fLJBPtARY OF congress' 
 
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 I UNITED STATES~OfTmERICA. ^ 
 
HOURS 
 
 WITH JOHN DARBY. 
 
 BY THE AUTHOR OF 
 
 '•THINKERS AND THINKING," "ODD HOURS OF A PHYSICIAN,' 
 ETC., ETC. y 
 
 These things my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear, 
 How you enjoy such ease of hfe and quiet, 
 The only man as happy as a god." 
 
 A man is not to bite his hand and afterwards blame his 
 
 teeth for the hurt." 
 
 PHILADELPHIA: 
 
 J. B. LIPPINCOTT & CO 
 1877. 
 

 Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1876, by 
 
 JAMES E. GARRETSON, M.D., 
 In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington. 
 
MRS. THOMAS WOOD, 
 
 THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED 
 
 BY ITS AUTHOR, 
 
 WITH EXPRESSIONS OF REGARD AND ESTEEM. 
 
ARGUMENT. 
 
 Lysias, a youth of refinement and education, has, as confidant ^ 
 and adviser, an old friend, John Darby. The younger being at 
 that stage from which one steps into the great arena, it is the 
 concern of the elder to endow him with experiences which have 
 grovi^n out of the successes and failures occurring in his own life. 
 The talks held by the two as they stroll together through the 
 woods, float in their boat upon the stream, or sit by the evening ^ 
 fireside, relate to these experiences. 
 
 The subject of women being frequently introduced, much dis- 
 course is held on the meaning of the passion of love : it is shown 
 to be a bitter-sweet, — a something which, of all the associations 
 of earth, comprises the most or contains the least. Home is dis- 
 cussed ; what it is ; what makes it ; what keeps it ; what is to go 
 before it ; who may come into possession of it, and who may not. 
 
 Earnestly anxious for the good of his young friend, the old man 
 propounds aphorisms and abounds in suggestions. There is a 
 good deal of indulgence in philosophic reflections, but it is aimed 
 to divest this of any appearance of pedantry, and to apply the 
 lessons to the every-day details of life and living. 
 
 It is endeavored to be impressed that success arises out of 
 knowing and heeding; that biters get bitten; that wisdom is, 
 of all things, the most useful, and prudence the most profitable; 
 that good and evil are not to be looked on as things in them- 
 selves, but as things existing alone in relations ; that while man 
 is to recognize that he is indebted to God for ail blessings, yet 
 tne meaning of Providence is to be understood as lying strictly 
 
 I* V 
 
vi ARGUMENT, 
 
 within one's self; that one is to lean on his own staff. It is 
 denied that there is such a thing in the world as dealh. 
 
 Here and there — confined, however, principally to the first few 
 conversations — references, more or less foreign to the matter of 
 immediate discourse, are to be found interpolated, and soliloquies 
 are indulged in, which, on first impression, expose the mentor to 
 criticism on the scores of disjointed speaking and literary incon- 
 gruity; but on looking at the matter with ordinary closeness, a 
 warrant for this is seen to lie in the object, which is to drop seeds 
 of thought (wherever a place may be found in which to plant 
 one) rather than point morals. 
 
 Finally, there is considered that mutation which, sooner or 
 later, breaks up all families. Husband and wife are separated ; 
 the mentor offers to his pupil the consolations of philosophy, and 
 demonstrates to him that the change from a bridal chamber to a 
 coffin is of precisely similar import to the burial of the caterpillar 
 in its cocoon ; that coffins and cocoons are alike symbols of im- 
 mortality, that from either come beautiful flying things. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Concerning a Wife 5 
 
 Concerning Things to be Known 34 
 
 Concerning Quiet Hours 56 
 
 Concerning the Avoidance of Unquiet Hours . . 73 
 Concerning That Which it Most Profits a Man to 
 
 Understand 102 
 
 Concerning Heroic Love 126 
 
 Concerning Heroic Love 134 
 
 Concerning Nuptial Love 142 
 
 The Story of Lysander 151 
 
 About Nooses 169 
 
 Lysias 170 
 
 At Home 184 
 
 At Home 199 
 
 At Home 218 
 
 At Home 226 
 
 Death in the House 241 
 
I. 
 
 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 A WIFE, thou sayest. 
 And what for, my Lysias ? 
 
 Thou wouldst hear discourse thereon. 
 
 And so thou shalt ; for of all matters concerning 
 which experience may speak to the edifying of inex- 
 perience ; of things which pertain most to comfort or 
 discomfort ; of relations which affiliate or which antag- 
 onize; of joys which expand or which sodden ; nothing 
 — of all the associations of earth — is there, which may 
 comprise so much, or contain so little, as is embraced 
 in the meaning of that one word — Wife. 
 
 A wife commences in dreams ; not of flesh and blood, 
 but a divine phantom is that which flits about and which 
 touches the young heart — the phantom is it of the rose 
 — of the zephyr sighing for a something it wants — the 
 phantom of the blushing cheek, of tell-tale lips, ripe, 
 and pouting complaints of the unsipped lusciousness 
 living in them. No face is seen by Youth as it is in 
 reality. Over all, over everything, is the sheen. The 
 1* S 
 
e CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 breath of Love is ever that perfume which to the lover 
 is sweetest. The glance of a love-lit eye, comes it from 
 blue, black, or gray, is as the glory which falls at mo- 
 ments on mountain-tops, making bleak rocks golden. 
 Look where Youth will, there is the divine thing — 
 there is the sheen ; each wavelet reflects it, each haze- 
 wrapped cloudlet bears it ; the earth, the sky, the waters, 
 are full of it ; brooks sing its song, winds are its wings ; 
 even seas, which engulf and destroy, are seen as tribute- 
 bearers to its heroism. Oh, thing divine — thing divine ! 
 
 And poetry is a tribute-bearer \ for who, save in 
 
 rounded periods, and in the languid diminuendoes of 
 scales, and of well-matched words, may find language 
 fit for the telling of dreams apart from which there is 
 nothing? — Ah! beautiful world of Love! the senses 
 drunken, the appetite taking to its nourishment only 
 the lotus — Eden. 
 
 Only the rustle of a robe — her robe ! Yet is a 
 
 heart set palpitating, and speech, a moment back loud 
 and vaunting, is now become confused and faltering • 
 shades red and pale fly at random, and limbs strong 
 and lusty have fallen into weakness. 
 
 The whisper of a bride — a word so low spoken 
 
 that but one ear in all the wide world may catch the 
 meaning. Yet is there music in the tone apart from 
 which harmony has no chords but have become un- 
 strung and tuneless; other sounds concern not, but are 
 as things dead or meaningless. The black humors of 
 life have been dispelled by that whisper — earth has 
 drawn somewhat nearer heaven. 
 
 A wife, thou sayest. 
 
 There are, my Lysias, women who are such fools and 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 7 
 
 idiots, that by some unwonted blunder on the part of 
 nature they would seem to have grown into life naught 
 else than animated blocks. . . . Yet — yet, on the other 
 hand, are there a multitude so exquisite, so finely 
 attuned, so over-full of the delicious, so enticing, so 
 alluring, so all-satisfying, that kings and philosophers 
 who bow down before them, who give crown and brains 
 to them, who forget in their praise all other worship, who 
 build altars to them, who live all of life in their pres- 
 ence and who die all of death in their absence — ah ! my 
 scholar, he alone that knew not Servilla blames Caesar. 
 A woman, Lysias, may be as the burr and thistle, 
 which, a moment back, thou wouldst have lifted from 
 the wayside had I not warned thee. She may be of a 
 nature to hold fast by a husband, but the closer she 
 sticks the more shall she worry and wound him. A 
 woman, on the contrary, may be like unto a bath redo- 
 lent of perfumes, not only purifying and cleansing him 
 who comes to her freshness, but so recreating his senses, 
 so stimulating with a modestly-tempered coolness, so 
 exhilarating, and so intoxicating with the sweet things 
 which live in her, that well may the lover let go under 
 mouth and nostrils, deeming it happiness enough that 
 such waters may drown and forever keep him. Ah, 
 Lysias, but that the lover might so drown himself, and 
 stay drowned ! Say we thus ? Let us not arrive at 
 conclusions that are unwise. What is the peace of Age 
 to the passion of Youth? What are cool bowers to 
 heated furnaces? Tell us, Sophocles. How do you 
 feel about Love ? And what answers the Boet ? " Hush, 
 if you please : to my great delight, I have escaped 
 from it, and feel as if I had escaped frpni a frantic and 
 
8 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 savage master." And what adds Cephalus? ''Soph- 
 ocles," he says, ''speaks well, for unquestionably, when 
 the appetites have abated, and their force is diminished, 
 then is age; and age brings us profound repose and 
 freedom." 
 
 And who is that wise man who has persisted in 
 
 defining Beauty as summer fruits, which are easy to cor- 
 rupt and cannot last — which makes Youth dissolute and 
 puts old men out of countenance — yet who, likewise 
 must add, " that if it light well, it maketh virtue shine 
 and vices blush" ?* 
 
 But beauty in woman is not so much of face and of 
 form as of motive and action. She is wise who makes 
 herself to look well, but she is wiser who acts well. It 
 is ill advised in a woman to go without adornments, 
 for dress is to a woman what feathers are to the bird, and 
 that bird which bears brightest plumage affords most 
 pleasure by the beauty it carries. But a bird brought 
 to the cage tires quickly enough if feathers alone are 
 the charm ; there should be voice, and movement, and 
 winsome ways, and these, rather than the coloring, are 
 what should be the attractions ; for a winsome woman 
 does so delight her husband that never does it come to 
 him to see that little by little the plumage is changing 
 — as change it must that it may keep in accord with 
 advancing years. 
 
 It is to be commended that a wife be able to oppose 
 Latin with French, metaphysics with witty apothegms, 
 melancholy with sprightliness, complainings with music, 
 — and that she spend gracefully and appropriately what 
 the husband shall earn manfully and sufficiently. 
 
 * Lord Bacon. 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. g 
 
 A wife is not over-wisely made too much into a toy 
 and a plaything, but heaven alone may preserve the no- 
 bility of that man who makes of her over-much a part- 
 ner and helpmate. It is not in physics that a woman 
 toil, it is not in metaphysics that a man sacrifice fine 
 metal to mean purpose. Let pots be made of brass, but 
 that which is to lift to the nostrils the fragrant bouquet, 
 let it be coined from gold. 
 
 By which is meant, that the education and the 
 
 habits of a wife should so diifer from the pursuits of the 
 husband, that, as she finds in his strength and solidity 
 that in which she is, and should be, lacking, so, in com- 
 pensation, the charms, the sprightliness, the sweet 
 witcheries of life are to be found most abundantly in 
 her. — A natural law is it, not to be disputed, neither 
 argued away; that man is the House-band. — Woman 
 would seem to be meant as a charming bow to the band, 
 without which a band may be only a dull wrapping held 
 by a knot. 
 
 A law of nature is it that a weak thing supports a 
 stronger only at the expense of that which is the charm 
 and beauty of the fragile. See a tree broken and fallen 
 over, being kept from the ground by an intervening 
 vine ; the vine is between the tree and the ground, true, 
 but how sore pressed it looks — and is! How matted 
 and tangled and bruised are the tendrils, how lost are 
 the charms of the clinging and the twining! 
 
 A man — a well man — weak, and supported ; and a 
 woman strong, and supporting, are among the most 
 unnatural of the anomalies of nature, — hermaphrodites 
 so universally repulsive that, with a common voice, all 
 things cry out against the sorry relation. It is for a 
 
 A* 
 
lO CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 rock to bear up moss ; it is for a wall to hold peach- 
 boughs, which, in return, cover the dull face with 
 charms that artists pause before and carry away in 
 copies. It is for a steeple to lift heavenward the gilded 
 delicate vane which is the ornament and finish of the 
 pile. But a man — a great, strong man — leaning against 
 a weak and delicate woman — faugh ! the stones by the 
 wayside might blush. 
 
 Expect a woman to play the parts both of wife and 
 man ; expect complacency and soft greetings where 
 are encountered only grumblings and hard knocks ; ex- 
 pect the pressure of velvet-like hands where scarf-skin 
 is thickened and made horny by contact with pans 
 and kettles ; expect the breath of roses where are fed 
 only onions ; expect a tired, over-worked, man-crushed 
 woman to vie with the beauty that surrounds, and then 
 to grow into a disgust for her because her face looks 
 weary and her limbs deny the graces of the dance — 
 faugh ! you poor brute of an apology, rather ask your- 
 self if even you are worthy of the hack into which you 
 have converted your gazelle. 
 
 By which is not meant that a woman, parasite- 
 like, is to take everything, giving back nothing. Gives 
 the air nothing to him who fans it ? gives the flower 
 nothing to him who tends and waters it? gives the 
 grand poem nothing to him who, through weary hours, 
 regardless of the toil which is carrying with it the 
 color of his cheek, ponders over it, making it his own ? 
 It is to be told thee, my Lysias, that a wife gives most 
 when, to one dull and unobservant, she may seem to 
 be giving least; for is not that which affords to a man 
 energy, life, and the desire to do battle with his needs 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. H 
 
 and necessities, giving in its fulness? and come not 
 such gifts from a beloved one? Who that loves but is 
 made eager to place himself between his object and 
 that which threatens it ? Who that loves but is made 
 strong and manly through his passion ? 
 
 And he who is not thus made strong is not a 
 
 lover, and the bride is to be pitied. Such a man shall 
 never come to distinguish between diamond and paste ; 
 and when, in marriage, he commences the destruction 
 of the beautiful thing which has come to him, he in- 
 augurates a crime which his whole future life will show 
 to be unpardonable, for his sin will be found to cover 
 him with confusion, with penury, and with shame ; or, 
 if it be that the vine, in its weak way, shall keep him 
 from falling to the earth, then is it that he must find 
 even in greater fulness the wretchedness of a position 
 which continues on exhibition' his degradation and 
 utter unworthiness. 
 
 A secret, my Lysias, I breathe into thy ear : He who 
 would possess an angel may himself ?nake o?ie. 
 
 How? thou askest. 
 
 Through praise. — Tell a wife twenty times a day that 
 she is an angel ; be surprised that thou seest not wings ; 
 and not more surely in the grafting is the quince made 
 to bear pears, than shall thy plant be brought to bring 
 thee heavenly fruit. 
 
 Praise, do we call it ? scarcely this is it ; give 
 
 title where title belongs ; call her an angel who is one, 
 that, being constantly reminded of her high nature, she 
 descend not to mean things. 
 
 A wife ! 
 
12 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 Like unto rings found in the ears of women — see 
 these I show thee, Lysias : outside, — paraded to the 
 world, — ^jewels; inside, — hoUowness, emptiness, noth- 
 ingness. 
 
 An angel may be a fallen one, and women as- 
 suredly there are who are not so good as that which 
 belongs to their first estate ; shrews, vixens, and pes- 
 tilence-breeders, who do create about them an atmos- 
 phere so sulphurous, that for breathing purposes one 
 may not expect to find worse in the pit itself. — The 
 house-top, even on a stormy night, is better than the 
 luxurious chamber in which blusters and scolds a vixen. 
 
 Neither is it well for a lover that a wife be found 
 
 too tame, for tameness is insipidity, and insipidity has 
 nought of invitation in it ; even the blood-firing Ver- 
 zenay is without enticement if it sparkle not. 
 
 Yet let it be well seen to, my scholar, when the wife 
 comes to thee, that, careless of thy good, thou lose not 
 of thine own fault the sparkle ; for surely is it the case, 
 as has been found in the experience of all indifferent 
 lovers, that a neglected wife may not of her nature 
 retain the bead any more than may neglected wine ; 
 and so, women and wine being in such respect alike, 
 he is not to complain who, of his own indiscretion, 
 loses the one or the other. 
 
 But the vixen, thou sayest, the born vixen, incura- 
 ble, unimpressible. 
 
 Pitiable owner of such a monstrosity ! Let her be 
 driven to a nunnery, my scholar; and let it be a strong 
 place, built of heavy stone ; or, still better, speed her to 
 the devil, that thus the more quickly she may get with 
 her kind, for strongly does it come to me to believe 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 3 
 
 that a vixen is not a real woman, — body and soul, — but 
 a wandering fiend, who, going up and down in the 
 earth, has dispossessed of its tabernacle some beauteous 
 one, and thus plays her part of a she-Mephistopheles. 
 I would also add the whisper in thy ear that a wise 
 man gets clear of a devil as best he may, and as quickly 
 as he can. 
 
 About the angels ? 
 
 Well suggested, Lysias. An angel wife is a posses- 
 sion so sweet, so rapturous, so full of all wealth, so 
 overflowing with all good, that he is utterly void of 
 wisdom who searches not the world over but that he 
 find such treasure. Is a man ugly ? in the reflectipn he 
 sees himself beautified. Is he an unfortunate ? her con- 
 solations enrich him. Is he a castaway? in her passion 
 he finds himself lifted up. Ah, my scholar, who but 
 the husband may know of a thousand nameless charms, 
 charms so potent that all atmospheres, save that which 
 surrounds the beloved one, are as dreary fogs and de- 
 pressing vapors — are as emptiness when compared with 
 fulness ? 
 
 An angel! 
 
 It is, that as lions' whelps are few, so are vixens 
 scarce. She that has bitten not, let her not be esteemed 
 to have fangs. See the angel of Antheros : tall, not too 
 tall ; slender, not too slender; delicate, not too delicate; 
 teeth even, and white, and of such symmetry that the 
 very light seems to enjoy its constant play among them ; 
 forehead low, not too low; hair golden, sun-glimpses 
 playing forever at hide-and-seek with two tresses found 
 kissing and toying eternally with the alabaster neck ; a 
 chin of tender size ; and eyes — eyes, my Lysias, that, 
 
14 
 
 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 as I have seen them a hundred times, glisten, and glow, 
 and grow suffused with rapturous tears as mirth or sen- 
 timent comes to them. And then her nature — ah, my 
 good scholar, dream thou a dream of a something all 
 softness, like unto the dove, like unto melody, like 
 unto the zephyrs of summer nights, like unto the beauty 
 which poets catch and imprison in their verses, like 
 unto the tints which come to artists in moments of in- 
 spiration ; and in such a dream imagine, for no words 
 may describe, her whose name signifies — but perhaps 
 the signification is to Antheros alone. 
 
 And whence come such charms, thou askest. 
 
 Ah, Lysias, thou questionest from not having 
 learned the secret of love — find in a single couplet the 
 text thou art to understand ; 
 
 " Love flings a halo round the dear one's head, 
 Fauhless, immortal, till they change or die ;" 
 
 — for who shall love but that he values, and who value 
 but that he takes care? — Takes care. Heed a lesson, 
 my Lysias. There be husbands many, very many, 
 who so continuously keep themselves begrimed and 
 defiled with filthy defects in morals and manners, 
 that from their blackness a shadow falls upon all from 
 whom they may shut out the sunshine ; and what 
 plant, howsoever beautiful, — be it wife or flower, — but 
 withers and grows pale if it have for sustenance naught 
 but shadow ? May a bloom show itself to night ? is fra- 
 grance to be perceived when the winds of the tornado 
 bow the rose? A most sensitive flame is that which 
 burns in the eye of a wife ; more delicate than the 
 velvet of the soft peach is the ripened love which plays 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 5 
 
 its mad pranks from pouting lips — it paints the lips, 
 it pours nectar over them, it deluges them with per- 
 fumes, it breathes from them music of such utterance 
 that senses become steeped and lost in Lethe — and yet 
 — yet, even as the bloom of the fruit is marred by so 
 little a matter as a rude touch, so love may be un- 
 settled and put to flight by a vulgar word or an un- 
 guarded action. 
 
 Handle a wife, when she come to thee, as a jewel is 
 handled ) keep her in soft places, that the gloss be not 
 injured ; hold her at length of arm, that the gleam may 
 enter thy heart \ wear her upon thy bosom, that thereby 
 thou shalt thyself be made beautiful ; gloat over thy 
 possession in secret, because that a something so price- 
 less belongs to thee. 
 
 Men I have seen, my scholar, who use wives as coals 
 are used — burn them for purposes of heat, for purposes 
 of cookery — burn all the life out of them ; and even 
 at last, when the hearth-place holds alone dead ashes, 
 these are economized that paths may be made for base 
 feet to walk over wet places dry-shod. 
 
 And what is to come from burned coals but 
 
 ashes? and from scattered embers what but a dead 
 pathway? — a pathway that leads never to possessions 
 in Spain ! 
 
 Possessions in Spain ! Woods and running streams, 
 castles, firesides, and a charming " Prue" for the arm- 
 chair lacking an occupant — never to lead to these. 
 
 A dreamer dreaming dreams of home joys — joys 
 which are or which are not to be his. Ah ! pleasing, 
 yet too often seductive stories read in the pages of a 
 glowing grate; some story of quiet loving days and 
 
1 6 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 peaceful nights, some other one of a Lizzie or Mary or 
 Letitia who is to make from a small income plenty- 
 through frugality and management. A cottage led to 
 by a lane arbored with apple-blossoms ; the soothing 
 murmur of some streamlet which all night is to sing its 
 song as it runs among the rocks at the foot of a garden ; 
 window-curtains formed of fragrant jasmine whose roots 
 keep themselves warm in winter by living beneath a 
 quaint porch ; some story of a love all our own, a story 
 of dreams dreamed together — of daffodils and violets 
 in spring-time — a story of a glowing hearth burning 
 brighter and brighter through many, many winters, to 
 go out only in the dark December of a life-year so 
 distant, so very distant, that we trouble ourself nothing 
 at all about it. 
 
 No Titbottom's spectacles.* 
 
 Angels, nymphs, or at least women, — ah ! those truth- 
 telling spectacles ; not even women, but only broom- 
 sticks, mops, or kettles hurrying about, rattling and 
 tinkling in a state of shrill activity. Good Easy-Chair, 
 is it that SHE, the statue of perfect form, of flowing 
 movements, was found by thee no warmer or softer than 
 marble — than ice? And it was true sadness, was it, to 
 find that so many, being without spectacles, '* thought 
 the iron rod to be flexible, and the ice statue warm ; to 
 see so many a gallant heart, which seemed brave and 
 loyal as the crusaders, pursuing through days and 
 nights, and a long life of devotion, the hope of light- 
 ing at least a smile in the cold eyes, if not a fire in the 
 icy heart — to see the earnest, enthusiastic sacrifice, the 
 
 * Prue and I. — Curtis. 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 1 7 
 
 pure resolve, the generous faith, the fine scorn of doubt, 
 the impatience of suspicion, to watch the grace, the 
 ardor, the glory of devotion, to see the noblest heart 
 renouncing all other hope, all other ambition, all other 
 life, than the possible love of some one of these statues" 
 — terrible, was it, *' that they had no heart to give, the 
 face polished and smooth because there was no sorrow in 
 the heart, — and drearily, often, no heart to be touched"? 
 
 Who shall be found able to bear the disappoint- 
 ment of a broken dream? glowing, blazing, life-giving 
 coals all come to ashes; the elegant '* Aurelia," who has 
 given the enjoyment " of the gloss of silk, the delicacy 
 of lace, the glitter of jewels," found to be only **a 
 peacock's feather, flounced, and furbelowed, and flut- 
 tering;" or **an iron rod, thin, sharp, and hard;" the 
 *' movement of the drapery" by no possibility to be 
 mistaken '' for any flexibility of the thing draped." 
 
 A wife, and a fireside. 
 
 An easy-chair opposite your own, and a little 
 
 foot that poises its pretty self on the head of the 
 fire-dog. And she who sits in the easy-chair yours for 
 life, yours for better or for worse, — for weal or for woe. 
 You talk to her about your dreams, your aspirations, 
 your prospects. Will she deny herself affluence that you 
 may pursue your work? Will she grow philosophical 
 with you and smile at the giddy passers running their 
 useless chases after will-o'-the-wisps? Will she hum 
 sweet tunes which you shall weave into words for the 
 clothing and the ornamenting of your thoughts? — Or, 
 will the foot beat a testy tattoo? Will the voice hum 
 no inspiring airs, but the rather rain into your ears 
 such showers of complaint and repining and querulous 
 2* 
 
1 8 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 worryings that naught shall remain but to fly hope and 
 dreams and love, all in a run that shall carry you far, 
 away far from your land of promise out into a sea which 
 you had trusted never to sail upon ? 
 
 A terrible mistake indeed is that which discovers not 
 in the stolen robes the imposture of the wolf; truly 
 shall it be found that a wolf snarls and growls and eats 
 away a man's heart — what may one do but give up, 
 save that he fight, fight on, fight forever — a hopeless 
 battle ? 
 
 Or, a wife may be without mind of her own, 
 
 unstable as water is changeable; the waif of circum- 
 stances ; admiring a husband where others praise him ; 
 doubting and indifferent where others find fault — never 
 constant either for good or for evil. It is a life of un- 
 rest indeed that a man leads with himself, when only a 
 thing so frail has he to comfort him. 
 
 Antheros is a censor of books, and a most variable 
 one, sending at times shafts which bring great drops 
 from the weary, hopeless hearts of unsuccessful authors 
 — pouring at other times balm and praise which gloss 
 over and conceal a multitude of faults. A critic of 
 much judgment is Antheros pronounced to be ; yet a 
 pity is it that he who has his book condemned should 
 not have consolation in knowing that the tenor of what 
 is said comes not truly from the brain of the fault-finder, 
 but rather from the fingers of her who sits at the piano 
 in the room which adjoins the library. A truth it is, 
 that the critic catches and imprisons in his lines the 
 harmony of a melody which at times entrances and 
 enraptures, and which might well convert wormwood 
 itself into honey ; and so it comes that even he who 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 19 
 
 has written ill may find himself praised because of the 
 caught melody which unconsciously Antheros has im- 
 prisoned in what he indites under the delicious inspi- 
 ration. So again it may happen that the fingers shall 
 strike the notes with less emotion, or the song may 
 be melancholy. And now, though thought was found 
 ocean deep, or strain Homeric, yet has Antheros no 
 emotion, no sprightliness, no kind word ; nothing but 
 carping, scathing condemnation. — Yet it is not An- 
 theros who condemns, but the unconscious fingers in 
 the drawing-room. 
 
 All notes may not be glad notes, all songs may 
 
 not be sprightly songs ; fingers at times will become 
 weary, as, alas ! in time they must lose their cunning 
 and grow cold and pulseless. A sad knowledge is it 
 that she who occupies the other easy-chair — be she as 
 the bride of Antheros — must some time or other be 
 parted from, — she will go, — go away, never to come 
 back, — and all that shall be left behind will be the 
 memory of a harmony that was. Ah ! how then will 
 be longed for the broken notes, — alas ! melancholy in 
 truth will it then be. — No dainty foot to tease the fire- 
 dog ; no ear into which to pour stories not to find a 
 listener elsewhere, — the bright fire, ashes indeed, and 
 nothing left wherewith to renew the glow : desire itself 
 buried in the coffin upon which rest heavy earth-clods. 
 
 A coffin. 
 
 A coffin, and a wife. 
 
 Bring now to your support that philosophy which is 
 to buoy over a thousand trials — alas ! what a bundle of 
 weak reeds ! how one and all bend and break under 
 the weight you rest upon them ! Shall the philosopher 
 
20 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 philosophize, and a dead wife — his wife — lying cold, 
 and stark, and pulseless, in her grave ? — Never, alas ! 
 never, unless indeed it be that his own heart is also 
 dead and buried ; resting in a common grave with the 
 other. — It is to philosophize when die other men's 
 wives, — and when are buried other men's hopes. 
 
 A flat denial, thou sayest, of all that a philosopher 
 should affirm, and for what he should contend. 
 
 Another whisper in thy ear, my scholar ! With the 
 memories of divine strains poured even into my own 
 soul by the poetry-compelling fingers of the wife of 
 Antheros, there has passed before my eyes the vision 
 of a coffin, and in it a pale cold face, which has brought 
 ice to my heart, and which does so environ me with a 
 sense of the nothingness that may come, — that may 
 some time come, — alas ! that will come, either to hus- 
 band or to wife, — that senses grow dull, and even 
 imagination, cowering, thinks not where else consola- 
 tion exists, if it be not like unto the fraction of warmth 
 found sometimes among ashes even when the glow of 
 the coals has long departed. 
 
 ***** Let us pause, Lysias, that, stretching our- 
 selves full length in these easy-chairs which so bounti- 
 fully give comfortable support to us, we may look into 
 the full grate wherein the coals are as glowing, thank 
 God, as ever it has been our lot to behold them, and 
 while, without, rages a winter's storm, and fitfully and 
 threateningly the cold rain dashes against the window- 
 panes, — yet, — more thanks to God, — no coffin has, as 
 yet, crossed the office-door by which run the steps pass- 
 ing to the chamber, — to her chamber, — never has there 
 been lack of coals wherewith to keep the grate aglow, 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 21 
 
 — there are yet no memories laden with sadness. — Let 
 us dream on,* my scholar; for us there is in the world 
 neither death nor regret. 
 
 A wife. 
 
 Think, Lysias, that the cozy office wherein we sit is 
 all thine own. Now will it take little imagination that 
 thy dull teacher shall be made to vanish, and that his 
 place be occupied by one whose eyes are dreams them- 
 selves, — sweet dreams, soft dreams, dreams in which are 
 to be felt the tinklings of heart-music ; dreams so full 
 of light, and heat, and flame, that the grate falls poor 
 and dull in the comparison. The foot on the head 
 of the fire-dog is not thine own foot, yet it belongs 
 to thee, — and what a pretty, dainty foot it is ! it is not 
 the skill of the maker, but the rich arch of the instep, 
 the delicate contour of the ankle, which renders the 
 gaiter, with its strapped lacings, the jauntiest thing 
 thou hast ever beheld ; and with \yhat a grace falls 
 the hem of the velvet skirt about the base of the fender ! 
 — look not up too hastily, for a pair of lips which are 
 as blooming carnations are pouting at the passivity 
 which keeps the easy-chairs so far apart. Ah, Lysias, 
 thou dog, thou enviable dog, push close, deny not the 
 arm which longs to steal around the tempting neck, 
 — kiss the blushes from the lips. — Ah ! youth ; beauti- 
 ful youth. Who, if he were not a philosopher, but 
 would be Lysias ? 
 
 But the vision is gone. Back in the easy-chair is the 
 Mentor. A wife, a real wife, is not, however, a vision, 
 — may not be treated as a vision ; even easy-chairs re- 
 quire the attention of the upholsterer, and glowing 
 
22 CONCERNING A WIFE. 
 
 grates may not be kept blazing from the mines even of 
 the most fervent imagination. Alas that it is the case 
 that coal-seams alone produce coals, and that from such 
 dreary places as yards fenced off in back streets it is 
 that the grate must be supplied ! 
 
 And a grate having no fresh coals with which to 
 
 replace dying embers becomes as cheerless as when, 
 full and blazing, it is cheerful : also it comes to be 
 seen that the divine '^Aurelia" is mortal, for she 
 too can change from cheerful to cheerless, and thus, a 
 glowing grate fireless, the easy-chairs, having no longer 
 a common point of attraction, become repellant of 
 each other, and little by little get farther and farther 
 separated. 
 
 Even so vulgar a thing as a table for eating purposes 
 is not to be left unconsidered, for while it might only 
 be that '' Aurelia" shall blush and stammer at the ad- 
 mission, yet no chisel of Praxiteles is more subservient 
 to the purposes of beauty than is the dull knife here 
 used. 
 
 A cage first, and the bird afterwards. 
 
 But may not a cageless bride be as happy as a cage- 
 less bird ? 
 
 Listen, Lysias, how the storm which has increased in 
 its violence now howls, and groans, and shakes with its 
 cold fingers the shutters of our room. What would a 
 bird do in such a whirl of hail and water and slush? 
 How quickly bedraggled would become the jaunty shoe 
 and the velvet train of *' Aurelia" ! The birds have fled 
 before the storm, and to-night are snug nestled away 
 among orange-groves, — what else than flight might 
 save the daintiness of the bride — she whose train is not 
 
CONCERNING A WIFE. 23 
 
 less delicate than the feathers of the bird, — she whose 
 breath is as the odor of apple-blossoms ? 
 
 A home is not a place, however, which is made such 
 merely by the bringing together of glowing grates, easy- 
 chairs, crimson curtains, and luxurious couches ; more, 
 much more, must there be of commodities which the 
 upholsterer is not found able to furnish ; there must be 
 tact, and taste, and good humor, and judgment ; there 
 must be bearing and forbearing, contentment and satis- 
 faction ; and more to the furnishing do these latter 
 things conduce, than do the former, — necessary as they 
 are. 
 
 There must be knowledge ; for, alas ! alas ! — 
 
 shall we emphasize the ugly admission ? — the fire, and 
 the passion, and the ecstasy of manly youth will, little by 
 little, burn lower and lower in the grate of life. — And 
 dimples, charming dimples, which common men ad- 
 mire, and which poets rave over, — these will lengthen 
 and grow into wrinkles ; the arched and jaunty foot 
 will lose its elasticity ; the tresses, sun-courted, will 
 deny the curl and the wavy grace ; admiring coteries 
 shall no longer turn to catch of the grace of the divine 
 one ; and thou, even thou thyself, wilt, in nature's 
 law, turn aside, — yet loving not less Aurelia, — for it 
 will come to thee, as it comes to all other men, to be 
 compelled to learn that ''billing and cooing" may not 
 constitute the whole of existence. 
 
 Give heed, Lysias ; a man has much to learn before 
 he may wisely take a wife to his home, — and much 
 after. Comfort, success, and happiness come of know- 
 ing — and of doing. 
 
II. 
 
 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 " These things my heart, O Pyrrho, longs to hear ; 
 How you enjoy such ease of hfe and quiet, 
 The only man as happy as a god." 
 
 WHO and what we are. That is the knowledge 
 which is to take precedence. Before a wife is 
 the learning how to take care of one, — is to learn how 
 to take care of one's self. 
 
 Everywhere over the earth are to-day found growing 
 side by side the golden pomegranates of the Hesperi- 
 des and the apples of the Dead Sea, — to-day, as of 
 yore, the flesh of the one is life, that of the other is 
 choking dust. Streams unlike, streams of nectar, 
 streams of quassia-water, flow everywhere over a com- 
 mon plain, — a man may drink of sweet or of bitter as 
 he elects. 
 
 But who, my Lysias, is to distinguish between 
 
 the pomegranate and the dust-apple, between the 
 nectar-streams and the quassia-water, save him that has 
 knowledge ? 
 24 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 25 
 
 Heed, Lysias; of all qualities pertaining to man, 
 *' wisdom is the most useful and prudence is the most 
 profitable:" Aristotle it is who has affirmed this; 
 and of all the men produced by the world no single 
 one might more worthily propound an aphorism which 
 others should heed. Wisdom outmeasures ignorance 
 even as a greater circle encloses and contains that which 
 is less ; prudence takes care of a man even though folly 
 shoot all her shafts at the heel Achilles. 
 
 Portly of soul is Philocles, and full is he of the ex- 
 periences of travel, observation, and reason ; and what 
 teaches the poet? ''O mortals! ignorant and un- 
 worthy of your destiny ; instead of cherishing the 
 sacred fire, . . . instead of drawing closer and closer 
 the ties which unite you with the gods, ye suffer friv- 
 olous discussions and mean interests to damp the flame ; 
 ye suffer near you little things which thus conceal from 
 you greater which are beyond. ' ' 
 
 It is only through wisdom that one may come to 
 any proper judgment. What an ignorant and pitiable 
 man was that who, when Thales inveighed against the 
 pains people take to themselves in order to grow rich, 
 likened the philosopher to the fox which found fault 
 with that it could not obtain ! and what a meaning 
 rebuke was it, when the sage, gathering together his 
 learning and capacity, and condescending for a season 
 to the faulter's own trade, did, in a single year, gain 
 from it more of money than had the other in a long 
 lifetime ! 
 
 It was in words of some like meaning with these 
 that the Stagirite addressed the son of Apollodorus. All 
 modes of life, he said, and all the actions of men have 
 B 3 
 
26 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 in view a particular end, this end being happiness. It 
 is not in the end, however, that is proposed, but in the 
 choice of means, that men deceive themselves. How 
 often do honor, riches, and beauty prove more hurtful 
 than useful ! How often has experience shown that 
 disease and poverty are not in themselves injurious ! 
 Thus from the idea we form of good and evil, as much 
 as from the inconstancy of our will, we almost always 
 act without knowing what it is we ought most to de- 
 sire, or what we ought most to dread. To separate real 
 from apparent good is the object of morality, which, 
 unfortunately, does not proceed, like the sciences, lim- 
 ited to theory. If we wish our decisions to be just and 
 wise, let us consider our feelings, and acquire a just 
 idea of our passions, virtues, and vices. 
 
 We, then, who desire to be partakers of the fruit of 
 the Hesperides, pause at the outstart, to consider and 
 to get understanding of things relevant to such begin- 
 ning ; that is, it would appear, that to get understand- 
 ing of life, one may commence never more wisely than 
 in comprehending of the circumstances by which he 
 finds himself environed; for to learn of things and re- 
 lations which, from their nearness, the most conspicu- 
 ously concern a man, is surely to become familiar with 
 the laws of his well-being, — is to come to an apprehen- 
 sion of what does the most intimately and importantly 
 pertain to good. 
 
 Here, and hereafter? 
 
 Here, and hereafter, Lysias ; for he who lives well to- 
 day lays up store necessarily for the morrow; he who 
 lives in the experiences of his time acts in the clearest 
 liglit that exists for his guidance. 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 27 
 
 A wise saying was it, that of Montaigne's, " that all 
 knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science 
 of honesty and goodness;" it is that he who would grow 
 the fruits of learning should possess a good soil in which 
 to plant the seed. '' Odi homines ignava opera, philo- 
 sophica sententia," says the Gascon : I hate men who 
 talk like philosophers, but do nothing. And still an- 
 other of the sayings of this great man was it, ''that 
 philosophy must do harm to him who has not mind to 
 comprehend its exaltation." 
 
 It is the philosopher who is the practical man ; it is 
 the fool who calls himself so. It is the observing and 
 wide-seeing who are slow with words of censure ; it is 
 ignorant and silly men who glory in the possession 
 of prejudices. Quite enough for a man is it that he 
 look to his own offertory, judging not too hastily that 
 of his neighbor. In the treasury of the inhabitants of 
 Acanthus they showed some iron obelisks presented by 
 one of ill repute, '* Is it possible," exclaimed Ana- 
 charsis, on beholding these, " that such offerings could 
 have been acceptable to Apollo?" "Stranger," re- 
 plied a Greek, who was likewise a spectator, " were the 
 hands that raised these trophies more pure? You have 
 just read on the gates of the Asylum, The inhabitants 
 of Acanthus conquerors of the Athenians; and else- 
 where. The Athenians conquerors of the Corinthians ; 
 The Phocians of the Thessalonians, etc. These in-» 
 scriptions were written in the blood of a million 
 Greeks. The god is surrounded only with monuments 
 of our folly and madness, and you are astonished that 
 his priests should accept the offerings of Rhodope."* 
 
 * Travels of Anacharsis. 
 
28 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 
 
 It is to be understood that in order to live grandly, 
 one is to act grandly ; it is that one hold himself aloof 
 from the little things of little people. — Of a first im- 
 portance, is it that a nobleman live in the custom of his 
 peers. Shall the measurer by inches, the weigher by 
 ounces, the vendor by potions, scatter, with a penny 
 policy, aspirations which would girdle a world, balance 
 destiny, or find medicine for immortal longings ? Let 
 it impress thee, Lysias, in the very beginning, that the 
 bane of true and great living is respectability, — the re- 
 spectability of the shopman, — the respectability of the 
 physician who sacrifices never his dignity or his man- 
 ners to the invitations which are borne to him on every 
 breeze, which go out with every molecule ; which cry. 
 Here are ladders leading to God, — whom to know is to 
 be rich indeed, — whom to know is to be enviable in- 
 deed. Take to thyself, my scholar, consciousness of 
 the nothingness of a respectability which has its signi- 
 fication alone in the estimation of ignorant men. Is 
 one to crawl forever a worm over the earth because 
 that they grovel who have never developed the wings 
 folded in rudiment beneath the scapulae of every mor- 
 tal ? Is one to refuse the cup of the gods because that 
 his fellows, knowing nothing of the delectable draught, 
 insist on the waters of the ditch? 
 
 What shall compensate for a life sacrificed to the 
 respectable ? A beggar singing his song amid the rocky 
 fastnesses of Chios was the author of the Iliad ; im- 
 mortal as the gods, himself a demi-god, is Homer. 
 What too of Euripides, him who dared rebuke an 
 Archelaus, because that a king could do nothing that a 
 wise man feared? What lost such a one in the ab- 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 29 
 
 sence of the purple ? What a rich life was here ; a 
 Macedon to build his tomb, an Athens to rear his 
 cenotaph, — that after a thousand years they of Salamis 
 should delight to point out the grotto in which he 
 wrote; they of Piraeus pronounce in transport his 
 name. ** Three days," said the poet, ''have I spent 
 in making three verses." ''And I," retorted an ad- 
 versary, "could in that time have written a hundred." 
 "Yes, yes, I believe it," replied Euripides, " but they 
 would have lived only three days." And what a three 
 days' life ; what a three days' existence ; what a penury; 
 what a littleness of conception lived in the braggart ! 
 
 Richer than gold is wisdom ; brighter than silver is 
 knowledge. It is for the scholar — howsoever poor in 
 purse — to be thankful that the greatest portion of his 
 brain has been placed in his skull and not in his solar 
 ganglion. What a sight is that little man whose pro- 
 tuberant stomach it seems the sole office of his body to 
 carry, — that little man who cackles and giggles his little 
 jokes about the scholars, seeing or understanding never 
 what a sad fool he makes of himself! And what a mul- 
 titude of these Stomachs little heads and little legs are 
 carrying about the earth, — and, alas ! unfortunates, these 
 may come to no instruction ; for the avenues of the 
 senses lead to the encephalon, and not to the abdomen. 
 
 And yet, as stomachs are of greater bulk than 
 
 brains, so also are they found endowed with a wider 
 self-sufficiency. Has not a stomach opinions? Has it 
 not expression? Is it not of all things the most re- 
 spectable — in its own estimation ? A sad pity is it that, 
 when closely inquired into, it is seen to be nothing 
 better than a provision-bag. 
 
3° 
 
 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 
 
 The bane of true living is the respectability of the 
 Stomachs, — a dead weight is it holding to his centre 
 of beef and wine the mortal whose tangent it controls. 
 Substantial is he, say the Digesters, as the cares and 
 anxieties are found increased ; as story after story is 
 piled upon the foundation of his house \ as hour after 
 hour is consumed in work, — as a cloth of gold is seen 
 in weaving for the covering of the deal boards of the 
 coffin in which he is to rot. 
 
 Wisdom beholdeth the end from the beginning, and, 
 considering all things, provideth for all. Wisdom sup- 
 plieth wants, but maketh them not ; taketh precaution 
 against emergencies, but runneth not into troubles of 
 her own creating. 
 
 Yet even is it that wisdom may become sun- 
 dazzled. Learned is Timotheus, yet looking too long 
 on the golden face of the noon's orb he is now found 
 to be blind, and his friends behold him in pity as they 
 watch him fill his purse with coins of copper, deeming 
 these to be pieces of the precious metal, — poor Timo- 
 theus, he who before he was dazed knew so well what 
 gold was ! 
 
 But love of wealth is an intuition of the man, 
 
 therefore must the getting of gain be wisdom. It is not, 
 however, the pile of gold that is wealth. A representa- 
 tive is gold, — the representative of the home-roof shut- 
 ting out the storm ; the representative of the board 
 around which gathers the well-cared-for family; the 
 representative of the shop or mill or farm which is the 
 substantiality of the owner, and the evidence of his use- 
 fulness to the society in which he lives. But the shop is 
 to have its shutters up at least on Sundays and holidays ; 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 31 
 
 the clatter of machinery may be stopped for the greas- 
 ing; there is an injunction that fields sometimes lie 
 fallow. 
 
 He who has prudence covers his heels from the cold 
 rather than his head ; so he who has wisdom garners 
 wealth for the immortal rather than riches for the 
 mortal part. 
 
 " Were it not better to inquire 
 How nature bounds each impotent desire, 
 What she with ease resigns, or wants with pain, 
 And then divide the sohd from the vain ? 
 Say, should your jaws with thirst severely burn, 
 Would you a cleanly earthen pitcher spurn ? 
 Should hunger on your gnawing entrails seize, 
 Would turbot only or a capon please?" 
 
 Moderation is the secret of happiness. ''Whatever is 
 beyond moderation," wisely says Menedemus, *'is not 
 useful, but troublesome ; and he that is not satisfied with 
 a little will never have enough." Man is for the world, 
 and not the world for man ; let this be a graven maxim. 
 Let a man think not to live too selfishly, for through 
 selfishness shall he find himself arrived all too quickly 
 at the grave of his pleasures. Grantor is a physician ; 
 endowed with a meditative nature and with a mind 
 keenly perceptive, it is his wont to wander in quiet 
 places speculating on the mysteries of his science. 
 Gifted with ready pen, it is his virtue that he writes 
 the solutions of many of these mysteries, thus enlight- 
 ening his fellows and benefiting widely his kind. It is 
 the good fortune of Grantor that accident has so placed 
 him that without detriment he may pursue his walks 
 and his speculations. But Grantor has ill-judging 
 friends, who, with short sight, would tempt him from 
 
32 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 his books and from his meditations, and all, forsooth, 
 because that pieces of shining metal are to be picked up 
 more frequently on the city streets than by the stream's 
 side or in the shady wood. — And, alas that it is so, the 
 eyes of Grantor are seen all too frequently to turn to- 
 wards the heart of the great town, and towards the 
 pieces of shining metal. 
 
 And what would Grantor, and what would the 
 
 world, lose by the change? Alexander, as the story is 
 told, sent a hundred talents of gold to Phocion, be- 
 cause he heard that he was a good man ; but Phocion 
 returned the gold, with a request that he might be per- 
 mitted to continue a good man still. So the Theban 
 Grates flung, of his own accord, his money into the 
 sea, exclaiming, *^ Abite, nummi ; ego vos mergam, ne 
 mergar a vobis." Grantor would lose the sweet com- 
 panionship of things which inspire and which ennoble ; 
 would lose the teachings to which now daily he listens; 
 would lose the view of the far-off mountain-tops, 
 
 " The far-off mountain-tops of distant thoughts, 
 That men of common stature never saw." 
 
