and he who has compan- 
 ions without it should have buttons to his 
 pockets. 
 
 There is no love like self-love. But this is 
 among the high-minded and virtuous. For who 
 of these does not prize his own nature and 
 tastes and hopes, to that extent that he would 
 not exchange them for any others ? Who would 
 sell himself out for any mortal he knows ? We 
 are all egotists to this degree, that we would 
 not barter our lots, all in all, with crowned heads 
 and millionn aires. Especially the worthy will 
 have self-regards that shall set them at the very 
 centre of the universe. And so there will be no 
 
OUR ELECT. 55 
 
 extension of love like that which shall remain 
 most like self-love. 
 
 That to which my heart is most given in my 
 own nature is that to which in another my chief 
 interest turns, and my highest attachment will 
 be transferred. I vibrate, like a sensitive string, 
 to my favorite notes, by whomsoever they are 
 struck. I embrace my own in all, since that 
 is most dear to me. For this reason, my new 
 friends will seem like my old ones, and as if 
 I had long known them. My preference will 
 be for a common type of character ; and my com- 
 panions would be instantly at home with each 
 other. I cannot make any choice but from the 
 same general rank, and any others would be 
 speckled birds in this flock : it is a process of 
 self-extension ; and my last friendship is, there- 
 fore, not a new one, for the reason that the same 
 essential qualities reoccur in it. I know not 
 how to escape from my own nature in any act, 
 ' and much less in any act of the heart ; and so 
 my friend is but some more of my own person- 
 ality. I have always known him, although I 
 first saw him yesterday ; and if he leaves me 
 to-morrow, he is still mine, as carrying my iden- 
 tity and sympathy. We have nothing new for 
 each other, save a few indifferent scraps of 
 
56 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 autobiography; but that which is old between 
 us is never old, but, like beauty, it is youthful 
 and a joy for ever. 
 
 If I never fall sick of myself, — as I shall not, 
 if I am moral, and have elevation of mind, and 
 feel just and gladdening relations to the uni- 
 verse ; if I am vital and real to myself, — then 
 shall I never fall sick of my friend, who is like 
 me. These qualities can never weary me for 
 their fitness to my being. They are like beauty 
 to the eye, sweet sounds to the ear, or adapted 
 viands to the taste. The relations are perfect 
 and charming. Without end my friend shall 
 bring me to my better self, and I shall recall 
 him from his eccentric and cheap associations to 
 his true centre ; and the sun shall sooner cease 
 than this mutual glow of our hearts, so long as 
 we remain what we are. For there is no monot- 
 ony in the interplay of like and like on this plane, 
 but a perpetual miracle of newness. Human 
 nature never tires at the top, but only at its 
 base. It is passion that cloys, as somewhat that 
 is rank and from the ground ; but the finer 
 sentiments, which are one with divinity, will for 
 ever rejoice in themselves. 
 
 The clue to a better circle of friends is a 
 better self-qualification. We shall be admitted 
 
 
OUK ELECT. 57 
 
 to the rank to which we belong, being ourselves 
 the card which entitles to admission. Merit 
 holds the key to all the locks, and is sure of its 
 welcome in the end, whatever passwords and 
 masonries parties may affect at first, or however 
 coldly they ask, "Who are you? " The saying 
 is older than our era, and expresses the fine 
 sense of the Hindoos, that " no stone is left out 
 of the wall that is fitted for a place in it." We 
 shall at length be known and taken for what we 
 are, and our friends will be as our deserving. It 
 is never caprice or custom which determines the 
 final vote, but the fitness of things. Make a 
 better character, and you will find better friends. 
 Gabriel himself and his peers are waiting to greet 
 you in their likeness, and will then yield their 
 best hours to your presence. 
 
 The exceptions to this rule of like and like 
 are only seeming ; and the common saying, that 
 " opposites attract," will not bear the test. 
 There can be no friendships of unlikeness, be- 
 cause no key of understanding and no basis of 
 unity ; but there may be friendships of less and 
 more of the same kind, and of that which is com- 
 mon to parties otherwise opposite. Old Thomas 
 Hobart used to say of verses " written in sacke, 
 yet not in sense, nobody can understand them 
 
58 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 unless he be first drunke." The point of unity 
 must be secured in all cases where a fair criti- 
 cism is to be rendered. And how much more, 
 where heart and heart are to enter into mutual 
 understanding and sympathy ! 
 
 Oil and water will not mix ; but introduce an 
 alkali which will pervade both, and you have a 
 common quality whereby to draw on a union. 
 Thus, Goethe and Schiller were, in the main, con- 
 trasts. The biographer of the former says : " One 
 has the majesty of repose, the other of conflict. 
 Goethe's frame is massive, imposing, — he seems 
 much taller than he is: Schiller's frame is dis- 
 proportioned, — he seems less than he is. Goethe 
 holds himself stiffly erect : the long-necked Schil- 
 ler ' walks like a camel.' Goethe's chest is like 
 the torso of Theseus : Schiller's is bent, and has 
 lost a lung . . . Goethe wrote in the freshness 
 of morning, entirely free from stimulus : Schiller 
 worked in the feverish hours of the night, stimu- 
 lating his languid brain with coffee and cham- 
 pagne. One was the representative of realism, 
 and the other of idealism. Goethe always strove 
 to let Nature have free development, and pro- 
 duce the highest forms of Humanity ; Schiller 
 always pining for something greater than Nat- 
 ure, wishing to make men demigods." And yet 
 
 
OUR ELECT. 59 
 
 these great poets were great friends. For there 
 was still a likeness hidden away at the centre 
 of their unlikeness. They were both poets, 
 and shared in common high religious instincts. 
 They were alike dedicated to art. They were 
 both inspired with a generous desire to please 
 and elevate their kind by their labors. And 
 our author acids : " The phases of their devel- 
 opment had been very similar, and had brought 
 them to a similar standing-point. They both 
 began rebelliously ; they both emerged from 
 titanic lawlessness in emerging from youth 
 to manhood." The secret of their lofty and 
 charming fellowship is no secret. And there 
 is ever a similar explanation where apparent 
 social inaptitudes are- found in company. 
 
 The perfect friendships of men and women, 
 where custom and constraint have not inter- 
 fered, would seem to show that differing degrees 
 of the same kind are favorable when there is a 
 mutual balance of superiorities ; that is, where 
 each finds in the other a complement of self. 
 The dominant in each awakens and gladdens 
 the latent in each. There takes place a cross- 
 ing of sentiments ; and the new selfhood thus 
 set into active play is the precious miracle 
 of this intercourse. The man is wrought into 
 
60 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 her gentleness and grace, and is charmed, like 
 one awaking from sleep to a June morning. 
 The woman has her will and energy aroused 
 by his greater forcefulness, and is delighted, 
 like one who finds fresh treasure. It is the 
 new birth and spring-time of dormant traits ; 
 the play of unused and well-rested powers ; 
 the sweet sense of versatility in our perform- 
 ance ; the pride of a discovery to our credit, — 
 that we are each of us two instead of one, two 
 in one, as the tragedian likes to find that he is 
 at home in comedy, and the droll would feel that 
 he is equal to the role of Richard. Dr. Johnson 
 enjoyed in himself a milder side when he visited, 
 as he so often did, Mrs. Thrale ; and she found, 
 to her delight, that she was wiser and stronger 
 in his company. So I regard all the famous or 
 obscure friendships of men and women as the 
 response of like to like, but ordinarily of less to 
 more. It is a mutual sense of new life. It is 
 another world than the one we mostly live in, 
 but one to which we have native or constitu- 
 tional passports. But friendship, in its perfect 
 degree, will scarcely be tolerated, in an unchaste 
 age, between the sexes ; and, in all but the 
 latest stages of life, its tendency must be to pass 
 into the passional glow of love. Some one has 
 
OUR ELECT. 61 
 
 said, " There are no friends between sex and 
 sex, but only acquaintances and lovers." 
 
 But while this high relation is that of kindred 
 spirits, time supplies some elements to its per- 
 fection. But who, in these days of haste, has 
 time to give to making friendships ? We exact 
 a price that our age is not ready to pay. " Sell 
 us what you can for money, but offer us nothing 
 which is to be bought with patience, stability, 
 waiting in the same relations for results to ripen, 
 holding our serenity and openness year after 
 year toward the same parties. For we must 
 whirl with the whirling world, and keep pace with 
 the swift round of sensations." Well, as you 
 will ; but there can be no ideal companionship 
 where Time is not permitted to set his seal and 
 harden his wax. Age is needful to this as to 
 wine. George the Third said he liked his 
 old friends and old shoes best. Time is the 
 universal finisher of all jobs well begun, — adds 
 still higher and better degrees to our best work, 
 rubs down the sharpness of its lines, overcomes 
 the rawness of its tone. The artist says when 
 he lays aside his brush, at the end of his task, 
 " My picture will be more perfect in ten years 
 than it is to-day." Age and use mellow the 
 violin, and put the last degree of perfection 
 
62 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 in its tone, as no manufacturer at Cremona or 
 Apsam knows how to do. We are conform- 
 ists, and constituted to reactions, — by slow 
 degrees. How custom conquers and has its 
 way with us ! Never will we adopt this ugly 
 style ! but next year we are reconciled, and have 
 it on, as if a new sense had been induced in the 
 eye. Who can parry the spirit of the age ? We 
 all carry the local tj-pe ; and, if you have good 
 eyes, you shall see that this is a New-Englander, 
 and that a Jerseyman, and the other a Buck- 
 eye. "Ah! sir, I see you are from Nova Sco- 
 tia," we say, as one from that quarter hails us 
 for direction or the time of the day. The an- 
 cients thought they explained Ulysses by saying 
 that he was brought up in " craggy Ithaca." 
 Who can elude this general influence? Who 
 can escape the climate and the land ? There is 
 an invisible spirit abroad in nature and society, 
 to which we give in conformity, at length, the 
 very bones of our bodies, our complexions, and 
 the fashion of our souls. How much more, 
 then, shall friendship work upon us in its own 
 interest to effect the likeness in which it lives 
 and has its being ! Every day will add to 
 the degree of its cohesion ; every year, every 
 decade is another and longer chapter in this 
 
OTTK ELECT. 63 
 
 sweet story of blending hearts. Tastes gradu- 
 ally conform. Virtues assume finer aspects 
 when tried and proved ; and even defects, if 
 not too glaring, become at length enchanted, and 
 what would we do but copy and share them ? 
 We have it from Plutarch that Plato's friends 
 at length admired and imitated his stoop, Aris- 
 totle's his lisp, and Alexander's the inclination 
 of his neck and rapidity of his speech. All the 
 heart's heroes are beautiful to the eye and imi- 
 table. Friendship is a contagion ; we invite its 
 precious inoculations: it is a reciprocity, and 
 insures an interchange of talents and tenden- 
 cies, and a mutual adoption of tears and joys. 
 Familiarity draws on sympathy and oneness be- 
 tween souls, as between us and the hills which 
 come to be something more and better than 
 hills ; or between us and a house, — say the 
 one we were born in, and lived in for those 
 twenty wonderful years, which is now more 
 than a house, even a shrine, or castle, that we 
 would guard with bayonets if it were needful. 
 Time ripens confidence, and we dare reckon on 
 this heat between us as we dare trust the sun, 
 and shall count on his coming and smiling to- 
 morrow morning, because he has been steady 
 and true so long. After five or ten years of con- 
 
64 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 sistency and devotion, it is time to think we 
 have found a friend ; but we shall be still better 
 assured in twenty years, in forty doubt will 
 have ceased. 
 
 But why strive to tell the extent and variety 
 of Time's contributions to friendship ? Is not 
 the whole universe ascending from age to age, as 
 if in duration there were held in store the bet- 
 ter and the best? Eternity has its arms full 
 wherewith to reward our patience and perse- 
 verance. 
 
 A true friendship is its own end, and need 
 look to no other. What would we but just to 
 be together ? That is first and chief. What we 
 want mainly is our friend, not the chaff he brings 
 us about matters and things, although that at 
 his hand is something superior, like river water 
 from the Jordan or Nile. We seek him for him- 
 self, and not his offices, which are the mere 
 shadows of his presence. The moment we set 
 ourselves in the relation of mutual conveniences, 
 we are degraded, being no more friends, but 
 self-seeking parasites. Amity is as essential to 
 this compact as beauty to a picture ; whilst 
 service is incidental, and not at all to be reck- 
 oned on. This alliance is for its own sake. 
 We make ourselves over to each other, as free 
 
OUR ELECT. 65 
 
 as genuine lovers of selfish calculations; and 
 the overplus of mutual uses is that free gra- 
 tuity which Heaven entails upon every exalted 
 relation. First love, and then whatever comes 
 after. First the feast of hearts, and then a 
 little tea and toast for the stomach. First a 
 sacred evening, and then such a bed as the 
 house affords. My friend, I want thee, not 
 thine ! Thy highest eloquence is thy pres- 
 ence, and not thy speech ! The heart is a royal 
 gift ; but the hands can only bring some cheap 
 trumpery. " If a man should importune me," 
 said Montaigne, " to give the reason why I loved 
 him, I find it could no otherwise be expressed 
 than by making answer, because it was he, be- 
 cause it was I." 
 
 We seek some things for our sake alone. The 
 act is selfish, having in it no reciprocal or 
 returning impulse. Much of our activity is 
 legitimately void of generous prompting, since 
 we deal with dead matter which can only serve 
 us, and not we it. Here are oranges to be 
 sucked, and thrown away; almanacs for this 
 year's news of the moon and tides, and next 
 year's waste-basket ; garments for their warmth 
 and gloss, and then for the ragman ; and a thou- 
 sand and one elements, — gold, silver, copper, 
 
 5 
 
66 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 iron, earth, air, water, electricity, odor, &c, — 
 which serve, but cannot be served. Our 
 education is a little dangerous, like handling 
 fire-arms. And it would seem that, with some, 
 this self-referring habit has become a mastery 
 and carries the whole nature along with it, — 
 for they make friends in the same way. Their 
 smiles are selfish fascinations and cruel lures ; 
 their civilities are tentacles ; their sweet words 
 are some mere notes of the sirens, and like 
 Ulysses' sailors we need wax in our ears ; 
 their friendship is a velvet paw : that is, they 
 want not you, but yours. It is a stroke of 
 policy based on calculation, like the solution of 
 a problem in algebra, — with politicians, their 
 ruling passion, so that you know they will ad- 
 dress the Saurians as "my friends and honored 
 fellow-citizens ; " with many merchants, a sly 
 approach to your pocket, or in the interest of 
 large and paying sales ; with the vain, a buying 
 of more praise with less ; and with a somebody 
 who crosses every one's path, a worming into 
 one's good graces to command secrets, influences, 
 gifts, feathers to soften a nest, and access to 
 desired ends and elevations. The rich and 
 powerful are especially exposed ; and an ancient 
 king seems to have been justly wise, who had 
 
OUB, ELECT. . 67 
 
 all his friends drunk once a year and thus trans- 
 parent : — 
 
 " Now do I play the touch, 
 To try if thou be current gold indeed." 
 
 There are natures, we must believe, so quick 
 and true that the least sham of friendliness, or 
 a looking beyond itself, is instantly detected and 
 barred out. They scent the enemy ; and this 
 is especially true of women except where love 
 impairs their moral sensibility. But most of us 
 are accessible through our greedy appetite for 
 regards, and fall easy victims to this craft. Ti- 
 mon's friends were all leeches, but with his self- 
 biassed eye, watching eagerly for laudatory signs, 
 he saw it not so : they covered him with smiles, 
 but with an eye to his head butler ; their fine 
 protestations meant only more of his dinners 
 and festivals, or more of his checks, to satisfy 
 their imperious creditors and buy off the sheriffs, 
 or to carry their last financial ventures to suc- 
 cessful ends. We have all had our foot in this 
 inviting trap, and know the friendship that is an 
 artifice, and not its own sufficient end. Judas 
 betrayed us with a kiss. For a puff we suffered 
 ourselves to be taken in and done for. The 
 artful refer to our " well-known charity," and 
 we pass them our pocket-book. But let us 
 
68 AT OUB BEST. 
 
 set it down as the last limit of baseness to have 
 our friends as pawns to play our game with. 
 Let us take our shoes off, and come to them 
 with uncovered heads and the most perfect de- 
 gree of sincerity, as we approach our altars of 
 prayer. 
 
 The true end is our friend ; and we shall only 
 think how we can serve him, and not how 
 he can serve us. Friendship is no pound-for- 
 pound policy ; or, as Cicero has well said in his 
 masterly essay, " It scorns to poise the bal- 
 ance so exactly equal that nothing shall be 
 placed in the one scale without its equivalent 
 in the other." It may ask a favor, but only with 
 a spirit that would return a greater, so that its 
 asking is in spirit a conferring ; whilst its main 
 impulse is to bestow with an utter disregard of 
 return, as the flower blooms and the sun shines, 
 and all nature is free expenditure. The eye 
 looks from this mount only one way. The law 
 of this height is overflow, as Byron said, in some 
 of his moods, " I must write or burst." 
 
 The world has no better text to this point 
 than the old story of Damon and Pj^thias, which, 
 to preserve its best flavor, I quote as it stands 
 in the " Percy Anecdotes." " Damon being 
 condemned to death by Dionysius, Tyrant of 
 
OUR ELECT. 69 
 
 Syracuse, obtained liberty to visit his wife and 
 children, leaving his friend Pythias as a pledge 
 for his return, on condition that if he failed 
 Pythias should suffer in his stead. At the 
 appointed time, Damon failed in appearing, 
 and the tyrant had the curiosity to visit Py- 
 thias in prison. ' What a fool you was,' said 
 he, ' tb rely on Damon's promise ! How could 
 you imagine that he would sacrifice his life 
 for you or for any man ? ' ' My lord,' said Py- 
 thias, with a firm voice and noble aspect, ' I 
 would suffer a thousand deaths, rather than my 
 friend should fail in any article of honor. He 
 cannot fail. I am confident of his virtue, as I 
 am of my own existence. But I beseech the 
 gods to preserve his life. Oppose him, ye winds ! 
 Disappoint his eagerness, and suffer him not to 
 arrive till my death has saved a life of much 
 greater consequence than mine, — necessary to 
 his lovely wife, to his little innocents, to his 
 friends, to his country. Oh ! let me not die the 
 cruellest of deaths in that of my Damon.' Dio- 
 nysius was confounded, and awed with the mag- 
 nanimity of these sentiments. He wished to 
 speak: he hesitated; he looked down, and re- 
 tired in silence. The fatal day arrived. Pythias 
 was brought forth, and with an air of satisfaction 
 
70 AT OUB BEST. 
 
 walked to the place of execution. He ascended 
 the scaffold, and addressed the people. ' My 
 prayers are heard : the gods are propitious ; the 
 winds have been contrary. Damon could not 
 conquer impossibilities : he will be here to- 
 morrow, and my blood shall ransom that of my 
 friend.' As he pronounced these words a buzz 
 arose ; a distant voice was heard ; the crowd 
 caught the words, and ; Stop, stop, executioner ! ' 
 was repeated by every person. A man came at 
 full speed. In the same instant he was off his 
 horse, on the scaffold, and in the arms of Pythias. 
 1 You are safe ! ' he cried ; ' you are safe, my 
 friend ! The gods be praised, you are safe ! ' Pale 
 and half speechless, in the arms of his Damon, 
 Pythias replied in broken accents : c Fatal haste, 
 cruel impatience. What envious powers have 
 wrought impossibilities against your friend ! but 
 I will not be wholly disappointed. Since I can- 
 not die to save you, I will die to accompany you.' 
 Dionysius heard and beheld with astonishment. 
 His eyes were opened ; his heart was touched ; 
 and he could no longer resist the power of virtue. 
 He descended from his throne, and ascended the 
 scaffold. ' Live, live, ye incomparable pair ! 
 Ye have demonstrated the existence of virtue, 
 and consequently of a God who rewards it. Live 
 
 
OUR ELECT. 71 
 
 happy, live revered ; and as you have invited me 
 by your example, form me by your precepts to 
 participate worthily of a friendship so divine.' " 
 Who can tell the value of a friend ? Diderot 
 said of the Abbe Galiani, " He is a treasure 
 in rainy days ; and if the cabinet-makers made 
 such things, everybody would have one in the 
 house." u Mr. Walpole is to me spirits of harts- 
 horn," said Lady Townsend. " It is your destiny 
 to inspire, mine to be inspired," said Ballanche 
 to Madame Recamier. " Your voice is music to 
 my soul," said Alexander the Emperor of Russia 
 to Madame de Kriidener. " I protest against 
 your long silences," wrote Madame Swetchine to 
 her priestly friend Lacordaire. These are notes 
 from the chorus. But what wonder is too great 
 for the presence of a true friend to accomplish ? 
 The doctor has no such medicine for the head- 
 ache. Punch is a quack in comparison, for the 
 treatment of the blues. A north-west wind is 
 not so good to clear the fog from the mind, and 
 set all things in a bright light. It was a doc- 
 trine of the Cabalists that an " angel who spends 
 seven days on earth becomes opaque : " it is a 
 doctrine with all the world, that he who comes 
 to a wise and virtuous friend is speedily aflame 
 with light. 
 
72 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 When goodness attracts us, policemen and 
 prisons may be spared, and sermons and prayers 
 will have chiefly a devotional value. But akin 
 to virtue, as a lure to the right paths, is the 
 regard we have for a worthy friend. We are 
 debtors to our elect. We live to the eye and 
 heart of our friends, — who knows how much ? 
 We miss their moral bracing among strangers ; 
 and must it be confessed that only one man in 
 ten can safely visit Paris or New York alone ? 
 Affection breeds a finer sense of justice ; and 
 only the lover of the whole race is equal to 
 courtesy everywhere, and would be as true to 
 Sandwich Islanders as to his next-door neigh- 
 bors. But love is also a spur to ambition. He 
 who has a circle of true friends, who make his 
 triumphs their joy, whose pulses quicken when 
 he plucks victory from high places, has some- 
 thing more to live for than the vagabond or 
 hermit, who is severed from the interest of his 
 kind. All flowers bloom and blush, say the 
 Orientals, to glorify the sun. 
 
 The generosity of friendship where the 
 worldly conditions are unequal needs to be 
 managed with great delicacy and discretion, 
 and often checked ; since it may subject our 
 other self to undue stress or humiliation. We 
 
OUR ELECT. 73 
 
 must impose no heavy burdens on our friends, 
 and need to see that generosity, in some cases, 
 is rather in withholding than conferring, as spar- 
 ing a bitter sense of dependence and undis- 
 charged obligation. When benefactions are 
 unequal between friends, as from rich to poor, 
 it requires rare management to sustain the del- 
 icate and perfect balance of relations. The case 
 is hopeless unless the emphasis be steadily held 
 on the social qualities, — the fellowship of hearts 
 and the equal worth of souls. The money-test 
 must be wholly set aside and forgotten, or the 
 rich must bring his riches as if they were no 
 more his than his friend's. It is a good fortune 
 when all the conditions are level, and gifts, save 
 those which are for tokens and not values, are 
 out of order ; or when a superiority on one side 
 is balanced by some superiority on the other ; 
 for, in lieu of this, only the rarest felicity will 
 serve to shield friendship from damage. 
 
 And now we have our hand in, let us have 
 another caution. Friendship may be selfish, not 
 as between friend and friend, but between its 
 circle of two or ten and those outside. It often 
 subverts broader relations, and destroys a com- 
 prehensive justice and courtesy. According 
 to Aristotle, " Those friendships which are 
 
74 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 most celebrated are between two only ; " but 
 these two must not be too exclusive at the 
 party and before the public. Our darlings 
 must part from each other's arms when they 
 entef company. They must take stock in hu- 
 manity, and hide their intense duality as some- 
 what that is invidious in the social circle, since 
 it is a virtual and uncomplimentary declaration 
 that beyond two letters the rest of the alphabet 
 is quite uninteresting, and to be set aside. And 
 is it not, moreover, a breach of honor to accept 
 an invitation to the party, and not join the party 
 and further its ideal unity and spirit ? Should 
 not Maggie and Mamie, who have not come out 
 of their mutual relations for the evening, apolo- 
 gize to the company before leaving it ? I regard 
 the closest friendship a private interest, which 
 we shall spare before the world to a large ex- 
 tent, and adopt other obligations. This golden 
 band must be unbuckled much of the time, or 
 gracefully concealed, and we must be true to 
 other ties. We must not buy friendship by sell- 
 ing courtesy, but remain still unselfish, and re- 
 cognize cordially and generously even the race 
 itself; and our private affection, if truly wor- 
 thy, will generate these expansions, as the 
 mother in rightly loving her own child learns 
 
OUR ELECT. 75 
 
 to love all children. If you would feel that 
 you live among worthy men and women, make 
 a study of the best specimens of the race. It 
 is a happy discipline of the eye, giving it a 
 quicker sense to detect the same traits in com- 
 mon life thereafter. There is no monopoly of 
 the virtues, as there are no equivalents for them. 
 All the coal is not found at Newcastle ; and if 
 there is * one hero and saint, there are many. 
 And so our best friend should interpret and 
 exalt humanity to us, and be a point of diver- 
 gence for our love and polite considerations. 
 
 In sailing on this famous stream — the Rhine 
 of the heart — there is a Scylla and Charybdis 
 to be shunned. A dainty attention disgusts the 
 sensible, who are not pets to be stroked and 
 caressed. It is to their credit to take them on 
 trust, and treat their sentiment as strong and 
 secure. But no more is a friend, because willing 
 and forbearing, to be crushed into corners and 
 put to low uses, and presumed upon and insulted 
 at will. Let us surround him with due respects 
 and courtesies, like those which guard the queen 
 on her throne. 
 
III. 
 
 DAILY SUNSHINE. 
 
 " We must run glittering, like a brook, 
 In the sunshine, or we are unblest." 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 M What's i' the air? — 
 Some subtle spirit runs through all my veins, 
 Hope seems to ride this morning on the wind, 
 And joy outshines the sun." 
 
 Proctor's Mirandola. 
 
 /CHEERFULNESS differs from rapture as 
 ^^ humor from wit. It is a lower tone of 
 that scale whose highest note is ecstasy. It is 
 an every-day measure of gladness, and should 
 be an affair of the kitchen, shop, and street, — 
 the angel ever at our side, the sunshine always 
 abroad ; whilst it takes the whole breadth of 
 the morning, or evening, or mountain, favorably 
 seen, and not a mere keyhole view, to draw on 
 emotional overflows and outbursts of joy. One 
 notices that even Niagara must have time and 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 77 
 
 good subjects to gain a high victory ; nor can a 
 great painting be caught on the run, as a boy 
 takes his lunch, but yields its best effect only 
 loftily and leisurely. There is no sublimity of 
 ideas that can inundate and enchant us with 
 bliss at every corner. And what serves to-day 
 may fail to-morrow, as if Nature were an econo- 
 mist of her power to thrill us, as parents hold 
 rare privileges in some reserve from their 
 children ; or she understands that the best 
 would cease to be best if made common, as too 
 much sweet sickens, and excess of pastime 
 palls. 
 
 We are strung to a lower key ; and the more 
 we find our real nature, through culture and 
 growth, the more we find this is so. Beauty, for 
 example, is simple, to the extent of being inde- 
 finable ; and the best taste in art will have 
 neutral tints and low tones. The pictures and 
 statues which are done to the approval and 
 delight of the ages, and will always be in ad- 
 vance of the times, are modest and plain. The 
 truest and best livers avoid expense and topheavi- 
 ness, and emphasize the ordinary and real. An 
 advance of years is ever away from special feats, 
 — holidays, shows, fireworks, and gingerbread, 
 and all wild climaxes of emotion, which are so 
 
78 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 precious to the raw ajid unripe youth, — toward 
 good averages and fine eveiy-day moods. And 
 what is civilization but a reduction of noisy and 
 tempestuous aboriginal impulses, and a better 
 observance of law and order, — an exchange of 
 jungles for clearings, of allegories and mytholo- 
 gies for a little more common sense, and of a 
 wild chaos of passions for the perfect peace of 
 high principles ? And do not these abatements, 
 coming with the progress of man, seem to indi- 
 cate that cheerfulness is a better staple grade of 
 sensibility than ecstasy or rapture, — that the 
 lower is really the higher tone, and the very soul 
 of the celestial music ? 
 
 It is something gained to have learned that 
 a handful of modest violets, or a cluster of the 
 trailing-arbutus for a button-hole, are better 
 than a gaudy sunflower or pompous peony ; that 
 the annuals outrank the century-plant ; that a 
 plenty of tallow candles is superior to Bengal 
 lights ; that a little sparkling water to our daily 
 thirst, and plenty of beaded dew on the grass, 
 and films of roseate mist floating in the sunset 
 sky, and lakelets here and there in the landscapes, 
 to the eye, are more than Niagara, which is not 
 much to those who live by it, and would scarcely 
 serve us any better. It is at least a practical 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 79 
 
 point gained to have our ideal joys set thus 
 within easier reach ; for how often have we led 
 a barren chase after rapture, when we might 
 easily enough have overtaken the finer and gen- 
 tler degrees of cheerfulness, — as children watch, 
 with chilled blood, for northern lights and com- 
 ets, which come or stay as they list, and at best 
 but rudely impress our senses, and are blind 
 to the serene glow and spiritual sparkle of the 
 stars, which they may enjoy who will, and night 
 by night. 
 
 Greatness condescends, and hides in lowly 
 guises and scenes. Real kings like to flee from 
 their thrones, and steal away into cottages and 
 corners and forests, and have a rural delight and 
 peace. It is a .mark of low breeding to count 
 only on the remote and rare, and hold ourselves 
 in waiting for the chariots and steeds of the sun ; 
 as it was said by quaint Thomas Fuller that 
 "it is no pastime with country clowns that 
 tumbles and tosses not the whole body ; they 
 think themselves not warm till they are all on 
 fire-, and count it but dry sport till they swim 
 in their own sweat." But angels go quiet, and 
 are open to a legion of gentle pleasures and 
 silent voices and secret charms. One's best 
 idea of heaven is not of an Indian pow-wow or 
 
80 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 old-fashioned camp-meeting, but of somewhat 
 more private and free from uproar. 
 
 Cheerfulness is more or less affected by mat- 
 ters quite out of our reach, such as tempera- 
 ment, the state of the nerves, climate, aspects of 
 Nature, the falling out of circumstances ; and so 
 far we can have nothing to say, since rhetoric or 
 incantations will come too late to serve. These 
 things will not be made to our order. If we are 
 born Celts or Saxous, or of these parents and 
 not of those, to that extent there is nothing to 
 be said. Blood has got the start, and decides ; 
 and a perfect chemical analysis should be able 
 to announce of one red drop, " This has frolic in 
 it, and is on the dance ; " and of another, " This 
 reveals a coolness and a shade, as if generated 
 in dark groves." The original length of our 
 faces is a piece of fate^ and is to be taken for 
 what it is, and made the best of by later care 
 and painstaking, — as an artist would take a 
 statue or picture at any given point, and spend 
 his skill on the needed modifications. We 
 are not our own makers, but may be our own 
 menders. 
 
 There is no denying it, — the stars dance over 
 some cradles as they do not over others, and 
 occult causes tell on our destiny. 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 81 
 
 " All pleasant things Atrides doth adorn ; 
 The merry genius smiled when he was born/ 
 
 Plutarch said tliat " Crates, with only his scrip 
 and tattered cloak, laughed out his life jocosely, 
 as if he had been always at a festival." There 
 are plenty of Merry- Andrews, with their mouths 
 stretched from ear to ear, and their eyes full 
 to the brim of ludicrous lights, always coming 
 to the surface by birth and secret favor. We 
 know not what happy bargain has been made in 
 their behalf, but we know full well they con- 
 stitute a laughing brotherhood, independent of 
 any earthly rite of initiation that can be taken 
 note of. Shall we say they have descended 
 from some pre-existent merry club? or that 
 some angel has volunteered to attend and tickle 
 their noses ? 
 
 But let us, who are not so divinely born, take 
 a little Christian comfort in noting how these 
 jocular zanies hold their risible gifts ever at 
 the peril of falling out of order with them. 
 They carry the dance beyond daylight, drag the 
 festival to the funeral, and have the mirror of 
 propriety broken in all directions ; for which 
 they have to pay heavy — the heedless rogues ! 
 — in the black coin of mortifications, apologies, 
 heart-burnings, and more chances to stay away 
 
 6 
 
82 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 from refined circles. "No one," said Richter, 
 " is more profoundly sad than he who laughs 
 too much." Or, we should say, when frolic 
 betrays poverty of fine feeling, and is a selfish 
 zest, it is good fortune to escape it, and share 
 a wiser and safer soberness. Drummond said 
 severely of Ben Jonson, but we hope not truly, 
 " He was given rather to lose a friend than a 
 jest." But not without deserving has laughter 
 a bad name for being a little wayward and 
 reckless on occasions. The buffoon is never a 
 man of heart, since he aims to cover you or your 
 act with ridicule, and drinks his wine of delight 
 at your expense. 
 
 On the other hand, we are not to look for 
 exemption from the effects of climate, weather, 
 the face of Nature, or the play of fortune. We 
 are constituted to reactions ; are made to feel 
 acutely our relations ; are harps in the hands 
 of the whole choir of harpers, who are on 
 the ground before us, or in spite of us, and 
 who will draw their own music in major or 
 minor keys. We are not stoics, and cannot be. 
 There is no such thing as indifference, save in 
 the mere name. I gladly own to the happy 
 sway of fair weather, with a wind west by north- 
 west ; and I have to confess I have no philoso- 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 83 
 
 phy or religion which enables me to enchant the 
 clouds and chilly air that sweep out of the east, 
 and make them as if they were not. I can, to 
 a degree, sweeten every bitter, and will do my 
 best ; but still that element is in the cup, and 
 will appear to the taste. A dreary waste is not 
 a park, and refuses to affect us so. Norway 
 will not look like Italy to any pair of eyes that 
 still have sanity in them ; nor can Norwegians 
 be sunny and singing and laughing, like their 
 brothers and sisters of the balmy South. We 
 must not look for the most cheerful music and 
 a fully happy art and literature, out of the tem- 
 perate belt that girdles the earth. You must 
 be an Oriental, bathed in opium atmospheres, 
 and moved by Arabian or Hindoo skies, to reach 
 that dreamy imagination which is the delight 
 and glory of the East. The complexions of the 
 world crop out on our faces, and who can help 
 it? All the cosmetics we know of come too 
 late. What is history but a record of the 
 sway of scenes and events over the feelings ? 
 and we should not expect the old Hebrews 
 could draw from their harps or voices the same 
 happy notes in captivity as in Canaan, nor that 
 exiles should be as merry as citizens. The 
 farmers heart must take somewhat of its tone 
 
84 AT OtTK BEST. 
 
 from the seasons. Grief has an iron point, and 
 leaves its mark in spite of faith and sympathy 
 and the best sermons. 
 
 But looking at these features of Nature and 
 fortune, which cast forth shadows upon the 
 spirit, as clouds darken the landscape, let us be 
 slow to accuse Providence. The universe is 
 created in the interest of cheerfulness ; and the 
 slight qualifications, to a sufficiently broad view, 
 are indifferent, like a moment less or more on 
 or off eternity. Let us confide that the world 
 is well made and well managed ; that it is a 
 music-box, with no more minor notes than a 
 perfect art requires. Nature is all benefits and 
 blessings. All her dragons, look they never so 
 rough, are to be mounted and ridden to a pur- 
 pose. She is a faithful friend, because at once 
 infinitely wise and infinitely good. She does 
 her part to fill all the plates. Start your inven- 
 tory of fine colors and forms, and where will 
 you end ? What variety and profusion of flav- 
 ors and relishes for this little tasting patch 
 of the mouth ! And we well-nigh ask, in the 
 moment of rapt thought, if God has neglected 
 all else to attend to these things ! But no. The 
 delights mount with the rank of desires and the 
 power to appropriate the better and the best. 
 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 85 
 
 There are finer furnishings for the finer nature, 
 to the last limit of ascension. We rise but to 
 reach greater riches and more precious relations ; 
 and attainment still fosters hope. Everything 
 is for the best, that is a native belonging to the 
 universe : — 
 
 " Our times are in God's hands, and all our days 
 Are as our needs ; for shadow as for sun, 
 For cold as heat, for want as wealth, alike 
 Our thanks are due, since that is best which is." 
 
 To insure cheerfulness, let us join Nature, and 
 journey in her company, as we would join a wise 
 and good friend who knows the best road, and 
 is going our way, and will gladden the hours 
 for us with genial communions. Joy will be 
 found in sharing the spirit and method of the 
 world, and not playing at cross-purposes ; in 
 accepting and obeying the high dictations from 
 head-quarters, and pushing aside our little ca- 
 prices and whims. He is happy who happily 
 obeys. For example, that workman has a sure 
 source of cheer w T ho takes his hint from gravi- 
 tation, and works with and by it, in daily won- 
 der at its generous assistance, and not against 
 it. The farmer sings, as he well may, who times 
 and chimes with the seasons and soils, planting 
 in the spring, and the seed that will grow ; but 
 
86 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 how if he disregard these submissions, and sets 
 his May forward into mid-summer, and plants 
 cotton where he should corn ? It will be to our 
 pleasure and content if we keep our hearths 
 cool in summer and kindle our fires on them 
 in winter; if we ask the weather what we 
 shall wear ; consult our foot for the size of our 
 boot; accept the invitation of our stomach to 
 dinner; and respect the night-hours for sleep. 
 Nature has settled it in her wise councils, ages 
 back, how it shall be in these matters, and in all 
 others, if a perfect cheerfulness is to be looked 
 for ; and nine-tenths of our miseries are the 
 fruits of being out of joint and disobedient. We 
 wander from her road, and lose or refuse her 
 step and swing. We are not like the good rider, 
 who rises and falls gracefully with his horse ; 
 nor the good seaman, who rolls with his rolling 
 ship ; nor the good dancer, who minds the tune 
 and feels constant happy relations to tone and 
 time. On the contrary, we take the world, 
 whose oscillations and timings are yet perfect, 
 as with a heedless or conceited or criminal 
 perversity, and find our situations painful and 
 cheerless. 
 
