or Pollok may endure for a night, but Moses and Homer stand
for ever. There are not in the world at any one time more
than a dozen persons who read and understand Plato,--never
enough to pay for an edition of his works; yet to every
generation these come duly down, for the sake of those few
persons, as if God brought them in his hand. "No book," said
Bentley, "was ever written down by any but itself." The
permanence of all books is fixed by no effort, friendly or
hostile, but by their own specific gravity, or the intrinsic
importance of their contents to the constant mind of man.
"Do not trouble yourself too much about the light on your
statue," said Michael Angelo to the young sculptor; "the
light of the public square will test its value."

In like manner the effect of every action is measured
by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds.
The great man knew not that he was great. It took a
century or two for that fact to appear. What he did,
he did because he must; it was the most natural thing
in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the
moment. But now, every thing he did, even to the lifting
of his finger or the eating of bread, looks large, all-
related, and is called an institution.

These are the demonstrations in a few particulars of
the genius of nature; they show the direction of the
stream. But the stream is blood; every drop is alive.
Truth has not single victories; all things are its
organs,--not only dust and stones, but errors and lies.
The laws of disease, physicians say, are as beautiful