ut it is also sagacious. It rejects as worthless
him who suffers decadence when he comes in contact with its vulgar
cleverness. The natural man can look the world in the face. The true
man will teach truth wherever he is,--not because he has pledged
himself in Germany not to teach anything else, but because in teaching
truth he is teaching himself. His life thus becomes genuine, and,
sooner or later, the world will respond to genuineness in action. The
world knows the value of genuineness, and it yields to that force
wherever it is felt. "The world is all gates," says Emerson, "all
opportunities, strings of tension waiting to be struck."

Thus, in the decadence of Thomson, it was not the times or the world or
America that was at fault; it was Thomson himself. He had in him no
life of his own. His character, like his microscope, "was made in
Germany," and bore not his mark, but the stamp of the German factory.
Truth was not made in Germany; and to know or to teach truth there must
be a life behind it. The decadence of Thomson was the appearance of
the real Thomson from under the axioms and formulae his teachers had
given him.

Men do not fail because they are human. They are not human enough.
Failure comes from lack of life. Only the man who has formed opinions
of his own can have the courage of his convictions. Learning alone
does not make a man strong. Strength in life will show itself in
helpfulness, will show itself in sympathy, in sacrifice. "Great men,"
says Emerson, "feel that they are so by renouncing their selfishness
and falling back on what is humane. They beat with the pulse and
breathe with the lungs of nations."

It is not enough to know truth; one must know men. It is not enough to
know men; one must be a man. Only he who can live truth can know it.
Only he who can live truth can teach it. "He could talk men over,"
says Carlyle of Mirabeau, "he could talk men over because he could act
men over. At bottom that was it."

And at bottom this is the source of all power and service. Not what a
man knows, or what he can say; but what is he? what can he can do? Not
what he can do for his board and lodging, as the slave who is "hired
for life"; but what can he do out of the fullness of his resources, the
fullness of his helpfulness, the fullness of himself? The work the
world will not let die was never paid for--not in fame, not in money,
not in power.

The decadence of literature, of wh