Nay, in one sense, the older his truth, the _more_ do the effects of originality lie open to him. The simple, central, imperial elements of human consciousness are first in order of expression, and continue forever to be first in order of power and suggestion. The great purposes, the great thoughts and melodies issue always from these. This is the quarry which every masterly thinker or poet must work. Homer is Homer because he is so simply true alike to earth and sky,--to the perpetual experience and perpetual imagination of mankind. Had he gone working around the edges, following the occasional _détours_ and slips of consciousness, there would have been no "Iliad" or "Odyssey" for mankind to love and for Pope to spoil. The great poets tell us nothing new. They remind us. They bear speech deep into our being, and to the heart of our heart lend a tongue. They have words that correspond to facts in all men and women. But they are not newsmongers. Yesterday, I read in a prose translation of the "Odyssey" the exquisite idyl of Nausicaa and her Maids, and the discovery of himself by Ulysses. Perhaps the picture came out more clearly than ever before; at any rate, it filled my whole day with delight, and to-day I seem to have heard some sweetest good tidings, as if word had come from an old playmate, dear and distant in memory, or a happy and wealthy letter had arrived from a noble friend. Whence this enrichment? There was nothing in this idyl, to which, even on a first reading, I could give the name of "new truth." The secret is, that I _have_ indeed had tidings of old playmates, dear and distant in memory,--of those bright-eyed, brave, imaging playmates of all later ages, the inhabitants of Homer's world. And little can one care for novelties of thought, in comparison with these tones from the deeps of undying youth. Bring to our lips these cups of the fresh wine of life, if you would do good. Bring us these; for it is by perpetual rekindlings of the youth in us that our life grows and unfolds. Each advancing epoch of the inward life is no less than this,--a fresh efflux of adolescence from the immortal and exhaustless heart. Everywhere the law is the same,--Become as a little child, to reach the heavenly kingdoms. This, however, we become not by any return to babyhood, but by an effusion or emergence from within of pure life,--of life which takes from years only their wisdom and their chastening, and gives them in payment its perfect renewal. This, then, is the proof of originality,--that one shall utter the pure consciousness of man. If he live, and live humanly, in his speech, the speech itself will live; for it will obtain hospitality in all wealthy and true hearts.