re is a
solid bottom everywhere. We read that the traveller asked the boy if
the swamp before him had a hard bottom. The boy replied that it had.
But presently the traveller's horse sank in up to the girths, and
he observed to the boy, "I thought you said that this bog had a hard
bottom." "So it has," answered the latter, "but you have not got half
way to it yet." So it is with the bogs and quicksands of society; but
he is an old boy that knows it. Only what is thought, said, or done at
a certain rare coincidence is good. I would not be one of those who will
foolishly drive a nail into mere lath and plastering; such a deed would
keep me awake nights. Give me a hammer, and let me feel for the
furring. Do not depend on the putty. Drive a nail home and clinch it so
faithfully that you can wake up in the night and think of your work with
satisfaction--a work at which you would not be ashamed to invoke the
Muse. So will help you God, and so only. Every nail driven should be as
another rivet in the machine of the universe, you carrying on the work.

Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table
where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance,
but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the
inhospitable board. The hospitality was as cold as the ices. I thought
that there was no need of ice to freeze them. They talked to me of the
age of the wine and the fame of the vintage; but I thought of an older,
a newer, and purer wine, of a more glorious vintage, which they had
not got, and could not buy. The style, the house and grounds and
"entertainment" pass for nothing with me. I called on the king, but he
made me wait in his hall, and conducted like a man incapacitated for
hospitality. There was a man in my neighborhood who lived in a hollow
tree. His manners were truly regal. I should have done better had I
called on him.

How long shall we sit in our porticoes practising idle and musty
virtues, which any work would make impertinent? As if one were to begin
the day with long-suffering, and hire a man to hoe his potatoes; and in
the afternoon go forth to practise Christian meekness and charity
with goodness aforethought! Consider the China pride and stagnant
self-complacency of mankind. This generation inclines a little to
congratulate itself on being the last of an illustrious line; and in
Boston and London and Paris and Rome, thinking of its long descent,
it spe