Long I followed happy guides, – To hunt upon their shining trails. THE FORERUNNERS NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIRST To the attentive eye, each moment of the year has its own beauty, and in the same field it beholds, every hour, a picture which was never seen before, and which shall never be seen again. BEAUTY NOVEMBER TWENTY-SECOND We must extend the area of life, and multiply our relations. We are as much gainers by finding a new property in the old earth as by acquiring a new planet. USES OF GREAT MEN NOVEMBER TWENTY-THIRD A sympathetic person is placed in the dilemma of a swimmer among drowning men, who all catch at him, and if he gives so much as a leg or a finger, they will drown him. They wish to be saved from the mischiefs of their vices, but not from their vices. EXPERIENCE NOVEMBER TWENTY-FOURTH The great man, that is, the man most imbued with the spirit of the time, is the impressionable man,of a fibre irritable and delicate, like iodine to light. He feels the infinitesimal attractions. NOVEMBER TWENTY-FIFTH Seek not the Spirit, if it hide, Baby, do not whine and chide; FATE SURSUM CORDA NOVEMBER TWENTY-SIXTH He is the rich man who can avail himself of all men's faculties. . . . The same correspondence that is between thirst in the stomach, and water in the spring, exists between the whole of man and the whole of nature. The elements offer their service to him. WEALTH NOVEMBER TWENTY-SEVENTH Place yourself in the middle of the stream of power and wisdom which flows into you as life, place yourself in the full centre of that flood, then you are without effort impelled to truth, to right and a perfect contentment. Then you put all gainsayers in the wrong. Then you are the world, the measure of right, of truth, of beauty. SPIRITUAL LAWS There is a great deal of self-denial and manliness in poor and middle-class houses, in town and country, that has not got into literature, and never will, but that keeps the earth sweet. NOVEMBER TWENTY-NINTH Though thou loved her as thyself, Tho' her parting dims the day, When half-gods go, CULTURE GIVE ALL TO LOVE NOVEMBER. THIRTIETH Culture is the suggestion from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities, through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself. Culture redresses his balance, puts him among his equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion. CULTURE INNO N certain men, digestion and sex absorb the vital force, and the stronger these are, the individual is so much weaker. The more of these drones perish, the better for the hive. FATE DECEMBER SECOND I look for the hour when that supreme Beauty which ravished the souls of those Eastern men, and chiefly of those Hebrews, and through their lips spoke oracles to all time, shall speak in the West also. AN ADDRESS DECEMBER THIRD He was the heart of all the scene, WOOD NOTES We walk alone in the world. Friends such as we desire are dreams and fables. But a sublime hope cheers ever the faithful heart, that elsewhere, in other regions of the universal power, souls are now acting, enduring and daring, which can love us and which we can love. FRIENDSHIP DECEMBER FIFTH The faith that stands on authority is not faith. The reliance on authority measures the decline of religion, the withdrawal of the soul. THE OVER-SOUL DECEMBER SIXTH The growth of the intellect is strictly analogous in all individuals. It is larger reception. Able men, in general, have good dispositions and a respect for justice; because an able man is nothing else than a good, free, vascular organization, whereinto the universal spirit freely flows; so that his fund of justice is not only vast, but infinite. LITERARY ETHICS DECEMBER SEVENTH Parched corn eaten to-day that I may have roast fowl to my dinner on Sunday is a baseness; but parched corn and a house with one apartment, that I may be free of all perturbations, that I may be |