nd beatified man. Character is centrality, the impossibility of being
displaced or overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society
is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into
ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man I shall
think myself poorly entertained if he give me nimble pieces of
benevolence and etiquette; rather he shall stand stoutly in his place
and let me apprehend if it were only his resistance; know that I have
encountered a new and positive quality;--great refreshment for both of
us. It is much that he does not accept the conventional opinions and
practices. That nonconformity will remain a goad and remembrancer, and
every inquirer will have to dispose of him, in the first place. There is
nothing real or useful that is not a seat of war. Our houses ring with
laughter and personal and critical gossip, but it helps little. But the
uncivil, unavailable man, who is a problem and a threat to society, whom
it cannot let pass in silence but must either worship or hate,--and
to whom all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion and the
obscure and eccentric,--he helps; he puts America and Europe in the
wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, 'man is a doll, let us
eat and drink, 'tis the best we can do,' by illuminating the untried
and unknown. Acquiescence in the establishment and appeal to the public,
indicate infirm faith, heads which are not clear, and which must see a
house built, before they can comprehend the plan of it. The wise man
not only leaves out of his thought the many, but leaves out the few.
Fountains, the self-moved, the absorbed, the commander because he is
commanded, the assured, the primary,--they are good; for these announce
the instant presence of supreme power.

Our action should rest mathematically on our substance. In nature, there
are no false valuations. A pound of water in the ocean-tempest has no
more gravity than in a midsummer pond. All things work exactly according
to their quality and according to their quantity; attempt nothing they
cannot do, except man only. He has pretension; he wishes and attempts
things beyond his force. I read in a book of English memoirs, "Mr. Fox
(afterwards Lord Holland) said, he must have the Treasury; he had served
up to it, and would have it." Xenophon and his Ten Thousand were quite
equal to what they attempted, and did it; so equal, that it was not
suspected to be a grand and inimitable