 All this, and more ; no longer in genial con- 
 
 verse and in philosophic disputation would the scholar, 
 with bared head, the winds with gentle touch playing 
 lovingly with his still lustrous locks, have time and 
 converse for the friends who now meet him in the 
 wood by the water-side ; no longer would the lectures 
 of the master smell as now of fruit and flowers, but all 
 too quickly the odor would become that of the hos- 
 pital and the dead-house. It would be that Grantor, 
 in becoming a dispenser of medicines, would cease to 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. t^^, 
 
 be a distributer of ideas. — It would be, that in some 
 distant day the physician would count his pieces of 
 shining metal, and in the memory of a past, a dead 
 past, a past gone forever, would sigh, imo pectore^ 
 ''Trojafuit." 
 
 It is the end and success of a man's life that he find 
 himself in comfort, in content, and in faith : he who 
 has come to these finds nothing in the past to re- 
 gret, sees nothing in the future to fear; such a man 
 has attained to fulness. 
 
 Life \ — a simple thing is it when lived in the laws of 
 nature. 
 
 *' O noble man," said the Chian to Arcesilaus, "may 
 I a question put, or must I hold my tongue?" And is 
 it not, my Lysias, for him who would be wise, that he 
 put questions to that other Arcesilaus, Knowledge, in 
 order that to his necessities he may bring the gold of 
 Seuthes ? 
 
 It is, my scholar, for a man to understand that there 
 are things mortal and things immortal ; things which 
 pertain to the flesh, and things which pertain to the 
 soul: so it is that wisdom, having both to consider, 
 and both to provide for, is felt to be a something not too 
 low for the proud, nor too high for the humble. Heed, 
 Lysias, it is the command of the oracle that a man 
 know first himself. 
 
 O gracious Knowledge, which banishest doubt, which 
 castest out confusion, which dispellest illusion, makest 
 tortuous things straight, and illuminest the obscure! — 
 O Life ! beautiful, and grand, and all-satisfying art 
 thou to him who comprehends what it is to live. 
 
34 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 But Death ! — Death ! the earth is full of death, and 
 there is no permanency. 
 
 O Ignorance ! let man execrate thee ; thou, thou 
 alone art death, and beside thee is there none other j 
 the demon of affliction art thou to mankind, apart from 
 thee exists no evil. Ah ! thou black-winged vampire- 
 thing, lift up thy hideous form ; let the eyes covered 
 by thy smothering breast look out, that it may come to 
 them to behold what is beyond, — to see to what cometh 
 even so mean a thing as a worm. 
 
 And what is this goblin story about death ; this 
 
 bugbear which frightens grown-up children ? O 
 
 miraculous chameleon ! having color that is, and yet is 
 not. O God-like phenomenon ! that what to mortal 
 eyes should seem as falling into nothingness, is, in 
 truth, growing in fulness. 
 
 ** Hard is the fate of mortals," sighed a Locust, as he 
 felt his efforts all too feeble to resist the unseen some- 
 thing which was thrusting him from what he called him- 
 self; but on another day coming back and beholding 
 the dry shell that still adhered to the tree, — the shell 
 which had grown so crusty, and hard, and colorless, 
 and which had so cramped and so constrained him, — 
 he said to a companion, **How great a fool is a 
 Locust!" 
 
 Who is he that says, *' Our Father," yet sets him- 
 self up as a Wiser than God? ** Life," cries the pent- 
 up nature, **more life, wider life." Yet closer and 
 closer, firmer and firmer, the mortal clings to that which 
 separates him from his desire. Fret on thy chain, thou 
 dim-seeing, near-sighted, ignorant one ; with each 
 remove shall it grow heavier to thee. Natural is it that 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 35 
 
 the miscomprehending man rebel as he feels himself 
 passing into cramps and shackles ; that he chafe and 
 fret against the links; that he find fault with heavy- 
 growing limbs, and with myopic eyes that may look 
 alone towards a grave. Verily, hard, very hard must 
 it be to know of fulness only as a something which was 
 of yesterday; to esteem the road of life as having 
 crossed the summit, that the way is one leading down 
 the hill, — down the cold side of the hill ; no longer 
 any upward look ; no longer gold-tinted clouds, no 
 longer the loves of old ; but the Styx, the black Styx 
 flowing drearily in its unbroken silence at the foot; 
 the grim boatman of the tideless river waiting to bear 
 the unwilling freight — where ? Ah, unhappy one ! go 
 to the locust for a lesson. 
 
 No death, sayest thou ? 
 
 No death, Lysias ; never yet has death come into the 
 world. To die — as man calls dying — is to change, — 
 only to change ; is to pass from an old shell into one 
 new and fresh ; is to assume bright colors and gay 
 attributes ; is to lapse into some other expression of the 
 great thing called life ; is to go to other office ; is to 
 follow the beckoning of nature that one may be where 
 most needed, — that one may be in that fashion best 
 suited to a necessity. Poor Cephalus ! how outgrown 
 and outworn is the pattern of his form ! Think, Ly- 
 sias, of the happy revivification awaiting the tottering 
 sage : perhaps he is to be of the grand winds which 
 eddy about the earth ; perchance of rivers which flow 
 to and from the sea ; or as form of babe which nestles 
 and joys in a mother's arms ; or maybe he shall pass 
 to the life of the fagot picked from the way-side, which, 
 
36 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 when the torch is applied, flashes forth into flame, 
 making warm old and cold hands ; or might he not 
 come to be as a bird which helps the husbandman by 
 picking slugs from the vine ? or as a fish which swims 
 in the sea ? or as an eagle which mocks the heights of 
 unsealed mountains? 
 
 " For once I was a boy, and once a girl, 
 A bush, a bird, a fish who swims the sea." 
 
 Right is Empedocles, the heritage of matter 
 
 is transmigration : man cometh up from the ground 
 and goeth back unto that whence he came. — Wait, 
 wait only a little time, Cephalus, and the heavy limbs 
 and the weary eyes shall be ashes — the 
 
 Thou wilt hear naught of ashes ? neither shalt thou ; 
 dust affiliates with life, and ashes are as the resurrec- 
 tion. 
 
 Ah ! but the interim, sayest thou ; the coffined body, 
 and the mouldering form. 
 
 Go, Lysias, and sympathize with the seed which yes- 
 terday thou buried, but which to-morrow is to win for 
 its flower a place on the breast of beauty ; place crape 
 over the spot wherein thou placed it ; lay thy weeping 
 eye to the earth and mourn the seed as a something 
 lost, — as a something gone from thee forever. Yet turn 
 thou as well hastily away, for it takes a buried seed not 
 long to thrust life out of its death. Where has gone, 
 Lysias, the roundness which, but a month back, was 
 the beauty of Phryne? Did she bury it? Do crape 
 and urn weep over it? Where are the muscles of An- 
 taeus, which, only a short year ago, did defeat in wres- 
 tling all who passed the cave at Libya? Pare thy nails. 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 37 
 
 Lysias, and, with coffin and procession, have funeral of 
 the cuttings; 'or do thou rub off the scarf-skin of thy 
 body, — that all of thee which human eyes behold; say 
 that what yesterday was Lysias has disappeared, and 
 with sad lamentations bid relatives weep the loss of that 
 no longer needed. It was by the wall that skirts the 
 way leading to the house of Lysander that Antheros 
 watched a serpent cast its skin, and as the scholar pon- 
 dered, behold two great beetle-bugs issuing from the 
 ground solved for him the riddle upon which he medi- 
 tated ; for these did drag the skin into the hole whence 
 they had come, and did make it over into their own 
 lives, and into the lives of their offspring. — But the ser- 
 pent was well rid of the slough, for in his freedom he 
 found himself able to go to the tangle and shade which 
 invited, and where a new robe awaited him.* 
 
 But a dead Lysias steps not forth a new Lysias ? 
 
 Sayest thou so ? Into what then does he step ? Bury 
 not the parings of thy nails; eat them; bite off and 
 swallow into thy stomach the hard derm with which 
 the spade has thickened the cushions of thy palms : 
 thus mayest thou make Lysias feed Lysias ; thus resur- 
 rect a dying self into a living self. But — would Lysias 
 desire to remain Lysias forever? Ah, my scholar, 
 little knowest thou of transformations which are ever 
 new, yet ever old ; ever the same, yet ever some- 
 thing else. O kind Mater Natura ! — who hast given all 
 
 Non jam se moriens dissolvi conqueretur, 
 
 Sed majis foras, vestemque relinquere, ut anguis 
 
 Gauderet praelonga senex aut cornua cervus." 
 
 Cicero. 
 
 4 
 
38 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 of life as a common possession ; who hast so ordered 
 and so arranged that all enjoyments are enjoyed by all. 
 
 " Even as one heat another heat expels, 
 Or as one nail by strength drives out another, 
 So all remembrance of a former love 
 Is by a newer object quite forgotten." 
 
 But can that life be aught than nothingness where 
 love replaces love, where heat expels heat, and where 
 nails drive out nails? 
 
 Thou deniest not, my Lysias, that a new nail is 
 better than one worn and rusty? that the fresh heat 
 which to-day comes from the furnace is more to the 
 wants of to-day than that given out yesterday ? And 
 is the love of the present less warm than those other 
 loves of the past ? 
 
 Yes ! but the love that goes from Lysias, what is to 
 give this back? What is to cheer a heart passing into 
 the sere and yellow? Who smooth out wrinkles? What 
 bring back escaping passions? Ah, Lysias, who is to 
 save thee from being pushed into nothingness ? 
 
 Thou didst not hear the story, Lysias, of a pearl 
 which found its life only in the wounding and mutation 
 of that wherein it dwelt. From the slime of the river 
 the jewel passed to enshrinement in the coiffure of a 
 princess. Heed thou, my scholar, it is the eternal 
 principle of life, and not a body, not any body, which 
 is real existence ; yet, in the ways of nature, this prin- 
 ciple is to the man — while it is with him — what a pearl 
 is to an oyster. Who may separate an unsecreted pearl 
 from an oyster-shell ? Yet where else is the gem ? 
 Heed the lesson of Cebes. " See, O Cebes, that if we 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 39 
 
 have not agreed on these things improperly, as it 
 appears to me ; for if one class of things were not con- 
 stantly given back in the place of another, revolving as 
 it were in a circle, but generations were direct from 
 one thing alone into its opposite, and did not turn 
 round again to the other, or retrace its course, do you 
 not know that at length all things would have the 
 same form, be in the same state, and cease to be pro- 
 duced ? By no means difficult is it to understand this : 
 if, for instance, there should be such a thing as falling 
 asleep, but no reciprocal waking again produced from 
 a state of sleep, you know that at length all things 
 would show the fable of Endymion to be a jest, and 
 it would be thought nothing at all of, because every- 
 thing else would be in the same state as he, namely, 
 asleep. And if all things were mingled together, but 
 never separated, that doctrine of Anaxagoras would 
 soon be verified, ' all things would be together.' Like- 
 wise, my dear Cebes, if all things that partake of life 
 should die, and after they are dead should remain in this 
 state of death, and not revive again, would it not neces- 
 sarily follow that at length all things should be dead, 
 and nothing alive? for if living things are produced 
 from other things, and living things die, what could 
 prevent their being all absorbed in death?" Doubt 
 not, Lysias, that a Socrates goes not to Hades with- 
 out a divine destiny : listen thou rather with Echec- 
 rates to the story of a Phaedo, and learn that what are 
 deemed solemn occasions are, to the wise man, seasons 
 of joy — or, if weep thou wilt at the poison-cup, learn, 
 with ApoUodorus, that tears and laughter happily com- 
 mingle. 
 
40 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 Yes, yes; but what shall save Lysias to himself? 
 What shall preserve the individuality ? 
 
 Seest thou, Lysias, yonder bevy of young and fresh 
 maidens ? Where were these when, together, thou and 
 I sang our song as we floated down the Danube ? Re- 
 memberest thou the exhilaration, the laughter, the free 
 and careless grace, of those days long passed away? 
 More laughter then than now, Lysias ; and was not our 
 wit brighter, as certainly the legs of one of us at least 
 were stronger? 
 
 It brings sadness, thou sayest, the remembrance of 
 these hours. 
 
 And why sadness ? Did we not have our sail over 
 the river? Did we not have our hours of wit and 
 of laughter? Did we not climb the mountains? and 
 did we not pass from the loves of Como to the mys- 
 teries of Baden ? The bevy of maidens, Lysias, were 
 not with us on the river, neither in the mountains ; no- 
 thing had these of our delight, or of our sensations. — 
 As when, in turn, adown the grape-smelling stream 
 these shall float, we shall know nothing of what they 
 enjoy, of what they feel, or of what they think. 
 
 And shall not the maidens so fresh and fair give, in 
 turn, place as well as freshness to other maidens who 
 are to follow them ? And will not these again in good 
 time pass on, that room may be afforded still others? 
 Came not the maidens, Lysias, from whence the suc- 
 cessors are to come ? and shall the others and others 
 who are coming, come from nothing ? May a nothing 
 produce a something? How then otherwise is it but 
 that which is to come, now is ? Is not the fruit in the 
 bud ? the bud in the tree ? and is not the tree in the 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 41 
 
 earth and in the atmosphere ? and are not earth and 
 air — that which are the tree and the bud and the fruit 
 — immortal? Does matter cease to be? Think, Ly- 
 sias ; is it not joyous to note the bud set by the spring- 
 time as a garnet upon the branchlet finger of a bough ? 
 and is it not with growing pleasure that we see the 
 coming fruit, that we watch its development ? What 
 then, Lysias? shall we pray Nature stay here her hand ? 
 Shall the beautiful fruit which has had its season of leaf 
 and of blossom be now left to rot in the summer's sun or 
 to wither and shrink up in the winter's cold ? Ah, Lysias, 
 see here the foolishness of ignorance ; give to the 
 maiden, who is to go to the Danube, that she may eat 
 thy fruit, and its luscious juices shall she convert into 
 the gazing eyes which are to drink in the beautiful sights 
 of the river, — that in turn, Lysias, the orbs shall give 
 forth fire for other fruitions, — that a Dido shall live in 
 a Carthage, — that a Semi ram is shall rear the towers 
 which look skyward from Babylon. O Nature ! boun- 
 tiful and miraculous, that giving once life, thou ever 
 continues! it ; that affording once form, thou laborest 
 unceasingly to change the old into the new, the worn-out 
 and dejected into the vigorous and the joy-absorbing. A 
 matter for gratulation is it, Lysias, and not for sorrow, 
 that the dweller by the river-bank is permitted to go 
 to grand outlooks of the mountain ; that the bud may 
 change until it becomes the fragrance of a blossom ; 
 the blossom give its odor for the fruit ; that the fruit 
 may come to the sensations of him who eats of it. 
 
 And wherefore is it, Lysias, that wisdom doubt- 
 
 eth ever the fitness of things, save that what is esteemed 
 wise is not of truth but of error ? and that men who are 
 
42 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 called learned are, in truth, ignorant. Wiser than wis- 
 dom is that which is itself knowledge, and in the voices 
 of nature, simple though they seem, are orations more 
 profound than ever Athenians received from lips of 
 lofty Pericles. 
 
 To attain to true wisdom is to recognize with him 
 of Sinope, **That between life and death there is no 
 difference, that the great law governing life is that of 
 transmigration." 
 
 Say, Lysias, wouldst thou, having in store many new 
 and inviting dishes, desire to taste of all, or rather 
 wouldst thou eat alone of that which has grown flat 
 from time, and stale? '^Of the new and fresh," thou 
 sayest. So be it. The new is that with which a kind 
 Nature ever replaces the old ; and wilt thou deny the 
 good only in that it comes not served on a familiar 
 dish? — not upon thy own gold-banded plates? What ! 
 if a man live justly and moderately and temperately, 
 must he not then live pleasurably ? and living pleasur- 
 ably does he not live in fulness? Yet, fulness attained, 
 must it not of necessity become in turn emptiness? 
 does not the sun absorb ever the contents of the foun- 
 tain ? and does not the atmosphere drink up all moist- 
 ure ? Is it not mercy, Lysias, in the sun, that it saves 
 from loathsome putridity the glittering spray ? and is 
 it not charity in the atmosphere, that it bears the water 
 to new missions ? 
 
 It is mercy, and it is charity, thou sayest. 
 
 How, then, failest thou in perceiving that same mercy 
 and charity which as well so immediately consort for 
 the good of Lysias, inasmuch as they come with power 
 to change decrepitude into vigor, ugliness into beauty, 
 
COXCE/aX/XG THIXGS TO BE AXOIVX. 43 
 
 and acre into vouth? A man becomes chansred in the 
 sight of others by so simple an act as the putting on 
 of a garment. Only change is it when his fashion 
 alters to that of a cloud or a wave, a clod or a leaf. 
 
 But where, thou askest, is the passion of Lysias in a 
 cloud, where the expression of the senses in a leaf? 
 
 Has it not come to thee, my scholar, to watch the 
 vapor turning its blush to the sun for the golden tint, 
 or to observe the leaf athirst and dust-dried changing 
 in suffering the outlook of its face ? What matters it, 
 Lysias, to what uses a mother puts her children ? and 
 what matters it though these uses be changed and varied 
 day by day? It may not but be that wisdom, like 
 taith, begets confidence. What heeds it, mother, that 
 the breath of the child has been needed for the odorous 
 throat of the lily? — Is a lily less tenderly cared for than 
 was thy babe ? — Is a lily less beautifully arrayed than 
 was thy little manikin ? It was becoming in thee, 
 mother, that thou didst create so sweet a fragrance for 
 the nostrils of the Infinite. Do not spoil the offering 
 by ignorant complainings. It is, that the child has 
 gone forth to other missions. It is, that God is using 
 it? — Who knows best, God or thou? Heed, Lysias, it 
 is a weary, weary thing to grow into age and decrep- 
 itude. — Shall one not desire it as the best of things 
 that he be born again ? Make thou not the mistake, 
 my scholar, of confounding Lysias with the world ; all 
 ignorant men so blunder. I would not have thee a 
 Sciolist. 
 
 * * * Yes, yes ; thou needest not to remind me that 
 it is to philosophize when die other men's wives and 
 when are biu-ied other men's hopes. It is a law of 
 
44 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 
 
 nature that the eyes weep ; it is not contrary to instinct 
 that one prays : yet both these actions evince lack of 
 faith. I teach thee, my scholar, the facts of thy exist- 
 ence; of thy relations with Nature. With Socrates 
 thou mayest ask of God that which of thyself thou 
 canst not understand. — But it is beautiful that the 
 pearls are not doomed to remain hid forever in oyster- 
 shells. — It is an odorous thought that the babe goes 
 from the coverlets of the cradle, from the threaten- 
 ings of mortal existence, to mingle with, and help 
 make, that bouquet which is the fragrance of life. 
 God giveth, and God taketh away, Lysias ; blessed 
 be the name of God. 
 
 Heed thou ! Is pain, crushing, racking pain, not a 
 good ? Yet how few are there but esteem it an evil ! 
 How else than by pain might disease announce itself? 
 That which the unappreciative fear as an enemy, the 
 physician recognizes as a sentinel saviour ; and so will 
 it be found of all things, — of all things, Lysias. This 
 thy mentor feels that he knows, even though he lacks 
 the skill to unfold the problem. He who puts his 
 whole trust in Nature — in God — never shall be brought 
 to confusion. 
 
 What Hiero shall distinguish to a Simonides the 
 pleasures of the king from the pleasures of a common 
 ifnan ? Have not both eyes with which to see, ears with 
 which to hear, palates for taste, and nostrils for scents? 
 Sleeps not the king? and sleeps not the subject? And 
 who is to describe the sensations of a leaf which unrolls 
 itself from the bud that it may greet the sunshine ? or 
 who tell of the joys of a wave that sings to the beach 
 its song of greeting ? Say not, Lysias, that the unfold- 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 45 
 
 ing of the leaf is natural fruition, and that the murmur 
 of a wave is natural noise. What is voice of human 
 child but a passing breath modified by the moving 
 chords of a larynx? and what are joy-dancing limbs 
 but expressions of muscular movements ? — how turns a 
 child from shade to sunshine ? and how changes a leaf 
 its face from sunshine to shade? — Except, Lysias, as it 
 concerns the man, the child, which, being once with 
 us, is ever with us — the entelechy — so is there no iota of 
 difference between one object of nature and another. 
 Neither is there discrimination in care given by the 
 Providence which rules over all. 
 
 " Where are the blossoms of summer ? — In the west, 
 Blushing their last to the sunny hours, 
 Where the mild eve by sudden, night is prest, 
 Like tearful Proserpine, snatched from her flowers, 
 
 To a most gloomy breast. 
 Where is the pride of Summer — the green prime — 
 The many, many leaves" of all twinkling? . . . 
 Where is the Dryad's immortality? — 
 Gone into mournful cypress and dark yew, 
 Or wearing the long winter through 
 In the smooth holly's green eternity." 
 
 Who, then, shall waste tears over that which changes ? 
 
 Askest thou, Lysias, if the wise man prepare not for 
 change, and yet considerest not the answer given by 
 the master to the son of Hipponicus? ** Hermogenes, 
 have I not steadily persisted, throughout life, in a dili- 
 gent endeavor to do nothing which is unjust? and this 
 I take to be the best and most honorable preparation. 
 . . . Know you not that hitherto I have yielded to no 
 man that he hath lived more uprightly or even more 
 
46 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 pleasurably than myself, — possessed, as I was, of that 
 well-grounded self-approbation arising from the con- 
 sciousness of having done my duty both to the gods 
 and man, my friends also bearing testimony to the in- 
 tegrity of my conversation ?" And what further was it 
 concerning this matter that Cambyses said ? ** As from 
 men, so likewise from the gods, the most likely person 
 to obtain his suit is not he who when in distress flatters 
 servilely, but he who in his most happy circumstances is 
 most 7nindful of the gods. ' ' 
 
 Then the wise man heeds alone a present, and lets a 
 past and a future take care of themselves ? 
 
 Good ! Lysias, he may do nothing better, or more 
 in way of service to his Creator. A man is, in his day, 
 to eat, drink, and make merry. 
 
 " Every leisure hour employ 
 * In mirth, in revelry, in joy : 
 
 Laugh, and sing, and dance, and play, 
 
 Drive corroding care away : 
 
 Join the gay and festive train, 
 
 And make old age grow young again." 
 
 But is one to take no thought of the cares and ills 
 of life? 
 
 And what are these, my Lysias ? what are the cares 
 of a leaf? and what the ills of a clod ? and is that body 
 of man which mortal things can touch of different make 
 from leaf or clod? and if not different, what cares 
 or ills may come to it ? Is not the common mother 
 Nature the care-taker of us all ? Fail not to perceive 
 that ills and cares exist most in artificialities. ''What a 
 deal of business and trouble have you at your meals, 
 grandfather," said the boy Cyrus to Astyages, "if 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 47 
 
 you must reach out your hands to all these several 
 dishes, and taste of all these kinds of meat !" " What 
 then ?" asked Astyages : ** do you not think this enter- 
 tainment much finer than what you have in Persia?" 
 *' No, grandfather : with us we have a much plainer and 
 readier way to get satisfied than you have ; for plain 
 meat and bread suffices for our meal ; but you, in order 
 to the same end, have a deal of business on your hands; 
 and, wandering up and down through many mazes, you 
 at last arrive where we have got long before you." * 
 
 But one may have his limbs torn ; and then will his 
 eyes be suffused through the anguish of his pain. 
 
 Yes ; and a cloud is broken up and is scattered as 
 rain-drops, the leaf is wrung from its stem, the clod is 
 torn under the harrow : yet the life of the cloud is not 
 hurt, for it is seen to bring forth freshness ; the leaf per- 
 chance passes to the delightful attar; while from the 
 pulverized earth grass springs out to cover and to beau- 
 tify the ground. Believe, Lysias, that he whose knowl- 
 edge brings him to a comprehension of the thing called 
 life, fears not to change. Is not the body external? is 
 it more than a garment to that which is enrobed ? and 
 while one regrets the tearing of a robe, is he incon- 
 solable, knowing that means exist to the repair? Evil 
 is as the circumference which a man draws about and 
 around himself: shall not the bulky stand more in fear 
 of the lance than the lean ? Does not Crito, whose 
 wealth extends itself over half the streets of Athens, suffer 
 from the flames of conflagration, while to the Satyr these 
 same flames are as pictures of beauty drawn over a black 
 
 * Xenophon. — Institution of Cyrus. 
 
48 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 sky? Who, having nothing to lose, trembles when a 
 Polycrates is afloat on the ^Egean? Or who, being 
 without avarice or cupidity, needs to cower at the cross 
 of Oroetes? 
 
 But does not philosophy as well as piety speak of, 
 and commend, prayer ? 
 
 Confound not reason, Lysias, in losing the distinc- 
 tion between the soul of man and the matter of his 
 body ; for thought and spake Athens's greatest sage not 
 well when he affirmed that to importune God with our 
 inquiries concerning things of which we may gain the 
 knowledge by number, weight, or measure, is a kind 
 of impiety? it being, as it seemed to him, incumbent 
 on man to make himself acquainted with whatever God 
 has placed within his power ; as for such things as were 
 beyond his comprehension, for these he ought always 
 to apply to the oracle ; God being ever ready to com- 
 municate knowledge to those whose care has been to 
 render him propitious.* For what, Lysias, does the 
 philosopher more than the simple man where questions 
 of soul are involved ? but what does he not more than 
 the simple man in enduring things called ills, but which 
 he has learned to know as passing nothings? Under- 
 standest thou, Lysias, the oneness of a thing omni- 
 present yet individual? then comprehendest thou the 
 all, and yet the nothingness, of prayer. Pra3^er has 
 concern to the soul, and not to corporeal things, which 
 are common and easily come at. Who asks too freely 
 in prayer does so only in his ignorance of the law in 
 which man lives. 
 
 *• Xenophon.— Memoirs of Socrates, 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN 49 
 
 Yes, ignorant indeed would that man seem to be 
 who solicits too continuously. Wonderfully better is 
 God than such a one wots of. Look around, Lysias. 
 What is there that has been left unprovided for? What 
 is found that seems as unconsidered ? Lacks a man 
 bread, the field is the almoner. Let the hungered with 
 spade and plough say his prayer to the earth. God is 
 not found waiting to be solicited. The ground and 
 men's arms are Providence. 
 
 * He who prays and whines for daily bread — save that 
 he delves with coulter and blade — must seek to make 
 God a liar. Is it not the law that "in the sweat of 
 the face the bread is to be eaten" ? A beggar indeed 
 is such a one, — as offensive in the sight of heaven as 
 is the mendicant in that of good men. What would 
 the caitiff have of Providence ? Is the great Care-Taker 
 to be solicited to the office of feeding with fork and 
 spoon ? Shall other levator nasi than his own ex- 
 pand the nostril that the abundant air may enter? 
 
 How shall I speak to thee, my scholar, of the mercy 
 called special Providence, and yet offend not against 
 thy inexperience, — offend not against that faith which 
 is the greatest wealth a man may garner to himself? 
 Better be without experience than without faith ; better 
 be without knowledge than without confidence in the 
 ''Father who is in heaven." The earth is full of the 
 mercy of God. Neither sparrow nor hair falls to the 
 ground without that it is seen by the eye of tlie Care- 
 Taker. 
 
 I commend, my scholar, that, being as yet ignorant, 
 thou inquire not too curiously into the dispensations 
 of Providence ; for while interrogation brings the wise 
 c 5 
 
50 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 man to stronger faith, — to faith that the overtop- 
 pling of a world might not shake or confomid, — yet 
 it may lead the slim inquirer only to Atheism and to 
 confusion. The safety and the salvation of man are 
 in law, which law has been so wondrously prearranged 
 that answer to prayer is found within a man's own self. 
 Call the surgeon when the torn artery is jetting forth 
 the life : here is saving Providence. Find the Father's 
 protection in the judgment which needs but to be 
 heeded that it keep one's feet from the dangers of the 
 over-driven car or the ill-manned ship : here is saving 
 Providence. 
 
 It is, my scholar, that the services of life are 
 
 performed alone through means, and of all the instru- 
 ments by which God works, man is the strongest and 
 most capable. Heed, Lysias, ''Man is the temple of 
 the Holy Ghost." It is God himself who declares 
 that his residence is in man. 
 
 It is in the fulness of wisdom, Lysias, that a man 
 learns that he has been appointed his own care-taker, 
 and in such knowledge he finds himself not weighed 
 down, but the rather elevated, inasmuch that coming to 
 such apprehension he discerns that the means of se- 
 curity are not wanting \ seeing that he may have what 
 he needs for the asking, he puts forth in effect the di- 
 vinity that he finds within himself, and thus receives 
 answer to his prayer. See, Lysias, what a sad and fool- 
 ish pleading would that seem to be which for an indi- 
 vidual good seeks to persuade change in a law which is 
 the safety of all. A very ignorant savage is he who has 
 not learned that his Fetich does not answer the prayers 
 directed to save from the prick of the poisoned arrow : 
 
CONCERNING THINGS 7 BE KNOWN. 51 
 
 the learned, however, as well prays, but his Fetich is a 
 bit of caustic silver, and to his prayer he has answer. 
 To learn godliness is to come to the understanding that 
 dependence is to be upon one's self. He who lacks 
 health, let him set himself to the understanding of sick- 
 ness ; he who needs a house, let him of his own force 
 gather rafters and roofing. 
 
 God is knowledge ; and knowledge is, at all times, 
 and under all circumstances, salvation. To pray, to 
 wrestle in prayer, should be to the end of correlating 
 into one's self the Deus mundi, — should be to the end 
 of growing and increasing within one's self that which is 
 the divine part of man. It is as through physical exer- 
 cise a man is found to enlarge lungs and muscles and 
 bones and thus to increase lustiness. He who exercises 
 himself not in prayer dwindles and shrinks in his di- 
 vinity; and it may well be that all the God goes out of 
 him,* just as with him who denies exercise to the limbs 
 it is found that sooner or later the office of the joints 
 departs them. 
 
 " Thyself and thy belongings 
 Are not thine own so proper, as to waste 
 Thyself upon thy virtues, them on thee. 
 Heaven doth with us as we with torches do ; 
 Not light them for themselves ; for if our virtues 
 Did not go forth of us, 'twere all alike 
 As if we had them not. Spirits are not finely touched 
 But for high purposes ; nor nature lends 
 The smallest of her excellence, 
 But, like a thrifty goddess, she determines 
 Herself the glory of a creditor, 
 Both thanks and uses." 
 
 •* See "Two Thousand Years After." 
 
52 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 Prayer, true prayer, is trust : "■ Not my will, O Father, 
 but Thine be done." What but wisdom might ask 
 aright ? and what man is there that hath wisdom ? But 
 are there not, thou askest, thanks to be given for the 
 good received? Oh, truly, truly, Lysias; and he alone 
 is worthy of the name of man whose soul is forever 
 uttering thanks to the Infinite. 
 
 Uttering thanks, uttering thanks ; and what for ? 
 For that life is,— that it forever shall be,— that all is in 
 common, — that law exists, — that it is unchanging and 
 unwavering, — that by this law man is permitted to arbi- 
 trate his own destiny, to be high or low, healthy or 
 unhealthy, noble or ignoble, happy or miserable, as he 
 wills. What more than this may man have, what more 
 might he ask? 
 
 " For when he saw all things that had regard 
 To life's subsistence for mankind prepared, 
 That men in wealth and honors did abound, 
 That with a noble race their joys were crowned, 
 That yet they groaned with cares and fears oppressed, 
 Each finding a disturber in his breast, 
 He then perceived the fault lay hid in man, 
 In whom the bane of his own bliss began." 
 
 Ah, Lysias, true must it be that the man who prays 
 
 not is sunk and lost in nothingness ; but not more ap- 
 preciative is he whose altar smoketh alone with obla- 
 tions of supplication. — Shall the child importune the 
 watchful parent who knoweth and heedeth what things 
 are best for it? Shall a dumb brute deny the leadings 
 of the rein that directeth to the master's crib ? He who 
 prays truly, Lysias, has naught of language with which 
 to frame speech ; only may such a one stand dumb. 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 53 
 
 and, with eyes and heart turned upward — wonder. 
 Prayer may have no formula : each breath inspired, as 
 it brings with it life and refreshment, is to carry back 
 thanks; each sensation is to be an offering, each rap- 
 ture a worship , for say, Lysias, who, being athirst, may 
 quaff cool waters and know no gratitude? who, being 
 hungry, may eat yet heed not ? 
 
 And who, Lysias, finding himself in a life to which 
 
 his own efforts have not tended, is to doubt the fulnef^s 
 and fruition of existence ? Could he have come if he had 
 not been — and had not been needed ? May a some- 
 thing develop from nothing? And a man, being, may 
 he do aught save that which pertains to the office of his 
 organization ? Does not the tree fulfil an intention when 
 it brings forth fruit according to its kind, so likewise 
 the herb when it grows the savor for the meat ? and is a 
 man not in the way of duty when his fruition is in ac- 
 cordance with his abilities, — the coarse and muscular to 
 produce images, the nervous and sensitive to evolve 
 ideals? — for say, Lysias, without the genius of the latter 
 by what models might the former work? and without 
 the labor of the former of what use were the ideas of 
 the latter? May melody have voice but in instrumen- 
 tation ? — may the caught thought speak its meaning 
 but in the lines of the scribe? 
 
 It is, then, Lysias, for a man to do always according 
 to the measure of that which he finds within himself, 
 and not to query as to differences which he perceives 
 to exist between himself and other men ; for has it not 
 been seen fit by the Deity, as wisely affirmed by Plato, 
 that into those who are to govern gold has been min- 
 gled, into the military silver, and into husbandmen and 
 5* 
 
54 CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 
 
 artificers iron and brass? and may he who does his best 
 do better, or do aught more fitting or useful to the 
 purposes of his Creator ? Weigh thyself, Lysias, and let 
 the fulness of the weight be found ever in the balance. 
 
 But how shall a man weigh himself and how live in 
 his fulness ? 
 
 And dost thou ask these questions in earnestness and 
 with desire to truth ? 
 
 The proper meaning of a thing, my scholar, is to be 
 sought for alone in its ending; in a single sentence is 
 to be found the question of questions. To what e?id ? 
 Yet who shall meditate, and who solve questions, but he 
 who has time for such offices? for what was that queried 
 of Lysander when he had determined in solitude to woo 
 the goddess? "And so thou art determined, my Ly- 
 sander, to cut thyself loose from the Mnelange,' from 
 the * imperium in imperio,* and all for a few cabbages, 
 and the music, as thou callest it — dreary stuff — of mea- 
 dow frogs." Yet is it not well declared that '' Vatia 
 alone knows how to live, and may better examples be 
 quoted of such as have attained to the wealth that is 
 begotten of contemplative retirement than such wise 
 mortals as Democritus, Anaxagoras, Parmenides, and 
 Jovius' ' ? Neither might truer aphorism be quoted than 
 *' Homo solus aut deus, aut daemon," for most true is 
 it that in solitude is a man best able to see whether he 
 has in him most of saint or devil. Man, in society, is 
 modified — unconsciously modified — by and of his sur- 
 roundings: if this comes not of the leges scriptae, 
 then it is of the leges non scriptae, and the latter is 
 not unfrequently the stronger law; for even does it 
 prescribe the fashion of a garment and compel the 
 
CONCERNING THINGS TO BE KNOWN. 55 
 
 wearing of a smile broad enough and deep enough to 
 cover up and hide a scowling heart. In society it is 
 that man finds food for his impulses : the envious 
 drink of gall and wormwood ; the good discover ob- 
 jects for their love and charity; while the vital and 
 lusty, as a Themistocles, see in the glory of a Miltiades 
 the compensation for heroic deeds. — But society is the 
 ignis-fatuus to him who leads not, but is led ; and not 
 of much length is the meandering which suffices to lose 
 the natural man. 
 
 Before flowers are the seed and culture ; and as are 
 these, so is the bloom. A seed produces according 
 to the earth with which it is commingled, and the 
 ground brings forth not otherwise than as pertains to a 
 nucleus found in it. Seed produce their kind and sow 
 them. Yet many weak seeds filling the ground may 
 come at length to be over-shaded, and killed out, by a 
 single germ of superior strength. Do not a million 
 spears of grass disappear in the shade that comes of an 
 acorn ? For what does Plutarch tell us of the effem- 
 inacy and delights of the great Caesar? Had not 
 the Roman in his heart Cleopatra, and Eunoe, and 
 Posthumia, and Servilla? and yet were not these all 
 smothered by a single seed of ambition which grew up 
 with them ? 
 
 Take heart, my scholar ; a great thing, a most com- 
 plex thing, is life. Yet withal is it a most simple thing. 
 That which it most concerns a man to have constantly 
 in his mind is. That if he do not a duty to-day, in 
 some way the rejnission is to be accounted for o?i the 
 niorfow. A fact of great signification is this. I leave 
 thee, LysiaSj that thou mayesf: ponjder over it. 
 
III. 
 
 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 " Let me live harmlessly ; and near the brink 
 Of Trent or Avon have a dwelling-place, 
 Where I may see my quill or cork down sink 
 With eager bite of perch, or bleak, or dace ; 
 And on the world and my Creator think : 
 While some men strive ill-gotten goods t' embrace, 
 And others spend their time in base excess 
 Of wine ; or, worse, in war or wantonness." 
 
 COME, my Lysias, the day has all the gladsomeness of 
 the early summer-time, let us together hurry from 
 the seats of trade, from the places given up to conten- 
 tion and to fever-begetting commotion, \that in some 
 quiet spot we may find the contemplative\ shade, and 
 in discourse with nature learn the unwisdmn of those 
 whose ways we avoid. \ 
 
 * * * * How fresh and inviting is this gr^ss- and 
 alder-bordered wood-stream ! how restful is the droop 
 of the willow-branches ! how soothing the dryad song 
 of the flowing water ! It is very satisfying, my Scholar, 
 this sense of a oneness with the Common All, which, 
 56 
 
CONCERNING QUIET IICURS. 57 
 
 in such seclusion, comes to the meditative. Look up, 
 Lysias, above is the sky ; let thy sight drop, supporting 
 us is a common earth, — common to man and alder- 
 bushes, to the drooping willow-branches and the sing- 
 ing water-nymphs — for are not all of kindredship — all 
 of one origin, the sky alike with the earth, the dryads 
 alike with men ? Feel the velvety softness of this moss 
 couch ; needs simplicity to seek pallet more luxurious? 
 or might the proud hope to find ornamentation more 
 
 refined, or to discover seat more attractive? Ah, my 
 
 Scholar, here it is, here upon the moss-beds by the side 
 of singing streams, that man is to find his most gratify- 
 ing dreams ; that he is to listen for the sweetest sounds. 
 In quiet places it is that the Heart's-ease grows. 
 
 But the day is called practical, and stream and 
 
 grove are neglected for mart and workshop ; men rub 
 the drowsy eyes as they hurry to the counter, and from 
 morning to night, from school -desk to coffin, time is 
 found for little else save that which serves but to debase 
 and to drag down ; for is not that debasing, and is not 
 that dragging down, which gives possession to an in- 
 sidious foe, perverting to mean uses faculties designed 
 for the ransoming and for the glory of men ? Not but 
 what it is in the way of a true and proper use of life 
 that a man strive for his sustenance, and for the suste- 
 nance of such as are dependent ; but that it is living to 
 meaner purpose than the idiot to sacrifice soul and its 
 longings to body and its sensuality ; the pure and en- 
 nobling to the turbid and demeaning ; to seal up eyes 
 and ears, and to hold in bondage the immortal to the 
 mortal parts. And such jailers are most men unto 
 themselves, and so continue to be until no soul is left 
 c* 
 
58 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 to be imprisoned; the divine Essence little by little 
 eluding locks and bars, and the prison-house being 
 found at the last no less or more a sensuous body than 
 
 are other clay-built structures. True, most true is it, 
 
 my Scholar, that a man is what he wills himself to be, 
 — high or low, noble or ignoble, mortal or divine. 
 
 No time for the placid wood-stream? no time 
 
 for winding walks by devious river-banks? no time for 
 draughts of the ambrosia which in full measure is run- 
 ning in eternal freshness from the mountain springs of 
 
 the gods? Well, poor man ! keep to thy shop; go 
 
 thou never away from the pave ; in place of the nectar 
 open thy mouth for the mixtures of the apothecary ; 
 hold thou, and suck thou, sponge-like; ''absorb and 
 bloat and die," plenty of company hast thou; cling 
 thou by thy rock ; no lesson is it for thee that day by 
 day other full sponges are seen to fall off and be in 
 their place no more. 
 
 ** I have a rich neighbor," says the simple-hearted 
 angler, " that is always so busy that he has no leisure to 
 laugh ; the whole business of his life is to get money, 
 more money, that he may still get more. * The dili- 
 gent hand maketh rich.' And it is true, indeed; but 
 he considers not that it is not in the power of riches to 
 make a man happy ; for it was wisely said by one of 
 great observation, ' that there be as many miseries be- 
 yond riches as on this side of them.' And yet heaven 
 deliver us from pinching poverty, and grant that, hav- 
 ing a competency, we may be content and thankful. 
 Let us not repine, or so much as think the gifts of God 
 imequally dealt, if we see another abound in riches, 
 when, as God knows, the cares that are the keys which 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 59 
 
 keep those riches, hang often so heavily at the rich 
 man's girdle, that they clog him with weary days and 
 restless nights, even where others sleep quietly. We 
 see but the outside of the rich man's happiness : few 
 consider him to be like the silk-worm, that, when she 
 seems to play, is at the same time spinning her own 
 bowels, and consuming herself. And this many rich 
 men do, loading themselves with corroding cares to 
 keep what they have already got. Let us, therefore, 
 be thankful for health and competence, and, above all, 
 for a quiet conscience." 
 
 There is, my Lysias, a negative unhappiness which 
 is greater than that which may be consciously present 
 and positive ; by which is meant, that the pleasures of 
 a mere man of the market are so insignificant and mean 
 when compared with higher joys of which he wots little 
 or nothing, that should consciousness of the distinc- 
 tion come to him, he might not but be horrified in per- 
 ceiving that his fare had been husks and slops, and his 
 assumptions simple and ridiculous presumptions. Shall 
 this be made more plain if we consider that large class 
 of human sybarites who know nothing of exhilaration 
 aside from animal excitements? What, to the soul- 
 less bodies of such, are the refinements of the higher 
 aesthetics? What know these of gurgling waters ex- 
 cept as of a something that quenches thirst? Or what 
 to such are earth-paintings and sky-reflections ? The 
 happiness of such men is as the happiness of the beast, 
 which eats its fill and then rests that it n^y eat again. 
 
 But the possession of money wealth is not neces- 
 sarily the abuse of it. A shallow philosophy certainly 
 is that which reviles as of evil in itself an instrument 
 
6o CONCERNING QUIET HOURS, 
 
 capable of so great good ; but never overmuch or too 
 continuously is gold to be reviled when it is perceived 
 that, wall-like, a man takes of his metal and with it 
 builds himself into a dungeon whereby from him are 
 shut out the fragrant things of a higher living. A sug- 
 gestive saying was it of Aristotle's, ** that some men are 
 as stingy as if they expected to live forever, and some 
 as extravagant as if they expected to die immediately." 
 
 Who, knowing the wealth of the poor, will not utter 
 an apostrophe to Poverty? Yes, delightful goddess, we 
 too may speak an oblation in thy ear; for is it not in 
 indifference to wealth that to-day the sweet sounds and 
 sights of nature are ours? that to-day, and a part of 
 every day, we follow thy delightful leadings, and are 
 recreated with thy everlasting freshness? Is it not that 
 being thy votaries we are saved from worthlessly en- 
 cumbering the ground ? that we are made producers, 
 and adders to the comfort of men? O beautiful 
 Nymph, wearer of russet garments which do but con- 
 ceal glories lying beneath, whence but from thee come 
 patience and love and compassion ? Whence but from 
 thee are sublime poems built in enduring granite, are 
 words made everlasting through steel-carved pages, are 
 notes breathing in soul-inspiring melody? and whence 
 but from thee come oil and wine, honey and frankin- 
 cense ? Heaven-born goddess, receive our oblations. 
 
 It is better to be absolutely poor than to be abso- 
 lutely rich ; it is best to be neither : in such conclu- 
 sions rests the experience of the world's knowledge; 
 and nothing is there so trustworthy as the common ex- 
 perience. Yet in society, as society now is, the indi- 
 vidual may scarcely depend on himself to understand 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 6 1 
 
 this, for even as so real a thing as the sun may be shut 
 out by clouds and made to appear as though it were 
 not, so may a man grope a lifetime in regions of clouds 
 even while all the time a sun is shining, — even while 
 all the time he is surrounded by that which he sees not. 
 How many, with slippered feet resting upon silken 
 stools, the market and its allurements shut out, the 
 curtain drawn, will heed daintily, and find savor in, 
 the quaint hints of such as good Izaak Walton ! How 
 the fettered hands long to bait the hook and throw 
 the line, and how the jaded ear drinks greedily in the 
 unwonted discourse about things simple and natural — 
 things once known, alas ! now, gone with the tide of a 
 past. 
 
 " Lord, who hath praise enough? nay, who hath any? 
 None can express thy works but he that knows them ; 
 And none can know thy works, they are so many, 
 And so complete, but only he that owes them." 
 
 A fisher-boy, rod upon shoulder, and basket in 
 
 hand, seeking the stream where the trout lies under the 
 meadow-bank. The stripling, neglectful of "down- 
 sinking cork," dreaming dreams as he sleeps amid the 
 fragrance of a hill-side violet-bed. The youth, pen- 
 sive and lusty, telling to trees and birds the story of a 
 love — the story of a love that now, alas, is in a grave 
 which the storms of twenty winters have beaten flat with 
 the neighboring sward. 
 
 To-night, flowing through the valleys of mem- 
 ory, is a stream along the banks of which lie halcyon- 
 eggs, — to-night the time-fettered man, shackles, locks, 
 and all, is back in the Eleusis from which two-score 
 
 6 
 
62 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 years agone he wandered in search of a golden fleece ; 
 to-night a Proserpine has escaped from Pluto, and the 
 earth is aglow with fresh flowers and grasses. Come 
 back, thou Past, oh, come back, but in thy coming 
 lose not to us the experience by which alone we can 
 understand thee. 
 
 With what an odor of fragrant invitation, and with 
 what voice of allurement, does Nature beckon to the 
 man who wanders within her sacred influences ! Who, 
 with a Wilson, shall strap knapsack to his back and 
 not find each hill an altar wherefrom ascends incense? 
 each valley a tabernacle in which nature, animate and 
 inanimate, shows forth God's worthiness? 
 
