print it in, I will underscore it for italics, and
doubly underscore it in the second extract for small capitals:--
"Now that is the wisdom of a man, in every instance of his labor,
to _hitch his wagon to a star_, and see his chore done by the gods
themselves."--
"'It was a great instruction,' said a saint in Cromwell's war, 'that
the best courages are but beams of the Almighty.' HITCH YOUR WAGON
TO A STAR. Let us not fag in paltry works which serve our pot and
bag alone. Let us not lie and steal. No god will help. We shall find
all their teams going the other way,--Charles's Wain, Great Bear,
Orion, Leo, Hercules: every god will leave us. Work rather for those
interests which the divinities honor and promote,--justice, love,
freedom, knowledge, utility."--
Charles's Wain and the Great Bear, he should have been reminded, are the
same constellation; the _Dipper_ is what our people often call it, and
the country folk all know "the pinters," which guide their eyes to the
North Star.
I find in the Essay on "Art" many of the thoughts with which we are
familiar in Emerson's poem, "The Problem." It will be enough to cite
these passages:--
"We feel in seeing a noble building which rhymes well, as we do in
hearing a perfect song, that it is spiritually organic; that it had
a necessity in nature for being; was one of the possible forms in
the Divine mind, and is now only discovered and executed by the
artist, not arbitrarily composed by him. And so every genuine work
of art has as much reason for being as the earth and the sun.--
--"The Iliad of Homer, the songs of David, the odes of Pindar, the
tragedies of Aeschylus, the Doric temples, the Gothic cathedrals,
the plays of Shakspeare, all and each were made not for sport, but
in grave earnest, in tears and smiles of suffering and loving men.--
--"The Gothic cathedrals were built when the builder and the priest
and the people were overpowered by their faith. Love and fear laid
every stone.--
"Our arts are happy hits. We are like the musician on the lake,
whose melody is sweeter than he knows."
The discourse on "Eloquence" is more systematic, more professorial,
than many of the others. A few brief extracts will give the key to its
general purport:--
"Eloquence must be grounded on the plainest narrative. Afterwards,
it may warm itself until it exhale
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