 From the .grain of dust to the soul, and the 
 seraph, and the Supreme, there reaches the king- 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 87 
 
 dom and sway of law ; and a foregone decision, 
 perfect as geometry, or as Infinite Love, how af- 
 fairs shall proceed to the end of peace and glad- 
 ness. The right tracks are laid. The grooves were 
 anciently cut. The lights are turned on. The 
 engines are happy hits, with all the gearing made 
 to order. And the command has gone forth, 
 and goes forth evermore, to enter here and 
 advance and be glad. And will we go that 
 way ? It is through a boundless paradise, and 
 we shall sing paean out of full hearts. Or will 
 we go another ? It will be through an Infer- 
 num, and our music shall be a long and bitter 
 wail. There is daily sunshine for them who are 
 wise to the conditions, and wear furs in the arc- 
 tic regions and white pants or dresses in Florida. 
 They will be happy who regard their purses and 
 preferences, and their fitness generally, and not 
 the habits of their neighbors, nor the advertise- 
 ments of the newspapers, whether to visit, in 
 vacation time, Italy, Saratoga, or Kennebunk, or 
 stay at home. They are the happy men who are 
 self-respecting and stand to their manliness, and 
 sing bass, and fell forests, and take ships to sea, 
 and fight battles when the enemy invades, and 
 refuse to be tied up in aprons and mind nurseries ; 
 and they the happy women who are womanly, 
 
88 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and, as they are made to do, gracefully double 
 our civilization by supplying the feminine to 
 balance the masculine, making the beauty equal 
 the power, and keeping all the functions of good 
 society, as Nature appoints, in full and fine 
 play. Happy are they who honor their hearts, 
 and the best habits of the world, and marry for 
 love and the perfect home, and not for specu- 
 lation in stocks, or the setting up of a tem- 
 porary Turkish harem on free-love grounds. 
 Happy are they whose religion is true to the 
 soul, and a high and sacred freedom, and not 
 a cramping tradition or fashion, and a misfit, 
 like a Chinese shoe or an American waist. 
 
 No one crosses Nature with impunity, or but 
 to get a longer face for so doing. She delights 
 in our company, and will punish us if we desert 
 her. We join her but to overtake blessings and 
 smiles, to which all her paths lead. The key 
 to all joys is, not to contest her points, but to 
 adopt them. Joy is for him who is in advance 
 of fate on the same road, who obeys that he may 
 command, and gets the better of necessity with 
 liberty of the same kind ? 
 
 The joyful success is to find our vein, and 
 work in it. Our gifts are foreordinations which 
 foreordain, and will bring us liberty and delight 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 89 
 
 through their wise use. They will sing at their 
 right tasks, which may be this or that or the 
 other, — music, oratory, mending shoes, taming 
 lions, practising black arts and legerdemain, mak- 
 ing doors and sashes, or managing banks. By 
 allowing our powers to foreshow our way, as the 
 firefly lights its own path, or as the planet by its 
 weight and speed determines its own orbit, we 
 shall be sure of a cheerful on-going. Our careers 
 will be agreeable to our being when they are 
 births and outgrowths from it. The society that 
 is free from mannerism is always agreeable to 
 itself, whether rough or refined, as Nature loves 
 her own atmosphere best. All is well and a 
 source of delight, so long as the rustic keeps to 
 his rusticity, and Jonathan does not allow a new 
 suit of clothes to set him into false relations ; 
 and Molly, the farmer's daughter, does not adopt 
 some academy patois instead of her native tongue ; 
 and all of us are true to what we are, and escape 
 the cramps and frictions of assumed parts. All 
 is charming and cheerful, so long as birds fly and 
 fishes swim, and souls respect their spheres. 
 
 If what is one man's meat is another man's 
 poison, then they have a good fortune who find 
 and feed from their native dish, to which their 
 taste and stomach are fitted. Izaak Walton, 
 
90 AT OUH BEST. 
 
 who had a piscatorial temperament, — which is 
 about half-and-half laziness and love of nature, 
 — was in bliss all the forenoon, at the end of a 
 fish-pole, with a single nibble and no haul ; but 
 a friend of his raved and broke his rod in disgust 
 at the end of fifteen impatient minutes : which 
 signifies that for cheer one should go fishing, and 
 another should not. Some huntsmen, sharing all 
 the fondness of their craft for this laborious but 
 high sport, got Lord Burleigh to go on the chase. 
 They decoyed him with high visions of sport, 
 to which they honestly looked. But at the close 
 of the day he said, " Take me again in such a 
 fault, and I '11 give you leave to punish me." 
 But to the gamesters it was a jolly run, and 
 gave them stomach for their meat as well as 
 meat for their stomach. 
 
 All is well when our life is free and real and 
 level to its nature. And he has good fortune 
 who has so strong a bent for some craft or call- 
 ing, so powerful a determination in his brain or 
 hand, that he shall be surely brought to pursue 
 the end to which he was elected before he was 
 born. To him the da}^s will be angels. If we 
 are on the best of terms with our tasks, we shall 
 greet them every morning as we would our 
 friends. 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 91 
 
 In like manner our habits, which are securely 
 fixed, and not in conflict with our better judg- 
 ment, carry perpetual charms ; and it will be 
 much wiser to keep the lifelong harness on than 
 to cast it off, since relief is so often not relief, 
 and our fine retreat is likely to be populous 
 with miseries. There is a lesson for us in the 
 famous anecdotes : that the retired barber, in his 
 rich chateau, had to give a few free shaves daily 
 for solace ; and the wealthy butcher, who had 
 gone out of the business, was forced to compro- 
 mise and kill one lamb or two a week that he 
 might sleep well and endure the day. 
 
 As we are in possession of a company of gifts, 
 so must we realize a symphony of experiences 
 and uses. Your unhappy genius, like Rousseau, 
 Swift, Byron, Poe, or any of the moody legion, 
 who dare not look at their razors, is paying 
 the penalty of a too exclusive action, the blow- 
 ing of a single pipe of the organ, which leaves 
 many of his powers to disuse and unrest. The 
 worldling is miserable, after the first heat of 
 money-getting, in his neglect of his better being, 
 which gold cannot buy off, nor estates bring 
 into willing captivity: a higher nature sits 
 enthroned, like a divinity, in the midst of his 
 faculties, and disdains any such degrading bar- 
 
92 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 gain or treaty; and this man must consent to 
 be a whole man, or there shall be no full, sweet 
 music of life for him. The monk loses his 
 visions and peace and cheer, by forsaking his 
 just relations ; and Benedict must come back 
 from his rat-hole and sly corner, and live in all 
 the open and broad ways of this world of God. 
 There must be no thrumming on one string, but 
 a drawing of harmonious strains from the whole 
 harp. If we would see a thoroughly happy man, 
 we must look for him among those of even devel- 
 opment and diverse activity and experience ; 
 for the one - idea and one - achievement man 
 pays for his best success with a certain bit- 
 terness. 
 
 The sunny and joyous spirit of progress or 
 furtherance merits an extended notice, since it 
 involves so many delightful qualities, — such 
 as a perpetual sense of newness, like having it 
 always morning ; and of usefulness and honor ; 
 and of glad companionship with the high 
 genius of the universe, which is that of evolu- 
 tion and advance. The curse of being is culmi- 
 nation or solstice, or a stay in its processes and 
 procedure. If we have overtaken our end, we 
 shall wither like ripe leaves, or rot like ripe 
 apples, by the law of our being ; and good cheer 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 93 
 
 will be no part of our lot. He who would be 
 no more than he is, and has ceased to feel the 
 better attractions, and has fallen out of the 
 flowing current, is nobody ; and to be counted 
 out as alike void of use and gladness. We must 
 live to some purpose. We must live a growing 
 life, and have a report of progress whenever 
 we read our daily journals, and be all the time 
 cutting new notches to indicate advance. " I 
 am suffocated and lost," said Margaret Fuller, 
 " when I have not the bright feeling of pro- 
 gression." Or, rather, life reproaches itself when 
 at a stand-still. 
 
 The charm and cheer of art are in its motion 
 and furtherance. If it is not liquid and flu- 
 ent, there is a sobered aspect, from which we 
 instantly turn our eyes. No end must be suf- 
 fered ; for that is fatal and gives a Chinese daub, 
 full of sleep and death. Statues must be on the 
 run, and pictures in the act of becoming what 
 they are not, or they cannot hold us a moment, 
 but repel us as with a look of decay or smell of 
 mould. " Let us wait," said one, caught by this 
 perfect and essential illusion, as he stood gazing 
 at Rubens's great painting of the " Descent 
 from the Cross," and was lost in the spirit of the 
 scene, — " let us wait till they get him down." 
 
94 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 Let us wait, we might say, for this painted haze 
 is about to reveal illimitable mountain gran- 
 deurs ; this portrait will tell vast depths of se- 
 crets ; these angels are but the heralds of coming 
 troops, just out of sight ; these clouds are sailing 
 off, — don't you see them go ? — and we shall 
 have blue sky soon ; and this painted cow and 
 milkmaid we shall look for to-morrow, and expect 
 to find one in the pasture among the grass and 
 ferns, and the other among the pans in the dairy- 
 room. Art is thus a becoming, is on the way, 
 flows with nature, and is wreathed with the 
 perpetual smile of newness ; or it is not art. 
 Every true portrait must flatter, since we are 
 none of us, to the painter, equal to what we are 
 to ourselves ; besides it must show betterment, 
 which is also true to us, or should be. The 
 sculptured heads of some of the Roman Caesars, 
 at the Boston Athenaeum, are of the very men 
 we have been waiting for and not yet able to 
 find. They are not historical and of dead men, 
 but are full of advancement and happy anticipa- 
 tion, — arrivals from coming heroic generations. 
 And so the Greek Apollo and Venus are still 
 ideal forms, and of the future, — awaken hope, 
 but stir not memory. Indeed, were they not 
 finished last night and set up this morning ? or 
 
 J 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 95 
 
 will not some great artist, centuries hence, awake 
 out of a rare dream, and, finding chisel in hand 
 and fresh dust on his apron, claim, in all hon- 
 esty, that he wrought them ? It is thus all prog- 
 ress and life in art ; and hence its joyful spirit 
 and influence, for neither itself nor its disciples 
 will ever grow old and sober. 
 
 And so in Nature : the feeling soul soon dis- 
 covers that the seasons of greatest gladness are 
 those of greatest growth ; and that all lull is 
 loss of joy. The happy hours of the day are 
 when this queen is coming and going. It is the 
 advancing spring which sounds the merriest 
 notes of the year, and all is less tuneful in Sep- 
 tember : the birds have dropped their songs with 
 their tasks ; the lingering brooks give no music ; 
 and the ripened and spent year is less vocal 
 with gladness. How Nature strives, by gravi- 
 tation and winds, to have her waters and clouds 
 in motion, and bent on errands of grace and 
 use, lest they sadden ! It is everywhere a con*- 
 quest of circumferences, new circles encircling 
 the old, the flowing of ends into beginnings ; 
 and no finality or fixed limit whatever, — as if 
 that were a misery to be shunned. The boy 
 thinks there is but one horizon, which he sees 
 just over yonder ; but the man finds there are 
 
96 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 thousands, and believes that beyond the last is 
 another. The universe is all graduation and 
 mounting. First and lowest is melted lava, 
 then sandstone, granite, drift, water, air, and 
 electricity, and — who knows what ? There 
 is no end to the ascension, no last round in the 
 ladder ; and the German philosophers have the 
 right of it in spirit, when they define the uni- 
 verse as " an eternal becoming." Indeed, so 
 choice is Nature of development, so ascending 
 are her habits, that we half tremble to follow 
 back the links of the coil, lest we fall on strange 
 ancestors, whose acquaintance we would rather 
 not make. 
 
 And this high game of Art and Nature, al- 
 ways striking out for new and better winnings, 
 we also must play at, in our human sphere, 
 if we would find and dwell in a like cheerful 
 atmosphere. We must avoid stagnation and 
 halting in our way, or suffer a secret sense of 
 self-reproach and a weariness of spent condi- 
 tions. Augustus was happy that he was able to 
 say, " I found Rome a city of brick, and left it 
 a city of marble." And we are all made glad 
 by something to show for ourselves, having a 
 fine property in what we have done. A suc- 
 cessful day's work is a better pillow for the tired 
 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 97 
 
 man than feathers. The cat brings her mouse 
 for exhibition, and the dog is proud of the day's 
 store of game, as others than Landseer can 
 detect. Victory is magical, and inspires half 
 the world with ambition, and the other half with 
 pleasant recollections. But that we cannot hap- 
 pily repose on old things of this kind, shows the 
 necessity of progress, and the right use of every 
 moment, to our joy. The success that was of 
 yesterday is not quite the thing for to-day, but, 
 on the whole, shames us if we hold such powers 
 idle. I know of no more miserable object than 
 the man who did something ten or twenty years 
 ago, but has done nothing since except to tell of 
 that. Memory becomes his perpetual accuser 
 so, saying to him, " Thou art less and less a 
 man." The birds, one fancies, hold little or no 
 stock in their last year's nests ; and old deeds 
 can never take the place of new in this career 
 of immortals. " He may laugh that wins," says 
 the old proverb ; but not he that has got done 
 winning, and folded his powers in unworthy 
 torpor. He who has outgrown himself, and has 
 a sense of it, is so far sobered and mortified ; 
 and he who is not merely resting, but rusting 
 after toil, is put to shame as a cumberer of the 
 ground. 
 
98 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 The truly gladdening monument, wherewith 
 to have our years and lives crowned, is an advanc- 
 ing one, that admits of no capstone or comple- 
 tion. If our house, which we have built for 
 ourselves, is of so good material and so well 
 built that we may see it stretching its pro- 
 tecting roof over coming generations, a home 
 still, it will be more of a house and reflect on us 
 a higher joy. T© have established a business 
 that shall remain a necessity and honor to com- 
 merce, like many English and some American 
 enterprises, and in which, as it were, the life of 
 its founder enters into endless service and fur- 
 therance of civilization, is the highest and hap- 
 piest business success. To project a charity into 
 the ages, giving our arms and alms an endless 
 extension ; to send forth a good family of chil- 
 dren into the world, who in their turn shall 
 send forth others, and so perpetuate our bene- 
 diction; to plant a few shade-trees for the new- 
 comers ; to sing a song so true to the ages that 
 one may catch, as did Wordsworth, the return- 
 ing echoes ; to leave wise and good influences 
 behind us ; to die and not die, but just then 
 begin to live and serve in the earth, — this it is 
 which gives the most cheering look and richest ♦ 
 flavor to our days and nights, and shall make 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 99 
 
 death easy. The least advance in whatever 
 worthy way is a pride and a delight. A new 
 fact and another principle are so much more of 
 heaven. The sense of having got the victory 
 over time and decay, of riding for ever on a flow- 
 ing wave, of having made a beginning which 
 shall know no ending, and at the same time of 
 self-progress, — such is and must be ever an 
 unsparable gladness. 
 
 Made as we are, we shall always be in debt to 
 the beauty and neatness of our surroundings, as 
 a means of cheer ; for beauty itself is cheerful, 
 sharing a play of finer lights, and the musical 
 soul of Apollo ; and sets us, by sure communi- 
 cations, into its own state. All nature is pic- 
 torial, and made to beguile us. There is no 
 sparing of paint on our House, save of the colors 
 that are leaden and uninteresting. The enchant- 
 ments are laid on so thick that none can tell 
 where they are not. What an endless attention 
 to canopies, curves, horizons, waves, bending of 
 grasses, swaying of trees, roning of landscapes, 
 and rounding of forms ! What an effort to hide 
 the rags from our eyes ! for if Nature has a rent 
 in her fair garment, she sets her wits at work 
 instantly to cover the ugliness, and have all 
 pleasing again. She would be presentable and 
 
100 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 charming to us, as maidens to their lovers. She 
 would have grass in our streets if she could ; 
 and adorns the rough rocks with lichens, and old 
 ruins and palings with mosses and vines. In my 
 boyhood there came a land-slide on my father's 
 farm : to-day I am struck with wonder to find 
 a park of young trees on this spot, and have no 
 doubt the beauty-fostering spirit has sent a bevy 
 of speckled partridges and graceful squirrels 
 to crown the scene. And all this means for 
 us more of cheer; for who can enter into this 
 genial presence, which hovers and gleams every- 
 where, and not feel some sympathetic and joy- 
 ous dancing of the blood and relaxing of the 
 rigid muscles of the face? One maybe glad 
 to the " brink of fear," as he bathes in this flow- 
 ing sea of beauty. 
 
 And do we not owe a duty to ourselves and 
 our friends, that we so adorn our own little 
 corners, the mimic worlds of our creation and 
 care, with the grace that charms and makes 
 cheerful ? Should not we also enter into this 
 high aim, and help charge this fine battery, 
 whereof the heart is a willing subject ? Never 
 let us suffer blank walls, however white, so long 
 as pictorial paper can be had so cheap. Let us 
 gladden the eye, if we are able, with meritori- 
 
DAILY SITKSHINE. 101 
 
 ous fresco, but at all events with pictures, which 
 even the poorest can command. Let us refuse 
 to be shut into a cheerless seven-by-nine room. 
 My little study is five paces one way and four 
 the other, and sufficiently low to suggest humil- 
 ity to a tall man. But this is a low and base 
 measurement, that may be easily set aside. In 
 effect my study has an area of miles, and most 
 delightful ones ; and many a Boston and New 
 York parlor, with naked walls, is a dreary coop 
 in comparison. With a few pictures I have con- 
 trived to set this little box out of doors, and 
 under the sky, and in the sunshine, and can at 
 will overcome all sense of narrowness, and range 
 with a happy freedom. Here, on the north, is 
 a herd of cattle, a wooded glen, and a bold- 
 towering Swiss mountain beyond, having its 
 crown bathed with the golden glow of the 
 setting sun ; on the south is a broad, quiet 
 valley, with its winding river and fields of ripe 
 grain ; on the east a farm-yard ; and on the 
 west an arm of a lake stretching away through 
 forests toward the main body of w^ater, which is 
 hidden, and a mountain beyond, which is visible 
 and bathed with a soothing air of repose. And 
 every room may have such genial expansions, 
 and cheering invasions from wide distances. It 
 
102 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 requires no large outlay to work this pleasing 
 miracle ; for the imagination is such a befriending 
 talent, such a gift of magic and illusions, so ready- 
 to carry forward and complete any ideal that is 
 once hinted, that very ordinary prints — even 
 not a few from our pictorial papers, " Harper's " 
 and the " Graphic," which a few pennies will 
 command and four pins will frame — are quite 
 equal to the desired end. I recall a poor wo- 
 man's room thus adorned, and have sat in it to 
 observe her cheer and feel my own. The moral 
 credit of the show may have added to its effect, 
 — it was such an honor to do her best thus; 
 and yet no one can doubt the happy influence, 
 in many of the humblest homes, of inexpensive 
 beauty. 
 
 May it not be that the real secret lies in hav- 
 ing the sense of the beautiful alive and active ; 
 and it shall not matter so much about the extent 
 and rank of the objects that serve? The mo- 
 ment the taste for beauty is awakened, all becomes 
 instantly transfigured, and life is new, — a some- 
 what that is sweet and musical. The whole 
 house has another look and atmosphere, that 
 has a patch of flowers in front, or a single fine 
 treasure within, as if a delicious drop were an 
 adequate flux to dissolve the world into a flow 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 103 
 
 of joy. " The heaviest weights," said the an- 
 cients, " are often suspended on the finest wires ; " 
 and it would seem that the least conscious co- 
 operation with the finer aims of Providence 
 brings a new universe of good cheer to our 
 possession, — draws the man out of his brute 
 relations, allies him to the stars and angels, and 
 sets him against omnipresent influences of glad- 
 ness. The smallest flower, or any mere glint of 
 beauty, is great with happy influence for the sen- 
 sitive ; whilst a meadow or mountain is nothing 
 to the dormant. 
 
 And neatness ! Who is poet enough to chant 
 the full praise of a clean face on all things, as a 
 friend of pleasure and contentment? Whilst 
 its effect is highly moral, like a chapter of An- 
 toninus, and sesthetical as a view of the sky, it 
 also cheers every sense of the body and sets it 
 more fully at peace. The untidy can never be 
 eminently virtuous or happy, as having a defect 
 that vitiates universally. We shall never look 
 into stys for saints and angels ; nor into filthy 
 homes, greasy and dirt-besmeared, for any but 
 a peevish and low-spirited family, whose finer 
 life and love seem to have withdrawn and shriv- 
 elled in sheer self-protection. 
 
 The suggestion that our imagination is given 
 
104 AT OTJH BEST. 
 
 us in the interest of good cheer is one to be 
 taken to heart and applied. We may enchant 
 the unenchanted with this benignant and fertile 
 power. It surpasses Thor ; for it can not only 
 drink the ocean dry, as he could not, but can 
 plant gardens and cities on its steepest plateaux. 
 It can have as many rainbows as it likes, and 
 set them where it lists, for picturesque effect. It 
 can overlay all things with the prismatic colors, 
 having them mixed to its taste, or changeful as 
 on the clove's neck or the best silks from Canton. 
 In childhood^ its free magic waives realities with 
 a sovereign unconcern, since it can at pleasure 
 turn a crutch into a fine steed ; two chairs into 
 a chariot ; pebbles or pine-cones into a herd of 
 cattle and sheep ; a boy and girl into a school of 
 a hundred, with a full corps of teachers and 
 board of examiners ; and a device of cloth into 
 the finest baby to be found, which goes to sleep 
 and wakes to order, talks and visits like a Mad- 
 ame de Stael, and attends to etiquette with all 
 the precision of a Chesterfield. And, later, what 
 angels without wings it makes of lovers ! Jake 
 and Hepsy, for the time, are skyborn, and belong 
 to some better planet : when were such an Adonis 
 and Venus ever seen before ! Who of us has not 
 wrought the clouds to solid bastions, or a sub- 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 105 
 
 lime mountain-] and ? Who does not people the 
 solitude and the sunset with beautiful spirits, 
 — as Swedenborg always went well attended, 
 and the unpoetic Jews conceived pretty poetic 
 guardians watching over their steps ? 
 
 Imagination yields ready romance. It is master 
 of the game of illusions, and can defy ill fortune. 
 It superadds to all things as it lists, gives wings 
 to the wingless, and life to the dead, — as an artist 
 I once went with on a sketching excursion was 
 for mending or recasting into better forms every 
 scene he took ; setting here a clump of trees, 
 where there was none ; there a pleasing ruin, 
 which might have been, but was not ; yonder, 
 on the lawn, an artistic group of cows and hens 
 and pigs, that only forgot to come there just 
 then ; and adding, for happy variety, a little 
 lake, a boat, an old stub, and a fish-hawk, — all 
 in all, playing his heedless pranks in the face of 
 Nature with the zest of a reveller. But I came 
 back wiser for the trip, since I learned once 
 more what a friend I have in my imagination ; 
 and that, henceforth, I may have stars in the 
 blackest sky, company when I will, and of 
 the best kind, and good cheer for the asking. 
 For this enchanter is given to all, and there is 
 no defeat but it may turn into victory; To the 
 
106 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 right imagination, Nature is thus only hints and 
 outlines ; actual beauty, a stray beam from the 
 ideal ; common men and women, but rude types 
 of the heroes we may foresee and foreknow ; 
 and civilization, as it is, an insipid foretaste of 
 the feast of life, to which, as oft as w T e please, 
 we may invite ourselves. We may take wings 
 when we like, and come into Paradise. We 
 hold passports to Eden and the stars. Who can 
 drag us into a dreary marsh or desert, when we 
 may set ourselves at will into Arcadia or the 
 Elysian Fields ? 
 
 Of the many superficial and incidental occa- 
 sions of cheer, too much trusted in by the care- 
 less, there need be uttered only a hint. The 
 rich fountain lies deeper in our nature, as the 
 best springs flow from the heart of the hills. 
 We must have our light from the sun, and not 
 from farthing candles. The king's jester, with 
 his idle dawdling and smirks, was a poor substi- 
 tute for royal nobilities and manly purpose. He 
 drew but cheap and fleeting smiles over the 
 darkened depths. They who look to minstrels 
 and buffoons for their staple delights shall not 
 know of the better gladness of life. Theatres 
 and circuses are not to be taken too freely. Too 
 many games shame us at length, as somewhat 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. 107 
 
 low and unworthy, and we rise from them less 
 cheerful than we sat down, as the victims of an 
 evident robbery. Jokes and puns- must be no 
 more than the spice of the feast. I find my 
 jovial friend wisely brings himself and others 
 past his sparkle and rattle to the better mean- 
 ings, and counts on sense and sobriety in the 
 long run. A library of wits would sober and 
 depress any sensible reader. Nor should we 
 quote and adopt too much Milton's famous invo- 
 cation : — 
 
 " Haste thee, Nymph, and bring with thee 
 Jest, and youthful Jollity, 
 Quips, and cranks, and wanton wiles, 
 Nods, and becks, and wreathed smiles ; " 
 
 for, although butterflies belong in the scenery, 
 they do not make the real power and pleasure 
 of the landscape. Our being seems to be wisely 
 strung for a higher and nobler music ; and 
 harlequin will be found to have the lowest pulse 
 in the company. 
 
 Above all, let us not look for happiness in 
 any trick or drug. This angel is not found in 
 hashish or Burgundy. It is not purchased by 
 any low bargain. When the bacchanalian thinks 
 he has got it, he has got something the most 
 unlike it. The gods sell cheerfulness only at a 
 
108 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 fair price. I went to see an old lady one day, 
 who surprised me by saying, " I have all the 
 joys I deserve, and I want no more." 
 
 The main secret of cheerfulness lies in char- 
 acter. Innocence is bathed in happy lights, 
 and holiness is itself heaven. The perfect are 
 the perfectly glad. Socrates said, "Virtue is 
 the mother of pleasure ; " and Wordsworth, 
 " There is no happiness in this life without 
 intellect and virtue ; " and Sir Thomas Browne, 
 " They are the happy in whom God is happy ; " 
 and One greater than these, " Happy are the 
 pure in heart." 
 
 The conscience is a faithful officer of awards ; 
 and all the boastings of bullies and blacklegs 
 belie themselves by a central tone of reproach 
 and sadness. Sin yields bad dreams by night 
 and bad memories by day, and there is no escape 
 by flight, or opiate, or bribery. Sin involves 
 broken relations with the universe, and self- 
 banishment and discredit. The sinner has lost 
 his protections. He dreads to turn the next 
 corner, for he expects to meet an avenger. But 
 holiness, on the other hand, fills our atmosphere 
 with a sunshine and warmth as of the sweetest 
 clay in June. There is I know not what chem- 
 ical charm in virtue, which touches the blood 
 
DAILY SUKSHINE. 109 
 
 and the soul and the entire world ; and lo ! they 
 are new and joyful ! 
 
 Our subject brings to notice one paradox, — 
 the happy unhappy man or woman. I do not 
 refer to that cold and sparkling light of sardonic 
 wit, that Goethe has idealized with such success 
 in his Mephistopheles, — the leer and laugh of a 
 refined and cruel depravity, which is not musical 
 nor joyous. There, may be a grim delight in 
 dissonance, a witty association of the laws and 
 conditions of sin and disaster. The old prov- 
 erb wrongly asserts, " It is time to laugh when 
 matters can get no worse ; " for it is then time 
 to cry and repent. But we have the testimony 
 of the great French chief of police, Fouche, that 
 " the worst rogues generally jest and guffaw 
 when they are at length caught." Even despair 
 may find a ludicrous view of itself for an instant, 
 as when a noted criminal on his way to the 
 gallows advised his conductor to avoid a given 
 street, as there was a man there who would have 
 him arrested for a bad debt ; and another, with 
 the halter round his neck, blew the froth from 
 a mug of beer, saying, " It is bad for health." 
 
 But the happy unhappy man is of another 
 tyipe. He is the chronic grumbler, to whom, we 
 must believe bitter has become sweet. Gold- 
 
110 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 smith's play of the " Good-Natured Man " very 
 nearly miscarries and spoils the author's aim ; 
 for, in introducing Croaker, who makes such a 
 luxury of misery, he well-nigh changes the moral 
 of the piece. It is a question whether the se- 
 renity of the one, or the perversity of the other, 
 is the more enjoyed. It is clearly a divided 
 relish, when Honeywood says, " A fine day this, 
 Mr. Croaker ! " and Croaker replies, " What 
 signifies what fine weather we may have in a 
 country going to ruin like ours ? Taxes rising 
 and trade falling, money flying out of the king- 
 dom and Jesuits swarming into it. I know at 
 this time no less than a hundred and twenty 
 Jesuits between Charing Cross and Temple 
 Bar." The delight here is exquisite. But per- 
 haps Charles Lamb introduces us to the best 
 specimen of the Bittersweet family. He knew 
 a card-player who was always growling out that 
 he had no trumps. On one occasion they very 
 adroitly contrived to give him all trumps ; but 
 this was only some more meat for his moody- 
 pie. " A fool could play this hand," was his 
 croaky comfort. There is nothing an English- 
 man so much enjoys, according to Sydney Smith, 
 "as the pleasure of sulkiness." We all like to 
 suck at these teats, now and then, which run 
 
DAILY SUNSHINE. Ill 
 
 their cold gruel. " 'Tis a fine thing," we grant 
 you, "to be cheerful; but we beg your pardon, 
 we have the dumps on hand just now, and take 
 to their company." 
 
 There is, after all, a vein of the irresistibly 
 comic about grumbling, that is possibly the se- 
 cret of our affection for it, since, like comedy, 
 it involves a ludicrous absurdity, — as of a sober 
 man playing drunk; or an epicure, stuffed to 
 bursting, declaring he has had not a crust to 
 eat ; or a millionnaire engaging quarters at the 
 poor-house. It is a game of contraries, a pas- 
 time of perversities ; and not a case for pity, and 
 running for the doctor or minister. I do not 
 agree with Sterne, who said, " I pity the man 
 that can travel from Dan to Beersheba and 
 exclaim, 6 All is barren ! ' For that is his high- 
 est privilege, the supreme success of the jour- 
 ney. You may look to see that man going that 
 way again, after the same enchantment. Grum- 
 bling is his beatitude, without which life were 
 cruel. And is it not possible that the Divine 
 Goodness will set off some corner of heaven, or 
 surrender a star, where this class may find ever- 
 lasting delectation at croaking ! 
 
112 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 IV. 
 
 A LOW TONE. 
 
 " It is the witness still of excellence, 
 To put a strange face on its own perfection." 
 
 Shakspeabe. 
 
 " Lowliness is the base of every virtue ; 
 And he who goes the lowest builds the safest. 
 My God keeps all his pity for the proud." 
 
 Bailey's Festus. 
 
 IT VERY man has his native or acquired grav- 
 ity, and the point predetermined, with the 
 precision of fate, where he shall easily balance 
 and may honestly and happily occupy. Every star 
 has its true orbit ; and every man, be he Caesar or 
 John Smith or Peter Simple, his rightful place ; 
 and to sink below this, or to mount above it, is 
 to encounter sharp frictions and miseries. The 
 height of good fortune is to find and keep our 
 true poise and sphere ; and humility, which we 
 take to be spontaneity, a fine sense of reality, 
 a good understanding and honest deal with nat- 
 ure, seems to be the best guide and guaranty 
 to the end desired. For it does not set itself 
 
A LOW TONE. 113 
 
 down, and does not set itself up, but stands 
 plainly, like every high and heroic trait, for 
 what it is. A true lowliness is not so much in 
 thought as in the absence of thought, or the 
 better self wins its finest victories in our moods 
 of oblivion. The man absorbed in his true task, 
 intent only on serving, be he a hodman or a 
 king, is always modest, and yet at his best. 
 
 " There are who despise pride with a greater 
 pride," if we may believe Thomas Fuller, and 
 credit our own eyes, which often* observe the 
 cant and posture of a vain lowliness. There is 
 often a pert saintship lurking within a modest 
 seeming, which will have all the world hear how 
 finely it decries itself. It takes a low seat with 
 one eye cocked to note who observes and ad- 
 mires ; its humility wears a cockade, and watches 
 how the hats come off to do it honor. " See 
 me in the dust, do you not ? " is its imploring 
 bequest ; and it would not mind a few laurels, 
 and newspaper paragraphs, and private puffs, 
 as a compensation of its rare meekness. 
 
 When Antisthenes saw Socrates going about 
 in a torn coat, he showed a hole thereof to the 
 people, saying, " Lo ! through this hole I see 
 the pride of Socrates." So English lords affect 
 coarse cloth and bad hats, to pique and pamper 
 
 8 
 
114 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 themselves with a sense of contrast ; and genius 
 — itself being judge — dons a frowzy guise and 
 boorish airs, and would publish its wits by setting 
 them in front of a witless background. An emi- 
 nent man was accustomed to refer to his honor- 
 able pedigree, and then to add, " The fine blood 
 has become water in my generation : " by which 
 he meant his own praise, in a very roundabout 
 way. Thoreau had a conceit of cheapness, and 
 would dine off a cent : " I make my pride in 
 making my tlinner cost little," said the vain her- 
 mit, — vain as Astor and Stewart in making theirs 
 cost much. But Diogenes was worse still ; for 
 he was not only vain of eating pounded peas 
 and drinking out of his hand, but of his greasy 
 coat and uncombed hair, and his old tub for a 
 house. This is a vanity of rags, and is no more 
 creditable than any other, as shrivelling may be 
 as fatal a disease as swelling. It is a false by- 
 play, the better to set off other qualities. The 
 sediment of conceit is in all these cups, and many 
 more like them, and obvious to any e3~e that looks. 
 This is not self-forge tfulness and simplicity .and 
 finding one's true level, as the honest stars find 
 their places, or the mist rises to its line of equi- 
 poise in the air, by giving Nature sway ; but 
 it is a shrewd way of denuding one's self 
 
A LOW TONE. 115 
 
 that others may cover him with garments of 
 praise. 
 
 There is an Oriental story that shows the 
 native sense of the Pagans against this pious 
 trick. By their own claim and by popular 
 credit, the Sufis were saints of the first rank ; 
 and one of them, as we are told, found his way 
 to the gate of the Mahometan Paradise, and 
 knocked that he might be let in to take his 
 seat with the favored. " Who comes to the 
 shining portal ? " asked Allah. The Sufi re- 
 plied, " One who is less than nobody." Allah 
 took offence at this cant and misnaming of things, 
 and responded with somewhat of severity in his 
 tone, " Then thou art too little for heaven: 
 seek thou some lower sphere." The saint 
 turned away in deep thought, and speedily 
 discovered that he had undershot the real 
 mark, and rendered himself justly obnoxious 
 to the reproach of Him who loves truth before 
 all else. He saw there must also be conscience 
 and soundness in humility, and that if he were 
 a Sufi saint then he was one with Deity. And 
 now, putting off a false modesty, and taking on 
 a simple and real, he came again to the celestial 
 gate, and gave a frank and hearty knock that 
 told for itself. And from within the voice of 
 
116 AT OUH BEST. 
 
 Allah was once more heard : " Who seeks to 
 enter bliss?" The Sufi boldly replied, " Tis 
 thyself, Blessed Lord ! " This time the shining 
 door swung on willing hinges, for here was 
 orie who had learned that truth is the only 
 modesty. 
 
 " If one be Caesar," said Montaigne, " let him 
 boldly think himself the greatest captain in the 
 world." And we find Goethe doing the like, in 
 his conversation with Eckermann ; for he declared 
 in plain terms wherein he had outdone Tieck, a 
 fellow-poet of Germany, and then added, " I do 
 not hesitate to speak of myself as I am : I did 
 not make myself what I am." When occasion 
 calls, it is modesty to affirm one's self in this 
 frank way, and especially when all possible 
 edge of conceit is turned or taken off by giving 
 due credit to nature and circumstances. The 
 truth may be thus told with an air that is clear 
 of all taint of conceit. Let every one be as 
 honest with his own talent as with any of the 
 facts of the universe, for the perfect job is always 
 in hewing to the line. 
 
