t, whither many
men are bent. Consider it. One man, full of heartfelt earnest impulse,
finds out a way of doing somewhat,--were it of uttering his soul's
reverence for the Highest, were it but of fitly saluting his fellow-man.
An inventor was needed to do that, a _poet_; he has articulated the
dim-struggling thought that dwelt in his own and many hearts. This
is his way of doing that; these are his footsteps, the beginning of a
"Path." And now see: the second men travels naturally in the footsteps
of his foregoer, it is the _easiest_ method. In the footsteps of his
foregoer; yet with improvements, with changes where such seem good; at
all events with enlargements, the Path ever _widening_ itself as more
travel it;--till at last there is a broad Highway whereon the whole
world may travel and drive. While there remains a City or Shrine, or
any Reality to drive to, at the farther end, the Highway shall be right
welcome! When the City is gone, we will forsake the Highway. In this
manner all Institutions, Practices, Regulated Things in the world have
come into existence, and gone out of existence. Formulas all begin
by being _full_ of substance; you may call them the _skin_, the
articulation into shape, into limbs and skin, of a substance that is
already there: _they_ had not been there otherwise. Idols, as we said,
are not idolatrous till they become doubtful, empty for the worshipper's
heart. Much as we talk against Formulas, I hope no one of us is ignorant
withal of the high significance of _true_ Formulas; that they were, and
will ever be, the indispensablest furniture of our habitation in this
world.--

Mark, too, how little Johnson boasts of his "sincerity." He has no
suspicion of his being particularly sincere,--of his being particularly
anything! A hard-struggling, weary-hearted man, or "scholar" as he calls
himself, trying hard to get some honest livelihood in the world, not
to starve, but to live--without stealing! A noble unconsciousness is in
him. He does not "engrave _Truth_ on his watch-seal;" no, but he stands
by truth, speaks by it, works and lives by it. Thus it ever is. Think of
it once more. The man whom Nature has appointed to do great things is,
first of all, furnished with that openness to Nature which renders him
incapable of being _in_sincere! To his large, open, deep-feeling heart
Nature is a Fact: all hearsay is hearsay; the unspeakable greatness of
this Mystery of Life, let him acknowledge it or no