On the whole, I would bid you stand up to your work, whatever it may be, and not be afraid of it--not in sorrows or contradiction to yield, but pushing on towards the goal. And don't suppose that people are hostile to you in the world. You will rarely find anybody designedly doing you ill. You may feel often as if the whole world is obstructing you, more or less; but you will find that to be because the world is travelling in a different way from you, and rushing on in its own path. Each man has only an extremely good-will to himself--which he has a right to have--and is moving on towards his object. Keep out of literature as a general rule, I should say also. (Laughter.) If you find many people who are hard and indifferent to you in a world that you consider to be unhospitable and cruel--as often, indeed, happens to a tender-hearted, stirring young creature--you will also find there are noble hearts who will look kindly on you, and their help will be precious to you beyond price. You will get good and evil as you go on, and have the success that has been appointed to you. I will wind up with a small bit of verse that is from Goethe also, and has often gone through my mind. To me it has the tone of a modern psalm in it in some measure. It is sweet and clear. The clearest of sceptical men had not anything like so clear a mind as that man had--freer from cant and misdirected notion of any kind than any man in these ages has been This is what the poet says:-- The Future hides in it Gladness and sorrow: We press still thorow; Nought that abides in it Daunting us--Onward! And solemn before us, Veiled, the dark Portal, Goal of all mortal. Stars silent rest o'er us-- Graves under us, silent. While earnest thou gazest Comes boding of terror, Come phantasm and error; Perplexes the bravest With doubt and misgiving. But heard are the voices, Heard are the Sages, The Worlds and the Ages: "Choose well: your choice is Brief, and yet endless." Here eyes do regard you In Eternity's stillness; Here is all fulness, Ye brave, to reward you. Work, and despair not.[A] [Footnote A: Originally published in Carlyle's "Past and Present," (Lond. 1843,) p. 318, and introduced there by the following words:-- "My candid readers, we will march out of this Third Book with a rhythmic word of Goethe's on our tongue; a word which perhaps has already sung itself, in dark hours and in bright, through many a heart. To me, finding it devout yet wholly credible and veritable, full of piety yet free of cant; to me joyfully finding much in it, and joyfully missing so much in it, this little snatch of music, by the greatest German man, sounds like a stanza in the grand _Road Song_ and _Marching Song_ of our great Teutonic kindred,--wending, wending, valiant and victorious, through the undiscovered Deeps of Time!"] One last word. _Wir heissen euch hoffen_--we bid you be of hope. Adieu for this time.