His creditors constituted an
important constituency, and doubtless aided to secure his elections.

DIFFICULTIES.

Great difficulties, when not succumbed to, bring out great virtues.

DISGUST.

A fit of disgust is a great stimulator of thought. Pleasure represses
it.

EARNESTNESS.

M. de Buffon says that "genius is only great patience." Would it not be
truer to say that genius is great earnestness? Patience is only one
faculty; earnestness is the devotion of all the faculties: it is the
cause of patience; it gives endurance, overcomes pain, strengthens
weakness, braves dangers, sustains hope, makes light of difficulties,
and lessens the sense of weariness in overcoming them. Yes, War yields
its victories, and Beauty her favors, to him who fights or wooes with
the most passionate ardor,--in other words, with the greatest
earnestness. Even the simulation of earnestness accomplishes much,--such
a charm has it for us. This explains the success of libertines, the
coarseness of whose natures is usually only disguised by a certain
conventional polish of manners: "their hearts seem in earnest, because
their passions are."

EDUCATION OF THE SEXES.

Girls are early taught deceit, and they never forget the lesson. Boys
are more outspoken. This is because boys are instructed that to be frank
and open is to be manly and generous, while their sisters are
perpetually admonished that "this is not pretty," or "that is not
becoming," until they have learned to control their natural impulses,
and to regulate their conduct by precepts and example. The result of all
this is, that, while men retain much of their natural dispositions,
women have largely made-up characters.

EMERSON'S ESSAYS.

I have not yet been able to decide whether it is better to read certain
of Emerson's essays as poetry or philosophy. Perhaps, though, it would
be no more than just to consider them as an almost complete and perfect
union of the two. Certainly, no modern writer has more of vivid
individuality, both of thought and expression,--and few writers, of any
age, will better bear reperusal, or surpass him in the grand merit of
suggestiveness. There is much in his books that I cannot clearly
understand, and passages sometimes occur that once seemed to me
destitute of meaning; but I have since learned, from a greater
familiarity with what he has written, to respect even his obscurities,
and to have faith that there is at all times behind his w