 But if humility forbids the vanity of false 
 abatements, so it does of false inflations, whereto 
 we are ever the more inclined. For we are set 
 by a natural impetus toward those things which 
 
A LOW TONE. 117 
 
 we are not but would be. Besides we find 
 the times are more friendly to false airs and 
 claims, and seem just on the eve of offering 
 a premium on the very worst bloat of egotism 
 and display. Put on airs, and you will be widely 
 indorsed by the light weights, and taken to the 
 bosom of showy society as its darling and de- 
 light. There is an itch for fine surfaces, and 
 a reserve of further scrutiny. Make an appear- 
 ance, keep costly turn-outs, have marble fronts, 
 display gold and silver dishes, and support a 
 box at the opera, — and who cares to look fur- 
 ther ? The devil is invited now-a-days, if he 
 dress well and have his handkerchief scented. 
 We dare not take our social pets in pieces, who 
 come so finely robed and perfumed, and know 
 how it is at their centres, — as the honest Eng- 
 lishman sawed into the head of the winking 
 Madonna to know whether it was miracle or 
 machinery. Our fashionable society is mainly 
 a masquerade and matter of rich costumes, with 
 no moral anxieties about what characters are 
 concealed. It has slight basis, or none at all, in 
 purity and honor, but only one in bank accounts 
 and heavy expenses. It would be a sad bur- 
 lesque on our nineteenth century to know the 
 names and histories of all our parlor saints, and 
 
118 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 whose arms are around our young ladies in the 
 waltz, and by whom our ices and champagnes 
 are despatched. Fashion is not fastidious, in 
 any high sense ; but has her cards given out on 
 the most superficial grounds. We seem to have 
 lost all power of vision but that of the outer and 
 inferior eye, or have sold out our souls to our 
 senses ; and all that glitters we count for gold. 
 A feather weighs down wisdom and character 
 in our Pagan estimate ; and how to make a 
 show, which is the key to the honors of the time, 
 is the prime question. What wonder then that 
 life is rendered tumid and pretentious ? 
 
 Whatever we may think of the root of osten- 
 tation buried in a high and aspiring nature, we 
 can never love nor respect its bloom. It must 
 be an arrested growth. All aristocracy is shoddy, 
 and a little ridiculous and laughable, consider- 
 ing how plain and simple a true greatness always 
 is, and how democratic and accessible. The 
 great are never out of our reach, but obey a per- 
 fect law of condescension. Vanity is the attri- 
 bute of a corporal and not of a general, who 
 delights to have his uniform off. It is a juvenile 
 trait, and falls off in time, where there is due 
 progress, like the first set of teeth. It has some 
 relation to a barbaric age, when the eye is smit- 
 
 
A LOW TONE. 119 
 
 ten with scarlet and deems tattooing a matter of 
 first rank. It is always ignorance and never 
 wisdom that swells and pretends. Plutarch 
 wrote of scholars two thousand years ago what 
 seems like an announcement of yesterday : 
 " Those that went to the school of Athens were 
 first of all wise ; next lovers of wisdom ; and 
 at last, in course of time, plain common men ; 
 for the longer they applied themselves to study 
 and philosophy, so much the more all vanity, 
 pride, and pedantry abated in them, and the 
 nearer they came to plain, dow T nright, honest 
 men." 
 
 We suspect at once the character that is too 
 highly costumed, on the score that there is some 
 need of thus drawing the attention from the 
 centre to the surface, as Brag knows why he 
 talks so loud. It is the quacks who advertise. 
 A true friendship never protests and speaks 
 out loud, but will act generously all day and 
 every day, and be silent ; and when any virtue 
 plumes itself and shows off, there is defect some- 
 where. All egotism is slightly insane; indicates 
 a little water on the brain, which more years and 
 wisdom, save with the hopeless, will serve to 
 trepan and let off. At fifty all but the worst 
 cases are cured, and we have sound men and 
 
120 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 women, whose words are low-toned ; who criti- 
 cise themselves ; who hate sensations and shams ; 
 and who lose relation to the superficial aspects 
 of the age, but to find relations to the universe. 
 The man who has found life at length, — that 
 precious elixir to be enjoyed without let or hin- 
 drance when found, — takes a story from his 
 house, which twenty years ago he thought not 
 large and grand enough ; or sells out, and will 
 have a modest retreat, sacred to the Muses and 
 Penates and all his serious and weighty friends. 
 There is a down that is up. The goal of all 
 progress is realism and merit. A scientist told 
 me that at first he used his magnifying-glass 
 on everything, but that now he should prefer to 
 use it on nothing, as he liked the perfect integ- 
 rity of vision, seeing each thing, however minute, 
 as it is. Varnish stands at some discount with 
 the wise, who take more to a " dead finish," or 
 the polish that the wood itself admits under 
 plane and sand-paper, on which the eye reposes 
 as on a real beauty. Tinsel is tawdry to those 
 who have at length opened their best eye, and 
 discovered the deeper realities. 
 
 The charm of humility is its morality. Its 
 dozens always count twelve, and thirteen 
 where there is liability of coming short. It 
 
A LOW TONE. 121 
 
 is a true and just metre. It is good all the 
 way through like a Quaker box of strawberries. 
 Humility is an Englishman of the better days 
 of the island, — before the Britishers lost the 
 rough, honest genius of their land and consented 
 to masks, and in Sheffield sold polished iron for 
 steel, and sizing for silk at Birmingham. Frois- 
 sart relates of the "English king, after the suc- 
 cessful battle of Cressy : " The kynge wolde that 
 no man shulde be proude or make boast, but 
 every man humbly to thanke God." 
 
 Our word or deed is sublime when it hugs 
 reality and speaks for itself. A report from the 
 soul is another passage for the world's bible, 
 and will be hailed as what all men have felt 
 within themselves, but had not power to utter. 
 Conscience is a royal trait. Paint and varnish 
 betray the cheapness of our wood and the bad- 
 ness of our work ; but what can equal the native 
 grain and hue of mahogany, cherry, maple, or 
 black walnut, which unadorned is adorned the 
 most ! There is no artificial ray like the sun- 
 beam, which seems a part of the universe and 
 self-sustained. Our affectations are cheap and 
 quite outside of our better selves, like our gar- 
 ments which we lay off every night. It is life 
 that is worth the while, how we are to our- 
 
122 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 selves, whether full or void at the centre, and 
 not what we are taken to be : Jesus outweighed 
 all the Pharisees in Judea, and put wordy rabbis 
 to silence with the simple words from his own 
 fulness ; and every one's joy and power are in 
 the wit and worth of the private heart, which, in 
 the end, we learn to cultivate and rely on. 
 
 We are great only when off guard. The min- 
 ister's prayer is then prayer, and draws earth and 
 heaven together : every heart knows the instant 
 when he becomes impersonal, and passes into 
 subordination to the Spirit, and is only a mouth- 
 piece. We are speedily swept into the current 
 and borne to the Infinite by the attractions of 
 the self - forgetting saint. The orator never 
 deals plainly and powerfully with his subject, 
 till with his heat he has melted and dissolved 
 himself. What so stupid as the first half- 
 hour of a social circle, whilst self-consciousness 
 and vanity hold their sway, and each one is 
 there in his own name and personality ; but 
 reduce the memory and rub down the pride by 
 a little plain-dealing in thought and act, and 
 give the real life a chance, and what fine feats 
 of ease and grace and joy will follow ; and 
 what victory over the hours like that which now 
 transpires ! No manners are ever the best man- 
 
A LOW TONE. 123 
 
 ners, since by the play of the spirit they are 
 disengaged and free, and set infinitely above 
 mannerism and book etiquette. They bend and 
 sway with nature and are allied to poetry. They 
 put Chesterfield and Beau Brummel to shame. 
 The great actor does not thoughtfully and pom- 
 pously play his part, but puts himself aside, 
 and without thought or pride as if he were not 
 himself but another, he lives it. It is humility 
 which holds the highest secrets, and sets us at 
 our best in every sphere. 
 
 There is always some avenging Nemesis sent 
 in pursuit of a vain pride. The universe is piti- 
 less in its treatment of this tumor. Who does 
 not know the old smart under some caustic or 
 other ? The fates rally to humble the least show 
 of conceit. Some invisible hand knocks off 
 our ambitious top-knot just when we could least 
 spare it. Indeed, here is our soaring Icarus 
 with his wings melted off by the sun and ridicu- 
 lously sunk in the mud ; and what will we do 
 but stand and laugh at him ? But yesterday I 
 heard a mother lamenting that she failed and 
 suffered mortification every time she tried to 
 set off the baby to specially fine effect, as if the 
 little one had entered into some mischievous 
 conspiracy with an evil genius to cover her with 
 
124 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 shame. The boys and girls in our schools, I 
 notice, who spell with some pomp, and as to the 
 committee and visitors, are the first to blunder, 
 because they have their eye off the right point ; 
 they lose sight of the act in watching for its 
 effect, and blindly run into some ditch ; or their 
 loud and showy manner is seen to be mere par- 
 roting and trick, and passes for nothing with the 
 sensible people, who are waiting to hear the mod- 
 est boy or girl whose act will be simple and steeped 
 with merit. The vanity of Don Quixote covered 
 him with disgrace, and every new blunder was 
 worse than the last: it was a cruel succession 
 of mortifications, for which nobody pitied him, 
 ' but all said, " Served him right ! he should have 
 taken the advice of his humble squire." Sopho- 
 moric gas will not burn on those occasions where 
 light is most needed ; and the less said among 
 the really wise about Greek roots and the prob- 
 lems in Euclid, the better. Whether man or 
 maid, the swell should see instantly, on the faces 
 of the company, that there is no favor with the 
 high-minded and worthy, but disgust at the 
 sight of this air and assumption. There is no 
 kind of ballooning that is so safe and respect- 
 able as travel on the solid earth : the going up 
 may be gay, but who will venture insurance on 
 
A LOW TONE. 125 
 
 the coming down ? The happy circumstance 
 with the lowly is that they stick close to reality 
 and stand always on the firmest hardpan, and 
 clear the humiliating punishments, — all the 
 more humiliating that they provoke our smiles 
 instead of our pity. There is no disaster so 
 much to be dreaded as collapse after display, since 
 it reveals both poverty of talent and character. 
 
 " The man, in troth, with much ado 
 Has proved that one and one make two," 
 
 and is thenceforth rated as one among the many 
 bubbles. Conceit is always a fine mark for mis- 
 chievous archers, there being we know not what 
 charm in witnessing the flutter and tumble of 
 this plumed bird. What invites a knife like a 
 bladder or bloated nothing? The whole uni- 
 verse will tug at a stumbling-block to have it 
 set in the way of vanity, and will hide away 
 and chuckle to see the fall and the chagrin ! 
 
 When Thor, with Thialfi and Loki, went 
 forth, with an air of great self-consequence, to 
 visit and stun with astonishment the Jotuns or 
 Giants, they were of course outwitted and 
 beaten at the games of their own proposing, 
 and returned disgraced from their attempted 
 display. Who could eat but Loki ? and straight- 
 way he challenged to an eating-match, which 
 
126 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Logi very modestly accepted. Beginning at the 
 two ends of a long large trough, they met half 
 way. But it was found that the boasting Loki 
 had eaten only the flesh, whilst Logi had eaten 
 flesh, bones, and trough itself. Who could run 
 but Thialfi, the fleet, claiming to be swifter 
 than the reindeer or the wild gazelle ? He chal- 
 lenged to a race ; but Hugi, the giant, made 
 the whole distance before his opponent had 
 started. Who could drink but the great Thor, 
 whose thirst was like the desert, and whose 
 stomach like a cloud ? But a cup which he 
 could not empty at three draughts yielded a 
 Jotun just a sip, and left him still athirst. But 
 Thor was filled with proud wrath, and would 
 wrestle with the best of them. And they pitted 
 against him Elli, a toothless and withered old 
 crone, who flung him in an instant and taunted 
 him for his pretentious pusillanimity. Alas for 
 Loki, Thialfi, and Thor, the cream of the Norse 
 heroes ! But if the immortals and gods are 
 tripped by their conceit, or cut asunder from 
 the sources of power and put to shame, what 
 can j-ou and I expect of safety from airs and 
 assumptions ! 
 
 Vanity is the talent of failures. It is blinded 
 and corrupted by self-admiration, and has an 
 
A LOW TONE. 127 
 
 incapacity to know merit from demerit ; spins like 
 a foolish top in its own little centre, and loses 
 its relations to the sources of power ; goes to seed 
 in the husk of its own conceit, and is a windfall; 
 withdraws from out-of-doors and the univer- 
 sal currents, which are ever setting in the right 
 directions and will carry us far if we will but 
 fling ourselves into them. The great step is out 
 of self. He who can be nobody will be some- 
 body. Leave your little coop and come under 
 the sky, if you would be and do greatly and 
 wisely. Sink the personal in the universal, 
 and your word and act shall be a part of nature 
 and a sure victory. A good divine once said to 
 me that he never went to a hard duty in his own 
 name and power, but slipped out of himself by 
 an act of prayer into the keeping and control of 
 the Spirit : the hard was easy then, for he had 
 engaged the Infinite in his service. It is this 
 higher bond with the divine that draws on 
 the courage of the martyr. Every great artist 
 subordinates his personality to beauty, and his 
 picture takes rank with the sunset : it is really 
 a piece of skill from the same hand working a 
 little further off. The great poet throws him- 
 self on the Muse, or the genius of the universe, 
 and sings the songs that are brought him out of 
 
128 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the Arcana; and they are good for all time, 
 because wrought from the music of the spheres 
 or the notes that sound at the heart of the uni- 
 verse and are not temporal. Can you work for 
 a cause, and lose sight of yourself in doing it? 
 Can you tie to a principle ? Can you worship 
 an end and make an idol of an idea ? Can you 
 waive your claim as Clement or Clementina, and 
 moil and toil with a free and glad surrender of 
 body and soul for any one of the divine aims 
 of the world ? Then you shall have a better 
 reason and power than your own playing into 
 and through you ; by this shift of the personal 
 for the impersonal, which is a feat of true humil- 
 ity, you have touched the batteries that are always 
 charged with the finest and best serving electric- 
 ity of the universe ; it is an exchange of weak- 
 ness for power ; or, as Emerson well says, " In- 
 stead of the tanks and buckets of knowledge to 
 which we are daily confined, we come down to 
 the shore of the sea, and dip our hands in its 
 miraculous waves." " I think the thoughts of 
 God," was the profound remark of Kepler, 
 who had risen out of himself and yielded to the 
 courses and spirit of Nature, — 
 
 " Searching, through all he felt and saw, 
 The springs of life, the depths of awe, 
 To find the law within the law." 
 
A LOW TONE. 129 
 
 The modest eye has the perfect vision, and 
 succeeds to a just reading of the divine order 
 and meaning. It is self that is perverted and 
 that perverts ; that is the victim of a whim ; 
 that stands in its own light ; that has a deceiv- 
 ing saffron in its eye ; that has a crotchet in its 
 brain. We must waive our impertinent claims 
 and surrender to the universe, if we would be 
 wise and move on with success to any worthy 
 result. Vanity plays a low and poor game to 
 its own eye, or to the eye of the public, and 
 is drawn from the secret drill and drudgery in 
 shirt-sleeves and free perspiration, which alone 
 can make anything of anybody. It is under 
 some innate necessity of slighting the first steps 
 to success, which lie in private and secret ways, 
 like the roots of all great trees. It is spoiled by 
 its morbid and impatient craving of publicity ; 
 whilst humility will begin at the bottom, and be 
 true to all the needful stages and prosper ; as 
 Michel Angelo quarried, ground and mixed his 
 paints, and worked at every process, coarse and 
 fine, and had his skill amply based. 
 
 Greatness is a child of solitude. Genius grows 
 up in the by-ways of the world and does not 
 know itself, and is apt to be something less when 
 at length it surprises its own secret. All that 
 
 9 
 
130 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 has been verified of Shakspeare can be written 
 on the palm of your hand, and the historians 
 and critics vainly attempt to add anything. 
 Homer has no biography, as if he were born 
 full grown and spirited away at last. " You 
 shall make yourself dust to do anything well," 
 said Saadi. The secret seems to be to do our 
 work for its own sake, forgetting self and the 
 public ; to fall in love with some shining ideal 
 and have perfection our aim ; to have the vic- 
 tory in making a finished job, whatever may 
 become of it after it is done ; to yield all the 
 forces of our life in rapt consent to this end. 
 But only the lowly in spirit can do this. The 
 vain can never lay by their trumpets and forego 
 applause to that extent that they may set them- 
 selves in the best relations to their work and the 
 times they live in. They must be superficial and 
 sensational by the law of their nature, and so 
 shall fail in all but cheap and fleeting results. 
 They will for ever bring painted mist and ban- 
 ners, and not solid deeds. 
 
 The great and real make a jest of this showj^ 
 sunflower of conceit that lifts its head so pom- 
 pously above the rest of the garden. The ancients 
 likened the futile hue and cry and boasting of 
 vanity to the travail of a mountain that brings 
 
A LOW TONE. 131 
 
 forth a mouse. Agesilaus said of a conceited ora- 
 tor who plead a petty cause with great ado, " I 
 don't think much of that shoemaker that makes 
 a great shoe for a little foot." But Montaigne's 
 satire is still better : " When I hear our archi- 
 tects thunder out their bombast words of pilas- 
 ters, architraves, and cornices, of the Corinthian 
 and Doric orders, and such like stuff, my imagi- 
 nation is presently possessed with the palace of 
 Appollidonius in Amadis de Gaul ; when, after all, 
 I find them but the paltry pieces of my kitchen- 
 door." We join these old verdicts so far as we 
 have the weight and sincerity of the ancients. 
 Modesty carries the sympathy of the wise and 
 good. Nature always commands the best votes. 
 " I think breakfasts so pleasant," wrote Sydney 
 Smith to a friend, " because no one is conceited 
 before one o'clock." The Scotch have a prov- 
 erb that the greatest bummer is never the best 
 bee, or spending on noise is nothing. It is a 
 happy success, never lost on the elect, to furnish a 
 maximum of results with a minimum of advertise- 
 ment ; or they like the inspirations of the Sibyl, 
 but not the contortions, since these are for the 
 vulgar. The charm and credit of a low bearing 
 and plain- dealing with all matters are taken 
 note of by the fine vision, and wherever these 
 
132 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 merits are found the worthy eye rests and gives 
 greeting. 
 
 The vain have often a core of soundness 
 left, knowing what sugar is sweet or wisdom 
 wise, and are themselves pleased with the mod- 
 est realities. We fancy the attraction of the 
 country to our fashionable city population, who 
 seem secretly to despise their circles and habits, 
 and more and more go to live by the ocean and 
 among the hills, — shunning the bedizening sum- 
 mer resorts, — lies in the plain, homespun guise 
 of all their surroundings, — the quiet cottage, 
 the relief from insane baggage, the low count of 
 daily toilets, the easy attitude and sensible con- 
 versation at table, the absence of flash and 
 fustian, and escape from the painful sense of 
 playing a high game for a low end. There is 
 good reason to suspect, could we but set an ear 
 at the keyhole of many- a Fifth Avenue palace in 
 the high carnival season, we should hear terms 
 of some disgust. Is it one reason why English- 
 men and Americans shy and hide away, choose 
 a seat by themselves in saloon and car, ride all 
 day in a stage-coach and say never a word, 
 order a private parlor at a hotel, dodge their 
 friends on the street, have a headache or a pre- 
 vious engagement made afterwards to keep them 
 
A LOW TONE. 133 
 
 from the party, — that they dread their inevitable 
 affectation and pride if they permit themselves 
 in company? Do they feel that they should 
 be guilty of a parade which would belie them 
 and lessen their self-respect? Is vanity the 
 ghost they fear will make its appearance on the 
 least temptation ? Is it that they are more hum- 
 ble and honest with themselves than with others ? 
 I have long regarded the extreme of fashion as 
 painful to itself; and notice that the snobs of 
 both sexes wear on their faces an introverted 
 sneer and a slight air of discontent, as if they 
 knew the exact state of their case and thought 
 little of themselves, whatever others might think 
 of them. Vanity is still apologetic and creeps 
 on its way. Every head that is carried above 
 its rightful level has broken with the sense of a 
 perfect veracity, and its lofty air is at the cost 
 of an inward shame, and the better eye is down- 
 cast and retiring like that of any rogue. 
 
 There are three prescriptions for this swelling 
 and weakness, which, after our hasty diagnosis, 
 it will do to bring to the reader's notice. 
 
 1. We must measure from ourselves up, and not 
 often from ourselves down, as the habit is with the 
 proud. If there are wiser and better men and 
 women than we with a tithe of our aids and 
 
134 AT OXJE BEST. 
 
 helps, as there are by the colony, it is at least 
 a hint that modesty would fit our case. Would 
 Epaminondas, Phocion, Pericles, Plato, more 
 than two thousand years ago, have boasted of 
 our degrees of attainment ? or would they not 
 shame us if they were to stand by us to-day, like 
 oaks beside saplings ? I am humble when I look 
 up to the stars, — 
 
 " For merit lives from man to man, 
 And not, Lord ! from man to thee," — 
 
 and lives from man to man, in its own esti- 
 mate, only as there is the vain downward look 
 from self to inferior ranks. " Some knowing 
 the lowness of their parts," said Thomas Ful- 
 ler, " love to live with dwarfs that they may 
 seem proper men." Vanity chooses to be great 
 among the small. Dr. Johnson kept inferior 
 company for social background to his own fig- 
 ure; and it is not uncommon, — this one and 
 the other pluming themselves that they are not 
 the worst people in the community, as if it were 
 a merit and mark of greatness never to have 
 got into the police court. The better relations 
 are ignored, and conceit is fostered by noting 
 those contrasts only which are in its own favor. 
 But suppose the outlook to be from ourselves 
 
 i 
 
A LOW TONE. 135 
 
 upward, as it should, — whether for example and 
 influence, or for a better test of our rank and 
 standing. Where is pride now ? After read- 
 ing of Socrates and that fatal dish of hemlock, 
 which he so freely drank rather than compro- 
 mise a purpose ; or of John Rogers and that 
 wreath of cruel flames which did not daunt 
 him; or Fox's "Book 'of Martyrs," with its 
 stories, stranger than fiction, of love and life 
 that looked not back on the death-march, but 
 went straight on with firm tread, ■ — who may 
 not feel humble in this matter of courage? 
 Would we stick as they did, and so honor God 
 and our own natures ? Would we burn sooner 
 than turn ? I fear not one of us. I read of 
 John Howard and Florence Nightingale, and 
 my humanity lays a finger on her lip and hunts 
 for a low seat. I see Galileo buffeted, Colum- 
 bus baffled, Garibaldi checked and put off, 
 Garrison mobbed and balked, but each still keep- 
 ing firm to his aim ; and I seem only worthy to 
 sit at their feet and do them reverence. Let us 
 stand up beside the Hebrew peasant from Naza- 
 reth, and the Jewish fishermen and tent-makers 
 who rallied to his standard, and see how we look 
 who have their example and eighteen centuries 
 in our favor. Let us daily set our atom against 
 
186 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the Infinite, and know the measure of our 
 dependence for all things, and cast forth vanity 
 as the vice of fools and the profane. 
 
 2. Another fine antidote to all sjonptoms of 
 bloat is a broader and closer intimacy with Nat- 
 ure, which breathes everywhere the spirit of 
 simplicity and reality. The modesty of earth 
 and sky is conspicuous, and healthful to the 
 soul that lies open to it. What is better calcu- 
 lated to look pride out of countenance, and draw 
 on a beautiful and happy simplicity, than the 
 land, the air, the forests, the waters, the stars, 
 the unpretentious merit of the sun itself ? How 
 humbly and loftily the world greets us, and 
 draws us apart from all our priggish and surface 
 ways, as mere chaff compared with a life that 
 lies hidden within us. The spirit of the universe 
 impresses us as something disengaged from itself 
 and as noble and beautiful because overflowing ; 
 and we happily yield to its modest sway. 
 
 If there is in Nature's spirit and style, at any 
 point, the least hint of display, she speedily 
 checks and shames it, as much as to say to us, 
 " Such things are cheap, and not to be counted 
 on." How is the peacock's tail avenged by ugly 
 feet and a bad voice ; and the best civilization 
 has read this bird out of the list of the beautiful 
 
A LOW TONE. 137 
 
 and creditable. The family of comets, the pea- 
 cocks of the sky, are clearly not favorites, since 
 they are admitted to the front but seldom, and 
 are speedily sent to the rear. The flaming 
 meteors that rush so gaudily into our sky are 
 refused resource, as a wise parent denies a vain 
 child — bent on expensive show — money to 
 carry out an idle purpose. The rainbow is 
 regarded as something too pert, and is straight- 
 way dissolved. The gaudy sunset is swiftly 
 dashed by soberer hues ; the ambitious colorist 
 is instantly caught at his game, and his bedizen- 
 ing crimson and purple are hidden by neutral 
 tints. Even floral beauty is treated summarily, 
 as if its influence were not altogether healthful : 
 the orchards are not permitted long their holi- 
 day costumes ; the clover-field is but briefly 
 encouraged in its burst of glory ; and the gar- 
 dener laments that his favorites, the callas and 
 peonies, are so short-lived ; whilst we all know, 
 who have watched with half an eye, how evan- 
 escent is the perfect bloom of the human body, 
 what a fading charm, — to-day it is and to-mor- 
 row it is not, refusing to stay, however we coax 
 it ! But a lower beauty fades that a higher may 
 appear. These things are but secondary, and an 
 offence if they stir pride and give it the upper 
 
138 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 hands of modesty; and Dame Nature removes 
 the temptation. She tolerates no foolish dis- 
 play, but, showing us what she might do but will 
 not, her average bearing is a wise and cheerful 
 gravity. We must come to her with a plain and 
 pure heart, and shall return from our commun- 
 ions still more chastened and genuine. We get 
 from her the high secret, reflected in all fine art 
 as well, and in all great lives of men and women 
 not less, that humility is the beginning of wis- 
 dom and the key to content and progress. 
 
 3. A humble bearing attends a substantial edu- 
 cation. If we would have modesty take root in 
 our schools and at our firesides, and pervade our 
 youth, our culture must not begin with French 
 and an ambitious parade of high-sounding stu- 
 dies ; must not be, as we fear it too often is, a 
 training for parlors and the ends of pride in 
 general, — in other words, an insane depend- 
 ence on varnish and gilding. Our mode of dis- 
 cipline is too pretentious, and infects our youth 
 with giddiness. Our children are blown up 
 like bladders ; and often, after a protracted acad- 
 emy course, set their minds against the wind 
 and they would blow away. We can never 
 have modesty but from a less superficial and 
 vain education. Let us dispense with exhibi- 
 
A LOW TONE. 139 
 
 tions and banners, premiums and prizes, which 
 spoil alike teachers and scholars ; for such lures 
 lead from the path instead of on it, or to the 
 extent that you buy up ambition you cheapen 
 character and lessen the worth of the work done 
 as discipline. Better a little for itself than much 
 for some lower end. Better a little modest and 
 sound learning that gives weight and worth to 
 life, that can speak in its own name, that can 
 light its own path like the firefly, that renders 
 one a stubborn fact in this fleeting world, than 
 volumes of lore gathered to the surface, which 
 is a vanity of culture and a learned ignorance. 
 Let us make a sober and earnest work of getting 
 wisdom, and attempt less to accomplish more ; 
 and the effect on character will be as marked 
 as on the intellect. 
 
140 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 V. 
 
 CONTENTMENT. 
 
 11 Our content 
 Is our best having." 
 
 Sharspeare's Henry VUL 
 
 " It is the mynd, that maketh good or ill, 
 That maketh wretch or happie, rich or poorer 
 For some, that hath abundance at his will, 
 Hath not enough, but wants in greatest store; 
 And other, that hath litle, askes no more, 
 But in that litle is both rich and wise; 
 For wisdome is most riches : fooles therefore 
 They are, which fortunes doe by vowes devize ; 
 
 Sith each unto himselfe his life may fortunize." 
 
 Spenser's Faerie Queene. 
 
 / T~\HE faces one meets on the sidewalk, with 
 the exception of two or three in a thou- 
 sand, have a discontented and restless look, as 
 if, for some reason, life were not carried by 
 gravitation on oiled grooves, but by painful 
 forcing. The effect of a stroll on Broadway 
 or Beacon Street, as through Five Points and 
 North Street, is depressing to a sensitive nat- 
 ure, lowers the tone of the most cheerful spirit ; 
 
CONTENTMENT. 141 
 
 and, on getting home, unless one finds a con- 
 tented friend, a sunny volume, a cat, a dog, 
 some flowers, or other piece of real and charm- 
 ing life, the bad effect holds for an evening, 
 and must be slept off like a pain in the head. 
 At our operas and concerts, where gay costumes 
 and the fine magic of music heighten the lights, 
 the shadowy lines of our modern life are quite 
 discernible : the smiles are often forced ; the 
 applause is not hearty, nor in the same major 
 key as the composer's notes. Here are men 
 present in body, but absent in spirit, evidently 
 drawn away from the gay scene into some ugly 
 strife with mathematics and percentages ; and 
 women, afflicted w T ith the weariness of much 
 dressing ; and you shall not come away without 
 need of some reactionary tonic to set you once 
 more right with yourself and the world. 
 
 The age is restless and expectant. The pres- 
 ent hour is deemed empty and ill. To-day is 
 not the day we want. In December we sigh for 
 June ; in May, October is our month. And it 
 is easy to see in the shifting kaleidoscope of 
 society, the running to and fro, as if half the 
 world were just arriving and the other half just 
 departing, that the old maxims of discontent hold 
 a despotic and wide sway over men and women. 
 
142 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Here are manufacturers who would be mer- 
 chants, — no more creators, but peddlers ; 
 mariners who think the sea is too wide and 
 noisy, too open and public, and, in order to 
 felicity, they must find inland cots secluded and 
 quiet ; farmers who are holding a quarrel with 
 privacy, and are looking to a settlement in town 
 and sea- voyages next year and every year ; hon- 
 est men sighing for politics, and ruined poli- 
 ticians smarting at heart, and regretting they ever 
 came out of an innocent sphere. Everywhere 
 labor is not in demand, is not well paid, suffers 
 from bad climate, can have no friends, no pro- 
 motion, no holidays, and is about to strike its 
 tent and emigrate. The country is too old in 
 this place, too new in that ; in one quarter there 
 is too much winter, and in another not enough, 
 and the right degree of latitude seems to be left 
 out. Housekeeping is exchanged for boarding, 
 and boarding for housekeeping ; and more and 
 more are falling into this pitiable game of shut- 
 tle to a web of domestic routs and removals. 
 Society is on the chase for a fresh batch of nov- 
 elties, new turns in affairs, untried sensations, 
 more wonders, and later and larger miracles, as 
 if it had been unhinged and spoilt by too much 
 display of an opening world, or as if the habit 
 
CONTENTMENT. 143 
 
 of the century were against us and likely to 
 breed in all a restless temperament. 
 
 " Any time but now; ' : " anywhere but 
 here ; " " any thing but this : " these are the 
 terms of our daily wails, and betray our desire 
 to escape from ourselves and our circumstances. 
 But every sensible person must see that the 
 granting of our prayers will not stay our com- 
 plaint. Our remedy is not remedial. For who 
 is Time that he can work any miracle for us 
 to-morrow that he cannot to-day ? Is not any 
 day every day ? Time is indifferent and wears 
 a uniform face from year to year, or opens to 
 us the same waiting void. And it is not other- 
 wise with space. Restless people will travel 
 from Dan to Beersheba and find it Dan all the 
 way, and as far beyond as they may please to 
 go, with their present cheap and superficial 
 habits. Many Americans think contentment 
 is in Europe, and Europeans in America ; but 
 they learn on trial that these are both one coun- 
 try, bounded by the same sky, swept by the 
 same air, fertile with the same nettles. Here 
 are Bostonians and New Yorkers packing their 
 trunks to go abroad in search of some enchanted 
 city, where all things favor and the fever of un- 
 rest never comes. They think to find and dally 
 
144 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 with the mild-eyed Dame who enchants with 
 perfect repose, in Paris ; but they reach Paris 
 to discover that she left the day before for 
 Rome ; at Rome they are one train too late ; 
 they hasten to Florence, to Venice, to Berlin, 
 but with no better success, — always a little be- 
 hind time, and only see the skirts of the retreat- 
 ing goddess. They pursue a flying Beauty, 
 who will suffer no lightning express to overtake 
 her on the proposed line. What is so bad as 
 a misplaced trust ? Space is indifferent, save 
 in some slight ways that lie quite on the sur- 
 face and can only affect curiosity. Anywhere 
 is everywhere. The first horizon is like the 
 last, here and there the same clear-.cut line 
 against the sky. The sun rises and sets after 
 one fashion in all lands, and holds his way 
 through a firmament so uniform you would 
 think, at the north or the south pole, you had 
 never seen another. Staple habits of the peo- 
 ple are quite similar in all quarters. Where 
 do they not wear hats and shoes, tell stories, buy 
 and sell for gain, court and marry and keep 
 house, have a daily dinner, and take a little 
 wine for the stomach's sake, and forget to pay 
 their debts and do as they would be done by ? 
 Geography is pretty much a delusion with its 
 
CONTENTMENT. 145 
 
 idle talk about here and there ; and travel is 
 still a staying at home in most particulars. ' . 
 
 But if time and space are decoys and lure 
 us to no end, or do not serve us with the grace 
 we seek, but rather make a mock at our prayer, 
 shall we fare better by being shifty in our pur- 
 suits and leaving one trade or craft to settle 
 ourselves in some other? Everybody thinks 
 everybody but himself has a charmed calling. 
 But who believes a universal rotation among 
 our restless workers would set matters to rights ? 
 All work is very much the same thing ; and 
 the spirit that chafes in any sphere, and would 
 shirk and run, would be likely to do the same 
 thing in every sphere. A wrong spirit will 
 never find the right labor ; whilst an earnest 
 soul can hardly miss of a welcome task, since 
 it will contrive to fit itself to what seems unfit 9 
 and force some degree of poetry into the hard- 
 est prose ; as Basle, according to the legend, 
 changed the infernal pit, into which he had been 
 cast, into a Paradise and drew the best angels 
 to his presence, by his happy complacency and 
 fine gift of making good of the bad. 
 
 The world in one view of it is bankrupt and 
 has little to give but that which we carry to it. 
 The contented people have all brought content- 
 
 10 
 
146 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 ment with them. "We shall find at last that the 
 man is every thing ; the time, place, and office, 
 next to nothing. The universe borrows all it 
 confers, as the good wife makes her husband 
 a Christmas or birthday present with the money 
 he supplies. The world's complexions are 
 reflections, and its voices are echoes, which ac- 
 cord with the states of our deeper life. The 
 birds have stolen our songs, and are only pass- 
 ing them back, or only they hear them who are 
 in tune with them and make like strains in their 
 own hearts. A healthy tongue imparts the 
 sweetness to sugar ; and, if that member be 
 foul, the bees of Hymettus can gather nothing 
 to our taste. To a farlty eye other beauty is 
 no more beautiful; and to a defective ear all 
 music is no music. The face that looks out 
 upon you from the mirror is your own ; and the 
 universe is but a larger mirror, wherein we see 
 ourselves. To the empty soul the world is a 
 vacuum, and all seems on the eve of collapse, 
 but to the full soul it is charged and surcharged 
 with beauty and life, and trembles with pent 
 forces. A sufficing selfhood subordinates cir- 
 cumstances, and overflows and inundates all 
 situations with its own beauty, serenity, and 
 satisfaction. The great are contented any- 
 
CONTENTMENT. 147 
 
 where ; deem all fortune good fortune ; cannot 
 be caught in darkness any more than the glow- 
 worm that carries his own light ; have the world 
 painted from their supply of fine colors ; en- 
 chant all times with the precious magic of their 
 natures: for they are not dependants and beg- 
 gars, but sovereigns and all-sufficient to endow 
 the world and the times with an air of peace. 
 
 The prime secret of contentment is a fulness 
 of life constituted of noble qualities, the law 
 of which is a deep harmony and peace. The 
 ages have furnished men and women, whose 
 names are dear to our lips, who did not need 
 to run away from themselves ; and did not want 
 to do so. Life abounded with them ; and what 
 would they more ? The poorest man of history, 
 as we well remember, still talked of " my peace " 
 and ik my joy ; " for his life was full and rich 
 and could not be distracted by events. 
 
 " Sunshine was he in a winter's day ; 
 And in midsummer, coolness and shade." 
 
 Who can think of Plato standing on the corner 
 of the street and meditating how he might elude 
 himself ? — Plato, who had but to sit still in the 
 centre of his own lofty and cultivated nature, 
 and the universe crowded to entertain him ! 
 
148 AT OUB BEST. 
 
 Who recalls Wordsworth as one running round 
 with hat in hand, begging of untried scenes and 
 sounds a pittance of respite from present unrest? 
 — him, whose life was sufficiency and repose, 
 like that of Nature. It was Channing who could 
 write in his early years, " I am independent of 
 the world ; " but he was so because he had built 
 a world of his own of better and stabler and 
 more sufficing material ; or, rather, because he 
 had found and entered the real world, of which 
 this that we see is but a dim and crude shadow. 
 After the siege and capture of Megara, some 
 one asked Stilpo whether he had not suffered 
 particular damage in the plundering : to which 
 he made answer, " There is nobody can rob 
 Stilpo but Stilpo." His wealth was himself, 
 and self-protected. His riches were not of this 
 world, and did not lay open to prowlers and 
 purloiners. Whatever was taken was a matter 
 of comparative indifference, since he was left ; 
 that is, the self-poise and riches of character set 
 all else in the relation of trinkets, or the rattles 
 and straws that please children, as they who 
 have the light of the sun can spare the stars, or 
 as the sense of immortality subordinates days 
 and events, and we waive slight matters by say- 
 ing, " 'Twill be all the same a hundred years 
 hence." 
 
