learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our own spontaneous impression with good-humored inflexibility, then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else, to-morrow, a stranger will say, with masterly good sense, precisely what we have thought and felt the whole time, and we shall be forced to take our own opinion from another.

*

"Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept the place which the Divine Providence has found for you; the society of your contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done so, and confided themselves, childlike, to the genius of their age, betraying their perception that the Eternal was stirring at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind the same transcendent destiny; and, not pinched in a corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but redeemers and benefactors, pious aspirants to be noble clay, plastic under the Almighty effort, let us advance and advance on Chaos the Dark.

*

"Whoso would be a man must be a non-conformist. He who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.

"A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen, and philosophers, and divines. With consistency a great soul has simply nothing to do. Speak out what you think to-day in words as hard as cannon-balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing you said to-day. Ah! then, exclaim the aged ladies, you shall be sure to be misunderstood. Misunderstood? It is a right fool's word. Is it so bad, then, to be misunderstood? Pythagoras was misunderstood; and Socrates, and Jesus, and Luther, and Copernicus, and Galileo, and Newton, and every pure and wise spirit that ever took flesh. To be great is to be misunderstood.

"I suppose no man can violate his nature. All the sallies of his will are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of Andes and Himalaya are insignificant in the curve of the sphere. We pass for what we are.

*

"Fear never but you shall be consistent in whatever variety of actions, so they be each honest and natural in their hour.

"One tendency unites them all.

*

"Perception is not whimsical, but fatal. If I see a trait, my children will see it after me, and in course of time all mankind-although it may chance that no one has seen it before me. My perception of it is as much a fact as the sun.

"The relations of the soul to the Divine Spirit are so pure that it is profane to seek to interpose helps. It must be, that when God speaketh, He should communicate not one thing, but all things, and new-create the whole. Whenever a mind is simple, and receives a divine wisdom, then old things pass away-means, teachers, texts, temples fall; all things are made sacred by relation to it -one thing as much as another.

"Yet see what strong intellects dare not yet hear God himself, unless He speak the phraseology of I know not what David, or Jeremiah, or Paul.

"If we live truly, we shall see truly. When we have new perceptions, we shall gladly disburden the memory of its inward treasures as old rubbish. When a man lives with God, his voice shall be as sweet as the murmur of the brook and the rustle of the corn. /

*

"This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this as on every topic, the resolution of all into the Ever-blessed One. Virtue is the governor, the creator, the reality. All things real are so by so much of virtue as they contain.

*

"Let us not rove; let us sit at home with the cause. Let us shun and astonish the intruding rabble of men, and books, and institutions by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid them take the shoes off their feet, for God is here within. Let our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate the poverty of nature and fortune, beside our native rulers.

"We must go alone. I like the silent church before the service begins better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary. So let us always sit. * * But your isolation must not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be devotion. The power which men possess to annoy me I give them by a weak curiosity. No man can come near me but through my own act. What we desire, that we have; but by desire we bereave ourselves of the love.

*

"If we can not at once rise to the sanctities of obedience

and faith, let us at least resist our temptations; let " enter into the state of war, and wake Thor and Wodin, courage and constancy, in our breast. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Livc no longer to the expectation of those deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father! O mother! O wife! O brother! O friend! I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the eternal law. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife; but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself. I can not break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be the happier. If you can not, I will still seek to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me and my heart appoints. If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I will not hurt you and myself by hypocritical attentions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest, and mine, and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to say? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine; and if we follow the truth it will bring us out safe at last. But so you may give these friends pain. Yes; but I can not sell my liberty to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason, when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me, and do the same thing.

"The populace think that your rejection of popular

standards is a rejection of all standard, and the bold sensualist will use the same philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfill your round of duties by clearing yourself in the direct or in the reflex way. Consider whether you have satisfied your relations to father, cousin, neighbor, town, cat, and dog, and whether any of these can upbraid. you. But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims and perfect will. It denies the name of duty to many offices that are called duties. But if I can discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with the popular code. If any body imagines that this law is lax, let him keep its commandment for one day.

"And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ⚫ ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity

to others.

"If any man consider the present aspects of what is called, by distinction, society, he will see the need of these ethics."

I must remark, that if any one will seriously observe human nature as it commonly is, he will easily see that a moral code such as Emerson's would produce conceited and selfish beings, and that it is merely calculated for natures as pure and beautiful as his own, and which form the exception to the general rule. That which he in all cases mistakes is the radical duality of human nature. Yet with what freshness, invigoration, does not this exclamation come to our souls, "Be true; be yourself!" Especially when coming from a man who has given proofs that in this truth a human being may fulfill all his hu