ning. I cast away in this new moment all my once
hoarded knowledge, as vacant and vain. Now for the first time seem I
to know any thing rightly. The simplest words,--we do not know what
they mean except when we love and aspire.

The difference between talents and character is adroitness to keep the
old and trodden round, and power and courage to make a new road to new
and better goals. Character makes an overpowering present, a cheerful,
determined hour, which fortifies all the company by making them see
that much is possible and excellent that was not thought of. Character
dulls the impression of particular events. When we see the conqueror
we do not think much of any one battle or success. We see that we had
exaggerated the difficulty. It was easy to him. The great man is not
convulsible or tormentable. He is so much that events pass over him
without much impression. People say sometimes, "See what I have
overcome; see how cheerful I am; see how completely I have triumphed
over these black events." Not if they still remind me of the black
event,--they have not yet conquered. Is it conquest to be a gay and
decorated sepulchre, or a half-crazed widow, hysterically laughing?
True conquest is the causing the black event to fade and disappear as
an early cloud of insignificant result in a history so large and
advancing.

The one thing which we seek with insatiable desire is to forget
ourselves, to be surprised out of our propriety, to lose our
sempiternal[715] memory and to do something without knowing how or
why; in short to draw a new circle. Nothing great was ever achieved
without enthusiasm. The way of life is wonderful. It is by
abandonment. The great moments of history are the facilities of
performance through the strength of ideas, as the works of genius and
religion. "A man," said Oliver Cromwell,[716] "never rises so high as
when he knows not whither he is going." Dreams and drunkenness, the
use of opium and alcohol are the semblance and counterfeit of this
oracular genius, and hence their dangerous attraction for men. For the
like reason they ask the aid of wild passions, as in the gaming and
war, ape in some manner these flames and generosities of the heart.

NOTES

THE AMERICAN SCHOLAR

[Footnote 1: Games of strength. The public games of Greece were
athletic and intellectual contests of various kinds. There were four
of importance: the Olympic, held every four years; the Pythian, held
every third