that virtue is Height, and that a man or
a company of men, plastic and permeable to principles, by the law of
nature must overpower and ride all cities, nations, kings, rich men,
poets, who are not.

This is the ultimate fact which we so quickly reach on this, as on every
topic, the resolution of all into the ever-blessed ONE. Self-existence
is the attribute of the Supreme Cause, and it constitutes the measure of
good by the degree in which it enters into all lower forms. All things
real are so by so much virtue as they contain. Commerce, husbandry,
hunting, whaling, war, eloquence, personal weight, are somewhat, and
engage my respect as examples of its presence and impure action. I see
the same law working in nature for conservation and growth. Power is, in
nature, the essential measure of right. Nature suffers nothing to remain
in her kingdoms which cannot help itself. The genesis and maturation of
a planet, its poise and orbit, the bended tree recovering itself from
the strong wind, the vital resources of every animal and vegetable, are
demonstrations of the self-sufficing and therefore self-relying soul.

Thus all concentrates: let us not rove; let us sit at home with the
cause. Let us stun and astonish the intruding rabble of men and books
and institutions, by a simple declaration of the divine fact. Bid the
invaders take the shoes from off their feet, for God is here within. Let
our simplicity judge them, and our docility to our own law demonstrate
the poverty of nature and fortune beside our native riches.

But now we are a mob. Man does not stand in awe of man, nor is his
genius admonished to stay at home, to put itself in communication with
the internal ocean, but it goes abroad to beg a cup of water of the
urns of other men. We must go alone. I like the silent church before the
service begins, better than any preaching. How far off, how cool, how
chaste the persons look, begirt each one with a precinct or sanctuary!
So let us always sit. Why should we assume the faults of our friend, or
wife, or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, or are
said to have the same blood? All men have my blood and I have all men's.
Not for that will I adopt their petulance or folly, even to the extent
of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must not be mechanical, but
spiritual, that is, must be elevation. At times the whole world seems to
be in conspiracy to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client