is in us? We will never more think cheaply of ourselves, or of life.
We are piqued to some purpose, and the industry of the diggers on the
railroad will not again shame us.

Under this head, too, falls that homage, very pure, as I think, which
all ranks pay to the hero of the day, from Coriolanus and Gracchus,
down to Pitt, Lafayette, Wellington, Webster, Lamartine. Hear the
shouts in the street! The people cannot see him enough. They delight
in a man. Here is a head and a trunk! What a front! What eyes! Atlantean
shoulders, and the whole carriage heroic, with equal inward force to
guide the great machine! This pleasure of full expression to that
which, in their private experience, is usually cramped and obstructed,
runs, also, much higher, and is the secret of the reader's joy in
literary genius. Nothing is kept back. There is fire enough to fuse
the mountain of ore. Shakspeare's principal merit may be conveyed, in
saying that he, of all men, best understands the English language, and
can say what he will. Yet these unchoked channels and floodgates of
expression are only health or fortunate constitution. Shakspeare's
name suggests other and purely intellectual benefits.

Senates and sovereigns have no compliment, with their medals, swords,
and armorial coats, like the addressing to a human being thoughts out
of a certain height, and presupposing his intelligence. This honor,
which is possible in personal intercourse scarcely twice in a lifetime,
genius perpetually pays; contented, if now and then, in a century, the
proffer is accepted. The indicators of the values of matter are degraded
to a sort of cooks and confectioners, on the appearance of the
indicators of ideas. Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the
supersensible regions, and draws on their map; and, by acquainting us
with new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old. These