less pertinent than Epaminondas or Homer being there?
and that the soul did not know its own needs? Besides,
without any reasoning on the matter, I have no discontent.
The good soul nourishes me and unlocks new magazines of
power and enjoyment to me every day. I will not meanly
decline the immensity of good, because I have heard that
it has come to others in another shape.

Besides, why should we be cowed by the name of Action?
'Tis a trick of the senses,--no more. We know that the
ancestor of every action is a thought. The poor mind does
not seem to itself to be any thing unless it have an
outside badge,--some Gentoo diet, or Quaker coat, or
Calvinistic prayer-meeting, or philanthropic society, or
a great donation, or a high office, or, any how, some wild
contrasting action to testify that it is somewhat. The rich
mind lies in the sun and sleeps, and is Nature. To think is
to act.

Let us, if we must have great actions, make our own so.
All action is of an infinite elasticity, and the least
admits of being inflated with the celestial air until
it eclipses the sun and moon. Let us seek one peace
by fidelity. Let me heed my duties. Why need I go gadding
into the scenes and philosophy of Greek and Italian
history before I have justified myself to my benefactors?
How dare I read Washington's campaigns when I have not
answered the letters of my own correspondents? Is not
that a just objection to much of our reading? It is a
pusillanimous desertion of our work to gaze after our