in the sunny glades of the forest, living
on wild-fruits; or, as the ancient Caledonian, squatted himself in
morasses, lurking for his bestial or human prey; without implements,
without arms, save the ball of heavy Flint, to which, that his sole
possession and defence might not be lost, he had attached a long cord
of plaited thongs; thereby recovering as well as hurling it with deadly
unerring skill. Nevertheless, the pains of Hunger and Revenge once
satisfied, his next care was not Comfort but Decoration (_Putz_). Warmth
he found in the toils of the chase; or amid dried leaves, in his hollow
tree, in his bark shed, or natural grotto: but for Decoration he must
have Clothes. Nay, among wild people, we find tattooing and painting
even prior to Clothes. The first spiritual want of a barbarous man
is Decoration, as indeed we still see among the barbarous classes in
civilized countries.

"Reader, the heaven-inspired melodious Singer; loftiest Serene Highness;
nay thy own amber-locked, snow-and-rosebloom Maiden, worthy to glide
sylph-like almost on air, whom thou lovest, worshippest as a divine
Presence, which, indeed, symbolically taken, she is,--has descended,
like thyself, from that same hair-mantled, flint-hurling Aboriginal
Anthropophagus! Out of the eater cometh forth meat; out of the strong
cometh forth sweetness. What changes are wrought, not by Time, yet in
Time! For not Mankind only, but all that Mankind does or beholds, is in
continual growth, re-genesis and self-perfecting vitality. Cast forth
thy Act, thy Word, into the ever-living, ever-working Universe: it is
a seed-grain that cannot die; unnoticed to-day (says one), it will
be found flourishing as a Banyan-grove (perhaps, alas, as a
Hemlock-forest!) after a thousand years.

"He who first shortened the labor of Copyists by device of _Movable
Types_ was disbanding hired Armies, and cashiering most Kings and
Senates, and creating a whole new Democratic world: he had invented
the Art of Printing. The first ground handful of Nitre, Sulphur, and
Charcoal drove Monk Schwartz's pestle through the ceiling: what will
the last do? Achieve the final undisputed prostration of Force under
Thought, of Animal courage under Spiritual. A simple invention it was
in the old-world Grazier,--sick of lugging his slow Ox about the country
till he got it bartered for corn or oil,--to take a piece of Leather,
and thereon scratch or stamp the mere Figure of an Ox (or _Pecus_); put
it