The delight of contemplation has been in history a height without sustaining breadth, a needle, not a cube. Genius has been tremulous, recluse,—has been cherished in solitude with Nature,—has been a feminine partiality among men, holding for gods its favorites, for dogs the refuse of mankind. It still counts the practical life an interruption. It is therefore only melancholy cheer, a forlorn ark with nine souls on the brine, a refuge from the world, not a delight of the world. It lives not from God who is, but from a God who should be. The true creative power is a calm of battle, a trust not for the closet, but the chariot, a torch that can be carried through the gusty market, a Ramadhan in the street. It is no miracle to be calm in calm, to be quiet in bed,—but to rule and lead without anxiety, to tame the beasts and elements, to build and unbuild cities with a song. The great thought returns on society, floods out the heaped rubbish of custom, pours the old grandeurs of Nature through dry channels of Trade, Religion, Courtesy, and Art. He is great who plays the game of life with decision, yet is always retired, and holds the life of life in reserve. Such a man is demiurgic, for he puts down a hand on action through the sky.
From a happy or sufficient genius came the golden maxim, "Think of living." Strong men love life. The system, so cheery and severe, seems to them worthy to be continued yonder and without end. This day leading a better, itself good not leading alone,—this presentiment,—this solid increment of hard-won power,—of what other stuff should our eternity be woven? In wisdom first appears the present tense, an hour which is not mere transition, but something for itself. There are men who live—to live. He who finds our destiny given beforehand in the nature of things has the leisure of God: he has not only all the time that is, but spaces beyond, so that he will not be hurried by the falling-off of Time. Leisure is a regard fixed not on the nearest trees and fences as we whirl through this changing scene, but on remoter and larger objects, on the slow-revolving circle of the far hills, on the quiet stars. Why should I hasten with my foolish plan? Prosperity is over all, not in my foolish plan. What is a fortune, a reputation,—what even genuine influence, if you consider the future of one or of the race? Only little aims bring care. Why run after success? That is success which follows: success should be cosmic, a new creation, not any trick or feat. To be man is the only success. For this we lie back grandly with total application to the cause. Why run after knowledge? A large mind circles all the primal facts from its own stand-point, and needs never tread the curious round of science, history, and art. Where it is, is Nature: therefore it is calm and free. The wise men of my knowledge were farmers, drovers, traders, learned beyond the book. You cannot feed but you put me in communication with all forests, fields, streams, seas. Give me one companion, and between us two is quickly repeated the history of the race. In a plant, an animal, a day or year, in elements, their feuds and fruitful marriages, in a private or public history, the thinker is admitted to the end of thought. A scholar can add nothing to my perfect wonder, though he bring Egypt, Assyria, and Greece. I find myself where I was, in Egypt, Assyria, and Greece: I find the old earth, the old sky, the old astonishment of man. Cæsar and the grasshopper, both are alike within my knowledge and beyond. There is some vague report of a remote divine, at which he will smile who finds no least escape from the divine. Two points are given in every regard, man and the world, subject, we say, and object, a creature seen and a creature seeing, marvelling, knowing, ignorant. Either of these openings will lead quickly to light too pure for our organs, and launch us on the sea beyond every shore. The artist studies a fair face; there is no supplement to his delight. In temples, statues, pictures, poems, symphonies, and actions, only the same eternal splendor shines. It is the sun which lights all lands,—"that planet," as Dante sings,
"Which leads men straight on every road."
He is delivered there at home to Beauty, which makes and is the world.
Genius is royal knowledge. In the nearest need it studies all ages and all worlds. Let me understand my neighbors and my meat; you may have the libraries and schools. I read here living languages,—the eye, the attitude and temperament, the wish and will: Hebrew and Greek must wait. He who knows how to value "Hamlet" will never subscribe for your picture of "Shakspeare's Study." Great intelligence runs quickly through our primers, our cities, constitutions, galleries, traditions, cathedrals, creeds. The long invention of the race is a tortuous, obscure way. Must I creep all my fresh years in that labyrinth, and postpone youth to the end of age? What need of so much experience and contrivance, if without contrivance, if by simplicity, the children surely and beautifully live?
