guard it from intruding eyes, this barrier to keep away the feet of
strangers. Homer represents the divinities as coming invisibly to
admonish their favored heroes; but Nature was beforehand with the poet,
and every one of us is, in like manner, a celestial nature walking
concealed. Who sees _you_, when you walk the street? Who would walk the
street, did be not feel himself fortressed in a privacy that no foreign
eyes can enter? But for this, no cities would be built. Society,
therefore, would be impossible, save for this element, which seems to
hinder society. Each of us, wrapt in his opaque individuality, like
Apollo or Athene in a blue mist, remains hidden, if he will; and
therefore do men dare to come together.

But this superficial element, while securing privacy to the pure nature,
also aids it to expression. It emphasizes the outlines of Personality by
gentle contrast. It is like the shadow in the landscape, without which
all the sunbeams of heaven could not reveal with precision a single
object. Assured lovers resort to happy banter and light oppositions, to
give themselves a sweeter sense of unity of heart. The child, with a
cunning which only Nature has taught, will sometimes put a little honey
of refusal into its kisses before giving them; the maiden adds to her
virgin blooms the further attraction of virgin coyness and reserve; the
civilizing dinner-table would lose all its dignity in losing its delays;
and so everywhere, delicate denial, withholding reserve have an inverse
force, and add a charm of emphasis to gift, assent, attraction, and
sympathy. How is the word Immortality emphasized to our hearts by the
perpetual spectacle of death! The joy and suggestion of it could,
indeed, never visit us, had not this momentary loud denial been uttered
in our ears. Such, therefore, as have learned to interpret these
oppositions in Nature, hear in the jarring note of Death only a jubilant
proclamation of life eternal; while all are thus taught the longing for