It is one thing to see that a line is crooked, and another thing to be able to draw a straight one. It is not quite so easy to do a good thing as those imagine who never try. One of Sir Thomas Wyat’s common sayings was, that there were three things which should always be strictly observed: “Never to play with any man’s unhappiness or deformity, for that is inhuman; nor on superiors, for that is saucy and undutiful; nor on holy matters, for that is irreligious.” A little grain of the romance is no ill ingredient to preserve and exalt the dignity of human nature, without which it is apt to degenerate into everything that is sordid, vicious, and low.[127] One very common error misleads the opinion of mankind,—that, universally, authority is pleasant, submission painful. In the general course of human affairs, the very reverse of this is nearer the truth. Command is anxiety; obedience, ease.[128] Lamartine has well observed: “Travelling is summing up a long life in a few years; it is one of the strongest exercises a man can give his heart and his mind. The philosopher, the politician, the poet, should all have travelled much. Changing the moral horizon is to change thought.” “Begin at the Beginning” is an excellent maxim. The laborious pursuit of first principles brings its own reward. To begin at the beginning in the sciences, as well as in matters of fact, is the nearest and safest road to the end. Even sensible men are too commonly satisfied with tracing their thoughts a little way backwards, and they are, of course, soon perplexed by a profounder adversary. In this respect, most people’s minds are too like a child’s garden, where the flowers are planted without their roots. It may be said of morals and of literature, as truly as of sculpture and painting, that, to understand the outside of human nature, we should be well acquainted with the inside.