and does already command those events I desire. That exultation is only
to be checked by the foresight of an order of things so excellent as to
throw all our prosperities into the deepest shade.
The face which character wears to me is self-sufficingness. I revere the
person who is riches; so that I cannot think of him as alone, or poor,
or exiled, or unhappy, or a client, but as perpetual patron, benefactor,
and beatified man. Character is centrality, the impossibility of being
displaced or overset. A man should give us a sense of mass. Society
is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into
ceremonies and escapes. But if I go to see an ingenious man I shall
think myself poorly entertained if he give me nimble pieces of
benevolence and etiquette; rather he shall stand stoutly in his place
and let me apprehend if it were only his resistance; know that I have
encountered a new and positive quality;--great refreshment for both of
us. It is much that he does not accept the conventional opinions and
practices. That nonconformity will remain a goad and remembrancer, and
every inquirer will have to dispose of him, in the first place. There is
nothing real or useful that is not a seat of war. Our houses ring with
laughter and personal and critical gossip, but it helps little. But the
uncivil, unavailable man, who is a problem and a threat to society, whom
it cannot let pass in silence but must either worship or hate,--and
to whom all parties feel related, both the leaders of opinion and the
obscure and eccentric,--he helps; he puts America and Europe in the
wrong, and destroys the skepticism which says, 'man is a doll, let us
eat and drink, 'tis the best we can do,' by illuminating the untried
and unknown. Acquiescence in the establishment and appeal to the public,
indicate infirm faith, heads which are not clear, and which must see a
house built, before they can comprehend the plan of it. The wise man
not only leaves out of his thought the many, but leaves out the few.
Fountains, the self-moved, the absorbed, the commander because he is
commanded, the assured, the primary,--they are good; for these announce
the instant presence of supreme power.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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