COOTEOTMEISTT. 149 
 
 Greatness is peace. Fine qualities suffice 
 themselves. Beauty always bears the air of 
 self-content, — not of vain self-complacency, but 
 a perfect poise and satisfaction, like that which 
 attends all true conditions. What would the 
 lily be but the lily ? All high art strikes one 
 as in a state of rest, and directly calms the 
 appreciative beholder by drawing him into its 
 own serene state. A perfect picture, or statue, 
 or dome might well exist for itself, as if its 
 being were the end of ends, and the charm of 
 its serenity quite enough. We all sometimes 
 find in our own centres such a fund of ideas 
 and calm life that an invitation abroad would 
 seem an impertinence ; any company would 
 banish us to solitude ; any change would be 
 a distraction. When we are full thus of a 
 finely balanced being, the best powers in active 
 play, we find ourselves quite able to dispense 
 with both memory and hope, as the present 
 realizes our prayers. There is an inner light 
 that can dispense with the sun and not say, 
 " All is dark I " It is a happy conclusion that 
 the world is coming to at length, that heaven 
 is holiness, or wholeness, as the word me&ns, or a 
 full tide of life, and that flying to the stars has 
 nothing to do with it. 
 
150 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 It will greatly add to the pleasure of our tasks 
 and promote contentment, if we can feel the 
 presence and play of some high principle in 
 all we do, as if there were an angel in every 
 act. The soul delights in its own overflows. 
 The conscience is never set forward to the front 
 and made leader of our forces in vain. Content 
 is in rising into true and worthy relations in 
 every deed, as the needle's rest is in finding 
 its north in every place. We are constituted to 
 feel the charm of the elevated motions of our 
 nature, as if we were to be thus lured and kept 
 up to the best levels, and so well paid as we 
 go on with our duties that we should forget the 
 past and the future in the satisfaction of the 
 moment. He is the happy and satisfied work- 
 man who sees character and credit reflected in 
 his work. The merchant's store stands under 
 an approving and protecting sky, and invites 
 him like a palace, if he feels his honor every 
 time he enters it ; and, like one who goes for 
 a promised favor, he will not be loath to turn 
 his feet in that direction. Labor and trade are 
 enchanted and held in a contented and serene 
 frame by their moral aspects. It is our shams 
 and cheats that shame and distract us ; and we 
 shall impatiently endure them as low expedients, 
 
CONTENTMENT. 151 
 
 not to our better liking or good name. Dishon- 
 esty sets us into Hades, where none care to take 
 up their abode ; and so we play doubly false, add- 
 ing crime to crime, thrusting a bold and reckless 
 hand into what is not ours, that we may the 
 sooner win and run from our sharp discontent. 
 The game is not itself a satisfaction, like an hon- 
 est calling, but a torment from which we would 
 fly, even stealing our wings to hasten flight. 
 
 Our relations to our callings and crafts are 
 quite too low and sordid, too selfish and carnal, 
 too negative and neglectful of the soul and all 
 the better motives, like leaving life out of the 
 aims of living, and need revision in the inter- 
 est of our higher nature. A merely cent-per- 
 cent aim in work belittles us, and affords us 
 no solace. The worship of money is not a 
 manly devotion. Gold is a low end. But it "is 
 less sufficing still to regard labor simply as a 
 carnal prudence, a purveyor to our stomachs 
 and procurer of more shirts and better shingles 
 to cover us. For the Genius of the lower neces- 
 sities, with lash in hand and ready for use, wears 
 ever a cold and unwelcome face, and is a driver 
 with whom we can hardly make amicable terms. 
 Who likes this hard dictation ? Gods are we, 
 and yet in slavery to bread-and-butter ! Immor- 
 
152 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 tals, but bound band and foot by beds and din- 
 ners ! Who will pull his oar and turn his spit 
 thus in contentment ? The motive is too low 
 to cheer and satisfy. Let us set our tasks in 
 nobler lights, and put our higher life into them ; 
 let us honor our work, and derive honor from 
 our workmanship ; and servitude will give place 
 to freedom. There will ever a beautiful angel 
 look out upon us from every honest and fine 
 piece of handicraft, or noble dealing, or honest 
 word ; and we shall sing at our tasks, and take 
 the first and best instalment of our recom- 
 pense out of the deed itself, if we will make 
 a fine art of it. The farmer's reward should 
 consist largely in the straightness of his fur- 
 row ; the inventor's, in the perfection of his 
 machine ; the tailor's, in the fit of his coats ; 
 the teacher's, in the promptitude and correct- 
 ness of the pupil's answers ; the housekeeper's, 
 in the tidiness and homeness of the house, so 
 that the refined will delight to come to it; 
 the poet's, in his 
 
 " Mellow metres more than cent per cent ; " 
 
 and the painter's, in the life and power of his 
 pictures, which happily react on his own sensi- 
 bilities, as, according to mythology, Pygmalion's 
 
CONTENTMENT. 153 
 
 beautiful ivory statue of woman enamoured him, 
 and, in answer to his prayers, was endowed by 
 the gods with life, and became his bride. Many 
 a man's work is his sweetheart ; and every man's 
 may be, if he will give the best part of himself 
 to it, — his thought and character. When our 
 deeds are our children, the offspring of our love 
 and choice, and not bastards, we shall dote on 
 them and find in them a true happiness and con- 
 tentment. When our toiling and trafficking are 
 faithful, and fair as the open day to look at, and 
 speak our praise and carry everywhere our cred- 
 itable introduction, we shall find the busy days 
 and years are none too long, and that work is its 
 own sufficient reward. The pay is instant, and 
 guaranteed by a better purser than the banks 
 employ. 
 
 We cannot say it too often, nor with undue 
 stress, that to the right laborer who puts his 
 whole soul into his work, the hammer's stroke 
 will be music ; the chirp of the smoothing 
 plane, a song as of a lark or bobolink ; the wash- 
 ing of dishes, a pastime ; hoeing of potatoes, 
 a fine sport ; wood-chopping, poetry ; and that 
 the worthy writer's unfolding sentence will 
 glow before his eye like a line of morning light ; 
 and the statesman's honest service to the pub- 
 
154 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 lie, morally worthy an Aristides or Washing- 
 ton, will be a sacred delight to his mind and 
 heart. 
 
 But labor shall make still further gain of con- 
 tentment, by seeing itself in its remoter relations 
 and uses. Every task, that is legitimate, is 
 linked to the universe and subserves high ends. 
 All work has a humanitarian and honorable 
 aspect ; runs parallel with the aims and uses 
 of Providence ; shares the dignity of Nature's 
 processes ; and every true worker is fellow to 
 all the ranks including the Deity himself. Why 
 hold ourselves so cheap, and carry our heads 
 down, and wish we had something worthy to 
 do ? For, if we will only see it, our station is 
 already sublime. Is not the locksmith a high 
 custodian of valuables, and, with Morpheus, a 
 patron of sleep ? Does not the bootblack, like 
 a humble creator, contribute somewhat to uni- 
 versal beauty, — the wash and varnish of the 
 world ? Shall not the evening lamplighter and 
 the morning sun strike hands, as being in the 
 same line of business? Does not the sailor hold 
 nations together by drawing back and forth 
 threads of all textures, and insure a system of 
 exchanges that is tantamount to an equalization 
 of climates and skills ? What is the coal miner 
 
CONTENTMENT. 155 
 
 doing but working that high miracle of creating 
 June in December, or bringing Florida into all 
 the regions within the snow-line, for our good- 
 cheer ? or is he not supplying motive power, — 
 manageable wind and tide, — to bring and carry 
 commodities, and take us to our friends and to 
 the ends of the earth ? Drag him from his place, 
 dark and obscure as it is, and where will be the 
 bland air of your parlors with the mercury down 
 to zero outside, and your journeys with the 
 speed of eagles and carrier-pigeons across con- 
 tinents and oceans? Let him see that he is 
 a benefactor, and take a manly and self-poised 
 bearing. If any man reclaims an acre of sand 
 by irrigation, or of bog by draining, and makes 
 it green and blooming, let him carry his head 
 erect on his shoulders, and see that his work is 
 not unworthy of Him who, in meadow and 
 prairie, has wrought to the same end. This man 
 with his hoe and spade is a joint creator of 
 beauty and provender for coming generations. 
 
 All worthy tasks reach on thus, as if they fur- 
 nished a strand of use and beauty to run co-ex- 
 tensive with the whole web of our civilization. 
 There is a minder in this world-mill, as in those 
 at Lowell, who attends with a sharp and con- 
 stant eye and keeps every thread in place to the 
 
156 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 end. Providence is an economist of power and 
 results, and what is once well done is done 
 for ever. There is a soul in each good deed that 
 is immortal. The farmer drops not a potato 
 but it looks to muscle, and through muscle to 
 mind, and through mind to the perfect destinies ; 
 or the first and last of things are tied together. 
 A word is more than air, as it passes our lips ; 
 a blow tells on the planets ; our deeds are shad- 
 ows of an eternal substance ; work is the only- 
 prophet, and nothing is clothed with so much 
 of dignity. Toil holds the ages and aeons in 
 its debt, and should carry its head among the 
 stars, and dwell in a state of perfect peace. 
 
 Labor needs to look through a telescope to 
 see its own merit in full. Going with a friend 
 one day to see the new marvel, a steam-shovel, 
 I observed to him that it was fellow to all the 
 scholars and preachers in the land ; and, coming 
 to an Irishman, on our return, who was spread- 
 ing the last car-loads of dirt, dumped on forty 
 feet or more of filling, I said to him, " So you 
 are building a highway" " Yes," said he, " and 
 for the Lord." This was, no doubt, a cheap 
 reply, caught from an easy and old association of 
 words ; any child might have said it ; but it 
 need not have been cheap, but one of the grand- 
 
CONTENTMENT. 157 
 
 est of answers ; and I would gladly believe 
 that, for the once, Patrick rose to a full compre- 
 hension of himself, and was shovelling there 
 with a dignity and serenity like the shining of 
 the stars. 
 
 It is higher aims and better spirit and truer 
 work that shall signify, and not so much addi- 
 tional holidays and special privileges, of which 
 so many of our restless toilers are in quest : still, 
 respites for breath and pleasure are in order, 
 and should be of frequent occurrence. The 
 secret of a richer peace lies in an improved 
 industry. Our eagles must show their gift of 
 wings by lofty flights, and see and feel they are 
 not buzzards. Self-respect is a desideratum ; 
 but this comes only of self-fidelity and good 
 jobs. The shirk knows nothing of the con- 
 tentment of labor, but only of its weariness 
 and impatience ; whilst the swindler at his task, 
 whether with weights and measures, putty and 
 paint, or what not, shall through shame desire 
 to cut and run. Nothing satisfies but honest 
 performance. In lieu of honor in the work, it 
 is futile to squander on cigars, cups, revels, 
 pleasures, saloons, and boon companions. The 
 bargain is a bad one and will not stick. Instead 
 of one demon, we shall then be pursued by two, 
 
158 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the ghosts of our bad work and our bad habits. 
 The only remedy is to feel our manhood. If 
 money is named in the bond, let the motive from 
 day to day not be mercenary. It lies with the 
 employer to draw the employed out of this low 
 limbo, by establishing relations that bring esteem 
 and friendship to the aid of service, disenchant- 
 ing labor of the sense of servitude, setting in 
 play the positive and willing powers, sharpening 
 the eye to detect the best methods and finish, 
 nerving the arm to faster and heavier strokes, 
 and making ten hours seem not more than six. 
 
 A peaceful life implies, further, a due balance 
 of capacity and ambition ; or a ready and hearty 
 and graceful agreement with necessity, on the 
 terms it sees fit to impose. We need a willing 
 respect for limits, as they are set in the na- 
 ture of things, a good understanding with fate, 
 a happy consent unto what must be, as an 
 ancient, when told he must die to-day, said 
 wisely, " It is well : I expected to die to-mor- 
 row." To be beforehand with our lot is to 
 be at peace. There is the true wisdom in the 
 Persian poet's advice : — 
 
 " Offer up thy heart to Him, 
 Who else, unasked, will take it." 
 
 The Mahometan prayer was framed in a lofty 
 
CONTENTMENT. 159 
 
 and rational spirit, which it is the best of for- 
 tune to have attained : " O God, make me to 
 wish not the acceleration of what thou hast 
 delayed, nor the delay of what thou hast accel- 
 erated." The "not my will, but Thine be 
 done," of the Nazarene, is in the triumphant 
 key, and a clue to composure. And many have 
 greeted thus what came, and won the victory of 
 victories. I knew a farmer who thought all 
 weather the best weather ; a barren year good 
 as a fruitful one, as giving the earth a needed 
 rest or sort of Sabbath ; and who never quar- 
 relled with the qualities and capacities of the 
 soil, but took it gladly as it was, and accepted 
 white beans with the same grace that he would 
 wheat. He had a song wherewith to welcome 
 the stern New England winter ; and, in all 
 states of earth and air, serenity attended him 
 like an angel. His submissions were easy and 
 graceful, or were none at all, as desire seemed 
 always to be in advance of wisdom and duty. 
 His concession was an instinct and ahead of 
 calculation, and ever left his face short and 
 cheerful. 
 
 We can never too much admire the wisdom 
 of Mahomet who, when the hill would not come 
 to him, gracefully yielded and went to the hill. 
 
160 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 There is no fate to the willing, as we conquer 
 our enemy by taking his side. Blessed is the 
 man who can contentedly give up what he must. 
 But more blessed he who never sends his wishes 
 and intents beyond his sphere, nor chafes at 
 the view of heights he cannot scale ! Nothing, 
 except virtue, is so friendly to contentment 
 as modesty in our spirit and some reserve in our 
 aims, since we shall thus outrun our expecta- 
 tions and happily surprise ourselves by our own 
 merits. What a folly is this incurable itch for 
 offices beyond their reach, which distracts so 
 many of our citizens of small calibre ! And often 
 success is babyish, and dies broken-hearted for 
 more success. Here is Brushsythe complaining 
 among the hedges that he is not Scissors behind 
 the counter ; Hobnail is wretched at the anvil 
 because it is not an easel ; but the fine arts, for 
 which he has no fitness, would only throw him 
 into another fever of unrest. Competence is 
 sore at not being affluence ; plainness sees only 
 the beauty to which it was not born, and sighs and 
 squanders health like a mess of pottage to com- 
 pass the impossible ; talent struggles with destiny 
 to become the genius it was not made, — wears 
 a Byron collar, makes free of gin and green tea, 
 and submits to the " contortions of the Sibyl, 
 
CONTENTMENT. 161 
 
 without her inspirations." But the chapter of 
 discontents is endless; and it must suffice to 
 name once more the remedy for this phase of 
 the disease, — the just balance of capacity and 
 ambition. Let us respect and not force the 
 laws of nature. Let us shorten the demand, if 
 we cannot increase the supply. Contentment 
 is by wise limitation. Burns found it through 
 the fine instinct and self-poise of his nature, and 
 sung, — 
 
 " What tho' on namely fare we dine, 
 Wear hodden gray, and a' that." 
 
 And if he had done his best, and come to a just 
 
 understanding of his case, we cannot too much 
 
 commend 
 
 " Honest John Tompkins, 
 The hedger and ditcher, 
 Who, though he was poor, 
 Didn't want to be richer." 
 
 There is one more source of a deep and real 
 content in life, open to all, that will bear nam- 
 ing in this connection. It is of the utmost 
 importance to hold open and constant rela- 
 tions with the benefits of the universe, which 
 are fine and abundant, and will always give 
 the appreciative rest. The man who is well 
 set against the best side of the world, which 
 
 is ever a region of peace and a paradise of joys, 
 
 11 
 
162 AT OUB, BEST. 
 
 has found a realm of high repose. Need I name 
 such obvious attractions and solaces as beauty, 
 sunshine, the spirit of the woods, the grandeur 
 of mountains, the morning and evening and 
 midnight, love that pervades like a sweeter air, 
 virtue, poetry, piety ; and, above all, God, who 
 touches all things with his infinite rest but to 
 stay their chaos and draw them into serenity ? 
 To what calmness and satisfaction does not the 
 soul of things invite ! Nature is serene, and our 
 chafed and jaded citizens find life set to a more 
 composed air and energy by frequent contact 
 with her spirit : in no haste herself, she checks 
 the flurry and fury of our habits and insures a 
 lofty calmness. She administers sedatives to 
 body and soul. There is an absence of flurry 
 even from her motion and velocity. The eagle is 
 said to escape atmospheric tumult by rising into 
 an upper calm that is always accessible ; so there 
 are blest Arcadian retreats in all climates and 
 countries for the people who will seek them, — 
 as Dante said, in his exile, " Shall I not speculate 
 on most delightful truths under whatever sky 
 I may be ? " I know of no content so sufficient 
 as that of unity with Providence, as if here the 
 aspiring heart broke into its full bloom, and 
 peace had secured all needed guaranties. 
 
CONTENTMENT. 163 
 
 Who shall measure man's privilege in this 
 respect? It is a system of benefits in which 
 he is set. We name one charm, and there are 
 ten thousand waiting to be named, and as good 
 as the best. The streets are paved with dia- 
 monds. Rubies hang on the grass every morn- 
 ing, or the diamond-fields are moved to our very 
 doors and all may see them who have good 
 eyes. The air is vital with aromas, and music is 
 wafted on every breeze. Every summer is Par- 
 adise, as every open and sweet soul well knows ; 
 and winter, after all the hard names we please 
 to give it, has its spectacles to please and inspire. 
 Every hill and mountain is a Parnassus, where 
 the Muses sit in state, and wait to touch with 
 their magic wands all who come in love. The 
 day is deep and full, and the hours are angels. 
 What a flowing tide of life sets in upon us from 
 the past and the present, as if we were each 
 the focal point toward which genius has shot 
 its light and power! All things are ours, — 
 the poems of the ages, the stars in the sky, 
 and the Spirit that is before and after and 
 over all. The universe is a gift hurled into 
 our arms to own and cherish. Immortality 
 spans our life like the perfect dome of day and 
 night, and our way lies through starry arches. 
 
164 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Give us a sense of what belongs to our lot, and 
 Croesus will seem poor and royalty a beggar's 
 privilege. Bring us back from our petty plights 
 and foolish games of blown bladders, to which de- 
 generate times have lured us, and install us in 
 full possession of our estates, and how can we be 
 other than grateful and content day by day ? 
 
 But the perfect climax of this felicity is to 
 sustain relations to the good in things evil. 
 Wisdom has been rightly called the art of find- 
 ing compensations, or of seeing what is al- 
 ways left when this or that is withdrawn. 
 Wisdom is recognizing, with perpetual com- 
 placency, that the bad is good, that the worst 
 is often the best, and that never is there a 
 pound taken out on one side but there is a 
 pound put in on some other, — as Thomas Ful- 
 ler wrote, to suggest some comfort to his coun- 
 trymen in their half-sighted griefs : " When the 
 sea grows shallow on the shores of Holland and 
 Zealand, the channel waxeth deeper on the 
 coasts of Kent and Essex." 
 
 Give me my possible refuge in the good, and 
 the evil is instantly reduced to the shadow of 
 my fine citadel. If I am not asked to the party, 
 why need I lose the evening? I may have a 
 good time with my books, an earlier bed, better 
 
CONTENTMENT. 165 
 
 sleep, and less headache to-morrow morning. 
 If the winter is stern and deals hardly by our 
 flowers and fingers, does it not much more than 
 balance the account by fertilizing our wits ? for, 
 to quote Mrs. Barbauld, — 
 
 " Souls are ripened in our northern sky." 
 
 If you missed a city culture, you gained a good 
 and wide adhesion to Nature, and grew like a 
 hardy child at her breast, which must be re- 
 garded as the prime blessing of life ; and you 
 may go to town with the best preparation for 
 its business and offices and honors, and will 
 often hear it said by the observing that city wit 
 is mostly country born and bred. If we are 
 plain-looking, which in this age of disregarded 
 laws of body and spirit is more than possible, 
 we escape, like those who have outgrown their 
 youthful bloom, the peril of vanity, and shall 
 have our emphasis placed on better things, as Du 
 Guesclin said, " Since I am so ugly, it behooves 
 that I be bold ; " or as Pope said, " If my per- 
 son be crooked," — he was a hunchback, — " my 
 verses shall be straight." Defect serves as a 
 spur ; or, rather, Nature will equal herself by 
 opening some other stop in her organ for the 
 one that is closed. When was not the loss of 
 
166 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 cakes and confections the gain of the stomach ? 
 When Sydney Smith went to dine with a 
 brother clergyman, and a woman who had just 
 come into the kitchen to serve for the occasion 
 threw the soup out of the back door, thinking 
 it was dirty water, — the good divine set all 
 content and at ease by his broad and bland 
 philosophy, saying, " The loss of the soup is 
 the gain of our stomachs and wits." Horace 
 gratefully mentions that poverty drove him to 
 poetrjr, and poetry, besides being an inner well 
 of flowing wines, had introduced him to Varus, 
 Virgil, and Maecenas ; and, we may add, to all 
 the scholars of the ages. Diogenes, one of the 
 odd and wise ones of Greece, of whom Alex- 
 ander said, " If I were not Alexander I would 
 be Diogenes," — he, of an exile, became a phil- 
 osopher. The world must thank a cruel per- 
 secution and old Bedford jail for Bunyan's 
 Pilgrim and his heroic trip. Are the times 
 revolutionary ? Then vast seas of stagnation 
 will be broken up ; for War's ugly front has 
 always a better rear, as sunlight bursts in 
 after the storm. The severe epochs of the past 
 have been those in which the best seeds have 
 been planted and fostered ; art and poetry have 
 been rock flowers, and grew in wild conditions ; 
 
CONTENTMENT. 167 
 
 whilst religion has been tested and refined 
 through martyrdom. 
 
 There is no more pleasing piece of autobiog- 
 raphy in literature than that in which Montaigne 
 sums up the benefits of his bad memory ; and, 
 since most of us are blessed with the same 
 trouble, it may be well to know how to regard 
 it. For this end, nothing can better serve than 
 a paragraph from the outspoken and sensible 
 Frenchman : " Nature has furnished me in my 
 other faculties proportionably as she has unfur- 
 nished me in this : I should otherwise have been 
 apt implicitly to have reposed my wit and judg- 
 ment upon the bare report of other men, with- 
 out ever setting them to work upon any inquisi- 
 tion whatever, had the strange inventions and 
 opinions of the authors I have read been ever 
 present with me by the benefit of memory. 
 Also, by this means I am not so talkative, for 
 the magazine of the memory is ever better fur- 
 nished with matter than that of the invention ; 
 and, had mine been faithful to me, I had ere this 
 deafed all my friends with my eternal babble . . . 
 Another obligation I have to this infirm mem- 
 ory of mine is, that by this means I less remem- 
 ber the injuries I have received ; insomuch that 
 (as the ancient said) I should have a protocol, 
 
168 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 a register of injuries, or a prompter, like Darius, 
 who, that he might not forget the offence he 
 had received from those of Athens, so oft as he 
 sat down to dinner ordered one of his pages 
 three times to whoop in his ear, ' Sir, remember 
 the Athenians ; ' and also the places which I 
 revisit, and the books I read over again, still 
 smile upon me with a fresh novelty. And it is 
 not without good reason said, that he who has 
 not a good memory should never take upon him 
 the trade of lying." 
 
 The universe is equitable, the world is bal- 
 anced to a nicety, and every man should see 
 that he cannot fail to get his due. No man 
 fares worse or better than he ought. A true 
 equation is sure ; or the scales are perfect, 
 and, in the long run, never tip the wrong 
 way. You and I have no just complaint to file 
 against Fortune, which has always dealt with us 
 with the last degree of fairness. If we have 
 failed, then we have slighted sojne law that is 
 still friendly in its rigor ; have trusted to luck ; 
 have tied our ends with a rope of sand ; have 
 mixed our glue without the sticking property ; 
 have made our own conditions instead of accept- 
 ing those of the universe, and success on our 
 terms would have been a return to chaos, or 
 
CONTENTMENT. 169 
 
 the letting loose of chained panthers from whose 
 ravages we should at length beg deliverance. 
 Every secret shall be laid open ; every flaw 
 in our chain is counted ; every fit stone shall 
 be set in the temple ; no gold will be lost 
 out of the perfect sieve ; and every deed, good 
 and bad, will come to its reward, because it 
 is itself the seed of its own harvest, and the 
 connection is vital and never broken. Every 
 act pays itself in its own coin, which does but 
 reveal the intimacy of Providence in all affairs. 
 The universe is no game of chances, but the 
 unity and sequences are perfect. Life is hedged 
 in and guarded by law which has more than 
 Saxon strictness ; and no one's tether is too long 
 or too short. It is not our business to complain, 
 but to obey ; and in obedience we shall sur- 
 prise and capture the secret of contentment. 
 
170 AT OTJK, BEST. 
 
 VI. 
 
 COURAGE. 
 
 " A valiant man 
 Ought not to undergo or tempt a danger, 
 But worthily, and by selected ways. 
 He undertakes by reason, not by chance : 
 His valor is the salt to his virtues, 
 They're all unseasoned without it." 
 
 Ben Jonson. 
 
 u The strength of man sinks in the hour of trial ; 
 But there doth live a power that to the battle 
 Girdeth the weak." 
 
 Joanna Baillie. 
 
 " Shall we not heed the lesson taught of old, 
 And by the Present's lips repeated still, — 
 In our own single manhood to be bold, 
 Fortressed in conscience and impregnable will? " 
 
 James Russell Lowell. 
 
 IKE all human qualities courage has many 
 "^^ phases and degrees ; begins low and mounts 
 high. There is a courage that is not courage, 
 which is clearly the lowest round of this ascend- 
 ing ladder : it is mere vanity and puerile and 
 ridiculous affectation. Falstaff was bloated with 
 this out-of-danger bravery ; and any satirist can 
 find it in abundance in any company of fifty 
 
COURAGE. 171 
 
 persons. In our parlors we are all heroes, I 
 make no doubt, and care not a feather for ghosts 
 or hobgoblins, but to make a mock of them, 
 as we sit before finely blazing fires, and have 
 around us willing ears to listen as we chant so 
 coolly our brave cantos ; but how would it be 
 if we were caught alone in a moonless night, or 
 in some wild jungle ? We have all heard how 
 the mice in their holes speak in jest of cats, and 
 this trait seems to have ascended into better 
 ranks. 
 
 A holiday valor can boast a high origin. Pa- 
 troclus was want to put on Achilles's armor, and 
 mount his war-horse, and swell with bold conceits 
 before the gaping crowd. But when the grim 
 war-god summoned to battle, Patroclus quickly 
 slipped out of the great hero's armor and off 
 his horse, and was no braver than some others. 
 It was largely stage-play and fireworks for the 
 imagination. And not otherwise was it with 
 the Jew, whose mock valor is so graphically 
 sketched in the Spanish " Chronicle of the Cid," 
 — a book worthy of the Spain of a better day. 
 " The body of the Cid, at his death, looking so 
 firm and comely that it seemed as if it were yet 
 alive, was seated in noble knightly attire in an 
 ivory chair in the monastery of San Pedro de 
 
172 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Cardena, with his sword Tizona in his left hand, 
 where it remained ten years. Meanwhile, a 
 Jew, finding himself alone in the monastery, 
 began to say, ' This is the body of that Cid 
 whom they say no man in the world ever dared 
 to take by the beard. I will take him by the 
 beard now.' And he put forth his hand to pull 
 the beard of the Cid ; but before his hand could 
 reach it, God, who would not suffer this thing 
 to be done, sent the Cid's spirit into the body, 
 and the Cid let the strings of his mantle go from 
 his right hand, and laid hand on his sword 
 Tizona, and drew it a full palm's length out of 
 the scabbard. And when the Jew saw this, he 
 fell upon his back for fear, and began to cry out 
 so loudly that all they who were without the 
 church heard him." 
 
 The world is full of heroes before dead Cids, 
 who are cowardly enough before living ones ; 
 which is proof of its poverty in the true riches 
 of courage. It reckons without its host; or 
 the coward is always in mask, tricking out his 
 faint heart with the vanity of brave-looking cock- 
 ades and laying many high colors over his white 
 blopd. You shall never count on a boaster in 
 any sphere. Let us beware of the fool of prom- 
 ises. Real power is content to know itself, and 
 
COURAGE. 173 
 
 pluck discards a bell. When two artists came 
 before the Athenians to offer themselves to su- 
 perintend the erection of some public build- 
 ing, one spent a half day in boasting of his 
 capacities ; and the other quietly stepped forward 
 at the conclusion of these empty superlatives, 
 and said, " What this man promises I will do." 
 We need not add to whom the Athenians gave 
 the job. 
 
 A trifle above this there is a courage that is 
 only a choice between fears. It is a forced solu- 
 tion of an ugly problem, and looks well if we are 
 not in the secret of its painful constraint. It 
 would not, dare not, but must. It is simply 
 making a virtue of an unwelcome necessity and 
 electing its risk, — whether to do or die ; whether 
 to burn or drown, as with ill-fated passengers ; 
 or, if one be a bashful young man, whether to 
 endure the pain or speak to the young lady who 
 is standing plump on his corns ; whether to face 
 the perils of camp and field in war time or the 
 derisions of the neighborhood and Christabel for 
 staying at home ; or, if it be a timid young lady, 
 whether to go into the church or deny the min- 
 ister, to do either of which she has about an equal 
 dread ; or, if it be almost any one of us, whether 
 to tell a costly truth or tell a lie. It is a force- 
 
174 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 put bravery, or the pressing of fear to an issue. 
 " Whomsoever I shall find," said the Grecian 
 Hector, " crouching far away from the battle, 
 it shall not be possible for him to escape the 
 dogs ; " and so the greater fear drove to the less, 
 and the most white-livered dared to fight, or 
 did not dare not to. When the question is cour- 
 age or court-martial, the soldier, if a coward, will 
 be likely to choose the first ; that is, he will ven- 
 ture rather than be disgraced ; which is to say, 
 he has like all cowards more vanity than any 
 other quality. This bravery is a low prudence 
 and always a last resort ; and we have it in the 
 stag at bay, and in any one of us making a 
 reluctant choice between two terrors. That is, 
 there is no proper or positive valor here what- 
 ever. 
 
 Another of these lower rounds is a secondary 
 or following courage "You first, and then I 
 will," is language the world over, and familiar as 
 the sky. If there is ice to be broken, somebody 
 else must break it ; and it is noticeable there is 
 sometimes a refusing to follow when the ice is 
 broken. It is a courage that likes a safe distance 
 from danger, and the best of chances to beat a 
 retreat. In social relations this courage wants 
 curiosity conquered and got out of the way, a trial 
 
COURAGE. 175 
 
 made to test the acceptableness of whatever is 
 proposed, and time and opportunity given for 
 inward rallying and getting its horses fully in 
 hand, and then it may or may not venture. It 
 has no self-sufficing and leading-off quality. It 
 is always in the rear, and makes lawyers who 
 are afraid to stir without precedents, and who 
 turn the court into a plea of echoes ; editors and 
 politicians who are nobody till they have heard 
 from the party leaders and studied the platform ; 
 doctors who are nothing till they have got it 
 from the regular faculty whether to blister or 
 bleed, physic or vomit, stuff or starve ; and 
 ministers, wary of making points as elephants of 
 crossing bridges, till they have heard from the 
 synods, councils, and pews. It waits on security, 
 courts allowance, and never invites itself, nor is 
 there of its own accord and in advance of as- 
 sured immunity. It is servile, having the instinct 
 of a flock of sheep. 
 
 How few are the devotees of fashion bold 
 enough to be in the front rank ! They will be a 
 trifle late, and first suffer the public eye to lose 
 a sense of the ridiculous in the customary. New 
 York is a year behind Paris, and the rest of the 
 country a year or two behind New York : any- 
 thing by degrees and a little late, however inele- 
 
176 AT OUE, BEST. 
 
 gant, absurd, and harmful, — paper shoes or 
 cowhide, hats from a vanishing point to an 
 amplitude to crown any giantess of fable, nar- 
 row skirts or huge bastions. We know not what 
 outrages of good taste might be imposed on our 
 wives and daughters, give time dfor drilling 
 adepts and making gradual approaches. We 
 expect anything. And even the lords of crea- 
 tion are not always lordly and beforehand with 
 themselves and their opportunities. Here are 
 young men challenging each other to spend the 
 evening with Bacchus in Old Griper's cellar, but 
 make no headway as they walk a dozen times up 
 and down the street. Not one of them has a 
 positive character. They were all born to be 
 led. But young Spartacus, who is by inheri- 
 tance a pioneer, comes along, and they have a 
 leader ; and now all goes well, or ill. There are 
 many sheep among us, but few lions, — a Joshua, 
 Leonidas, Luther, a Boadicea, Genevieve, or 
 Joan of Arc, only once in a century. 
 
 Another grade of this attribute is a rough, 
 stout, animal valor. Byron said he " liked some- 
 thing craggy to break his mind on ; " and these 
 born bruisers can only feel themselves in ven- 
 tures and perils and the motions of prowess. They 
 like the desperate, and make a toy of risks. 
 
COURAGE. 177 
 
 The delight of the animal sort is to feel their 
 hair rise and their blood creep, as dogs and cats 
 and cocks find their pastime in fighting. There 
 are the groundlings, the men of the prize-ring, — 
 the Tom Hyer and Heenan class, — who begin to 
 feel good when well-nigh pounded to a jelly, and 
 venture to the brink of a horrid death. There 
 are born lion-hunters, whalers, dalliers with 
 arctic icebergs, peerers into volcanic craters, the 
 forlorn-hope heroes, Putnams to drag out the 
 wolves just for fun, Sam Patches for idiotic 
 plunging, Blondins for bold and absurd balan- 
 cing, buccaneers and banditti, freebooters and 
 filibusters. But these are not to be entirely 
 counted out as useless ; for they are the sub- 
 duers of jungles and tamers of dragons, which 
 gentlemen in broadcloth and clean shirt-bosoms 
 would never have attacked. If Nature has an 
 Augean stable to cleanse, she makes that a 
 Hercules shall be born, as she sent fire and fury 
 to jointly work up the first stages of the world. 
 Pioneers that are more tigers than the tigers, 
 and that out-catamount the catamounts, belong- 
 to the system, and make way for the women of 
 both sexes, and a milder and higher civilization. 
 The grandsons of fire-eaters are mostly graceful 
 and serviceable men enough, since the divine 
 
 12 
 
178 AT OUB BEST. 
 
 method is one of melioration, of the sod climb- 
 ing to a soul in leaf and flower, and of brawn 
 flowing into brain. But how to stop this refin- 
 ing tendency at length is a serious matter ; for 
 Nature seems to launch it and withdraw her 
 hands, as shipbuilders launch ships and leave 
 their fate to pilots. How to retain some drops 
 of aboriginal blood becomes in due time a grave 
 problem, — how to keep our eagles from hatching 
 chickens. One can hardly believe, as he sees 
 nice people in slippers and loose gowns, and 
 watching for a cloud, and keeping their eye on 
 the thermometer, and fumbling for their daily 
 pulse, and consulting doctors, and chewing pills, 
 and full of sighs and misgivings, that they are 
 all that is left of the old Round Table Knights, of 
 ancient Hengist and Horsa, Alfred and Ethel- 
 red, of Spanish Cid, of Saracen, Huguenot, and 
 Puritan ! 
 
 But we will not make too much of our anxie- 
 ties in this direction ; for the more the world is 
 subdued, and all the rough ways are opened and 
 - occupied, and fate is manageable on easier terms, 
 the less need is there of a coarse animal valor ; 
 and subsidence of a rude pluck may be in the 
 perfect plan, like the cooling of the earth and 
 the disappearance of mastodons. We find Dry- 
 
COURAGE. 179 
 
 den long ago suggesting that this type of cour- 
 age is a " virtue to be seldom exercised." 
 
 However, the flesh is to be looked after with 
 much concern whilst we are mortal. We cannot 
 spare a single span from the column of life as 
 Nature has cast it ; but must have the bottom if 
 we would have the top. All the heroisms, to the 
 last and finest degree, are somehow mounted on 
 the body. The whole man is tied to his stomach. 
 No man who is sick or frail can be so brave in 
 anything, not in his art ideals, or prayers, or 
 dreams, as if he were well and robust, and car- 
 ried quantities of arterial blood ; for there is such 
 a unity and wholeness to life, such a firm hooping 
 and holding together of the entire system, such 
 alliance and sympathy of the parts, that not even 
 genius is emancipated and has its full liberty. 
 Health is essential to make us equal to ourselves 
 at any point of our ascending life, as there must 
 be a perfect condition of the earth to exhale a 
 perfect atmosphere, and supply fine sunrises and 
 sunsets. Resolution derives from the muscles, and 
 power is as the pulse. Even prayer has a carnal 
 tinge, and reveals how the night or the day has 
 gone with us, reports of our supper or dinner by 
 its levity or gravity. The minister knows the 
 high-livers of his congregation by the length of 
 
180 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 their nap in church. Whoever reads Coleridge's 
 " Ancient Mariner " with an open sense to all its 
 sources can detect where the opium came in and 
 where it went out, as some of Byron's stanzas 
 and not others are said to " smell of gin." The 
 low pulse of old age tells on the spirit ; and you 
 need not look far to find some advancing and 
 innovating manhood, some hero of reforms, on 
 the eve of taking a lower tone with the flight of 
 years, and pulling down his sails and setting his 
 compass for some quieter haven. An old man 
 observed to Agis that " all things here at Sparta 
 are turned topsy-turvy." " If it is so," responded 
 Agis, " it is agreeable to reason ; for, when I was 
 a boy, I heard my father say that all things were 
 then topsy-turvy, and he heard his father say 
 the same." Those statesmen whose blood is 
 water are always on board a glass ship-of-state, 
 and just approaching within sight and hearing of 
 the rapids ; and every stump-speaker indulges 
 largely in the oratory of despair, if not from 
 faith, then for effect, as touching a string that is 
 sure to vibrate in the hearts of many voters. 
 
