experience all round, and pass, and continue beyond where such great
ones as St. Bernard, Pascal, and Swedenborg, have anchored their starry
souls to shine thence upon men for all time, is no uncommon thing. It is
more the rule than the exception: but one would hardly say that in going
further they have gone higher, or ended greater. The footpath of pioneer
individualism must inevitably become the highway of the race. Every
American is not a Columbus.

There are two ways in which we may live our spiritual progress: as
critics, or poets. Most men live theirs in that critical attitude which
refuses to commit itself, which tastes all, but enjoys none; but the
greatest in that earnest, final, rooted, creative, fashion which is the
way of the poets. The one is as a man who spends his days passing from
place to place in search of a dwelling to his mind, but dies at last in
an inn, having known nought of the settled peace of a home; but the
other, howsoever often he has to change his quarters, for howsoever
short a time he may remain in any one of his resting-places, makes of
each a home, with roots that shoot in a night to the foundations of the
world, and blossomed branches that mingle with the stars.

Criticism is a good thing, but poetry is a better. Indeed, criticism
properly _is_ not; it is but a process to an end. We could really do
without it much better than we imagine: for, after all, the question is
not so much _how_ we live, but _do_ we live? Who would not a hundred
times rather be a fruitful Parsee than a barren _philosophe_? Yes, all
lies, of course, in original greatness of soul; and there is really no
state of mind which is not like Hamlet's pipe--if we but know the 'touch
of it,' 'it will discourse most eloquent music.'

Now, it was that great sincerity in Narcissus that has always made us