All thought, then, belongs exclusively to God, and is parceled out by him, as he chooses, among his creature feudatories. As the wind, which bloweth where it listeth, and no one knoweth whence it cometh, save that it is sent by God, so is thought, as it blows through our minds. Over birds, flying at liberty through the free air, boys often advance claims of ownership more specific than are easily derived from the general dominion God gave man over the beasts of the field and the birds of the air; yet, 'All those birds are mine!' exclaims a youngster in roundabout, with just as much reason as any man can claim, as exclusively his own, the thoughts which are ever winging their way through the firmament of mind. But considered apart from the relation we sustain to God, none of us are original with respect to our fellow-men. Few, indeed, are the ideas we derive by direct grant, or through nature, from our liege lord; but far the greater share, by hooks or personal contact, we gather through our fellow-men. Consciously, unconsciously, we all teach--we all learn from, one another. Association does far more toward forming mind than natural endowments. As not alone the soil whence it springs makes the oak, but surrounding elements contribute. Seclude a human mind entirely from hooks and men, and you may have a man with no ideas borrowed from his fellows. Such a one, in Germany, once grew up from childhood to manhood in close imprisonment, and poor Kasper Hauser proved--an idiot. It can hardly be necessary to suggest the well-known fact, that the greatest readers of men and books always possess the greatest minds. Such are, besides, of the greatest service to mankind. For since God has so formed us that we love to give as well as take, a great independent mind, complete in itself and incapable of receiving from others, must always stand somewhat apart from men; and even a great heart, when conjoined--as it seldom is--with a great head, is rarely able to drawbridge over the wide moat which intrenches it in solitary loneliness. Originality ever links with it something of uncongeniality--a feeling somewhat akin to the egotism of that one who, when asked why he talked so much to himself, replied--for two reasons: the one, that he liked to talk to a sensible man; the other, that he liked to hear a sensible man talk. Divorcing itself from fellow-sympathies, it broods over its own perfections, till, like Narcissus, it falls in love with itself. And so, a highly original man can rarely ever be a highly popular man or author. By the very super-abundance of his excellencies, his usefulness is destroyed; just as Tarpeia sank, buried beneath the presents of the Sabine soldiery. A Man once appeared on earth, of perfect originality; and in him, to an unbounded intellect was added boundless moral power. But men received him not. They rejected his teachings; they smote him; they crucified him.