Where Breed's house stood tradition says a tavern once stood, the well the same, and all a swamp between the woods and town, and road made on logs.[477] * * * * * Bread I made pretty well for awhile, while I remembered the rules; for I studied this out methodically, going clear back to the primitive days and first invention of the unleavened kind, and coming gradually down through that lucky accidental souring of the dough which taught men the leavening process, and all the various fermentations thereafter, till you get to "good, sweet, wholesome bread," the staff of life. I went on very well, mixing rye and flour and Indian and potato with success, till one morning I had forgotten the rules, and thereafter scalded the yeast,—killed it out,—and so, after the lapse of a month, was glad after all to learn that such palatable staff of life could be made out of the dead and scalt creature and risings that lay flat. I have hardly met with the housewife who has gone so far with this mystery. For all the farmers' wives pause at yeast. Given this and they can make bread. It is the axiom of the argument. What it is, where it came from, in what era bestowed on man, is wrapped in mystery. It is preserved religiously, like the vestal fire, and its virtue is not yet run out. Some precious bottleful, first brought over in the Mayflower, did the business for America, and its influence is still rising, swelling, spreading like Atlantic billows over the land,—the soul of bread, the spiritus, occupying its cellular tissue.[478] * * * * * The way to compare men is to compare their respective ideals. The actual man is too complex to deal with. Carlyle is an earnest, honest, heroic worker as literary man and sympathizing brother of his race. Idealize a man, and your notion takes distinctness at once. Carlyle's talent is perhaps quite equal to his genius.[479] Striving [?] to live in reality,—not a general critic, philosopher, or poet. Wordsworth, with very feeble talent, has not so great and admirable as unquestionable and persevering genius. Heroism, heroism is his word,—his thing. He would realize a brave and adequate human life, and die hopefully at last. * * * * *