 Heroes have mostly good constitutions and 
 fine digestion, and great reliance on their bodies. 
 Everj^body knows what a coward he is when he 
 wakes in the small hours of the night ; how he 
 
COURAGE. 181 
 
 misgives and thinks he is equal to nothing, and 
 that to-day will be doomsday. The red tide 
 is sluggish, the sensibilities are benumbed, and 
 therefore the world has an ugly look since we 
 are not weaponed to meet it. The clergyman 
 thought when he went to bed he had a sermon ; 
 but he sees at five o'clock on Sunday morning 
 he has none. The orator wonders where is the 
 brilliant oration he finished last evening. The 
 merchant, as he wakes and looks out at the stars, 
 sees the hopeful risk as hopeless. I find timid 
 people think that a heavy rain, beginning at 
 midnight, is likely to be another flood, and pray 
 for a chance in a second ark. At low twelve the 
 air is full of birds of ill omen that nobody sees 
 at high twelve. The doctors live on the cowardly 
 fears of people who are not sick, but are not 
 well, as wanting the usual force of the vital 
 circulations. So ill-health scatters all our brave 
 ideas and aims, and leaves us puny and anxious. 
 My body may not be myself; but I find we are 
 fated to keep up a clog-dance. We feel each 
 other as the Siamese twins might. I am weary 
 all over at the same time, and sick through and 
 through. If my flesh is jaded, my spirits lag; 
 or the exceptions to this are so rare that the rule 
 is proven. When the minister gets dyspeptic, 
 
182 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the people wonder what has become of his brave 
 ideas and cheering hopes ; and green tea shows 
 itself to be green tea in his sermon. A low 
 diet, or a vicious diet, tells on the last limits of 
 thought. " My friend," says Sydney Smith, 
 " sups late ; he eats some strong soup, then a 
 lobster, then some tart, and he dilutes these 
 esculent varieties with wine. The next morning 
 I call upon him. He is going to sell his house 
 in London, and retire into the country. He is 
 alarmed for his eldest daughter's health. His 
 expenses are hourly increasing, and nothing but 
 a timely retreat can save him from ruin. All 
 this is the lobster ; and when over-excited nature 
 has had time to manage the testaceous incum- 
 brance, the daughter recovers, the finances are 
 in good condition, and every rural idea is effec- 
 tually exploded." 
 
 It may be humiliating to solve the problem 
 of courage thus, with so much of a downward 
 reference. It looks like paying too much toll to 
 the senses. Immortals and gods are we, and 
 yet hamstrung, or chained like galley slaves to 
 these mortal drags ! But, whilst we are cooped 
 in the flesh, it is wise to honor our conditions, 
 and parry fate by going willingly and bravely 
 along with it, and making a liberty of necessity, 
 
COURAGE. 183 
 
 — as every farmer gracefully plants what the 
 soil bids, wheat or white beans, and finds his 
 reward in seconding and not in contradicting the 
 lower dictations. It becomes us to sacrifice 
 freely to the ruddy goddess, her gifts are so 
 many and fine and indispensable, — as the good 
 cheer of the eye, the major key of the voice, 
 a step that charms like a dance, a vision that 
 spreads gay colors on all things, a sky always 
 clear with the wind west by north-west, endur- 
 ance, insight, vitality, vim, and, withal, large 
 volumes of courage to carry us wherever we 
 desire. Health cannot be left out of our aims. 
 The engineer cannot spare his coals and oil and 
 perfect condition of all the gearing ; and every 
 one has an equal need of a sound body. We 
 must not be pimps and nurslings if we would 
 dare and do. In short, would you know at what 
 price health is still a bargain ? When you have 
 paid for it everything but honor and immor- 
 tality, — all your pet indulgences, brandy, hash- 
 ish, snuff, green tea; late suppers and soft 
 beds and delicious idleness ; Schnapps and 
 Plantation Bitters and soothing syrups ; broad 
 margins of profits from your daily business ; and 
 those more positive values, a protecting purpose 
 in life to confer self-respect and dignity and 
 
184 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 shield from ennui, steady habits, good hours, 
 plain diet, ample ventilation and frequent baths, 
 and a conscience void of offence. 
 
 But let us rise out of a carnal atmosphere and 
 see our subject on some higher levels. Broadly 
 stated, courage is a birth from competency, and 
 cowardice from incompetency, real or fancied; 
 and that which the flesh supplies, save to the 
 lower orders of heroisms, is but a fraction of 
 what is needed. It is mainly a question of 
 higher equalities to the demands. Courage is as 
 the features of the mind. What are we equal 
 to ? That will decide what we are brave in ; 
 for we are brave according as we have faiths, 
 virtues, disciplines, skills, habits, the artillery of 
 mind and soul to fall back on and rally to our 
 service, as the duck who knows his web feet has 
 no fear of the water, nor the bird of the upper 
 air when he has once found his wings. Heroism 
 is a matter of sufficiency. See how bold the 
 skilled artisan is about all affairs of his trade ! 
 and how independently the humble gardener in 
 shirt-sleeves, who knows all about the planting 
 and pruning and potting of flowers, confronts 
 the rich landlord in broadcloth who knows noth- 
 ing ! His knowledge is a throne, and makes him 
 a bold dictator to ignorance. But in the parlor 
 
COURAGE. 185 
 
 the scales would turn the other way, since skill 
 would be reversed. Supply all the conditions of 
 safety, and a man need have no more fear of a 
 wild lion than of a wild gazelle. Paul Morphy 
 was cool because he knew his game and had easy 
 mastery of it ; but the chess-players thought he 
 had no nerves. That ingenious spinner, Arachne, 
 challenged Minerva, the goddess of household 
 employments, to a contest at the loom, saying, 
 " I am not afraid of the goddess : let her try 
 her skill with me if she dare venture." " When 
 I was in London," said Rothschild, " the East 
 India Company had £800,000 of gold to sell. I 
 went to the sale and bought it all. But I knew 
 the Duke of Wellington must have it ; for I had 
 bought a great many of his bills at discount." 
 The great banker had no fears, because he had 
 adequate facts. With these in hand, it was not 
 a case for alarm and lying awake, any more than 
 for the farmer to put in an extra ton of hay 
 in the summer, when he knows his neighbor's 
 cattle must have it in the spring ; or for Johnny 
 to buy a ten-cent whistle on trust when he holds 
 the secret that Tommy has fifteen cents burning 
 in his pocket to pay for it. Make all the steps 
 clear and certain of ingress and egress, as they 
 were to JEneas, according to Virgil, and you 
 
186 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 may venture a trip into Hades without a single 
 throb of the heart. A sure footing and holding 
 of the keys when the grim gate is past is enough 
 to keep one's spirits up. 
 
 The story of Scheherezade, the fictitious em- 
 press of tale-tellers, whose world-renowned feats 
 in this direction are the " Arabian Nights' En- 
 tertainments," is a poetic contribution to our 
 thought that courage is of qualification. The 
 Sultan of the Indies, for some barbarous freak, 
 had resolved to espouse a new Sultana every 
 evening, and have her strangled in the morning. 
 His vizier was solemnly ordered to attend to this 
 daily marriage and murder, with strict attention 
 to every particular of manner and time. But 
 how about the fair daughters of the first fami- 
 lies, who each looked for her turn to be dragged 
 to the sanguinary nuptials? They were seized 
 and crazed with fear and consternation, — all 
 save one, Scheherezade, the daughter of the 
 vizier himself; and she, to the horror of her 
 father and astonishment of all, insisted on be- 
 coming the bride of this monstrous bridegroom ; 
 and, after every dissuasion by all who loved her 
 had proved in vain, the vizier, in the agony of 
 despair, led her to the evening altar as if it 
 were her morning bier. But she knew her 
 
COURAGE. 187 
 
 secret, confided in it, and had no fears. For a 
 thousand and one mornings she had the Sultan 
 so absorbed in some entrancing story that she 
 contrived to have but half told as the fatal hour 
 arrived, that he had her spared to conclude it in 
 the evening. And thus she charmed him with 
 her tissues of fancy, which we still read with 
 spell-bound interest, into an affectionate hus- 
 band, — a method of carrying a point with the 
 lords of creation that others than a Sultana 
 might safely put on trial. But let us not miss 
 the point of the narrative. The shrewd maiden 
 knew her equality to the case, and courage was 
 not unnatural even in what was deemed so 
 perilous an undertaking. 
 
 " After one completely draws 
 All the lion's teeth and claws, 
 Who need fear his helpless paws, 
 Or his boneless, mumbling jaws % " 
 
 Common life is full of brave qualifications and 
 competences. We venture on our talents and 
 attainments since we find our freedom and easy 
 success in them. Abating what we must for 
 some shy taints of blood, as if we were inheritors 
 from foxes and hares, and some moments of 
 panic to which all are liable, since there are 
 terrors too sudden to be parried, it is then a 
 
188 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 question of backers and ample supports whether 
 we dare or dare not. The key to heroism is 
 adequacy. Benumb any sense, as the eye or 
 ear, and there follows embarrassment, because 
 loss of needed power. We pay a heavy tax on 
 a club-foot, or squint eye, a dwarfed or over- 
 grown stature, or cream-colored hair, because 
 with the ill-bred and gaping world these set us 
 at a disadvantage too great for any, save one in 
 many thousands, to meet and overcome. I know 
 a woman of fine mind and spirit who, having 
 always lived in the country, is haunted by some 
 whim about awkwardness, that holds her from 
 venturing to visit the city ; and desire often 
 turns pale, and withdraws at the thought of 
 contending, with ill outfit, against adverse and 
 trying situations. Who can stand serene and 
 aplomb in company with a ragged or misfitting 
 coat, or a dress or hat suggestive of Noah's 
 flood? The superhuman and the super-eccen- 
 tric may be equal to this, and have no blush or 
 flurry ; but the rest of us have a debt to the 
 lower felicities, and are called to guard against 
 the most external defects and disadvantages if 
 we would go bravely on. 
 
 But inward abilities are yet better, since 
 they favor a deeper sense of safety. A central 
 
COUEAGE. 189 
 
 mastery enchants and emboldens, like a higher 
 health, and has a certain modest eagerness to 
 put in its appearance. Greatness is entitled to 
 exhibition, and is naturally moved by its own 
 forces to enter the lists and come to trial, as 
 light is under a law of radiation, and the 
 " bushel " is an artificial restriction or stay upon 
 Nature. From the child's fearless walk when it 
 has found its feet, and the school boy's and 
 girl's bold recitation when 'they have a sure 
 lesson, to the Congressman's heroic speech when 
 he has drunk deep at the fountain of civil philos- 
 ophy and political history, — all generous outfit 
 tells on the nerves and the heart and the will. 
 We disperse timidities as we make conquest of 
 aptitudes, as superstition flies before reason and 
 science. Our fears accuse the perfection of our 
 states, and so far our honor as our short-coming 
 is of neglect. The secret is to mount our terrors 
 by superiority ; to fight fear with power, wisdom, 
 skill, experience, as we conquer fate by more 
 fate or higher. 
 
 There are many witnesses to our sense of the 
 close relation of competency and courage ; and a 
 somewhat notable one is the profusion of our 
 apologies and modest disclaimers. It is an inun- 
 dation of these cheap and too often cowardly 
 
190 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 expedients. They come as easy and thick as 
 snow-flakes. And what is their philosophy but 
 to depress standards and bring expectations 
 within easy reach of our capacity, and so get 
 the better of our trepidatioDS, as the boys bring 
 the marks nearer to insure a perfect reliance on 
 their store of powder ? We would set expecta- 
 tion to a lower range, have the count on us 
 reduced, pitch the tune to an easier key, and so 
 mount ourselves on certainties and have no fears. 
 What inevitable apologists are our orators with 
 their " premeditated impromptus," so that we 
 almost look to see these men, who " did not 
 come to speak, but to hear," draw their speeches 
 from their pockets and coolly proceed to read 
 them. It is coaxing bravery by making victory 
 more easy. Of course, every singer is unfor- 
 tunate and out of voice just now, caught cold in 
 the last shower, is not yet over an influenza, is 
 out of practice, and only knows a snatch of this 
 or that old song. With a few this may spring 
 of vanity, may be a blinding the more to dazzle, 
 as for stage effect they turn off the lights and 
 then let them on, or as wives play on their 
 husbands by promising a few old crusts for 
 dinner, and finally bring on a roast turkey and 
 plum-pudding. But mainly these disparagements 
 
COURAGE. 191 
 
 betray modesty, and are in the interest of cour- 
 age, or, what is the same thing, a sense of easy 
 equality to the ease. Everybody knows how 
 housekeepers are for ever rallying themselves 
 thus by apologies ; how they will have us in all 
 the secrets of the cook-room before we come to 
 the table, — that the stove refused to bake, the 
 chimney to-day drew down instead of up, the 
 last barrel of flour was the worst that ever came 
 into the house, and that Bridget forgot to 
 sweeten the sweet-cake, or has mixed the tea 
 and coffee in the same pot and made a mess of 
 it, and that a thousand and one mishaps have 
 befallen, which never occurred at any other 
 time ; and all this to adjust the ideal to an easy 
 compass, and have their nerves set to an assured 
 composure. It is a roundabout way of bracing 
 diffidence, or closing a bargain with valor. 
 
 But apologies are not much in order. If they 
 are set up to parry an exacting public, to disarm 
 a severe criticism, to keep our fastidious friends 
 in countenance, a little healthy contempt would 
 serve a deal better* If they are compromises 
 with shiftlessness and short-coming, contrivances 
 to eke out a deficit that idleness ever incurs, and 
 save the labor of outfit and mastery, a few sharp 
 spurs set into the ribs of our ambition and in- 
 
192 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 dustry would be wiser. If they are needed, then 
 they are needless, as holding a secret that will 
 publish itself in due time. And if they uncover 
 what would else keep itself covered and foolishly 
 trumpet defects, then they are the folly of fools. 
 Whilst, by the sure play of Nature's law of like 
 from like, they educate fear and keep up habits 
 of temerity, as dosing every little ailment re- 
 duces the tone of health and drags to the grave 
 there is an effort to shun. One likes to meet a 
 courage that can let apologies pass. Heroes die 
 without a groan. The brave will see an army of 
 ghosts, and have never a word to say about it. 
 Even sciatica and toothache and colic have been 
 known to be silent. And, moreover, let us pre- 
 sume, as we well may, that all sympathy for 
 defects worth having need not be bid for, but 
 will have the grace to volunteer itself. Let us 
 have unsolicited pity or none. All in all, I sup- 
 pose I could offer no better advice than to urge 
 the purchase of padlocks for our apologetic lips 
 at the next corner. 
 
 But modesty, a low tone, absence of promises, 
 a plain and simple habit, and somewhat retiring 
 ways, are to be commended as befriending cour- 
 age ; since they naturally favor the high advan- 
 tage of ample basis. The English lords, very 
 
COURAGE. 193 
 
 wisely one would say, wear common cloth, and 
 hug the ordinary topics of conversation, — the 
 markets, the weather, the crops, the newspaper 
 gossip, and like petty and idle topics, - — since 
 their lordships thus keep their promise below 
 their capacity and easy performance, and have 
 a ready courage. The philosopher likes to be 
 found in his kitchen, as the modest orator speaks 
 better from a low stand ; the great general is 
 more free and easy with his epaulettes off ; the 
 saint avoids a brassy trumpet ; and all sensible 
 people hold themselves under a little reserve. 
 It is an insurance against anxieties and fears to 
 have thus made sure of competency. 
 
 The antidote of fear is power ; and of this, I 
 , make no doubt, we hold more already than we 
 are apt to think ; that is, we are liable to be 
 the dupes of distrust and the cowards of mere 
 whim. We do not count enough on our sleep- 
 ing energies; but are like those people who 
 always move us to laughter, who set to hunting 
 for their spectacles when they already have them 
 on. The can't is often only in the thought ; 
 while the can is in all parts of our being, but 
 cheated of its credit and service. There are 
 energies in a drop of dew, set them in the active 
 form of steam, to lift tons and rive ledges of 
 13 
 
194 AT OUH BEST. 
 
 granite ; and this may be a hint, not improperly- 
 taken, of the latencies of the soul. Socrates 
 thought men were gods who had not found it 
 out. What a power is the human eye, any eye 
 of a thousand, when securely braced ! the ugli- 
 est bull-dog slinks before it ; no lion can with- 
 stand it ; in Mirabeau and Napoleon it could 
 tame a mob and check a riot. 
 
 Saadi said, " There is under every jacket a 
 man." Burns thought there were many poets 
 behind ploughs and in ale-houses. That we see 
 greatness so often uncovered by mere accident, 
 as it were, leads us to regard it as not uncom- 
 mon ; and to believe there are many who have 
 all the qualifications of courage, but have not 
 courage as not having knowledge of themselves. 
 A little custom serves for self-revelation. Where 
 there is capacity, fear flies with a debut ; and we 
 come to a second trial, and a third, with more 
 composed nerves and a happier success. The 
 lesson that is perpetually taught by a successful 
 republic is one of trust in the people, in the 
 prevalence of mother-wit and divining instincts, 
 which are much safer guides than merely ac- 
 quired lore. One need not be surprised that 
 the late Emperor of France found an empress 
 in a very humble walk, who, after a little of 
 
COURAGE. 195 
 
 trial to get herself in hand, found a beautiful 
 ease in the gayest court-circle of all Europe ; 
 and there are more Eug^nies in the street. 
 There are brave sailors and soldiers by scores 
 in every town, give them fifty voyages and a 
 hundred battles ; for what with the emergence 
 of self and the discovery that the risks are 
 chiefly imaginary, — it costing the enemy, as 
 every soldier learns, a man's weight in ounce 
 bullets to effect a successful shot, — their nerves 
 are set to a sure composure. Every one becomes 
 braver by habit and use ; or custom checks the 
 wild strokes of the heart and tames the shyness 
 of the eye. The most select company is no 
 terror to those who have often been in it ; and 
 almost any one of us has the needed gifts, and 
 only lacks the best degrees of use. " Lycurgus, 
 the old lawgiver, forbade the Lacedemonians to 
 fight often with the same nations, lest the enemy 
 should overcome fear by custom." He saw 
 them all as heroes in the measure of their ade- 
 quacy, but not by experience, which secret he 
 meant to withhold. 
 
 The lion in us is also at the command of the 
 will, which is a rallying wand of such magic 
 power that the transition it brings from coward- 
 ice to courage is often the work of an instant ; 
 
196 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and, the will slipping its hold, we go down as 
 swift as we came up. Thus every one knows 
 how young ladies in reading-clubs often go on 
 bravely with four stanzas of the five, or nine of 
 the ten, which they are to attempt, and ridicu- 
 lously fail on the closing lines. It is not uncom- 
 mon with us to fight bravely with danger hand 
 to hand, and to faint when the peril is over. I 
 have known a country boy spend the evening at 
 the village, a mile and a half from his farm-house 
 home, and return bravely alone, with no moon 
 or star to keep him company. By applying the 
 force-pump of his will, he drew on a torrent of 
 heroic spirit that would have sufficed to carry 
 him into Brazilian jungles. He braced to a firm 
 step, and heard his foot every time it struck on 
 the beaten road. Without a flurry he quitted 
 the last glimmer of the village lights, and cared 
 not that the candles were out at the two or 
 three homes he had to pass on his lonely way. 
 He tramped heavily by the deep dark ravine on 
 the right that led off into wide forests ; skirted 
 the long reach of woods on the left with no 
 abatement of valor; glided boldly by orchard 
 and field, and on through the blackness of dark- 
 ness to the door-yard maple, whose noon shadow 
 slanted quite to the door he was to enter. What 
 
COURAGE. 197 
 
 a hero of will ! But look again : instantly our 
 brave has become a coward, has surrendered his 
 will and fallen into the hands of his fancies, has 
 lifted the gate of his heart and let off the valor- 
 ous flood, and makes the last twenty paces with 
 a press of palpitations as if he were nobody. 
 And so it is the w r ill, or the want of will, which 
 makes of us heroes or cowards. Our latent life 
 lies at the mercy of volition. We are like those 
 toys that must have a spring touched to bring 
 out some hidden image ; or like sleeping giants 
 that must be awaked by some incantation to 
 be themselves ; that is, we hold a better nature 
 in reserve which is at the disposal of high 
 resolves. 
 
 The fibre and fearlessness of Andrew Jackson 
 were revealed in that eloquent purpose of his 
 will, — " By the Eternal!" And any nature 
 that shares this strong rudder pushes direct 
 on the line of its choice into whatever tem- 
 pestuous sea lies that way. Who is a man, 
 in any high sense, but he that can brace himself 
 with voluntary firmness against opposition and 
 peril? He that will run is nobody, or is what 
 most of us are. Even doggedness is respectable, 
 if not agreeable ; and obstinacy, to the degree 
 of dying for nothing, as whether a feather was 
 
198 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 white or whitish, or a pin had a solid or adjusted 
 head, or the orator said tweedle-dum or tweedle- 
 dee, is a better failing than a timid servility. At 
 all events, this vice is free of fear and no craven. 
 Courage, moreover, is a prominent element in 
 all the affections of our nature. Our fascinations 
 render us unfearing, because they are positive, 
 and because they magnify the ends to be gained 
 out of all proportion to possible losses. As the 
 word itself signifies, courage is cor-ago, or what 
 we may term heart-motion ; and it characterizes 
 all the inward states of choice, preference, ap- 
 petence, ambition, cupidity, and lust ; is in all 
 love, friendship, philanthropy ; comes with all 
 high devotion to art, science, country, mo- 
 rality, and God. We are heroes according 
 to the measure of our various affections for 
 objects and ends, and are quite capable of be- 
 coming martyrs for mere toys by concentration 
 of heart on them, as it is said that South-Sea 
 Islanders will leap into waters peopled with 
 hungry sharks to rescue an idolized palm-leaf 
 hat. What adventurers for the love of gold ! 
 And how well that it is so, since the shining 
 lure leads on the race to many new conquests, 
 near and far, on land and in the sea. According 
 to Schiller's poem, the old king cast a golden 
 
COURAGE. 199 
 
 goblet into the raging Charybdis, which should 
 be his that would venture in and bring it from 
 those wild and mysterious depths. Instantly a 
 slender youth made the fearful plunge ! What 
 a symbol of the guerdons that the world offers, 
 — coals in mines, whales in the oceans, gold and 
 silver in wild Californias and Australias, news 
 to bring from central Africa and the arctic 
 regions, — and of the ready courage that is sup- 
 plied to the venture ! The ugly enemies — 
 climate, fevers, explosions, ferocious beasts, 
 savages, and cannibals — are not suffered to 
 hinder. Sancho Panza, poltroon as he was, 
 enlisted as the Don's squire, under promise of 
 islands to govern ; and perpetually needed the 
 lure to coax him on from peril to peril. There 
 is a price that bays off all fear. There are El 
 Dorados to command every degree of courage : 
 with this one, it is a handful of confections ; 
 with that, a cockade of fame ; and with another, 
 a bag of gold. Cupidity is sure to carry us 
 against all terrors. 
 
 How heroic is the doting binary passion which 
 we call love ! Cupid is painted as blind, or with 
 bandaged eyes, to signify not that he is careless 
 and foolish in choosing, but that he will see 
 nothing that may cause him to misgive and turn 
 
200 AT OTJR BEST. 
 
 back. He is bent on advance and conquest 
 despite all risks, which he would not notice or 
 would regard as nothing. To watch the bold 
 play of this heroic passion is the height of all 
 charms, except it be to feel it ; and hence much 
 of our literature, surely the best and most read 
 portion of it, turns on this point. No other 
 interest has been treated with the same ampli- 
 tude ; neither has it with the same poetic fire 
 and fidelity, since every author has been, at least 
 once, the hero he describes. He dips his pen 
 into a central ink-pot, and writes not on hear- 
 say, but as " one having authority." The an- 
 cient classic of Leander and Hero has many 
 a modern counterpart. That enamoured youth 
 swum the Hellespont nightly between Abydos 
 and Sestus, a swift tide of four miles, to spend 
 an hour — and possibly more — with the fair 
 priestess of Venus, who, kind spirit, set a torch 
 on shore to mark for him a safe landing. The 
 deed was long deemed impossible, — by such, I 
 suppose, as had never felt Leander's rapt and 
 brave impulse. But Lord Byron thought better 
 of it ; and on a second attempt, attended by day- 
 light and friends in a boat, swum the passage. 
 But like feats are not uncommon through this 
 unfearing power of the heart. In the mythol- 
 
COURAGE. 201 
 
 ogy of the gods and heroes, there are ever 
 appearing, in wild play, like strong lights on 
 a picture, the daring romances of love. The 
 curious in such matters may read at their leisure 
 the stories of Apollo and Daphne, Venus and 
 Adonis, Sappho and Phaon, Atalanta and her 
 suitors, and Helena and her bold adorers. 
 
 The annals of knighthood reveal similar heroic 
 inspirations from a kindred source. It was largely 
 the daring of love in tournaments, and not less 
 in many single encounters between lance and 
 lance. Often it was a purely insane venture of 
 sentimentalism, of no credit to either party, — 
 a great daring and ado about nothing ; which 
 led Cervantes, in his famous satire, to confer 
 on the ridiculous Don a not less ridiculous Dul- 
 cinea del Toboso, for whose gratification and 
 astonishment he attacked wind-mills, water- 
 falls, flocks of sheep, and funeral processions, 
 with equal valor and folly. But, giving satire 
 its widest margin, there was still a truer regard 
 for woman in chivalry than the world had 
 known to that day, and a foretokening, in those 
 wild courages of sentiment, of the bravery of 
 a higher and better love. It is only another 
 step to Enoch Arden and Evangeline. It is 
 only a refinement on King Arthur and his gal- 
 
202 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 lants that the modern Christian muse can set 
 forth of love's adventures. And one sometimes 
 has a half fear that myth and legend, with their 
 high exaggerations, cannot be spared ; that our 
 modern amours, save among the lowest classes, 
 need heating and bracing thus ; that the heroic 
 measure of love is no more to be found as of 
 old on the highest plains of society, but a blood- 
 less, timid, calculating, arithmetical affection 
 instead, that wants in advance a count of silver 
 spoons and gold dishes, an inventory of estates, 
 and a reading of the old man's will. Love seems 
 not as once to be sufficient unto itself, to be 
 a whole world of its own, and full of sunset 
 colors and romantic splendors. It has grown 
 somewhat of a cent-per-cent affair, and gives 
 an undue emphasis to tax-lists. Is this man a 
 fortune, and this woman an heiress ? Then it 
 will do to fall in love. Cupid has become a 
 sharp-eyed fellow, and in finding eyes has lost 
 his valors. But have him blind once more, with 
 Cupid's all-seeing and all-biassed blindness, and 
 he will be brave as ever, as we see among pea- 
 sants and in our best novels. Love's true name 
 is Hero and not Flummux ; and our young 
 people, who misgive at the thought of tailor's 
 and milliner's and merchant's and butcher's 
 
COURAGE. 203 
 
 bills, have not been baptized into his name and 
 spirit. Galen would recommend iodine to their 
 need ; would breed in them more of the red tide 
 of true passion, which fears not fire nor flood, 
 nor humble cottages to begin life in, nor what 
 hard work it may require to tug the boat for- 
 ward into deep water and fair sailing. 
 
 In all of its broader provinces, not less than 
 as a duplex passion, love carries a brave im- 
 pulse, having much the same blindness to all 
 but the thing to be done, and doing that though 
 the heavens were to fall. The list of unselfish 
 heroes is long and creditable. It is something 
 to venture for ourselves ; but there comes a 
 time in the growth of the heart when we will 
 venture for others, and then our courage is 
 enchanted, and rises to the sublime and godlike. 
 Sympathy breeds a higher order of heroism. 
 Tie the heart to the people with an affirmative 
 bond, and it will dare to the last degree, and 
 give us a crop of Spartans to die for a nation's 
 freedom, or of Howards to face contagion and 
 pestilence, or any needed order of humane 
 heroes. Demosthenes was timid save when 
 pleading for Athens or Greece, and then no man 
 was bolder. Great generals know this secret, 
 and rally their troops on their broader relations. 
 
204 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Thus, Napoleon, in his African campaign, told 
 his men that " forty centuries were looking 
 down upon them from the Pyramids ; " Nelson 
 issued his famous order that " England expects 
 every man will do his duty ; " Cromwell con- 
 jured with the Commonwealth ; and Washing- 
 ton, with colonial firesides and a nation of un- 
 born freemen. The gravity of the occasion was 
 immeasurably increased thus, and braced cour- 
 age in an equal proportion. The best educated 
 soldiers, who can comprehend principles and be 
 mounted on broad aims, are ever the bravest. 
 And for this reason religion, introducing God 
 and eternity, and a world of universal prin- 
 ciples and aims, induces the very sublimity of 
 heroism that will count life as nothing. 
 
 Bind us to the universe, ally us to the moral, 
 the true, the beautiful, the infinite, and thus 
 befriend us by inevitable securities, as you will, 
 and what need we fear ? Victory is protected, 
 and all else is trivial, neither here nor there. 
 " ' The best hearts, Trim, are ever the bravest,' 
 replied my Uncle Toby." The weakness of 
 wickedness is its isolation from the everlasting 
 and secure ; that it is cut off and driven out 
 from the inner citadel of the world and its 
 friendly protections, like a man ostracized from 
 
COURAGE. 205 
 
 the state and its aegis for some crime, or cast 
 overboard from a ship to run his chance with 
 waves and sharks. Sin has an instinct of having 
 incurred secret and serious hostilities ; of being 
 on the wrong side of Fate, in array against 
 Providence, which it looks to meet in unequal 
 contest at the next corner. Vice feels itself 
 to be alone, or in a company worse than none ; 
 vulnerable, but without armor ; sick, and there 
 is no doctor. It is our better loves that have a 
 sense of being shielded. Virtue has the uni- 
 verse engaged to it, as the planets are under 
 obligation to every grain of sand, and become 
 their keepers, that they shall not fall away and 
 be lost. All true souls are guaranteed safety ; 
 and to such defeat is only another form of vic- 
 tory, and failure a shorter road to success. 
 There is no occasion for fear on the line of 
 duty, for the defences are unconquerable. When 
 they pointed Saint Theresa to her poverty to 
 turn her from her exclusive devotion to mercy, 
 she shamed them with the lofty truth and trust 
 of her reply : " Theresa and two sous are indeed 
 nothing ; but Theresa, two sous, and God are 
 all things;" and bravely she went on with 
 her work, having all faith in the bank she 
 drew on. 
 
206 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 History is full of similar texts from which to 
 preach of the courage of felt relations to the 
 universal. How brave is the young convert 
 when lifted out of himself! How a prayer 
 emboldens ! The French general, Montluc, 
 confessed to the frequent rallying of himself 
 in the presence of the enemy by a petition to 
 his Maker. The martyrs have all been con- 
 scious of this secure tie, and kept their ears 
 open to the music of the death-psalm, and 
 their eyes calm for the poetry of the curling 
 flames, — as John Brown for the beauty of the 
 Virginia hills, upon which he sweetly remarked 
 on the way to his cross and crown. Reposing 
 on the side of justice, purity, humanity, and 
 God, we shall meet death in any form with 
 heroic composure, or life of the severest order 
 with serenity : we can thus equal the Apostles, 
 Socrates, Latimer, Ridley, and Sir Thomas ' 
 More. One likes to read of the good and 
 trustful Sir Thomas as he appeared on the 
 scaffold, it so commends one to seek out and 
 ally himself to things eternal. When they had 
 laid his head on the block, where it rested 
 as quietly as if on a pillow, he discovered 
 that the axe must sever also his beard, and 
 ordered the headman to adjust it. " It is of no 
 
COURAGE. 207 
 
 consequence," he was told : " give thyself no 
 trouble." " It is of little consequence, indeed, 
 to me," said More, " but it is a matter of some 
 importance to you that you should understand 
 your profession, and not cut through my beard 
 when you had orders only to cut off my head." 
 All the high anecdotes of dying heroes are more 
 than sermons to us; foj the same principle of 
 alliance between virtue and valor, faith and 
 fearlessness, a sense of the infinite and of the 
 secure, pervades all circles. 
 
 It only remains now to further commend 
 courage, by naming a few of its yet unnamed 
 uses. And here we can only offer an inventory 
 and not a discussion. Courage saves on many 
 expenses that cowardice is ever incurring ; will 
 not waste on wines for the expectant and crav- 
 ing ; nor on too many and too costly dresses 
 and coats for fashion's sake, journeys that should 
 be postponed or foregone, houses a story too 
 high for use or beauty, furniture beyond means, 
 and funerals so costly that death becomes an 
 exorbitant claim on one's estate ; courage is hus- 
 bandry and economy down to the line of duty. 
 It also shields from insolence, keeps rights 
 respected and intact ; has the key turned against 
 bores, in justice to time and nerves ; sets bullies 
 
208 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and encroachers easily back in their places. 
 " If thou suffer a calf to be laid on thee," say 
 the Orientals, " within a little they '11 clap on a 
 cow," — but courage is in time and forbids the 
 calf. It makes our look or word potent as bay- 
 onets, and has a host of enemies in flight. It 
 keeps the dogs from barking at us, the horses 
 from rearing and backing, the bulls from tossing 
 their horns, the very hornets and bees from 
 menacing ; for all these have some mystic sense 
 of how it is with us, and are respectful to the 
 brave as they are not to the cowardly. It saves 
 circumlocutions and valuable moments and 
 hours, by going straight to its end. Pope 
 said it cost Addison a sheet of paper and a 
 nervous hour to write a dun ; and timidity 
 always dallies, keeps from its point, and often 
 goes home without doing its errand. There 
 are men and women who go about much as if 
 begging the privilege of life, having a painful 
 apologetic air, always haunting the corners and 
 by-ways, shrinking where they ought to ad- 
 vance, peeping and peering where they should 
 send eye-beams like ramrods, — whom a dash 
 of heroism would brace and bless, and set into 
 a new world. Courage takes counsel of its 
 hopes ; waits for troubles, and does not borrow 
 
COURAGE. 209 
 
 them ; thinks the bugs tick in the wall because 
 they want to, and that all omens are old wo- 
 men's whims ; and does not die a thousand 
 times, but once only, and then with much grace 
 and beauty. 
 
 14 
 
210 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 VII. 
 
 THE HOME. 
 
 " One small spot 
 "Where the tired mind may rest, and call it Home. 
 There is magic in that little word ! 
 It is a mystic circle that surrounds 
 Comforts and virtues never known beyond 
 The hallowed limit." — Southey. 
 
 ' The first sure symptom of a mind in health 
 Is rest of heart, and pleasure felt at home.' , 
 
 Young. 
 
 " The parent love the wedded love includes, 
 The one permits the two their mutual moods, 
 The two each other know 'mid myriad multitudes." 
 
 Margaret Fuller. 
 
 ipOR a little time in the life of almost every 
 boy there holds sway a roving or nomadic 
 tendency. He is impatient of home ; will cut 
 loose and be off : will have a taste of all adven- 
 tures, join the wildest expedition that starts, 
 try all the zones, and have a look at the whole 
 world. His impulses are centrifugal ; and we 
 may expect to wake any morning and find he 
 has run away. This is no doubt a shrewd 
 
THE HOME. 211 
 
 strategy of Nature in the interest of discovery, 
 the conquest of virgin acres, new centres of 
 civilization, general expansion. Too much cen- 
 tralization is overcome by making the distant 
 and untried magical to the lad's imagination. 
 There are wanted pioneers, young and fearless, 
 in a thousand quarters, — east, west, north, and 
 south ; and through early impulses, stirring 
 the best blood, Nature bids in opposition to 
 the prayers, tears, hopes, and bribes of anxious 
 mothers, who would tie their boys to their 
 apron-strings. 
 
 But the wayward instinct spends, itself at 
 length, and our wanderer is seized by some 
 deeper and more primal power of his being. 
 The wild man, the rover, the victim of loco- 
 motion, has his day, and another and superior 
 man steps in ; and he will have a home. In 
 lieu of a better habitation, man betakes him to 
 a hutch of boards, a log cabin, a mud embank- 
 ment thatched with boughs, or even a hole in 
 the rocks ; and marries any thing for a wife, — 
 on our far frontier, some red man's squaw ; in 
 Africa, a thick-lipped negress ; in China, a tea- 
 colored wench ; and in Ireland, the lowest piece 
 of bog that is animated ; and in patriarchal fash- 
 ion surrounds himself with children, whining, 
 
212 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 prattling, toddling tow-heads, in whom he sees 
 as in no other faces on the planet endearing 
 features. He is now like one who has overtaken 
 a flying destiny, and sits him down to a content, 
 so rich and sufficient he can spare both the past 
 and the future. 
 
 Our sea-faring towns — Marblehead, Glou- 
 cester, Chatham, and New Bedford — abound 
 in instances of the facile adaptation of homeless 
 rovers, sailors, whalers, and vagabonds, to house- 
 hold conditions. Old Salt makes a fine family 
 man. Bluff Tarpaulin takes him a wife, and 
 now see how his tanned face beams with fireside 
 sentiments ! Their hoarse, ocean-like voices, 
 bred by competing with winds, waves, the war 
 of elements, the uproar of Neptune, hush into 
 cooing and chuckling over cradles. Suddenly 
 and magically their great hard hands seem to 
 be endowed by miracle with a perfect sense of 
 touch, or experience the new birth of some 
 finer latent trait, and pass from the hauling of 
 cables and reefing of sails to toying with gos- 
 samer and butterflies' wings. Should not old 
 Salt and Tarpaulin be henceforth engravers,- 
 jewellers, dealers in needles and laces, or pro- 
 fessional oculists, and not sailors ? But how 
 has this perfect art been acquired so ? In what 
 
THE HOME. 213 
 
 school have they learned these delicate and bril- 
 liant feats ? They were only pupils of the all- 
 wise Mother of us all ; or, as the bee is born to 
 build better than the geometer, the swallow to 
 migrate without knowing or asking his way, and 
 the ugly bulb to send forth the beautiful flower, 
 by a reason that is before and above reasoning, 
 so men and women are seized by some finer 
 instinct, and pair and marry and make a home, 
 which, among the rudest, w411 share many of 
 the traits of paradise. 
 
