Divine, forever dear,
Content to suffer, while we know,
Living and dying, Thou art near!

XII

A young fellow, born of good stock, in one of the more thoroughly
civilized portions of these United States of America, bred in good
principles, inheriting a social position which makes him at his ease
everywhere, means sufficient to educate him thoroughly without taking
away the stimulus to vigorous exertion, and with a good opening in some
honorable path of labor, is the finest sight our private satellite has
had the opportunity of inspecting on the planet to which she belongs. In
some respects it was better to be a young Greek. If we may trust the old
marbles, my friend with his arm stretched over my head, above there, (in
plaster of Paris,) or the discobolus, whom one may see at the principal
sculpture gallery of this metropolis,--those Greek young men were of
supreme beauty. Their close curls, their elegantly set heads, column-like
necks, straight noses, short, curled lips, firm chins, deep chests, light
flanks, large muscles, small joints, were finer than anything we ever
see. It may well be questioned whether the human shape will ever present
itself again in a race of such perfect symmetry. But the life of the
youthful Greek was local, not planetary, like that of the young American.
He had a string of legends, in place of our Gospels. He had no printed
books, no newspaper, no steam caravans, no forks, no soap, none of the
thousand cheap conveniences which have become matters of necessity to our
modern civilization. Above all things, if he aspired to know as well as
to enjoy, he found knowledge not diffused everywhere about him, so that a
day's labor would buy him more wisdom than a year could master, but held
in private hands, hoarded in precious manuscripts, to be sought for only
as gold is sought in narrow fissures, and in the beds of brawling
streams. Never, since man came into this atmosphere of oxygen and azote,
was there anything like the condition of the young American of the
nineteenth century. Having in possession or in prospect the best part of
half a world, with all its climates and soils to choose from; equipped
with wings of fire and smoke than fly with him day and night, so that he
counts his journey not in miles, but in degrees, and sees the seasons
change as the wild fowl sees them in his annual flights; with huge
leviathans always ready to take him on their broad backs and push