And constitutes the front of his offence.
Universally, the innocent man will come forth from the sharpest
inquisition and lecturing, the combined din of reproof and
commendation, with a faint sound of eulogy in his ears. Our
vices always lie in the direction of our virtues, and in their
best estate are but plausible imitations of the latter.
Falsehood never attains to the dignity of entire falseness, but
is only an inferior sort of truth; if it were more thoroughly
false, it would incur danger of becoming true.
"Securus quo pes ferat, atque ex tempore _vivit_,"
is then the motto of a wise man. For first, as the subtle
discernment of the language would have taught us, with all his
negligence he is still secure; but the sluggard, notwithstanding
his heedlessness, is insecure.
The life of a wise man is most of all extemporaneous, for he
lives out of an eternity which includes all time. The cunning
mind travels further back than Zoroaster each instant, and comes
quite down to the present with its revelation. The utmost thrift
and industry of thinking give no man any stock in life; his
credit with the inner world is no better, his capital no larger.
He must try his fortune again to-day as yesterday. All questions
rely on the present for their solution. Time measures nothing
but itself. The word that is written may be postponed, but not
that on the lip. If this is what the occasion says, let the
occasion say it. All the world is forward to prompt him who gets
up to live without his creed in his pocket.
In the fifth satire, which is the best, I find, -
"Stat contra ratio, et secretam garrit in aurem,
Ne liceat facere id, quod quis vitiabit agendo."
Reason opposes, and whispers in the secret ear,
That it is not lawful to do that which one will spoil by doing.
Only they who do not see how anything might be better done are
forward to try their hand on it. Even the master workman must be
encouraged by the reflection, that his awkwardness will be
incompetent to do that thing harm, to which his skill may fail to
do justice. Here is no apology for neglecting to do many things
from a sense of our incapacity, - for what deed does not fall
maimed and imperfect from our hands? - but only a warning to
bungle less.
The satires of Persius are the furthest possible from inspired;
evidently a chosen, not imposed subject. Perhaps I have given
him credit for more earnestness than is apparent; but it is
certain, that that which alone we can call Persius, which is
forever independent and consistent, _was_ in earnest, and so
sanctions the sober consideration of all. The artist and his
work are not to be separated. The most wilfully foolish man
cannot stand aloof from his folly, but the deed and the doer
together make ever one sober fact. There is but one stage for
the peasant and the actor. The buffoon cannot bribe you to laugh
always at his grimaces; they shall sculpture themselves in
Egyptian granite, to stand heavy as the pyramids on the ground of
his character.
- - -
Suns rose and set and found us still on the dank forest path
which meanders up the Pemigewasset, now more like an otter's or a
marten's trail, or where a beaver had dragged his trap, than
where the wheels of travel raise a dust; where towns begin to
serve as gores, only to hold the earth together. The wild pigeon
sat secure above our heads, high on the dead limbs of naval
pines, reduced to a robin's size. The very yards of our
hostelries inclined upon the skirts of mountains, and, as we
passed, we looked up at a steep angle at the stems of maples
waving in the clouds.
Far up in the country, - for we would be faithful to our
experience, - in Thornton, perhaps, we met a soldier lad in the
woods, going to muster in full regimentals, and holding the
middle of the road; deep in the forest, with shouldered musket
and military step, and thoughts of war and glory all to himself.
It was a sore trial to the youth, tougher than many a battle, to
get by us creditably and with soldierlike bearing. Poor man! He
actually shivered like a reed in his thin military pants, and by
the time we had got up with him, all the sternness that becomes
the soldier had forsaken his face, and he skulked past as if he
were driving his father's sheep under a sword-proof helmet. It
was too much for him to carry any extra armor then, who could not
easily dispose of his natural arms. And for his legs, they were
like heavy artillery in boggy places; better to cut the traces
and forsake them. His greaves chafed and wrestled one with
another for want of other foes. But he did get by and get off
with all his munitions, and lived to fight another day; and I do
not record this as casting any suspicion on his honor and real
bravery in the field.
Wandering on through notches which the streams had made, by the
side and over the brows of hoar hills and mountains, across the
stumpy, rocky, forested, and bepastured country, we at length
crossed on prostrate trees over the Amonoosuck, and breathed the
free air of Unappropriated Land. Thus, in fair days as well as
foul, we had traced up the river to which our native stream is a
tributary, until from Merrimack it became the Pemigewasset that
leaped by our side, and when we had passed its fountain-head, the
Wild Amonoosuck, whose puny channel was crossed at a stride,
guiding us toward its distant source among the mountains, and at
length, without its guidance, we were enabled to reach the summit
of ^Agiocochook^.
- - - - - - - -
"Sweet days, so cool, so calm, so bright,
The bridal of the earth and sky,
Sweet dews shall weep thy fall to-night,
For thou must die."
^Herbert^.
When we returned to Hooksett, a week afterward, the melon man, in
whose corn-barn we had hung our tent and buffaloes and other
things to dry, was already picking his hops, with many women and
children to help him.
