imple hearts put all the history and customs of this world behind them,
and play their own game in innocent defiance of the Blue-Laws of the
world; and such would appear, could we see the human race assembled in
vision, like little children frolicking together, though to the eyes
of mankind at large they wear a stately and solemn garb of works and
influences.

The interest these fine stories have for us, the power of a romance over
the boy who grasps the forbidden book under his bench at school, our
delight in the hero, is the main fact to our purpose. All these great
and transcendent properties are ours. If we dilate in beholding the
Greek energy, the Roman pride, it is that we are already domesticating
the same sentiment. Let us find room for this great guest in our small
houses. The first step of worthiness will be to disabuse us of our
superstitious associations with places and times, with number and size.
Why should these words, Athenian, Roman, Asia and England, so tingle in
the ear? Where the heart is, there the muses, there the gods sojourn,
and not in any geography of fame. Massachusetts, Connecticut River and
Boston Bay you think paltry places, and the ear loves names of foreign
and classic topography. But here we are; and, if we will tarry a little,
we may come to learn that here is best. See to it only that thyself is
here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the
Supreme Being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.
Epaminondas, brave and affectionate, does not seem to us to need Olympus
to die upon, nor the Syrian sunshine. He lies very well where he is. The
Jerseys were handsome ground enough for Washington to tread, and London
streets for the feet of Milton. A great man makes his climate genial in
the imagination of men, and its air the beloved element of all delicate
spirits. That country is the fairest which is inhabited by the noblest
minds. The pictures which fill the imagination in reading the actions
of Pericles, Xenophon, Columbus, Bayard, Sidney, Hampden, teach us how
needlessly mean our life is; that we, by the depth of our living, should
deck it with more than regal or national splendor, and act on principles
that should interest man and nature in the length of our days.

We have seen or heard of many extraordinary young men who never ripened,
or whose performance in actual life was not extraordinary. When we see
their air and mien, when we hear them speak of