other. Let us march therefore intrepidly
wherever we are led by the course of human accidents. Wherever they
lead us, on what coast soever we are thrown by them, we shall not find
ourselves absolutely strangers. We shall feel the same revolution of
seasons, and the same sun and moon(4) will guide the course of our year.
The same azure vault, bespangled with stars, will be everywhere spread
over our heads. There is no part of the world from whence we may not
admire those planets which roll, like ours, in different orbits round
the same central sun; from whence we may not discover an object still
more stupendous, that army of fixed stars hung up in the immense space
of the universe, innumerable suns whose beams enlighten and cherish the
unknown worlds which roll around them: and whilst I am ravished by such
contemplations as these, whilst my soul is thus raised up to heaven, it
imports me little what ground I tread-upon.'

NOTES to ESSAY X

(1) Written at Winterslow Hut, January 18-19, 1821.

(2) Webster's _Duchess of Malfy._

(3) Shenstone and Gray were two men, one of whom pretended live to
himself, and the other really did so. Gray shrunk from the public gaze
(he did not even like his portrait to be prefixed to his works) into his
own thoughts and indolent musings; Shenstone affected privacy that he
might be sought out by the world; the one courted retirement in order
to enjoy leisure and repose, as the other coquetted with it merely to
be interrupted with the importunity of visitors and the flatteries of
absent friends.

(4) Plut. of Banishment. He compares those who cannot live out of their
own country to the simple people who fancied the moon of Athens was a
finer moon than that of Corinth,

Labentem coelo quae ducitis annum.
--VIRG. _Georg._

ESSAY XI. ON THOUGHT AND ACTION

Those persons who are much accustomed to abstract contemplation are
generally unfitted for active pursuits, and _vice versa_. I myself am
sufficiently decided and dogmatical in my opinions, and yet in action
I am as imbecile as a woman or a child. I cannot set about the most
indifferent thing without twenty efforts, and had rather write one of
these Essays than have to seal a letter. In trying to throw a hat or a
book upon a table, I miss it; it just reaches the edge and falls back
again, and instead of doing what I mean to perform, I do what I intend
to avoid. Thought depends on the habitual exercise of the speculativ