"Ever their phantoms arise before us.
Our loftier brothers, but one in blood;
At bed and table they lord it o'er us,
With looks of beauty, and words of good."

How to illustrate the distinctive benefit of ideas, the service rendered
by those who introduce moral truths into the general mind?--I am
plagued, in all my living, with a perpetual tariff of prices. If I
work in my garden, and prune an apple-tree, I am well enough
entertained, and could continue indefinitely in the like occupation.
But it comes to mind that a day is gone, and I have got this precious
nothing done. I go to Boston or New York, and run up and down on my
affairs: they are sped, but so is the day. I am vexed by the
recollection of this price I have paid for a trifling advantage. I
remember the _peau d'ane_, on which whoso sat should have his desire,
but a piece of the skin was gone for every wish. I go to a convention of
philanthropists. Do what I can, I cannot keep my eyes off the clock. But
if there should appear in the company some gentle soul who knows little
of persons or parties, of Carolina or Cuba, but who announces a law that
disposes these particulars, and so certifies me of the equity which
checkmates every false player, bankrupts every self-seeker, and apprises
me of my independence on any conditions of country, or time, or human
body, that man liberates me; I forget the clock.

I pass out of the sore relation to persons. I am healed of my hurts.
I am made immortal by apprehending my possession of incorruptible
goods. Here is great competition of rich and poor. We live in a market,
where is only so much wheat, or wool, or land; and if I have so much
more, every other must have so much less. I seem to have no good,
without breach of good manners. Nobody is glad in the gladness of