I have used such opportunity as I have had, and lately [1850.] in London and Paris, to attend scientific lectures; and in listening to Richard Owen’s masterly enumeration of the parts and laws of the human body, or Michael Faraday’s explanation of magnetic powers, or the botanist’s descriptions, one could not help admiring the irresponsible security and happiness of the attitude of the naturalist; sure of admiration for his facts, sure of their sufficiency. They ought to interest you; if they do

In reckoning the sources of our mental power it were fatal to omit that one which pours all the others into its mould; — that unknown country in which all the rivers of our knowledge have their fountains, and which, by its qualities and structure, determines both the nature of the waters and the direction in which they flow. The healthy mind lies parallel to the currents of nature and sees things in place, or makes discoveries. Newton did not exercise more ingenuity but less than another to see

Memory is a primary and fundamental faculty, without which none other can work; the cement, the bitumen, the matrix in which the other faculties are imbedded; or it is the thread on which the beads of man are strung, making the personal identity which is necessary to moral action. Without it all life and thought were an unrelated succession. As gravity holds matter from flying off into space, so memory gives stability to knowledge; it is the cohesion which keeps things from falling into a lump,

“We are citizens of two fair cities,” said the Genoese gentleman to a Florentine artist, “and if I were not a Genoese, I should wish to be Florentine.” “And I,” replied the artist, “if I were not Florentine.”— “You would wish to be Genoese,” said the other. “No,” replied the artist, “I should wish to be Florentine.” The rocky nook with hill-tops three Looked eastward from the farms, And twice each day the flowing sea Took Boston in its arms. The sea returning day by day Restores the world-wide m

AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BEFORE THE STUDENTS OF TUFTS COLLEGE, JULY 10, 1861 BY Sybarites beguiled, He shall no task decline; Merlin’s mighty line Extremes of nature reconciled — Bereaved a tyrant of his will, And made the lion mild. I KNOW the mighty bards, I listen when they sing, And now I know The secret store Which these explore When they with torch of genius pierce The tenfold clouds that cover The riches of the universe From God’s adoring lover. And if to me it is not given To fetch one ingot

THE air is wise, the wind thinks well, And all through which it blows; If plant or brain, if egg or shell, Or bird or biped knows. What boots it here of Thebes or Rome, Or lands of Eastern day? In forests I am still at home And there I cannot stray. KEEN ears can catch a syllable, As if one spoke to another, In the hemlocks tall, untamable, And what the whispering grasses smother. Wonderful verse of the gods, Of one import, of varied tone; They chant the bliss of their abodes To man imprisoned i

NOT many men see beauty in the fogs Of close, low pine-woods in a river town; Yet unto me not morn’s magnificence Nor the red rainbow of a summer’s eve, Nor Rome, nor joyful Paris, nor the halls Of rich men, blazing hospitable light, Nor wit, nor eloquence, — no, nor even the song Of any woman that is now alive, — Hath such a soul, such divine influence, Such resurrection of the happy past, As is to me when I behold the morn Ope in such low, moist roadside, and beneath Peep the blue violets out

To clothe the fiery thought In simple words succeeds, For still the craft of genius is To mask a king in weeds. ART AND CRITICISM LITERATURE is but a poor trick, you will say, when it busies itself to make words pass for things; and yet I am far from thinking this subordinate service unimportant. The secondary services of literature may be classed under the name of Rhetoric, and are quite as important in letters as iron is in war. An enumeration of the few principal weapons of the poet or writer

Never did sculptor’s dream unfold A form which marble doth not hold In its white block; yet it therein shall find Only the hand secure and bold Which still obeys the mind. Michael Angelo’s Sonnets . New ha l’ottimo artista aicnn concetto, Ch’un marmo solo in sè non circoseriva Col sno soverchio, e solo a quello arriva La man che obbedisce all’ intelletto. M. Angelo , Sonnetto primo . [Reprinted from the North American Review, June, 1837.] Few lives of eminent men are harmonious; few that furnish

