be, when they are not. The rights it would secure to each are not to be incompatible with the rights of any. Opportunity for all, advantages to none. All elements must come under control, and be compounded. Masses it will ostentatiously affect, not in- Masses it dividuals. Heads so much on a level, one tiously affect. above the rest will be an obstruction. If will ostenta a quiet blow will reduce it, down it must go. "To live alone is the chastisement of whoever will raise himself too high." Kings have no company. What one knows all will be understood to know. Weaknesses and interests will be accommodated. What affects one must affect all. The materialities where the attempt is made to make all things material — will increasingly govern. Wealth, more and more, Wealth the acknowledged or not will be omnipotent - the om- distinction. nipotent distinction. Society at large, accustomed to its aggressive splendor and monopoly of advantages, will bow down to it, envy it, and hate it unconsciously unconscious all the time of its own growing enslavement. Intellect and purity come to be regarded as the creations of the schoolmaster and the legislator — will submit to be graded, averaged, and appropriated — kneaded, so to speak, by the PROUD hand of the master without resistance or sense of responsibility - till the end comes. A scrupulously applied Christianity, purifying, protecting, and directing the ballot, and reducing the universal selfishness to its minimum, must of course dissolve all that is gloomy or discouraging in any outlook, speculation, or conjecture. Michelet describes a French peasant on a Sunday morning, walking out in his clean. linen and unsoiled blouse. His wife is at church, and this simple farmer paces across his acres and looks fondly at his land. You see him in, solitude, but his face is illuminated when he thinks his farm is his own, from the surface of the globe to its centre, and that the climate is his own from the surface of the earth up to the seventh heaven. You find that man, if a stranger approaches him, withdrawing, that he may enjoy his affection in soliThe French tude; and as he turns away from his Sunday walk through his own pastures, you notice that he looks back over his shoulder with affection, and parts with regret. He is not at work; he is not out to keep off interlopers; he is out simply to enjoy the feeling of ownership and to look upon him peasant's Sunday walk. proudly at his ease. self as a member of responsible society. The cit also is proudly at his ease, and The cit also paces the avenue a sovereign in his possessions. What to him are acres and plowshares compared with the great town of which he is a part? The vast congeries of activities and forces exists and is operated for his convenience and comfort. Plans he could not originate are ready made. The flow of his life is in a common channel. The full volume and steady current satisfy his efforts, and the chances of movement float him momentarily to the top. Happy or wretched, he can touch a thousand like him. The best and worst of everything are at hand, and contiguous. The virtues and vices are organized, and recruiting. The great town is the greatest, and he is a part of it. Helping to make it, he does something, and will not have lived in vain. He does not see how, but he would be missed. He expands with the bigness Expands about him. The great assemblage makes bigness him decorous. His conduct disgraces or dignifies it. He dresses to be presentable to it. It keeps a guard over him while he sleeps and knows his footsteps when awake. The streets are lit for him. The parks are planted for him. The harbor is with the about him. The harbor broader for his eye. broader for his eye. RESPONSI The duty of the hour the duty of all time. An opera he may hear at the Academy for a guinea, or at the cathedral for a shilling. Church privileges are purchasable or acceptable, at will. The cemetery, where they bury in tombs and trenches, is one of his possessions. All are his as much as anybody's, and his without exciting anybody's envy or cupidity. Each illustrates the fable of the swimming apples, and applies it to the rest. The universal hat is lifted in conde scension and recognition. If we truly believed and realized that here we begin to be what we are to be ever, how absorbing and responsible life would be. How conscientiously and persistently we should seek the good and avoid the evil. How carefully we should guard ourselves against whatever must perish with the body, and how ardently cultivate all which must survive it. Happiness would not be sought in its transient forms. Life would be appreciated by its resultant uses. The duty of the hour would be the duty of all time. The good would inhere. The present would be realized as the period of growth and achievement; and having something to do worth easy. doing, we should need all the time we have to do it well. The duties of the day faithfully discharged, we should not much concern ourselves about the morrow. The The morrow anticipated morrow would be so far provided for that it and made would be anticipated and made easy, if it come. Refinement and intelligence and excellence would result from fidelity to duty, and a happiness would be established as serene as it would be unconscious. Living and acting, and getting the pleasure and good of life with each day of it, we should enjoy a foretaste of fruition and perpetuity. [Titles for essays, with some citations ESSAYS IN and hints.] Malignant Joy. - Edmund Kean's act ing. Monopolists of Salvation. The Heroism of Self-Denial. Indolence and Cowardice. At the bottom of too many of our beliefs and practices. TITLES. |