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LINES
WRITTEN UNDER A PORTRAIT OF THEODORE WINTHROP.
O Knightly soldier bravely dead!
O poet-soul too early sped!
O life so pure! O life so brief!
Our hearts are moved with deeper grief,
As, dwelling on thy gentle face,
Its twilight smile, its tender grace,
We fill the shadowy years to be
With what had been thy destiny.
And still, amid our sorrow's pain,
We feel the loss is yet our gain;
For through the death we know the life,
Its gold in thought, its steel in strife,—
And so with reverent kiss we say
Adieu! O Bayard of our day!
HINDRANCE.
Much that is in itself undesirable occurs in obedience to a general law which is not only desirable, but of infinite necessity and benefit. It is not desirable that Topper and Macaulay should be read by tens of thousands, and Wilkinson only by tens. It is not desirable that a narrow, selfish, envious Cecil, who could never forgive his noblest contemporaries for failing to be hunchbacks like himself, should steer England all his life as it were with supreme hand, and himself sail on the topmost tide of fortune; while the royal head of Raleigh goes to the block, and while Bacon, with his broad and bountiful nature,—Bacon, one of the two or three greatest and humanest statesmen ever born to England, and one of the friendliest men toward mankind ever born into the world,—dies in privacy and poverty, bequeathing his memory "to foreign nations and the next ages." But it is wholly desirable that he who would consecrate himself to excellence in art or life should sometimes be compelled to make it very clear to himself whether it be indeed excellence that he covets, or only plaudits and pounds sterling. So when we find our purest wishes perpetually hindered, not only in the world around us, but even in our own bosoms, many of the particular facts may indeed merit reproach, but the general fact merits, on the contrary, gratitude and gratulation. For were our best wishes not, nor ever, hindered, sure it is that the still better wishes of destiny in our behalf would be hindered yet worse. Sure it is, I say, that Hindrance, both outward and inward, comes to us not through any improvidence or defect of benignity in Nature, but in answer to our need, and as part of the best bounty which enriches our days. And to make this indubitably clear, let us hasten to meditate that simple and central law which governs this matter and at the same time many others.
And the law is, that every definite action is conditioned upon a definite resistance, and is impossible without it. We walk in virtue of the earth's resistance to the foot, and are unable to tread the elements of air and water only because they are too complaisant, and deny the foot that opposition which it requires. Precisely that, accordingly, which makes the difficulty of an action may at the same time make its possibility. Why is flight difficult? Because the weight of every creature draws it toward the earth. But without this downward proclivity, the wing of the bird would have no power upon the air. Why is it difficult for a solid body to make rapid progress in water? Because the water presses powerfully upon it, and at every inch of progress must be overcome and displaced. Yet the ship is able to float only in virtue of this same hindering pressure, and without it would not sail, but sink. The bird and the steamer, moreover,—the one with its wings and the other with its paddles,—apply themselves to this hindrance to progression as their only means of making progress; so that, were not their motion obstructed, it would be impossible.
The law governs not actions only, but all definite effects whatsoever. If the luminiferous ether did not resist the sun's influence, it could not be wrought into those undulations wherein light consists; if the air did not resist the vibrations of a resonant object, and strive to preserve its own form, the sound-waves could not be created and propagated: if the tympanum did not resist these waves, it would not transmit their suggestion to the brain; if any given object does not resist the sun's rays,—in other words, reflect them,—it will not be visible; neither can the eye mediate between any object and the brain save by a like opposing of rays on the part of the retina.
These instances might be multiplied ad libitum, since there is literally no exception to the law. Observe, however, what the law is, namely, that some resistance is indispensable,—by no means that this alone is so, or that all modes and kinds of resistance are of equal service. Resistance and Affinity concur for all right effects; but it is the former that, in some of its aspects, is much accused as a calamity to man and a contumely to the universe; and of this, therefore, we consider here.
Not all kinds of resistance are alike serviceable; yet that which is required may not always consist with pleasure, nor even with safety. Our most customary actions are rendered possible by forces and conditions that inflict weariness at times upon all, and cost the lives of many. Gravitation, forcing all men against the earth's surface with an energy measured by their weight avoirdupois, makes locomotion feasible; but by the same attraction it may draw one into the pit, over the precipice, to the bottom of the sea. What multitudes of lives does it yearly destroy! Why has it never occurred to some ingenious victim of a sluggish liver to represent Gravitation as a murderous monster revelling in blood? Surely there are woful considerations here that might be used with the happiest effect to enhance the sense of man's misery, and have been too much neglected!