 " O lovely scenes ! 
 That sink to nothing all the works of pride ! 
 What are the piles that puny mortals rear, 
 Their temples, towers, however great or fair, 
 Their mirrors, carpets, tapestry, and state. 
 The nameless toys that Fashion's fools create, 
 To this resplendent dome of earth and sky. 
 Immensely stretched ! immeasurably high ! 
 Those yellow forests, tinged with glowing red, 
 So rich around in solemn grandeur spread. 
 Where, here and there, in lazy columns rise 
 The woodman's smoke, like incense, to the skies ! 
 This heaven-reflecting lake, smooth, clear, profound, 
 And that primeval peace that reigns around ! 
 As well may worms compare with souls divine, 
 As Art, O Nature ! match her works with thine." 
 
 What dreams have men ! To-morrow, ay, to-morrow, 
 the eyes are to open upon a new world. Ledgers are 
 to be crammed away, tills are to be locked up, care 
 
 is to be shut within the shop and — to-morrow the 
 
 man — unconsciously grown old — is to amble forth, — 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 63 
 
 to be laughed at and mocked by the boys of the play- 
 ground ; to-morrow the old man is to wonder because 
 he finds no fragrance in roses, no music in rippling 
 streams, no pictures in the sky ! 
 
 A time is there for everything; a time when blos- 
 soms are pregnant with fruit, a time when the fruit is 
 born and gone ; a time when streams murmur quaint 
 songs all day long, a time when the waters are turned 
 into ice; a time when the horizon shows grand pic- 
 tures, God-painted, a time when the sky is leaden. It 
 is wisdom, my Lysias, to live in the things of one's day 
 
 and not trust too fully the morrow for to whom is 
 
 it that in the belongings of a to-morrow are found the 
 
 things of to-day? the meaning of each day is in that 
 
 day, and not in the hours of any other. 
 
 How like unto threadbare suits grow men — some 
 men ! neither is left to the woof strength nor gloss. 
 " But we go on," as says the visitor to the North Road 
 cottage, *Sve go on in our clockwork routine, from 
 day to day, and can't make out or follow the changes. 
 They — they're a metaphysical sort of thing. We — we 
 haven't leisure for it. We — we haven't courage. One 
 don't see anything, one don't hear anything, one don't 
 know anything; that's the fact. We go on taking 
 everything for granted, and so we go on, until what- 
 ever we do, good, bad, or indifferent, we do from 
 habit. Habit is all I shall have to report, when I am 
 called upon to plead to my conscience on my death- 
 bed. 'Habit,' says I; 'I was deaf, dumb, blind, and 
 paralytic, to a million of things, from habit.' " 
 * Let him plead habit who will, but habit saves not 
 from that which is its result. He who is habit-blind 
 
64 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 goes into the ditch, and he who is habit-wise escapes 
 the fall. A pitiable sight is it to see a man nose-led, 
 an invisible ** Habit" carrying him away from all that 
 should go to make up the fulness of a true life; no sun 
 for his morning, no moon for his evening, but the dust 
 of a treadmill to-day, to-morrow, and all days, — dust 
 at the beginning, dust at the ending, dust interme- 
 diately, — from dust back to dust, — physically, morally, 
 intellectually. 
 
 Ill-judged is it in a gray-haired that he anticipate 
 the coming back of passed-away times ; drink water 
 while the spring runs, else will the freshness never be 
 found by thee ; set thy cup aside until the morrow, if 
 so be it please thee, but when thou returnest be not 
 disappointed in finding that thirsty nature has con- 
 sumed the draught, — for that drinks which is athirst : 
 then, O man ! say, of what use is the cup to thee, — 
 even though it be golden ? 
 
 " See how in his head only, hope still lingers, 
 Who evermore to empty rubbish clings, 
 With greedy hands grubs after precious things, 
 And leaps for joy when some poor worm he fingers." 
 
 '' That I may show the whole world," says Jean Paul, 
 *'that we ought to value little joys more than great 
 ones ; the night-gown more than the dress-coat ; that 
 Plutus's heaps are worth less than his handfuls, and that 
 not great, but little good haps, can make us happy." 
 *' Have you known," asks Montaigne, 'Miow to medi- 
 tate and manage your life? you have done a great deal 
 more than he who has composed books." 
 
 A great thing is it indeed to know how to meditate 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 65 
 
 and how to manage life, and of great wisdom must it 
 be, for few are found who have learned the art. " The 
 child has beaten me in simplicity," cries the son of 
 Tresius, as he beholds a boy drink water from his 
 hands and take up lentils with a crust of bread \ and in 
 the lesson did the philosopher deem himself the richer, 
 inasmuch as cup and spoon were not longer felt to be 
 necessities. The most valuable thing a man can spend, 
 taught Theophrastus, is time ; and a favorite saying was 
 it with Aristotle, that, in Understanding, we do, with- 
 out being commanded, what others do from fear of 
 the laws. 
 
 It is, my Lysias, that we enjoy the solitude of the 
 wood-side and streamlet, because that here, divested 
 and freed from cares and anxieties, we find ourselves 
 in natural relation with that of which we are a part ; 
 because that here is little and not much ; because that 
 here, management being easy, we find ourselves man- 
 agers. Look you, O my Scholar, through the breaks 
 in the branches which wave above us ; what a sense of 
 singleness is there in the great sky ! how immeasura- 
 ble the calm that falls from it into the heart! Surely 
 amid such influences, if anywhere, is a man's life to be 
 measured at its proper value. 
 
 And is it a fair exchange to give up variety for inan- 
 ity, the sights and sounds of nature for the cares and 
 perplexities of trade, the free and open outlook into life 
 for the glass and the bench of the artisan ? Which of 
 the trio, Cephalus the grandfather, Lysanias the father, 
 or Cephalus the son, lived wisest? — he who gathered, 
 he who squandered, or he who preserved ? And where 
 is the pertinence in which is to be used the wealth of 
 6* 
 
66 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 the dwellers at Pirseus? *' What, think you, Cephalus, 
 is the greatest advantage that you have derived from 
 being wealthy?" 
 
 And what answers Cephalus? 
 
 *'If I mention it," he replies, **I shall perhaps get 
 few persons to agree with me. Be assured, Socrates, 
 that when a man is nearly persuaded that he is going 
 to die, he feels alarmed and concerned about things 
 which never affected him before. Till then he has 
 laughed at those stories about the departed, which tell 
 us that he who has done wrong here must suffer for it 
 in the other world ; but now his mind is tormented 
 with a fear that these stories may possibly be true. 
 And, either owing to the infirmity of old age, or be- 
 cause he is now nearer to the confines of the future 
 state, he has a clearer insight into those mysteries. 
 However that may be, he becomes full of misgiving 
 and apprehension, and sets himself to the task of cal- 
 culating and reflecting whether he has done any wrong 
 to any one. Hereupon, if he finds his life full of unjust 
 deeds, he is apt to start out of sleep in terror, as chil- 
 dren do, and he lives haunted by gloomy anticipations. 
 But if his conscience reproaches him with no injustice, 
 he enjoys the abiding presence of sweet Hope, ' that 
 kind nurse of old age,' as Pindar calls it. For indeed, 
 Socrates, those are beautiful words of his, in which he 
 says of the man who has lived a just and holy life, 
 'Sweet Hope is his companion, cheering his heart, the 
 nurse of old age, — Hope, which more than aught else 
 steers the capricious will of mortal men.' There is 
 really a wonderful truth in the description. And it is 
 this consideration, as I hold, that makes riches chiefly 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 67 
 
 valuable, I do not say to everybody, but at any rate to 
 the good. For they contribute greatly to our preserva- 
 tion from even unintentional deceit or falsehood, and 
 from that alarm which would attend our departure to 
 the other world, if we owed any sacrifice to a god, or 
 any money to a man. They may have other uses. 
 But after weighing them all separately, Socrates, I am 
 inclined to consider this service as anything but the 
 least important which riches can render to a wise and 
 sensible man." * 
 
 Yet, my Lysias, would there not seem to be greater 
 wisdom in him who abstains from debt-making ? for in 
 the abstaining, being debt-clear, is he not kept both 
 from the owing of money and the temptation to deceit ? 
 and as with the lyrist, it must be felt of all, that *' Hope 
 is the nurse of old age," so must it also be that he who 
 accumulates the largest store of hope is seen to gather 
 to himself the truest treasury of riches. Now, to gather 
 of Hope is to glean of that which nature plants, and 
 not of ourselves to sow too freely ; for if a man live in 
 the fashion of nature he lives necessarily in the laws 
 of his entities, and thus, being in accord with that 
 which is the true direction of life, he may not pos- 
 sibly find himself owing debts, either of gold or of 
 conscience. 
 
 With not less earnestness, Lysias, is a man to seek 
 the mien of his good than has a Polemarchus sought 
 the meaning of justice \ for if to understand what is just 
 be greater gain than the finding of many pieces of gold, 
 shall it not be affirmed of good — which of itself em- 
 
 * Plato's Republic, Book First. 
 
68 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 braces justice — that to discover and to practice it is to 
 
 secure what, in the truest sense, is wealth indeed? 
 
 Or, is a man the rather to act with Thrasymachus, and 
 esteem that in such search he settles alone some insig- 
 nificant question, and not a principle on which life is 
 to be conducted that it shall lead to the most profitable 
 existence ? 
 
 Let it be seen, my Scholar, that in our own influ- 
 ence we honor not overmuch that which is not of 
 philosophy, for it has well been discerned and pro- 
 nounced by Plato, that what is honored at any time 
 is practiced, and what is dishonored is neglected, so 
 that when wealth and the wealthy are (over) honored in 
 a state, virtue and the virtuous sink in estimation. 
 Yet, while we pay our honors to philosophy, let us not 
 fail to understand what is meant by a philosopher, and 
 not attempt to elevate in the public estimation that 
 crude set so aptly described by Adeimantus as ''men 
 full of eccentricity and uselessness," for such as these 
 serve but to breed contempt, not only for themselves, 
 but — what is of consequence — for that which, unjustly, 
 they are supposed to represent. 
 
 He who has attained to philosophy is not to be be- 
 guiled and deceived by gloss and tinsel ; it is that such 
 have learned the distinction between brass and gold. 
 So it comes that what glitters is twice scanned before 
 being brought to the balance. To be rich consists in 
 wanting. Who so poor — in the wealth sense — as he 
 who finds nothing left to desire ? Culleth not the Baron 
 Verulam wisely when he selects the Roman word " im- 
 pedimenta," applying it to estate as being the baggage 
 of virtue, — that something which may not be left be- 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 69 
 
 hind, or spared, yet which — in the care it demandeth 
 — hindereth progress and not unfrequently causeth the 
 losing or disturbing of the victory? 
 
 Poor, in the wealth sense ; for as extremes ever 
 
 are found to meet, so it is that he who has, or may 
 command, everything he craves, is no richer than he 
 who has nothing, as to the latter belongs hope born of 
 a future — which is the truest riches — a possession gone 
 from the first. See the beautiful image of the charming 
 and rich Sericula; silks of choicest texture literally bur- 
 den the child, and in their Etruscan settings diamonds 
 and precious jewels glitter from ears and fingers. Yet 
 has the pretty Phidia been made very poor, for it has 
 come that neither jewels nor dresses, phaetons nor 
 ponies, have power to add a new or a fresh sensation ; 
 and so, even in the first blush of a blooming girlhood, 
 the child is found enmiyee and distraite. 
 
 How unlike is Phidia to the daughter of Ennea ! 
 comely, fresh damsel, where are we to seek her but in 
 the dell where gather the butterflies? or in the rustic 
 swing? or atop the gate-post which gives entrance to 
 Lysander's drive? or astraddle some high-up limb 
 which yields her dainty harvest? or busy at work 
 among hills of sand left by the diggers on the stream's 
 bank ? or knee-deep, wading in the waters? or chasing, 
 hair flowing, and with wild halloo, the colt that plays 
 his pranks in the pasture-field ? What knows the glad- 
 eyed birdling of ennui ? — as little as she knows of ves- 
 pertine or matinee, — and as little will she be apt to learn 
 of the first for years as the wisdom of her training will 
 surely withhold from her young age unsatisfying excite- 
 ments which might serve alone to rob her of the wealth 
 
yo CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 in which she is now so rich, yet having nothing of like 
 value to give in return. 
 
 Not to know of superfluous things is not to lack 
 them ; to keep one's self separated from unnecessary 
 indulgences is the same as neither needing nor desiring 
 such things. So if it be that the flower may take the 
 place of the ribbon, the dewdrop the place of the dia- 
 mond, wherein is the distinction as a true wealth is con- 
 cerned ? Is not a flower quite as pretty as a ribbon ? 
 And what stone has ever outshone the glisten of a dew- 
 drop as first touches it the light of the morning sun ? 
 
 Two sides has life, wisely asserts Alcmseon ; surely 
 it is the part of wisdom that a man seek to live as 
 continuously as possible on the bright side. Three 
 sons had Hegesistratus \ of the trio was Democritus. 
 When the estate of the father was divided, this wisest 
 of the three took the smallest portion, because it was in 
 money. Despising luxury, even as he despised fame, 
 the boy spent his all in the study of that beautiful 
 world which his own grand nature so fully qualified him 
 to appreciate. Ah ! my Scholar, how truly would the 
 Abderitan have enjoyed this quiet stream-side; he who 
 sought the stillness of tombs that he might get away 
 from the confusions of men ; he who garnered to him- 
 self so much of virtue that men changed their laws 
 in order that honors might be paid the mortal who 
 could recite the glories of his "Great World" — of 
 that great world scarcely better known by the mass of 
 human kind than by the brutes ! Too rich a thing is 
 life, my Lysias, to be thrown away or held cheap ! A 
 wonderful turning about would that be which opened 
 eyes should direct. Shall we, my Scholar, waste of 
 
CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 71 
 
 these privileged hours because that even our own con- 
 junctiva bears the nictitating membrane? rather let us 
 tear away the sight-covering film, that we may gain to 
 ourselves understanding of things as they are, and not 
 as they are 'seen through a cloud. 
 
 He who seeks solitude finds waiting for him God 
 
 and the demi-gods. He who searches after the 
 
 dryads will find them, if he look long enough, in the 
 swaying willow-branches ; in the creeping things under 
 the leaves; *' in the smooth holly's green eternity." 
 
 The passions, gently smooth'd away, 
 
 Sink to divine repose, and love and joy 
 Alone are waking." 
 
 Only in the stillness of quiet ways and places is it 
 that the language of trees and stones, of crawling vines 
 and running brooks, is to be heard by mortals ; and so 
 all-alluring and so enticing are the sweet words spoken 
 by these inanimate things, that, as has been well re- 
 marked by Zimmermann, a man must have heed to him- 
 self if he lose not all relish for every other pleasure and 
 be brought not to the neglect of every employment 
 which tends to interrupt the gratification of the en- 
 chanting propensity for the language to which one 
 
 listens in solitude is the undefiled speech of God ; what 
 else, my Lysias, might come to the mortal, in hearken- 
 ing to such discourse, but ravishment? It is, that soul 
 communes with soul. 
 
 To look at Life truly and well is to esteem it from 
 that distant stand-point which has in it no note of the 
 little things about which men fret, and over which a 
 present is but too commonly all frittered away. How 
 
72 CONCERNING QUIET HOURS. 
 
 insignificant is seen to be the trouble of yesterday ! how 
 trifling the vexations of the year passed away ! Yet be- 
 cause that these troubles and th-ese vexations were not 
 interpreted when present, man robbed his treasury of 
 its brightest coins that immunity might be bought of 
 that which, when inquired into and understood, is felt 
 to be of no more consequence than a scare-crow. A 
 quaint thing is it that a common crow shows greater 
 penetration than does a man, for the bird leaves not 
 the grain because of the flutter of a bunch of rags. 
 
 It is, my Scholar, that Vaucluse is not alone six 
 leagues from Avignon, but that it is everywhere that 
 Avignon is not. Might not a Petrarch find in this 
 quiet wood inspiration for his canzoni as well as foun- 
 dation for his dwelling-place? If the Song of Laura 
 be in the ear of the De Sade, is there not here music to 
 which the gods themselves delight to hearken ? What 
 sweeter retirement than this might have offered to the 
 Poet the consolations of its solitude ? What constancy 
 is seen more constant than this found in the loves of 
 the dryads ? Do not the willow-branches toy eternally 
 with the water? And do not the holly-berries grow 
 brighter as the winter approaches? The dryads are 
 ever young, and the running stream is immortal. 
 
IV. 
 
 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE OF 
 UNQUIET HOURS. 
 
 " Lord, would men let me alone, 
 What an over-happy one 
 
 Should I think myself to be ! 
 Might I in this desert place, 
 Which most men in discourse disgrace, 
 
 Live but undisturbed and free ! 
 Here, in this despised recess, 
 
 Would I, maugre Winter's cold 
 And the Summer's worst excess. 
 
 Try to live out to sixty full years old ; 
 And all the while, 
 
 Without an envious eye 
 On any thriving under Fortune's smile. 
 
 Contented live, and then contented die I" 
 
 IF men would only let one alone ! But men will not 
 let one alone. Also are there a multitude of things 
 besides men that will not let one alone : a man's tem- 
 perament will not let him alone ; his necessities will 
 not let him alone; complications, if he be fool-hardy 
 enough to enter upon them, will not let him alone ; 
 disease will not let him alone; and if, in ignorance 
 and in misunderstanding of the laws of life, he accus- 
 D 7 73 
 
74 CONCERNING THE Al^OIDANCE 
 
 torn himself to the artificial requirements of perverted 
 appetites, it may chance to happen that he find his 
 liberty of action so interfered with that in cap and 
 apron he be thrust into his own kitchen, — a scullion 
 to the imperative demands of a merciless taskmaster. 
 
 But heed, Lysias : just how much a man is to find 
 
 himself let alone, or how much interfered with, depends 
 on himself. One's boot is to have its polish preserved 
 by being kept out of the gutter. 
 
 It is as much a fact as it should be a matter for won- 
 derment, that while the sensibility of men recoils at 
 the idea of a *'hair shirt," it is the exception with 
 the race where such character of garment is not most 
 eagerly sought after and assumed ; and this under the 
 hallucination, apparently, that a particular one solicited 
 has nothing of the prickle in it, but that both warp and 
 woof are silken. Even stranger, perhaps, than the 
 putting on of such a robe is the continuous wearing of 
 one ; men enduring day after day the stinging and the 
 smarting, yet coming never to vsee the cause of the 
 worrying and goading under which they suffer ; going 
 down even unto the grave with bowed heads and sore 
 backs, crying and groaning under what is oftentimes 
 deemed a burden too grievous to be borne, and yet, 
 to all appearance, as unconscious as an Anencephalus 
 that in so simple a thing as the change of a habit is to 
 be found freedom from that which so afflicts and dis- 
 tresses them. 
 
 No, Lysias, it is not alone one's fellows that will not 
 let him be; much rather is it a man's self that afflicts 
 himself: each insists on a hair shirt, and deems himself 
 kept from his privileges until he gets one wrapped 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 75 
 
 about him ; the laborer will strive to be master, and 
 the master will strive to go on until he sinks under the 
 weight and the worriment of a wealth of hair shirts, 
 in which he delights to exhibit his cut and flayed body. 
 
 Heed ! It is the office of philosophy to distinguish 
 between hair and silk : a true philosopher has never yet 
 been met with having on his back a hair shirt. 
 
 It is with men who have wisdom, Lysias, as it was 
 with Socrates when the sage admitted the goodness yet 
 recognized an unfitness in the defence prepared for him 
 by thy namesake the Athenian orator. " It is a very 
 fine speech, Lysias," he said, "but it is not suitable 
 for me, being the speech of a lawyer rather than of a 
 philosopher." "But how," replied Lysias, " if it is a 
 good speech, should it not be suitable to you?" "Just 
 as," answered Socrates, "fine clothes and handsome 
 shoes would not be suitable to me." 
 
 To comprehend the law of fitness is to come to the 
 possession of a most desirable kind of knowledge. 
 Heed ! If one would have himself famous, if he would 
 be worldly successful, if he would find himself able to 
 minister in satiety to the demands of the body, if he 
 would be praised by men for stability and be admired 
 by them for a fixedness in purpose, — the secret of the 
 success lies in polishing knife-blades ; or, better still, 
 in giving one's self to the business of pointing pins. 
 
 It seems a very mean office, Lysias; but pointing pins 
 is the business of men in general ; and this, or the 
 polishing of knife-blades, is considered by most people 
 the only office to which one is justified in devoting 
 himself. Who is it that we know that is not hard at 
 work in one or the other of these occupations ? And 
 
76 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 where is the man who is ever found to raise his eyes 
 from the work ? Ah, Lysias, thou noble-born and 
 gentle-bred, what is to save thy fledging wings from 
 the scissors-blades of the insignificant ? 
 
 Come, my Scholar, we will not at least be found 
 wanting in an understanding of the things that most 
 immediately concern us : if it must be that our shoul- 
 ders are to receive the gold-woven, poisoned garment 
 of Medea, we will carry beneath the robe the so little- 
 known antidote, — if this we may come at ; or, if it is 
 to be learned that pointing pins is the only occupation 
 which may worthily employ the lifetime of a God- 
 imaged man, let me help thee find a bench, that thou 
 get to the work as speedily as possible. 
 
 But the Talker with skin-dressers found that 
 
 when the nostrils were elevated there were other odors 
 besides the stench of decaying ofl'al; and while, because 
 of the discovery, no leather-seller was found tempted 
 to leave his shop, yet had Socrates a lesson which, 
 when utilized, yielded him the fresher airs of the Acro- 
 polis and the Piraeus. Let us, Lysias, learn too, if we 
 may, the road that leads to the Port ; or, better still, 
 let us not forget the beautiful images found by Prax- 
 iteles in the quarries at Pentelicus. 
 
 To live comfortably, one needs to consider the place 
 in which one finds himself. Thus, if Posidonius, with 
 whom we sojourn, asserts wealth and high health to be 
 good, let us not, with Hecaton, deny too strenuously 
 that pleasure is good because that there be disgraceful 
 pleasures ; and let us not, when we rest with Chrysip- 
 pus, prate over-freely of the Orestes of Euripides, for 
 such prating makes neither better nor worse the tragedy, 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 77 
 
 while yet it may not fail in bringing to us odium from 
 those who affirm that if the gods use logic it is doubtless 
 that of Chrysippus. Not, however, is it meant by this 
 that a man is to be all things to all men ; on the con- 
 trary, only that man walks in uprightness who is steady 
 to an end and purpose. Yet is it seen that one finds 
 himself able to get along the faster does he not stop 
 too frequently to combat follies which he may not 
 mend, and he who grows aggressive loses only too 
 soon the influence retained by him who ventures alone 
 to be suggestive ; for meant Antisthenes, think you, to 
 applaud or to treat lightly the policy of an evil habit 
 when, condoling with the threatened adulterer, he ex- 
 claimed, '* Oh, unhappy man ! how much danger could 
 you have avoided for a single obol !" And put not 
 Diogenes much of wisdom in his speech when, learn- 
 ing that the Athenians had voted that Alexander was 
 Bacchus, he exclaimed simply, "Vote, too, that I am 
 Serapis!" Was not Copernicus wiser than Galileo? 
 a Descartes of greater worldly acumen than a Spinoza? 
 It is scarcely to be denied, Lysias, that persistence in 
 the use of a single word was the explanation of all 
 the wretchedness that an unsympathizing age heaped 
 upon the God-intoxicated Jew; and it would have 
 been quite as easy, and many times more effective, 
 had the Enthusiast said '* Noumenon" in place of 
 ''Substance." 
 
 A hypocrite, thou sayest, was Copernicus to his 
 highest convictions. Let a man speak as there is in 
 him to teach. 
 
 Good, Lysias ; but men who desire to get along on 
 easy terms with their fellows give not offence in their 
 7* 
 
78 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 speaking, save from necessity ; not with the Pythago- 
 reans are they accustomed 
 
 " If by chance they see 
 A private individual abroad, 
 To try what power of argument he has, 
 How he can speak and reason, and then bother him 
 With strange antitheses and forced conclusions, 
 Errors, comparisons, and magnitudes. 
 Till they have filled and quite perplexed his mind." 
 
 And then, again, Modesty is a jewel which is 
 
 becoming to every complexion ; and never is it to be 
 forgotten that a man may only see according to the 
 lobes which receive the impressions of his retinae. Who 
 might apprehend the subjectiveness of Matter, save him 
 that has the sense of Apprehension ?* or who under- 
 stand severalty in oneness, but him that has Soul ? A 
 learned man is to speak his lore only among his peers, 
 and this for the double reason that either he will find 
 himsdf misunderstood and perhaps laughed at, or 
 otherwise his erudition shall serve alone to confound 
 and confuse. 
 
 There are two things, my Lysias, which it well be- 
 comes the seeker after true living to consider : the first 
 of these being Character, the second. Reputation. 
 
 Character belongs to that which makes its impression 
 through example, not through words ; for never has a 
 man grown better himself or assisted to make others 
 better by an austerity of tongue which finds naught 
 but ill words for ill doers. And then again, my 
 Lysias, who in fault-finding may be sure that he him- 
 self is not in fault ? for of a truth may it not be that 
 
 *■ See " Two Thousand Years After." 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS, 79 
 
 the virtue of one is the virtue of all; and as this none 
 better than a wise man knows, so he who has learned 
 of the fallacies of judgment hesitates long before pro- 
 nouncing either on error or truth. To be presumptuous 
 is not only to be of ill repute among one's fellows, 
 but is, of necessity, to be ignorant and weak ; for was it 
 not he whom the Delphian oracle pronounced the wisest 
 of men whose constant asseveration was that "that 
 alone which he knew was, that he knew nothing" ? and 
 was the greatness of Antisthenes less conspicuous in 
 the modesty of the answer which directed him who had 
 asked what a man could do to show himself upright and 
 honorable, **to attend to those who understand the 
 subject and learn from them to shun bad habits' ' ? Shall 
 Zeno, who thanks the gods that the shipwreck which 
 has destroyed his goods has left him his mind, too 
 hastily find fault with Hyperides, who wins a cause for 
 Phryne through the irresistible arguments of her beau- 
 tiful person ? and shall the stoic condemn Met^^aus be- 
 cause the blood-stained sword grows powerless against 
 the divine beauty of Troy's exquisite Helen ? Was it 
 with uneducated judgment that Theaetetus perceived 
 that a man might not boast himself on his ancestors, 
 *'as that, by the myriad of ages of succession, each 
 must have had grandsires among whom there must have 
 been an innumerable multitude of rich and poor, kings 
 and slaves, barbarians and Greeks ? And to refer one's 
 origin to Hercules, son of Amphitryon, is absurd from 
 its littleness, and is to be laughed at, as such seem un- 
 able to compute, and so rid themselves of the vaunting 
 of a silly mind, that the five-and-twentieth ancestor 
 from Amphitryon, and the fiftieth from him, was such 
 
8o CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 as fortune happened to make him. In all these things, 
 therefore, such a man is ridiculed by the multitude, 
 partly from bearing himself haughtily, and partly from 
 not knowing what is at his feet." 
 
 Again, Lysias, is it not to be accounted virtue to an 
 ill man in that he keeps others from evil through the 
 disgust engendered of his loathsome traits ? And who 
 shall say this nay, if in the bad of one is found the 
 good of two? — a paradox, truly, yet who shall fairly 
 gainsay it? 
 
 Turn we now for a moment to the thing known as 
 reputation. He who would be reputed wise must be 
 content to be ignorant, for, as it is impossible for a 
 truly wise man to be aught else than humble, — and 
 humble does a man grow in proportion as he grows 
 wise, — so without pretension shall a man attain to 
 little present fame ; for hath it not been wisely written 
 that ** it is well to be something besides a coxcomb, 
 for our own sake as well as that of others ; but to be 
 born wholly without this faculty or gift of Providence, 
 a man had better have had a stone tied about his neck 
 and been cast into the sea" ? 
 
 And what was it that Touchstone said? *'If you 
 
 have not seen the court, your manners must be naught; 
 and if your manners are naught, you must be damned !" 
 
 It is then, Lysias, for a man to decide which he shall 
 most enjoy and most prefer, reputation or character; 
 and this is the same as saying, the world or one's self ; 
 or, if one would have both, he shall stand a best chance 
 in coming to the possession through an understanding 
 and reconciliation of the distinctions that exist between 
 them. 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 8 1 
 
 " In peace there's nothing so becomes a man 
 As modest stillness and humility ; 
 But when the blast of war blows in our ears, 
 Then imitate the action of the tiger ; 
 Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, 
 Disguise fair nature with hard-favored rage ; 
 Then lend the eye a terrible aspect, 
 Let it pry through the portage of the head, 
 Like the brass cannon ; let the brow o'erwhelm it 
 As fearfully as doth a galled rock 
 O'erhang and jutty his confounded base, 
 Swilled with the wild and wasteful ocean." 
 
 Living implies necessarily reputation and character; 
 living is the making or the unmaking of one's self. 
 The poet is wrong: that which grows '* modest still- 
 ness" may not breed the *' action of the tiger;" for 
 who that has ascended into the empyrean shall descend 
 to snarl and growl with brutes ? Personal vanity is 
 incompatible with the great and the ideal, and it would 
 seem that one is to elect whether he be mighty or 
 little, God-like or brute-like. 
 
 But, thou askest, is it well for a man that he grow 
 out of his human nature and attributes ? 
 
 This, Lysias, is not what is meant; for a highest 
 wisdom directeth that each and everything doeth best 
 when it fulfils the oflEices of its intention ; but, man 
 being of a compound capability, the soul — if he be 
 possessed of one — is not to be made a minister to the 
 body ; this is indeed degrading a noble office. 
 
 Thou repeatest the oft-told saying, that ''the flesh 
 is apt to be found stronger than the soul." 
 
 Nothing of the body, my Lysias, grows and prospers 
 but as blood is given to the part. Hath not he who 
 hammers, biceps that are like unto the iron of his 
 
 D* 
 
82 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 anvil? and were not the calf-muscles of Jatus, who 
 danced, a marvel to him who dissected the leg ? how 
 else than through exercise has grown the deform- 
 ing passion of Zuras? The soul of a man it is, my 
 scholar, which is the functioning agent to highest 
 offices: give this the excess of pabulum, and baser 
 organs wither and dry up, even as shrivel the things 
 of the field in absence of showers. 
 
 But, thou askest, may a man will such direction of 
 his blood ? 
 
 What, Lysias, if one eat a meal of meat and then 
 walk, directs he not the blood from the stomach to the 
 legs? and, while in action, is his meal not left undi- 
 gested? does one ponder problems without calling this 
 same blood to the brain ? or may a man use mightily 
 his arms without having the excess in these organs? 
 Accept that it is the case that one may give or withhold 
 as he resolves, and that he who wills to give the fuel of 
 the blood to the offices of his higher nature grows and 
 advances into noble things ; while, on the contrary, 
 he who, like unto Zuras, gives the excess to the pas- 
 sions of the corporeal body descends equally into the 
 low and mean. Zuras himself it is who at times per- 
 ceives the weed-raggedness of his soil, and wonders 
 that his ground bears no fruit ; but did ever one cul- 
 tivate a field of grain with half the pertinacity with 
 which these weeds are pandered to, and not have as 
 much of good as has Zuras of evil ? 
 
 Reputation may be true, or it may be false ; not unapt 
 is it to be the latter, for it is a something external to 
 the possessor ; but character, as has been happily re- 
 marked, " is the spiritual atmosphere of a man, and it 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 83 
 
 is as inseparable from him as is the fragrance of a rose 
 from the rose itself. In the glance of the eye, in the 
 tones of the voice, in mien and gesture, character dis- 
 closes itself. No one shall mistake Circe for Diana." 
 Reputation may be made by seeming, character can 
 only be in being ; for is it not observed, even by the 
 least observant, that as is a man's life so does his face 
 come to show what he is, and to express his nature? 
 
 But, thou suggestest, man may cheat himself of 
 pleasure, which nature has created for him, by being 
 over-fastidious, or by living in a false estimate of duty. 
 
 Have it as thou wilt, Lysias ; yet, let a man say what 
 he please and do of himself what he elects, he cannot 
 run counter to the Lex Dei without incurring a penalty 
 which proportions itself to the extent of his error. A 
 natural law is there, which is always right, and which, 
 of itself considered, leads a man never into error ; but 
 to live in society is not to live in natural law, and ever 
 has it been found, and ever, I conceive, will it be found, 
 that man seems to heed best the Vox Dei as he is found 
 understanding and heeding the vox populi. Rest 
 assured that that which is spoken by the common ex- 
 perience concerning matters in general is that which 
 one does best in obeying. 
 
 It is, Lysias, that in nature there is no law more per- 
 sistent than that of compensation : who cheats another 
 cheats himself, who murders another murders himself; 
 and the cheating and the murder are immediate, — not 
 less that which is had than that which is done. 
 
 The temptations of the body, it is to be repeated, 
 are things fully and entirely of temperament, and tem- 
 perament is a thing of birth and construction, and 
 
84 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 signifies what manner of action shall be the habits of 
 the natural man. A man does not make his tempera- 
 ment, — but he may direct its offices. 
 
 For a man to live in law is nothing more nor less 
 than that he live in the experience of a common good, 
 let such law be moral or statute ; and while there may 
 well arise occasions on which a law may seem to bear 
 harshly and heavily, yet will a wise man cheerfully 
 endure the apparent evil for the reason of the good 
 which lies behind. Too much is not to be condemned 
 that crucifixion of the flesh which finds not compensa- 
 tion in an appreciation of higher pleasure secured by 
 the crucifixion ; such dolor belongs not to the ways 
 of nature, and he is but a weak and timid man who, 
 through fear of some distant ill, denies himself that 
 which constitutes a heaven in the present. It is, my 
 Lysias, to be taught that pleasure is the fulness of 
 living, and that he acts with truest wisdom who gets 
 the most out of Time without considering that un- 
 appreciated thing so loosely styled Eternity. I do 
 commend to thee, my Lysias, that thou enjoy that 
 which is most enjoyable ; and if, perchance, it shall be 
 felt by thee after trial and experience that the pleasures 
 of the body are of truer import than are those of the 
 soul, — why, I as warmly commend thee to hold to the 
 former and eschew the latter, being satisfied that this 
 I would incline to do of myself, having, as the object, 
 to get the most out of life.* 
 
 A Truth would it seem to be that Duty is prated too 
 much in the ears of men : discharge of Duty is reputa- 
 
 * See the Author's book entitled " Two Thousand Years After." 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 85 
 
 tion, not character. Law, truly understood, is pleasure, 
 not duty ; for it is the office and meaning of law to 
 select as its highest good that which has found in it 
 the most of enjoyment; so it is that he who lives in 
 law lives in the highest pleasuie, — as the meaning of 
 such highest pleasure has been worked out through the 
 misses, the follies, and the successes of the men of his 
 time and generation, — and in accepting law, as man 
 finds it, the individual comes at once to the good and 
 escapes the evil. 
 
 Shall we, my Lysias, compare the stone hand and 
 the club arm of ages past — the slaying and the fearing 
 — to the skilled fingers which to-day bring from silent 
 lyres sweet sounds? Shall we not liken these mem- 
 bers, stretched forth to protect and shield, to that 
 peace which fears not, neither slays? 
 
 It is found ever the case, my scholar, that the changes 
 made by mankind, the persistent changes, are resultant 
 of his experiences. Men have bartered the thews of 
 steel for the muscles of flesh, that skill, not brute force, 
 shall supply wants ; and the rude animal has been suc- 
 ceeded by the intellectual man, that joy should advance 
 from sensual to the sensuous. Wilt thou, Lysias, fit 
 thyself, with Caravaggio, to produce great pictures ? or 
 wilt thou remain Amerighi and grind colors ? 
 
 " The youth who bathes in pleasure's tempting stream 
 At well-judged intervals feels all his soul 
 Nerved with recruited strength ; but if too oft 
 He swims in sportive mazes through the flood, 
 It chills his languid virtue." 
 
 Vice is that which deforms and which deteriorates, 
 and that which makes beautiful is the reverse of vice: 
 8 
 
S6 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 he, then, who would be beautiful in his nature must be 
 virtuous for the sake of beauty; and he who would have 
 character must consider the elevating and ennobling, 
 that thus he may get clear of humors which debase and 
 which pull down. ** Sorrow," wisely has written a 
 learned Knight of St. Michael, ''sorrow attends vice, 
 for there is in it so manifest a deformity and inconve- 
 nience that perhaps they are nearest right who say that 
 it is begot by stupidity and ignorance. Vice leaves, 
 like an ulcer in the flesh, repentance in the soul, which 
 is always scratching and lacerating itself: for reason 
 effaces all other griefs and sorrows, but it begets that 
 of repentance, which is so much the more grievous by 
 reason it springs within, as the cold and heat of fevers 
 are more sharp than those which only strike upon the 
 outward skin. I hold for vices — but every one accord- 
 ing to its proportion — not only those which reason and 
 nature condemn, but those which the opinion of men, 
 though false and erroneous, has made such, if authorized 
 by law and custom." 
 
 Let the wise man accept, Lysias, that the laws of his 
 day are the criterion of its virtues ; thus shall he assure 
 himself that in heeding the injunctions of the laws he 
 pursues the path of justice and propriety, and that in 
 squaring the appetites and the inclinations of the nat- 
 ural man with the directed line, he performs only that 
 which is akin with the action of the simple who, to 
 save being burned, draw themselves a little farther from 
 the flame of the life-sustaining fire. 
 
 Come we back now to thy question concerning a 
 nobleness of disposition which finds itself above cir- 
 cumstances and surroundings. 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. Sj 
 
 It would seem to be the case that each age brings 
 forth leaders whose mission it is to carry onward the 
 true liberty of human actions. How it comes that 
 such offices are distributed, whether by some special 
 selection of which we wot not, or whether of some ac- 
 cidental conformation of that engine, the brain, which 
 affords the soul wider language, it is the same to us, in 
 that we know that leaders are born. Are the Tables 
 of the Law less an illumination that one may doubt 
 that the voice which uttered them spoke from a bush 
 of flame? Is the *' Zend Avesta" less of Ormuzd that 
 the Persians should have received it through Zoroaster? 
 Who will, with wisdom, deny that highest law of the 
 age, as found in Christ, because that he understands 
 not the miracle of the Deus in carne ? And is it not 
 the case that always does the lesser give way to the 
 greater? Might the rude Bactrian stand before the 
 Persian philosopher, or Moses before the higher evolu- 
 tion of the second Adam? What shall defend the 
 insensibility of Epictetus against the sensibility of 
 Epicurus ? Or who fail to distinguish that the Daemon 
 of Socrates is of wider and fuller perception than that 
 which is the judgment of Theaetetus? 
 
 Who is to be selected for the holding of highest things 
 it is not, perhaps, for mortals to say ; yet through medi- 
 tation, and through the abstaining from things de- 
 basing, does a man find himself brought nigher and 
 nigher unto that which dispenses ; and if it be that a 
 good falls not first into his own fountain, being close 
 by, it comes the more quickly to his cistern, and is, in 
 truth, not less his than had he been the first to receive it. 
 
 It is a soul of good growth, my Lysias, which has 
 
88 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 gained to that mastery of the body by which it is able 
 to direct the mortal in the rules of its surroundings; 
 more and more of the God contains that temple which 
 finds itself ever being lifted from its earthly foundation 
 towards higher place. Ah, my Scholar, who but he 
 that has attained to high things shall understand how 
 much of purer and sweeter contains the air on the 
 mountain than has that which carries the miasm of the 
 valley ? and if it haps not to him of the valley to envy 
 him of the mountain, it is only because of the stupor 
 engendered of the poison he respires. **I care not," 
 said the thoughtful Gascon, *' so much what I am in 
 the opinion of others as what I am in my own." 
 
 He who seeks reputation has left him but little time 
 in which to make character ; so also he who works and 
 strives alone for gold finds out all too soon that little by 
 little has his soul been crushed out of him — if perchance 
 he ever came to the possession of one — through the 
 incumbrance heaped upon it. It will come, my Lysias, 
 sooner or later, to every man to understand that repu- 
 tation is a bauble and a fool's rattle. Is it not to be 
 of reputation to have great means, to entertain many 
 people, to have gay houses and fine equipages? and are 
 not all such matters apt to be found hindrances to 
 noble living ? are not these things to all of us as gilded 
 chains which we do hug the closer even as lower and 
 lower they sink us? Who is the second Monimus that, 
 for his soul's health, shall find strength to break the 
 bands and cast them from him ? Who, alas ! my 
 Scholar, are held more firmly bound in such devil- 
 forged links than thou and he who would teach thee ? 
 
 Who that considers self too closely ever has attained, 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS, gp 
 
 or ever shall attain, to high purpose? Is man anything 
 outside of the God which may be in him ? And what 
 has the All-Giving, the All-Blessing, to do with lauda- 
 tion ? Does not the heat of the sun fructify through 
 that which it is ? scatter not the clouds their crystals 
 of life ? comes not the immortal breath in the way of 
 every man ? 
 
 He who caters for reputation would seem of neces- 
 sity to cater to the dishonest and the untrue. Is it 
 here that is found the absence of everything but medi- 
 ocrity in the annals of to-day? Who is he that shall 
 be the messenger of newest truths, delivering the words 
 as they are told him? Does not, man in his books twist 
 and turn inspirations that, to his readers, the lines shall 
 seem to smack of his own individuality ? Who har- 
 angues the multitude but that he dresses the immortal 
 in the garb of the mortal, speaking words which suit 
 his own ends, rather than giving forth that which is 
 poured for its purpose into him as into a transmitting 
 vessel ? 
 
 Self-abnegation is the first step in the way to true 
 greatness. Shall wiser words be spoken than those 
 which the lips of a Fichte have uttered ? *' So long as 
 man yearns to be anything, God does not come to him, 
 for no man can become God. So soon, however, as he 
 purely and radically annihilates himself, God alone 
 remains, and is all in all." . It is to be understood, 
 Lysias, that mire and cleanliness are incompatible, and 
 it belongs much to a man's free will to elect whether 
 he be clean or dirty. ** You understand me ill," said 
 Sancho XIL, King of Navarre, to those engaged in 
 buckling on his armor, as they remarked his trembling ; 
 D* 8* 
 
90 
 
 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 *' for could my flesh know the danger my courage will 
 presently carry it into, it would sink down to the 
 ground." 
 
 The Infinity it is, asserts Anaximander, that is the 
 sum of the all ! and may the man of to-day do better 
 than respect the belief of the son of Praxiadas ? 
 
 " Ye have that virtue in you, whose just voice 
 Uttereth counsel, and whose word should keep 
 The threshold cf assent ; here is the source 
 Whence cause of merit in you is derived, 
 E'en as the affections good or ill she takes, 
 Or severs, winnowed as the chaff." * 
 
 It is the fixed and abiding belief of thy teacher, O 
 my scholar, gained from insight into a nature even so 
 crude and unrefined as is his own, that a man may come 
 to purge himself of his body, even as a body can purge 
 itself of its dross ; and that as a purged body grows 
 into comfort with cleanliness, so it comes to an un- 
 shackled soul to grow capable through riddance of that 
 which, in a way, acts as clogs to it. And just here is 
 it, my Lysias, had it been understood, should his age 
 have searched for, and found, the meaning of that, to 
 them, most foolish thing, — the Idealism of the miscom- 
 prehended Berkeley. 
 
 Heed, my scholar ! there exist, not less to-day than 
 in the time of Epicurus, pleasures of the body and 
 pleasures of the soul. And it is not less true now than 
 it has been of all time that as the one or the other of 
 these comes to exclusive exercise and employment, so 
 that which is neglected falls into an atrophy which is 
 
 * Dante, Purgatorio. 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. ' 91 
 
 its destruction. It is, then, for a man to inquire of 
 himself what he will be ; for even as the practice of a 
 thing makes one perfect in that thing, so is it that 
 cultivation induces fatness, while disuse or misdirection 
 entails leanness. 
 
 I would offer, thou sayest, a new reading of Cloyne's 
 Bishop. 
 
 If so, my scholar, good ; let us, however, take to 
 ourselves the lesson contained in such a reading. In a 
 sense was the Idealist right when he affirmed that it was 
 not the eyes that looked ; but it is the case that some 
 of these organs seem fitted for close seeing, others for 
 long ; so truly is it, in like manner, that differences in 
 the human soul are found. Some men are so deficient 
 in the God, having cultivated alone the animal, that 
 one might find it hard to discover within them anything 
 divine ; others there are, on the contrary, who are 
 little less than all god, and their bodies seem carried 
 by the soul, rather than the soul by the body. 
 
 " A. Eagle, why fly you o'er this holy tomb ? 
 Or are you on your way, with lofty wing, 
 To some bright starry domicile of the gods ? 
 B. I am the image of the soul of Plato, 
 And to Olympus now am borne on high : 
 His body lies in his own native Attica. 
 
 " Here in her bosom does the tender earth 
 Embrace great Plato's corpse. His soul aloft 
 Has ta'en its place among the immortal gods, 
 Ariston's glorious son, whom all good men. 
 Though in far countries, hold in love and honor, 
 Remembering his pure and godlike life." 
 
 To Berkeley ascribes Pope " every virtue under 
 heaven." ** Whether this man is greater of head than 
 
92 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 of heart," asks a biographer, *'who shall answer?" 
 And say, my Lysias, may a man come to such attain- 
 ments of the soul without he at the same time grow 
 out of the weaknesses of the body ? And as he who 
 lives on the mountain has wider outlook than he of the 
 valley, is it not to be felt that this *' Idealism" of the 
 philosopher had origin in that sense of nothingness of 
 the body which is recognized when comparison is made 
 between soul and things corporeal? Think you, my 
 scholar, that an Aristotle recognized not the outgrowth 
 of the ^'soul" from the body? And have no others 
 save Alexandrians come to know of that ''ecstasy" 
 through which mortal becomes immortal ? Let us, as 
 well we may, ascribe it to Berkeley, that in the culti- 
 vation of the things of the soul he did so ennoble his 
 being, did so grow out of the things of the flesh, that 
 well might he come to doubt if aught had real exist- 
 ence save soul. Seest thou not here character ? did not 
 the face and actions of this mortal shine with a glory 
 which concealed the flesh and apotheosized the man ? 
 and was not this apotheosis seen of all ? 
 
 Always look well, Lysias, before making a step, and 
 trust not to any judgment unless that its conclusions be 
 well and fully analyzed. Knowledge, taught Socrates, 
 is to have its value estimated by its utility ; and the 
 sage spoke with a meaning that the prudent man can- 
 not afford to overlook. 
 
 Whatever may be the speculations of the philoso- 
 phers, and however plausible may he seem whom we 
 read last, yet will we prove wise in not allowing our- 
 selves to forget that ever has it proven to be the case 
 that even those esteemed the most learned, as in example 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 93 
 
 might be mentioned a Plato and an Aristotle, are not 
 unlike, because of weakness in premise and data, to 
 make dissertations which, while they may look and feel 
 like gold, have in them intrinsically less value than 
 have structures of honest brass. Neither are we, my 
 scholar, to forget the sophisms of Carneades uttered 
 before Cato; nor yet overlook that it was one not less 
 learned in all the sciences and philosophies of his day 
 than Pyrrho, who ended his career with the injunc- 
 tion, *' Let no man assert that he knows anything." 
 
