evolving the subject afterward, I perceived that WE was
the multiple of Festus, and THOSE MEN of Paul. All the
circumstances seemed the same as in that Syrian hall; for the
persons in question were they who cared more for doing good
than for fortune and success,--more for the one risen from
the dead than for fleshly life,--more for the Being in whom we
live and move than for King Agrippa.

'Among this band of candidates for the mad-house, I found
the young poet who valued insight of nature's beauty, and the
power of chanting to his fellow-men a heavenly music, above
the prospect of fortune, political power, or a standing in
fashionable society. At the division of the goods of this
earth, he was wandering like Schiller's poet. But the
difference between American and German regulations would seem
to be, that in Germany the poet, when not "with Jove," is left
at peace on earth; while here he is, by a self-constituted
police, declared "mad."

'Another of this band was the young girl who, early taking a
solemn view of the duties of life, found it difficult to
serve an apprenticeship to its follies. She could not turn her
sweetness into "manner," nor cultivate love of approbation at
the expense of virginity of heart. In so called society she
found no outlet for her truest, fairest self, and so preferred
to live with external nature, a few friends, her pencil,
instrument, and books. She, they say, is "mad."

'And he, the enthusiast for reform, who gives away fortune,
standing in the world, peace, and only not life, because
bigotry is now afraid to exact the pound of flesh as well as
the ducats,--he, whose heart beats high with hopes for the
welfare of his race, is "mad."

'And he, the philosopher, who does not tie down his
speculation to the banner of the day, but lets the wings
of his thought upbear him where they will, as if they were
stronger and surer than the balloon let off for the amusement
of the populace,--he must be "mad." Off with him to the moon!
that paradise of noble fools, who had visions of possibilities
too grand and lovely for this sober earth.

'And ye, friends, and lovers, who see, through all the films
of human nature, in those you love, a divine energy, worthy of
creatures who have their being in very God, ye, too, are "mad"
to think they c