No man can learn what he has not preparation for learning,
however near to his eyes is the object. A chemist may
tell his most precious secrets to a carpenter, and he
shall be never the wiser,--the secrets he would not utter
to a chemist for an estate. God screens us evermore from
premature ideas. Our eyes are holden that we cannot see
things that stare us in the face, until the hour arrives
when the mind is ripened; then we behold them, and the
time when we saw them not is like a dream.

Not in nature but in man is all the beauty and worth
he sees. The world is very empty, and is indebted to
this gilding, exalting soul for all its pride. "Earth
fills her lap with splendors" not her own. The vale of
Tempe, Tivoli and Rome are earth and water, rocks and
sky. There are as good earth and water in a thousand
places, yet how unaffecting!

People are not the better for the sun and moon, the
horizon and the trees; as it is not observed that the
keepers of Roman galleries or the valets of painters
have any elevation of thought, or that librarians are
wiser men than others. There are graces in the demeanor
of a polished and noble person which are lost upon the
eye of a churl. These are like the stars whose light has
not yet reached us.

He may see what he maketh. Our dreams are the sequel of
our waking knowledge. The visions of the night bear some
proportion to the visions of the day. Hideous dreams are