s bed, that he may be in perfect privacy there,' and ascertain in
his rough head how the difficulties can be overcome. The ineloquent
Brindley, behold he _has_ chained seas together; his ships do visibly
float over valleys, invisibly through the hearts of mountains; the
Mersey and the Thames, the Humber and the Severn have shaken hands:
Nature most audibly answers, Yea! The Man of Theory twangs his
full-bent bow: Nature's Fact ought to fall stricken, but does not: his
logic-arrow glances from it as from a scaly dragon, and the obstinate
Fact keeps walking its way. How singular! At bottom, you will have to
grapple closer with the dragon; take it home to you, by real faculty,
not by seeming faculty; try whether you are stronger, or it is
stronger. Close with it, wrestle it: sheer obstinate toughness of
muscle; but much more, what we call toughness of heart, which will
mean persistence hopeful and even desperate, unsubduable patience,
composed candid openness, clearness of mind: all this shall be
'strength' in wrestling your dragon; the whole man's real strength is
in this work, we shall get the measure of him here.

Of all the Nations in the world at present the English are the
stupidest in speech, the wisest in action. As good as a 'dumb' Nation,
I say, who cannot speak, and have never yet spoken,--spite of the
Shakspeares and Miltons who show us what possibilities there are!--O
Mr. Bull, I look in that surly face of thine with a mixture of pity
and laughter, yet also with wonder and veneration. Thou complainest
not, my illustrious friend; and yet I believe the heart of thee is
full of sorrow, of unspoken sadness, seriousness,--profound melancholy
(as some have said) the basis of thy being. Unconsciously, for thou
speakest of nothing, this great Universe is great to thee. Not by
levity of floating, but by stubborn force of swimming, shalt thou make
thy way. The Fates sing of thee that thou shalt many times be thought
an ass and a dull ox, and shalt with a godlike indifference believe
it. My friend,--and it is all untrue, nothing ever falser in point of
fact! Thou art of those great ones whose greatness the small passer-by
does not discern. Thy very stupidity is wiser than their wisdom. A
grand _vis inertiae_ is in thee; how many grand qualities unknown to
small men! Nature alone knows thee, acknowledges the bulk and strength
of thee: thy Epic, unsung in words, is written in huge characters on
the face of this Planet,--se