ation, ever-new
disappointment, shift from enterprise to enterprise, and from side to
side: till at length, as exasperated striplings of threescore-and-ten,
they shift into their last enterprise, that of getting buried.

"Such, since the most of us are too ophthalmic, would be the general
fate; were it not that one thing saves us: our Hunger. For on this
ground, as the prompt nature of Hunger is well known, must a prompt
choice be made: hence have we, with wise foresight, Indentures and
Apprenticeships for our irrational young; whereby, in due season, the
vague universality of a Man shall find himself ready-moulded into a
specific Craftsman; and so thenceforth work, with much or with little
waste of Capability as it may be; yet not with the worst waste, that of
time. Nay even in matters spiritual, since the spiritual artist too is
born blind, and does not, like certain other creatures, receive sight
in nine days, but far later, sometimes never,--is it not well that there
should be what we call Professions, or Bread-studies (_Brodzwecke_),
preappointed us? Here, circling like the gin-horse, for whom partial
or total blindness is no evil, the Bread-artist can travel contentedly
round and round, still fancying that it is forward and forward; and
realize much: for himself victual; for the world an additional horse's
power in the grand corn-mill or hemp-mill of Economic Society. For
me too had such a leading-string been provided; only that it proved a
neck-halter, and had nigh throttled me, till I broke it off. Then, in
the words of Ancient Pistol, did the world generally become mine oyster,
which I, by strength or cunning, was to open, as I would and could.
Almost had I deceased (_fast war ich umgekommen_), so obstinately did it
continue shut."

We see here, significantly foreshadowed, the spirit of much that was
to befall our Autobiographer; the historical embodiment of which, as
it painfully takes shape in his Life, lies scattered, in dim disastrous
details, through this Bag _Pisces_, and those that follow. A young man
of high talent, and high though still temper, like a young mettled
colt, "breaks off his neck-halter," and bounds forth, from his peculiar
manger, into the wide world; which, alas, he finds all rigorously fenced
in. Richest clover-fields tempt his eye; but to him they are forbidden
pasture: either pining in progressive starvation, he must stand; or,
in mad exasperation, must rush to and fro, leaping agains