Healthy thought is organic, grows by assimilation, vitalizes all it takes, and so like a plant puts forth knowledge from the old and from within. The apple of to-morrow is earth, not apple, till it hangs on the tree. Our knowing seems rather rejection than acceptance, so much is husk in bulk. From eight thousand miles of geology the tree takes a few drops of water and distils from these its own again. Vigor of mind is judgment, which divides the meat from the shell, that which cumbers from that which thrills. The act is simple, inevitable; let it be energetic and final. We say, "This is valuable, it quickens me; the rest is nonsense." A feeble mind needs now chiefly to be rid of rubbish, of cheap admirations, an awe before the hair-pins and shoe-ties of society, before the true church, the scholastic learning, dead languages, the Fathers and the fashion. To set the savage of civilization free from his superstition, these idols must be insulted before his face.
A little energy of demand displaces them from regard. The scholars are busy with punctuation, chronology, and the lives of the little great, so that their visit is a vastation, and I must turn them out of doors. Genius will continue unable to spell, to read the German, to count the Egyptian kings. There is royal ignorance, the preoccupation of gods. For the wise, if no object is trifling, yet part of every object is foreign to its best intent. Every nut is inwardly a man and a miracle, but outwardly a shell. If it be a book, the thought is a shell, though God be in the thought. The book is another thing, another world of power and form, and the power will consume the form as a sword eats its sheath, the soul the body, or fire the pan. The letter drops, for the spirit must expand and be set free. The positive and negative poles of Nature reappear in every creature, and the positive element must prevail. When we have learned to live, we shall—or shall not—learn to spell.
The last refreshment is intercourse with a kingly mind, which has no need to shift its centre, but lies abroad hemispheric, and sleeps like sunshine, bathing silently the earth and sky. Such a mind is at home, not in position, but in a vital relation to Nature, which leaves no spaces dark and cold for wandering, and knows no change that is worth the name of change. It is rest to be with one who is at rest, who cannot go to or go from his happiness, for whom the meaning of Deity is here and now. What stillness and depth of manner are communicated to all who sound the deeps of life! what a refuge is their society from wit, zeal, and gossip, from petty estimates and demands! To these, now first encountered, we have been always known; in them we meet no private motive, no accomplishment, reputation, ability, immediate haunting purpose, but a Sabbath from personal fortunes. We meet the great above all that can be mine or thine, above gifts and accidents in common manhood and prosperity. Swedenborg reports no encounter on higher ground. The seven heavens open to me in a mind which gives rank to its own facts, and wherever it is housed still finds the universe only a larger body around the soul.
Genius declares the total or representative value of its own facts against the neglect or contempt of mankind. Intelligence is centre of centres, and all things diminish as they recede from the eye. Every natural law is some hint to us of our commanding position. The good thought is never a toilsome going abroad, but some settling at home to new intimacy with the fortune which waits on all. It is no putting out legs, but a putting down roots to take possession of the earth and the nether heavens, while we fill the upper sky with climbing shoots. Intelligence is at one with the system, able to entertain it as a unit, to refer every particle, dark as a particle, to its shining place in the transparent whole. How can I afford to drop my errand, to go wonder after the fore-world, after Plato, Washington, or Paul? These are men who never dropped their errands to go wonder after the Maker himself. They found God in the thing lying nearest to be done. As right action in the remotest corner is a world-victory, so right thought applied to the lowest circumstance is cosmic thought. In the fortune of the hour we have a home beyond the fortune of the hour. The least circle of order now organized and established in our lives is not a poor house frozen to the ground, but a ship able to outride the currents of time, a charmed circle of security which will serve us still in every following world. Our future is to be found, not in multiplication of examples, but in deeper sympathy with all we have superficially known.
We shall never rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in an open mind. Clear perception is refreshing as sleep. It is a sleep from blunder, care, and sin. In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne. With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea. Peace is joy beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of Omnipotence in the breast.