 A true knowledge, then, my Lysias, finds its nucleus 
 in an understanding of the things which immediately 
 surround a man : that is, he is to distinguish the mean- 
 ing of things, ad mensuram, — the butter of the cow 
 from the butter of antimony ; he is to understand the 
 value of the money with which he trades ; to know 
 that there are counterfeits in symbols — and as well in 
 men ; is to understand that an umbrella is for protec- 
 tion against rain, and that turned against an excess of 
 sunshine it is not without its good ; that couches afford 
 rest to limbs that are wearied, while sleep restores lost 
 force. Knowledge puts the fork in place of the finger, 
 and saves, through the use of the delicate knife, the 
 rude tearing of flesh by the eye-teeth ; it engenders 
 refinement by proscribing what is indelicate; points 
 out straight paths in place of those which are crooked ; 
 guards one against surfeit by teaching what is temper- 
 ance ; keeps one in safety by exposing what is danger- 
 ous ; in short, the first steps in learning pertain to the 
 things of the first steps in life, — the ditch which crosses 
 the road is to be reckoned before planispheres are 
 invented. 
 
94 
 
 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 To have what the world calls uncontfnon sense and 
 yet to be without the common every-day judgment of 
 the practical man is scarcely to be possessed of true 
 wisdom. " O beloved Pan !" cried Plato, " and all ye 
 other gods of this place, grant me to become beautiful 
 in the inner man, and that whatever outward things I 
 have may be at peace with those within. May I deem 
 the wise man rich, and may I have such a portion of 
 gold as none but a prudent man can either bear or 
 employ." 
 
 It is a question of first importance to almost every 
 man how he shall order his efforts so as to secure to 
 himself maintenance ; and this, my scholar, is a matter 
 of such practical signification, that we may well be 
 justified if we pause in our discourse to seriously con- 
 sider upon it. The stomach-full is not the heart-full; 
 let us not, Lysias, overlook this, for see you not that 
 which was beneath the surface in that reply of Diogenes, 
 wherein he affirmed that he would rather lick up salt 
 at Athens than enjoy all luxuries with Craterus ? and 
 was there not depth of wisdom in the rejoinder which 
 sneered at the advice of a Plato to court Dionysius 
 rather than wash vegetables in the market-place ? ** To 
 know," says a writer, "when we are young, or to be 
 able to do when we are old : here indeed would be 
 wealth." And what may one who would get wisdom 
 do better than gather from the garners of the expe^ 
 rienced ? 
 
 Of the common follies, Lysias, which experience 
 exhibits as among the greatest, is to be noted one 
 through which is being brought into the world more 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 95 
 
 of misery and misfortune than arises perhaps from all 
 others : I allude to that foolish vanity which prompts 
 husbandmen and sons of husbandmen to aspire to what 
 they deem the more exalted station of the town ; as if, 
 forsooth, he who stands behind a counter bedecked 
 and befurbelowed with laces and ruffs is half so nobly 
 employed as he who in the bright sunlight stands face 
 to face with his Creator, and who, in unison with 
 nature, lives in a law of true self-support. Can it be 
 otherwise than that the broad acres are left for the 
 narrow confines of the shop but at the expense of a 
 step downward ? And shall what are called the learned 
 professions offer wider fields in which to run the mental 
 cultivator than are found in glebes and valleys which 
 are as laboratories in science and pulpits wherefrom 
 ever resound poems and orations ? What a weak, silly 
 boy, and how much in need of leading-strings, is he 
 who envies the cleaner-dressed shop-tender ! Is it not, 
 my sturdy, brown-fingered lad, a miracle to raise an ear 
 of golden corn ? And is it any more than thy sister 
 could as easily do to measure yards of tape ? Cease, 
 in thy envyings, to play the fool, and look to it that the 
 greatest wisdom of the world is found to recognize the 
 advantages of the farm and here to seek what elsewhere 
 it has never been able to discover. 
 
 " The smallest dust which floats upon the wind 
 Bears the strong impress of the eternal mind. 
 In mystery round it subtle forces roll, 
 And gravitation binds and guides the whole; 
 In every sand, before the tempest hurled, 
 Lie locked the powers which regulate a world; 
 And from each atom human thought may rise 
 With might to pierce the mysteries of the skies,— 
 
96 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 To try each force which rules the mighty plan 
 Of moving planets or of breathing man, 
 And from the secret wonders of each sod 
 Evoke the truths and learn the power of God." 
 
 Also is it found that in the family relation lies a 
 chief source of man's happiness. Now, in country- 
 living does such relation find a highest development, 
 while it is undeniably the case that the herding to- 
 gether in great cities is destructive to all that is most 
 beautiful and tender in such ties; and this exists in the 
 fact that to the husbandman increase of family is in- 
 crease of wealth, whereas to him of the town a large 
 family is too often found synonymous with large dis- 
 tress; this arising not in lack of natural affection, but 
 in the disturbance of that law of demand and supply 
 which must increase as they who consume overcount 
 those who produce ; for is it not plainly seen that as 
 Midas cannot nourish himself upon the gold that he 
 coins, some one must of necessity raise of the things 
 of the earth that excess over his own wants which shall 
 serve to feed the money-stamper? and if it be that 
 coiners outnumber plowmen, so want must come apace, 
 attacking first him who has least to pay, and in time 
 being felt by every man who himself produces not. 
 
 What a false sight is that which sees not the under- 
 surface of the purple and fine linen, as if, indeed, to be 
 clean externally is necessarily to be the same all the way 
 through ! The husbandman coming into the house of 
 the citizen and looking little beyond the door through 
 which he has entered imagines a peculiar comfort in 
 all that meets his view, and in contrast with his own 
 plain-furnished domicile repines at a lot the bright side 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 
 
 97 
 
 of which he refuses to look upon. Let him the rather 
 go forth with the master of the house, a physician is 
 he perhaps, and while the night wears drearily along 
 together shall they wait in the noisome court, or from 
 street to street seek the embarrassing in those whose 
 call they attend ; a surgeon is he perhaps, and a frac- 
 tured limb that refuses to unite holds vigil about the 
 sleepless pillow, with its threatenings of a sad result ; 
 a merchant maybe, and angry creditors and delinquent 
 debtors conspire to make hard the couch and to banish 
 appetite from the table ; or perhaps the citizen is a 
 speculator, and the fluctuations of his investments so 
 constantly threaten reverses as to deprive him of all 
 sense of solid ownership in what even the people call 
 his, and engender a feverish unrest which renders it 
 simply a matter of time how long he may resist his 
 wear and tear. 
 
 Not is it to be understood, my Lysias, that all mer- 
 chants are bankrupt or that all speculators are unsuc- 
 cessful \ yet no hesitation is to be felt in declaring that 
 the life of the husbandman is most in accord with 
 nature, and that that which is in such accord must have 
 in it the greatest chance for happiness. 
 
 But the husbandman is in fault in that he does not 
 cultivate the sesthetic. That his home is too often a 
 dreary spot and his surroundings uninviting is the fault 
 neither of house nor farm, but lies rather in his own 
 ill tastes and habits ; for who may be without the beau- 
 tiful having evening clouds for pictures? or who have 
 curtainless windows while vines grow which give not 
 only pleasant shade but yield as well fragrant smells? 
 
 There is absence of Knowledge in the full coffer and 
 
98 CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 the empty head. What son or what daughter but shall 
 be brought to an ill judgment when are perceived in a 
 vocation naught but work and sleep, naught but boiled 
 bacon and the refuse vegetables of the garden ? shall 
 such not come naturally to envy him to whom are 
 carried the fatted lamb, the fresh and succulent melon? 
 A pitiable and sad sight is it to look into the rooms 
 of multitudinous country-houses, created apparently 
 with the double purpose of neutralizing cheerfulness 
 and mingling chills with young blood ; one accustomed 
 to brighter things must needs exert himself to repress 
 the shudder which comes of simply passing the shut 
 doors of such apartments. And how many such places 
 are there which picture themselves in our associations ! 
 lintels so low that one must stoop the head in passing, 
 and yet of such breadth as to recall the door-jambs of 
 an Egyptian tomb ; fire-dogs, supporting the cheerful 
 brand only on funeral or christening occasions, glisten- 
 ing in the gloom with the glare of a just dead 7ioli-ine- 
 tangere; the everlasting curtains of green paper, half 
 rolled and string-tied, vying with the tightly-bolted 
 shutters as to which shall create greater gloom \ the 
 flat seats of hair-cloth, and the coffin-like nails of a 
 company-sofa, — all, all of them bought and kept for 
 the ornamentation of such delectable places and the 
 keeping away of God's heart-cheering mercies! 
 
 A servant, my Lysias, may be richer than the master; 
 inasmuch as to the windows of his cabin there are no 
 shutters, no green-paper curtains, no fire-dogs upon his 
 unpainted hearth too good for use, no parlor-seats with 
 backs never out of the vertical, no sofa with coffin- 
 nails, no lack of sunshine. 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. 
 
 99 
 
 There is absence of Knowledge when the young man 
 buying his carriage considers alone the gloss of the 
 varnish, measuring not the strength of the axle, neither 
 weighing the uses for which the vehicle is needed. 
 There is lack of Wisdom where the painted cheek is 
 allowed to count for more than the unpainted heart, 
 and where wit is suffered to stand for more than judg- 
 ment. Beautiful is the neck that shames the jewel, and 
 fairer than pearls are teeth through which ebb and flow 
 the translucent ; a scatterer of golden dust, each atom 
 drunk with sunlight, is the blonde curl ; and sweeter 
 than frankincense is the passion-bearing breath of 
 beauty : but a wealth of charms may come to sink into 
 the recesses of a skeleton that is beneath; light-scat- 
 tering teeth may fall amongst black holes and repel 
 amorous kisses ; gold-dropping tresses may give away 
 the sun for things suggestive of decay; and frank- 
 incense comes at last, in spite of its purity, to be lost 
 and swallowed up in the septic. It is lack of Wisdom 
 to lean too heavily upon tender things. 
 
 No Knowledge is there where a man is led to find 
 beauty and goodness and grace greater in another than 
 in his own. He who baits for trout is not apt to find 
 himself hooking the minnow ; eyes which look forward 
 see not things which are behind. An Angel imagined, 
 flesh and blood etherealize themselves in the vision. 
 That which was, let it be forever. As form changes, 
 let change the eyes which look. 
 
 " Thou wert a worship in the ages olden, 
 Thou bright, veiled image of divinity; 
 Crowned with such beams, imperial and golden, 
 As Phidias gave to immortality !"" 
 
lOO CONCERNING THE AVOIDANCE 
 
 I think, my Lysias, that of the multitude of foolish 
 people to be met with in the world there is no man 
 more silly than he who estranges from him wife and 
 children that he may waste his time, his morals, and 
 his soul's health in search of other objects of gratifica- 
 tion. Hear Zuras prate of the beauty and grace of 
 Phryne. Was there ever, to believe him, such harmony 
 as lives in the shades of her wardrobe ? And do not 
 fields of odor, he asks, exhale from her lips? Great 
 fool ! let Zelia change the scanty and mean robe, which 
 yearly he doles out to her, for the bright color of 
 Phryne's dressing; let the jasmine be poured over the 
 sorrow-whitening locks of the debased, degraded, and 
 dejected one, and who then shall have the harmony 
 and the fragrance ? It is, my Scholar, as though one 
 should cast mud over his own jewels, yet working in- 
 cessantly to the polishing of strange stones, wondering 
 all the while that as the one brightens the other dims. 
 Zuras wonders what has robbed Zelia of her beauty. 
 
 Everything must be paid for with its price : a debt 
 not cancelled to-day carries with it on the morrow an 
 interest, and on another day this is compounded ; and 
 so it is that a dime becomes a dollar, a shilling a pound. 
 When first came to the household the son now so feared 
 and dreaded by Zuras, had not the boy dimples in his , 
 chubby cheeks? and were not the little arms ever 
 stretching themselves, tendril-like, to take hold of the 
 father? But Zuras, denied he not the support claimed? 
 Was it not deemed of trouble to afford the little 
 needed? And thus did it come that the tendrils find- 
 ing nothing at home turned elsewhere. And where is 
 
OF UNQUIET HOURS. iqi 
 
 it that to-day the hands are clinging? Do they not 
 shake trouble upon Zuras, even as worms fall into the 
 mouth of him who lays him down beneath noisome 
 vines? Ts the boy not a bawd? and bids he not fair 
 to outrun his exampler in evil courses? And who 
 made him a bawd and a shaker of evil things upon his 
 household ? Did ever any one hear sweet discourse 
 between Zuras and the boy? Have these ever been 
 seen arm in arm trudging through the lessons of the 
 field, taking into their natures the instruction of woods 
 and running streams? 
 
 Was it not the rather that the boy learned first 
 
 of things devious ? Came there not to him as an early 
 lesson a sense of things deceptive ? Grew he not into 
 his young manhood cognizant of a second current not 
 like unto that flowing upon the surface? And thus, 
 discovering hypocrisy in the father, might he be ex- 
 pected to deny in his own conduct the lesson of his 
 life? Verily, what Zuras sowed, that is he reaping. 
 Unquiet hours have come upon him. It was Zuras 
 who would not let himself alone. 
 
 Heed, Lysias! the harvest is as the planting. See 
 to it; if thou wouldst have pomegranates, that thou 
 plant not Dead-Sea apples. 
 
CONCERNING THAT WHICH IT MOST 
 PROFITS A MAN TO UNDERSTAND. 
 
 WHEN Pompey, on his way from Brundusium to 
 Cilicia, made the historical visit to the queen 
 city of the Grecians, that which most impressed him 
 at the home of the philosophers was a line which met 
 his eye as he turned to pass without the wall ; it was 
 graven across the inner face of the exit-gate, and read 
 thus : 
 
 " Know thyself a Man, but act the God^ 
 
 It is chronicled, indeed, that so powerful was the 
 influence exerted on the Roman by this line, that he 
 was found, ever afterwards, to hold himself of more 
 heroic and dignified presence, and that when sorrow 
 came upon him the remembrance of it was as a shield 
 into which even the dagger of a Theodotus could not 
 enter. 
 
 Heed well, Lysias ! A man may accept wisely, with 
 the "Imperator," that in the Athenian injunction is 
 to be found the whole meaning of a man's life; he 
 who gets to himself its import has fastened to a rock 
 from which he may no more be moved than might be 
 1 02 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 103 
 
 changed the place of a planet whose holding anchor is 
 the law of gravitation. 
 
 '*But is the import for every man? Is every man 
 capable of taking it into himself, and of living 
 with it?" 
 
 Thou shalt judge for thyself. Yet to understand it, 
 implies that one come into such state of self-revelation 
 as is alone to be found in an apprehension of the sig- 
 nificance of Providence. To-day, Lysias, I would hold 
 solemn converse with thee: thou wilt not deny me 
 attentive ear. I would leave thee to-day having thee 
 feel that Strength is no mystery, that Christ is no 
 mystery, that even to apprehend of the God is not any 
 more difficult a thing than it is to co7nprehend of the 
 correlations and transmigrations of the entities Matter 
 and Force. I desire to have thee understand, that — 
 as the uses of a man are concerned — explanation of the 
 meaning of the God lies within the human ; that to 
 apprehend God a man must turn his eyes from the sky, 
 directing them towards his own heart. 
 
 On a yesterday it was suggested that unless a man 
 has gotten to himself understanding of the meaning 
 of Providence he acts not wisely in pushing inquiries 
 too curiously; and this, for the reason that confusion 
 must ensue, which confusion is as a pathway leading 
 into blackness, — into a blackness profounder than that 
 of Erebus, sorer than that which is said to come of 
 being in the deepest parts of Tartarus. 
 
 Man is to assume that in knowledge is to be found 
 the key to all mysteries : how the apple gets into a 
 dumpling is an enigma to a fool ; how Neptune dom- 
 inates Georgium Sidus is a perplexity to the sciolist; 
 
104 COA'CEJ^A'IXG SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 but the enigma is easily enough solved by a housewife, 
 and the perplexity is not at all confusing to the learning 
 of a Le Verrier. 
 
 It is written in the '^Arcana Ccelestia," written, not 
 only in a show, but out of the logic, of widest obser- 
 vation and experience, that man ought to be imbued 
 with sciences and knowledges, since by these he learns 
 to think, afterwards to understand what is true and 
 good, and at length to grow wise. Plutarch, in his 
 ** Morals," has an injunction for such as would find 
 good at the hands of the goddess-mother of Horus, 
 which exhibits convictions entirely correspondent with 
 the professed inspirations of the Mystic. **It is not in 
 the nourishing of beard," taught this farthest-seeing 
 of the pupils of Ammonius, "nor in the wearing of 
 mantles that men find themselves philosophers ; so 
 neither do shaved heads nor human garments make 
 priests to Isis ; but he is the true priest of Isis, who, 
 after he hath received from the laws the representa- 
 tions and actions that refer to the gods, doth next 
 apply his reason to inquiry and speculation of the 
 truths contained in them." 
 
 Such men, as will, grow into priests of Isis, and 
 such are not to pursue their ministrations at the altar 
 as automata make their marks ; on the contrary, such 
 are to come to an understanding of the meaning of 
 themselves, and are to recognize with the Mystic that 
 *'true intelligence and wisdom consist in seeing and 
 perceiving that they who will and do are they who 
 are in the God, and in whom is the God." Also 
 " that true intelligence leads one to understand that 
 uses are subordinated in divine order, and that no man 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 105 
 
 who has attained to knowledge pretends to arrogate 
 dignity to himself, but ascribes all dignity to the use; 
 and since the use is the good which he performs, and 
 all good is from the God, therefore ascribes all dignity 
 to the God. He, therefore, who thinks of honor as 
 due to himself, and thence to use, and not to use, and 
 thence to himself, cannot perform high offices, because 
 he looks backward from the God by regarding himself 
 in the first place, and use in the second." 
 
 hi the God ; the God in him. This it is, Lysias. 
 Here is the meaning of the human. Here is the sim- 
 ple, single difference between men and the other things 
 of creation. That man who is not in the God; in 
 whom is not the God, differs alone in shape and aspect 
 from the brutes, the vegetables, or the minerals. Such 
 a man is to be accepted as having immortality after 
 the manner of the immortality of Matter and Force 
 existing duals : the pleasures and uses of such a man 
 differ in nothing from the pleasures and uses of ani- 
 mals at large. A Thing can know of itself ^ and of 
 things which are without it, alone through the Senses 
 found in its compositio7i. That man who is not a 
 temple of the Holy Ghost, who has not as part of him 
 the Sense of Godliness, can by no possibility know, 
 save indirectly, of the God. 
 
 Would I imply that there are men who are as gods? 
 
 More even than this, Lysias. I maintain that analysis 
 of creation exhibits that any and every thing seen in a 
 man, which is neither Matter nor Force, is an imme- 
 diate expression of that Severalty which, in its oneness, 
 
 is the omnipotent God himself. A priest of Isis is 
 
 Isis : that is, — see that thou get it not wrong, — is Isis, 
 
Io6 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 as a drop of water is the ocean : each particle being 
 of the elements of the whole.* 
 
 In Faith is the Ease of men : a man without faith is 
 miserable, even though he have everything else ; who 
 possesses this wealth is in comfort, though his morrow 
 be without promise. Faith is strongest when its foun- 
 dation is in understanding; understanding arises out 
 of a reading of the open pages of Nature : here, hap- 
 pily, words are of largest type, and the language is 
 not without familiarity. I would assert that Faith and 
 Knowledge are one and the same thing, even though 
 it is seen to be the case that men are found having the 
 
 former who are without the latter. There are many, 
 
 many paradoxes : thou wilt not be wrong in deeming 
 this to be one of them. Let a man get to himself the 
 meaning of Providence, and he has gotten the Alpha 
 and the Omega of life-lessons ; he has found the mean- 
 ing of — Ease. 
 
 **And can one understand, in truth, of this per- 
 plexity? Can comprehension "be had of a meaning 
 which is said to reside in a listening, hearing, answer- 
 ing Thing, which Thing is seen to pull down quite as 
 often as it raises; which is seen to menace not less 
 frequently than it is recognized to bless?" 
 
 Softly, my friend. Cannot Lysias understand how it 
 is that the stream upon the surface of which our boat 
 is at this moment being floated, runs always towards 
 the sea even though the earth be in constant rotation ? 
 May he not as well perceive that on reaching the main 
 the water takes other motion which brings it back, 
 
 * For arguments, see " Two Thousand Years After." 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 107 
 
 even to the mother spring; and that thus, though it is 
 always going, it is ever coming; that indeed the water 
 is ever here, — here in this valley which lies in its 
 grand solitude between these mighty hills whose rugged, 
 
 oaken-haired heads are held so proudly over us ? 
 
 Ah! placid stream, little different from thy life is that 
 of man's mortality ; thy destiny is likewise the meaning 
 of the human. Wheresoever thou art going, man goes; 
 howsoever thou art coming, man comes ; forever, beau- 
 tiful thing, shalt thou be found flowing in this rock- 
 bordered channel between the mountains ; forever will 
 Lysias and his friend be here to lave in thy everlasting 
 freshness, and to drink in with greedy ear the song of 
 thy rippling wavelets. 
 
 Yet does the Life of a man, Lysias, differ from 
 
 that of a down-gliding stream, in that the human has 
 been made with hands which may hold oars. 
 
 And still again does it differ from that of a 
 
 down-gliding stream, in that the man is not less a 
 creator than a created thing, — in that he needs alone 
 to abnegate self in order to be able fully to compre- 
 hend why curses are as plentiful as blessings ; why 
 down-tearings are as frequent as up-liftings, — in order 
 to understand that he himself is a cause of things over 
 which he grieves, and at which he wonders, — in order 
 to recognize the meaning of Providence. See to it, 
 see to it, Lysias, that for the sake of thy manhood thou 
 get understanding of what is here meant, and that for 
 the sake of man's mission as he holds relation with his 
 fellows, thou remain not longer without apprehension 
 of the intention of thy creation. 
 
 The meaning of a man is in what he does, and in 
 
lo8 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 what he becomes ; in whether he denies the God and 
 remains an animal, or denies the animal and grows 
 into the God. 
 
 The Miracle of the World is that of the Deus in 
 came. The lesson ever teaching itself to the observ- 
 ing is that the God does everything, but that every- 
 thing is done through means; that the God does 
 all, yet the God does nothing. In this is, indeed, a 
 miracle of miracles. Everything performs a part, 
 things inanimate, as well as animated things ; rains 
 descend and water the earth ; winds blow and freshen 
 the atmosphere; winters come and go, thus affording 
 
 rest to the soil and renewal of its energy. And 
 
 men; men, according to that which they are, eat grass 
 and flesh with the brutes, or — play the part of a Provi- 
 dence to themselves, and to their fellows. 
 
 Give heed, my good Lysias, and consider well a 
 suggestion. Because one is a servant it is not to be 
 denied that he is of the species Homo. If, in like 
 manner, one maintain that effects accomplished through 
 the fingers of an agent be the work of a master, he has 
 fact, not less than logic, to his support. The good 
 found in the world is as are the waving wheat-heads 
 met with in fields, — is as are phenomena understood 
 in a Noumenon. Men are, in themselves, makers of 
 wheat-heads ; yet bread is from the God alone. See, 
 Lysias, here are the premises of a syllogism which the 
 Stagirite himself would not have faulted : ergo, it is to 
 be maintained that man finds within himself a measurer 
 of self. Thus it is! God being Goodness, — the ab- 
 stract, the only Goodness, — all the actions of the God 
 must necessarily pertain to the good ; Godliness gives 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 109 
 
 forth good, — the good of Will, — precisely as a sun 
 gives forth the physical phenomenon of light; pre- 
 cisely as water gives forth moisture ; as air is the 
 source of refreshment : so, after a like manner do men 
 and brutes and vegetables give forth ; — that is, each 
 according to the nature of its composition. But 
 man, unlike other mundane things, gives or withholds 
 according to a spontaneity which he finds — or does 
 not find — within himself. In proportion, then, as a 
 man discovers a will that is inclined to a performance 
 of godly offices, in such proportion is he to accept that 
 he has the God dwelling with him, and in him ; for to 
 be a cause, or origin of results, is to be Noumenon to 
 phenomena ; and that is what God is. Here, Lysias, 
 is a measure that may never deceive a man : hold thou 
 closely by it for self-examination. Such things as are 
 not begotten of an animal organization are necessarily 
 of the Divine ; this we know, in that the world pre- 
 sents but three entities.* Certainly man is of kin, as 
 Bacon hath it, to the beasts by his body; and if he be 
 not of kin to God by his soul, he is a base and igno- 
 ble creature. The Mystic was even happier in the 
 putting of it. Angelhood, said the Sage, is that stage 
 to which a man arrives when individuality becomes 
 lost in office. 
 
 Explain this last to thee ? Willingly. So long as a 
 man holds as uppermost the Self, just so long is he an 
 animal acting as an animal, and consequently has no 
 other strength than that which belongs to the automa- 
 tonism of an animal organization ; but that moment in 
 
 * See " Two Thousand Years After." 
 10 
 
no CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 which Selfhood is given away to office, man becomes 
 of God, and from that moment he knows himself im- 
 mortal in this office, and eternal in the meaning of his 
 work. Such a man has no longer any concern about 
 death, because he understands that the God does not 
 die ; neither has he regard to corporeal discomforts, for 
 the reason that he has been rendered insensible to such 
 trifles, — he has, in truth, found immortality. 
 
 This Godhood in self, Lysias, is what a doctor pos- 
 sesses when a midnight call to a filthy room in a 
 filthy court is not less welcome than is a bidding to a 
 palace where the flare of zephyr-swept gas-jets mingles 
 with the sparkle of wine, and where livid lips, and 
 glassy, back-sinking eyes, find replacement by the flush 
 of passion-crimsoned cheeks and by flash of jewels 
 borne on the daughters of Beauty. This, too, is what 
 he feels when with sore and tired hand and brain he 
 importunes continuously at the door of the Oracle 
 craving from the Arcana medicines which shall afford 
 to him the means of relieving and uplifting. I con- 
 gratulate thee, Lysias, on thy choice of a profession. 
 The Doctorate is a great step into the Substance of 
 the Infinite — but, to the animal, it is alone weariness, 
 weariness, weariness. 
 
 To say, "Our Father," and to feel in the heart 
 the fulness of this endearing and trust- giving name, 
 is to find an all-sufficient support in time of need 
 and is to get to one's self an all-satisfying comfort 
 in time of trial ; we would converse to an ill end if 
 our comprehension of the meaning of phenomena 
 be found too meagre to lift us above the physical 
 sophisms, which in these days thrust themselves too 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. m 
 
 often with veil-like import between man's vision and 
 Providence. 
 
 We, — thou and I, — my scholar, are positivists, are 
 materialists'; let us call ourselves by such name, mean- 
 ing by it that we are students, together, of the natural 
 sciences. We dig into the earth with a spade and with 
 spectroscope we analyze sun and moon, that we may 
 learn of what these things are made. We laugh in 
 derision at Nobert as in the field of a microscope we 
 behold the inimitable markings of a diatom. We fall 
 back overwhelmed by the meaning of the name God 
 as we have gotten to ourselves idea of creation as 
 expressed in the space through which vision has peered 
 to behold Uranus. We are Christians, my scholar; 
 that is, we believe in the Christ : with all our heart, 
 and nature, and our little learning, we believe in the 
 Incarnated ; and we so repose our faith because that we 
 find endorsement, in height and depth, in width and 
 breadth, of what Revelation has unfolded and declared 
 to man. Surely is it the case, as the experiences of 
 a well-considered life will demonstrate, that in the 
 knowledge to which a man may come has he materials 
 for the lesson which Nature would teach to every one for 
 his good concerning this matter of special Providence 
 as the meaning of it is to be found in a law of Self- 
 Dependence, — that great lesson, that the God is to be 
 seen most plainly when he is seen not, and that he is 
 doing all for us, and is nearest us, when, apparently, 
 he is doing nothing, and is farthest away. 
 
 Much has come into our way, my scholar, to ask 
 about and to inquire into, — but never have we asked, 
 or never have we inquired, where a governing or 
 
112 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 controlling principle was found to reside elsewhere 
 than in a law, which law was discovered to be without 
 change. 
 
 It is assuredly a canon of Nature — as the positivist 
 reads the lesson — that man has been appointed his own 
 care-taker ; and if the lesson has been read aright, it is 
 certainly the part of wisdom that one make the best 
 of a condition to which he finds himself appointed, 
 and that he live in accordance with it. In such under- 
 standing, I may only declare to thee a conviction 
 that man fulfils his part in the formula of his relations 
 when he seeks, in knowledge, answers to wants; or, to 
 put it in other words, it is a truth which forces its way 
 to acknowledgment, that knowledge has, for man, the 
 significance of Providence. Let me make for thee an 
 example of this meaning. It happened thy Mentor 
 only so short a time back as yester-noon to perform an 
 operation of great gravity on the person of a poor and 
 very illiterate man ; the endurance and stoicism of the 
 patient were the astonishment of all assembled in the 
 chamber ; not the heroism of Epictetus in presence of 
 the tortures inflicted by the brutal Epaphroditus was 
 more wonderful ; the source of the strength lay in a 
 crucifix grasped tightly by the hands of the venerating 
 and confiding mortal. Well, too, thou recallest that trust 
 met with in the person of a disease-stricken woman 
 which would not permit the approach of our professional 
 office until the candle blazed on the altar of the Virgin, 
 and the rosary had been clasped about the neck which 
 a necessary touch was to dye so deeply with the blood 
 of the afflicted one. Ah, Lysias, how much of such 
 consoling and upholding faith does a surgeon meet with 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 113 
 
 in the ministrations of his sad duties ! And what, save 
 strength and skill, should the sight bring to the fingers? 
 The prayers are not to the doctor, in seeming; and 
 yet he is to take the ovation of blazing candles and 
 clasped crucifix all to himself: his is the office of the 
 power and help that is evoked and solicited ; the jnantle 
 is upon him, and of other aid is there none. It was 
 ourselves, Lysias, that cured the afflicted one ; it was 
 ourselves that stood as ministers between the want 
 and That to which appeal was made. Had this poor 
 woman been away from the needed means, she would 
 have found herself away, as well, from the Ear which 
 hears ; and for her disease there would have been no 
 remedy. Heed, Lysias, and receive understanding of 
 the personal responsibility resting on a man to yield 
 himself an instrument to the God whose offices are 
 performed through means. Heed ! That man is to 
 esteem himself the special Providence^ to any call, who 
 finds himself able to answer the call ; he who turns him 
 away from such a call pushes back the hand of a helping 
 God. Such a man interposes deftial between a need and 
 the love and care which seek to succor. 
 
 If one accept the teachings of the God, he accepts 
 that it is the priest who binds and the priest who loosens. 
 Knowledge is the mantle of a Peter which covers the 
 shoulders of every successor who is elected, or who 
 elects himself, to the wearing of the sacred robe. Yet 
 is a priest not necessarily confessor to his own faults, 
 nor is a surgeon necessarily physician to his own ail- 
 ments: men are made confessors and healers of one 
 another, and in such a sense, wherever knowledge 
 exists, there also abounds the meaning of priests and 
 10* 
 
114 
 
 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 doctors. A saving power is always in proportion to 
 the wisdom ; a priest is strong to lift up, or a surgeon 
 to succor, according as he is mighty in the meaning 
 of his office. 
 
 It is a sorry faith that leads to a dependence on 
 special miracles for one's daily food and needed 
 comforts : he who so trusts will find his bowels get 
 empty enough, and it may not be doubted that his 
 limbs will grow stiff and cold to stoniness if he wait 
 until prayer shall cut and card and weave for him a 
 woollen suit. And yet a miracle is constantly per- 
 forming; every wheat-grain holds the loaf; every hill- 
 side feeds sheep which carry about with them the needed 
 garments. Heed, Lysias. When a man begs Provi- 
 dence for bread, does he aught but solicit the God to 
 do a mower's work in the harvest-field ? or if he beg 
 for raiment, does he not invite him to a place in a mill ? 
 Oh, it is wonderful, it is indeed God-like, this miracle 
 of man and earth and heaven — and of hell. An au- 
 tomaton looks, and the God seen in his eye is recog- 
 nized by all the things of the earth. A field of dirt and 
 a few seed, and, lo, in response to a command, the face 
 of the ground covers itself with that bread which is the 
 life of every living thing ; a good action, a single good 
 turn done, and, behold, the sky opens and a dove de- 
 scends. Speak to the earth in the language understood 
 by it, and behold a volubility so great and so continuous 
 that the barn overflows with its answer, and the store- 
 house groans under the weight of good words confided 
 
 to its keeping. -And the language understood by 
 
 the earth has been confided to man : if one refuse to 
 use this tongue, refuse to speak the word which alone 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 115 
 
 may open the gates of the treasury, why let him starve j 
 and dying, let him go his way, that room may be made 
 for his betters. 
 
 Wisdom is the protecting means ; the wider the 
 
 knowledge the greater the safety. Get wisdom, then, 
 
 my Lysias, if thou wouldst become to thyself, and to 
 others, a Providence upon which dependence is to be 
 placed. Knowledge, which gives understanding, is the 
 special Providence of the world. Knowledge cures 
 fever-ridden valleys; it tells the meaning of bug-pes- 
 tered crops; it keeps a man in health, and enables 
 him to understand that he himself is the god of the 
 pestilence ; it laughs at signs in the heavens before 
 which the unthinking fall down and tremble. 
 
 But here our boat-prow strikes the landing- 
 place. No matter: we may continue our discourse, 
 with as little interruption, as we trudge through wood 
 and by farm towards the place of our destination. 
 
 Here, Lysias, see this stupid tortoise : no con- 
 cern of danger hastens the movements of its slow- 
 crawling limbs; how obstinately the reptile hugs the 
 line of the treacherous rail ! Where is the Providence 
 to this poor thing, if it be found not in thy hand or 
 in mine? Back, Lysias, back! the train is upon us. 
 Too late, alas! too late. See how the crawler has 
 been scattered into nothingness. Poor tortoise, igno- 
 rant tortoise, thou wast, of thyself, unconscious of the 
 mercilessness of the iron jaws which were shutting 
 themselves upon thee ! 
 
 Shout loudly, Lysias: still another life is running 
 the gauntlet of this place of crossing tracks. What 
 animal is this that comes flying on wings of fear before 
 
n6 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 the mightiness of steam? See! the wretched brute 
 understands the danger that threatens, yet comprehends 
 not enough to make the single side-step necessary for its 
 salvation. What shall save the runner? Alas! the 
 times have outgrown the instincts which are its Provi- 
 dence, and, like all lower things, it must fall before a 
 higher, — if perchance its fate bring it to the conflict. 
 
 And yet we, thou and I, fear not, neither are 
 
 in danger, even although in unconcern we tempt the 
 screeching monster by mocking at his power as he 
 rushes with a whirl along the road of iron to which his 
 
 law confines his course. Why this safety to us? It 
 
 is the great law of life, Lysias ; the law of the survival 
 of that which knows best how to take care of itself. 
 
 '* Cruel and merciless is this law to the lower forms 
 of life," thou sayest. 
 
 Not so, save in seeming ; for, being found too low, 
 a thing must be made over into a something higher. 
 Doubt thou not that both tortoise and horse shall 
 find, in good time, a plane in which exists safety for 
 them. When the tortoise was made, its home was 
 under the mould of the leaf-carpeted forest, not a place 
 of rails and of ponderous engines ; but now the deepest 
 glades of quietest woods are giving up both safety and 
 solitude to the restless energy of steam. What mercy so 
 great as that which lifts up and carries helpless things 
 to a transformation which is their salvation ? Doubt it 
 not, Lysias, doubt it not, this is a mercy of the God. 
 
 Here is a garden, here are vital germs, and here 
 
 are iron and wood for implements of husbandry. Has 
 not the God done a great part in giving these to the 
 man who owns them ? Yet if it please this one better 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. uy 
 
 to beg than to hoe, vvhy let him try his knees and his 
 words. Undeniably // is the law that something, or 
 somebody, must plant and hoe ; such a law may be a 
 very bad one, no doubt every man imagines himself 
 able to have framed a better, still it is the law and 
 there is nothing to do but abide by it ; let this owner 
 of heaven -created wealth never mind the gratitude, or 
 the appreciation, that belongs to noble natures, let him 
 never mind the wonderful law that makes the earth 
 respond to a working ; never mind the care and fore- 
 thought which put water rills deep beneath the surface 
 of his ground that thus he might have cool draughts ; 
 but let him beg and whine; and when delving for crystal 
 springs let him curse the rootlets found in the way of 
 his spade, because that these make it the harder to dig. 
 It is no cause for gratitude that these rootlets are the 
 life of the waters — and the life of him who drinks. 
 
 Yes ; surely it is the case that Wisdom and special 
 Providence are one, and that he who would have the 
 protecting care strongest about him prays to most 
 purpose when he exerts himself to get knowledge and 
 understanding of the laws of his relations ; and such 
 study, and such understanding, bring the God close to 
 a man, while at the same time they so overwhelm the 
 mortal with consciousness of the mercy and goodness 
 which are the protection of men, that no language of 
 solicitation is found left him ; his eyes have become 
 opened, and, in an astonishment that has no words, he 
 stands awe-struck before the Prescience which is found 
 to have considered his every want, mortal and immortal, 
 even ages before his name had utterance on the earth. 
 And heed, Lysi.is: it is as easy, and as simple a thing 
 
Ii8 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 of performance, to grasp a soulful of the immortal 
 manna, as it is to get a mouthful of the bread that 
 nourishes the body. 
 
 Heed further, my thoughtful friend. What 
 
 might possibly reconcile a man to the suffering seen 
 everywhere over the earth, if one understand nothing 
 of that law in which resides the miracle of compensa- 
 tion ? Children taken away from the arms of doting 
 mothers, husbands torn from the hearts of loving and 
 dependent wives, disease attacking and defeating health, 
 fortune wrested from men and scattered broadcast to 
 the storm. It seems that the world goes on after this 
 manner to the unthinking man ; and such a one, finding 
 himself thrust to the wall, is not to be blamed because 
 that he hurls a hiss and a curse at Providence and goes 
 his way out into the blackness. If we, thou and I, 
 might not arrive at any better understanding of these 
 things, we also would curse God and die, or, if we did 
 not thus, it would be our courage alone that would 
 
 falter. But it is philosophers, they whom we take 
 
 for our teachers, that have lifted a corner of the veil, 
 and who have looked beneath the surface ; these have 
 come to the understanding of transformations of unfit- 
 ness into fitness, of pain metamorphosed into pleasure, 
 of ugly things made over into the comely, of the old 
 converted into new and fresh. No ! no ! It is not 
 possible for Understanding to waver in faith : Wisdom 
 smiles in trust even while the sword of the God descends 
 and slays. Let us, my scholar, apprehend, through 
 what we comprehend, that in the bottom of every grave 
 is a door through which a dead man passes to life. 
 
 Lean on thy own staff, Lysias, nor trust to other 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE 
 
 119 
 
 support. Does not experience know of what it advises ? 
 Surely is this matter of a special Providence one that 
 very little wisdom would seem to be able to open, and 
 
 to look into. And yet, heed thou, heed another 
 
 paradox. We may accept that the God troubles him- 
 self little enough about the corns and the bunions and 
 the gutter-slips of the people who are so persistingly 
 calling on him for salves and lotions : at least these 
 things are what such need for their relief, and it is to be 
 inferred that, whatever the language used, cerates and 
 
 washes constitute the meaning of their prayers. And 
 
 yet it comes to us to recognize that outside of the God 
 there is no cure, — no cure for anything, either for great 
 evils or for small. Can we reconcile such a paradox ? 
 Let us see. He who sits him down to analyze will not 
 fail in coming to discover that ignorance may not 
 heal anything ; but that cure, either of mind, body, or 
 estate, proportions itself to an intelligence which directs 
 a treatment. ** Not of myself, but through the Father, 
 do I these things," said the Christ. So also did He 
 teach that it needed but the possession of greater faith 
 by the disciples that even the ponderous mountain 
 should obey a voice that would command its removal. 
 It is that part of the God which comes and dwells 
 with a man that saves him when it is called to his ser- 
 vice; and the saving-force is in proportion to the God 
 evoked. The God works for a man's salvation from 
 evil, when it becomes understood well enough to be 
 invited into his legs if he need to run, into his arms if it 
 be essential to strike, or into his brain if it be necessary 
 to scheme. He who shall find himself cast suddenly 
 from a ship's deck into the sea will do best by saving 
 
I20 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 his words and using the motions of the swimmer: or 
 if he have learned none of these motions and so 
 finds himself without a hand under his breast, he is 
 not to grumble that he has become his own drowner. 
 Heed the lesson, Lysias. There is not a care, or a 
 trouble, or a danger, upon the earth, or within it, 
 or above it, that the Capability of man is not the 
 master of it ; yet is Capability a virtue so poorly 
 cultivated that the bravest of surgeons stands cowed 
 by so insignificant a thing as a cancer-cell, and an 
 honest lawyer knows not which way to turn for the 
 meaning of Equity. 
 
 Cut a staff by the wayside, or in the wood, or wher- 
 ever one may first be met with by thee, waiting not for 
 that which is gold-knobbed, or for one the size or out- 
 line of which may best please thy fancy. Everybody 
 may have a supporting staff; only it is not everybody 
 that will take up with the kind coming in his way. 
 
 Make not a too common mistake, in being over- 
 particular; neither, having once hold of a something 
 that gives comfortable support to thee, be over-ready to 
 let go ; if the right hand tire of the grasp, change the 
 staff to the left, giving it up never until a better or a 
 smoother be within thy easy and certain reach. Men 
 put it as it is — however well or ill the manner may be 
 — when they say, '' Every man for himself, and the devil 
 take the hindmost." A man does best when he has the 
 good fortune to understand from the start that such is 
 the common rule and idea ; that it is the tramway upon 
 which life runs. It may be all well enough to wish 
 that things were different, or to moralize and philoso- 
 phize on what the state and condition of society and 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 121 
 
 affairs should be ; but a man cannot live on the ab- 
 stract, even though appetite might be appeased with an 
 olive a day. 
 
 Look where a man will, using his own eyes, or the 
 lenses of the microscope, and soon enough is evidence 
 furnished him that battling and struggling are the 
 means and laws of animal self-maintenance : the tiger 
 lies concealed in the jungle waiting for the passing of 
 an animal weaker than itself, and if the legs of the 
 latter have not swifter stride than the limbs of the 
 former, there is nothing, aside from accident, that will 
 succor and save the weaker thing. 
 
 The man who trusts to a miraculous up-spring- 
 ing of barriers which are to place themselves between 
 him and a danger that threatens, will find his flesh in 
 the lion's jaw long enough before time may recover 
 for him an opportunity lost in the waiting. 
 
 Grave-yards are the thickest populated of the 
 
 cities ; they would be the thinnest if prayers would have 
 kept the inhabitants out of them ; and yet prayers are 
 all well enough, only that under certain circumstances 
 they are most in place if directed to the doctors. 
 Believe, Lysias, that a man acts with most wisdom, 
 and consequently most in accordance with the law, in 
 preferring a lancet to words when about to be over- 
 whelmed with an apoplexy, or in esteeming a hot foot- 
 bath more to the purpose of an incipient pneumonia 
 than is supplication. Heed ! We are to accept that 
 it is the Deus in carne, the God which dwells in 
 man, who is the curer of evil. Learn to understand 
 this, then wilt thou know at which of the many altars 
 offerings are to be made ; to the priest, if it please 
 
122 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 thee, when thy soul needs consolation ; to the lawyer, 
 when thy estate is in danger ; to the physician, when the 
 
 body is suffering. And in going to these altars man 
 
 seeks the aid of the God, after the manner of the law 
 of God ; for the offices of life are universally performed 
 through instruments. He who has the best doctor 
 will find himself — all other things being equal — kept 
 longest out of the cemetery. 
 
 " And what concerning prayer to the Infinite ?'* 
 O Lysias, thou beloved of my heart, what words 
 may measure such a subject ? What may the little say 
 to the Great? the man to the God? Who that shall 
 comprehend ever so little of this stupendous thing 
 called Life shall have afterwards words left him for 
 utterance ? An understanding of the phenomenon of 
 existence cannot fail to show everything so fully con- 
 sidered, so perfectly ordered, so elaborately detailed, 
 that the only prayer left to man is that in which he 
 breathes out his thanks. It is the Positivist certainly 
 that has learned the true meaning of prayer. And 
 that which he has learned is, to be ashamed to ask for 
 more where such fulness has been given. See, Lysias ; 
 what if where catharsis was needed there were no 
 cathartics to be found ? or what if when the life of a 
 man lay in the requirements of a sweat no means of 
 diaphoresis existed? What if no middle tunic had 
 been made to the arteries? or what if blood did not 
 come to the surface to cool and to purify itself? Be- 
 lieve me, my scholar, if the Positivist uses fewer words 
 of solicitation than do some other men, it is for the 
 double reason that he knows of nothing needed for a 
 man's comfort but what is to be found lying at hand. 
 
CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 123 
 
 and that to solicit would be like asking for fuller 
 measure in a vessel seen to be already running over. 
 The Positivist stands entranced before a majesty the 
 omnipotence and graciousness of which leave him 
 nothing to desire, nothing to ask for, nothing ta fear. 
 The true Positivist prays, prays over every good that 
 he receives, prays over every mercy that comes to 
 him ; but his prayers are thank-offerings — not solici- 
 tations. Understanding that power which has been 
 given to man, he plants acorns, and through the provi- 
 dence of a multitude of leaves he makes needed rain 
 for his dry places. Comprehending the manner in 
 which special Providence performs its office, he drives 
 the fiend of an intermittent back into its native 
 element, using alone as his instrument a twig of the 
 cinchona-tree found growing along the borders of the 
 marsh ; he creates a quarantine, and says to the 
 scourges of the epidemics, *'Thus far, and no farther ;" 
 he builds a breakwater, and from behind the massive 
 pier mocks at the threatening waters of the treacherous 
 sea ; he clothes himself with furs, and ceases to have 
 concern about a falling temperature; he holds a crystal 
 of ice to his fever-heated veins, and recks not that all 
 
 nature is panting. And yet, my Lysias, whence are 
 
 ice and furs and life-saving cinchona-trees? Thank 
 thou the God for these, but entreat him not that, in 
 servant fashion, he follow thy footsteps, carrying his 
 mercies after thee. 
 
