glio of Capabilities, we go
stupidly groping about, to grope which is ours, and often clutch the
wrong one: in this mad work must several years of our small term be
spent, till the purblind Youth, by practice, acquire notions of
distance, and become a seeing Man. Nay, many so spend their whole
term, and in ever-new expectation, ever-new disappointment, shift from
enterprise to enterprise, and from side to side: till at length, as
exasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten, they shift into their
last enterprise, that of getting buried.

'Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be the general
fate; were it not that one thing saves us: our Hunger. For on this
ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a prompt
choice be made: hence have we, with wise foresight, Indentures and
Apprenticeships for our irrational young; whereby, in due season, the
vague universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a
specific Craftsman; and so thenceforth work, with much or with little
waste of Capability as it may be; yet not with the worst waste, that
of time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too
is born blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive
sight in nine days, but far later, sometimes never,--is it not well
that there should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies
(_Brodzwecke_), pre-appointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse,
for whom partial or total blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can
travel contentedly round and round, still fancying that it is forward
and forward; and realise much: for himself victual; for the world an
additional horse's power in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of
Economic Society. For me too had such a leading-string been provided;
only that it proved a neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I
broke it off. Then, in the words of Ancient Pistol, did the world
generally become mine oyster, which I, by strength or cunning, was to
open, as I would and could. Almost had I deceased (_fast waer ich
umgekommen_), so obstinately did it continue shut.'

We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much that was
to befall our Autobiographer; the historical embodiment of which, as
it painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim
disastrous details, through this Bag _Pisces_, and those that follow.
A young man of high talent, and high though still temper, like a young
mettled colt, 'breaks-of