the one who cares least either
for hedge or ditch, when he chooses to go across country. It is
certainly true that I have not the least mind to pin my heart on my
sleeve, for the daily daw, or nightly owl, to peck at; but the
essential reason for my not telling you my own opinions on this
matter is--that I do not consider them of material consequence to
you.

It _might_ possibly be of some advantage for you to know what--were
he now living, Orpheus would have thought, or AEschylus, or a Daniel
come to judgment, or John the Baptist, or John the Son of Thunder;
but what either you, or I, or any other Jack or Tom of us all,
think,--even if we knew what to think,--is of extremely small
moment either to the Gods, the clouds, or ourselves.

Of myself, however, if you care to hear it, I will tell you thus
much: that had the weather when I was young been such as it is now,
no book such as 'Modern Painters' ever would or _could_ have been
written; for every argument, and every sentiment in that book, was
founded on the personal experience of the beauty and blessing of
nature, all spring and summer long; and on the then demonstrable
fact that over a great portion of the world's surface the air and
the earth were fitted to the education of the spirit of man as
closely as a school-boy's primer is to his labor, and as gloriously
as a lover's mistress is to his eyes.

That harmony is now broken, and broken the world round: fragments,
indeed, of what existed still exist, and hours of what is past
still return; but month by month the darkness gains upon the day,
and the ashes of the Antipodes glare through the night.[D]

What consolation, or what courage, through plague, danger, or
darkness, you can find in the conviction that you are nothing more
than brute beasts driven by brute forces, your other tutors can
tell you--not I: but _this_ I can tell you--and with the authority
of all the masters of thought since time was time,--that, while by
no manner of vivisection you can learn what a _Beast_ is, by only
looking into your own hearts you may know what a _Man_ is,--and
know that his only true happiness is to live in Hope of something
to be won by him, in Reverence of something to be worshiped by him,
and in Love of something to be cherished by him, and cherished--forever.

Having these instincts, his only rational conclusion is that the
objects which can fulfill them may be by his effort gained, and by
his faith discerned; and h