demeanor in every company and on each occasion. He aims at such things
as his neighbors prize, and gives his days and nights, his talents and
his heart, to strike a good stroke, to acquit himself in all men's sight
as a man. The consideration of an eminent citizen, of a noted merchant,
of a man of mark in his profession; a naval and military honor, a
general's commission, a marshal's baton, a ducal coronet, the laurel of
poets, and, anyhow procured, the acknowledgment of eminent merit,--have
this lustre for each candidate that they enable him to walk erect and
unashamed in the presence of some persons before whom he felt himself
inferior. Having raised himself to this rank, having established his
equality with class after class of those with whom he would live well,
he still finds certain others before whom he cannot possess himself,
because they have somewhat fairer, somewhat grander, somewhat purer,
which extorts homage of him. Is his ambition pure? then will his laurels
and his possessions seem worthless: instead of avoiding these men who
make his fine gold dim, he will cast all behind him and seek their
society only, woo and embrace this his humiliation and mortification,
until he shall know why his eye sinks, his voice is husky, and his
brilliant talents are paralyzed in this presence. He is sure that the
soul which gives the lie to all things will tell none. His constitution
will not mislead him. If it cannot carry itself as it ought, high and
unmatchable in the presence of any man; if the secret oracles whose
whisper makes the sweetness and dignity of his life do here withdraw and
accompany him no longer,--it is time to undervalue what he has valued,
to dispossess himself of what he has acquired, and with Caesar to take
in his hand the army, the empire, and Cleopatra, and say, "All these
will I relinquish, if you will show me the fountains of the Nile." Dear
to us are those who love us; the swift moments we spend with them are
a compensation for a great deal of misery; they enlarge our life;--but
dearer are those who reject us as unworthy, for they add another life:
they build a heaven before us whereof we had not dreamed, and thereby
supply to us new powers out of the recesses of the spirit, and urge us
to new and unattempted performances.

As every man at heart wishes the best and not inferior society, wishes
to be convicted of his error and to come to himself,--so he wishes that
the same healing should not stop