 Home-building is a game that Nature plays at, 
 and with loaded dice. All hearts are weighted 
 with this gravity. Cupid may be blind, as they 
 say ; but one notices the little pilot sails his 
 craft very directly toward the family port. The 
 home is guaranteed and guarded by laws and 
 attractions like those which hold the stars 
 suspended in their places. 
 
 The pure and good want no phalanstery, and 
 much less a low and sensual chaos. There is 
 a self-respect in the blood, that would keep it 
 in known and honored channels. It is love, and 
 never lust, that covets children ; and these are 
 the more interesting if they carry the family 
 mark and identity, betokening that the bond is 
 the more perfect as it is written out with red 
 
214 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 ink and sealed with the household stamp. But 
 the soul carries a stronger instinct of selection 
 and organism. The most perfect bias is dual 
 and also spiritual. Polygamy betrays a lack of 
 refinement as well as virtue ; evinces a lower, 
 cruder, less secure stage of civilization. But a 
 46 free-love," which is no love, and marriage for 
 divorce, are a mania bred by muddy natures ; 
 are the dream and philosophy of Lotharios and 
 Venuses ; are more brutal than human, and al- 
 together undivine. Domestic communism, how- 
 ever honestly organized, by whatever saints, is 
 a rope of sand, to which Nature refuses, as often 
 as the experiment is made, her adhesive lime 
 and bitumen ; no genius or virtue can bind what 
 is thus repellant; whilst a lawless and lustful 
 socialism, however vouched for by the rhetoric 
 of innocence, or mysterious raps in pine tables, 
 or spirits of the night, is diabolical to the last 
 degree. No vestment of sanctity, no pious 
 incantations, no smooth pleas concerning affini- 
 ties, can exalt the lewd and base. The estab- 
 lished family, clean to the last drop of its blood 
 and in all the features of its faces, orbed in 
 purity of flesh and spirit, loved because truly 
 owned and respected, is the normal type or 
 grouping of humanity. Alike for purposes of 
 
THE HOME. 215 
 
 beauty, progress, virtue, companionship, con- 
 tentment, the universe is wisely made spiral, or 
 of wheels within wheels ; and one of the favorite 
 centres or circles, as any eye can see, is the 
 home. The higher we ascend, the more sensi- 
 tive and perfect is this social organism. The 
 animal bond dissolves with the period of depend- 
 ence ; oris thereafter not a tie of blood, but only 
 one of familiarity. Patagonians easily drop out 
 of the family ; so do all savages. But we can 
 see what is aimed at, in the story of the English 
 lord who, amid weighty duties of state, wrote 
 to his mother daily for more than a score of 
 years. The civilized man, though he wander 
 to the ends of the earth, has one dear spot and 
 sacred circle ever in his eye and heart, — most 
 likely has his travelling-bag stored with their 
 miniatures, which he mingles with every scene 
 to heighten the charm, and uses as the best 
 sauce to his daily meals. " The only victory over 
 love is flight," said Napoleon; but he said it 
 because he never knew, like most, a love that 
 cannot be escaped : he knew only that cold kind 
 which he claimed to have for his " brother Duroc, 
 because he never shed a tear." A right love, cen- 
 tring in a home, is unconquerable by any and 
 all methods, and knows the spirit, if it shall 
 
216 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 never know the pain or wear the crown of a 
 martyr. For the fireside the true souls hope to 
 live, but dare to die. The daily task is not a 
 task, but a delight, when it is taken up to fur- 
 ther the joy and culture of the household. They 
 are not crosses, — the watchings, servings, suf- 
 ferings, which the heart assumes for its own. 
 
 The family meets with a serious check in the 
 emigration of our day, carrying off the young 
 men and leaving the young women at home. 
 Steam and railroads and remote enterprises are 
 inimical to marriage as a first effect. But the 
 masculine colonies in California, Oregon, Ne- 
 vada, and Australia, washing their linen in the 
 sluices, sewing on their own buttons, wandering 
 about forlorn on Sabbath days, drinking, fight- 
 ing, degenerating, open way for families, schools, 
 churches, weddings, and the oldest order of 
 things. It is one generation spending itself 
 roughly for the next ; the sacrifice by Joseph 
 and Jane, Thomas and Tabby, Clement and 
 Clementina, and many compeers, of just relations 
 and joys, for the sake of communities and states. 
 It is a costly bargain, but still a paying of less 
 for more, — a few firesides for many, as the 
 ratio of one to ten or many times ten. It is 
 a rough piece of social fate that cannot well be 
 
THE HOME. 217 
 
 avoided, and, as kindly in its intent, is to be 
 philosophically endured and made the best of. 
 They who go must look into the results of their 
 wild and hopeful work for their wages, must 
 draw on the future for their pay ; and they who 
 stay, escaping hardships for which they are not 
 fitted by nature or training, must find solace in 
 fulfilling many a fine task for themselves and 
 others. 
 
 After fate, then come the real enemies of the 
 household, folly and sin. Lust plays its evil 
 part with the marital vow. But the prime 
 dragon is extravagance. The cost of the home 
 is an insanity. Who but the sons of Midas may 
 venture, in these times, to plant the roof-tree that 
 draws gold so freely into its circulations? The 
 young man's fears — the young woman's also — 
 are founded on mathematics, and from that point 
 of view are quite justifiable ; and it is essential 
 either to cancel the faculty that adds and sub- 
 tracts, or to drop out the moral sense, which is 
 fatal, or to change the character of the problem. 
 Jacob is well enough, and Janette is divine ; 
 but how about the costly et cetera, — the high 
 rents, latest styles of furniture, up-town dry- 
 goods, Paris fashions, Saratoga and Newport 
 hotel bills, trips, to Europe, opera tickets, turn- 
 
218 AT OUH BEST. 
 
 outs, servants and subalterns, parties and din- 
 ners ? Here is the rub. This is the lion's den, 
 or the bottomless pit. Through all the ranks 
 from low to high, there is the same unhappy 
 discrepancy of income and outgo ; ugly margins 
 beyond the most favorable figures ; chasms to 
 leap that are fearfully suggestive of the bottom 
 of the ditch. How to sail the domestic craft on 
 this high sea without wind? is the question. 
 How to fetch the pump without water ? How 
 to hoodwink and cheat fortune ? In short, how 
 to make one dollar play the part of ten or twenty, 
 according to the scale proposed for the display ? 
 It is clear the odds are the wrong way ; and 
 hence recoil, a cautious courtship, a half love, 
 a long delay, and finally no home ; the prom- 
 ising cloud ending in a dry shower. And still 
 no signs of retrenchment, or only of that which 
 our politicians make by increasing expenses; no 
 reform but that of our sots, who add more cups 
 and delirium tremens ! Still the ghost of arith- 
 metic stalks abroad, and our young folks turn 
 pale and retreat ! We wait the advent of a new 
 idea of life, which alone can set matters right. 
 
 And if we look into the case of multitudes 
 already caught in the duplex and multiplex 
 limbo, we shall see the domestic riot and rout 
 
THE HOME. 219 
 
 that extravagance is leading on. The picture 
 is not to the credit of human nature, but must 
 be sketched. There are plenty of households 
 that are bitten with disappointment, and count 
 life a hardness, and creep through the world like 
 back-door beggars, because they cannot reach a 
 place among the showy elect, — as if life w^ere 
 an affair of satins and feathers, or nothing at 
 all. Here are multitudes blessed with means, 
 who have given in to the surface ideal, and are 
 living up to the last dollar of their income, and 
 shivering on the brink of a gulf that opens its 
 perilous depths just before. Against their better 
 sense their pride dares the peril of a stress in 
 the market, a season of sickness, a conflagration, 
 which would render them subjects of charity, 
 though scarcely of pity. Not a few venture 
 extravagance on a borrowed basis, looking to 
 a pay-day which never comes. Their passion 
 for display dismisses prudence ; and, worse yet, 
 it turns principle into the street and shuts the 
 door against its return, however touchingly it 
 pleads outside. Honor is staked like some cheap 
 commodity. Every year regiments of young 
 and middle-aged men, overruled by the mania 
 for cost and show, to please themselves or 
 their wives or sweethearts, become rogues and 
 
220 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 thieves, pilferers, purloiners, peculators; and 
 swell the prison lists, or go clear because the 
 witnesses and judges are in the same boat, or 
 find their escape through the low moral tone of 
 the time. Fashion will steal her ornaments, waiv- 
 ing all semblance of bargain, if she cannot have 
 1 them on other terms. The party who lives for 
 appearance, and deems expense the standard 
 of merit and comfort, can no longer be safely 
 trusted ; but, like the inebriate, shares a passion 
 which, under temptation, will break with all 
 better aims and usages. But the evil is not all 
 told yet. There is this further sad fact, that 
 countless homes are every year unroofed and set 
 in the public square, exposed to a vulgar gaze, 
 to escape a cost it were wiser and more heroic 
 to curtail. What thousands, unequal to the 
 standards of domestic cost, are on the eve of 
 becoming boarding-house victims and hotel 
 dupes ! What a sacrifice of a divine peace and 
 privacy, which is the first principle of domes- 
 ticity and the great need of life ! Instead of 
 a descent that were an ascent, because a high 
 fealty to the home and an opening of it to the 
 betterments of a true simplicity, there is resort 
 to these fatal and cowardly escapes. And, more- 
 over, it must be whispered at a low breath, on 
 
THE HOME. 221 
 
 the testimony of medical men, that extravagance 
 seeks extension by shortening the birth-lists, — 
 its evil sway not only blighting the born, but 
 blasting the unborn. 
 
 But the case, bad as it is, is not hopeless. It 
 was long ago settled that Nature knows a remedy 
 for every disease. If we send the ball beyond 
 the mark, she sends it back ; or the greater the 
 excess of action, the greater and surer the re- 
 action. A foolish costliness will cure itself in 
 time, as a fever burns itself out in fourteen or 
 twenty-one days. Pope said of the Duke of 
 Buckingham, " He got the better of his large 
 estate ; " and this victory over wealth is always 
 to be looked for. Riches become plain and re- 
 spectable with a second or third generation. 
 
 The better part of human nature cannot be 
 permanently bought off ; the game of the senses 
 plays out; it is found at length that the best 
 use of life is to live, and that money is good only 
 as it serves to this worthy end. Our old Ne\v 
 England families, who hold ample inherited 
 estates, will be found to wisely place the empha- 
 sis on the best interests, — character, culture, 
 refinement, better company, better conversation, 
 modest travel with sensible people,, and so apart 
 from merely fashionable highways ; on extension 
 
222 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 of thought and fellowship into the realms of 
 nature, art, books, society ; on transmutation of 
 gold into spirit and power. They have learned 
 how to be rich by long practice, and rightly hold 
 wealth as being able to do without it, which 
 Goethe, who was both rich and plain in his 
 habits, thought to be one of the finest accom- 
 plishments. They have found that wealth is 
 for the better sufficing of nature, for deriving 
 more advantages from the world for the senses 
 and the faculties, and especially the latter. It 
 is somewhat to elevate and enlarge the sphere 
 of one's life, to secure more and better relations 
 with the universe, to buy wisdom, beauty, a 
 better power of hospitality, a better circle of 
 friends because a better social desert, an interest 
 in the cycles of the past, the stars, the ages to 
 come, and to lay the whole world under contri- 
 bution. A vulgar extravagance is the efferves- 
 cing of raw wealth, as new cider and wine work 
 off a gas before they become placid and palat- 
 able. Extravagance is a Saurian virtue to be 
 superseded by a better grade of life ; or the law 
 of selection, best and best, prevails at length in 
 the domain of habits. 
 
 No lesson of the ages is plainer than this, that 
 all excess and top-heaviness of externals cheap- 
 
THE HOME, 223 
 
 ens people. We have only so much force to 
 expend ; and if we yield it in one quarter, we 
 cannot in another, as the boy who spends his 
 only dime for a trumpet has none for a primer. 
 A glance will detect how one and another have 
 spent themselves, since every word and act are 
 always typical or transparent. In an instant, 
 we know whether this is a fop or a man, and 
 this a feather or a woman, and have their history 
 in advance of their telling it. Like the cha- 
 meleon we show our diet. The eye is deep or 
 shallow, and betrays our discipline. By such a 
 trifle as how one uses a handkerchief we can gauge 
 one's rank. We are hung all over with signs. 
 William and Mary of England adopted the pea- 
 cock as the emblem of their domestic grandeur, 
 which makes it certain that the bird's ugly 
 feet and bad voice must also have been pertinent 
 symbols ; for royalty is not exempt from the law 
 that all excess is paid for by some defect. Plu- 
 tarch said, " The Rhoclians built their houses 
 as if they were to be immortal ; " and then adds 
 the very words we were waiting to hear, " and 
 furnished their souls as if they were but for a 
 day." On the integrity of the universe it is 
 certain that the vain king who made a jest of 
 the humbleness of Ben Jonson's home, the orna^ 
 
224 AT OUE, BEST. 
 
 ments of which were himself, the best minds of 
 his age, plain fare and high comforts, had the 
 true and right retort sent back from the great 
 poet : " Tell his Majesty that his soul lives in an 
 alley." Put the main cost of the ship in the 
 sails, and the hulk will be cheap. The practical 
 man draws from his ideality; the idealist, from 
 his motherwit and solid sense, like the profound 
 genius who, caught in a shower and driven to 
 a tree for shelter, proposed to his friend, with 
 much gravity of voice and look, when the rain 
 began to drench through, that they go to the 
 next tree. If you build your life into the sur- 
 face, what have you left for the centre ? If 
 your altars are all set up to the lower gods, — 
 dress, furniture, dinners, displays, — where is 
 your higher worship ? If your home is in the 
 expense and show, and commands your powers 
 to superficial ends, then it is clear you have not 
 built the better home into which the wise and 
 worthy most desire to enter, and where all life 
 is best fostered. 
 
 The visible habitation should be subordinate 
 and subservient to the invisible, as the body to 
 the spirit, or the word to the idea. Do not hide 
 yotfrselves behind upholstery, and serve dinners 
 to the flesh only. We enter some homes — if 
 
THE HOME. 225 
 
 gay saloons void of character may be so called 
 — to be at once apprised that all has been set 
 in order for effect, and that we are expected 
 to admire and applaud. The card of invitation 
 should often be from the house and not the 
 inmates ; and, with change of names, might well 
 be copied from this form : " The unrivalled 
 apartments of the McFlarers will be opened for 
 inspection on— — . N.B. You are expected to 
 bring your lorgnettes and a revised list of inter- 
 jections ! " The sequel proves the fitness of the 
 card, for the McFlarers are found to be only two 
 pieces more of the ornamentation ; and all bet- 
 ter hospitality is out of the question. It is a 
 revel of the senses, and the starvation of all 
 better hungers and thirsts. Your bodies are 
 brought to a paradise that would satisfy a 
 Mahometan, but your souls to a cabbage-garden 
 from which they would fly to partake the hum- 
 blest of supplies with more of Attic seasoning. 
 "A fig for your bill of fare ! " said Dean Swift : 
 " what is your bill of company?" The order- 
 ing of the home is a revelation of character, and 
 reacts as a discipline after its own type. 
 
 Greatness never wastes itself on domestic or 
 public parades ; and they who do so waste them- 
 selves can never be great, as exercising a lower 
 
 15 
 
226 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 order of talent at the expense of a higher. 
 " Who has the fewest wants is most like God," 
 said Socrates ; or the truest life, whether of one 
 or many, approaches nearest to sufficing itself 
 through its inward qualities, and can spare on 
 the side of the senses. Thought, love, sensi- 
 bility, character, accomplishments, — these sub- 
 ordinate the outward as somewhat that is infe- 
 rior. The best part of the home should ever be 
 regarded as personal, and rigidly held so. It is 
 first and most a question of good breeding, fine 
 tastes, simple and charming habits, wealth of 
 mind and heart, and handsome hospitality to the 
 better nature. Our distinction while in the flesh 
 is still that we are superior to it ; and a wise word, 
 or a pleasant sentiment, or a display of chaste 
 beauty, or a spark of wit, or the sunshine of 
 unaffected love, for which angels would consent 
 to leave Paradise, is yet the very best fireside 
 offering. Make your feast to the higher life, of 
 the hidden manna, so far as you can. 
 
 The true ideal of the home is, no doubt, one 
 of tasteful plainness, oftenest realized by the 
 middle class and the professions, who throw 
 the advantage on the side of life, freedom, ease, 
 education, and a conversation that is music 
 because of its higher tones and inspirations. 
 
THE HOME. 227 
 
 One likes to read the words of Eckermann de- 
 scriptive of Goethe's home : " It was not showy, 
 but simple and noble in its appointments." The 
 wise will not consent to be house-ridden, to the 
 loss of better liberties and joys. A gaudy saloon 
 cheapens the family life, as an Oriental sky fos- 
 ters soft and effeminate habits, and the luxuri- 
 ance of the West Indies breeds sensuous and 
 Creole traits. By our superior weight we should 
 hold down the house, and not the house us by 
 its. Life is not for the structure, though often 
 lost in it or used up by it, but the structure for 
 the life ; and it should fit it, as the shell fits the 
 turtle, by being an outgrowth from it. The 
 home is largely in its thoughtful and cheerful 
 spirit and power. When we go to see the wise 
 and good, who greet us with true self-poise and 
 dignity and lift us into their own atmosphere, 
 we learn the indifference of circumstances ; or 
 that the cot is a palace when it covers the culti- 
 vated and virtuous, as it was the head of the 
 table where MacDonald sat ; and the palace is 
 uninviting that covers ignorance. Character 
 is more than riches, as we name Plato with more 
 interest than Croesus ; and, like a fine jewel, 
 a fine life loses nothing but rather gains by a 
 plain setting. 
 
228 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 The soul has a claim in the ordering of the 
 house, which it is fatal to waive ; and I should 
 count it an unspeakable victory, like reclaiming 
 waste acres, or giving liberty to captives, if I 
 could lead one family or two to give books — 
 to say nothing of pictures — their due place 
 and influence. Nothing can be more friendly 
 to home life than a small library (only schol- 
 ars need a large one) of well-chosen books. A 
 love of good authors, a rich charm in itself, 
 breeds a disrelish of low company ; and Plutarch, 
 Cervantes, Scott, Burns, Lamb, Wordsworth, 
 Fenelon, and others, are a part of the police 
 force of the world, with the advantage of being 
 in good time with their high service, whilst 
 batons are too often late. The books to buy 
 for the family are those of the highest genius, 
 which, speaking the best language and senti- 
 ments of all ages, can never grow stale ; and 
 for which young and old, in their best hours, 
 will have a keen relish. The volumes that will 
 only bear a glance, or a single reading, should 
 be left to the circulating library. A score or 
 two of meritorious works, starting with Mother 
 Goose and ending with Shakspeare, might be 
 named, which every home should possess, even 
 if it have to shorten its dinners, or lengthen the 
 
THE HOME. 229 
 
 term of its old clothes, to command them ; for 
 whoever gets a taste of these is instantly another 
 being, as if he were taken from the close and 
 stifling air of a city and set at once into the 
 bracing and charming salubrity of a high moun- 
 tainous region. 
 
 There are a few authors whose mission is 
 as universal and beautiful as that of the sun 
 and moon ; and the inner and deeper eye needs 
 but to catch their light to know its fitness 
 and charm, and feel a better longing there- 
 after. Many a new birth of taste and aspira- 
 tion dates from the first reading of " Plutarch's 
 Lives," which is saturated with healthy tonics, 
 or some other of the noted books of the centu- 
 ries. What an electric shock, arousing the heart 
 and freeing the wings of the imagination, has 
 " Pilgrim's Progress " so often and so uniformly 
 imparted ! The " Spectator " made Dr. Frank- 
 lin the classic essayist of America, often as 
 Addisonian as Addison ; and it is still among 
 the best of contributions to home literature. 
 
 The great poets are always to be commen- 
 ded, for there are times when life is rapt and 
 musical, and we can come up to genius to find 
 the very blessing we want. The poets are 
 the friends of our best moods, and for these 
 
230 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 it is always the part of wisdom to have made 
 provision in advance, as the smith has his ham- 
 mer ready when the iron is hot. There are selec- 
 tions from Coleridge, Wordsworth, Tennyson, 
 Whittier, Longfellow, and many of the tuneful 
 choir, which, being once known, will be found 
 essential to life, and will be fled to every now 
 and then to serve as sacrament or stimulus or 
 balm ; and the young who have had this want 
 created, and its source of supply made known, 
 are better fitted to go from home, and have 
 hours of leisure fall on their hands. To know 
 well and fondly some half dozen of Shakspeare's 
 plays, — Hamlet, Macbeth, Julius Caesar, Henry 
 VIII., Merchant of Venice, Romeo and Juliet, 
 and besides these three or four more, according 
 to taste, — is to any youth or adult a legacy 
 that gives to dollars a paltry look. A share in 
 the world's poet is above price. A few novels 
 which are found to be read after ten years from 
 the date of their publication, and have proved 
 themselves to be classics, are to be brought into 
 the home library. 
 
 A severe culling from the world of books, to 
 get the fittest and best, is the right measure for 
 the family to adopt. Instead of counting in, it 
 is mostly a process of counting out. An ade- 
 
THE HOME. 231 
 
 quate collection of fine authors, to bring dignity 
 and cheer to the fireside, is not often a question 
 of cost, but oftener one of disposition. A twenty, 
 thirty, forty thousand dollar mansion, with only 
 an armful of cheap volumes in it, gathered at 
 random from pedlars or sought on the report and 
 uproar of the hour, is no novelty in our cities. 
 Madam's last dress for the party — the tenth or 
 twentieth in her wardrobe, with others to come 
 — has cost more than all the books under the 
 roof, whereby, if at all, the better life of the 
 family is to be robed and adorned. But this 
 defect is general. Our broadcloths and silks 
 usually insult our book-shelves. Our reading 
 accuses us. Our habit of acquiring our books, 
 having no forethought or reference to the can- 
 ons of good taste, is a fatal one. The choicest 
 fountains are but rarely opened in our homes ; 
 and it is perhaps well that insipid waters breed 
 disgust and drive us to the daily paper and such 
 society as will tolerate us. When the fireside 
 shall furnish good books, it will create good 
 readers, and life will be set to a better key 
 through acquaintance with the great and virtu- 
 ous. If youth can be drawn to the love of a 
 better literature, the Sunday school may spare 
 a good share of its anxieties. A glance at the 
 
232 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 reading classes of the world will show that the 
 noble authors hold some commanding relation 
 to the best types' of life. 
 
 The household cannot be spared as an aid to 
 virtue ; for its tender intimacy, open as the day, 
 keeping no secrets, is morally bracing, and often 
 leads us to live to the eye and heart of each 
 other after the noblest fashion. Not only are 
 we careful for each other's good opinions, but 
 we would gladden by our virtues. The home is 
 a much needed hospital of moral repairs, since 
 our characters, like our garments, are most liable 
 to rents abroad, and are best mended at home. 
 Every boy comes in from the street full of some 
 new naughtiness : some bad word, whose nov- 
 elty charmed him, or in which he fancied a 
 smack of smartness, or for which he had some 
 strange relish, has fastened to his tongue, and 
 he rips it out to the very alarm of his pious 
 trainers ; some evil story, liable to deposit a 
 vicious sediment, runs in his memory ; some 
 ugly taint, lingering in his blood from a vain 
 or cruel or dishonest ancestor, has been stirred 
 to festering ; and his mother and sisters find it 
 is not his hands and face only that need daily 
 washing, but that there are deeper stains and 
 the need of a moral bath. But the peril outside 
 
THE HOME. 233 
 
 is constant. It is running the gauntlet all the 
 time in the public arenas. We stand in slippery- 
 places. Pleasure, trade, politics, fashion, society, 
 — these are found to be never free from a mala- 
 rious and infecting atmosphere. In the rush to 
 California in 1849, it was said every man who 
 went, whether bruiser, banker, or clergyman, 
 deliberately threw up his conscience and adopted 
 the morals of rogues ; and the business marts, 
 exchanges, stock-boards, and corporations of our 
 great cities, seem to be but another and nearer 
 California, where the comers are not expected to 
 be much better, but only to make better preten- 
 sions, appear in better liveries, have their arti- 
 fices and tricks a little more refined, and to cover 
 their misdeeds somewhat more adroitly. Com- 
 petition crowds hard on conscience, almost to 
 the point of its inevitable fracture ; and not 
 a few stand ready to succumb. It is openly 
 confessed by adepts, and clear enough to every 
 eye, that the politics of the day can hardly 
 be touched without contamination. 
 
 " Here if you beat a bush, 
 'Tis odds you 11 start a thief." 
 
 When rogues are installed in high places, with 
 honors, as now, is it not best, say the ambitious, 
 
23-4 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 to join them ? When conceit is so cockered and 
 crowned, who is likely to hold himself modest 
 and level ? Who can keep a gentle and beam- 
 ing face against this sharp flint of the world's 
 hardness ? When such prices are paid for shams 
 and half-merits, not only in general society but 
 in pulpits as well, is solid worth any longer 
 worth the while ? If the world is a discipline 
 of virtue, it is also of vice ; and antidotes, re- 
 agents, tonics, safeguards, every kind of moral 
 protection and support, are a daily need. It is 
 the good home that will supply these in largest 
 measure. Let the man go clown to his day's 
 task with w r ife and children pinned on his sleeve, 
 and kept hourly before him by the vision of a 
 high and tender love, and his virtue wdll not 
 only be braced, but even made brave. Here is 
 an amulet worth having. 
 
 Our identity is enlarged by marriage and 
 births, and life takes on a new importance, sud- 
 denly assumes dignity, is better secured by stays 
 and weights, like a ship that is ballasted, and 
 abounds with other and higher motives than 
 before. The heart and moral sense are now 
 involved. Bachelors are not held by the same 
 healthy responsibilities and attractions as their 
 wedded brothers; on an average, they do not 
 
THE HOME. 235 
 
 set the same store by their manhood and char- 
 acter, seeing vice less in its relations ; in war- 
 time, they are rightly urged to go into the army, 
 as being of less consequence out; less accus- 
 tomed to live for others, their charities are never 
 so free or prompt, nor in so good proportion. 
 The house is a citadel, the hearth is a shrine. 
 All high fellowship has a moral side and is a 
 discipline of virtue. Our hopes and fears for 
 one and- another are graduated by the rank and 
 quality of their companions. Death is easier 
 to parents who have seen their sons and daugh- 
 ters well married, hopefully caged, set in family 
 relations, since they know the greater security 
 as well as superior joys of domestic life ; and 
 also believing that the coaxing of Nature, 
 w r hich begun with Adam and Eve and has 
 survived the intervening centuries, attacking 
 with pristine vigor Ernest and Celeste, cannot 
 be to any but the best of ends. By driving us 
 indoors and into family groups around firesides, 
 the stern climates, with their frosts and snows, 
 have served civilization in ways not often set 
 down to their account ; for the Northern man, 
 forced to seek and foster his abode and hold 
 close fellowship with its inmates, will always, 
 other things being .equal, be superior to the 
 Southern man. 
 
236 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 The best match for the saloon is the home. 
 When pure and cheerful, this rarely fails to win. 
 Let the feast of delights — games, sports, pas- 
 times, dolls, balls, back-gammon, cards, music 
 and dancing — be given at the fireside, with a 
 hearty consent, and, better still, with active co- 
 operation, by heads of families, and rarely will 
 youth, of either sex, descend to any lower plane 
 for their joys. All the fireside virtues are apt 
 to become fast colors ; and as the bird carries 
 his native hues in all his flights, we can never 
 hide these early home dyes. 
 
 The fireside should be dedicated to quiet 
 and peace in the interest of our weariness, with 
 which we come in from the world, and, what 
 is more important, to befriend refinement of 
 thought and feeling. A day of social contacts 
 robs us of our vitality, as if each person we 
 fell in with, however casually, were a magnet 
 and drew away our electricity. We easily 
 squander life on crowds. An assembly of eyes 
 drains us to , exhaustion. Faces are absorbents. 
 We rightly say, visiting is the hardest work we 
 do, as being a tax on our finest feelings, which 
 are volatile in proportion to their fineness. At 
 the close of the "social season," society at 
 Washington and New York bears a languid and 
 
THE HOME. 237 
 
 heavy air ; the countenances droop like the 
 costumes ; eyelashes and laces hang with a 
 dreary indifference ; the scene is spiritless ; for 
 these people have mutually used up each other's 
 life. Our natures seem to be covered with valves 
 that open one way and shut the other, and we 
 seem to give at all interviews and on all excur- 
 sions infinitely more than we get. The world 
 is remorseless in its drafts upon vitality. Women 
 usually return with sick-headaches from so 
 sudden a depletion. Men come up from the 
 day's contacts like bodies walking without souls. 
 The tired have an imperative need of homes for 
 rest ; and yet some of them find the family more 
 of a din than the world. Here often are all the 
 Furies of Greek fable and more let loose to their 
 infernal revels. It is all clatter and blast at 
 some firesides ; braying of loud contradictors ; 
 barking of curs ; screaming of children ; slam- 
 ming of doors ; tramping of heedless shoes ; and 
 even the clock keeps up the game and clashes its 
 harsh discordant iron every hour. It is a Babel, 
 and a dreariness and distraction. But the home 
 should soothe and compose. Fuller says of the 
 good wife, " Her children, though many in num- 
 ber, are none in noise; " that is, their ways of 
 frolic are so well timed and tempered, so chaste 
 
238 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and fit, so fall of nature and reason, that their 
 hilarity is not noise, but music, — noise being 
 discordance and senseless clamor, which play 
 and mirth are not. 
 
 In our ideal homes, when we get them, we 
 shall have speaking-tubes from kitchen to attic ; 
 and long ago Sir Christopher North set the fine 
 example of having doors so constructed they 
 could not slam. The fame of carpets is to be 
 chanted by all lovers of quiet ; and the man 
 should have a monument with an appreciative 
 inscription, who invented the steel or silver chime 
 for the time-piece on the mantel. Let us train 
 our voices to the softer keys. Let us check the 
 St. Vitus's dance in oar movements, describing 
 more circles and fewer angles. Let us treat the 
 chairs with some gentleness and grace. Let us 
 come in and go out with due moderation. For 
 we may set it down as beyond question that 
 a clamorous household, living in a tempest or at 
 the end of its tongues, is never a thoughtful one ; 
 nor is it peaceful and renewed in spirit through 
 rest. Dr. Lyman Beecher said of his pulpit 
 efforts, he " always roared when he had nothing 
 to say ; " and Pope's satire, for the benefit of the 
 vociferous, is known to .all : " It is with narrow- 
 souled people as with narrow-necked bottles, — 
 
THE HOME. 239 
 
 the less they have in them the more noise they 
 make in pouring it out." Bedlam is hostile to 
 ideas as to serenity, and bodies can only be lean 
 and ghastly under such distractions. 
 
 A sitting apart, as in separate rooms, is now 
 and then a fine domestic habit, deriving some 
 of the unspeakable benefits of solitude : it both 
 deepens the tone and enriches the quality of 
 character. A peaceful life is most likely to be 
 a full one, with finer and acuter sensibilities ; 
 better related to beauty and poetry and all 
 higher matters ; more dignified and self-respect- 
 ing. Repose is the secret of power in persons, 
 pictures, statues, architecture, books, and Nat- 
 ure, as if it were a means of retaining as well as 
 disclosing life ; and health demands a frequent 
 pausing to restore the balance of the system 
 and keep up perfect circulations. The night, 
 if spent in healthy sleep, after proper evening 
 hours, reduces the day's chaos, and we are new 
 every morning. Who does not know the magic 
 of a brief pause in the midst of the worst con- 
 fusion ? A calm of five minutes will invite 
 back orr vagrant ideas and powers. We often 
 find ourselves in the worst wilderness, by closing 
 our eyes. Leave the sponge to itself a little, 
 and it will fill with water. In short, the home 
 
240 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 should be like a hush and a lullaby in this head- 
 long, whirling, noisy, furious, and distracted 
 world of the nineteenth century ; a nook apart 
 from the thoroughfares ; a grot or bower under 
 the sky, where the beautiful spirits of the air 
 will hover and dance ; its atmosphere should 
 be a little Oriental and dreamy, as if exhaled 
 from poppies and balsams. 
 
 A main light of the fireside is the light of 
 the friends' faces who gather around it. But 
 the poverty of American households in social 
 wealth and cheer is likely to tell at length 
 against the genius and greatness of the country. 
 Aside from the staid rural districts — and where 
 now are these ? — and a few old residents of our 
 cities, whose race is about run, there are no 
 ideal neighborhood relations, no families who 
 can properly go in and out without their boots 
 blacked, their kids on, and cards in hand, and 
 under the restraints and formalities that rightly 
 belong to strangers. We properly give leisurely 
 permissions to cross sacred lines, bar our hearts 
 and homes against the heedless intrusion of 
 people we do not know. We are not a race 
 of gushers, who delight to inundate each other 
 with cheap sentiment at first interviews. Un- 
 less our affections are fickle and crude, we do 
 
THE HOME. 241 
 
 not take to the latest comers. We do not care 
 to seek out and offer our hearts to the family 
 who moved to town yesterday, and have given 
 their landlord notice they shall leave to-morrow ; 
 the game does not pay for the chase. A social 
 chaos and drift, promising nothing, or only vex- 
 ation, force us to withdrawal and isolation. 
 
 Easy and happy neighboring, as of old, is out 
 of the question, and can never return but with 
 more settled habits. And what is the result ? 
 Eclipse of the light of fireside friendships ; a 
 coldness of society life ; a peering and staring 
 habit of curiosity ; a system of brief calls in 
 best clothes, which is painful and threatens idi- 
 ocy, breeds nervous and flurried ways, lowers 
 self-respect, has no deeper constitutional value 
 or delight as of the answering of life to life ; or, 
 worse yet, the end is utter seclusion and hermi- 
 tage. In my boyhood I was drawn with other 
 young folk by curiosity to visit a hermit's house, 
 in the midst of a forest, that was so seldom en- 
 tered as to render it famous ; but the country is 
 so full of domestic cloisters to-day that we cease 
 to wonder at them. The thresholds are countless, 
 which are seldom or'never crossed with friendly, 
 chatty intent ; roofs enough of them which 
 never echo to the free and familiar voices of 
 
 16 
 
242 AT OUR, BEST. 
 
 friends ; hearts by the tens of thousands that 
 have no intimacies. Our latch-strings are not 
 hung out. Our fittest social symbol is lock 
 and key. Under the circumstances our ways are 
 naturally enough full of suspicions and guarded. 
 We mount stilts and confront the lady and 
 gentleman of the next door on our dignity. 
 With whom can we omit the formalities, and 
 begin our interview at the better point of gen- 
 uine and genial familiarity and kindness? It 
 would not be easy to tell. 
 
 But what to do ? It is a clear case for the 
 wise art of concentration, attempting less to 
 accomplish more. Let us dismiss the public, 
 as being too broad for our necessary haste and 
 brevity, and seek out and foster, to the better 
 degrees, a few friendships, which are well 
 assorted, whereof will be great peace, beauty, 
 cheer, and renewing of the heart. Large and 
 miscellaneous parties are vulgar, but may serve 
 to deplete plethoric coffers and gratify a taste 
 for parade : the caterers are the only sensible 
 parties engaged in them. " Calls " are stupid 
 beyond the stir of an idle curiosity. Too much 
 privacy breeds ill habits of mind, and a sure 
 collapse of the heart. Our hope is in restrict- 
 ing social relations ; in having a few friends and 
 
THE HOME. 243 
 
 making much of them ; and the closer their door 
 is to ours, the better ; and it were best of all 
 that it should be so near as to spare hat and 
 gloves, which are sure to fetter the spirit and 
 draw on a little reserve. The best models of 
 social intercourse are still to be found among 
 the peasants of the Old World ; and luckily our 
 country is having some of these fine examples 
 imported from Germany and Switzerland and 
 France. But will they break our reserves ? I 
 fear not until we are less of vagrants or nomads 
 than now. Friendship is as dignified in its spirit 
 as an Oriental Sheik or Pacha, and abjures haste 
 and inconsideration. 
 
 I pray you, do not set your more transient 
 guests up as lords and ladies of that importance 
 that they are above self-help ; nor yourselves 
 down as lackeys and chamberlains to dance 
 attendance. The chasm is fatal to a true hos- 
 pitality, which, so far as may be, adopts visi- 
 tors into the free and easy relations of the family, 
 with as few distinctions as may be. Only lazi- 
 ness or vanity, which are alike to be omitted 
 from our invitations, can submit to be thus 
 served. Nothing more pains a genuine demo- 
 crat than to be treated as if he were an aristo- 
 crat, since he must resist, which impeaches the 
 
244 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 good sense of his host, or consent to stand in 
 a false light and betray his own character, which 
 is altogether the worst alternative. " Please 
 help yourself," is good English, and indicates 
 the best of breeding, since it shows that the 
 party uttering it does not propose to duck and 
 belittle himself or herself in menial servility, and 
 carries a compliment to guests by recognizing 
 their wit and ability, and superiority to snobs 
 and exactors of attention. A social level is 
 the most respectable and congenial. We like 
 to have those come to see us who are easily and 
 gladly of us ; but we can spare such as are 
 conceited and expectant, and who think they 
 bring all the honor to the house and can get 
 none from it. 
 