 ** Consoling enough," thou sayest, *'is all this for 
 the lusty and the confident; for him of the purple 
 and fine linen ; for the bride whose pillar of strength 
 
124 CONCERNING SELF-DEPENDENCE. 
 
 is an arm of steel. But in what, with such showing 
 of the meaning of Providence," thou askest, ''are to 
 rest the bedridden and the helpless? Where is he to 
 seek to be clothed whose garments are tatters ? What 
 castle is to afford its protection to her who is a 
 widow?" 
 
 These shall rest, all of them, Lysias, in Providence ; 
 all of them are to come to Lysias, or, rather, Lysias is 
 to go to them. And if Lysias go not, go not because of 
 a compulsion that he finds within himself, then is he to 
 hang his head and pass out to a companionship with 
 brutes ; for of a verity may no analysis show that he 
 differs from the beasts at large; a man is to understand 
 himself as being above other animals only in that pro- 
 portion in which the God occupies him. That human 
 who asserts Providence to be unmindful of the cares 
 and miseries of the bedridden, the garmentless, and 
 the heart-stricken may only be a beast ; for there is 
 not within him enough of Providence to know itself. 
 
 ''And is a man to accept that when that power 
 which is to be found within himself, or in his fellow- 
 men, fails him, then chaos has come to him?" 
 
 A drop of water, Lysias, has within itself its own 
 moisture ; but dash of waves, the roar of surging swirls, 
 and mightiness of power, live in the sea. When the 
 scorching sun-rays come, a drop of water undoubt- 
 edly does best by running to the ocean. Ask thou the 
 God about these things ; for in what the Senses fail to 
 instruct a man, Deity stands ready to inform him. 
 
 " That thou art happy, owe to God ; 
 That thou continuest such, owe to thyself." 
 
VI. 
 
 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 THAT thou art anxious, however, to pass from these 
 more serious matters of discourse and to renew 
 gossip concerning things nearer to a young man's nature 
 than are platitudes and apothegms, I may not doubt. 
 Happy Lysias ; Love is in chase ; soon wilt thou find 
 thyself entangled tight and fast enough. But heed ! 
 Apollonius was not all wrong : there is a philosophy 
 of love. Let us learn something about its meaning. 
 
 It was well suggested by him of Chseronea from whose 
 wisdom we have before learned, — and Plutarch, like all 
 other men who amount to anything, was a true lover of 
 the sex, — that woman is as a beautiful mirror to reflect 
 a husband's face and temper; *' for if he be pleasant," 
 said the sage, *'she will be merry; when he laughs, 
 she will smile ; and when he is sad, her heart will par- 
 ticipate in his sorrows, and ease him of half his pain." 
 A gallant picture is this, my Lysias, drawn by a gallant 
 spouse : the portrait is that of Timoxena. 
 
 Hear also this, which Angelo has written : 
 
 " Oh, how good, how beautiful must be 
 The God that made so sweet a thing — 
 So fair an image of the heavenly dove!" 
 
 II* 125 
 
126 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 And this other, by a bard of even warmer and more 
 appreciative nature : 
 
 " Now I have tasted her sweet soul to the core, « 
 All other depths are shallow ; essences, 
 Once spiritual, are like muddy lees." 
 
 Wonderful, Lysias, in their fuhiess, to him who can 
 understand them, are the lines last quoted. No wonder 
 that men of dull taste accuse the poet of mistaking 
 imaginations for facts. But the men of dull tastes are 
 wrong; the capabilities which lie in a loving woman 
 are beyond any words of any language to tell about 
 them ; he who possesses a woman's heart — who is the 
 recipient of the outpourings of her soul's core — finds 
 indeed that the lover is right ; that all other depths 
 are shallow ; finds indeed that even the depths of the 
 poet's lines are shallow — shallow as when measure is 
 compared with the fathomless and bottomless. Accept, 
 Lysias, that when thou hast met Love thou hast come 
 to the purest and the most satisfying of all that the 
 earth has to offer ; if thou make not much of it, thou 
 wilt have undone of thyself the chance for happiness. 
 
 Yet withal has love an antithesis: out of this 
 
 same sweetness, it is not to be denied, came the boy 
 CEdipus, and the house of the father was made to suffer 
 grievous wounds. But Apollo is just, and gives fair 
 warning : see to it, and understand ; if thou wouldst 
 not meet Fate on the road at Phocis, heed the voice 
 which spake to the king : *' O King of Thebes re- 
 nowned for its chariots, sow not for a harvest against 
 the will of the gods, for that which is born shall slay 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 127 
 
 thee, and the whole of thy house shall wade through 
 
 blood." What men call love, Lysias, is, in truth, a 
 
 bitter-sweet. 
 
 This- is the harvest to which Aristippus sowed : 
 
 "I love Lais," said the son of Aretades, "to the 
 end of my own personal pleasure and enjoyment, just 
 as I love good fish and good wine, not expecting nor 
 desiring to be beloved by these in return, but con- 
 suming them because of what my appetite finds in 
 them." Heed also a description, given by Protogenes 
 to Diaphnaus, of certain who call themselves lovers : 
 *' Some men, in their favors to women," wrote the 
 teacher, "are not unlike to cooks and butchers who 
 fat up calves and poultry in the dark, not out of any 
 extraordinary affection which they bear to these crea- 
 tures, but for the gain which they make out of them." 
 Such, Lysias, are lovers who quickly enough find their 
 sweet turned into a bitter, just as it is with ravenous 
 eaters who get bones stuck in the throat, or as with 
 drinkers who find themselves consumed of that which 
 they take into their stomachs to relieve a growing 
 thirst. Selfishness begets selfishness ; so out of a man's 
 own evil are born those scorchers of human kind, the 
 Agathocleias, Lalages, and Medeas, examples whom he 
 of Verulam had undoubtedly in mind when he con- 
 temned the passion as being a something of very de- 
 basing influence: "As if a man," said the scholar, 
 "made for the contemplation of heaven, and all noble 
 objects, should do nothing but kneel before a little 
 idol, and make himself a subject, in place of remain- 
 ing what he was born, a master." 
 
 Easy is it, says -^schylus, to give monitions and 
 
128 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 precepts when the foot is not entangled in misery's 
 thorny maze. He who stealthily carries the fire of the 
 son of the goddess must be willing to take the risk of 
 Prometheus, and if he find himself, because of his 
 temerity, stretched and fettered upon some rock in 
 gloomy Scythia, he is to blame neither the law of Jove 
 
 nor the rivets of Vulcan. The fire of love belongs 
 
 to the god — to the godly part of a man's nature. 
 
 When the brute part plays with this fire, it is accident 
 if it get not singed. 
 
 It is after some such manner as this, Lysias, that I 
 think we are to look at it. When the God made Man, 
 wishing to endow the *' Nobler Self" with a priceless 
 gift, woman was created. The Saxon calls the sun 
 *'She" — Die Sonne: the Saxon is right; to that 
 ** Nobler Self " woman is as light showing the beau- 
 ties of the world ; to the Animal she may prove as 
 a heat which withers and burns as does the fire of hell. 
 
 Men use love as they are found to use the gift of 
 
 Prometheus; many getting from it, life ; many finding 
 
 in it, death. Hist, Lysias, a pearl upon the breast 
 
 is an ornament ; gotten into a man's gullet it is suf- 
 focation. 
 
 No less surely than did Adam comprehend the 
 meaning of Eve does a man come to the recognition 
 of passion with the sprouting of his beard — unless it 
 be, as has been remarked by the quaint Burton, he 
 have a gourd for a head, or a pippin for a heart. But 
 the passion of love, like unto the other passions, is 
 not — as has been hinted — without more than a single 
 signification, and though one prefer to accept it with 
 Angelo, yet does he not well to remain ignorant of the 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 129 
 
 meaning of the Carian, who describes it as that which 
 places men on a level with the flies in their desire for 
 milk, or with bees in their love for honeycomb ; neither 
 is he wisely without knowledge of the interpretation of 
 that boast of Lucretia who declared, and surely proved, 
 *'that she could perform greater miracles on the human 
 heart by the dexterous management of her personal 
 charms, than all the philosophers, alchemists, necro- 
 mancers, sorcerers, and witches of the known or un- 
 known world could, by their cunningest practices." 
 
 That man is to be looked on as a pitiable fool, my 
 Lysias, who has stumbled along through life without 
 ever having come to a consciousness of the capability 
 of woman to afford pleasure. Woman is as a har- 
 vest-field to all the senses ; sight, hearing, touch, taste, 
 
 all, may garner from her. Man can exhaust the 
 
 world, all of it, all save a woman; her he cannot ex- 
 haust ; she reaches out of time, and the love that she 
 gives, if properly used, passes with him into the eter- 
 nity and constitutes the meaning of his heaven. 
 
 Heed further, Lysias. Woman is the paradox of 
 man's life ; she inspires and lifts him, she absorbs the 
 force from him and topples him headlong into nothing- 
 ness. An Apelles makes a Venus Anadyomene only 
 
 when a Campaspe is the model his art reflects. And 
 
 a Paris — a Paris risks Troy — and himself — for a draught 
 from the cistern of Helen. Woman is a fragrance from 
 before whose breath the odor of roses might well sink 
 
 away in despair of rivalry. Yet it was a woman 
 
 that breathed upon the sons of the master of the 
 Golden Fleece, and they died. 
 
 It would seem, Lysias, — to express the whole matter 
 
I30 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 in other words, — as if, when Love was born, a bastard 
 twin was pahned upon Venus, and that so alike are 
 the two that not only are men constantly finding them- 
 selves mistaken in the object of their worship, but even 
 Juno is not unfrequently deceived.* Something of 
 this idea had Alexis in mind, it would appear, when he 
 named Heroic Love a monster of nature, wit, and art, 
 a fiend, he says, who tortures the body, crucifies the 
 soul with melancholy in this world, and consigns its 
 victims to an everlasting torment in the world to 
 come ! And not without a similar recognition was the 
 anatomist when he declares that the god waits only 
 until he come to the mastery, to subvert cities, over- 
 throw kingdoms, destroy towns, ruin families, corrupt 
 the human heart, and make massacre of the species. 
 
 Heed, Lysias, a man is not to suffer himself to 
 
 be betrayed by the false god, neither is he to delude 
 himself with false estimates of the judgment that is to 
 discover him. A Samson, strong enough, and wise 
 enough, to tear asunder the jaws of lions, finds himself 
 shorn by a Delilah. The conqueror of Brutus, whom 
 a Caesar, with his hordes of Roman legions, was not 
 powerful enough to beat down, turns at the invitation 
 of a flying Cleopatra, giving away with each stroke of 
 his barge-oars a league of the Nile. Ninus loses Asia 
 to win a smile from Semiramis, and even Athenian 
 Justice unbalances her scales before the beauty of the 
 client of Hyperides. 
 
 No man so strong, but that the god, using a woman's 
 form, — the form of some particular woman, — is likely 
 
 * Juno : the protectress of married women. 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE, 131 
 
 to be found stronger. Agamemnon was not at all 
 peculiar in having his judgment won over by the 
 blandishments of Clytemnestra, and in walking upon 
 silken tapestry — to a scented bath with which his blood 
 mingled. The dagger that cut deep into the life of 
 the master of Priam had its force, not in the memory 
 of a sacrificed Iphigenia, but in whisperings of what 
 ^gisthus might become to the mistress of Cassandra.* 
 
 Neither is it well that a man bite his own hand 
 
 and then blame his teeth for the hurt ; an Aristippus 
 
 makes a Lais; a Jason a Medea. And then, again, 
 
 let a man beware that the false god take not mean 
 advantage of his temperament ; temperament is some 
 men's Mephistopheles. Woe betide the mortal whose 
 eyes are not open to distinguish an Alcestis from a 
 Circe ! If a man mistake the false for the true, though 
 he be of the same mettle as the Thunderer himself, he 
 shall not escape the rivets that bind to Caucasus, nor 
 keep his vitals free of the flesh-tearing beak of the 
 vulture. Hist, Lysias, look out for thyself; thou wilt 
 have enough to do ; leave it to them to find fault, who, 
 being without sin, can afford to cast stones ; when thy 
 hairs shall have grown gray thou wilt have learned 
 charity, and wilt not confound the passion of Pluto for 
 Proserpine with the sentiment of an Endymion for a 
 Peona. Neither wilt thou dare to fault Ninus, not 
 having seen the face of the Servitor's Slave. 
 
 Luther, our own Luther, he whom we do not hesitate 
 to accept as a teacher, he who was the originator of 
 our Protestantism, understood all this; understood it 
 
 * iEschylus. 
 
132 
 
 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 well ; hesitated long, no doubt, before condemning too 
 freely; had perhaps as little to say about Anthony as 
 about Ninus. 
 
 Shall I recall his famous couplet, quoted on another 
 occasion ? — 
 
 " Who loves not woman, wine, and song, 
 Remains a fool his whole life long." 
 
 No wonder that a priest with such convictions re- 
 siding in his temperament found it necessary to have on 
 hand a supply of prayer-books, in order that one or 
 more might be in constant readiness for a shie at the 
 devil. A saintly man was Luther; very saintly; his 
 flesh rebelled, however, at its too continuous cruci- 
 fixion; his prayer-books were a needed defence; had 
 he been just a little weaker, or a little stronger, — both 
 mean the same thing, — Satan would have had him neck 
 and heels, in spite of ptisans or breviaries, — that is, 
 if it be so ungodly a thing to love woman, wine, and 
 song. 
 
 Would I condole with or condemn so epicurean a 
 disposition? I would do neither, Lysias; but this I 
 would do, I would have thee understand that out of 
 this peculiar temperament comes the strength of manly 
 men. Little men rob hen-roosts; the Alexanders rob 
 empires. A great genius is a hundred or a thousand 
 ordinary mortals moulded into one; the faults cor- 
 respond with the virtues. I would have thee think 
 twice before adding the blast of thy penny whistle to 
 that great cry set up by the multitude at the follies of 
 those with whom common men compare as do mud- 
 turtles with demi-gods. 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 133 
 
 In a sense, it is a misfortune to be born with tem- 
 perament ; a great misfortune, — that is, if it be a tem- 
 perament which keeps a man constantly under the lash. 
 Is this not well expressed in that sad story of *'Iphi- 
 genia in Aulis"? — 
 
 *'I envy thee, old man; and I envy that man who 
 has passed through a life without danger, unknown, un- 
 glorious; but I less envy those of honor. 
 
 Old Man. **And yet 'tis in this that the glory of 
 life is. 
 
 King. ''Pleasant things are yet not without a sting: 
 yet let me forbear, remembering that what I am the 
 gods have made me. But no one of mortals is pros- 
 perous or blest to the last, for none hath yet been born 
 free from pain." 
 
 Forget not, Lysias, who it was that, with light stolen 
 from Olympus, wandered through Crete searching for 
 
 the Nymph to whom the hoofed Satyrs knelt. But 
 
 a hint is as good as a sermon to him whose ears are 
 open : our discourse was to be of Love, not of the 
 pseudo-passion. Let us pay our court to the god of 
 the wife of Admetus. 
 
 12 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 YET still o-ne more word concerning this matter of 
 Heroic Love, and its associations. 
 
 Of not very different make from Luther was the 
 
 godly Augustine, — not different from him in tempera- 
 ment, — not different in that prudence which Aristotle, 
 with such show of wisdom, has pronounced the most 
 profitable of all things. 
 
 Let me make thee understand. A man having no 
 sturdiness in his fibre is little better than a withered 
 stick. Could a man, spiritless and lank, have built the 
 foundations of a Reformation? or, might such a one 
 repeat the glories of the " De Civitate Dei"? It is 
 nonsense ; it is indeed crime against nature, that men 
 are found continuously crying shame on that which is 
 the meaning of their strength. The old man was right. 
 ''It is in this, O Agamemnon, that the glory of life is." 
 
 Yet because a man have appetite for meat is it 
 
 excuse for him if he eat himself into a sloth? or having 
 desire for drink is he to come to no grief if he guzzle 
 himself into a sot? I alter not my opinion, Lysias, 
 good and bad are things of relation, not things in 
 134 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE, 135 
 
 themselves.* When the Monk wrote his couplet he 
 used the words and thoughts of a man ; not those of the 
 hypocrite. How is Prometheus to help it if men insist 
 on turning his flame into an evil?f Or who may fault 
 Song because that so many sing themselves into grass- 
 hoppers?! Song is a cheerer or a depresser, Wine a 
 consoler or a mocker, Woman a lifter-up or a puller- 
 down — according as each is understood, and used. 
 
 Lysias will not be among the simple who conclude 
 that because in strength is found an element of evil, 
 thus license is afforded to do ill deeds ; he who makes 
 such mistake is not long in coming to destruction. 
 What is the good of a thing, or what the bad, is to be 
 understood — and is only to be understood — in the law 
 of relations : this is the first matter into which sensible 
 men inquire. Relation makes all the difference in 
 the world: makes the difference between crime and 
 innocence, between vice and virtue, between wrong 
 and right. No crime at all was it in the Sultan Mah- 
 moud that the wives in his harem were in number 
 like unto the leaves of the palm-tree that stood in his 
 court-yard ; no crime in the Patriarchs that hand- 
 maidens were constrained to add their share to the 
 population of the earth. But things are altering, have 
 altered ; women are no longer slaves ; the earth is full 
 of men. It is to-day crime if a man marry more 
 than one woman — crime against the man's own good, 
 — crime against the humanity of womankind, — against 
 
 * " Two Thousand Years After." 
 -f- Prometheus Bound, ^schylus. 
 X Phaedrus, Plato. 
 
136 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 the conclusions and convictions of that intelligence 
 which from the beginning of the world has been 
 working at the problem of Happiness. For heed, 
 Lysias, Law means nothing different from the experi- 
 ence of highest good, and every man who has common 
 sense uses his best effort to live within the directions 
 of the law of his surroundings ; not through fear of it, 
 but because of that which he gets out of it. 
 
 An individual man may not trust himself to his own 
 direction ; too weak or too strong is he ; the organiza- 
 tion of the Human is like that of a circle which reaches 
 to the God by its zenith, and by its nadir rests upon 
 the devil. It is a not unapt simile to liken men — the 
 strong and lusty — unto the eagles. Away such soar — 
 upward — upward — until eyes weak as our own lose 
 sight of them ; and then at times down they tumble — 
 down — down — until they are seen sprawling in the 
 mud. Or, we might liken them to the fish-hawks: 
 proud-looking enough when on the wing; abased-look- 
 ing enough when being pulled under drowning waves 
 by mean things toward which appetite has tempted 
 them— by old ale-wives, forsooth. 
 
 Now, what may a man of common intelligence, and 
 that means nothing diiferent from common sense, do 
 else than abhor the unwisdom of such as Aristippus ? 
 Fools indeed are these : they smutch things which it is 
 their best interest to keep fair ; cover lilies with filth, 
 
 and then speculate on the problem of lost purity. 
 
 Tar-sticks indeed, clean-looking enough in the dis- 
 guises of their barky coverings ; not less lofty in stature 
 than are the straight pines of the forest ; not less made 
 up of pitch. 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 137 
 
 Yet, while abhorring, we may hesitate to be over- 
 severe on the defects we condemn, being ourselves of 
 the sex and not unconversant with the infirmities of its 
 make-up. True, we recognize that our own appetite 
 craves neither flesh nor blood, but this is not to be 
 counted as virtue to us, seeing that we are of small 
 mouth, that our muscles are soft, not hard like iron, 
 that the furnace of our nature will burn with chestnut 
 coals; seeing that Aristippus is a child of the Sun, 
 
 that we are sons of Luna. Ah, Lysias, what a 
 
 strange compound is man ! no better, at times, nor 
 wiser, than a stork whose tidbits are searched for 
 among garbage ; anon a walker with majestic stride 
 over the golden streets of the sacred city, a wonderer 
 at the plodders who find delight in the coarse-paved 
 road -ways of Rome. Who shall say what a man is? 
 what he will be? Praise no one of the race until the 
 mortal part of him lies buried deep within the earth. 
 
 Yet while not faulting Aristippus because of his 
 beastly course, nor condemning a stork because the 
 bird prefers garbage to fragrant fruit, it is not amiss 
 that we profit from the ill of the examples and that we 
 get to ourselves understanding of how much better it is 
 for a man that he bend his efforts and his desires to- 
 ward things satisfying and ennobling; this, not for the 
 sake of that which people call virtue, — having little or 
 no idea of what is meant by the word, — but because it 
 is tliat an Aristippus is sure to come to a leprosy, that 
 the stork runs much risk of having its muscles eaten by 
 maggots. 
 
 Heed, Lysias, our speech is after the manner of our 
 animal organization. We may not say anything against 
 12* 
 
138 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 spleens — albeit these are the organs which make hot 
 blood, — for spleens are in the bodies of all men, and 
 being so found, being made of nature, they cannot be 
 aught else than good things in themselves. Who keeps 
 a spleen, however, in too close or too continuous re- 
 lation with things adverse to its health finds it increase 
 in bulk until it come« to fill the whole abdomen and 
 at length to destroy him : as, for example, it is with 
 foolish sheep, which, knowing nothing better, stuff 
 themselves with succulent clover and thus burst their 
 bellies. 
 
 Happy are we to esteem that man whose soul-force 
 is great enough and strong enough to lift the body 
 into heavenly atmosphere ; but if a man have not this 
 force, then are safety and comfort to be looked for 
 alone in the exercise of his senses; that is, he is to hug 
 the letter of the law, — is to call that white which is so 
 pronounced by his fellows, and that which people in 
 general smutch he too is to blacken. In one word, 
 common men are to go with the crowd. Wolves that 
 bite not are bitten. 
 
 What do I mean by this last? Well, perhaps no- 
 thing; perhaps a great deal. Thou wilt understand 
 better when experiences explain. Heed, Lysias, there 
 is much that is good in humanity ; very much. Yet 
 withal is there a very great deal that is wolf-like. All 
 right is it — perhaps ; assuredly it is not for us to gain- 
 say it ; beasts are according to their organization. A 
 wolf rends his wounded fellow; a man does the same: 
 neither maybe able to control his appetite — for blood, 
 
 or for scandal. Yet mercy is abundant — most of it 
 
 being found, however, where least is needed. And 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 139 
 
 charity is plentiful — a profusion existing where want is 
 not. 
 
 Grave deeply, Lysias, into the tablet of thy con- 
 sciousness understanding of the fact that the nature of 
 woman is negative — that she is a bringer-forth accord- 
 ing to the planting ; — of flowers, lotus flowers, that 
 exhale sweet odors making up a fragrance which is 
 Letheon to sorrow — of nettles which may prove stings 
 and smarts to all the actions and memories of a man's 
 life. 
 
 What a difference between the sexes! Man, ag- 
 gressive, aspiring to domination ; woman, yielding, 
 seeking happiness in dependence. The faults of man, 
 positive, arising out of his puissance; the mistakes of 
 woman, feminine, growing out of her unselfishness, out 
 of her desire to serve, out of her self-abnegation. " It 
 is not meet," says an Iphigenia, *^that a man should 
 come to strife with all the Greeks for the sake of a 
 woman, nor lose his life : and one man, forsooth, is 
 better than ten thousand women that he should behold 
 the light. I give my body for the king, sacrifice it 
 that he may be saved." * This too from Alcestis : " I 
 die, O Admetus, causing thee at the price of my own 
 life to view the light; for while I might have married 
 a Thessalian and have lived in a palace blessed with 
 royal sway, yet bereft of thee I might not, nor could 
 Ilive."t 
 
 That is like them, Lysias, like all of womankind. 
 
 Accept and act upon it as thy estinaate of the sex. 
 What the mulberry-leaf is to a silk-worm, love is to a 
 
 *■ Iphigenia in Aulis, Euripides. -f Alcestis, Euripides. 
 
I40 
 
 CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 woman. Give the worm its leaf, and soon the crawler 
 is found grown into a butterfly. Give a woman love, 
 enough of it, and soon she is seen developed into an 
 Angel. 
 
 And who that understands of the trust that lives 
 
 in a woman's heart but will keep tight rein on his own 
 rude nature, holding even his breath that no tarnish 
 come from it ? Poor Heloise ! poor Marguerite ! but 
 recklessness was in the heart of Abelard, and the 
 
 prince of devils was at the back of Faust. Poor 
 
 Heloise ! poor Marguerite ! Where, Lysias, canst 
 
 thou find me women better or purer than were these ? 
 Get understanding of the faith that lives in a woman's 
 nature, and stand ever after aghast at the responsibility 
 it imposes on manliness. A woman is womanly in 
 proportion as she is ductile. — A woman that loves 
 hesitates as little in following a man downwards as 
 upwards. — Remember; it is the man who leads; the 
 woman who follows. 
 
 Who that handles a Rupert's drop but is made 
 nervous lest he make havoc of the whole thing through 
 an accidental twist given the stem ? Yet is a maid not 
 less susceptible than is the glass, — not less easily de- 
 stroyed. Who understands not the nature of a Rupert's 
 drop is likely to find his hand holding nothing but bits 
 of broken glass ; which, if not gotten clear of, cut and 
 sting him. So also he who deals not tenderly with the 
 whiteness of woman is apt to get a stain upon his hands 
 which water cannot wash away, nor time wear out. 
 
 It is with unwavering reliance, Lysias, that a woman 
 is seen to lean upon the strength of the man beloved 
 by her. Exquisite indeed in its expressions is the 
 
CONCERNING HEROIC LOVE. 
 
 141 
 
 confidence she reposes ; her prudence takes no alarm ; 
 her timidity knows no fear ; she offers unstintingly, 
 knowing not the pricelessness of what she offers; gives, 
 
 counting not the cost of her gift. And heed, Lysias, 
 
 a woman gives according to that which is the richness 
 of her purity \ where there is nothing opaque all is 
 transparent ; a perfectly pure woman is one that acts 
 as though vice were a thing without name ; like indeed 
 is she to the dove which shows alarm only after being 
 stung by shot. 
 
 But I leave thee to the experience that is to 
 
 come, — that comes to all men. Remember, a Rupert's 
 drop once broken can never be mended. 
 
VIII. 
 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 
 
 THE width of an ocean is not greater than that dis- 
 tance which separates nuptial from heroic love. 
 
 Without having any certainty of knowledge about 
 the subject, I incline to the conviction that the moly 
 given by Mercury to Ulysses had some relation of 
 meaning with our sacrament of marriage. Lysias will 
 recall the story. Eurylochus and his companions 
 coming to ^aea and meeting with that beautiful 
 daughter of the Sun, Circe, found themselves changed 
 by her into swine : all but the leader ; he saved himself 
 by refusing to partake of her entertainment. Hasten- 
 ing to revenge his companions, Ulysses was met by 
 Mercury, who indoctrinated him into a knowledge of 
 the virtues of a potent exorcism, the 77ioly. When the 
 two came together, the Soldier and the Siren, in place 
 of battle and destruction there was amity and alliance. 
 The charm saved the warrior, even while denying him 
 nothing that the island-queen had to offer. 
 
 I think there is a very great deal of meaning in this 
 story; indeed, I incline to the impression that if a 
 man consider it, he will find himself able to grow the 
 tnoly without any aid of gift from the winged god. 
 142 
 
CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 143 
 
 Another story to the same end is that of the forbid- 
 den fruit which has inflicted on poor Eve the odium of 
 driving Adam out of Paradise. I do not know that I 
 am able to read even this riddle quite right, but I am 
 not at all doubtful that there exists to-day — not less a 
 reality than in the olden time — an apple of which, if 
 a man eat, he finds himself in trouble ; not, however, 
 because of any poison there is in the fruit, but because 
 of some one or more reasons that holds the eater out 
 of relation with it. 
 
 *' No unmeaning story is it that a nail should lame 
 The foot of one that in a river swam, 
 For Alexinus in Alpheus found 
 The cursed reed that gave him his death's wound." 
 
 Now undeniably it is the case that a nail — to the 
 uses of most men— is seen to be a very good thing, yet 
 Alexinus found destruction in it ; likewise by her who 
 was as a pin holding together the fortunes of Omnes 
 did Ninus come, not only to the loss of kingdom, but, 
 as well, of life. So that when we talk of lack of moly^ 
 or of forbidden fruit, we would seem to mean nothing 
 different than when we say that things are not in rela- 
 tion ; and when, while upholding woman as contain- 
 ing the greatest good, we add that the sex may be 
 likened to a nail which pricks out the life of many a 
 swimmer in the river of life, we are not to be under- 
 stood as faulting the woman or as reflecting on a nail. 
 
 Good and bad are to be accepted as things of rela- 
 tion. No man shall ever find himself able to classify 
 the apple. Forbidden fruit is to a man, to any man, 
 what he finds hurtful to him. Lais is captivating and 
 
144 
 
 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 
 
 Phryne is bewitching ; to deny the enchantment of 
 womanly charms is to do little different than pronounce 
 one's self hard as stone, or soft as silliness. I teach, 
 Lysias, no such pronunciation. Indeed, I could have 
 little else but pity for him should his temperament be 
 of a construction that admitted of no influence from 
 the fascinations of female loveliness. He would stand 
 exposed to me as being deficient in gentleness and in 
 sentiment. I would know him as one debarred through 
 natural constitution from a participation in what the 
 experience of men discovers as amongst the truest and 
 most lasting of the sources of human pleasures. 
 
 But appreciation of a thing is not the abuse of it. 
 There are men, plenty of them, — perhaps it would be 
 better to say that it holds with all men, — to whom the 
 fullness of the earth has been given — all but a something. 
 So long as such deny themselves this somethings so long 
 is the universe an Eden ; but let them give way ; that 
 is the end ; they are out of their paradise, — turned out 
 of themselves. 
 
 Lais and Phryne are forbidden fruit, — so also is the 
 gnarled and twisted nubbin that John Smith calls wife- 
 Why forbidden ? 
 
 The answer comes out of the common experience. 
 Eubatis found it necessary to decide between the 
 attractions of Lais and victorship at the Olympian 
 games. The Senators at Athens had to make up their 
 minds between Phryne and the dignity of their office. 
 After a like manner was that conclusion of the The- 
 bans, which denied the Boeotian the privilege of using 
 her immense wealth for the erection of a wall which 
 should begirt and protect their city : a wall was needed, 
 
CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 
 
 145 
 
 greatly needed: but there was a price outside the 
 money cost. The wall was to be monumental to the 
 courtesan : Thebes felt that she was less defenceless 
 without a, wall than without a reputation. 
 
 A balance having two scales upon which a man 
 
 may place his good and his better, will designate forbid- 
 den fruit. 
 
 But the woman who is not a forbidden fruit? 
 
 Truly is that mystery which men call marriage to be 
 accepted as the divinest good of life. Let Lysias never 
 mind that this is a mere institution of man's making; 
 that it differs with the ages of the world ; that not un- 
 likely it will be a something as different a thousand 
 years hence as it was a thousand years back. Marriage 
 is the meaning of the happiness of men in to-day. 
 With yesterday, as with to-morrow, Lysias has nothing 
 to do. Like the glass called a Claude Lorraine, so 
 heavenly is the virtue found to lie in this sacrament 
 that though it change nothing in reality, yet do things 
 looked at through it assume altered complexion, asperi- 
 ties are seen as smoothness, angularity as roundness ; 
 even the white cold surface of a dead life is found 
 covered by it with things fresh and fragrant. 
 
 Marriage as a forbidden fruit to man. 
 
 God pity the Aristippi ! No priest, no civil law can 
 indoctrinate these ; putters of themselves beyond the 
 sacredness of the precincts of the mystery, there is no 
 power great enough to get them back. Such are under 
 the ban of Pronuba. Alas ! the kisses of Lais have hard- 
 ened the derm of their lips ; the wiles of Phryne have 
 destroyed the meaning of their manliness ; swine and 
 women are incompatibles ; the question is a settled one. 
 
 K 13 
 
146 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 
 Strange, though ! the Circe of Eurylochus be- 
 
 came the loving and harmless wife of Ulysses. 
 
 What is its meaning? Nothing different from this, 
 Lysias. Thou hast seen two men make a visit to the 
 sea-side ; the moisture of the salty deep falls alike on 
 both ; to the one it brings robustness, the other sinks 
 and falls away, retiring from the presence to become 
 putrid with tubercle. In what, if not in the composi- 
 tion of the men, was the wand of the Circe of the Sea? 
 
 It is not about the heads of women that reside the 
 
 halos seen by men : look thou for these in the eyes 
 that gaze. 
 
 A thing cannot know a thing unlike itself. Smile 
 not that in such connection I use an axiom of philoso- 
 phy. Love is not objective, it is a something purely 
 subjective ; yet it creates ; it makes for itself the idol 
 it desires ; it adds stature to stumpiness, gives flesh 
 to scragginess, confers straightness on crookedness. 
 Nothing at all strange is this, a thing that is subjective 
 is as easily made beautiful as ugly. 
 
 There is another manner in which we may put the 
 matter. Such as Aristippus cannot by any possibility 
 get from a woman that meaning of good which we 
 affirm to reside with her. We liken woman to the sun, 
 but she is, as we have said, a paradox, and when changed 
 into a wife she is found to have become like the moon. 
 The light which the moon gives is a reflection. Here 
 is a mystery, two are one. Of itself the moon gives 
 nothing; the sheen that comes from it corresponds with 
 the sunlight that falls upon its face. When there is no 
 sunlight there is no moonlight ; where there are inter- 
 posed clouds there is no sheen. Who casts not light 
 
CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 147 
 
 over a wife is not to look for brightness. An Aristip- 
 pus has no light to give. 
 
 There is still another way in which the unwisdom of 
 the Aristippi exposes itself. Along with the marriage 
 certificate a magnifying-glass is purchased ; this is kept 
 ever in hand and is used as the medium through which 
 are judged not only the texture and complexion of skin 
 and eyes, but as well the meaning of actions and the 
 significance of thought ; it is not to be esteemed as 
 strange that distorting nature in this way dimples are 
 seen as wrinkles, — not strange that happiness separates 
 
 itself far from the object looked upon. Is not the 
 
 man at the little end of his glass? and does this not 
 lengthen distances immensely ? 
 
 Often enough is it to be heard that thus and so spake 
 Montaigne in disparagement of the marriage tie, or 
 that Lord Bacon hinted this and that in favor of celi- 
 bacy. Aristippus, and a multitude like unto him, 
 wretched mortals that they are, are to be found con- 
 tinuously in the assemblies or in the market-places 
 prating of wives as bringers forth of care, denouncing 
 these as things which grow anxieties. Like unto that 
 other vision-blinded wiseacre, he of La Mancha, who 
 was not of perception sufficient to distinguish between 
 a charge of playful lambs and the danger which lies in 
 an onslaught of mailed warriors, these are found cutting 
 and slashing as if, forsooth, the fleecy bond of Hymen 
 were some foul chain of iron, and not the silken gos- 
 samer which all proper-seeing people know it to be. 
 Well ! what may one do save pity such ? With their 
 own hands they take up and fill their eyes with the 
 blinding sands of Pronuba. A strange ruse is this that 
 
148 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE, 
 
 is practiced by the goddess : it saves the tender from 
 the ravenous, the sensuous from the sensual, the help- 
 less from the tyrannous. Juno tells her story on 
 Olympus, and while the gods smile the arms of selfish 
 men close on — on emptiness.* 
 
 Different as is the brightness of day from the black- 
 ness of night is a true from a false love. It is not to 
 be denied that the passion of Aristippus ignites with 
 a loud noise, nor that it burns with a flame fast and 
 furious as the blaze of fired oil running over the surface 
 of water ; but it is like to this latter thing, all is on 
 the face, the heat penetrates not within ; nothing is 
 made warm ; a little while, a very little while, and the 
 blaze is out ; coldness and darkness are back again. 
 
 How different this from that continuous flame and 
 heat which are the light and life of a true affection ! 
 Yet it might not be otherwise, for in this latter case 
 the blaze and warmth are of the thing that loves. In 
 the heyday it is a blaze which envelops the lover and 
 seems to him, therefore, to fill the world. The stream 
 of every channel shows gold-colored water. Clouds 
 are not only rose-tinted, but crimson all the way 
 through. 
 
 Nor is the delight a thing alone of the heyday. 
 
 At twenty another name for love is ecstasy ; twenty is 
 the time of the spring-time freshet. What may stand 
 before passion that surges and whirls as it rushes ocean- 
 
 * Juno, or Pronuba, with a view to the deception of men who are 
 too selfish to make good husbands, is said to be forever whispering in 
 their ears stories of care begotten of marriage ; this intimidates them, 
 and by such reason she saves women from falUng into their power. 
 
CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE. 149 
 
 ward seeking equilibrium ? But between the freshet 
 
 of youthful impulse and the sea of age are broad 
 meadow-lands. Here lives a quiet known only to the 
 husband. It is here that the surge and the dash settle 
 into calm; that narrowness grows into broadness ; that 
 life begins the unfolding of its meaning. 
 
 Ah ! meadow-lands of middle life ; here love 
 
 assumes new face and fresh attraction ; children come 
 into the meaning of the life ; a past finds its way back ; 
 that which seemed dead long ago is resurrected ; the 
 man's self grows young, even though his head become 
 
 balder of hair, or grayer. And here, the restless 
 
 propensities having passed away, man is made to under- 
 stand how good a thing he has secured in a fireside 
 that is all his own. Now does he comprehend that the 
 anxieties which may have been his portion are like 
 unto investments which it costs a toiler much trouble 
 to make, but which have the meaning of an interest 
 which is the support and comfort of old age. 
 
 Truly a divine passion, the divine passion, is this of 
 love. Who shall say nay to the anticipations which 
 enter into a man and which take full possession of him 
 when it has come? What strength is added to the re- 
 solves ! Muscles grow into steel springs ; the heart 
 propels its spirit into and through another life; 
 humanity enlarges itself; one existence becomes many. 
 
 Unhappy mortal who in the day of youth considers 
 not the dreariness of age. It is cold when the fire has 
 gone out. And can one kindle a fire when the embers 
 of his life have fallen into ashes? The blaze of love, 
 lighted in youth, is a self-supplying flame, it will burn 
 on forever, if not interfered with ; but in age there 
 
I50 CONCERNING NUPTIAL LOVE, 
 
 is nothing with which to start a fire. Age of itself 
 grows older and older, but Love, united with age, turns 
 it round, making it younger and younger. The chil- 
 dren of a man are the man born over; the secret of 
 Hermippus is with every father. 
 
 But I will tell my Lysias the story of nuptial 
 
 love in telling the story of one Lysander, a man well 
 known to myself; one who I cannot but think has 
 understood the meaning of marriage as well and has 
 gotten as much out of it as has perhaps any other. 
 
IX. 
 
 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 THERE is much similarity between the life of which 
 I would tell and that of my Lysias, to whom I 
 tell the story ; quite enough to allow of it serving as a 
 mirror in which to see something of what may be made 
 the meaning of one's own love. 
 
 Yes, one's love is what one makes it : not the 
 
 rod of Hermes, but the heart of a youth of Cenchreas 
 is it that lifts up the Lamia. 
 
 To talk of Lysander carries me back even into the 
 days of my own youth ; he was amongst the nearest 
 and dearest of my early friends. Ah, Lysias, they 
 were halcyon days, and to tell about them brings all 
 back again. How much there is to recall ! how much 
 to live over ! Boys in the olden times were boys, not 
 men. None better than Lysander and myself knew 
 the haunt of rabbit or the nest of squirrel ; not for 
 murder's sake, but for companionsTiip. With the 
 rabbit we drank from the wood-streams, and with the 
 squirrel gathered winter store of nuts. It was ourselves 
 that could lead the stranger where he could swim in the 
 stream without fear of accident from jutting stones; 
 and it was ourselves that knew where the picnic could 
 find choicest trysting-place. 
 
 151 
 
1^2 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 The village boys called Lysander "the dreamer,'* 
 and the village boys had named him rightly; he was 
 forever in a dream. He would lie throughout a live- 
 long summer's day beneath the shade of some great 
 tree that skirted the stream-side, his eyes looking 
 heavenward, and his soul so far away from his body, — 
 so far away, — so far away. 
 
 " What is it?" he one day asked me, as in the wood 
 we had accidentally disturbed a wounded bird which, 
 after fluttering for a moment, died at our feet. " What 
 is the meaning of it ? What is death, Darby?" And 
 then, the lifeless bird in his hand, he stretched himself 
 full length on the ground, saying that he too was dead; 
 that bird and boy were going a journey to the spirit- 
 land. It was dark night before his dream or his trance, 
 whichever it was, had passed away. This was very like 
 him. No wonder he got the name of *' dreamer." 
 
 Well mingled up with the early histories of both 
 our lives are memories of an old black man, to whom 
 Lysander attached himself as a son might to a father ; 
 a man whose heart was as white as his skin was black. 
 With what delight have I sat day after day watch- 
 ing "down-sinking corks," while listening to homilies 
 which would have done credit to tongues of the choicest 
 pronunciation ! A veritable Izaak Walton was the old 
 man, and not of less skill in a judgment of mortals 
 than in the things of hook and line. He too knew 
 many a Dr. Donne and many a Sir Henry Wotton ; 
 and he too could have composed biographies. 
 
 A thrower of cold water was he; not always, how- 
 ever. "Look before you leap," that was his favorite 
 maxim. " Not always, — not always, boys," would he 
 
THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 
 
 153 
 
 say, **is a pretty maiden to be taken for what she 
 appears to be; and not always is amiable-seeming to be 
 accepted for amiable-reality." Once started, the old 
 man, like a wound-up clock, would run on until he 
 had exhausted his spring. ''Look in a rouge-pot," he 
 would say, " for the meaning of flushed cheeks, and 
 don't forget a nigger's warning when he tells you that 
 a bosom which to the eyes of a young man looks alive 
 with fire, may have no more warmth in it than has any 
 other cotton-boll." 
 
 The old man in his early days had been a house- 
 slave, and was supposed to have had an uncomfortable 
 experience with a petulant young mistress. Lysander 
 would accuse him of being soured against the sex. 
 *' As you please," he would answer, "but don't be guy 
 enough to mistake the jaunty shoe for a dainty foot, 
 or a sleeve sent home by a dressmaker for an arm 
 of flesh and blood." ''Good temper, — I know it," 
 he would say: "a something kept often enough for the 
 putting on and off at a parlor-door ; not unlike to 
 the honey which lips carry in a drawing-room, but 
 which turns to vinegar when the flies are out of the 
 way; or not unlike to the tidiness which changes to 
 slovenliness when from the street it steps across the 
 kitchen-door." It was undeniable, the blackamoor 
 could say disagreeable things when the occasion was by. 
 
 Yet there was another side. Unlike the sage Apollo- 
 nius, he apprehended the transforming and transmuting 
 power of Love. "No use of talking to boys," he 
 would add, and his eye would twinkle as if he under- 
 stood that we had detected the fallacies of his strictures. 
 "A boy sees the maiden that is in his eyes." Did 
 
 G* 
 
154 
 
 THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 
 
 I learn this lesson first from the old man? — " Whoever 
 is in love sees nothing but beauty, doubts nothing but 
 the existence of things untrue. Love finds music even 
 in anger-stamping feet; sees grace in arms made out 
 of cambric ; calls that cleverness which is not outright 
 clumsiness; esteems as preference that which is not 
 absolute slight." 
 
 I recall an interruption once made by Lysander. "I 
 have caught the secret," he said. " I will have a wife 
 who shall be beautiful and true and clever forever. I 
 will not change; then my love cannot." 
 
 The black man stroked the soft hair of my friend. 
 
 ** It is the secret," he said. 
 
 Lysander was a born lover of woman ; to her he 
 looked for an embodiment of the charms of the world. 
 Whenever he would query as to the good, the beau- 
 tiful, and the true, it was towards woman that all his 
 imaginings were directed. Worship of the sex com- 
 menced with his earliest years. Mother and sisters 
 were esteemed as of organization quite apart from his 
 own, and of higher meaning ; the very woman-servants 
 of his father's kitchen found in him a helper to relieve, 
 or, if to relieve was impossible, then one who was ever 
 ready to help bear a burden. 
 
 I speak it not to his demerit that as age grew apace 
 I recall a thousand blushes telling the story of rapid- 
 beating heart-throbs; that even now there are in my 
 possession — I need not say how I came by them — many 
 bits of faded ribbon, and forget-me-nots woven in silken 
 pages ; and in particular a little green-painted cup 
 which once — a long, long time ago — sweet girlish lips 
 did drink from, and which has carried never but nectar 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 155 
 
 to his. Ah, Lysias, I have such bits of ribbon and 
 
 such a cup of my own. Who has not ? Let me shut 
 my eyes for a single moment, that I may go back to 
 the days of ribbons and cup. I know not why it in- 
 trudes, but there is just now ringing in my ears the first 
 line of a verse that has often enough stirred up the 
 fountain : 
 
 " Do you remember, do you remember the days of long ago?" 
 
 But I forget; it is Lysander's story I started to 
 
 tell, not my own. 
 
 A worshiper of the sex indeed. Woman, to him, 
 was not a helpmate to assist with burdens, or to share 
 sorrows, or to come to pain, or, worse than all, to 
 change ; but the blush and the flush of cheek and the 
 golden wealth of curls were to him immortal things, — 
 as immortal as Beauty's self is immortal, — and Lysander 
 idolized — and still idolizes, for still to him there is but 
 one angel amongst the things of creation, and the name 
 of the angel is woman. 
 
 Twenty years, twenty halcyon years, were passed by 
 the boy amid the surroundings of his birthplace. One 
 long and bright summer's day were these years, and in 
 it there grew to fulness a tree which now covers him, 
 and under which his house is built, having for its foun- 
 dation immovable stone : that foundation is reverence 
 for, and faith in, the nobility of womankind. 
 
 ** He may have seen but one kind of woman." 
 
 True enough, Lysias, up to a certain period. Yet in 
 his later years there is no alteration of opinion, and 
 now he has seen much and has been thrown in contact 
 with the sex far beyond the ordinary experience of 
 
156 
 
 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 men ; but still he maintains that there is but one 
 kind. 
 
 " He could have no sympathy, then, with , 
 
 whose wife yourself has pronounced a shrew." 
 
 A shrew was it I said ? That is too generous a word ; 
 has mistaken a devil for a woman ; devils steal 
 
 often enough the guise of fairness. 
 
 When twenty years were passed, misfortune, as if en- 
 vious of a life so far separated from its own, brought 
 many troubles to bear upon Lysander, jerking him 
 with rough hand from his happy dreamland and cast- 
 ing him with merciless indifference upon a world with 
 which he was little prepared to struggle. But mis- 
 fortune destroyed him not ; out of the ill has come, he 
 says, the blessing of his life. 
 
