ns are thousandfold that I hear and see. The waters of the
great deep have ingress and egress to the soul. But if I speak, I
define, I confine and am less. When Socrates speaks, Lysis and Menexenus
are afflicted by no shame that they do not speak. They also are good.
He likewise defers to them, loves them, whilst he speaks. Because a true
and natural man contains and is the same truth which an eloquent man
articulates; but in the eloquent man, because he can articulate it,
it seems something the less to reside, and he turns to these silent
beautiful with the more inclination and respect. The ancient sentence
said, Let us be silent, for so are the gods. Silence is a solvent that
destroys personality, and gives us leave to be great and universal.
Every man's progress is through a succession of teachers, each of whom
seems at the time to have a superlative influence, but it at last gives
place to a new. Frankly let him accept it all. Jesus says, Leave father,
mother, house and lands, and follow me. Who leaves all, receives more.
This is as true intellectually as morally. Each new mind we approach
seems to require an abdication of all our past and present possessions.
A new doctrine seems at first a subversion of all our opinions, tastes,
and manner of living. Such has Swedenborg, such has Kant, such has
Coleridge, such has Hegel or his interpreter Cousin seemed to many young
men in this country. Take thankfully and heartily all they can give.
Exhaust them, wrestle with them, let them not go until their blessing be
won, and after a short season the dismay will be overpast, the excess of
influence withdrawn, and they will be no longer an alarming meteor, but
one more bright star shining serenely in your heaven and blending its
light with all your day.

But whilst he gives himself up unreservedly to that which draws him,
because that is his own, he is to refuse himself to that which draws him
not, whatsoever fame and authority may attend it, because it is not
his own. Entire self-reliance belongs to the intellect. One soul is a
counterpoise of all souls, as a capillary column of water is a balance
for the sea. It must treat things and books and sovereign genius as
itself also a sovereign. If Aeschylus be that man he is taken for, he
has not yet done his office when he has educated the learned of Europe
for a thousand years. He is now to approve himself a master of delight
to me also. If he cannot do that, all his fame shall av