 Conversation is the best victory won in the 
 domestic circle, since it is the key to all other 
 successes. When we are at length well deliv- 
 ered from ourselves and filled with the good 
 humors of the hour, the mutual game of tongues 
 becomes a sacred diversion. We take no note 
 of time, amid happy communions, because we 
 are then superior to it, and would never bid adieu 
 to the lofty condescensions of thought and feel- 
 ing. Like Joshua we would chain the sun and 
 block the moon, but to ends as beautiful as they 
 are bloodless. 
 
THE HOME. 245 
 
 The real soul of the home is love, which can 
 even enchant lowliness and sweeten sacrifice. It 
 is a fine bit of domestic romance, though true as 
 Euclid : Maddelina, the beautiful daughter of 
 Nicolo, rejecting the wealthy Pietro whom she 
 respected but did not love, and flying to the arms 
 of Correggio, a poor but promising young artist, 
 whose fame has since filled the world, for whom 
 she had a great and genuine- attachment. Refer- 
 ring to his rival's envy, Correggio said one day, 
 " Ah ! Maddelina, we will not be too hard on poor 
 Pietro ; his disappointment is heavy ; he is sol- 
 itary in his plenty, which thou mightest havei 
 shared with him : now thou hast poverty and " 
 — let us fancy the glow in his eye and the 
 charming accent in his voice, as he finished the 
 sentence — " and only thy Correggio." " And 
 believe me," said the young wife, with enthusi- 
 asm, " I should not love thee more if thou haclst 
 all the wealth of Philippo Strozzi." There can 
 be no home without this ancient and simple 
 virtue which enchants all. Love is brave, gen- 
 tle, cheerful, helpful, hopeful ; paints the home 
 with sunset colors ; if need be, works the mira- 
 cle whereby two can live cheaper than one ; 
 takes happily to the lower rounds of the ladder, 
 and daily climbs and sings ; is the best part of 
 
246 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 affluence ; is the sweetest sugar still in the cost- 
 liest feast ; imparts magic to the days as they 
 come and go ; fills the spaces with JEolian harps ; 
 and breeds a finer sense of immortality, for love 
 is impressional and feels a relation to the far- 
 thest star and the most distant cycle of time, — 
 nothing being too good for it to believe or 
 hope. 
 
 No home touches the best level that does not 
 stand in open fellowship with the sky, or with 
 the spiritual Presence, which is primal and final, 
 and, in all ages, a majestic and commanding 
 fact. All lights are dry lights till tempered by 
 the beams of this Sun. A sense of the Divine 
 is to the soul what lime is to the bones and the 
 vital principle to the blood. To lean on Provi- 
 dence in high repose makes of us other beings. 
 No faith in God, then no far-reaching aspira- 
 tions, for our ways are short : duty is one with 
 dust ; wisdom, a film of colored mist, to-day here, 
 to-morrow vanished ; character, a bubble about 
 to burst ; the intuition of the perfect, a cheat, 
 a decoy that leads nowhere ; and the over-arch- 
 ing heavens, breeding wondrous ideals, a teasing 
 mockery. Empty orisons are pitiful, but prayer 
 is sublime ; and, spoken or unspoken, the relig- 
 ious sentiment is the health of the home. 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 247 
 
 VIII. 
 
 OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 
 
 " Society is no comfort 
 To one not sociable." 
 
 Shakspeare's Cymbelinb. 
 
 M, Mid countless brethren, with a lonely heart, 
 Through courts and cities the smooth savage roams, 
 Feeling himself, his own low self, the whole; 
 When he by sacred sympathy might make 
 The whole one self ! self, that no alien knows! 
 Self, far diffused as Fancy's wing can travel! 
 Self, spreading still ! Oblivious of its own, 
 Yet all of all possessing! " 
 
 Coleridge's Religious Musings. 
 
 " The truly generous is the truly wise ; 
 And he who loves not others lives unblest." 
 
 Home's Douglas. 
 
 A T the bottom of all human nature we are 
 to look, I suppose, for some venomous sedi- 
 ment which can be stirred; and they are few 
 who come to the end of life without some time 
 having felt that revenge, with fist, teeth, club, 
 or gun, would be a solace. We all hold our- 
 selves at some risk, as carrying in some volcanic 
 depth these sleeping fires. To have ourselves 
 to handle, especially under provocations, is toy- 
 
248 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 ing with fire-arms. Whose humanity dare we 
 guarantee against all circumstances ? Who has 
 absolute trust in himself? In our cool moments 
 we resolve we will count ten, twenty, a hun- 
 dred, will say the alphabet from A to Z, will 
 call over the names of all our blood relations 
 from great-grandfathers to second cousins ; but 
 passion, like powder, is off before we know it, 
 or can wet a finger to lay on. We blaze, 
 explode, have our comedy or tragedy to its final 
 act; and then repent. When some one sent 
 Cotys a service of costly glass-ware, he instantly 
 broke it, to parry his risk of degrading himself 
 and injuring some unlucky servant who might 
 trip and dash the gift into ruins. Even the 
 Stoics, who were under so great command, whose 
 education was one of restraints and reserves, 
 had nevertheless their cruel first heats, were 
 often too late with themselves. And parents, 
 who should indeed reprove and punish with 
 some degree of warmth, as if every wrong were 
 a high offence and the occasion merited emotion, 
 but never with a wild, unreasoning, hasty anger, 
 are yet often red-hot and given to hard and evil 
 blows that mar, but do not mend. 
 
 But worse than the heat of passion against 
 another, which we can endure as a brute in- 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 249 
 
 stinct, is a cold and cruel malignity, a delib- 
 erate malice, which, with a keen relish, plots 
 misery ; and, with a deep gust of delight, 
 stands openly or under cover to see the writhing 
 of its victims. Did not some vengeful star come 
 into unhappy conjunction with the birth of such ? 
 or had they not the Greek Furies for ancestors? 
 They seem like the vents of an evil principle 
 lurking in Nature, which the races of sharks and 
 hyenas had not adequately provided for. Worse 
 than brutal traits cling to them. Some have 
 tried to explain this love of misery, and the 
 consequent arts and acts of cruelty to which it 
 gives rise, as securing by contrast a more vivid 
 sense of one's own felicity in the absence of 
 pain. It is extorting misery as a background 
 to set off our own joys more effectively. The 
 delight is not in the cloud itself, but in the 
 deeper blue in our own sky to which the cloud 
 contributes, as deformity enhances beauty. To 
 a degree this may be so. But bad as this view 
 makes the matter, showing it thoroughly self- 
 ish and unfeeling, I believe the reality is still 
 worse; It looks more as if the feast were in 
 the torture itself, as if the agonies and writhings 
 were the picture that pleased. There must be 
 a sinister humor in the eve. The heart has some 
 
250 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 fibre of a cruel texture, which a perfect anatomy 
 would serve to lay bare. What! here is a rosy- 
 faced boy putting pins through the heads of 
 young birds. Behold ! that distressed cry from 
 the near trees is music to his ear. Hold you, 
 my little Nero, why will you fling Rover into 
 the pond, and the kitten in the fire, and hit 
 baby that hard blow, and throw stones at the 
 horse which is hitched at the post? What 
 imp looks out from these deeds and reveals his 
 vicious presence ? Can we believe the sole rel- 
 ish of the roughs in the cockpit and prize-ring, 
 or of the Spanish elite in bull-fights, or of the 
 masses who crowd to executions, is of those 
 aspects of the scenes that are aside from the 
 suffering involved, as of the art, strategy, 
 strength, pluck, or whatever else comes in 
 play? or is the bitter misery, in these cases, 
 the real sweet to them ? Here are people in 
 Christian coats and gowns, with prayer-books 
 under their arms, with the smell of the temple 
 about them, contriving, with Mephistophelic in- 
 terest and craving of cold blood, an array of 
 what artful cruelties for their kind, — traps and 
 pitfalls of scandal, schemes of heartache and 
 despair between lovers, fallings out among dear 
 friends, family jars and scars, and other wicked 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 251 
 
 devices too numerous and too bad to name, that 
 they may stand and watch at keyholes and share 
 some kind of monstrous joy! These are the 
 rank and file, never a small army, of which the 
 leaders and captains are the Neroes, Lucretia 
 Borgias, Jeffreys, and Bloody Marys, Ordinary 
 passion or anger, struck out of us as a spark 
 of resentment, and sometimes carrying high 
 moral sentiment with it, and always a clear 
 or neutral conscience, is perfection to this low 
 malignity which lurks in the race and is human ; 
 and, however we may reluct to confess it, plots 
 mischief for its own pleasure. Anger is hope- 
 ful ; but malice is the unpardonable sin, which 
 coolly nourishes itself over a cup of tea and is 
 the piquant sauce to parlor feasts. The first 
 we may fear, the second we must hate. 
 
 Of more levity and less blackness is the 
 innate peevishness of many people, in their 
 relation to others, to whom the wind always 
 blows from the east and all events bear nettles. 
 There is a temper that is touchy, and crackles 
 on all occasions like dry hemlock boughs in the 
 fire. You shall not escape its petulance, do 
 what you will ; for to go or stay, speak or keep 
 silence, dress in coarse costume or fine, say your 
 prayers aloud or to yourself, marry or go single, 
 
252 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 eat pickles or honey, it is alike an occasion of 
 offence. Nothing can be right. Some persons 
 not only have corns on their feet, but all over 
 them ; every nerve is on the surface, and sore ; 
 and any stir, however trifling and well-meant, 
 or a mere sign of motion in the eye, is construed 
 into an ill-intent toward their tenderness. They 
 are waspish, and bristle at every touch. Like a 
 vexed cat, they can never be stroked the right 
 way. In his play of Romeo and Juliet, Shak- 
 speare has well characterized them by bringing 
 face to face, in a state of fussy and frivolous 
 irritability, Mercutio and Benvolio : — 
 
 " Mercutio. Come, come, thou art as hot a Jack in thy mood 
 as any in Italy ; and as soon moved to be moody, and as soon 
 moody to be moved. 
 
 Benvolio. And what to ? 
 
 Mercutio. Nay, an there were two such, we should have 
 none shortly, for one would kill the other. Thou ! why thou 
 wilt quarrel with a man that hath a hair more or a hair less 
 in his beard than thou hast. Thou wilt quarrel with a man for 
 cracking nuts, having no other reason but because thou hast 
 hazel eyes. What eye, but such an eye, would spy out such 
 a quarrel ? Thy head is full of quarrels, as an egg is full of 
 meat ; and yet thy head hath been beaten as addle as an egg 
 for quarrelling. Thou hast quarrelled with a man for coughing 
 in the street, because he hath wakened thy dog that hath lain 
 asleep in the sun. Didst thou not fall out with a tailor for 
 wearing his new doublet before Easter ? with another, for tying 
 his new shoes with an old riband ? And yet thou wilt tutor 
 me from quarrelling? 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 253 
 
 Benvolio. An I were so apt to quarrel as thou art, any man 
 should buy the fee-simple of my life for an hour and a 
 quarter. 
 
 Mercutio. The fee-simple 1 simple ! " 
 
 And so they would have kept this fretful ball 
 rolling to the end of the interview, had it lasted 
 from that day to this ; for the persistence of this 
 trait, like the stretching of rubber, is something 
 remarkable. Everything sleeps at length but 
 weasels and fault-finders. For this reason, 
 Momus, the god of faulting and railing, was the 
 fabled son of Night, to signify that darkness or 
 ignorance did not affect his inveterate habit. 
 None of the gods or goddesses escaped his ill- 
 humored eye and tongue. He blamed Vulcan 
 because he had not made man with glass over 
 his breast, that he could have no secrets. Mi- 
 nerva, he sneeringly averred, constructed her 
 palace ill, because she did not set it on wheels, 
 to avoid a bad neighborhood by easy removal, 
 if it were necessary; and Neptune had made 
 the bull with his horns too far from his eyes, as 
 he could not now be so sure of his blows. When 
 he could find no fault with the person of Venus, 
 as no one can criticise the lily, he complained of 
 the noise of her golden slippers, which should 
 have been made of wool. The best of the 
 Olympic deities could not suit him by any word 
 
254 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 or act; and Momus was finally driven out by 
 the gods, who served him right. But in this 
 respect the fable shames us ; for the descendants 
 of Momus, irritating as gad-flies, are not gener- 
 ally treated with like justice. A petty fretful- 
 ness, save with the sick, and possibly not with 
 them, deserves to be treated without cant or 
 consideration: it is a case for amputation, and 
 not for anodynes or sweetened tea. 
 
 But what shall we say of the more dignified 
 contradictors, a numerous class, often wise, 
 usually moral, uniformly brave, one or more of 
 whom must have fallen into every one's circle 
 of acquaintance ? They are the pests of good 
 society, and to be dropped from our cards of 
 invitation, as they ceased to ask Dr. Johnson 
 to the celebrated dinner-parties of his time ; or 
 they are to be drawn off into a room by them- 
 selves, where they may enjoy their tenacious 
 delights without molesting the affable and hu- 
 mane. But there is one abridgment to the success 
 of this device, so far as the host is concerned, 
 which is the necessity he will be under, at last, 
 of summarily sending them home, for two con- 
 tradictors will hold out all night and after day- 
 light. 
 
 From what company can they not spare the 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 255 
 
 churlish guests, however learned and famous, 
 who bray their ready opposition to every turn 
 of the conversation ; who negative all the affirm- 
 atives and affirm all the negatives ? At a single 
 sitting, when Sir Joshua Reynolds praised Gar- 
 rick the actor, Johnson annihilated him ; and 
 when Gibbon dispraised, Johnson suddenly ex- 
 tolled him ; for what to him or any of his temper 
 were justice, kindness, unity, peace, any fine 
 trait of feeling, compared with standing out and 
 constituting the determined opposition ? When 
 Johnson asked Laughton to tell him his greatest 
 fault, the latter, with great frankness, took a 
 slip of paper and wrote on it some texts of 
 Scripture about charity. Boswell suggested 
 that they referred to the Doctor's rough way of 
 contradicting people. " And who is the worse 
 for that?" said Johnson. "It hurts people 
 of weak nerves," replied the amiable Boswell. 
 " But I know no such weak-nerved people," 
 blurted out the prince of contradictors. 
 
 To the perverse-headed, the wilful, the nat- 
 ures with excess of back-action, there is no side 
 but the other side, and no way but the contrary 
 way ; and we have the story, but not the authen- 
 tication, that a celebrated divine of England got 
 one of these obstinates right, who had fallen into 
 
256 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 vice, by preaching to him a gospel of sin, urging 
 him to lapse and grovel, as they advance pigs by 
 trying to drive them backwards : he would be 
 virtuous just for the sake of being perverse, or 
 anything for a little personal victory. A York- 
 shire man, who, as we may naturally infer, came 
 honestly enough by this stubborn, mulish, out- 
 standing fibre, once said to Mrs. Gaskell, " My 
 country folk are all alike. Their first thought 
 is how to resist. Why, I myself, if I hear a 
 man say, 6 It is a fine day,' find myself instantly 
 trying to make out that it is no such thing." 
 And St. Francis of Sales reports of a barrister, 
 who had such a uniformly heady and unflinch- 
 ing contrary-piece in his wife, that, when she 
 was drowned, he ordered them to " drag the 
 river up stream, as she always went against the 
 current." 
 
 The true secret of getting along and living 
 with an antagonizing instinct, which always con- 
 fronts you, is not to gage it. We can best carry 
 our points by yielding them, as the farmer goes 
 on best with his furrow when he lifts his plow 
 from the opposing rock or root, instead of striv- 
 ing with it. Melancthon could manage Luther 
 because he did not try to manage him, as a 
 pliant twig will often hold a horse which a rigid 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 257 
 
 post cannot. The hardest nature will not kick 
 against nothing. If the baby is given to a bad 
 resistance and straightens back with high color 
 in its face, humor its whim and sing to it a little, 
 as if you were rather pleased. If the boy or 
 girl is full of " wills " and " wonts," take them 
 with little notice and no reaction, and their 
 cheapness and irrelevancy will soon appear. If 
 your guest rises at any crossing of his thought 
 or humor, and draws his sword, be sure and 
 keep yours in its sheath, and he will soon be 
 amiable, and duly punished. If the national 
 cabinet, with which another nation has to treat, 
 as readily and naturally shows 'fight as the bull- 
 dog, whose teeth are his tempters, then the 
 easy and successful path is one of genial diplo- 
 macy and kindly tact. Never will you wake, 
 if you are wise, the sleeping furies ; and how 
 often are we called to admire the fertile inge- 
 nuity and delicate skill with which some mothers 
 correct their over-firm children, as by a mere 
 inadvertency, or an unstudied showing of reasons 
 and gaining the consent in advance of giving 
 the order, or an insinuation of reason and love 
 that conquers before there is chance for battle. 
 And forbearance is never out of place, or void 
 of promise, in this passion-heated world ready 
 
 17 
 
258 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 to burst in flames. Scarcely can there be a finer 
 exhibition of humanity than by this sparing 
 policy ; never a silence more divine ; never a 
 retreat more victorious ; never an inactivity so 
 fruitful or becoming. What heroism is patience 
 under provocation ! 
 
 But one thing is to be heartily said of the 
 contradictors, — they are not malignant. They 
 mean no ill to others, whatever the result of 
 their words and acts ; and do not make a fiend- 
 ish feast of the pain they may occasion. Dr. 
 Johnson plead to Boswell ignorance of the nerves 
 he was accused of disturbing, and plead rightly ; 
 and most or all, who should be classed under the 
 head of constitutional opponents, we may believe 
 to be blind to the injuries they inflict. An obsti- 
 nate standing-out comes near being a virtue, as 
 being the reaction of a stout and over-firm self- 
 hood, which fears servility and surrender and 
 a too easy compliance, as a great general fears 
 defeat. It is a manly aplomb that leans a little 
 away, as an insurance against sudden surprise 
 and a cheap consent and falling prone at every 
 one's feet. It is an instinct of firmness that will 
 keep up the strong beat of its pulse by a sure 
 urging ; a too severe temper in the steel, which 
 destroys pliability ; too much rosin in the tallow, 
 
OUESELVES AJSTD OTHERS. 259 
 
 which brings an excess of hardness. But how 
 much better this than that life which is a cheap 
 " mush of concessions," an insipid dish of 
 agreements ; which echoes and reflects, and 
 floats like a chip on the current, being never 
 self-impelled nor self-directed. The contra- 
 dictors, hateful as they are, standing across all 
 the tracks and running their hard heads against 
 every proposition, are yet far more respectable 
 than the conceders, who are a species of jelly- 
 fish, and worthless. We can spare the obsti- 
 nates as an expensive race to whom we must 
 give too many cakes to keep the peace, as cost- 
 ing us silence, forbearance, our point often, and, 
 it may be, a shade of self-respect ; but the limp 
 people, the human nature that is fluid, the 
 uncooled metal which takes all shapes, we 
 despise. 
 
 Cousins to the contradictors are the critics, 
 as a class, whose inhumanity is also not a posi- 
 tive trait, but an excess of self-love. In the 
 main, critics do not wish to be unkind or to do 
 an injury, but like to see and feel their own 
 wisdom and superiority. Criticism is very often 
 but another kind or species of self-praise. We 
 can adroitly extol number one by faulting num- 
 ber two. The eye has we know not what sense 
 
260 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 of complacency in discovering imperfections in 
 the work or ways of another, as seeing what 
 another did not see : this is felt to be a credit 
 to vision and taste. We strangely forget that 
 the highest and most creditable criticism is in 
 seeing and knowing the good and beautiful, in 
 a quick and sure sensibility to the fine points, 
 a recognition and confession of merits. That 
 bespeaks a better capacity and higher level of 
 the critic. 
 
 We are divine if we are able to recognize 
 the divinities ; and the best discipline both of 
 eye and heart is precisely this research for points 
 to move our admiration and gratitude. Educa- 
 tion is only the detection of the better and the 
 best, and then assent and affiliation. The secret 
 of all felicity is in keeping open and close rela- 
 tions with the finest and fairest in all things, — 
 in the weather, in the landscapes, in books, 
 pictures, sermons, orations, journeys, and neigh- 
 bors and friends. For credit, for discipline, and 
 as an act of justice to others, and to the end of 
 the best delights, criticism should be a positive 
 and benign office. Rally your angel and seek 
 the angelic. Spare the lower eye to the utmost 
 and the sense of the imperfect. An unselfish 
 and fair criticism, looking both ways, is in 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 261 
 
 order ; and when it is for the defence or service 
 of nature, when it condemns only to teach, or 
 denies the better to affirm, or when it would 
 remove, with well-meant interest, an obstacle 
 from the path of genius and further its progress, 
 — it is then both a grace and a duty, and 
 nothing will be so welcome to all true workers. 
 On such critics the world may well call down a 
 blessing. Who comes to his task thus should 
 have our hand and heart ; his words should be 
 sweeter and more treasured than any message 
 of praise ! Help is always better than applause. 
 But our criticism is far too eager and free and 
 inevitable to be of this divine order ; and forces 
 the conclusion that it is a roundabout way of 
 seeing and feeling ourselves agreeably. 
 
 The ordinary critic obtrudes. He is neither 
 just nor kind ; yet he means neither injustice 
 nor unkindness, but wants to show his own 
 superior standing, what levels he is above, how 
 fine a vision he has to detect what another has 
 overlooked. His stock is all taken in the home 
 company, as if Caesar were so much to Caesar 
 that he would condemn Rome to honor himself, 
 which were no honor. It was said Dr. Johnson 
 never praised what was above him. His ego- 
 tism must .needs be hard on transcendent merits, 
 
262 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and loved to commend those which his own out- 
 ranked. " I would hang a dog," said he, " that 
 should read the ' Lycidas ' of Milton twice." Ad- 
 dison could not look up any better, because he 
 could never lose sight of himself, or make him- 
 self secondary by commending higher merits. 
 With a self-complacent sneer he said of Bunyan, 
 the first of allegorists, " I never knew an author 
 that had not his admirers ! " But does not Sir 
 Roger de Coverley limp far behind poor Pilgrim 
 in the race for fame ? When Michel Angelo's 
 colossal statue of David was just set up, Sode- 
 rini, affecting criticism, said, " The nose is too 
 large." Whereupon Angelo, with chisel in hand 
 and some dust to let fall, mounted the steps and 
 made believe he altered the nasal prominence, 
 but did not. " How now ? " said he. " Excel- 
 lent ! " exclaimed Soderini. It was a victory of 
 self-love, and not of high taste, or devotion to 
 art. 
 
 The story has gained wide credit that a 
 celebrated painter set a picture in the market- 
 place, with a brush and pot of paint along with 
 it, and an invitation to all critics that they cover 
 what they did not like. In twenty-four hours, 
 as we are not surprised to learn, there had 
 come a total eclipse over that canvas ; and in 
 
OUKSELVES AND OTHEES. 263 
 
 front of it there had been who shall say how- 
 many self-congra tula lions ! When did fashion 
 ever find one in quite so good style as itself? 
 Beauty has to look twice to see beauty ; and the 
 ugly, admitting beauty, will deny to it wisdom 
 and virtue, or will say, with a self-gratulatory 
 accent, " Beauty is only skin deep." Venus 
 quizzed Psyche. All noses have the turn-up 
 joint, and you shall find great freedom from rust 
 in that quarter. By self reference, it is a world 
 of fine people we live in ; but by imposed con- 
 struction, nobody is much, or only passable. 
 The generation of healthy and hearty admirers 
 is yet to be born and make the air sweet with 
 their breath. 
 
 Selfishness is the prime sin of the race, and 
 it is enough to give one bad eyes to look at some 
 of its worst forms. But we are all selfish. Nat- 
 ure, to serve high ends, has endowed us with 
 so much of this bias that no one can always 
 control it. Our best discipline is still not up 
 to the demand. Our best purposes we forget. 
 However often we turn over a new leaf, we are 
 sure to dash the page with the old blot. But 
 we need not be over-nice. Self is rightly a stub- 
 born centre ; and the safety and success of all 
 is best secured, as a rule, by each attending 
 
264 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 chiefly to his own interests. Life is still a battle 
 of units, and about the best we can do is not to 
 hinder each other's efforts. Too much charity 
 is cruelty, as too much medicine is malpractice. 
 A little resistance, to keep one and another to 
 their feet, and eager in the strife ; a broad hint 
 to every party to open shop and go to work ; 
 a general policy of letting our neighbors alone ; 
 some thickness of ear to the ready appeals of 
 the idlers, or even replies a little tart and biting, 
 — such a course, however it look to the senti- 
 mentalist, is no doubt for the best all round. 
 
 We would not advocate a race with cripples, 
 but the man who comes in ahead in an honor- 
 able competition is entitled to credit, since he 
 but makes the best use of his time and strength, 
 which is everybody's privilege and duty. He 
 must not belittle his gifts through pandering to 
 a cheap sentiment. The eagle is not required 
 to wait for snails, but only to leave the way open 
 and invite them on by his own flights. Nor is 
 wealth in all cases, nor in most, the plunder which 
 our flippant socialist or Communist orators would 
 make it out to be, but msiy fit men as perfectly 
 and properly as their bodies ; and will be likely 
 to serve the common weal a deal better than as 
 if it were forcibly distributed among the masses, 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 265 
 
 most of whom have no power to animate and 
 use possessions, but would either waste or leave 
 them idle. Nature nowhere suffers uniformities 
 in size, color, or shape. The dead levels are 
 wisely broken. The unity is one of variety ; 
 and we could not remake the world so well as 
 it is made now. Self-love and self-help, within 
 a wide scope, instead of being sins, are among 
 the first of virtues ; and even 
 
 " When the soul has tasted perfect love, 
 And been illuminated from above, 
 Still in its selfhood it would seek to shine." 
 
 A right self-love plays into the love of others. 
 It is the first ring in the golden chain that links 
 to the remotest star and the farthest soul. In 
 finding ourselves truly, we find humanity, and 
 take a prime lesson in universal good-will. The 
 one explains all and includes all. In coming 
 to myself, I come to the human race, and find 
 my close relations to sages and Hottentots, 
 saints and sinners, the abounding and the needy ; 
 and shall own to the bond in theory and prac- 
 tice. To know my own joy is to know all joys 
 and to rejoice in them; and the first throb of 
 general pity springs up with my own misery, 
 which opens my eyes to see the same thing in 
 another and my heart to yield compassion. The 
 
266 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 defect of those who know only good health and 
 happy fortunes is often a lack of sympathy. 
 We must always go abroad from the nearest 
 point. We begin all journeys at the home end 
 by virtue of an ancient necessity. Self is the 
 common factor of all the multiples. Self-knowl- 
 edge is a prime mixture in all knowledge, and 
 the key to universal wisdom. The heart that 
 has not found itself is ignorant of all hearts, and 
 proffers no sympathy as not aware of what it is 
 worth. Do not fear a high degree of self-regard, 
 or resting securely on the pivot of number one, 
 only keep clear of the taint of vanity ; for only 
 as we arrive at the worth of the soul in our- 
 selves, do we learn the grounds of generosity. 
 
 It is, moreover, the diversity of selfhoods which 
 secures all the necessary refractions and diverse 
 ministries of love. Charity is temperamental. 
 Our love is as personal as our face. We look 
 at the world out of our own eyes ; and because 
 we differ so in our constitutions, to which we 
 must be true, it is happily provided that nobody 
 shall be passed by, no want cry in vain, no plate 
 be held out with none to look after its supply. 
 Nature knows the way to all ends, which is the 
 easy one of having them involved in the begin- 
 nings, as conclusions lie in premises, or fruit in 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 267 
 
 the seed to the minutest particular of form and 
 flavor. Thus, for example, the strong moral 
 natures, the men and women who are nine- 
 tenths conscience, they who set right and wrong 
 in clearest lights and regard them as the prime 
 facts of the world, will feel chiefly for the 
 wronged, will have all the slaves set free, 
 will take charge of the scales and have jus- 
 tice to every man weighed out to an exact- 
 ness ; in short, they are laid under a necessity 
 of being reformatory and, on occasions, even 
 revolutionary, " teaching tyrants that they also 
 have a joint in their necks." Through men like 
 Clarkson, Granville Sharp, Wilberforce, Parker 
 and Garrison love becomes the servant of justice, 
 and the warfare for truth and right is never 
 allowed any truce by such ; and it is by them 
 that much of progress has been enforced. Piety 
 carries the humane instinct and principle in a 
 missionary direction, and may be blind to a thou- 
 sand other wants, and get a bad name which it 
 does not deserve, since its tendency to the be- 
 nighted is as normal as that of the needle to its 
 north, or that of the poet to his song. The 
 Judsons are haunted day and night by visions 
 of unsanctified Pagans. The last felicity of 
 devoutness is to build a temple and hang a bell 
 
268 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 in it to make appeal, to send abroad a Bible, to 
 spread a knowledge and love of God, to have 
 men on their knees. On the contrary, under 
 Girard's golden jacket was hatred of prayers 
 and ministers, which he would interdict, but a 
 special tenderness, like a mother's, for children ; 
 and hence his great charity, — perhaps the 
 greatest in our land yet from any one man, — 
 in behalf of orphans ; and this brooding, solici- 
 tous, parental affection, with which a goodly 
 number of breasts are charged, is the world's 
 dower to childhood, securing juvenile asylums, 
 reform schools, missions, and colleges. There 
 is always, in the needed proportions, a ruling 
 passion for nursing to be counted on. It is 
 said Florence Nightingale, in her girlhood, had 
 her dolls sick for the most part, that she 
 might soothe and comfort them ; and many 
 like her, with tender bodies to bias the heart, 
 hold their gift of soothing, as Angelo, Shak- 
 speare, and Channing held theirs of art, 
 poetry, and ethics. Howard was a special am- 
 bassador, having his high commission signed and 
 sealed with the Wood of his own heart, to the 
 abused and abased prisoners of his time ; and 
 is not Mr. Bergh, of to-day, by reason of some 
 fine gift, a sort of Howard to sick and bruised 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 269 
 
 dumb animals ? Our most prominent mercies 
 are always characteristic, and, in order to their 
 greatest beauty and usefulness, should be per- 
 mitted this trait. Consult your talent, and then 
 use it. Invite your heart to elect freely its 
 office of humanity. Love all and serve all as 
 best you can, but do not be too timid of parti- 
 alities : they are the divine methods of best 
 achieving the universal. 
 
 There are two types of love so perfect they 
 can only be rare ; for Nature has to cast her dice 
 many times to throw an exceptionally good head 
 or great heart. The first of these is magna- 
 nimity, or that higher and finer genius anc), 
 instinct of the heart which sees, like a prophetic 
 or poetic or scientific eye, what the ordinary 
 vision takes no note of, and realizes the perfect 
 degrees of sympathy in practice, which are as 
 Greek to the masses. There is a felicity of ten- 
 derness which is like certain happy strokes of 
 the artist that surpass even his own intent and 
 must be ascribed to the Muse. There is a style 
 of heart that is always beforehand with itself, 
 and has met without taking thought the nice 
 points of consideration and service with nicer 
 skill. No calculation could have so succeeded. 
 The perfect bloom of feeling is always vital, and 
 
270 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 realizes, through a fine sympathy, Plutarch's 
 advice : " Do not speak of your happiness to 
 a man less fortunate than yourself; " or the 
 spirit of the old proverb, " Be sure you never 
 know that the cobbler has black thumbs." To 
 see a deformity as if you did not see it ; to hear 
 an impediment of speech as if you heard it not, 
 — this is a prime credit: it is the blindness and 
 deafness of a divine pity. When by his com- 
 rades, at their games, the easiest place is given 
 the lame boy, without seeming to do so, with 
 a tender delicacy that does not appear, as if for- 
 tune had interfered and favored him, or some 
 guardian angel had superintended the lots, — 
 then we catch a beam of the best sun that 
 shines. When we talk wide from points that 
 give pain, — praising the baby for wit, if it lack 
 beauty ; when we take on a plain style of dress 
 and a low tone of address in humble company, 
 sparing the poor the bitter sense of contrast, 
 hiding to a large degree the differences which 
 are against them, as the good Queen Victoria 
 is said to so visit the poor as if she were not 
 much richer than they ; when we rally the far- 
 mer on cattle and land, and ask him no questions 
 about Latin or the latest books ; when we invite 
 from all their best, which it is ever a joy to 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS- 271 
 
 set forth, and secretly aid them to keep their 
 worst out of sight, since that they can only pain- 
 fully expose, — then we touch one of the ideal 
 graces of behavior, which is like some happy 
 triumph of genius. 
 
 With peacocks, a perfect social art would turn 
 the conversation to tails ; with stags, to horns ; 
 with eagles, to wings and the miracle of a wide 
 and sharp vision ; with jackals, to the great need 
 and value of scavengers to health and comfort. 
 If you are a first-class gentleman or lady, with 
 your heart in the right place, you will have this 
 divining instinct of what may be kindly said 
 and what kindly left unsaid ; and will not, at 
 least, with unfeeling heedlessness or malice, ask 
 a defeated candidate how the election went ; 
 nor demand of an old lady with black hair 
 where she buys her dyes ; nor remind a jilted 
 bachelor that the only bliss of life is in being a 
 family-man ; nor say to one with a cough and 
 a hectic, that " consumption is incurable," as a 
 man of indelicate and careless fibre said of my 
 sore, throat one day, as we met on the street, 
 " 1 knew five men just so, and all but one died ; " 
 nor will you ask a hobbyist on what horse he is 
 mounted now ; nor jest an author for the scarcity 
 of his readers, since he will not be likely to 
 
272 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 take it so happily as did Augustus, who, when 
 his tragedy of Ajax was hissed from the stage, 
 quietly and without concernment erased it, and 
 on being asked by a heartless acquaintance what 
 had become of his hero, he said, with a hearty 
 laugh, " Ajax is dead ; he has swallowed a 
 sponge." 
 
 The misfortunes of mankind are the heart's 
 opportunities ; and when they are even trivial 
 and ludicrous, the case is still one for honorable 
 and heartfelt reserve, as if to spare a blush, 
 which would spare itself, were a point of- honor 
 and good- will, and quite worth the while. And 
 folly, by the best code, is secured from a chuck- 
 ling and cold banter. The satire that is selfish 
 is satanic. A jest which is not likely to be 
 enjoyed all round is never indulged by the 
 magnanimous, but only by the vulgar and 
 unfeeling. 
 
 In the social circle, a rare gift of love is sure 
 to draw on the pet topics ; opens the way for 
 each one to make his or her best cast in the con- 
 versation. Corning to visit his truly courteous 
 city cousins, the backwoodsman will have his 
 chance to show that there are other than metro- 
 politan merits wherewith to grace the finest 
 drawing-room. Love contrives gracefully, at 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 273 
 
 length, to set in front the corners of the room, 
 where we often find the best company, the 
 learners who are for this reason well able to be 
 teachers. Madame Recamier, the parlor queen, 
 paid her respects first and most to the timid, and 
 said she "found modesty to be the badge of 
 merits." The general who has a brother's 
 heart beating under his uniform, instead of 
 jesting his terrified raw-recruits in their first 
 battle, says, " Rally, boys ! I was just so once." 
 Every worthy pocket is well supplied with 
 anodynes. 
 
 Shall we say there is a love that is a virtue 
 of that perfection that it may realize the para- 
 dox of innocent transgressions, may .sin without 
 sinning, may make artifice and disguise divine, 
 — as Nature kindly plays us false in the appar- 
 ent rising and setting of the sun, and in keeping 
 us out of the secret that the cloud is a rack of 
 cold and cutting mist, and in playing on us many 
 a fine trick of illusion that is better for us than 
 would be the naked truth ? I know we must 
 not venture more than a whisper in this direc- 
 tion, or we shall have the door opened and the 
 way paved to the black gulf. But one must 
 have just a peep over this fearful rim. The heart 
 is privileged. Like the poet, love is entitled 
 
 18 
 
274 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 to some license, and may waive, as a wise supe- 
 rior, the moral exactitudes. Right or wrong, 
 who is going to reprove the grace of con- 
 cealment whereby little Lizzie Hexam — the 
 sweetest child of all Dickens's sweet ideal chil- 
 dren — continued to seem to her gruff, hard 
 father, old Gaffer Hexam, the river-man, not to 
 know books, when, by the favor of a friend 
 and her own hidden industry, she did know 
 them, — lest she should render him unhappy 
 by a sense of his ignorance and excite his easy 
 and fierce jealousy ? Blessed Lizzie ! One 
 wishes there were a world of people so sparing 
 of the unwelcome points. Such delicate hiding 
 of the painful contrasts will serve for any of us 
 as oil and not acid to the hinges of the celestial 
 gate. 
 