 I need tell thee only that which relates to his love. 
 An adventurer in seeming, and a wanderer among 
 strangers, Lysander found himself one summer day 
 standing in front of a country house, whose knocker 
 had just resounded through hall and chamber the blow 
 he had given. She who opened to him was a fair girl 
 of tender years, whose disheveled curls and half-opened 
 eyes plainly enough exhibited that she had been rudely 
 aroused from an after-dinner nap and was performing 
 her office in half unconsciousness. Yet this was the 
 Destiny, and this was she whose name Lysander now 
 celebrates in prose and verse, and who is not less beau- 
 tiful to our friend than is the slender and delicate one 
 to Antheros. 
 
 " A winsome wee thing, 
 A handsome wee thing, 
 A bonnie wee thing, 
 
 This sweet wife o' ." 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 
 
 157 
 
 Twenty and more years have again passed since 
 Lysander stood in that summer day on the stoop of 
 the country house ; twenty years which have carried 
 with them pestilence and earthquake, yet which have 
 had found in them nothing but happiness for the hus- 
 band, nothing but growing charms for the wife. It 
 has been, indeed, as though Evil, ashamed and dis- 
 heartened, had betaken its presence the farthest possible 
 remove from his household. 
 
 Perhaps there is a secret ; perhaps none. Lysander 
 says that to get the most out of life is to get the most 
 out of to-day. No to-morrow for him. To-morrow, 
 he maintains, belongs not to any man, and so, living 
 each day as though it held the fulness, he has felt the 
 time a something too precious to be wasted. Even 
 would he smile to hear me speak of misfortune as cause 
 of ill, or of the absence of it as reason for happiness. 
 Lysander believes as we do, that the most reliable de- 
 pendence is that which a man places on himself. It 
 is a saying of his, ''that what a man has had nothing 
 can take from him." 
 
 The married life has been one long day of courtship, 
 and while others now see hairs enough that are as silver 
 strands about the head of the wife, yet the flattering 
 tongue of the husband convinces both her and himself 
 that the tresses are yet golden, — golden as when twenty 
 years ago they fell upon the balusters of the old stairs 
 at the country house. 
 
 No grumbler is Lysander. Even if there are ills in 
 
 the world, he maintains that people are found much 
 
 more disposed to hunt these up than are these to hunt 
 
 up the people. Then, again, nothing is accepted by 
 
 14 
 
158 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 him as an evil where a worse might be in its place, 
 neither will he admit as being a distress anything which 
 has either remedy or hope associated with it. A con- 
 stant saying with him is, ''that to the man who has 
 faith in God nothing is an evil." 
 
 Lysander has been trained in philosophy ; well and 
 fully does he understand that the safety, happiness, 
 and good of men are soonest found in leaning on the 
 muscles which God has given them, and in cultivating, 
 improving, and employing the senses with which they 
 find themselves endowed. He asks not the God to 
 delve for him, but himself drives through the earth 
 colter and spade, thanking all the time the Law-maker 
 for the law that has put response in the ground. As 
 for his love, this he most assiduously waters and culti- 
 vates ; digs about the roots ; supports boughs that grow 
 over-heavy ; fences against north winds ; invites the 
 sunshine. What wonder that of himself he has in- 
 fluenced the law to grow for him a banyan which each 
 year is seen to extend and to enlarge itself! Lysander 
 takes every possible care of his love, leaving it not, as 
 do a multitude of people, to take care of itself. 
 
 Here is another of his sayings, as just now it comes 
 to my mind, ''It is as feasible to get over a mountain as 
 over a mole-hill ; an only difference lies in the stride." 
 And here is still another, '* Healthiest bodies have 
 weak spots." Our friend has learned the secret of the 
 doctors in curing sores by being more careful of them 
 than of the well places. Lysander understands that 
 love is the price of love ; confidence the price of con- 
 fidence ; respect the price of respect ; and so he secures 
 to himself the good things he so much enjoys in com- 
 
THE STOR Y OF L YSANDER. 
 
 159 
 
 pensating for them in the kind of coin demanded for 
 the purchase ; not trying, or even thinking of paying 
 in counterfeit. Lysander understands that a wife is not 
 as a servant, who finds in dollars satisfactory requital 
 for what she gives ; nor like a housekeeper, whose re- 
 ward lies in seeing the master enjoy the dainties of her 
 table. True, he has no name for what she is : Rara 
 Avis is too earthly; Divinity is not even heavenly 
 enough. With bended knee he does adoration, deem- 
 ing the service all too poor for the debt he owes. Ah, 
 what life-giving pabulum is love to a woman ! Be sure, 
 Lysias, that when the bride comes to thee this be her 
 daily food. I am not wrong, give a wife this, enough 
 of it, and ugly and beautiful alike undergo apotheosis; 
 doubt this not, for be thy heart big enough and hot 
 
 enough thou shalt for thyself behold the miracle. 
 
 But, on the other hand, let love be denied, and a change 
 of even greater significance is seen ; without this a 
 woman falls into nothingness; she goes out and away; 
 she becomes a body not less cold than that which an 
 undertaker prepares for a funeral. 
 
 And if it be, my Lysias, that a man, either be- 
 cause of ignorance or what else, cheat himself, debasing 
 the warm into the cold, the effulgent into the umbra- 
 geous, the sparkling into the insipid, the angel into the 
 crone, what is to save him from the ice, the shadow, 
 the vapid, and the poison ? Oh, unhappiest of unhappy- 
 wretches, that, having a mountain-spring capable of 
 yielding nectar, thou hast polluted the stream at the 
 source. Let such a man go out and drown himself, 
 for be he of high place or of low, esteemed with the 
 wise or classed with the foolish, he has made a blunder 
 
l6o THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 
 
 that has no remedy; to die is only the finish of an 
 irreparable mistake. 
 
 Most wise is Lysander in not putting the trust of his 
 nuptial happiness in any to-morrow. It is for a sensi- 
 ble man to deem the present day the only one in which 
 blessings exist for him ; so, to-day, Lysander allows 
 nothing to interfere with his bliss ; discomforts he puts 
 off until to-morrow ; to-morrow is time enough, he 
 maintains; and as his to-morrow — because of his pre- 
 cautions — never comes, so he is found to keep his joy 
 and to dismiss his ill in one and the same act. 
 
 It is a strange fancy, but in a certain book made up 
 of heavy unprinted pages, and which is seldom found 
 from under the privacy of lock and key, is to be seen 
 a picture done in the funereal tones of india-ink, upon 
 which Lysander looks and meditates whenever doubts 
 come to him. It is a picture showing an open grave, 
 by the side of which stands a bier holding a coffin ; near, 
 in the foreground, is a stone, across the white face of 
 which is written the simple sentence, ^'■To-morrowy 
 Something like this is the meaning of the picture. 
 What husband shall stand by the grave-side of a wife 
 and not go mad if the yesterday has been sacrificed and 
 lost ? A wise man does not see darkness in a grave ; 
 but the yesterdays ! the yesterdays ! who shall spare 
 curses to himself if the yesterdays of a dead wife are 
 remembered as clouded ? or who is to cease from call- 
 ing himself fool where the yesterdays have been nothing 
 better than black shadows ? Lysander looks upon this 
 picture and renews comprehension of the meaning of 
 a present ; of a present which happily shows no open 
 grave ; no bier supporting a coffin ; no tombstone with 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER. i6i 
 
 ^^ To-morrow'^ written across its face; and if here and 
 there over, the page upon which he meditates are to be 
 seen stains as if made by falling tears, these tell quite 
 as much of consoling reflections as of anticipations 
 which bear sorrows in their train. To-day the sun is 
 shining brightly; Lysander may not deny this; it was 
 bright yesterday, and the day before it was radiant; 
 how the heart swells as the man remembers these 
 blessed yesterdays, — never an hour in which the planet 
 ceased to give forth its consolations, never a moment 
 
 in which has lain a shadow cast by himself! Yet it 
 
 is natural that imagination will run forward, — who may 
 keep it back ? — a bier will be seen bearing its coffin, and 
 an open grave with its threatening pile of dirt will 
 figure itself upon the outlook. It is with bowed head 
 and close-shut eyes that Lysander turns from his picture, 
 spreading his hands tightly over his ears, as if forsooth 
 this would shut out internal sound of falling clods. 
 Oh, happy Lysander, who has no sad memories to put 
 into a wife's coffin; no yew which lacks an elsewhere 
 for its necessary planting than the mound under which 
 sleeps one who has found in its darkness the only rest 
 that has been hers. 
 
 Heed, Lysias, I would add a word to this. Howso- 
 ever sweet the music listened to by Lysander, howso- 
 ever siren the lips that utter inviting sounds, howsoever 
 bewitching the discourses that fall like plash of foun- 
 tain, there is one strain, one voice, which to him is the 
 key-note of all harmony, the measure by which all 
 comparison is made. Lysander drinks not of refresh- 
 ing waters but that he wishes the cooled throat were 
 that of his fair Madeline; he snuffs not into his nostril 
 14* 
 
1 62 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 the morning-freshened odors met with in his rambles 
 on the hill-side but that he longs to give the sweetness 
 to Madeline. He lies again as of old through the live- 
 long day under trees of the stream-side, watching the 
 flying and speculating about the fleecy clouds over- 
 head, giving to each as it passes some fancy to carry 
 away with it on its journey; yet all the while in an 
 under-breath is he humming the soft words of Por- 
 phyro,— 
 
 " My Madeline ! sweet dreamer ! lovely bride ! 
 
 Ah, silver shrine, here will I take my rest 
 After so many hours 'of toil and quest, 
 A famished pilgrim, — saved by miracle." 
 
 And this, Lysias, is the answer to his love and 
 
 his longings : 
 
 " Ah, Porphyro ! . . . but even now 
 Thy voice was as sweet tremble in mine ear, 
 Made tunable with every sweetest vow ; 
 
 * « ;s * iff 
 Give me that voice again, my Porphyro, 
 Those looks immortal, those complainings dear ! 
 
 * •«- * * * 
 
 For if thou diest, my Love, I know not where to go." 
 
 Ah, Lysias, learn in thy own experience what a 
 Madeline beloved can give to a lover like Porphyro ; 
 truly the poet speaks well: ''Into the other's dream 
 each melts, as the rose blendeth its odor with the vio- 
 let." See to it, see to it, my sweet friend, that thou 
 lose not any particle of this heaven-born incense of 
 love. A Thea is it, and though a Saturn, gray-haired, 
 and quiet as a stone, sit in the shady sadness of a vale, 
 his kingdom gone from him, and lost, yet here is power 
 to create, to fashion forth another empire, another 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 163 
 
 universe, — happy Porphyro, — over-happy man, ever 
 drunken with the charm of a Madeline, —enviable, most 
 enviable Porphyro ! 
 
 And to know, Lysias, that a Madeline exists 
 
 wherever is to be found a Porphyro ; that a Porphyro 
 is the maker of a Madeline, — how little different is this 
 from saying that men are their own heaven-makers ! 
 
 It was true, Lysander had caught the secret. What 
 miracle-doers ! O Lamia, divine to the love of a 
 Lycius ! O cursed Sophist of an Apollonius, having no 
 better office than to wither a sweet bride, pulling from 
 between her rows of pearls a forked tongue, which love 
 had buried so deeply back in the throat that but for 
 thy accursed art the Corinthian had never discovered 
 the reptile in his bride ! Heed, Lysias, the caresses 
 of a serpent were not distinguished by love-blinded 
 senses from the foldings of warm, soft human arms. 
 What was there in this that an unbidden guest, with 
 *'keen, cruel, perceant, stinging eye," should perceive, 
 that he should expose defects in the metamorphosed 
 one? cold bald-head, it was not Hermes, Hermes of 
 the winged heels, who had done this miracle, and in 
 whom was the undoing, but it was Lycius, Lycius' self, 
 who was the swearer by the serpent rod, and by the 
 eyes, and by the starry crown, and it was in Lycius 
 alone that lay the coming of the woman's form, and 
 the bliss of place so ardently desired and so longingly 
 anticipated ; and now, now are Lycius' arms as empty 
 of delight as are his limbs of life. Be not deceived, 
 Lysias, each lover is his own stealer of Olympian light.* 
 
 * Refer to the sad story of the Lamia as told by Keats. 
 
1 64 THE STORY OF LYSANDER, 
 Still other reminders has Lysander in this strange 
 
 book of his. He has a rose, once exquisite, and of 
 such exceeding sweetness of odor that its fragrance was 
 the scent of a house. While this flower was in the 
 freshness of its bloom it was shut out by its owner from 
 the air and the sunshine, and made to lie, still and quiet 
 and dead, between other of the thick unwritten pages. 
 Lysander looks often at this smothered rose, and won- 
 ders not that so many wives are found, like unto it, 
 withered and scentless. 
 
 Another page in this same volume shows a daughter 
 without confidence in, and a son without respect for, a 
 father. In the background is seen a creeping brute 
 scenting filthy garbage which lies scattered about his 
 feet. 
 
 And there are yet other pictures; one that is 
 
 often pondered over by Lysander shows the odd sight 
 of a single dollar which seems as if being blown in at a 
 front door, while from a back one are seen going out 
 two ; peering through an intermediate window are the 
 threatening yet warning eyes of Poverty. This is a 
 picture to which Lysander always turns when tempted 
 to extravagances. 
 
 Another of the pictures shows a father, mother, and 
 children walking, one after the other, in an endless 
 furrow ; or, if not endless, figures in which the line be- 
 comes obscured look much like a cradle at one of the 
 ends and a coffin at the other; all the travelers seem 
 weary and dejected ; hopelessness is alone seen in the 
 eyes of the younger ; dissatisfaction in the faces of the 
 elder ; a staff in the hands of the father threatens any 
 arm which might be stretched out to pluck a flower 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 165 
 
 met with in the passing. When Lysander looks at this 
 he feels that it teaches him to understand the meaning 
 of the little sympathy too commonly existing between 
 parents and children. 
 
 Another picture shows the inside of a church ; gal- 
 leries and aisles are crowded, but the faces of the people 
 wear an every-day expression, all but the occupants of 
 the front pew; here there is great grief, *' hearts bowed 
 down." In front of the altar is an open coffin ; from its 
 soft pillow of silk a little cold face is looking out ; were 
 it not so marble-like we would take it for the original 
 of one to be seen in the parlor of Lysander. Why is 
 he so affected in looking on the page? What is the 
 meaning of the association ? Shutting the book, he 
 rushes from his library, and finding the child to whom 
 the dead face bears likeness, he hugs her to his bosom 
 and his heart. What a strange fellow ! does he think 
 that his own little girl might come to such coldness, 
 such hopeless coldness? that an undertaker might be 
 found who would twist into a coffin-lid covering her 
 dear face the screws seen lying on an adjoining table ? 
 that a priest could be unfeeling enough to drop ashes 
 over her fair body? Whatever he thinks, he never 
 looks upon the picture but that his heart is made 
 warmer, and the care bestowed upon his loved ones is 
 redoubled. 
 
 Thou understandest. It is the study of Lysander to 
 comprehend the meaning of life ; the meaning of him- 
 self; the meaning of things which bring happiness, or 
 which, when abused, entail misery. Out of this has 
 grown a life so blessed, a home so happy, a woman so 
 apotheosized, that Lysander wonders if the preachers 
 
l66 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 do not misinterpret when they speak of a paradise 
 lying apart from a man's self. The passage, ''the 
 kingdom of heaven is within a man/' has for him most 
 literal meaning. He thinks there needs to be nothing 
 better, so full and so complete is that state into which 
 he finds that man is capable of bringing his own nature. 
 
 Now about thyself, Lysias. Like Lysander in char- 
 acter, be thou like unto him in thy success of life, — in 
 thy understanding of the meaning of love and its asso- 
 ciations, 
 
 " All the virtues and charms live in Elvira." 
 
 Spoken like my Lysias. This is a proper beginning. 
 Having come to a knowledge of love, do thou feed 
 and pamper the passion ; polish and stroke it with thy 
 hand, say thy prayers to it, bow before it as before a 
 shrine; see nothing so warm as the red that lives on 
 the lips of the beloved one, nothing so lustrous as the 
 light that comes from her eye ; hear no music so rap- 
 turous as the tones of her voice. Know nothing of any 
 grace greater than that which abounds in the move- 
 ments of her form ; give thyself, body and soul, to this 
 Elvira; she will show thee man's shortest road to bliss. 
 
 *'A wife I would assert as being above all other 
 things." 
 
 No ; it is the state of wifehood itself that asserts 
 this; even in like manner as Beauty declares her su- 
 premacy over Ugliness ; as Virtue compares to the 
 detraction of Vice ; as Simplicity shows how much bet- 
 ter she is than is Indulgence. To live, and not to love, 
 is to exist in misnomer. Wife and love are, or should 
 be, synonymous. Who makes them anything else is a 
 
THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 167 
 
 fool in his very constitution ; unless indeed, like , 
 
 it has been, his great ill luck to come to the hopeless 
 misery of finding himself chained to a fiend who has 
 cheated the world by getting into the form of woman ! 
 
 Hist, Lysias, the wife of is not a woman ; see 
 
 that thou make not any such confusion of terms. 
 
 "But Elvira is a woman; a real woman, soul and 
 body." 
 
 Happy Lysias, see to it, see to it that the dream end 
 not in a nightmare ; that the refreshing green thing 
 turn not into a tongue of flame, that the champagne 
 which thou quaffest change not its bright bubbles into 
 a mephitic vapor. Do not forget. A man may not 
 narrow a thing yet have it broad, or blacken and yet 
 have it white, or befoul and have it fragrant. Is not 
 sleep the most grateful and refreshing of the means of 
 rest ? Yet when there arise out of it black dreams, who 
 
 does not come to fear it as an evil ? But do black 
 
 dreams come to a man otherwise than through his own 
 folly ? Who that attains to the possession of a garden is 
 to expect fruit out of it unless that he plant and culti- 
 vate ? Is a man to look for roses where he allows his 
 bush to degenerate into a bramble? Or is he to ex- 
 pect that the spring wherefrom he drinks will yield him 
 sparkling water unless that with sedulous care he keep 
 the mud from covering the silver sands of its bottom? 
 
 Forget never, Lysias, it is with women as it is with 
 natural trees; if one like not a fruit that is borne, a 
 graft will convert acid into sweet, bitter into grateful. 
 A new fruit brought out of an opposite stalk corre- 
 sponds with the influences which encourage the growth. 
 We may not repeat this too often. 
 
1 68 THE STORY OF LYSANDER. 
 
 Fruit is in the grafter, not strictly in the tree ; this 
 being the case, a man is to understand that it is to him- 
 self he is to look for the character of that which his 
 garden produces. 
 
 A paradox indeed is that which has been given to 
 man as "heaven's last, best gift." Woman is the all, 
 she is the nothing ; the shades of her virtue are like a 
 •sun, like a moon, are like the color of a chameleon ; 
 they are from within, they are not from within. With- 
 out the Proteus there are not the golden tints of its 
 derm, yet no one thinks to look for this beauty unless 
 the sun be shining. Neither any more, as has before 
 been surmised, is brightness to be looked for on the 
 fiice of a wife unless light fall upon it from a source 
 external to itself. No countenance of woman has ever 
 yet showed bright when there were set against it only 
 clouds or blackness. 
 
 He who would have a chameleon show well is to pro- 
 tect it from the storm ; so also he who would keep the 
 face of a wife aglow is to keep it covered with a glory 
 reflected out of his own nature. What ! shall a sullen 
 and coarse man expect to elicit favors courteous and 
 refined? Or is one cranky and vulgar to anticipate 
 the coming to him of things straight and clean? Such 
 results, Lysias, are not in the way of nature ; the law 
 is, as we have understood it, Of the kind that a man 
 sows, he gathers. 
 
X. 
 
 ABOUT NOOSES. 
 
 FLIES in webs, and flies out of webs ; men in nooses, 
 and men out of nooses. Is it not evident to him 
 
 who has eyes in his head, and who uses them, that man 
 is the tier and untier of liis own knots? 
 
 Can it be said that a noose is a thing in and of itself? 
 Yet is it not the case that nooses are to be found every- 
 where? Is not a boy apt to get his first knowledge of 
 them through the heedlessness of some playfellow, who 
 causes him the fracture of a leg or an arm by a twist 
 made in the long grass of a hill-side? Are not callous 
 men likely enough to find a last experience of them, 
 together with a broken neck, through a loop which a 
 hangman makes at the end of a bit of rope? 
 
 What, then, shall Lysias conclude? Is it well for 
 boys that they run down-hill with shut eyes? or for 
 men that they walk over a street on which lives an 
 executioner? 
 
 IS 169 
 
XI. 
 
 LYSIAS. 
 
 THE long and leisurely lessons of pupil and guide 
 are over ; there has been a change. Lysias has 
 come to the instructions that lie in a wife and a fire- 
 side ; and to-night is one of a very great many that 
 the old Mentor has thought his thoughts and smoked 
 his pipe in a quiet corner of his young friend's library; 
 not unmindful, as it must be admitted, of the share 
 had by his teachings in the making of so comfortable 
 a home, neither unappreciative of the good that has 
 come to him in return. 
 
 A happy home, indeed ! I put it to the credit of 
 Lysias that he has inherited from me a becoming love 
 for the society of a glowing grate, and that the friends 
 he sets most store by are such as hold places on his 
 book-shelves rather than those seen occupying his 
 seats; hence the company met with at his house is more 
 frequently a quiet than a noisy one ; although often 
 enough it is the case that certain easy-chairs are found 
 filled by grave professors, or it may be by those whose 
 names are not unknown to the world as poets, essayists, 
 journalists, or scientists. Lysias calls these his philos- 
 ophers, and never does he weary in gleaning from their 
 fields. They are friends who have been selected out 
 170 
 
LYSIAS. 171 
 
 of a regard for their virtues; never out of any con- 
 sideration for their estates. Such companionship is 
 a mine of wealth to the possessor of it. My pupil is 
 fortunate. 
 
 By profession a doctor, it is yet not to be denied 
 that Lysias practices much at the trade of the bohemian ; 
 indeed, so frequently is it the case that the ragged 
 jacket of the latter is found to interfere with the prim 
 set of the black coat of the former, that I doubt not 
 that between the vagabond free-habits associated with 
 the one and the great regard that must be had for the 
 gloss of the other there are times in which the boy 
 finds it hard enough to keep from being whirled by 
 Charybdis without striking over hard against Scylla. 
 However, never having been able to get quite clear of 
 a certain sprinkling of this same temperament myself, 
 and being somewhat uncertain as to the influence of 
 the infusion on my pupil, I say nothing in the way of 
 objection to the habit. Certainly his indulgences af- 
 ford him diversified pleasures, and I have not been able 
 to perceive so far that he has been in any way injured 
 by them, the single item, perhaps, of personal dignity 
 excepted ; a matter, by the way, this last, which I think 
 would trouble any sensible man very little, seeing that 
 to be clear of it is to be rid of a burden. 
 
 Attributing such disposition to my friend, I am not 
 to be understood, however, as identifying him in any 
 manner with that large class of literary or professional 
 improvidents which has brought this patronymic into 
 its too often well-merited odium ; to nothing is he 
 more unlike than to such. The vagrancy is of a dif- 
 ferent nature altogether; consisting, not in neglect 
 
172 
 
 Z VS/AS. 
 
 of, or in indifference to, the duties of his position and 
 calling, but understood and recognized in the variety 
 of the work in which he is found to engage; in the long 
 and tireless strolls he is seen to take along the banks 
 of lonely rivers ; in leaving his horse to fatten in its 
 stall while, all oblivious to the appearance of the thing, 
 heAvill trudge for miles over a country road to visit a 
 patient, or having in view, not unlikely, the single object 
 of a draught from a way-side spring ; or it may be that 
 the disposition shows itself in the seeking of odd and 
 out-of-the-way sorts of places. Indeed, myself may not 
 deny that his eloquence has seduced even the master 
 more than once into places which, if not unbecoming 
 the dignity of gray hairs, have yet hardly been in 
 keeping with them. Had Lysias known Auerbach, he 
 would undoubtedly have been found often enough in 
 his cellar.* 
 
 As concerns the wife, who, an observer cannot fail 
 to see, is the balance-wheel in the character of the 
 couple, — that is, she is a centre of gravity so inviting 
 that it quite overbalances the centrifugal which lives 
 in the natural inclinations of the husband, — I have 
 really no words good enough for her praises. Lysias 
 was right, ''All the virtues and charms live in her." 
 Assuredly, had the boy searched the world over he 
 would have found no more congenial or more fitting 
 espousal. I never tire in looking from my corner on 
 her sweet face, nor in listening to a voice which I 
 may not compare with anything less refined than that 
 cooing with which the dove invites its mate. 
 
 *■ Goethe's Faust. 
 
L YSIAS. 1 73 
 
 Economical of habit, and a manager by education, 
 Lysias has conie, at quite an early period in life, to the 
 possession of such comfortable means as allow of his 
 consulting inclination rather than purse: hence the 
 life he leads appears in the sight of the world what in 
 every sense of the word it is in reality, an easy one. 
 For his success, however, he certainly is in no way 
 indebted to anybody but himself; the meaning of his 
 independence lies in his having worked and saved, — 
 *' in having found his niche," as he says, "and in re- 
 maining constant to it." True it is, he will not allow 
 that he has ever labored; but this is because he calls 
 that play which others call work. ** How can a thing 
 be work," he queries, *' when in it is found one's 
 pleasure ?' ' Undeniably, Lysias was fortunate, or other- 
 wise it was an exercise of great good sense in finding 
 for himself a path around which has bloomed, and 
 where still continues to bloom, the meaning of his 
 nature. 
 
 About clubs, and the many other matters which are 
 apt to consume money faster than most men are able 
 to make it, he knows so little that I am doubtful if even 
 he might find himself able to give names to the evils; 
 certain it is that his bohemianism leans not towards any 
 of these things, for while he would not be proof against 
 an Auerbach's cellar, which is, I suppose, a club in a 
 certain sort of a way, yet he would be found there a 
 student of its mystic lore rather than as a consumer of 
 its beer. 
 
 A philosopher by training, Lysias's manner of living 
 corresponds with his means. Like Lysander, he knows 
 too much to burden himself with unnecessary cares; 
 
174 LYSIAS, 
 
 hence his establishment is found so ordered that it runs 
 on a manner of tramway that has least of friction in it ; 
 certainly he is no scullion to his own kitchen, nor does 
 the number of his servants lay him under imputation of 
 being a slave to coadjutors. As the furniture of his 
 house is concerned, while it is comfortable enough, it 
 is very far from being too fine for use ; indeed, I doubt 
 not that many of the fashionables who go to him for 
 service come away with an impression that it scarcely 
 corresponds with his standing. I have myself, indeed, 
 heard as much suggested. 
 
 Lysias has oftenest on his lips that advice given by 
 Pittacus to the Atarnean, ^^ Mind your own^ In ad- 
 hering to this rule are to be found, he thinks, the success 
 and comfort of men's lives. Certain it is he makes it 
 the custom of his own. I doubt if ever, in a single 
 instance, he lias been heard to criticise the actions of 
 his fellows. Mankind, he avows, are to-day as Soc- 
 rates found the people of the Athenian age. Who 
 is most ignorant about a matter is readiest with an 
 opinion ; who is least able to withdraw a hook from his 
 lip is quickest in jumping at a bait ; he whose skill is 
 smallest in unloosing his neck from a noose is nimblest 
 in putting his head through the loop. Also is he not 
 without the penetration to perceive, as I am very sure, 
 that fault-finding is a sign either of very great weakness 
 or of very great inexperience. How can a man find 
 fault, he queries, when conscious that himself is vulnera- 
 ble? or how criticise, when knowing to his own imper- 
 fections? He smiles continuously at the readiness of 
 men to pronounce on good or on evil, knowing there 
 is no one of the race that is even perceptive enough to 
 
Z YSIAS. 
 
 175 
 
 distinguish between such opposite colors as white and 
 black ; the readiest pronouncing both to be of one 
 shade where these happen to be met with in the dark- 
 ness of an unlighted room. 
 
 I think it would not be right to leave at least one or 
 two words unspoken about the housewifely virtues of 
 Elvira. I put it to her credit that no other home into 
 which I have ever entered has its affairs go on with as 
 little commotion. I infer that her rooms, like the rooms 
 of other people, require occasionally to be dusted and 
 burnished ; that the fire of her grates, like the fire of 
 other people's grates, is occasionally found burning 
 low, perhaps burned out ', but assuredly it is the case 
 that no burnishing is ever seen being done; it is the 
 declaration of Lysias that the grates have never been 
 seen by him below the cheerful point. 
 
 Two servants are kept by Elvira, and these, from 
 the family-like aspect they present, have been in the 
 house, I presume, since its foundation. Certainly they 
 look no less like fixtures than any other of the most 
 stable things of the establishment. I infer, from the 
 actions of these servants, that they have been made to 
 understand that what is the common good is their good. 
 Indeed, the endeavor to impress this is so persistently 
 made by Elvira that I am doubtful if the rarest viand 
 ever seen in the dining-room was not at the same time 
 to be met with in the kitchen ; while assuredly I am 
 able to recall no instance of rejoicing up stairs when 
 jollity has not abounded down. 
 
 Another great virtue that I set down to the credit of 
 the wife is her tidiness ; morning alike with evening 
 she is to be found in such manner of dress as becomes 
 
Hi 
 
 jy6 LVS/AS. 
 
 her occupation for the time, the season, and herself. 
 Lysias has never been made to blush, however unrea- 
 sonable the hour at which, man-like, he has brought 
 home a visitor. Indeed, so fresh-looking does the wife 
 keep herself, and so necessary to the complement of 
 what the husband deems his happiness, that one has 
 no trouble in perceiving that here is a marriage knot 
 which can do nothing else than tighten as its age 
 advances. 
 
 There is a little matter connected with this wedlock 
 of Lysias and Elvira, which, as it s^ms to me to have 
 had found in it a great deal of good, I will venture to 
 intrude enough on the privacy of my friends to offer 
 to some one to whom it may furnish a not unwelcome 
 hint. Elvira had money, not much, yet enough for a 
 woman's wants. When the marriage vows were spoken, 
 it was found that the possessions of the wife belonged, 
 in the sight of the law, to the husband ; a few words 
 had converted the bride from an independent woman 
 into a moneyless dependant. The little matter was 
 this : so soon as transfers could be made, the right of 
 possession was again reversed, Lysias being made the 
 poor one, pecuniary independence being restored to 
 Elvira. 
 
 Lysias is often heard to aver that he considers the 
 course pursued by him in this affair as amongst the best 
 directed of his whole life ; for while often enough he 
 convulses the risibilities of his wife by insisting on look- 
 ing to see if the bottom of her pocket be not a hole — 
 assuredly she has not the same economical habits as 
 himself — yet to all others he confesses that to have a 
 woman spend her own, and then come in saucy humil- 
 
L YSIAS. 
 
 ^11 
 
 ity to a husband to make up deficiencies, is a pleasure 
 that no man of even the most moderate means can 
 afford to deny himself. "And then," says Lysias, 
 **only think, a man cannot come to the meanness of 
 robbing a woman of an estate worked for and left to 
 her by others;" he puts it out of the power even of 
 accident so to degrade him. 
 
 The faith that lives in the household is one that ad- 
 mits of very little confusion. Whether a Roman or a 
 Protestant Peter holds the keys of heaven is a matter 
 that I do not remember ever having heard alluded to in 
 the family, much less discussed. God is God, that is 
 all ; from God everything is received, to God every- 
 thing is owing. Men and women are to look upon 
 themselves as the children of God. Children require 
 no dialecticians to make them understand what are the 
 relations with a parent. 
 
 The daily life of the family goes on as does life in 
 general ; albeit the bright side is ever tried to be kept 
 uppermost. Lysias is not in the ''weeping" sense a 
 Heraclitus, and Elvira manifests little inclination to 
 find herself converted into a Niobe. 
 
 Do your best, lean on yourself; this, in a way, seems 
 to be the doctrine. A misfortune of yesterday is let 
 go with its day ; the uncertainties of to-morrow are not 
 anticipated. A ride in the park, a swim in the sea, a 
 stroll through the woods, — both husband and wife think 
 these glorious things, and wonder what more could be 
 put in the hour in which they are enjoyed. Lysias is 
 often heard to say that to understand of the blessings 
 
 H* 
 
178 LYSIAS. 
 
 heaped on man by his Maker, it needs only that one 
 have asthma for an hour or that he find himself on a 
 ship for a day without fresh water. But I think the 
 secret of the happiness of my young friends lies in 
 something else. 
 
 *' In what ? How do they manage to get anything out 
 of a life which begins and ends in nothingness?" 
 
 He who interrupts with this question is a cynical 
 little man who is greatly admired by Lysias; one who 
 is a not unfrequent sitter by his grate-side. What the 
 bond is that unites the two I have never been able to 
 discover. When together they certainly do little else 
 than dispute; combating incessantly over the places 
 rightfully to be occupied by a semicolon, about the 
 use of the subjunctive mood, or it may be about some 
 matter connected with conjunctions. Lysias says that 
 he likes the man because he is honest. This reason I 
 certainly do not dispute, for, having occasion to meet 
 him occasionally at an office in which he is employed, 
 I am led to entertain a conviction that he uses his 
 breath, when on duty, as if to waste any portion of it 
 was to rob the business of something that belongs to it. 
 
 The abrupt question of the little man is quite of a 
 piece with his character; he is not at all diffident 
 about breaking in on a conversation ; indeed, his as- 
 surance is equalled alone by one thing, as I must admit, 
 and that is his knowledge ; he has a memory that is 
 wonderful in its retentiveness, certainly one that would 
 fully justify a caricaturist in delineating him as a body 
 made up of a short pair of legs carrying a single bump- 
 like head representing that faculty. Lysias excuses his 
 straightforwardness in pronouncing the deficiency to 
 
LYSIAS. 
 
 179 
 
 lie in a lack of synonyms. ''He can't help it," he 
 says; "he has no crooked words;" and this excuse, 
 which looks plausible enough, I find myself urging 
 in defence of the man when strangers are disposed 
 to whisper in' my ear disagreeable reflections on his 
 bluntness. 
 
 I was about to answer the query of my friend's friend 
 by reminding him that happiness, together with the 
 fullest expression of philosophy, arises out of a putting 
 of use before self, but remembering that day after day 
 and year after year this man, whom Lysias calls a walking 
 encyclopaedia, sits at his desk working, working, work- 
 ing, never for the furtherance of his own reputation, 
 but wholly and solely for the good name and fame of 
 many who know or care too little about the service 
 he does them even to inquire his name, I felt such 
 response would not be in place ; not in place, however, 
 only because he seems not to have found fulness, while 
 being of all men that I have ever known the most self- 
 abnegating. 
 
 So I answered the little man after another manner. 
 A man, I said, who uses the word ''nothingness," 
 as applied to living, has certainly failed in catching 
 the signification of life. True life, full living, consists 
 in being dead to individuality. In this is the whole 
 story. To die to self is to resurrect to God ; is to come 
 to a meanings the immortality of which is as fixed as 
 are the foundations of eternity. Individuality, I sug- 
 gested, is to be looked on as the very bane of man's 
 existence; it is a night-mare to which no one finds him- 
 self able to stick, let him clutch and hold as he will; it 
 slips from and eludes the grasp, even at the moment 
 
l8o LYSIAS. 
 
 when mightiest efforts are being made to retain it. It 
 is an expression of selfishness, and not at all allied with 
 understanding. Once let this matter of individuality- 
 be dropped, I said, and man is led to see as though 
 scales had fallen from his eyes ; in an instant the mean- 
 ing of himself stands demonstrated on the programme 
 of life. 
 
 The little man pointed to a flagstaff on a neighboring 
 roof, and asked if such doctrine separated the meaning 
 of a man from that of the pole. 
 
 His own life, I suggested, was the answer to his 
 question. As a staff is at its best when affording sup- 
 port to that which is the meaning of its office, so man 
 is found expressing his fulness when performing un- 
 complainingly and unresistingly the work pertaining to 
 a situation in which he finds himself. It is the virtue 
 of a pole that it holds the flag to its place and pur- 
 pose. A man who holds things up is doing nothing 
 better. Not to worry about the reward, this is the 
 great matter, I said ; a wise man leaves all that to the 
 employer; and what he finds to be done he does; about 
 what is to come after he leaves to that after. 
 
 ** And dies like a baboon," the little man said. 
 
 Dies like a baboon, if you please, I answered. 
 
 The little man evidently had not caught my mean- 
 ing, for he repeated himself in saying that he failed to 
 see how, according to such doctrine, men differed from 
 wooden or iron machines. How did they differ? he 
 asked. 
 
 The answer to this was not difficult to make. Men, 
 I said, are in a state of constant perplexity, simply be- 
 cause of troubling themselves about a thing which con- 
 
LYSIAS, l8i 
 
 cerns the mortal not more than it does machines in 
 general : namely, next. What is next ? Who knows 
 anything about next ? Who has ever been able to learn 
 anything about it ? Who needs to learn anything about 
 it? The present is to be esteemed as the all; it is all 
 because it has for the thing which lives in it the mean- 
 ing of its office; of its intention. The present is for- 
 ever. A man lives, never yesterday, never to-morrow, 
 never in a coming moment, but now. 
 
 The little man suggested that chaos would soon 
 come if such doctrine were taught the masses. Some- 
 thing very like these were the words he used, — I recall 
 them because of his speaking with an earnestness not 
 at all common to him. **An ignorant man is kept in 
 a state of endurable decency," he said, "only when he 
 is made to feel that sin means for him hell, and that 
 the meaning of hell lies in a burning, unquenchable 
 brimstone, which is the share of every one that gets 
 into perdition. This holds them." If I remember 
 rightly, he suggested, in the connection, that Plato 
 knew less about governing men than the most ignorant 
 of country priests. As for the younger Dionysius, who 
 gave the Philosopher a people on whom to try his fool- 
 ish scheme of a republic to be governed by the innate 
 nobility residing in men, he doubted, he said, if the 
 average of his common sense was any less than that 
 possessed by the broad-headed. The man, as I have 
 hinted, is not at all modest in criticising the opinions 
 and actions of the great. 
 
 Allowing an excitement which showed itself to 
 subside, I remarked, suggestively, that the religious 
 Spinoza and the critic Oldenberg had long ago gone 
 i6 
 
1 82 LYSIAS. 
 
 over this ground ; that the good Jew had expressed 
 profoundest commiseration for the man who understood 
 so little of the meaning of life as to live it out in an 
 eye-service. 
 
 "What did I mean by eye-service?" he asked. 
 
 Simply, I replied, the same as is meant when speak- 
 ing of a servant who has not enough of the man found 
 in him to restrain him from cheating an employer of 
 what belongs to the relation j requiring that the eye of 
 the master be ever upon him. A man the reverse of 
 himself, I could not help but add ; for while I do not 
 particularly admire, I yet respect, the little man. 
 
 ** Better stick to the doctrines taught for the past 
 eighteen hundred years," he suggested. 
 
 He had confounded the Mosaic with the Christian 
 age ; indeed, had quite overlooked, for the moment, 
 that it was the Law-giver who taught, *'An eye for an 
 eye, and a tooth for a tooth." 
 
 Just so, I replied. It is the Christian doctrine of 
 which I set myself up as a humble advocate. A man 
 is to be such Nothingness, as individuality is concerned, 
 that he will hesitate as little in giving the coat as in 
 letting the cloak go. Man is to find examples for his 
 actions in the sun, in the rain, in the wheat-head. He 
 is to produce ; is to give ; concerning himself nothing 
 at all about the why or the wherefore. 
 
 He said he could see nothing at all in such meaning 
 of life ; it out-materialized, he suggested, materialism 
 itself. If that was all, better for man to be born a 
 wheat-head at once. 
 
 I ventured to suggest that men were made out of 
 wheat-heads. 
 
LYSIAS. 183 
 
 '*And you would like to add, I suppose," the little 
 man remarked, ** that wheat-heads are found to come 
 to a noble use through metamorphosis." 
 
 Precisely, I agreed; and as for myself, I propose, 
 I said, to go on developing my ripeness, trusting God 
 in the matters of what the use and significance of the 
 fruit may be. 
 
 I simply added that the nothingness to which he 
 alluded had for Lysias and Elvira the meaning of 
 wholeness ; that both had come to understand full well 
 that caterpillar, chrysalis, and butterfly, even though 
 so unlike, are yet one and the same thing. 
 
 The little man was evidently struck by the illustra- 
 tion ; he raised his eyes from some pictures at which 
 he had been looking, and asked if I thought the cater- 
 pillar recognized its individuality in the butterfly's. 
 But I left the question with him, knowing full well that 
 he would think it over long and closely, and that 
 through such thinking he would be the most likely to 
 come to an apprehension of what I meant. 
 
XII. 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 A GREAT favorite with Elvira is a certain quiet and 
 staid gentleman who each evening spends an hour 
 at the grate-side as he makes his way homeward from 
 an office where all day he is employed in clerkly duties, 
 to the chamber where half of every night is spent in 
 writing out quaint fancies which, through the books he 
 has given out, all may enjoy with him.* 
 
 Unselfish, for he might not be otherwise, is the 
 author through whose glebe runs the river of genius. 
 What is given forth is in reality simply that which 
 passes over him as over the face of a reflecting surface. 
 How the good in its plenteousness comes, and whence, 
 he may as little comprehend as do the multitude who 
 partake with him of the miraculous good. How much 
 we all admire this quiet clerk of the India House ! 
 Lysias likens what he says to clear-running spring- 
 water ; nothing the worse, as he suggests, because one's 
 lips get it from what some are pleased to call a cracked 
 pitcher. 
 
 Yes, like spring-water indeed ; its life-giving 
 
 qualities gathered among the trees and flowers and 
 white pebbles of the mountain-side ; so much that is 
 
 * Charles Lamb. 
 184 
 
AT HOME. 185 
 
 refreshing ; no India House can keep a soul from dis- 
 porting itself on Olympus. No wonder that the clerk 
 is not less to us than that which is the least part of 
 him, Elia. 
 
 So like the water of a spring which, being 
 
 gathered into a reservoir, is made to run over the dirty 
 streets of a town ; washing away garbage, drowning 
 out disagreeable odors. It is a blessed thing, says 
 Lysias, to find one's self an almoner; to have some- 
 thing to give that others want. 
 
 It is to me a pleasant sight, as I sit watching quietly 
 in my corner, to see how the heart of the wife goes out 
 towards the clerical-looking black-coated little clerk. 
 He tells her, while his eyes twinkle in gratification, 
 about the well days of that poor invalid he so inces- 
 santly looks after ; asks her about jellies and jams ; 
 discusses the prophylaxis of woolen garments; weeps, 
 as a stranger, with maladroit expression, may happen 
 to drop a word about asylums. 
 
 Surely, says Elvira, here is a hero in a double sense : 
 for what man, save this one, has been found to count 
 his time, his pleasure, ay, even his very life, as be- 
 longing exclusively to another, and that other only — 
 only a poor half-crazy sister? I doubt not that the 
 wife is as much in love with the unselfish nature of the 
 brother as she is with the reflective power which indi- 
 cates the genius. And what else in truth is it but 
 
 the compassion of the humanitarian that is the charm 
 of Elia ? One and the same are the dreary walk whose 
 end is the hospital gate, and that tender sympathy 
 which shows itself in every word spoken to suffering 
 chimney-sweep, beggar, or convict. 
 16* 
 
1 86 AT HOME. 
 
 The clerk is polite and considerate, but Elvira insists 
 that he is not to be denied in her house the solace of 
 his favorite Oronoko. What else has he ? she asks. It 
 was not strange that one day she brought home pipes 
 enough to last for a year, and tobacco in proportion. 
 It is worth very much more, she thinks, and we agree 
 with her, than the cost of airing a room, to see the 
 calm of the expressive face as the clouds of smoke shut 
 out disagreeable remembrances of invoice books and 
 indigo accounts. 
 
 It seems, too, to require smoke to bring out the genius 
 of Elia ; as if indeed without the cloud there was over- 
 much light to show anything, or as if it required the 
 spirit of the weed to exorcise that of the desk. Cer- 
 tainly the pipe precedes the talk always; but when the 
 tobacco is burned out, when the story commences, how 
 great is the compensation for the waiting ! A rare hour 
 indeed is it in which the clerk gossips about those that 
 he loves and whom, in turn, he makes us love. Where 
 better than from him do we learn the meaning of 
 measuring? What a broad charity he has! How 
 much that is good and enjoyable does he see in every- 
 thing ! He it is who teaches us how to estimate the 
 authors that write for us. We are not to be disap- 
 pointed in a Heywood because of the absence of that 
 which is the strength of Coleridge. Nor are we to ex- 
 pect to find in the deep sea of Burton's Melancholy the 
 humor that floats over the surface of Rare Ben Jonson. 
 
 *'Yes, yes," says the clerk, comparing the sonnets 
 of Sir Philip Sidney with the similar productions of 
 Milton, "they do fall below the plain moral dignity, 
 the sanctity, and high yet modest spirit of self-approval 
 
AT HOME. 187 
 
 of Milton ; but how different the circumstances of the 
 composition ! Who is to expect the lover of Stella to 
 write with the philosophy of the Graybeard ? Penelope 
 herself would have scouted the verses as being only cold 
 words." 
 
 *' Listen," he says : '* is he not a manly poet? 
 
 • I never drank of Aganippe's well, 
 Nor ever did in shade of Tempe sit, 
 And Muses scorn with vulgar brains to dwell, 
 v-:- «■ * * «- 
 
 But — God wot — this I swear by blackest brook of ... , 
 I am no pick -purse of another's wit. 
 How falls it then, that with so smooth an ease 
 My thoughts I speak, and what I speak doth flow 
 In verse, and that my verse best wits doth please? 
 Guess me the cause — what is it thus? — fye, no. 
 Or so — much less. How then? Sure this it is : 
 My lips are sweet ; inspired with Stella's kiss.' " 
 
 We were laughing about Mrs. Conrady. The clerk 
 interrupts. *' No one can say of Mrs. Conrady's coun- 
 tenance that it would be better if she had but a nose. 
 It is impossible to pull her to pieces in this manner. 
 We have seen the most malicious beauties of her own 
 sex baffled in the attempt at a selection. The touf- 
 e7ise77tble defies particularizing. It is too complete — 
 too consistent, as we may say — to admit of these in- 
 vidious reservations. It is not as if some Apelles had 
 picked out here a lip, and there a chin, out of the 
 collected ugliness of Greece, to frame a model by. It 
 is a symmetrical whole. We challenge the minutest 
 connoisseur to cavil at any part or parcel of the coun- 
 tenance in question ; to say that this, or that, is im- 
 properly placed. We are convinced that true ugliness, 
 
1 88 AT HOME. 
 
 no less than is affirmed of beauty, is the result of har- 
 mony. No one ever saw Mrs. Conrady without pro- 
 nouncing her to be the plainest woman that he ever 
 met in the course of his life." 
 
