become that without pains. As the true knowledge is disciplined and
tested knowledge,--not the first thought that comes, so the true
passion is disciplined and tested passion,--not the first passion
that comes. The first that come are the vain, the false, the
treacherous; if you yield to them they will lead you wildly and far,
in vain pursuit, in hollow enthusiasm, till you have no true purpose
and no true passion left. Not that any feeling possible to humanity
is in itself wrong, but only wrong when undisciplined. Its nobility
is in its force and justice; it is wrong when it is weak, and felt
for paltry cause. There is a mean wonder, as of a child who sees a
juggler tossing golden balls; and this is base, if you will. But do
you think that the wonder is ignoble, or the sensation less, with
which every human soul is called to watch the golden balls of heaven
tossed through the night by the Hand that made them? There is a
mean curiosity, as of a child opening a forbidden door, or a servant
prying into her master's business;--and a noble curiosity,
questioning, in the front of danger, the source of the great river
beyond the sand,--the place of the great continents beyond the sea;-
-a nobler curiosity still, which questions of the source of the
River of Life, and of the space of the Continent of Heaven,--things
which "the angels desire to look into." So the anxiety is ignoble,
with which you linger over the course and catastrophe of an idle
tale; but do you think the anxiety is less, or greater, with which
you watch, or OUGHT to watch, the dealings of fate and destiny with
the life of an agonized nation? Alas! it is the narrowness,
selfishness, minuteness, of your sensation that you have to deplore
in England at this day;--sensation which spends itself in bouquets
and speeches: in revellings and junketings; in sham fights and gay
puppet shows, while you can look on and see noble nations murdered,
man by man, without an effort or a tear.