neighbors. It is peeping. Byron says of Jack Bunting,--

"He knew not what to say, and so he swore."

I may say it of our preposterous use of books,--He knew
not what to do, and so he read. I can think of nothing
to fill my time with, and I find the Life of Brant. It
is a very extravagant compliment to pay to Brant, or to
General Schuyler, or to General Washington. My time
should be as good as their time,--my facts, my net of
relations, as good as theirs, or either of theirs. Rather
let me do my work so well that other idlers if they choose
may compare my texture with the texture of these and find
it identical with the best.

This over-estimate of the possibilities of Paul and
Pericles, this under-estimate of our own, comes from a
neglect of the fact of an identical nature. Bonaparte
knew but one merit, and rewarded in one and the same
way the good soldier, the good astronomer, the good
poet, the good player. The poet uses the names of Caesar,
of Tamerlane, of Bonduca, of Belisarius; the painter uses
the conventional story of the Virgin Mary, of Paul, of
Peter. He does not therefore defer to the nature of these
accidental men, of these stock heroes. If the poet write
a true drama, then he is Caesar, and not the player of
Caesar; then the selfsame strain of thought, emotion as
pure, wit as subtle, motions as swift, mounting, extravagant,
and a heart as great, self-sufficing, dauntless, which on
the waves of its love and hope can uplift all that is