 '''That handsome is as handsome does/ is not a 
 proverb that can be used by those who have seen 
 Mrs. Conrady. 
 
 "The soul, if we may believe Plotinus, is a ray from 
 the celestial beauty. As she partakes more or less of 
 this heavenly light, she informs with corresponding 
 character the fleshly tenement which she chooses, and 
 frames to herself a suitable mansion. 
 
 " All which only proves that the soul of Mrs. Conrady 
 in her pre-existent state was no great judge of archi- 
 tecture. 
 
 "To the same effect, in a hymn in honor of Beauty, 
 divine Spenser //^/^/^/s/;?^ sings, — 
 
 ' Every spirit as it is more pure, 
 
 And hath in it the more of heavenly hght, 
 So it the fairer body doth procure 
 To habit in, and it more fairly dight 
 With cheerful grace and amiable sight. 
 For of the soul the body form doth take ; 
 For soul is form, and doth the body make. 
 
 "But Spenser, it is clear, never saw Mrs. Conrady. 
 
 "These poets, we find, are no safe guides in philoso- 
 phy; for here in his very next stanza but one is a 
 saving clause, which throws us all out again, and leaves 
 us as much to seek as ever: — 
 
 ' Yet oft it falls, that many a gentle mind 
 Dwells in deformed tabernacle drowned, 
 Either by chance, against the course of kind, 
 
AT HOME. 189 
 
 Or through unaptness in the substance found, 
 Which it assumed of some stubborn ground, 
 That will not yield unto her form's direction, 
 But is performed with some foul imperfection.' 
 
 '' From which it would follow that Spenser had 
 
 seen somebody like Mrs. Conrady." 
 
 The clerk was in a talking mood; he went on for an 
 hour, starting up to go only when he found himself no 
 longer able to get smoke from the ashes of his pipe. 
 
 Elvira is not unfamiliar with '' the Bachelor's Com- 
 plaint," but then she will always persist in denying that 
 it is Elia who is the bachelor. **Look," she says, *'is 
 it not plain that our Elia was merely trying the pen of 
 Addison?" and we all are compelled to admit that the 
 Essay is rather after the style of the Spectator than 
 after that of the clerk. 
 
 '*It is to be suggested," says Lysias, *' that this disa- 
 greeable Essay was an attempt of its writer to reconcile 
 himself to the loss of that imaginary Celia, or Cam- 
 paspe, or Lendamira, as name is found for her by the 
 friend and confidant Barry Cornwall." 
 
 "What matters what?" contends Elvira. "Who, 
 at any rate, has such right to grumble and to find fault 
 as a poor disconsolate bachelor?" 
 
 It is the friend Hazlitt who smiles so benignantly 
 on the pretty speaker. "Meant it all," he declares. 
 " Ah ! if you could but see him at our Thursday evening 
 parties. What choice venom ! what a keen, laughing, 
 hair-brained vein of homefelt truth ! the most pro- 
 voking, the most witty and sensible of men. Scalds 
 you with a jest, probes a question with a play upon 
 words. ' ' 
 
190 AT HOME. 
 
 But Elvira is not to be convinced. He has said 
 himself, she makes answer, " that truth is too precious 
 to be wasted on everybody," and she retires into a 
 shell of security when she repeats that other saying, 
 ** I value myself on being a matter-of-lie man." *' Of 
 course," cries the charming doubter. *' Is so sedate 
 a gentleman to be expected to turn spooney and show 
 his heart to quibblers as bald of true joy as himself? Not 
 he!" Elvira reads clearly the wife sentiment which 
 everywhere shows itself in the tenderness bestowed upon 
 the sister. But then, again, how may she, who is the 
 most happy of happy matrons, do otherwise than be- 
 lieve that it is all a matter of lie when a bachelor 
 attempts to turn into ridicule what he calls the assump- 
 tions and pretensions of the heart-rich Benedick? 
 ''Why, wealth shows for itself," she suggests; "and 
 what is the sense in saying that a rich thing is rich?" 
 
 The clerk, it is to be admitted, is not always just 
 exactly the same. What man is? But when the room 
 is full of smoke, and he is found in a talking humor, 
 we listen eagerly, and if he says sharp things, or things 
 disagreeable to us, we fail not to remember that there 
 is much to worry and to make him sad — ^perchance 
 enough to render him at times satirical, if not indeed 
 misanthropic. 
 
 But never is Elvira so well satisfied with Elia as when 
 he gets in the way of reflections begotten of "Old 
 China." Not that she cares a jot for the courtly man- 
 darin — the traditional courtly mandsirin— handing tea 
 to a lady from a salver, and not that she cares any 
 more for the disputed perspective, — whether lady and 
 mandarin are at proper distance for the office of tea- 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 191 
 
 handing, or whether so many as a dozen miles separate 
 them. 
 
 I whispered into the ear of the little man with the 
 big memory, who happened to be seated next me, as 
 Elvira was talking about this same china and about the 
 pleasures that may be found to reside in poverty, that 
 our pretty befurbelowed hostess was, in her way, a 
 "Bridget;" but the plain-speaking dog with his single 
 bark pronounced the thing bosh, — that was his word, 
 — asserting that it is simply ridiculous in what he calls 
 rich people to apostrophize Poverty. And this inter- 
 ruption, which just this moment comes back to me, 
 reminds me of what is an unwavering conviction, 
 namely, that the poetry of poverty is no more to be 
 felt by a poor man — one who was born poor and has 
 remained so — than is the same man capable of under- 
 standing the responsibilities of riches. Why, it has 
 happened to myself, not once, but a score of times, 
 to see a charming Elvira brought from a parlor to a 
 kitchen, yet always carrying the aesthetics with her. I 
 have seen such so metamorphose the little side-yard 
 of a ten-by-twelve village home that former occupants 
 have found themselves gaping with open mouth and 
 wonder-staring eyes at the Aladdin-like transformation. 
 Hear a clown talk of a sunset, and then turn to the 
 poetry of him whose taste has fed itself out of the glory 
 which at evening-tide lives over the Italian sea. The 
 little man has big prejudices, and they interfere with 
 his outlook. 
 
 Lysias had overheard the words. ''I have had a 
 good deal of experience," he said, ''with your poor 
 class, and know the people, as a rule, to be quite in- 
 
192 AT HOME. 
 
 capable of being made comfortable." (He was for- 
 merly the owner of many small houses.) ^' They unmake 
 faster than taste and a desire to serve them can make; 
 give them all you have, and they beg for more; ask for 
 your own, and they revile you; the lack of appreciation 
 of favors done them by the prudent and consequently 
 the thriving part of a community is unaccountable, even 
 allowing for the stolidness of ignorance ; they receive 
 and accept every good as a right, and denounce Provi- 
 dence not less than men for ills begotten of their shift- 
 lessness. Only let the hands of the wealthy workers 
 be withdrawn from beneath them, and under the waters 
 of the marsh they would go, heels and neck, soon 
 enough." Lysias was getting excited. I turned from 
 him to the wife. 
 
 It was no use, however, this attempt to change the 
 current of his thought; he had something else to say, 
 and was not to be interrupted. *' It is disgusting," he 
 went on, '* simply disgusting, to listen to a politician 
 with wit or honesty too minute to be discovered by aid 
 of a microscope, haranguing a crowd of improvidents on 
 the impositions practiced by capital. A pity is it that 
 a whip could not be put in every honest hand to lash 
 the rascals naked through the world." 
 
 **But there is trouble," said the little man; "men 
 must have bread, or else starve." 
 
 "Of course they must have bread, or else starve," 
 retorted Lysias; " but who is to give it to them ? Is a 
 decent man, one who has worked hard and saved, to 
 rob his children that life may be kept in carcasses too 
 lazy to do anything else but lean against other men's 
 posts? Why, only look at the complainers; ten, if not 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 193 
 
 a dozen of them, clamoring for work under the shade 
 of a mill-roof, when it is impossible for the owner to 
 find places for half the number. As many others insist 
 on trundling barrows over city streets, where two are 
 more than enough to do the wheeling. A million 
 middle-men scatter themselves broadcast over the land, 
 thrusting their locust-like appetites between producer 
 and consumer, eating so much out of every crop that 
 little enough is left either to pay him who has worked 
 or to allow equivalent to him who has money with 
 which to buy. On every avenue of the cities are to be 
 found a host of sturdy men wasting away their time in 
 doing women's work ; dealing in pins, or else measur- 
 ing ribbons over counters. Wherever is to be found a 
 hole in a wall big enough to hold a bottle, there you are 
 sure to meet with some one of the malcontents, ready, 
 spider-like, to pounce upon and suck out the life-blood 
 of him who is silly enough to get within the meshes of 
 his net. No, no ; a doctor sees too much of such peo- 
 ple to be easily imposed on. At the back door of the 
 factories in which these are struggling with each other 
 to endure what they are pleased to call the primeval 
 curse ; beyond the pave on which they are crowding 
 each other; away from the needles and tape, and within 
 sight, almost, of the holes in the walls, there are un- 
 counted acres and untold places for comfortable and 
 independent living. There is a sun true to its pur- 
 pose as is the God himself, there are rains to water, and 
 there is a life in the soil which will disappoint no man 
 who trusts in it. Shall men then complain and deem 
 themselves ill used because that they tarry in a land 
 in which all the corn has been eaten ? or because that 
 K 17 
 
194 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 they will not leave channels from which the streams 
 have passed out ? Shall the woman-man measure his 
 tape or commend his needle-packages when no cus- 
 tomers stand in front of his counter? or shall he of 
 the bottle hope to keep fat in his mesh when all the 
 blood has been consumed ?" 
 
 The little man again used the word "bosh." He 
 desired to know, he said, how the middle-men, the pin- 
 sellers and the pourers-out from the bottle, were to get 
 amongst the bread-growing acres and under the feeding 
 rays of a fructifying sun. 
 
 Lysias had worked himself up to a very unusual state 
 of excitement. '' The middle-men," he said, ** and the 
 pin-sellers, and the bottle-holders, must suffer, and in- 
 dustrious men must suffer with them ; all for the reason 
 that fathers were fools, enough to think that working 
 hand in hand with God was not quite good enough for 
 the sons." Lysias had not forgotten his teachings. 
 
 **Yes," I said, anxious to turn the drift of his reflec- 
 tions : 
 
 " A day there was, ere England's griefs began, 
 When every rood of ground maintained its man." 
 
 (( 
 
 Put it in your pipe and smoke over it," said 
 Lysias, turning to the little man: *'the story is all in 
 that." 
 
 The little man said he had one more question to ask : 
 ** Would Lysras tell him in what category a doctor 
 belonged? Was a doctor a producer, or was he a mid- 
 dle-man?" He suggested that he had met doctors 
 whose appetites could not be called small. 
 
 I must say that I thought the thrust a sharp one. 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 195 
 
 Lysias, with a shrug of the shoulders, turned upon his 
 heel. 
 
 After a few moments of calm, the conversation got 
 back to the subject of the pleasures of restricted means. 
 *'Elia understands it," said Elvira: **hear what he 
 says : 
 
 a <when you came home with twenty apologies for 
 laying out a less number of shillings upon that print 
 after Lionardo, which we christened the Lady Blanch ; 
 when you looked at the purchase, and thought of the 
 money — and thought of the money, and looked again 
 at the picture — was there no pleasure in being a poor 
 man ? Now, you have nothing to do but walk into 
 Colnaghi's and buy a wilderness of Lionardos. Yet 
 do you?'" 
 
 It is delightful to listen to the dear creature as she 
 runs on, taking the very words out of the mouth of 
 the clerk. *'Yes, the pleasant carriage-rides into the 
 country, enjoyed so much because so rare ; the river 
 excursion, the cost counted a week ahead ; the day 
 taken from business, that for ten delightful hours bab- 
 bling brooks may add sweet songs to the strains of the 
 poets ] and then the simple little repast for which a 
 rustic table is prepared with so much ado, so much run- 
 ning to and fro. A cake with more of molasses than 
 butter in it ; cold lamb in place of tongue ; the pickled 
 cucumber pronounced so much better than the olive; 
 the water of the spring seen to be of brighter sparkle 
 than wine." 
 
 Elvira loves nothing better than to talk about what 
 she calls her ''little Trianon." This is a farm the 
 gates of which are shut, like that other Trianon of 
 
196 AT HOME, 
 
 France, on luxury and fashion, and where the dainty 
 thing, with her feet encased in calf-skin, trundles her 
 own wheelbarrow and wields her own hoe. He who 
 has the good fortune to be invited to Trianon will not 
 be unapt to find himself awakened in the morning by 
 the **So ho" of the pretty rustic as she calls the cow 
 from the meadow, as at breakfast he will be sure to 
 eat of yellow grass-flavored butter, which has been pad- 
 dled into rolls by the hands looking to-night so dainty 
 and so good-for-nothing — except to set off the pretty 
 stones which find ornament in that they were designed 
 to beautify. 
 
 Elvira asks the little man if he has ever enjoyed an 
 early morning hour hoeing potatoes or cabbages, or 
 cleaning the edges of a walk or a drive. "Why, look," 
 she says; "a hoe may be dull, and the hoer may be 
 duller, but use brightens the blade and sharpens it. 
 Is not a hoe itself, thrown down, and lying unem- 
 ployed by the grassy pathway, suggestive of uncon- 
 sidered weeds growing in the moral flower-bed? What 
 may come of an uneven, unkempt border to a walk or 
 a drive-way, but a reminder of the ill variations in one's 
 own life ? While to pick up a hoe, and with it to root 
 and weed out ill growths, to make with it lines of beauty, 
 and consequently of harmony, — might this be suggest- 
 ive of aught else than that higher training which serves 
 to convert an ugly nature into a pretty one? Must it 
 not be with life-weeds as it is with garden-weeds, and 
 with life- walks as it is with lawn -walks? — every weed cut 
 away and every line harmonized, may this be else than 
 so much in the way of improvement ?" 
 
 " The lesson of lessons, the change of changes," sug- 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 197 
 
 gested a grave thinker, who sits much with us, ''the 
 religious change, comes not through hoes and hoeing, 
 not to the possessor of a Trianon any more than to him 
 from whom high-walled streets shut out the lessons of 
 nature, but is a special gift from above, a reflection 
 upon man of that grace and love which have suffered, 
 the one for the many.'* 
 
 ** Assuredly," replies the farmeress, *' I have sat too 
 long by the grate-side to deny any mystery; yet surely 
 it is not to be doubted that as one plucks and casts 
 away weeds the garden is rendered thereby the cleaner ;, 
 and as pathways are trimmed and bordered, so unde- 
 niably through the trimming are these rendered the 
 more sightly." Little doubt had she, she said, that 
 the increase of the garden came neither of Paul nor of 
 ApoUos, but not more doubt had she of a necessity for 
 the planting and watering. 
 
 ''Weeds," suggested the thinker, "are the natural 
 and necessary growth of virgin soils; indeed, weeds con- 
 stitute the soil, and a field which, left to itself, produces 
 not weeds, has in it none of the ability to come to the 
 production of bread. But soil of and in itself out- 
 grows that which is its origin : from the weeds grow 
 grains, the nutrition for the higher comes through the 
 lower. So, in the proper time, come the hoer and the 
 pruner; and now weeds, being things out of place, are 
 wisely plucked up and cast away. And not unlike to 
 weeds are the virtues ; being of evil or of good import 
 according as we find them. The natural man is not 
 unlike the natural soil : his circumstances and relations 
 are to be understood before is extended to him either 
 commendation or condemnation. Brute force, which 
 17* 
 
198 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 shows all muscle and bone, ill though it seem to-day, 
 did yesterday crush the head of the wild beast and 
 trample in the dust the head of the serpent ; yester- 
 day it felled forests, and made of water-courses places 
 for cities. To-day no lions are in the way, no wood 
 covers the fields of the husbandman, and he who yes- 
 terday might have found neither peace nor safety in 
 any habitation, to-day, because of that which was yes- 
 terday, flourishes and prospers." 
 
 It is here, as in the middle of most conversations, 
 that an interruption occurs, which breaks up the even- 
 ing. 
 
XIII. 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 THE conversation was concerning books. 
 A book, I said, is a man in the mood and educa- 
 tion in which the author writes ; but a book has advan- 
 tages over him who utters it, inasmuch as in its person- 
 ality it becomes ubiquitous, being able to be in many- 
 places at the same time ; to converse in tongues un- 
 known to the original ; to adapt its mood to him with 
 whom it holds colloquy ; and to stop its speech, even 
 in that moment in which what it has to say ceases to 
 interest. 
 
 As well is it the virtue of a book that it may 
 
 exhibit its author to an advantage not always to be 
 seen in his personnel ; that it may show forth peculiari- 
 ties, ostentation or even affectation, without an offence 
 that can be taken for insult ; that it is found able to 
 make itself quite as much at home in a hut as in a 
 palace ; that it is little disturbed whether sooty hands 
 mar its fair belongings or its leaves find dainty turning 
 by perfumed and jewelled fingers ; that it tells its les- 
 sons as earnestly by the wayside as in the library ; that 
 what it once is seen to be, that it remains ; that if it 
 is of good import, then, being like a good man dead, 
 
 199 
 
200 ^T HOME, 
 
 one may in all safety praise and commend, as no 
 change may possibly come to disappoint or to undo. 
 
 It is also to the advantage of a book that it is 
 
 ever ready to make acquaintance with him who de- 
 sires introduction ; it is greatly its advantage over the 
 author, very greatly, that it is never the first to weary 
 of comradeship ; that if desired it will stay in the home 
 of a new friend, or with like willingness go to the field 
 or the workshop ; that, never tired of talking, it will 
 tell over and again its story. A wonderful thing in- 
 deed, through its instrumentality the highest and most 
 virtuous of mankind are brought into companionship 
 with the meanest and worst; are made ministers to 
 necessities, instructors to inexperience. 
 
 But there are bad authors, and of course bad 
 
 books; yet of the two, he is the safer who comes direct 
 to the acquaintance of the bad man rather than to that 
 of his bad book, for of a certainty shall the one not 
 fail either sooner or later to show the cloven nature of 
 his foot, while the other may be so cloaked and hooded, 
 so seductively cloaked and hooded, that a Juan makes 
 his way where a Byron might not be tolerated. 
 
 Elvira glances nervously at the rows of volumes 
 lining the shelves of the library, and with maternal 
 solicitude draws close to her side a noble-faced boy, 
 whose every feature is so like her own. ''What shall 
 he read?" she asks. 
 
 That is a question, I said, that is found, after a cer- 
 tain way, to answer itself. One reads according to 
 his taste. 
 
 ''But taste," interrupted the mother, "is a thing 
 to be made." 
 
AT HOME. 20I 
 
 Assuredly, I answered. Men are like trees, but boys 
 are like saplings; a tree is straight or it is crooked, it 
 is gnarled or it is clean, according to what have been 
 the influences associated with the scion. 
 
 "But does it not seem a pity," said Elvira, "that 
 we are compelled to mar the fair face of a virgin field? 
 What is so attractive as a boy in the freshness of an 
 uninstructed simplicity?" 
 
 Yet, I said, if it is expected to get grain out of a 
 field the plough must be used, even though it is the 
 case that a plough is a thing that pierces and exposes 
 and turns the inside out. 
 
 "Exposing many things which do not add to the 
 attractions of the place ploughed," said Lysias. 
 
 True, I answered. Yet we must agree with Aris- 
 totle, that an educated man is as much superior to one 
 uneducated as are the living to the dead ; and cer- 
 tainly we may not deny that a field comes first to its 
 purpose only after harrow and hoe have passed over it 
 and have obliterated what we are disposed to consider 
 its fairness. 
 
 "The subject of the education of a boy," said Lysias, 
 " is one that at the present time is of greatest interest, 
 both to Elvira and myself. With the good wife's per- 
 mission I will light a pipe, and perhaps you will not 
 object to giving us the benefit of your views on the 
 subject." 
 
 If I can afford you any aid, I replied, in the fulfil- 
 ment of the task that lies before you, I shall be thank- 
 ful that experience has made me somewhat acquainted 
 with the subject. 
 
 To begin with the beginning, I said, I shall expose 
 1* 
 
202 AT HOME. 
 
 a fault which happily has had no existence, as I well 
 know, in the case of this family. I allude to that 
 falsest of false kindness through which mothers unwit- 
 tingly suffer the risk of destroying not only the com- 
 fort of their children, but also, what is of quite as much 
 consequence, the tranquillity and security of their 
 own marriage relation. It is not to be denied, I 
 said, and no one can be more cognizant to the fact 
 than Lysias himself, that there are a multitude of 
 women who turn slaves the moment their first child is 
 born. 
 
 Elvira smilingly nodded, implying that she under- 
 stood. *'I gave the young Lysias here his first and 
 only spanking," she said, "the day he was five months 
 old ; it was a good one, and it has never had to be re- 
 peated." 
 
 Right, I said. I have seen a mother sitting hour 
 after hour over a crying infant, losing sleep and 
 health, the household all disturbed, myself made to get 
 out of a warm bed to trudge over icy streets at mid- 
 night, when the soporific to be prescribed was a good 
 dose of oleum betulse — birch oil. 
 
 "I suppose," interrupted Lysias, "that, like all 
 other physicians who are properly versed in the thera- 
 peutics of the profession, you have lost whole families 
 as patients by displaying too much intelligence as to 
 the wants of a baby?" 
 
 Plenty of them, I replied. 
 
 " It is unaccountable," said Elvira, " when measured 
 by any rule of common sense ; among my own ac- 
 quaintances I number one of just that kind of mothers; 
 self-sacrificing, she names it, but I call it nonsensi- 
 
AT HOME, 203 
 
 cally self-immolating ; when the child cries it must be 
 hushed with' bribes and rocking — and sometimes it 
 is rocked the night through ; when it slavers, the 
 finest cambric is not too good to be torn by its pretty 
 in-growing teeth. Baby waxes lusty and bad, mother 
 grows lean and slatternly, husband lapses into a club 
 man. There are no longer the pretty frills that once 
 so bewitchingly adorned the prettier neck ; no longer 
 the sweet scent of jasmine so seductive to the senses; 
 no longer a springy form ready always for the pave or 
 the phaeton; no longer curls rich as amber; but in 
 place of these a wife whose movements are as draggy 
 as her dress is dowdy, one who has no talk but that 
 which discusses tooth-cutting and colicky stomachs, 
 no odor sweeter than that of the stale slops found 
 always abundantly over her person, the harp replaced 
 by a nursery wash-tub, the bride by a frowzy nurse." 
 
 Women of such little judgment, I interrupted, de- 
 serve to have both bad babies and disappointed hus- 
 bands. 
 
 ** Yes; and they have them," said Elvira. 
 
 Lysias laughed. ''She is authority," he suggested, 
 ''on everything connected with marriage and babies. 
 Look at her ; who would take her for the mother of so 
 bouncing a stripling?" 
 
 "Or of so good a one," interrupted the wife, her 
 merry laugh ringing through the room. 
 
 The boy nestled close to the mother's side. "Do I 
 satisfy dear mamma?" he asked. "I try to." The 
 answer made was a pretty tableau. 
 
 "Yes," said Elvira, "the greatest miss that a wife 
 can make is to place a child betwixt herself and her 
 
204 ^^ HOME. 
 
 husband ; the turning around gets both spouse and 
 baby out of place, and things out of place don't do 
 well." 
 
 And such turning around, I said, is not to be looked 
 on as expressive of motherly love, but rather as indica- 
 tive of wifely improvidence. When the pretty frills 
 go, admiration is very likely to go with them. When 
 music ceases at home, it is not unapt to be hearkened 
 for elsewhere. 
 
 "Neither," says Lysias, "as I very well know, is 
 the right relation to be looked on as indicative of 
 any lack of earnest attention to the child. It is only 
 husband at the head of the table, baby at the foot." 
 
 "Instead of baby all over it," said Elvira, taking 
 up the sentence and finishing it. 
 
 The only foundation, I said, which is capable of 
 affording reliable support to a superstructure of manly 
 greatness is virtue ; the laying of this begins with 
 babyhood. Babies that have been allowed to have their 
 own way, and thus commence with a layer of selfish- 
 ness, are apt in after-life to feel shaky whenever a wind 
 blows. 
 
 " What about playfellows?" the mother asked. 
 
 A most important matter, I replied, but so impossi- 
 ble is it to keep a boy from meeting all kinds that one 
 can do nothing else than submit to the risk. A boy 
 who sees in his own home, however, the beauties of 
 refinement is pretty safe from contamination by things 
 low and vulgar. One accustomed to drink water from 
 a goblet of shivering thinness is not apt to choose an 
 earthen mug. Indeed, I am not certain, I said, but 
 that it is well for a lad of a good bringing up that oc- 
 
A T HOME. 205 
 
 casionally he be brought in contact with the rude and 
 vile : they disgust him. 
 
 ''You think, then," said Lysias, "that a boy has 
 to be pitted against his fellows and take his chances?" 
 
 It is only a question of time, I replied. Pitting must 
 come either sooner or later. 
 
 The father knocked the ashes out of his pipe. "I 
 am reminded," he said, "of a high-bred and very 
 diffident boy, who was sent to a school that I once 
 attended. His previous life had evidently been spent 
 at a mother's apron-string ; he was delicate and timid 
 to the degree of girlishness. Of course he was imposed 
 on by all his schoolmates, and maltreated on the slight- 
 est provocation. Such was the state of things for a 
 couple of years, when, returning to the play-ground 
 after an August vacation, he turned the tables com- 
 pletely by fighting with a desperate abandon every one 
 who attempted to cross his path. It was not long be- 
 fore he was the most let-alone boy of the establishment. 
 To-day he stands at the head of one of the largest 
 manufacturing enterprises of the country." 
 
 Yes ; the experience is a common one, I suggested. 
 A parent may not give better advice to a son than that 
 received by Laertes.* 
 
 As to what is commonly called education, I con- 
 tinued, were one assured of great longevity, a beginning 
 would be with the classics ; but for the reason that fixed- 
 ness is uncertain, experience directs that it is the part 
 
 ■-•• " Beware 
 Of entrance to a quarrel, but, being in. 
 Bear 't that th" opposed may beware of thee." 
 
 18 
 
2o6 AT HOME. 
 
 of wisdom that a boy be started at the middle; getting 
 his knowledge by delving both ways ; casting back- 
 ward and looking forward. 
 
 Lysias remarked that he was doubtful as to whether 
 he had my meaning. 
 
 English, I said, is not a language of itself, but a 
 manner of speech made out of many tongues. It is 
 starting a boy in the middle to commence with the 
 alphabet of a modern vernacular. 
 
 Did I like the manner in which the education of 
 the lad Montaigne was commenced? Lysias asked. 
 
 I give the father great credit for the judgment, I 
 replied. 
 
 *' How was it?" inquired the mother. 
 
 A tutor was engaged, whose care it was to see that 
 the pupil had no intercourse with his Gascon-speaking 
 fellows ; Latin was the only language which the boy 
 was allowed either to hear or use ; as a consequence it 
 became a mother tongue to him. When only six years 
 of age, Montaigne found himself possessed of a key to 
 modern word-making. 
 
 *'But we shall have to begin with an English founda- 
 tion," Lysias said. *' We must not hope to rival the 
 Gascon." 
 
 There was a ring of the door-bell. The visitor was 
 the little man, and he was not at all in a good humor. 
 He had dropped in, he said, to have some more talk 
 about poor people. 
 
 A shade of red ran over the face of Lysias. I think 
 he was conscious of having been betrayed into too 
 great freedom of expression at the last meeting. I 
 think, too, that the manner of the little man, on the 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 207 
 
 present occasion, was offensive to him, and that it 
 angered him/ although if this latter were the case he 
 commanded himself very well. 
 
 *'We were talking about education," he said, re- 
 plying to his guest, and desirous, apparently, of avoid- 
 ing the other subject. 
 
 ''About education," said the little man; *' but I 
 want to talk about pin-sellers and about bottle-men; 
 about assumption and presumption." 
 
 Lysias frowned. '*I would give," he said, ''with 
 all willingness a good thousand dollars if I could appro- 
 priate to my own use a small share of your assumption 
 and presumption." 
 
 The cynicism of the little man was fully aroused ; 
 he quite lost an equilibrium which is a marked charac- 
 teristic of his manner. " Humph I" he said, " nothing 
 is easier ; you have only to keep your egotism for your 
 tongue, instead of lavishing it so profusely on the pages 
 of your books." 
 
 "And suppose I should incline," answered Lysias, 
 laughing immoderately, " to circulate a scandal about 
 you?" 
 
 "I would thank you," interrupted the little man, 
 " if you would have it printed in some one of your 
 volumes, as then there would be the least danger of my 
 coming to any harm from it." 
 
 "Admirable! admirable!" said Lysias. "What a 
 pity it is not original !" 
 
 The little man changed his tack. "Do you not 
 know," he said, "that all that was spoken by you 
 the other night, about middle-men, is nonsense and 
 bosh ?" Bosh is a great word with the little man. 
 
2o8 ^'T HOME. 
 
 "You call yourself a middle-man, I presume," said 
 Lysias. 
 
 ''Certainly I do," answered the little man; ''and a 
 doctor, high as he holds his head, is nothing better." 
 
 " You suggested that same idea on the occasion of 
 our last conversation," said Lysias. 
 
 "Yes, and I repeat it," replied the little man; "the 
 one sells pins, the other pills ; that is all the differ- 
 ence." 
 
 "Very well," said Lysias. " Your logic is unexcep- 
 tionable; now about the deduction." 
 
 "Very easily drawn," answered the little man. 
 " Doctors ought to go to work raising corn, instead 
 of thrusting their long arms between the slabs of 
 other people's cribs." 
 
 "And when the other people sicken and lie on their 
 beds dying, the doctors, being busy in their fields, are 
 to withhold their long arms from reaching out help." 
 
 "You have hit the nail," replied the little man. 
 " A doctor serves his kind and himself best by staying 
 out of a field altogether. Pin-makers have no time to 
 act as pin-sellers. You seem to have overlooked alto- 
 gether the meaning of a man's relation with a com- 
 munity in which he lives." 
 
 "He has found it," said Lysias, turning to me. 
 " Our friend has worked out the problem of 'the all 
 and the nothingness' of individuality." 
 
 "No shirking of the subject," said the little man. 
 "Never mind individuality. I maintp.in that you 
 talked nonsense the other night." 
 
 "Do you eat potatoes at your house?" Lysias 
 asked. 
 
AT HOME. 20C 
 
 ''Eat potatoes!" replied the little man; "certainly 
 we eat potatoes. But what have potatoes to do with 
 pin-sellers, or pin-sellers with potatoes?" 
 
 '' How much a bushel ?" asked Lysias. 
 
 The little man looked as if he thought he was being 
 quizzed. "My cook," he said, " sees after the potatoes." 
 
 "In the market," said Lysias, answering his own 
 question, "one dollar and a quarter; at a farm where 
 I raise them, about twenty cents." 
 
 "Then all I have to say is," replied the little man, 
 " you ought to be utterly ashamed of yourself for ask- 
 ing so extortionate a profit." 
 
 "And so I would be," answered Lysias, "were it 
 not that only last week I disposed of all I had to sell 
 for fifty cents the bushel." 
 
 "And I bought," said the little man, "only last 
 week, paying nearly three times that price." 
 
 "Yes," said Lysias, "the middle-man, who sat in 
 the shade of a counting-room, never handling a single 
 one of the tubers, made not less than a clear profit of 
 half a dollar on each bushel bought by you. I, who 
 ploughed, planted, and cultivated, got a profit of thirty 
 cents, and of this a portion was to be appropriated as 
 interest on the money investment made in the farm." 
 
 " You buy your butter, I believe," continued Lysias, 
 "from ?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 " What does he charge you the pound ?" 
 
 " Fifty or sixty cents, I believe." 
 
 " On each Wednesday and Saturday, my farmer lays 
 that same butter on his stall for jus,t half the price he 
 is to receive for it." 
 
 i8* 
 
2IO AT HOME. 
 
 *'He is an extortionate dog!" exclaimed the little 
 man, his choler rising; ''and he shall learn that I 
 know his trade-marks of cost and profit." 
 
 *' But we are straying from the subject," remarked 
 Lysias. *'You want to hear about poor people, and 
 you shall. I am just the one to come to for informa- 
 tion. I was born with them, brought up among them ; 
 indeed, I have myself known what it is to breakfast on 
 a crust and sup on a bowl of soup." 
 
 ''Humph!" said the little man; "know as much 
 about the thing as about all others." 
 
 "Enough," retorted Lysias, "to tell you that in 
 the great majority of instances the cause of suffering 
 lies with the sufferer; that shiftlessness is the foundation- 
 rock of communism ; that laziness is the key-stone of 
 the grumbler's arch." 
 
 " And what," asked the little man, "would you pro- 
 nounce the key-stone of the arch of prosperity?" 
 
 " Two pennies made before one is spent," answered 
 Lysias. 
 
 The little man had lighted a pipe and was puffing 
 away vigorously ; he seemed to have been struck with 
 a sudden thought. I think he was quite oblivious to 
 the reply made to his question. Lysias tapped him on 
 the shoulder. " I am going," he said, " to-morrow, to 
 visit my properties; will you go along?" 
 
 " Go where?" said the little man, aroused from his 
 reverie. 
 
 " To see after some poor people," answered Lysias, 
 quizically. 
 
 " Name the hour," said the little man. 
 
 Bright and early in the morning I accompanied the 
 
AT HOME. 211 
 
 twain. ** We will go first," suggested Lysias, " to the 
 premises of one of my rich incumbents." 
 
 The house we visited had fine rooms ; it was situated 
 in the middle of a garden every available inch of which 
 showed either flower, fruit, or vegetable. Along the 
 sides of the fence, the rails and posts of which furnished 
 the required support, were rows of blackberries, every 
 bramble of which was laden with berries of the largest 
 size. Long furrows extending from end to end of the 
 yard gave promise of a full potato-bin for the winter. 
 Tomatoes in abundance filled a corner plot. Egg- 
 plants, two and three to a bush, were to be seen here and 
 there in odd places. Rows of corn kept company with 
 the potato-furrows, each stalk being courted by a cling- 
 ing vine engaged in making bean-pods. It was a picture 
 of thrift. Quite a broad and gracious smile overspread 
 the face of the little man. " He would like," he said, 
 '< to have a handful of the blackberries." 
 
 '' Plenty of them, as you see," said Lysias, and it was 
 but a little time before a great saucer-full was picked 
 and handed him. 
 
 While the little man sat under a tree, eating his fruit, 
 Lysias gave him the history of what he saw. " My 
 ownership of this place," he said, "resides in a mort- 
 gage which just about half covers it ; four years ago it 
 embraced everything." 
 
 *' Did you sell the place without payment of any 
 money down?" asked the little man. 
 
 ''Without the payment of a cent," answered Lysias. 
 ''Four years back, happening one day to make a pro- 
 fessional visit to the family of its present owner, — he 
 lived then in one of a row of sun-baked alley-hovels, — ■ 
 
212 AT HOME. 
 
 I was struck with the air of superior neatness which 
 made his little house so great a contrast to all the others 
 of the row in which I had found myself. Another thing 
 that struck me was a sense of manly independence ; no 
 complaining, no finding fault, no comparing or con- 
 trasting himself with other people ; the man was as poor 
 as a church mouse, but gentleman was written all over 
 him." 
 
 ^' Well?" said the little man. 
 
 " Well, here was a chance to help two persons at one 
 time. I wanted to get clear of a house, this man was 
 greatly in need of one. He had no money to give, I 
 was able to sell without it. He had probity and in- 
 dustry, I had capital. In four more years the property 
 will be wholly his; his, and his children's after him." 
 
 The little man having finished his plate of fruit, Lysias 
 said we would walk to a neighboring street. On this 
 street, it was rather a court, there were quite a number 
 of small houses, six of which belonged to my pupil. 
 Entering the first, I involuntarily exclaimed. I think 
 I never saw greater neatness. Ceilings white as lime 
 could make them, walls as fresh as though the paper 
 had been put on only yesterday. Everything like a 
 new pin. 
 
 "You have a good tenant here," I remarked. 
 
 ** Yes," said Lysias, **and does it not look as if the 
 tenant had a good landlord?" 
 
 I could not dispute it. 
 
 ''Come next door," said Lysias, thanking the tenant 
 for the kind permission which had been accorded to 
 look at the premises. 
 
 The first greeting as the next door opened was a 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 213 
 
 complaint that a drain-pipe was stopped, and that the 
 water was filling the cellar. 
 
 '* And undermining the foundations of the house," 
 suggested Lysias. 
 
 ** The cellar is half full," said the man. 
 
 *' And how long," asked the landlord, "is it since 
 the pipe failed to carry off the water?" 
 
 ''About two weeks," was the reply. '*The paper 
 is loosening from all the walls; one of the children 
 has been down sick of a catarrh on account of the wet. 
 I don't think I ought to be asked any rent for this 
 month." 
 
 '' I believe," said the landlord, " that you are already 
 five in arrears." 
 
 " Yes," said the tenant ; ** times are very hard, and 
 money is tight." 
 
 ''Not a doubt of it," said Lysias. "How much 
 have you been compelled to lay out on account of medi- 
 cines for the cold caught by your child through reason 
 of this stopped drain?" 
 
 " Seven dollars," said the tenant. "And I think it 
 is only fair that you should refund it." 
 
 " No doubt of that either," responded the landlord. 
 " Seven dollars to begin with. And of course I am to 
 pay for repapering the walls?" 
 
 Had Lysias asked the man whether he was to pay 
 for his own marketing, the surprise exhibited could not 
 have been greater. 
 
 Opening the cellar-door, we looked below : there 
 was water enough, without doubt, and, to make matters 
 worse, a great stone had fallen from the wall. Every 
 hour was risking the stability of the house. "The cellar 
 
214 ^^ HOME. 
 
 will have to be pumped out immediately," Lysias 
 said, ''and the stone-mason sent for." 
 
 ''What stopped the drain?" he inquired, turning to 
 the tenant. 
 
 The tenant "didn't know; may-be a dishcloth had 
 got in it." 
 
 Reaching a piece of stout wire that was hanging from 
 a nail in the fence, Lysias bent a hook on its end and 
 gave it a single turn in the pipe ; the result was, first, a 
 newspaper, which the wire had gone through ; second, 
 a dishcloth, caught by the hook. Lysias afterwards 
 told me that the cost to him of the stopped drain was 
 forty dollars ; the rent — nearly half a year in arrears — 
 was twelve dollars a month. 
 
 The little man had not spoken a word. 
 
 "Come across the street," said Lysias. The house 
 into which we now went was vacant, — " a matter not to 
 be wondered at," the little man said, " for it looks like 
 a hog-pen." 
 
 I think Lysias agreed with him ; I certainly did. 
 
 "A poor man lived in it," said Lysias. " I will tell 
 you the story." 
 
 "Not till I get out of the smells he has left behind," 
 said the little man, holding his nostrils tightly between 
 his fingers. The house was a complete wreck ; window- 
 glass was demolished, hinges broken from closets and 
 doors, paper smeared with grease and torn in strips 
 from the wall of every room ; the handles of the water- 
 spigots wrenched off, as if the object had been the price 
 they would bring as old brass ; floors quite as thick with 
 filth as that of the place to which the little man had 
 likened the premises. 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 215 
 
 "Must have received a good rent," said the little 
 man, " to compensate for all the trouble and expense 
 you will have here." 
 
 We had stepped into the yard ; it was as bad outside 
 as in ; the clothes-line posts had been dug up and con- 
 sumed as kindling; nearly all the shingles from the roof 
 of an out-house had gone the same way ; two or three 
 cart-loads of ashes were piled up in a corner ; there was 
 absolutely nothing but that was the reverse of what it 
 should have been. 
 
 Lysias lighted a cigar and handed a second to the 
 little man. ''It requires," he said, ''that one have 
 something in his mouth to keep back oaths. On one 
 of the coldest of the earliest days of the last winter 
 the man who has just moved out of this house came to 
 me with the story that a heartless landlord was about to 
 set him and his family upon the street on account of a 
 paltry sum owing on his rent, — some four dollars, if I 
 remember rightly. Pitying him very much, for the 
 tale he told was a sad one, I handed him this money, 
 and afterwards had him moved into the house the yard 
 of which we stand in. Yesterday completed his ninth 
 month of occupancy. He has told me a thousand lies, 
 has made all kinds of excuses to keep from doing any 
 little jobbing I might have on hand, has never paid a 
 single penny of rent, and is now engaged in informing 
 his old neighbors that all landlords are alike, that I am 
 not a bit better than the rest of the lot." 
 
 " A vagabond of the worst order," said the little man, 
 all his ire aroused at the imposition. 
 
 We walked around the corner. Lysias pointed out 
 another of his houses: it was an establishment of pre- 
 
2i6 AT HOME. 
 
 tension ; such a one as commands the higher order of 
 tenants. "It was occupied all last winter," he said, 
 *' by a politician. When rent was asked for, the excuse 
 was ever ready that certain moneys expected had not yet 
 been received ; next month, and next, and next, the rent 
 would certainly be paid. This man was a gentleman : 
 of course all men living in big houses are. One does 
 not hesitate to oblige a gentleman, even though it is the 
 case that taxes and water-rates deplete the property- 
 owner's pocket. When the spring came," said Lysias, 
 ^' the gejitleman rnowtd between a Sunday and Monday, 
 leaving to me the satisfaction of knowing that I had 
 been laughed at for a credulous fool, besides affording 
 me the pleasure of paying for the gas consumed by him 
 during the time of occupancy." 
 
 The little man buttoned his coat tightly, as though he 
 felt himself in the neighborhood of thieves. "You are 
 right," he said : " there is a ' poor class.' " 
 
 But that very evening he returned to the attack. 
 "I ani unable to see," he said, "why you place in a 
 common category the thieves about whom you told us 
 this morning, and the honest clerks, the mill-hands, and 
 the trundlers of barrows, alluded to in your previous 
 dissertation." 
 
 "You can't see?" said Lysias. "Well, I will show 
 you, or rather tell you. The first are knaves, the second 
 fools." 
 
 " Humph !" said the little man; " you are modest: 
 being a middle-man, as you admit, you call yourself a 
 fool." 
 
 "I certainly should esteem myself the chiefest of 
 them," said Lysias, "if I kept away from my acres, 
 
AT HOME. 217 
 
 which are full of bread, if the closets of the town-house 
 were empty.'* 
 
 *'I don't understand," said the little man. 
 
 " Or rather you won't," retorted Lysias. "Are there 
 not ten doctors where one is sufficient for the work, 
 twenty clerks where a half-dozen girls could fill the 
 places, fifty mill-hands where the capacity is for one- 
 quarter the number? Are not the cities growing and 
 the country-places depopulating? What is to be the 
 result? What may only be the result? You can't see? 
 Perhaps you never will ; but I doubt me if your children 
 do not come to the sight." 
 
 "■ Well," said the little man, " you may be right, but 
 if every man were on his rood of ground life would 
 run along on a very dead level." 
 
 ''Level indeed," said Lysias: ''there would be no 
 pleasant clatter of machinery, no buzz of tradesmen's 
 voices, no pictures painted, no books written, no driving 
 to and fro of doctors." 
 
 " But in place of " said the little man. 
 
 " In place of that," said Lysias, taking the words out 
 of his mouth, "there would be absence of the distress 
 that is daily increasing." 
 
 " And in way of remedy " queried the little man. 
 
 "In way of remedy," replied Lysias, "it would be 
 well if one boy at least out of every half-dozen that 
 are growing up might be thought not too good to plant 
 and grow bread enough for his own feeding." 
 
 The little man, pulling out his watch, said it was late; 
 his good-night was much more cordial than usual, I 
 thought. 
 
 K 19 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 BEING alone, Lysias reverted to the matter of educa- 
 tion. *' You were about to give us your views," 
 he said. 
 
 If I remember rightly, I answered, it is determined 
 that our little junior is to commence with the English 
 tongue ? 
 
 *' That is the idea," responded the father. 
 
 Well, then, said I, the path is a straight one: the 
 anatomy of the vehicle to begin with ; philosophy to 
 go on with. A boy is to learn first of the tools with 
 which he is to work ; as understanding develops he comes 
 to comprehend of himself that "the proper study of 
 mankind is man." Language is that which alone con- 
 cerns our pupil at the beginning. 
 
 " But what about geography," suggested Elvira, *'and 
 about arithmetic, and about the natural sciences?" 
 
 I shook my head. Words, writing, derivations, and 
 synonyms ; tliat is all for the first three or four years. 
 
 *'But why derivations?" asked the mother. 
 
 Because we are beginning at the middle. He who 
 uses words without knowledge of their meaning has no 
 advantage of speech over a parrot. The study of words 
 218 
 
AT HOME. 219 
 
 excites, on the part of a boy, interest in the things about 
 which words treat. It makes him anxious to learn. 
 
 *'Why synonyms?" 
 
 For the reason that a command of these shows more 
 markedly than almost anything else a difference between 
 the gentleman and the clown; certainly nothing is so 
 indicative of the nature of a man's bringing-up. 
 
 Come here, Lysias, I said, reaching out my hand to 
 the boy ; I am to be your school-master for half an hour, 
 and, if you will listen attentively to what I have to tell, 
 I hope to make you understand the meaning of the 
 genius of your mother-tongue, and what it is to study 
 it comprehendingly. 
 
 The boy is wonderfully thoughtful for his age : he 
 hastened to my side, anticipation showing itself on 
 every feature of his countenance. 
 
 You have observed, I said, laying my hand upon his 
 arm, that the common manner of intercourse between 
 men lies in the use of words ; thus, when one man would 
 tell anything to another he utters certain sounds, which 
 sounds are understood by him who hears as things pos- 
 sessed of definite meaning. We say earth, sea, sun, 
 moon, light, darkness. We say the earth is a heavy 
 body ; the sea is an unstable element ; light and dark- 
 ness are the direct opposites to each other. As we 
 need to enlarge upon these things to our neighbors, 
 we have occasion for an increased number of sounds. 
 These sounds have been invented. We say, for example, 
 the earth is a heavy body, spheroidal in shape ; the 
 sea is an unstable element, composed in great part of 
 two gases in combination ; light and darkness are the 
 direct opposites to each other, but are neither of them 
 
2 20 AT HOME. 
 
 things in themselves, being phenomena associated with 
 change in place of the spot whereon an observer stands. 
 Thesounds used by English-speaking men are so various 
 that there are one hundred thousand of them ; and even 
 this large number does not include what are ordinarily- 
 known as the scientific terms. 
 