I framed his tongue to music, I armed his hand with skill, I moulded his face to beauty, And his heart the throne of wil. [Reprinted from the North American Review, July, 1838.] The discovery of the lost work of Milton, the treatise “Of the Christian Doctrine,”in 1823, drew a sudden attention to his name. For a short time the literary journals were filled with disquisitions on his genius; new editions of his works, and new compilations of his life, were published. But the new-found book haying i

The tongue is prone to lose the way; Not so the pen, for in a letter We have not better things to say, But surely say them better. CONTENTS I. THOUGHTS ON MODERN LITERATURE. II. WALTER SAVAGE LANDER. 1 III. PRAYERS. IV. AGRICULTURE OF MASSACHUSETTS. V. EUROPE AND EUROPEAN BOOKS. VI. PAST AND PRESENT. VII. A LETTER. VIII. THE TRAGIC.

[The Dial, vol. i. p. 137.] In our fidelity to the higher truth we need not disown our debt, in our actual state of culture, in the twilights of experience, to these rude helpers. They keep alive the memory and the hope of a better day. When we flout all particular books as initial merely, we truly express the privilege of spiritual nature, but alas, not the fact and fortune of this low Massachusetts and Boston, of these humble Junes and Decembers of mortal life. Our souls are not self-fed, but

We sometimes meet in a stage coach in New England an erect, muscular man, with fresh complexion and a smooth hat, whose nervous speech instantly betrays the English traveller; — a man nowise cautious to conceal his name or that of his native country, or his very slight esteem for the persons and the country that surround him. When Mr. Boll rides in an American coach, he speaks quick and strong; he is very ready to confess his ignorance of everything about him, persons, manners, customs, politics

[The Dial, vol. iii. p. 77.] “Not with fond shekels of the tested gold, Nor gems whose rates are either rich or poor As fancy values them: but with true prayers, That shall be up at heaven and enter there Ere sunrise; prayers from preserved souls, From fasting maids, whose minds are dedicate To nothing temporal.” Shakspeare Pythagoras said that the time when men are honestest is when they present themselves before the gods. If we can overhear the prayer we shall know the man. But prayers are not

[The Dial, vol. iii. p. 123.] In an afternoon in April, after a long walk, I traversed an orchard where boys were grafting apple-trees, and found the Farmer in his corn-field. He was holding the plow, and his son driving the oxen. This man always impresses me with respect, he is so manly, so sweet-tempered, so faithful, so disdainful of all appearances, — excellent and re-verable in his old weather-worn cap and blue frock bedaubed with the soil of the field; so honest withal, that he always need

[The Dial, vol. iii. p. 511.] It was a brighter day than we have often known in our literary calendar, when within a twelvemonth a single London advertisement announced a new volume of poems by Wordsworth, poems by Tennyson, and a play by Henry Taylor. Wordsworth’s nature or character has had all the time it needed in order to make its mark and supply the want of talent. We have learned how to read him. We have ceased to expect that which he cannot give. He has the merit of just moral perception

[The Dial, vol. iv. p. 96.] Here is Carlyle’s new poem, his Iliad of English woes, to follow his poem on France, entitled the History of the French Revolution. In its first aspect it is a political tract, and since Burke, since Milton, we have had nothing to compare with it, It grapples honestly with the facts lying before all men, groups and disposes them with a master’s mind, and, with a heart full of manly tenderness, offers his best counsel to his brothers. Obviously it is the book of a powe

[The Dial, vol. iv. p. 262.] As we are very liable, in common with the letter-writing world, to fall behind-hand in our correspondence; and a little more liable because in consequence of our editorial function we receive more epistles than our individual share, we have thought that we might clear our account by writing a quarterly catholic letter to all and several who have honored us, in verse or prose, with their confidence, and expressed a curiosity to know our opinion. We shall be compelled

[From the course on “Human Life,” read in Boston, 1839–40. Published in The Dial, vol. iv. p. 515.] He has seen but half the universe who never has been shewn the house of Pain. As the salt sea covers more than two-thirds of the surface of the globe, so sorrow encroaches in man on felicity. The conversation of men is a mixture of regrets and apprehensions. I do not know but the prevalent hue of things to the eye of leisure is melancholy. In the dark hours, our existence seems to be a defensive w