Once or twice in youth we meet a man of sounding reputation or real wisdom, whose secret is hid above our discovery. His manners are formidable while we do not understand them. In his presence our tongues are tied, our limbs are paralyzed. Thought dies out before him, the will is unseated and vacillates, we are cowed like Antony beside Caesar. In solitude we are ashamed of this cowardice and resolve to put it away; but when the great man returns, our knees knock and we are as weak as before. It is suicide to fly from such mortification. A brave boy faces it as well as he can. By-and-by the dazzle abates, he sees some flaw, some coarseness or softness, in this shining piece of metal; he begins to fathom the motives and measure the orbit of this tyrannous benefactor. They are the true friends who daunt and overpower us, to whom for a little we yield more than their due. This rule is universal, that no man can admire downward. All enthusiasm rises and lifts the subject of it. That which seems to you so base an activity is lifted above low natures. What matter, then, where the standard floats at this moment, since it cannot remain fixed? Perfection retreats, as the horizon withdraws before a traveller, and lures us on and on. It even travels faster than our best endeavors can follow, and so beckons to us from farther and farther away. We may give ourselves to the ideal, or we may turn aside to appetite and sleep; but in every moment of returning sanity we are again on our feet and again upon an endless ascending road.