 The boy winced. " I never can remember them all." 
 
 No, nor can anybody else. I have mentioned their 
 number with a view of pointing out that a man finds 
 himself able to receive information in proportion as he 
 is familiar with the sounds required for its conveyance. 
 A parrot says, "■ Give Polly bread and sugar." Giving 
 these articles to the bird often enough to associate 
 the sounds you have taught with the things received 
 by it, you have served the utterer of them to an end that 
 is the means of affording it many a good feast. A boy 
 gets bread and sugar, using the same sounds with which 
 to make his request. But a boy requires to know the 
 meaning of the things asked for. He needs, then, 
 necessarily, to possess knowledge of a greater number 
 of words. I will make an example. I want him to un- 
 derstand, for instance, that bread is a compound thing, 
 having a history. I say to him, — 
 
 Bread is made out of grain. 
 
 But this is not all I wish him to know. Well, to 
 understand more he will require a knowledge of more 
 words. When he gets these, and not before, I can tell 
 him further. 
 
 He learns more words, together with their meaning. 
 I am thus enabled to go on with the history. 
 
 The grain out of which bread is made is grown in fields. 
 
 We wait now until more words are learned. 
 
AT HOME. 221 
 
 Men gather the grain, and ofte called a fniller grinds it 
 into flour. 
 
 More words. 
 
 Flour is a powder-like substance, which becomes a 
 dough 7vhen kneaded with water. 
 
 More words. 
 
 When there is mixed with this dough a peculiar sub- 
 stance called yeast, the 7nass lightens and enlarges itself ; 
 the cook 710W takes of it, and, after moulding it into the 
 shape of loaves, puts it into the heated oven of a stove, 
 from whence, as a result of certain chemical changes 
 
 More words needed. 
 
 Lysias clapped his hands. " I understand," he said. 
 '*I will go right to work and learn at least fifty thou- 
 sand of the words." 
 
 If you do, I replied, you will most likely become a 
 writer who will quickly enough make the best ashamed 
 of their attempts. 
 
 ''Why?" asked the boy. 
 
 Because, I answered, the best know so few words. 
 
 Lysias looked surprised. " Such must know most of 
 them," he said. '* How could they write books if they 
 did not?" 
 
 Stepping to a shelf, I put into his hand a copy of 
 *' Paradise Lost." How many words, I asked, do you 
 think there are in this book ? 
 
 *'Oh, all of them, of course," replied the boy. 
 
 Not over eight thousand, I told him. 
 
 Upon the table was a complete edition of Shakspeare ; 
 
 the volume was a very thick one. The writer of this 
 
 folio, I said, has the reputation of employing more words 
 
 than any other author who has written in the language. 
 
 19* 
 
222 AT HOME. 
 
 *'How many?" asked the boy. 
 
 Fifteen thousand, a trifle above one-seventh of the 
 whole, I replied. 
 
 *'A man," suggested the boy, "is wise according to 
 the number of words that he knows?" 
 
 According as he knows the significance of many 
 words, I corrected. 
 
 He interrupted to ask "why it was that the fish- 
 monger and his father had such different ways of using 
 words?" 
 
 It is that part of the subject of which I am about 
 to speak, I said. In listening to the two you have been 
 struck with the fact that the speech of the fishmonger 
 is not at all like that you are in the habit of hearing in 
 the library. The reason for this difference is, that your 
 father, and his friends, to whom you listen, are men who 
 have studied language; the fishmonger knows nothing 
 about the rules which pertain to proper speaking; he 
 pronounces ill, and gets his sentences mixed up, accord- 
 ing as in hearing others talk he has caught the sounds 
 of words and has understood or misunderstood the 
 application of them. 
 
 I reached a second book from the shelves. Here, I 
 said, is a copy of the first prose work written in the lan- 
 guage we speak; it is entitled " The Voiage and Tra- 
 vaileof Sir John Maundevile,Kt." I will read a few lines 
 from one of its pages, and do you look over my shoulder 
 and observe the manner in which the words are spelled. 
 It is a quaint, dust-covered book, having its binding 
 made of board, and being written instead of printed. 
 1350 we see upon its title-page. "The Voiage and 
 Travaile of Sir John Maundevile Kt. " " For als moche 
 
AT HOME. 223 
 
 as the Lond beyonde the See, that is to seyne, the 
 Holy Lond of Promyssions, or of Beheste, passynge alle 
 othere Londes, is the most worthi Lond, most excel- 
 lent, and Lady and Soveryen of alle othere Londes, and 
 is blessed and halewed of the precyous Body and Blood 
 of oure Lord Jesu Crist ; in the whiche Lond it lykede 
 him to take Flesche and Blood of the Virgyne Marie, 
 to envyrone that holy Lond with his blessede Feet ; 
 and there he wolde of his blessednesse enoumbre him 
 in the seyd blessed and gloriouse Virgine Marie, and 
 become Man, and worche many myracles, and preche 
 and teche the Feythe and the Lawe of Cristene Men 
 unto his Children : and there it lykede him to suffre 
 many Reprevinges and Scornes for us ; and he that 
 was Kyng of Hevene, of Eyr, of Erthe, of See, and 
 of alle thinges that ben conteyned in hem, wolde alle 
 only ben cleped Kyng of that Lond. Whan he seyde, 
 Rex sum Judeorum, that is to seyne, I am Kyng of 
 Jewes," etc. 
 
 Lysias was very much astonished. I expected him 
 to be. ^' The words," he said, " are not spelled at all 
 as I spell them, and the sentences are not made as in 
 the books I read." 
 
 Nothing at all like either. Do you wish to under- 
 stand, I asked, the meaning of the difference ? I knew 
 very well that the question was a useless one. He was 
 all interest. 
 
 A language, I said, is, in its development, not unlike 
 to the human being who uses it; it begins with a baby- 
 hood, and comes to its maturity only after long years 
 of growth. We will now read, I suggested, a chapter 
 from the Bible, as in that book is found the perfection 
 
224 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 of composition in the English tongue as it exists to- 
 day. 
 
 The chapter read was the fifth of Matthew. 
 
 " The difference is very great," said Lysias. 
 
 We will now go back to our first book, and by com- 
 paring with that, and with the one just read from, the 
 various writings of the intermediate ages, enable our- 
 selves to understand of the development of speech. 
 
 So in turn we read together from Gower and the 
 quaint-speaking Chaucer, from the manly Sir Philip, 
 from Sir Thomas More, from the author of the "Faerie 
 Queene," from Thomas Wyatt, from Roger and after- 
 wards from Francis Bacon, from the '' Poly-olbion," 
 and finally from Dryden and from Pope. 
 
 **The change is very gradual," the boy suggested : 
 '' but why any change at all?" 
 
 Oh, this, I answered him, is on a common principle 
 with the change made by man as concerns his loco- 
 motive conveniences; first he went on foot, next on 
 the back of brutes, after that, needing greater con- 
 veniences, the sled was devised, then the wheel, and 
 finally, to meet his ever-increasing wants, the locomo- 
 tive. Speech now runs on a tramway of grammar. 
 
 "What is grammar?" asked the boy. 
 
 I would make him understand, I said. When, at 
 the beginning, man traveled afoot, he needed not so 
 much as a path among the trees. Employing beasts, 
 a bridle-way had to be cut. Coming to the runner 
 and wheel of sled and wagon, a road was found neces- 
 sary. A steam-train demands elaborate grading and 
 the laying of rails that shall not deviate by so much 
 as a line's breadth in a hundred or a thousand miles. 
 
AT HOME. 225 
 
 ''Grammar is a rule for the use of language," sug- 
 gested the boy. 
 
 Without it language would be of as little use as a 
 locomotive without the rails. 
 
 "Well?" said the lad, inquiringly. 
 
 Well, after my little Lysias has learned the great 
 number of words which he assures me he will memor- 
 ize, or, indeed, even while he is gathering them into 
 his brain, he is to busy himself in laying the tramway. 
 This completed, correctly and solidly, he will find 
 himself as much advantaged over the unskilled in the 
 way of an ability to acquire and use knowledge as is 
 a traveler who has the convenience of the railway 
 advantaged for purposes of journeying over him who 
 makes his way by means of an ox and cart. 
 
 Remember the ending of the lesson, I said, tapping 
 him upon the head. A boy familiar with language has 
 the knowledge of the world at his command; he has 
 gotten to his servitorship a Genie which can and will 
 tell him of any and every thing he desires to ask about. 
 Whenever or wherever he opens a book, there he will 
 find this Genie ready to expose to him the budget and 
 contents of the brain of the author who composed it. 
 Language is Knowledge. Knowledge is Power. - 
 
 Turning to the parents, I concluded by suggesting 
 that the study of derivations might well employ a good 
 deal of time, seeing that it was the study of language at 
 large. A boy thoroughly versed in his derivations, I 
 said, is of necessity a fair classical scholar. 
 
 ''A truism indeed," said Lysias, ''the full force of 
 which never before struck me." 
 
 Yes, I said, it will bear thinking over. 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 ^^ AFTER the tramway, what?" asked the elder 
 
 l\ Lysias. 
 
 Extend it, I answered. Extend it quickly as com- 
 ports with mental growth into Greece, and then, if 
 you please, back again home by way of Germany and 
 England. 
 
 '*Ah," said my old pupil, smiling, "you would 
 have one believe that greatness was born and died with 
 the Grecian." 
 
 The faith would not be very greatly misplaced, I 
 replied. Men of the pre-christian age, being un- 
 trammeled as to their speculations by any very close 
 dogma, reached out of themselves after the unknown ; 
 the search was a manly one, and, although it looked 
 not beyond Olympus, there was nothing, either of 
 earth, water, fire, or air, that it did not inquire into. 
 Men, by striving, almost scaled the mount. The foun- 
 dation was in what the modern calls Positivism. 
 
 " Here Cittium's glory, Zeno the sublime, 
 Now lies ; who, that he might Olympus climb, 
 Ne'er Pelion upon Ossa strove to raise ; 
 No famed Herculean deeds advanc'd his praise; 
 For by his virtue he found a pathless way 
 To starry mansions and the seat of Day." 
 226 
 
AT HOME. 227 
 
 " Copper decays with time, but thy renown, 
 Diogenes, no age shall e'er take down ; 
 For thou alone hast taught us not to need, 
 By thinking that we don't ; and hast us freed 
 From cares, and show'd the easy way to life." 
 
 "But neither the * talker with the dead' nor the 
 * son of Tresias' was able to scale the mount, or get us 
 into Elysium," said Lysias. With age my pupil has 
 grown self-confident, and somewhat over-critical as to 
 his manner of speech. 
 
 No, I said ; but that was because of precisely the 
 same reason that prevents so many of the moderns 
 from scaling and getting into it. Neither the one nor 
 the other has been able to work clear of the fallacy in- 
 flicted by Thales and his school. A thing cannot be 
 known by a thing unlike itself; Brain cannot know 
 Soul. The difference between Christ and Plato was 
 the difference between Soul and Brain.* To read 
 from Thales on through Anaxagoras and Aristotle is to 
 be led to understand the foundation both of physics 
 and metaphysics ; is to be rendered able to anticipate 
 the conclusions of the Bacons, the Comptes, and the 
 Berkeleys ; is to be made to know a very good deal 
 about all the things of to-day, — things called new, but 
 which are, most of them, older than the Stagirjte. Not 
 only this, but it is to be made to believe in to-day ; it 
 is to be made to hold faith in the relationship of God 
 and men. Ah ! there were demi-gods in the olden 
 time; our lessons have come from them. Who may 
 study the ** Crito" without finding himself inclined 
 
 * See " Two Thousand Years After," 
 
2 28 AT HOME, 
 
 through its manly teachings to the practice of that 
 v/hich is honorable? Or who may speculate with 
 *' Phaedo" without coming to a consciousness of his 
 immortality? It would not seem possible that a man 
 of hasty utterance be brought to see of the fallacies of 
 *'Gorgias" without at the same time perceiving the 
 unwisdom of hasty speaking. It cannot be otherwise 
 than that he who learns of the confusions of ''Protag- 
 oras" learns at the sanie time of the poverty of a 
 judgment which comes from studying a round thing 
 by looking alone on one of its sides. 
 
 Yes, in Greece, surely, was the garden of the Hes- 
 perides ; is it not a garden filled with the best that pro- 
 duces fruit the taste of which becomes sweeter with 
 the chewing, flowers whose scents grow richer with 
 age, walks, the shade and calm of whose meanderings 
 invite the more as winter draws on apace? 
 
 It is, that in Plato man finds the meaning of justice ; 
 — and justice is virtue ', and virtue is happiness. To 
 be happy is to have attained to fulness. But who, 
 nowadays, seek after this fulness, using the lantern of 
 Diogenes ? The good bishop is right : ''the scholars of 
 modern times, perceiving how unpropitious the study 
 of poetry and other elegant and sublime sciences gen- 
 erally proves to the acquisition of wealth, sordidly 
 apply their minds to the more gainful employments 
 of law, physic, and divinity. The prospect of lucre is 
 the only stimulus to learning; and he is the deepest 
 arithmetician who can count the greatest number of 
 fees ; the truest geometrician who can measure out the 
 largest fortune ; the most perfect astrologer who can 
 best turn the rise and fall of other stars to his own ad- 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 229 
 
 vantage; the ablest optician who can reflect upon him- 
 self the beneficial beams of great men's favors ; the 
 most ingenious mechanic who can raise himself to the 
 highest point of preferment ; and the soundest theolo- 
 gian who can preach himself into an excellent living; 
 leaving the higher regions of the sciences almost un- 
 peopled, and only acquiring such a superficial knowl- 
 edge of them as may be sufficient for light toying and 
 table conversation, or enable them, by means of a 
 voluble tongue, a strong voice, a pleasing eye, a steady 
 countenance, and some trivial gleanings from the rich 
 harvests of other men, to make a fair show, and im- 
 pose themselves on the world as truly learned and ripe 
 scholars." 
 
 To be just, is to be free from ''covetousness, mean- 
 ness, pretentiousness, and cowardice." And who shall 
 find himself free from such vices save the man who 
 has a soul ''full of lofty thoughts" and who is privi- 
 leged "to contemplate all time, and all existence" ? 
 
 ''With regard to the philosophic nature, let us take 
 it for granted that its possessors are ever enamored of 
 all learning that will reveal to them somewhat of real 
 and permanent existence, which is exempt from the 
 vicissitudes of generation and decay." 
 
 Again, "let us assume that they are enamored of 
 the whole of that real existence, and willingly resign 
 no part of it, be it small or great, honored or slighted.'* 
 
 Once more: "We must take care not to overlook 
 any taint of meanness. For surely little-mindedness 
 thwarts above everything the soul that is ever to aspire 
 to grasp truth, both divine and human, in its integrity 
 and universality." 
 
 20 
 
230 AT HOME. 
 
 Here, my Lysias, are texts which define Plato. "Do 
 you think," asks the Philosopher, **that there is a 
 State as now constituted which might receive a true 
 philosopher as its ruler and governor?" No less does 
 the truth hold to-day than in the time of the Academy. 
 He who is most wise is esteemed least available. A 
 scavenger with his garbage is counted by his fellows as 
 richer than the Savant with his deductions. 
 
 A State to be wisely and well governed may only 
 become so by having at its head such as through study 
 and a contemplation of life have attained to the com- 
 prehension of the meaning of good ; for it may only 
 be that such as have thus grown wise have been ren- 
 dered conscious that individual good is not a thing in 
 itself, but a something that is to be found alone in 
 the common good ; hence even though it be impossi- 
 ble to obliterate from the nature of men the selfish- 
 ness that characterizes it, yet the rights of the ruled 
 necessarily find consideration and provision, as thus 
 it is understood rulers themselves find their own best 
 good. 
 
 But — that philosophers be lifted to the ruler's 
 bench implies that the governed be lifted also. It 
 must be a double lift ; yet a lift down is it to him who 
 shall be brought to a rulership ; for by the sage who 
 has made himself acquainted with the principles of 
 government, it is perceived that justice being under- 
 stood, life and living have in them their own direc- 
 tion ; that the need for rulers lies alone in that which 
 a very little knowledge would convert into its own 
 remedy. A virtuous State, like a virtuous man, goes 
 right without external direction. 
 
AT HOME. 231 
 
 Happy would it be for the unlearned that the learned 
 be brought — ay, compelled, if against their will — to 
 govern and to direct them ; for after what strives the 
 ''genuine lover of knowledge but after truth"? and 
 will not such '' be found temperate and thoroughly 
 uncovetous, the last persons in the world to value 
 those objects which make men anxious for money at 
 any cost" ? Could it be possible that the same nature 
 should be found loving both truth and falsehood ? 
 And are philosophers found aught else than lovers 
 of wisdom, — lovers of truth ? 
 
 But it is natural that the true philosopher hold him- 
 self aloof from the commerce of men. Having '' tasted 
 how sweet and blessed a treasure" is truth, and seeing 
 *' the madness of the many, with the full assurance 
 that there is scarcely a person who takes a single judi- 
 cious step in his public life, and that there is no ally 
 with whom he may safely march to the succor of the 
 just ; nay, that should he attempt it he will be like a 
 man who has fallen among wild beasts, — unwilling to 
 join in their iniquities, and unable singly to resist the 
 fury of all, and therefore destined to perish before he 
 can be of any service to his country or his friends 
 or do good to himself or any one else ; — having 
 weighed all this, such a man keeps quiet and confines 
 himself to his own concerns, like one who takes shelter 
 behind a wall on a rainy day, when the wind is driving 
 before it a hurricane of dust and rain ; and when from 
 his retreat he sees the infection of lawlessness spread- 
 ing over the rest of mankind, he is well content, if he 
 can in any way live his life here untainted in his own 
 person by unrighteousness and unholy deeds, and, when 
 
232 ^^ NOME. 
 
 the time for his release arrives, takes his departure 
 amid bright hopes with cheerfuhiess and serenity." 
 
 He who is not a lover of wisdom is a blind man. 
 If then he who leads be blind and he who is led be 
 without sight, what shall be expected to befall both, 
 save disaster? Who then is he that is not blind ? He 
 alone surely has sight who is able to apprehend ^'the 
 eternal and immutable/' while those ^^ who wander in 
 the region of change and multiformity" are without 
 vision, and, if placed in the advance, prove blind leaders 
 of the blind. 
 
 '* Can there then be question as to whether a blind 
 man, or one quick with sight, is the right person to 
 guard and keep anything?" 
 
 But it is affirmed that the philosopher, as he quickens 
 in sight, grows careless in the use of his feet, and thus not 
 less than the blind man is found apt to stumble and lose 
 his way. Who that talks not to a reflection on Plato 
 when is repeated the story of the failure at Syracuse ? 
 and who is he that prates not mistakingly when he fails 
 to distinguish between Plato and Dionysius and the 
 Syracusans? Is it that a man finding no wall back of 
 which he may shelter himself shall continue to face the 
 storms which he finds it not in himself, or in his asso- 
 ciations, to still? Education alone it is which, in 
 politics, is found the sufficient shield for the protection 
 of him who would express himself justly and without 
 show of favor : who is he that may continue to de- 
 nounce a tyrant as tyrant, when so slight a defence as 
 the twenty minse of an Anniceris stands between the 
 denouncer and years of slavery in ^gina? 
 
 Is not he who is without a knowledge of things as 
 
AT IK ME. 
 
 233 
 
 they really are, like to one who is blind? for is it not 
 that such possess in their souls " no distinct exemplar, 
 and cannot, like painters, fix their eyes on perfect truth 
 as a perpetual standard of reference, to be contemplated 
 with the minutest care, before they proceed to deal with 
 earthly canons about things beautiful and just and 
 good, laying them down when they are required, and 
 where they already exist watching over their preserva- 
 tion ?" 
 
 He is, in truth, a painter, who understands not alone 
 the law of combinations residing in his pigments, but 
 as well the nature of the canvas he colors, and about 
 the brushes with which his shades are drawn. So is 
 it in like manner that the true philosopher is he who 
 knows as well the law of co-ordination which governs 
 not less walking than judging. 
 
 A philosopher is truthful because that truth is the 
 beloved object of his existence. Not only in probability 
 is such a one found continuously and consistently on 
 the side of truth, but absolutely inevitable is it that he 
 be so found ; for as by his nature the philosopher is a 
 lover of truth, so shall his passion allow him alone to be 
 pleased with things *' bound by the closest ties to that 
 which is the object of his adoration." He who is a 
 philosopher is above sickness and above death; neither 
 can misfortune thrust him down or destroy him. 
 
 " Know'st thou not, Passenger, already? — No. — 
 Then Sickness here has hid famed Polemo. — 
 For my part I beheve ye, sir, — for why? 
 Diseases never spare Philosophy. — 
 'Tis true. But this I'll tell ye for your comfort, 
 Though his dry bones be here, his soul is run for't. 
 
234 
 
 AT HOME. 
 
 And whither, think'st thou ? To the starry spheres. 
 Let Death and Sickness now go shake their ears." 
 
 Being truthful above other men, and wise beyond all, 
 how is it, as not unjustly asserted by some Adeimantus, 
 that philosophers command not that respect in their 
 own cities which elects to position of favor and influ- 
 ence ? 
 
 Is he a philosopher, otherwise than by profession, 
 who is found an unfailing attendant at every " Dio- 
 nysian festival"? who lets out his ears, as if on hire, 
 to listen to all the choruses of the season ? 
 
 ''And whom," asks a Glaucon, ''do you call gen- 
 uine philosophers?" 
 
 It is not to be denied that a throne may be occu- 
 pied by one not born to the crown ; but he who is of 
 legitimate succession possesses attributes of birthright 
 peculiar to himself. In like manner, he who is born 
 to the estate of philosophy has attributes not found in 
 a pretender. 
 
 "Doubtless you have seen," answers Socrates to 
 Glaucon, "how persons who love honor will command 
 a company if they cannot lead an army, and, in default 
 of being honored by great and important personages, 
 are glad to receive the respect of the little and insig- 
 nificant, so covetous are they of honor in any shape?" 
 
 " Precisely so." 
 
 " Then answer me yes or no to this: when we de- 
 scribe a man as having a longing for something, are 
 we to assert that he longs after the whole class that the 
 term includes, or only after one part to the exclusion 
 of another?" 
 
 " He longs after the whole." 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 235 
 
 "Then shall we not maintain that the philosopher, 
 as the lover of wisdom, is one who longs for wisdom, 
 not partially, but wholly?" 
 
 ''True." 
 
 **So that if a person makes difficulties about his 
 studies, especially while he is young and unable to dis- 
 criminate between what is profitable and what is not, 
 we shall pronounce him to be no lover of wisdom ; 
 just as when a man is nice about his eating, we deny 
 that he is hungry or desirous of food, and instead of 
 describing him as fond of eating, we call him a bad 
 feeder." 
 
 '* Yes, and we shall be right in doing so." 
 
 ** On the other hand, when a man is ready and will- 
 ing to taste every kind of knowledge, and addresses 
 himself joyfully to his studies with an appetite which can 
 never be satiated, we shall justly call such a person a 
 philosopher." 
 
 It is that philosophers seldom arrive at seats of 
 political honor and distinction because that they who 
 elect lack wisdom which is the direction to good. 
 What is to open the eyes of him who may look not 
 farther than a supposed personal gain to be arrived at 
 in the triumph of a party or a cause? or who is he that, 
 having alone myopic vision, shall understand and be- 
 hold the circle of a greater and truer good existing 
 without that little one which alone he sees? And 
 who, save the learned, but that are myopic ? 
 
 It is not in the philosopher's creed that he who finds 
 himself at rest is to aspire to unrest, or that he who 
 dwells in peace is to seek war; *'for it is not in the 
 nature of things that a pilot should petition the sailors 
 
236 AT HOME. 
 
 to submit to his authority, or that the wise should wait 
 at the rich man's door." 
 
 Who, being of the Prytanes, but shall bring about 
 him the clamors of an ill-judging multitude when he 
 allows to wander for a hundred years on the banks of 
 the Styx the dead warriors of Arginusae ? Yet who, be- 
 ing Epistates, and withal a Socrates, but that shall deny 
 the senseless mob, knowing better than sackclothed 
 ignorance the burying power of the taxiarchs? 
 
 Shall philosophers take office with other object than 
 that of being ministers to the public good? Who so 
 well as these know the nothingness of that phantom of 
 reputation to which silly men aspire ? What is called 
 good by the selfish is not likely to be the ''essential 
 good," but merely the shadow of it. And if it be that 
 the ignorant man pursues a shadow, deeming it a real- 
 ity, shall he not in his silliness mock at him who as- 
 serts that what he looks at is best to be seen by turning 
 the face in an opposite direction ? Therefore it is that 
 the "essential Form," which, when apprehended, is 
 found to be the essence of the shadow, "the source of 
 all that is bright and beautiful in the visible world, 
 giving birth to light and its master, and in the intel- 
 lectual world dispensing, immediately and with full 
 authority, truth and reason, and that whoever would 
 act wisely, either in private or public life, must set 
 this Form of Good before his eyes." It is that this 
 form of good being seen by the philosopher to be a 
 common good — the good of the sun, the good of the 
 air, the good of the water, the summum bonum, God — • 
 it is impossible that he should not but understand those 
 distorted shadows which so mislead ordinary men and 
 
AT HOME. 
 
 237 
 
 which lose to the selfish the true form as they so 
 avariciously follow after, and grasp at, the reflection ! 
 
 Yet may the true good not be secured by 
 
 men save through that which is understood as sacrifice. 
 Diogenes goes into the Theatre when all others are 
 coming out, and this he has been doing all his life, for 
 is there not a profounder lesson in the silence than in 
 the pantomime? but who may catch the lesson of a 
 darkened playhouse save him who is a philosopher ? 
 
 What shall be the ruling of Salinator? and whereof 
 but of evil shall be the laws of Albinus? Do not these, 
 having come to the season of old age, present alone 
 but fruitless branches? Yet were not these the Con- 
 suls who in their actions commended luxury as the end 
 of living and of being? 
 
 But Cato is a philosopher, for now that he too 
 
 has come to hoary locks, does he not declare that such 
 are the pleasures of the estate that though like ^son 
 he might be restored to youth by Medea's enchanted 
 cauldron, yet would he much the rather remain in his 
 relations just where he is and what he is? 
 
 Youth restrained is Youth fettered ; Youth fettered 
 is Old age unbound. Who so virtuous as Cyrus? Who 
 so eternal in his freshness as the Kaianian prince? — 
 And is that course the wiser which brings the age of 
 Salinator to desolation, or which, on the other side, 
 converts the death-day of Cyrus into what is hailed as 
 a birthday, inasmuch as in the life lived by the latter 
 the persuasion comes of itself that the soul properly 
 enjoys only when it is free from that which, in his ig- 
 norance, Salinator knows of alone as all that consti- 
 tutes life ? It is then that the law of Cyrus must differ 
 
238 AT HOME. 
 
 from that of Salinator; the life of Cato will not be the 
 living of his brother Consul. Which shall the youths 
 Scipio and Lselius choose? And in what law will a 
 man who has attained to wisdom elect to live? 
 
 What shall that law profit which affords all license 
 yet secures not to a man ** things good" ? What is it 
 to know ** everything else perfectly, yet to be ignorant 
 of the essential Form"? It profits a man nothing; 
 just as it is found equally profitless to possess every- 
 thing save **what is good." Is not then the stupid to 
 be led by the wise man, and his face to be turned by 
 him to that good which, in pursuing the shadow, he 
 departs from ? Shall Youth, ignorant of the ''essential 
 Form," be suffered to abide in paths which lead to a 
 quick and to a cheerless old age? 
 
 What say the golden verses of Pythagoras ? 
 
 " Nightly forbear to close thine eyes to rest, 
 Ere thou hast question'd well thy conscious breast, 
 What sacred duty thou hast left undone. 
 What act committed which thou ought'st to shun. 
 And as fair truth, or error, marks the deed, 
 Let sweet applause, or sharp reproach, succeed. 
 So shall thy steps, while this great rule is thine, 
 Undevious tread in virtue's path divine." 
 
 Elvira interrupts, to ask if this excursion with Plato 
 is designed to be of relation with the subject of educa- 
 tion, on which we were discoursing. 
 
 Truly, for it is the pith of it. He who would in- 
 doctrinate a son into grand living must first indoctrinate 
 him into philosophy ; and to what better master shall he 
 direct him than to the Sage whose volumes hold the 
 inspirations of Socrates ? 
 
 *'But," said Lysias, looking towards his ancients, 
 
y/y HOME. 239 
 
 ** my bookseller tells me that Plato lies covered with 
 dust on the top shelf of his store, and that Aristotle is 
 laid away in the garret." 
 
 Not a doubt but what he told you truly. The man 
 of to-day has come to prefer the ragged semblance of 
 money to pure gold, nickel takes the place of silver. 
 
 To be a philosopher is to be above the cares and 
 anxieties which environ ordinary men ; is to be above 
 deceit, above envy, above the vain pursuits in which 
 little men fritter away their little lives ; is to be able to 
 understand of the continuousness of beginning, and of 
 the unending of end. Lysias is to study philosophy, 
 for thus shall he have start where men of common cul- 
 ture end ; thus, like a ship of mighty strength, will he 
 sail in equal safety over rude waves or upon glassy waters. 
 
 " The sea being smooth, 
 
 How many shallow bauble boats dare sail 
 
 Upon her patient breast, making their way 
 
 With those of nobler bulk ! 
 
 But let the ruflfian Boreas once enrage 
 
 The gentle Thetis, and anon, behold, 
 
 The strong-ribb'd bark through liquid mountains cuts, 
 
 Bounding between the two moist elements, 
 
 Like Perseus' horse ! Where's then the saucy boat. 
 
 Whose weak, untimber'd sides but even now 
 
 Co-rivall'd greatness?" 
 
 The elder Lysias, with some expression of perplexity 
 showing on his countenance, refers to the lines put into 
 the mouth of Xenophanes by Timon, — 
 
 " Oh that mine were the deep mind, prudent and looking to both sides ! 
 Long, alas ! have I strayed on the road of error, beguiled, 
 And am now hoary of years, yet exposed to doubt and distraction 
 Manifold, all-perplexing, for whithersoever I turn me 
 I am lost." 
 
240 A 7' HOME. 
 
 Elvira looks inquiringly. 
 
 Even so it is, I said ; and confusion is found in Plato, 
 and doubt in Aristotle, and fallacies many in Epictetus: 
 but after all these comes one who is the key. 
 
 Christ ? asks the mother. 
 
 Christ, I answered ; but who and what is Christ to 
 the man who knows not of a world without Christ ? 
 A Savior, truly, and he can save man ; but the philoso- 
 pher saves himself through Christ, for in this man he 
 recognizes the fullest wisdom of the world; ay, recog- 
 nizes in him demonstration, — the great riddle solved, 
 — philosophy at fruition, — the study completed. Our 
 Lysias shall be made in brain as well as soul that truest 
 of true things — a Christian. 
 
 ** But men are Christians without being philosophers." 
 
 Empty vessels ; vessels without ballast ; blown over 
 by every wind of doctrine because of the absence of 
 that which holds up. Nothing different from a parrot 
 in Christianity is an unlearned man ; he cries Christ, 
 Christ, and cries it glibly enough, but what can he 
 know — except apprehensively — of the God which spake 
 from the mouth of a carpenter's son ? What can he 
 know of that which leaves no question to be asked? 
 for of the questions which confounded and baffled 
 human observation he knows nothing. 
 
 "And what after philosophy has been attained to?'* 
 asks the mother. 
 
 Nothing, as parents direct. The rest will be done 
 by the God that has been correlated into our boy. With 
 language and philosophy indoctrination becomes com- 
 pleted ; the truer teacher will be found come into the 
 seat of the master. 
 
DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 ANOTHER change; one most unexpected. 
 A draping of black crape hangs from the bell- 
 pull. Death is in the house. 
 
 In a chamber which over-officious hands have made 
 dark and ghostly-looking through the closing of shut- 
 ters and drawing of curtains, — the same room which 
 was furnished so warmly and lighted so brilliantly for 
 the welcome of her who now lies dead in it, — Lysias 
 sits, his arm resting against the edge of a coffin, his 
 tears dropping one by one over a white clayey face. I 
 put my arm over his shoulder, but with a gentle motion 
 he pushes it away. *'It is the last," he says; "pray 
 let me alone ; to-morrow the greatest of the acts of life 
 will have ended, the curtain will fall on a funeral." 
 
 I offered words of sympathy. 
 
 "Never mind them," he said. "I have thought 
 of everything, and am not unprepared. What I endure 
 to-day you will suffer to-morrow; it is a cup of which 
 all must drink. There is nothing with which to find 
 
 fault." But the tears ceased not to fall on the dead 
 
 face. 
 
 Come, I said, being unwilling to leave him, let us 
 L 21 241 
 
242 DEATH IN THE HOUSE, 
 
 look at change as we have studied and understand it. 
 For what are the tears? For her who lies, or for him 
 who sits ? 
 
 I shall never cease to remember the manner in which 
 he looked at me. 
 
 " You have not lost." That was all he said. 
 
 At this moment the younger Lysias entered the 
 room. How will he take it? I asked myself. What 
 does untaught youth think of death ? 
 
 The boy, without a word spoken, threw his arms 
 around the neck of the father. After a long crying- 
 spell he raised his head from the place where it had 
 been resting, and said, inquiringly, " Mother has gone 
 to heaven ?" 
 
 The elder looked directly into my eyes. 
 
 Yes, gone to heaven, I said. Your mother was a 
 very good and happy woman, Lysias. 
 
 "The happiest and the best," the boy answered, his 
 voice half choked by his sobs. 
 
 And her happiness, I said, grew out of her virtues. 
 What does your Bible tell you about good people ? 
 
 "That they shall inherit the kingdom of heaven," 
 he quickly replied. 
 
 You believe the Bible ? 
 
 " Does any one doubt it?" he asked. 
 
 No sensible person living in a Christian land, that I 
 ever heard of, I answered. 
 
 "I will not cry any more," the boy said. "It 
 would be very selfish to cry after one who has been 
 taken by God to live with him." 
 
 It would show, I said, that the one who cries does 
 not believe his Bible. 
 
DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 243 
 
 **Why then is father crying?" asked the boy. 
 
 The answer made by the elder was a sigh as if 
 
 the heart had been rent ; he laid his cheek against the 
 dead face, while his hand toyed convulsively with the 
 cold one that lay in the coffin. *' Oh, take him away," 
 he cried, "take him away. I have left to me neither 
 religion nor philosophy. Nor do I want either ; give 
 me back my dead. I want this, nothing else." 
 
 I told the boy to go out and to see if he could not 
 discover a face that looked like that of his mother's 
 among the beautiful sun-tinted clouds. 
 
 '* Is she there?" he asked, his innocent countenance 
 brightening with anticipation. 
 
 *' As surely as God is," I replied. 
 
 I left the father to an indulgence of his grief, while 
 through a window, the shutters of which I had thrown 
 open, I watched the golden curls of the son as they fell 
 over the shoulders from a head turned upwards to look 
 after God and a mother. 
 
 Come, I said, turning back to Lysias, do we not 
 know that there is no such thing as death ? Have we 
 not long ago gone over all this ? Is what we here see 
 anything else than the exchange of one thing for 
 another? 
 
 Lysias raised the cold head fron its pillow in the 
 coffin and clasped his arms about the neck. **WilI 
 you not let me be?" he cried; *' for God's sake will 
 you not let me be ?" Dropping his hold suddenly, he 
 clutched me by the arm and, with a strength I did not 
 think belonged to him, literally pushed me out of the 
 chamber, the door of which he locked. 
 
 I sat down on an outside stoop and looked after the 
 
244 
 
 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 boy, whose eyes were still scanning the heavens. Will 
 it not hold ? I asked myself. Is grief stronger than the 
 senses? or even than faith? 
 
 All that day and all that night Lysias sat by the side 
 of his dead ; it was only when the hour for the funeral 
 arrived that he could be prevailed on to leave his 
 
 place. They were passionate kisses that he bestowed 
 
 on the lifeless lips; hot tears that he rained over the 
 expressionless face. We could induce him to leave the 
 coffin only after the lid had been screwed down, 
 affording him thus the assurance that his own eyes 
 should be the last to cast rays of love within it. 
 
 . . . I did not see my friend for a whole month. 
 No persuasion, no entreaty, could draw him from the 
 room to which he had retired immediately upon his 
 return from the funeral. 
 
 But when again we met, the old faith and the 
 
 old confidence had come back. 
 
 You understand it ? I said. 
 
 "I have trust," he answered. 
 
 And you are not dismayed, I asked, at the idea of a 
 separation that is eternal ? 
 
 *' What God does must be well," he said. 
 
 But what, I asked, if all these teachings about cor- 
 relation and transmigration be error? What if there 
 be a resurrection of the real form and personality, 
 and that, dying, we meet again ? 
 
 The idea suggested was too much for the philosophy 
 of Lysias ; the memory of the loved one was too fresh ; 
 he threw himself into my arms weeping like a child. 
 "Ah!" he cried, "what doctrine is like that? No 
 wonder it overthrew all that went before; that it gains 
 
DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 245 
 
 ground daily with the people. Did I only believe 
 it," he said, ''I could sit down patiently and wait, sit 
 down patiently and wait." 
 
 But you do not believe it? 
 
 '*I do not comprehend how it can be, and yet cor- 
 respond with what we know of nature's laws." 
 
 But it is apprehensible, I said. 
 
 The time had come for more walks and talks. This 
 was the first of many since the departure of Elvira. I 
 put his arm within my own. 
 
 "To her grave," he said. And to her grave we 
 
 went. 
 
 I was glad that we found the mound covered with 
 the freshness that lives in young grass. Already, I 
 said, already has the resurrection commenced. Lysias, 
 with his face in reverential mood to the earth, had 
 caught the perfume of a mignonette which some kind 
 hand had brought there ; the plant had fixed its 
 rootlets firmly in the soil and was getting from it a 
 lusty life. It is her breath, I said. Lysias understood. 
 He pulled the flower from its stock and thrust it into 
 his bosom. We sat down upon a neighboring stone. 
 Already, I repeated, already life is abroad on its circle 
 of duties and of pleasures. Already is matter reuniting 
 with matter, force with force; already is the divine 
 soul entering into new combinations for the furthering 
 of the meaning of God. 
 
 "It is cold," Lysias said, — "cold, cold." 
 
 Yes, I replied, cold enough to the selfishness of in- 
 dividuality. But what is it to that which is above 
 individuality? 
 
 "To what?" he asked. 
 
 21* 
 
246 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 To that something which so unites a good man with 
 the Infinite that he looks upon the passions of life as 
 upon dreams, and is as little disturbed when awakened 
 out of the one as out of the other. 
 
 Lysias turned suddenly towards me ; his eyes glared. 
 *' I believe," he said, ** that in your veins flows a river 
 of ice-cold blood." He was greatly excited; some 
 sudden thought, perhaps. 
 
 I answered not a word. 
 
 *'Not disturbed when awakened out of them!" he 
 exclaimed. ** Such a state is impossible ; no man can 
 arrive at it, nor need he wish to ; the tie which holds 
 me to this grave is worth to me more than the empires 
 of the world could be." 
 
 My heart sympathized with him in the misery which 
 was so overwhelming. But, I said, that which you have 
 learned of God and his ways goes for nothing with you. 
 
 '' Why?" he asked. 
 
 Because you are looking in a grave for something 
 which is as much out of it as yourself. You are like 
 the school-boy who tears into a cocoon expecting to 
 find therein a butterfly, which at the very moment may 
 be sunning its wings on the branch above his head. I 
 thought, I said, that this had been fully understood 
 by us. 
 
 The eyes of Lysias were full of tears. ** The brain is 
 not the heart," he replied. 
 
 I was going on to speak of change, when he raised 
 his hand entreatingly. ** Not now; to-morrow. Wait 
 till to-morrow. Ah!" he continued, '* I could not 
 have believed philosophy to be so cheerless a comforter. 
 I get nothing that will satisfy. I can only feel that I 
 
DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 247 
 
 have lost the dearest of my possessions ; the conscious- 
 ness of this loss is always before me. ' ' He threw himself 
 upon the grave. '* My dear Chrysalis ! she is smothering 
 here," he said. 
 
 Lifting him up, I led him out of the cemetery, and 
 together we wended our way to the top of a neighboring 
 hill from which we had often watched the going down 
 of the sun ; it was just evening, and the orb was slowly 
 sinking in the distant sea. 
 
 "It is a picture of human pleasures," he said. "My 
 Sun is already under the water." 
 
 But what about the morrow? I asked. 
 
 "I know no to-morrow," he answered. 
 
 But what about when the sun comes back ? 
 
 " It can put no light in my eyes," he said. 
 
 Listen, Lysias, I replied ; you talk and act as if nature, 
 in the absence of the God, had made some great mistake. 
 I am made not less ashamed of your knowledge than of 
 your faith. Your individuality is being allowed such 
 prominence that you are quite in danger of forgetting 
 that man of himself is nothing. Would it not be more 
 becoming, I suggested, that you consider how favored 
 you have been in the possession for so long a time of the 
 sweet thing you called wife, rather than give way to an 
 inconsolable repining because the gift, being needed for 
 other use, has been taken from you ? 
 
 Lysias moaned uneasily and turned towards the 
 cemetery. "Poor thing!" he said; "she lies there 
 smothered in the ground." 
 
 Smothered ! I said : how smothered ? how can that 
 smother which has no use for breath ? 
 
 "But do you not know," he replied, " that a grave 
 
248 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 is a deep and a dark hole ?' ' I think his mind wandered 
 for the moment in which he spoke. 
 
 Come, I said, what do you think of an unborn child 
 shut tight up in its caul ? What of the appetite of a chrys- 
 alis for the leaf upon which it feasted while a caterpillar? 
 What do you think of a fish living in comfort only when 
 the water is between it and the atmosphere ? 
 
 "True, true," he replied; *'I am quite forgetful of 
 the law of fitness." 
 
 So forgetful of it, I said, that you would feed a chrys- 
 alis on mulberry leaves. 
 
 " Poor Elvira! poor Elvira !" he muttered. *' I can 
 find her nowhere, even although I am looking every- 
 where. ' ' 
 
 It is for yourself you are grieving, I said, not for 
 Elvira. To grieve for a thing gone is like mourning 
 the fate of sap that finds itself converted into fruit, or 
 of the tgg which has come to be an air-flying bird, or 
 of a bowed-down humanity that finds itself back into 
 the God whence it came. Ignorant Lysias, the cater- 
 pillar exists, but it is a butterfly. Answer me still 
 again : is a butterfly seen to go back to its old com- 
 panions, the worms? 
 
 You have no answer. Well, perhaps your prescience 
 can tell me of something else. Does the exquisite silver- 
 winged flyer miss its old concomitant, the slime-footed 
 crawler ? 
 
 You do not know. 
 
 Well, you can at least answer me this. When worms 
 and butterflies are separated, which is to do the grieving? 
 
 "Neither, I would say," he answered; "for it is 
 never seen that the butterfly as it comes out of one end 
 
DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 249 
 
 of the cocoon goes round to the other to look after its 
 old self, the caterpillar." 
 
 No; there is a new life, I replied. But I have still 
 another question. Is not a butterfly found to form new 
 affinities quickly enough ? 
 
 *' Quickly enough." 
 
 And what about the old worm life ? does this go on 
 as usual ? 
 
 *' It is undeniably a circle," he replied. 
 
 And worm and butterfly, I suggested, each in its way, 
 has a life full in its day ? 
 
 ''Full," he admitted. 
 
 And each, in its way, possesses individuality, which 
 individuality seems to be — while it lasts — the full and 
 entire meaning of the life of the thing that possesses it? 
 
 '' It is not to be denied," he replied. 
 
 Does a man, I asked, pity a butterfly because that it 
 is an insect ? or an eagle for the reason that it is a bird ? 
 Does he pity that thing which he calls an angel, seeing 
 that an angel is neither man nor woman ?* 
 
 ■•■ In dwelling on the subject of these last few pages the author found 
 it take such hold of him that he stopped just here and wrote the 
 volume entitled " Two Thousand Years After, or a Talk in a Ceme- 
 tery," — a work lately published, treating of the meaning of man's im- 
 mortality. In that book, he cannot but think, will be found developed 
 the whole and true significance of a man's life. He certainly has yet 
 met with no critic who has seemed to him able to weaken any of 
 its arguments. His own whole present and future have long been 
 anchored to that which is its meaning. Whether some storm shall 
 eventually come that may drag this anchor he may not say ; as- 
 suredly, nothing has as yet come. The teachings of the work corre- 
 spond, he believes, word by wore}, with Revelation, yet do not attempt 
 to dispute a single position assumed by Scientists. He cannot but 
 think that whoever reads the book studiously will find himself con- 
 
250 
 
 DEATH IN THE HOUSE. 
 
 vinced that there cannot possibly be any conflict between Science and 
 Biblical Theology, or between Common Sense and Religion. 
 
 The author would add a line to his note. In a review of this book 
 which appeared in a prominent and influential Boston journal, occur the 
 following words : " The views set forth by this volume will not find favor 
 with Christians : they have none of the inducements to virtuous living — 
 future rewards and punishments — which are supplied by a belief in the 
 teachings of the Bible. This, of course, does not prove their inherent un- 
 soundness." The writer disagrees with the critic. If anything that he 
 has offered in the way of argument is found in conflict with the teachings 
 of the Bible, he accepts that such arguments are invalidated and proved 
 good for nothing. The book was written for, and designed to be read 
 by, that constantly enlarging class of people who need to have their 
 brains satisfied as well as their hearts. It is purely positivistic, and 
 supplemental — from the scientific stand-point — of the account given by 
 Moses of the creation and destiny of man. As regards the matters of 
 future rewards and punishments, the ignoring of whicTi is objected to 
 by the reviewer, the author accepts, with Spinoza, that little regard 
 is to be had for the religion of him whose service of his God is founded 
 alone on such tenure. If men are incapable of being raised to any 
 higher estimate of life and its meaning than this, then it would seem 
 better to classify them at once with brutes and depend on the lash as 
 the strength of a Government. The writer appends this note — recog- 
 nizing its questionable taste — because he is unwilling to remain mis- 
 understood in the sentiments of a volume which holds either the 
 strength or weakness of the deductions drawn from the studies of his 
 lifetime. If he could have any doubt of the inspirational character of 
 the writings of the Scriptures, he certainly could have none of their 
 superiority as a philosophical system ; the best that has ever been de- 
 vised for the guidance of men's lives. 
 
WORKS OF DR. GARRETSON, 
 
 ODD HOURS OF A PHYSICIAN. 
 
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TWO THOUSAND YEARS AFTER; 
 
 OR, 
 
 A TALK IN A CEMETERY. 
 
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