 "In our law," said the wise Hafiz, "there is 
 no sin but cruelty ; " in other words, love may 
 have some choice of means to its ends, since in 
 its greatness is involved its safety. I knew 
 a young lad who was wounded whilst in the 
 country on his summer vacation, who insisted 
 that the message of his hurt should be set in 
 somewhat better light than it would strictly 
 bear, when taken to his father and mother in 
 the city. Indeed, I bore the message, and saw 
 
OUBSELVES AND OTHEKS. 275 
 
 there was great merit of tenderness and better 
 wisdom in this exacted abatement from the 
 truth; and without scruple, as he requested, 
 I played the precious deception. A booby would 
 have had the worst told, and in the worst way, 
 heedless of giving pain; but a large-hearted 
 boy, shouldering his burdens in secret, would 
 have something better than the best published 
 to those who loved him most. When love flat- 
 ters thus by setting the best side to, or hides 
 the painful reality behind a sunny face, though 
 assumed, and is true to its genius still, checking 
 sighs and hiding tears out of tender regard to 
 others, who has a heart to turn critic on any 
 slight bias of statements? Who is so hateful 
 then as the casuist? If truth were only re- 
 fracted by love, the world would have nothing 
 to fear. If the straight lines are bent only in 
 the service of mercy, they will never be broken ; 
 or Truth may safely waive her claim to her 
 Superior, but not to any of the lower powers, 
 not to avarice, pride, or lust, which, being self- 
 ish, would subject her to serious strains and 
 abuses. 
 
 One never thinks less of the Creator for 
 playing off so many illusions to the eye, they 
 are so well meant and kindly, or that vision is 
 
276 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 a gift so charmingly deceptive, arching the sky 
 which is not arched, enchanting the distance 
 which is not enchanted ; and so be that our 
 artifice is alwaj^s beneficent, like the doctor's 
 bread pills for nervous patients, or like forced 
 and heroic smiles to cheer on wider joys, the 
 case will be only to our credit. 
 
 Take another view of this fine spirit. Note 
 the sharpness of its eye for the adverse circum- 
 stance, and the felicity of its apology. Lever- 
 rier's scientific instinct was not more acute to 
 detect the hidden star that explained certain 
 ugly - looking oscillations among the planets. 
 Love is slow to believe in pure malignity ; and 
 any twelve men, of usual heart, will eagerly 
 listen to the plea of insanity on the criminal's 
 behalf. Why was this or that rider thrown ? 
 Was there no " nut under the saddle " ? But 
 suppose we look and find none, may he not 
 have the benefit of a presumption and a measure 
 of unbespoken pity ? 
 
 Magnanimity would know all the facts, and 
 where the worst appears would judge and con- 
 demn leisurely, as if there were some favoring 
 secret, some mitigating circumstance not yet dis- 
 covered. It waits to find a better construction, 
 instead of seizing the worst ; asks after the 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 277 
 
 antecedents. " Did this man sin or his par- 
 ents, that he was born blind ? " Did this man 
 steal or his grandfather, who is playing his old 
 trick through his descendant? Is this evil 
 woman herself or her evil ancestor, and not 
 wholly responsible ? Mr. Prescott is full of 
 kindly defences of his hard heroes, Pizarro 
 and Almagro ; and says of the latter, " The 
 name of foundling comprehends an apology for 
 much that is wrong in his after life." These 
 people who are bad enough, as all must allow, 
 who can say they are not the fated victims 
 of some forgotten spendthrift, assassin, epicure, 
 statesman, or crowned head, like Henry VIII., 
 or low-bred and lewd princess-royal, or lazy and 
 lecherous lazzaroni? Who holds the secret of 
 their blood ? What Liebig or Berzelius has 
 had a fibre of their heart or cell of their brain 
 under adequate inspection ? Would you, who 
 make so free of your censures, have escaped the 
 same results under the same conditions? But 
 who are you, that you can lift and throw fate 
 so surely and gracefully? Who are you, that 
 blood will not tell on your fortunes ? or that 
 China will not, in the fulness of time, give you 
 a tea-colored face and Africa a black skin and 
 flat nose ? Who are you, that you may count 
 
278 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 out the facts and forces of the past and the 
 present ? " Let him that is without sin cast the 
 first stone." Let judgment be handled with 
 terror; since no one knows history and what 
 evil chain drags the life in spite of its stoutest 
 resistance ? 
 
 A higher love has a sharp eye for the best 
 renderings ; and, in lieu of a better ground of 
 leniency, will finally resort to the occult and 
 evil mysteries of the air. It is the only fit judge, 
 as having an eye to a wider scope of facts. Our 
 hard law is so far kind as to allow the benefit 
 of a doubt ; and first offences are rightly treated 
 with a gentle and yielding hand by good judges, 
 as if thej' might be done under some degree of 
 ignorance or by a partial oversight and inad- 
 vertency. 
 
 It is doubtful if the guilty are ever as guilty 
 as they appear, since they must be largely the 
 victims of bad blood, or bad education, or are 
 surprised in some lower mood by temptation, 
 which yesterday would have had no power 
 to touch them and would be spurned to- 
 morrow. Perhaps the criminal class, ill-born, 
 ill-bred, spurred on by sharp wants, steeped 
 in bad liquor, lured by the evil customs and 
 habits of the time, emboldened by lax laws and 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 279 
 
 easy escapes, is not so much to blame as the com- 
 munity they live in. Are they not the children 
 of the times, for whom the times are more re- 
 sponsible than they for themselves ? The age 
 is their father and mother; and if it were right, 
 they could not be wrong. Not one of us but 
 has helped to beget them such as they are. 
 
 Where fair dealing is the law and usage, the 
 rogues readily yield. Virtue necessitates vir- 
 tue. A college professor said to me, " A high 
 moral tone in the class overrules the worst 
 boys." Frankness brings all the secrets from 
 their hidings. The proprieties gain respect. 
 The tide draws in all the drops. From the 
 judge's sentence of " Guilty," every ear that 
 listens should take home to itself a part of its 
 meaning, and some penitence would not be amiss. 
 To convict one is to convict all. Society is a 
 banian-tree, with one spirit in all its branches. 
 The community should see that the offender is 
 he who only fails to keep hidden the general 
 secrets, and that not this man only, but all men 
 with him, should share in the penalty. The 
 prison- walls are by grace or necessity never large 
 enough ; the halter should draw, with differing 
 degrees, upon all the necks. Cannot they who 
 need clemency be a little clement? or is it the 
 
280 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 rule with rogues to deal severely by rogues? 
 We owe the bad, first of all, better lives to 
 brace them. 
 
 Eeverse history and you reverse all things. 
 •But it is not easy to see w^hat we might have 
 been, and make due allowance for circumstances. 
 We cannot see ourselves in another ; or self- 
 love recoils selfishly, and would not be wise with 
 this wisdom and justly generous. The excusing 
 mind is not often met with ; since it is not easy, 
 with our poor talent of imagination, to pass out 
 of ourselves and adopt the identity and history 
 of another, which is essential to just and lenient 
 views. We are often harsh for want of range 
 of vision and a fair understanding of just how 
 it is with those who falter and fall. We do not 
 see the other sides, from which modifying lights 
 will always be cast. We rate every one as by 
 our own history and experience, and what we 
 can do, and are much like the eagle, in the old 
 fable, who, feeling his wings and recalling his 
 many flights, berated the fox that he did not 
 mount into the air and keep company with the 
 clouds. Prosperity endangers our humanity. 
 " He jests at scars, that never felt a wound." 
 
 He is more of a saint who has been a sinner. 
 Experience is the best interpreter. The hand 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 281 
 
 that has fought with want is soonest opened in 
 charity. The conscience that has been stung 
 has the most of pity. We must somehow be set 
 in the place of the erring to find the motives 
 of mercy. The best poet, other things being 
 equal, would be the best judge, as having the 
 readiest skill of access to another. 
 
 We need more of the magnanimity or justice 
 of the London Quaker — was it John Graham ? 
 — who was given to saying, as some handcuffed 
 man, covered with crime and shame, was led by 
 his window on his way to the gallows, " But for 
 the grace of God and a good home, there goes 
 John Graham." Said a good judge in one of 
 our criminal courts, " I try to make the history 
 of the accused at the bar my own." . Socrates 
 advised one who was about to pass sentence 
 on a thief, to " first offer a sacrifice to Fate." 
 Blessed are they who can thus discount on 
 their good fortunes ! Blessed are they who can 
 exchange records with their kind! What like 
 this to protect justice arid beget mercy! 
 
 But we must not carry comity too far ; and 
 the second perfect degree of love, always rare 
 in practice, is a plain and level dealing with 
 each other's needs. What is worse than too 
 much candy and coddling, too many honeyed 
 
282 AT OUE, BEST. 
 
 words ? We must not lose sight of progress, or 
 that life is in its uses. Love should be a surgeon 
 as well as a nurse. The unwelcome truth may 
 be the only mercy in many a case, and should 
 be spoken out. Can you throw yourself across 
 your friend's evil path with a generous antago- 
 nism? Plutarch sets it down as a rare credit 
 to the love of Plato, that, " observing the morose 
 and sour humor of his friend Xenocrates, he 
 admonished him to sacrifice to the Graces." 
 Flattery is often the worst cruelty, as leading 
 its victim to mistake demerit for merit, and to 
 rest at the base of the mount as one who has 
 reached the summit. The best love for another 
 looks to character and a higher success. Sever- 
 ity may be charity. Our state-attorneys com- 
 plain that there is growing up a cruel tendency 
 to concede to rogues and avert the claims of 
 justice, to the injury of the guilty and the 
 innocent. 
 
 *' Mercy is not itself that oft looks so ; 
 Pardon is still the nurse of second woe." 
 
 It is a question, whether humanity pays. But 
 by every sensible person that should be looked , 
 upon as the same question as wdiether there is 
 a God. The existence of Deity is guaranty. of 
 just compensations ; that every pound shall be 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 283 
 
 balanced by another pound ; that we shall get 
 as good as we give ; that no gold will go through 
 the perfect sieve, but that, to the very minutest 
 atom, all will be rescued and rated and paid for. 
 There need be no insurance on risks, for there 
 are none. Morality is not a venture, nor charity 
 a lottery, but these are tied to blessed ends by 
 unfailing laws. The virtues are overwatched 
 by more than the eyes of Argus, and upheld 
 by more than the arms of Briareus. We are 
 sent to a market where everything brings a fair 
 price. We have all we earn. Call it Fate, or 
 Fortune, or Providence, or what you will, every 
 fine eye must see that the world is set up and 
 secured in the interest of a perfect equity. How- 
 ever it may look to any that beginnings and 
 ends, causes and results, work and wages, are 
 held together by limp and elastic and insecure 
 bands, there are no blades sharp enough to 
 cut them asunder, nor Titans stout enough to 
 break them apart, nor aeons long enough to 
 rust away the tie. Sin never slips through and 
 fares with its betters : however they may seem 
 to feed from one dish, there is never the same 
 flavor to the taste. There are no arts that can 
 win against Nature. Honesty always throws 
 loaded dice. " It is written in the sky, on the 
 
284 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 pages of the air," say the Orientals, "that good 
 deeds shall be done to him who does good deeds 
 to others." Love buys love ; honesty enforces 
 honesty ; custom becomes necessity. For one 
 good turn another is not only deserved, but 
 served. There is a delight in levelling the 
 scales* When the Earl of Flanders sought ref- 
 uge in the poor smoky hut of an old woman in 
 Bruges, crying, " O good woman, hide me : I 
 am thy Lorde, therle of Flanders ! " — Froissart 
 says, " She knewe hym well, for she had been 
 often tymes at his gate to fetche alms ; and she 
 slyed hym safe away." Giving is getting, only 
 silver is paid in gold. What we nobly give, 
 we give into our own hands. The centrifugal 
 impulse of the heart is taken in charge by a 
 perfect centripetal law or agency ; and the circle 
 of giving and receiving, of outlay and income, 
 is made complete. 
 
 Le Grice, the school companion of Charles 
 Lamb, wrote to Talfourd, Lamb's biographer, " I 
 never heard him [Lamb] mentioned at school 
 without the addition of Charles, although, as 
 there was no other boy of the same name, the ad- 
 dition was quite unnecessary ; but there was an 
 implied kindness in it, and it was a proof that 
 his gentle manners excited that kindness." The 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 285 
 
 sweet-hearted boy was on the winning side. 
 He could not lose in that game, because the 
 cards were all trumps. The more indifferent to 
 selfish ends was his fine playing, the more surely 
 were those ends guarded by the sharp-ej'ed 
 watchers of the world, and brought proudly 
 and laid at his feet. When we divinely forget, 
 there is One who divinely remembers and 
 repays. 
 
 The deposits in the bank of love always 
 return dividends. However the' heart seems 
 to send arrows at random, they are still directed 
 by some wise Superior, and bring down game 
 and insure the archer a feast. The most im- 
 probable ventures of mercy are safe. Some 
 angel sits guard over every humane deed, and 
 sees that it is returned at length with compli- 
 ments. The Norse legend of the king's son is 
 to the point, and shows that the Pagan eye had 
 caught a view of this tie that is never broken 
 or cut. Starting forth to find his six lost broth- 
 ers, he early fell upon a hungry raven and fed 
 it ; he soon after found a salmon caught in the 
 shoals, and, with a generous hand, pushed it 
 back into the river ; and next he met a wolf 
 so famished that the wind whistled through his 
 ribs, and he replied to the piteous begging of 
 
286 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the ugly brute by giving hirn his horse to de- 
 vour. When he came at length to the cave of 
 the u Giant without a Heart," he found his six 
 fair brothers turned into stone statues to orna- 
 ment the Giant's grounds. And the only means 
 of rescue was to find and break the Giant's 
 heart ; but he learned, by a deal of risk and 
 perseverance, that this was hidden in a golden 
 egg^ at the bottom of a deep well, that was 
 enclosed by a high tower, that was situated 
 on an island at the centre of the lake. What 
 to do ? Reaching the shore, there was no 
 boat or boatman, and the case looked hope- 
 less. But, to his great relief, Greylegs, the 
 wolf, was at hand and volunteered to swim 
 him over. But, when safely landed, how to 
 get into the tower, which had but a single 
 door and the key to that resting on the dizzy 
 pinnacle among the clouds, which no man could 
 scale ? Would jou believe it ? The raven was 
 waiting to bring him the key, which in grati- 
 tude it did. But how reach the bottom of the 
 well ? for two points were nothing without 
 carrying the third. And lo ! the salmon had 
 made his way to the place by some secret chan- 
 nel, and rose to the surface and begged to be 
 granted so great a favor as the privilege of 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHEES. 287 
 
 fetching the egg. And so the Giant's heart 
 was found and broken, and the king's son came 
 home in triumph with his six brothers. The 
 story is wild and simple enough, and of itself 
 not worth telling ; but it is very wise and com- 
 forting as a Pagan reading of Providence. It 
 shows that the perfect circles are never broken ; 
 that action and reaction are equal ; that benefi- 
 cence returns on its own path ; that there is no 
 mischance, but a perfect law of compensation 
 extending to the most improbable cases. It is 
 not in vain that we are benignant to a wolf, a 
 fish, or a bird. The beams of this sun, as of 
 that in the sky, are always reflected. 
 
 One day as I was riding in an omnibus that 
 seemed full, but was not, there came a man with 
 a waspish face, an air of discontent with all 
 things, and a voice utterly dry and tuneless, 
 and looked in at the door and growled out his 
 demand for a seat. But no one moved. There 
 seemed no spirit of accommodation abroad. 
 There was a secret and uniform league among 
 the passengers to keep Peppercastor on his 
 legs. Soon he quitted the scene to look for 
 better luck in the next coach. Instantly, on 
 his departure, as if to heighten the contrast, 
 a full two hundred pounds of good-humor looked 
 
288 AT OUK BEST. 
 
 in at our door, and smiled a broad smile at the 
 slim chance for a seat. But every eye was an 
 invitation to Broaclbreast to come in and occupy. 
 All the people in the coach speedily compressed 
 and drew themselves in, as if by some con- 
 tractile magic. . There was a spare seat beside 
 every passenger, and our mammoth new-comer 
 sat with becoming blandness and gratitude. It 
 was the easy victory of good- will and humanity, 
 by which it is ever a delight to be conquered. 
 
 Love is itself the first of victories. It is a 
 temper charming as the air of June. It is a sugar 
 always to the taste. And when one is right 
 with one's self, he is on the road to all manner 
 of triumphs. Love is master of the social 
 harmonies, as the sun has the planets well dis- 
 posed. Society is a sea for smooth sailing to 
 those whose pilot is good-will, otherwise it is 
 a rough way of collisions. Greatheart has all 
 the porcupines in a good temper, with their 
 barbed quills harmless ; and not the few only, 
 endeared by years of happy intercourse, but the 
 masses, as they rise, angels and chimpanzees, 
 fill him with constant delight. It is medicine 
 to weak eyes to see how gracefully and genially 
 some men move among men. To love, the sun 
 is never eclipsed ; the good meanings of Prov- 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHEKS. 289 
 
 idence are always legible ; there is still a warm 
 breath in the coldest atmosphere ; the wind is 
 always in a genial quarter ; the timings are all 
 fortunate, as if ordered by special favor ; and so 
 much of cheer, from day to day, becomes the 
 basis of a spacious temple of hopes. Love sees 
 no ill-omens in the sky, but reasons from its 
 bright to-day to a brighter to-morrow. Heaven 
 always bears some likeness to earth; and the 
 noble, generous, true, the open natures which 
 are ever filled with gracious tides of life, the 
 serving and happy, whilst here in the flesh, are 
 the ones who array the future in the most 
 attractive forms and colors. 
 
 And what is there like love to embalm a 
 name ? Gratitude has a good memory. The 
 world will not forget its benefactors. It is no 
 historic heresy to affirm that, when every titled 
 officer who bravely fought and fell in front of 
 the Malakoff, or who returned covered with 
 glory to his native England or France, shall 
 be named no more, Florence Nightingale, the 
 good angel of the hour and the place, the gentle, 
 the loving, the ministering, will live in a still 
 green and growing remembrance. An Ameri- 
 can traveller found a savage in the wilds of 
 Africa, who had never heard of or had forgotten 
 
 19 
 
290 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 the name of Washington, but was cherishing 
 the story of Florence Nightingale as a precious 
 piece of news from the great world. A single 
 chivalrous act, more than all the rest of his life, 
 floats the name of Sir Philip Sidney on the 
 current of time. Nothing wins against oblivion 
 like love. As it is a law of the world that pure 
 tones shall continue much the longest, and at 
 the distance of a mile or two miles only perfect 
 notes from a band will be heard, the harsh 
 sounds having died by the way, dismissed be- 
 cause not welcome, — so it is a law of humanity 
 that those names shall be best and longest cher- 
 ished which are the most signal synonymes for 
 love. 
 
 The benevolent are also one with God, who 
 is Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the 
 end : and a sense of this oneness is a better 
 legacy than all the wealth of Goshen, for with 
 it is the sense of our immortality, as well as of 
 our high rank to-day. It was Spinoza's doc- 
 trine that we live a brief or an enduring life, 
 a temporal or eternal existence, according as we 
 concentrate our being on fleeting or abiding 
 elements and ends, as we tie to the perishable 
 or permanent, as we hitch our chariot to a 
 meteor or a star. Our journey is one with the 
 
OURSELVES AND OTHERS. 291 
 
 wave on which we ride. Even on this fatalistic 
 ground, none would be so safe^ as he who affili- 
 ates with the Universal Love, which was and 
 is and is to be. We should flee to the divine 
 and eternal as for dear life itself. But immor- 
 tality is not so uncertain. Our being is more 
 than a shadow, or a baseless dream. The soul 
 is real. But to the spiritual and loving is the 
 best sense of victory over death. They know, 
 by an inner witness, that they have part with 
 the Life of the universe, the First and the Last 
 and the Midst. Charity feels the Everlasting 
 Unity. Love and God stand mutually pledged. 
 
292 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 IX. 
 
 ON THE SQUARE. 
 
 " One still strong man in a blatant land, 
 Whatever they call him, what care I, 
 Aristocrat, democrat, autocrat, one — 
 Who can rule and dare not lie." 
 
 Tennyson's Maud. 
 
 " His words are bonds, his oaths are oracles ; 
 His love sincere, his thoughts immaculate; 
 His tears pure messengers sent from his heart; 
 His heart as far from fraud, as heaven from earth." 
 
 Shakspeare's Two Gentlemen of Verona. 
 
 TT^VERY gift carries with it some peril, or is 
 liable to become its own enemy. We say 
 of the wild youth, whom we still admire, if he 
 can be held from fatal excesses, he will make 
 a thrifty man ; that is, we see that his fine 
 talent is liable to run away with him. Senti- 
 ment, without which no nature is well-born, 
 easily glides into sentimentalism, which is the 
 most hateful of vices, if not the most vicious. 
 A devout bias, equal to David's or Fenelon's, 
 often miscarries and ends in rant and uproar. 
 Independence is always on the eve of breaking 
 
ON THE SQTJABE. 293 
 
 into impudence ; another ounce, and the balance 
 is lost ; as grandpa's darling, drawn out of all 
 restraint to-day and reaching the perfection of 
 cunning, by being set to do his own likings, not 
 only without hindrance but with loud applause, 
 oversteps the bounds of good behavior to-mor- 
 row, and pulls the old man by the nose or ear, 
 and bids him hold his tongue. The better the 
 talent, the greater the need of checks. The 
 most useful of agents — like lightning, steam, 
 chloroform, or genius — is never quite safe out 
 of harness. All spirit needs to be held and 
 overruled by reason, restrained by customs, 
 laws, religions ; or something must be done 
 to secure a regulated action, which alone will 
 carry to the best ends. 
 
 Our gifts are not only their own enemies, but 
 they are often enemies to each other. It is easy 
 to see how hostile some of them are to integrity. 
 For example, excess of suavity, as every ob- 
 server well knows, robs many a man of his char- 
 acter, reduces him to a shadow or echo of his 
 companions, draws him into a thousand false 
 relations, which he will afterwards see and re- 
 gret. His consent is daily or hourly given 
 against his conscience. He habitually approves 
 where he would honestly rebuke. He flatters. 
 
294 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 He yields his own conduct to bad customs, 
 — drinks though he sees the serpent coiled in 
 the cup, swears when the words pierce his ear, 
 and shams against his best sense. To spare 
 a friend, he spoils himself. His affability is a 
 double cruelty. Who would dare to count on 
 his word ? since to the next man he meets, how- 
 ever opposite, he will play the fawn, and swallow 
 his own periods. His ancient prototype was 
 Alcibiades, of whom Plutarch wrote : " When 
 he dwelt at Athens, he was arch and witty as 
 any Athenian of them all, kept his stable of 
 horses, played the good-fellow, and was univer- 
 sally obliging ; and yet the same man at Sparta 
 shaved close to the skin, wore his cloak, and 
 never bathed but in cold water. When he 
 sojourned in Thrace, he drank and fought like 
 a Thracian ; and again, in Tissaphernes's com- 
 pany in Asia, he acted the part of a soft, arro- 
 gant, and voluptuous Asiatic." According to 
 Horace Walpole, the Duke of Newcastle was 
 apt to be amiable at the cost of his veracity : he 
 must needs take on the humors of the hour, 
 however foreign to his heart. With something 
 of exaggeration, no doubt, Walpole shows how 
 the duke threw himself into the spirit of the 
 funeral of George II. : " He fell into a fit of 
 
ON THE SQUARE. 295 
 
 crying the moment he came into the chapel, and 
 flung himself back in a stall, the archbishop 
 hovering over him with a smelling-bottle ; but 
 in two minutes his curiosity got the better of 
 his hypocrisy, and he ran about the chapel with 
 his glass, spying who was there, spying with one 
 hand, and mopping his eyes with the other." A 
 habit of easily feigned or easily felt concurrence 
 with all humors is fatal to virtue ; or one may 
 have so much suavity as to have no proper self- 
 hood, and to be quite unreliable : — 
 
 " A creature of amphibious nature : 
 On land a beast, a fish in water." 
 
 Against a strong bias of fancy, or a lower 
 order of imagination, conscience is called to fight 
 a battle in which there is no truce, and is often 
 a victory on the wrong side. We should say, 
 the English are by birth, in this respect, a nation 
 of truth-tellers. Long ago this title was given 
 Alfred the Great, and the Saxon temperament 
 would seem to justify it. The English are dryly 
 matter-of-fact, and hate a second sense ; they are 
 naturally angular and exact, and hug close to 
 realities ; they are prosaic, free of intruding and 
 luring fancies, and given to great plainness of 
 statement and behavior. Integrity comes easy 
 to such ; and, but for their avarice and egotism, 
 
296 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 which often overtop their moral nature, the most 
 pains-taking would hardly be able to find a lie 
 on the island. But where the English conscience 
 has no strain, the French is the most severely- 
 tried. The French eye has a scenic trait, cov- 
 ers every fact with layers of illusions till the 
 fact is no longer to be seen, has all the straight 
 lines bent to humor its bias for the circular and 
 flowing, no matter how truth fares by the act ; 
 so be that all is rendered graceful and recherche, 
 a Frenchman will ask no question for con- 
 science's sake ; the most sober realities he will 
 contrive to have set in holiday aspects, even at 
 the cost of their identity ; exaggerations are as 
 natural to him as his breath. A French Para- 
 dise would be a world of gay phantasms, — Berke- 
 ley's phenomenal sphere tricked out in gorgeous 
 colors. 
 
 The East has ever a need to stand guard over 
 its native proneness to illusions, which is well 
 known to exist there at the cost of a great 
 deal of rectitude. An Arab is likely to have a 
 better opinion of a romantic falsehood than of an 
 unadorned truth. In spite of himself, and the 
 best code of morals he inherits from his gxeat 
 teachers, and his affected regard for Otaiye, the 
 hero of truth, — 
 
ON THE SQTJABE. 297 
 
 " If the universe must die 
 Unless Otaiye told a lie, 
 
 He would defy the last fate's crash 
 And let all sink," — 
 
 still the Arab can but shift the lights, and see 
 all things as they are not ; and his lips will be 
 the servants of his eye. 
 
 In China and* Japan, where jugglery is native, 
 and, whatever straight lines it has bent, a 
 prime credit when perfect, the ninth command- 
 ment of the Decalogue stands at a great dis- 
 advantage. These born disciples of the black 
 arts can not be easily held " on the square." It 
 will take many sermons to set them right, and 
 secure them to simple truth. The missionary 
 will still be in doubt whether their piety is 
 serious or humorous, actual or a feint and a 
 trick ; and will regard them as converts who 
 are liable to need converting. These nations are 
 not to be counted on like the Saxon race, with 
 its majesty and promise of an ingrain integrity. 
 Virgil said he " did not dare to trust the Greeks, 
 even when they made gifts ; " since their regard 
 for virtue was rather an aesthetic or Platonic 
 sentiment, an exercise of taste or worship of 
 beauty, than a birth from the moral nature. 
 But the Oriental fancy is still less sure, for it 
 sacrifices virtue on much lower grounds. 
 
298 AT OUE BEST. 
 
 No one can doubt that the delight of child- 
 hood and youth in romance and strange lights, 
 renders truth an easier sacrifice with them than 
 with the advanced in years, who have come to 
 the age of prose and verity. The young revel 
 in wild and unreal stories, — the monstrous 
 falsehoods of " Mother Goose " and " Jack and 
 the Bean-Stalk," the impossible feats of " Sinbad 
 the Sailor," the fables of JEsop and La Fon- 
 taine, the absurd and false feats of Don Quix- 
 ote and Baron Munchausen, and the amazing 
 improbabilities of the Norse legends. There is 
 still some opium in the youthful blood, — a hint 
 that it is native of the Orient ; and, in conse- 
 quence, the most sacred realities are easily set 
 aside to give place to fancies. In early life, we 
 toy with the illusory; we "make up" stories 
 as a fine diversion, and half believe them true ; 
 we beg of all our friends for still larger and 
 larger triumphs of imagination. 
 
 " By sports like these are all our cares beguiled." 
 
 But after our fortieth or fiftieth year we strike 
 the hardpan and want no more dreams, no more 
 alchemy and astrology, no more Utopias and 
 'Millenniums, no more painted gods and goddesses, 
 no more world-saving orders and isms, no more 
 play at blind -man's buff ; we have seen bubbles 
 
ON THE SQTTABE. 299 
 
 enough by mid-life, having lost that itch from 
 the eye ; we have passed into a new and staid 
 temperament, and crave truth and confidence 
 before all else, — colors that will wash, words 
 that are bonds and will stick, deeds that will 
 not need to be done over again, more logic and 
 less romance, a return to common sense, a mod- 
 est and reliable air about all matters, and a drop- 
 ping of the scenic and sensational. Youth are 
 more tempted to set forth untrue views, to give 
 a false sense, to cover facts with fancies, to sport 
 with errors of all kinds, to make terms with 
 obliquity, than will be the men and women to 
 whom the years as they fly will ripen them. 
 
 Far less respectable is the hostility of avarice, 
 vanity, appetite, and lust to man's true and 
 honorable life. Moved by these lower passions, 
 he waives the claims of duty on purely selfish 
 grounds, and loses what of grace still attaches 
 to an excess of suavity or an undue sway of 
 imagination. Much of the unveracity of the 
 time grovels, having a carnal source ; or it is 
 self that sinks falsehood to the lowest pit. 
 
 Against all and sundry that lure from the 
 ways of rectitude, the conscience is to be in- 
 voked. It must suffice to name a few partic- 
 ulars that serve to foster the better motives. 
 
300 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 Integrity saves the need of speech and advo- 
 cacy. The man who is known to be honest, 
 and always where his moral nature places him, 
 carries his point by virtue of his position. That 
 he is here or there, on this side or that, tells 
 the whole story ; and his silence is better than 
 another man's eloquence. The Philadelphians 
 were wont to ask where Dr. Franklin stood on 
 any new question of the day ; and they went 
 as he went, without further showing of reasons. 
 It was an English adage that Lord Brougham 
 carried Parliament more by what he did not 
 say than by what he did ; and character is 
 fully entitled to this silent power. The un- 
 certain man must explain, also the new-comer, 
 unless he carry an overwhelming moral ad- 
 vantage in his presence ; our politicians are 
 morbid qualifiers, and forever trying to set to- 
 day right with yesterday ; but the well-known 
 moral hero has earned the right not to open 
 his lips, and yet to have on his side the weight 
 of argument. At a meeting of any kind, the 
 voters watch the hand of the best man. A bad 
 cause has nothing to fear so much as a great 
 name charged with virtue, among the opposition. 
 The sharpest weapon is often no weapon but 
 character. 
 
<W THE SQUARE. 301 
 
 " Hercules with his club 
 The Dragon did drub ; 
 But More of More-Hall, 
 With nothing at all 
 He slew the Dragon of Wantley." 
 
 We seek counsel and direction of the honest 
 faces, pass by a dozen or a score that are rogues, 
 fops, or of a hard and forbidding fibre, to come 
 to the open brow and honest eye, We defer to 
 plain and frank natures, as we cling to the firm 
 and sure rocks when the waves threaten. 
 
 It is another merit of genuine virtue- that it 
 is set in open relations with the universe, and 
 holds the best key to truth. Aristotle refers 
 candor and perception to the same party, or 
 makes honesty the path to discovery of the 
 better and the best. In this he foreshadowed 
 the Christian beatitude, " Blessed are the pure 
 in heart, for they shall see God." Pure waters 
 best reflect the heavens. Integrity carries the 
 lamp of instinct, or is the magnetic principle 
 which draws life ever toward its true north. 
 Truth is not discovered out of us, but is rather 
 revealed in and through us ; and our moral 
 state is of prime importance to successful inves- 
 tigation. Invention has an ethical ground. 
 The artists and poets have been among the 
 best souls of the ages. It is not without a good 
 
302 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 and sufficient reason that, in all the grades of 
 our courts, we select for judges plain and hon- 
 est men, instead of the nimble and able law- 
 yers : conscience, rather than a quick and sharp 
 intellect, holding the clue to justice. The sel- 
 fish have a perverted vision, or are quite blind 
 to the broadest and truest views. Habitual 
 offenders not only lose the sense of their mis- 
 deeds, but benumb all their finer powers, and 
 are gradually shut in from the better world of 
 truth and grace. The universe is glass to the 
 perfect soul, or a sphere for free and inviting 
 range. Of Veracity Ben Jonson well sings : — 
 
 " She wears a robe enchasM with eagle's eyes, 
 To signify her sight in mysteries." 
 
 In the survey of morals, every angle is found 
 at last to touch this all-important centre, — that 
 rewards and retributions are surer than the 
 rising and setting of the sun ; or that there is 
 never an error in the scales that weigh out to 
 all their dues. Your cunning trick, in one way 
 or another, is sure to be turned inside out, and 
 proven to be far enough from cunning; whilst 
 simplicity and real worth, in what age soever, 
 will make their way and find their account, 
 because they are the accepted currency of the 
 universe. He who doubts that falsehood is loss 
 
ON THE SQUARE. 303 
 
 and integrity gain, has read the book of Nature 
 wrong end up ; for geometry and numbers are 
 not more exacting and self-faithful than morals. 
 From the All-seeing Eye no tracks can be cov- 
 ered, and the end of every path, as of the course 
 of the river to the sea, is foreordained ; and 
 there is no way to avoid running into the night 
 but to follow the path of the sun. No man can 
 hide his morals, nor elude their just effects. 
 " Every poacher," said Sydney Smith, " is sure 
 to be detected, — a hare in one hand and a 
 pheasant in the other." The Pagan eye took 
 note of this fatal tie between seed and harvest, 
 desert and recompense ; and we know of no 
 nation which does not, by proverb and legend, 
 attest its faith in the absolute justness of doom. 
 The many adages bearing on this point are a 
 credit to Nature, and the good sense that has 
 so well observed it. ^Esop spoke this verdict 
 in fable for the Greeks. Woodman, moaning 
 for his axe, which, by a sad chance, had slipped 
 from his hand into the river, was overheard by 
 the quick ear of Mercury ; who, making a 
 prompt dive, brought up first a golden and then 
 a silver axe, which the man honestly refused 
 as not his ; from a third plunge, the god came 
 up with the axe of iron, which was rightly 
 
304 AT OUR BEST. 
 
 claimed. Mercury fitly rewarded such fealty 
 to truth, against so great temptations, by mak- 
 ing the man the happy owner of all the axes. 
 Whereupon a base liar, moved by cupidity, 
 went to the river and cast in his axe, and then 
 set to crying like one with a broken heart. 
 Mercury came and heard his artful story, and, 
 leaping into the flood, rose with an axe of gold, 
 which, with loud affirmation, the man claimed 
 as his, and hastily made forward to clutch it. 
 But the god instantly sunk in the flood and was 
 seen no more, the trickster losing even the axe 
 that was his. By various wild stories, the Norse 
 literature celebrates the reign of justice in all 
 things ; showing how false gain is sure loss, and 
 honesty never fails to draw down a train of 
 blessings upon its path. In point, is the account 
 of Arthur's accession to his kingship and the 
 world-wide glory to which his name has risen. 
 The right of kingly rule was to be determined 
 by the ability to draw a miraculous sword from 
 a miraculous stone, in which it has been mirac- 
 ulously set. One after another, the knights 
 had given it a try, but had failed in every case. 
 On occasion of an annual tournament, Sir Kay, 
 in a gallant encounter, had broken his sword, 
 and sent Arthur, his foster-brother, who was 
 
ON THE SQUARE. 305 
 
 then a lad, to secure him another as a substi- 
 tute. On his way, the boy saw this magic sword 
 in the magic rock, and drew it, quite innocent 
 of the good fortune to which the act entitled 
 him ; and brought it to Sir Kay for service. 
 The knight knew it well, and claimed that he 
 had drawn it, and claimed the reward, — a king- 
 dom. But it was returned to its place, to verify 
 so great a feat, and the pretender stood power- 
 less at its hilt ; but Arthur could draw it quicker 
 than the lookers-on could call his name. Sir 
 Kay was disgraced, and his honest brother pro- 
 moted to his rightful reward. The right is 
 always in search of the party whose title is best. 
 When the swindler and false claimant has got 
 his reward, he has not got it, but has got instead 
 some pretty apple of Sodom, or glittering toy 
 that he will some day wish, he had not. Judas 
 wanted at length to throw up his shrewd 
 bargain, as he had thought it. It must always 
 be thus. 
 
 The instant anxiety of the man who has 
 broken the law of integrity, to blind the gazing 
 eye of the world by some means, usually another 
 lie, and another, and yet a third, till he is drawn 
 into the distracting coils of deceit, is a witness 
 
 20 
 
306 AT OUB. BEST. 
 
 to the regularity with which, in the most out- 
 ward and obvious sense, the law of compensa- 
 tion holds sway. The wrong-cloer expects the 
 next man he meets will accuse him. He thinks 
 his secret is already in the keeping of the police. 
 Man makes this acknowledgment to the sway 
 of an ordinary retribution. But the penalty is 
 yet surer than he thinks. There are secret 
 avengers, who never tire in their pursuit, nor 
 miss their victim. Providence takes care of 
 justice, not trusting it to our tardy and clumsy 
 courts ; and, on the more occult grounds, recti- 
 tude will be found to be the only prudence. 
 The sinner must settle his account with the 
 universe. If man is true, he will find the whole 
 world — the hills and vales, the ocean and the 
 stars, and the Life that pervades all — turn- 
 ing upon him a sunny face ; but if he is false, 
 the genius of the world will appear to him with 
 a knit brow and a reproving eye, which will 
 haunt him day and night. 
 
 A simple and reliable habit of speech and 
 act ; to be always frank and aboveboard ; to 
 give perfect weight and measure, and own up 
 to whatever defects there may be in our work ; to 
 scorn arts and deceits ; to waive all pretension, 
 
ON THE SQUAKE. 307 
 
 and always to hew to the exact line, — this is 
 more majestic than any sceptre, as part and lot 
 with the Perfect, and richer than all applause, 
 giving secret worth and charm to every day and 
 night. 
 
 Cambridge ; Press of John Wilson and Son. 
 
H 148 82 « 
 
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