resh exploits engage him. He works gallantly in this new
field and harness, because his thought has gone forward again, and he
sees through these studies the man of thought. Already as a student he
is a philosopher, a poet, a servant of the Muse. Bacon and Milton look
kindly on him in invitation, he is walking to their company and in their
company. The young hero-worshipper cannot remain satisfied with mere
physical or warlike prowess. He soon sees the superiority of mental and
moral mastery, of creation of good counsel. He will reverence the
valiant reformer who brings justice in his train, the saint in whom
goodness is enamored of goodness, the gentleman whose heart-beat is
courtesy, the prophet in whom a religion is born, all who have been
inspired with liberal, not dragged by sordid aims.

How beautiful to him is the society of poets! He reads with idolatry the
letters and anecdotes of Coleridge and Wordsworth, Goethe and Schiller,
Beethoven and Raphael. Look at the private thought of these men in
familiar intercourse: no plotting for lucre, but a conspiracy to reach
the best in life. The saints are even more ardent in aspiration, for
their tender hearts were pressed and saddened by fear. They are now set
on fire by a sense of great redemption. They are prisoners pardoned.

For scholars the world is peopled only with saints, philosophers, and
poets, and the studious boy seeks his own amid their large activity. So
much of it meets his want, yet the whole does not meet all his want. He
must combine and balance and embrace conflicting qualities. Every day
his view enlarges. What was noble last year will now by no means content
his conscience. Duty and beauty have risen.

The Ideal Tendency characterizes man, affords the only definition of
him; and it is a perpetual, irresistible expansion. No matter on what it
fastens, it will not stay, but spreads and soars like light in the
morning sky.

To-day we are charmed with our partners, and think we can never tire of
Alfred and Emily. To-morrow we discover without shame, after all our
protestations and engagements, that their future seems incommensurate
with our own. To our surprise, they also feel their paths diverging from
ours. We part with a show of regret, but real joy to be free.

Both parties have gained from their intercourse a certainty of power and
promise of greater power. Silly people fill the world with lamentation
over human inconstancy; but if we follow lov