to a good face and a pair of useful
hands. The more wheels there are in a watch or a brain, the more trouble
they are to take care of. The movements of exaltation which belong to
genius are egotistic by their very nature. A calm, clear mind, not
subject to the spasms and crises that are so often met with in creative
or intensely perceptive natures, is the best basis for love or
friendship.--Observe, I am talking about _minds_. I won't say, the more
intellect, the less capacity for loving; for that would do wrong to the
understanding and reason;--but, on the other hand, that the brain often
runs away with the heart's best blood, which gives the world a few pages
of wisdom or sentiment or poetry, instead of making one other heart
happy, I have no question.

If one's intimate in love or friendship cannot or does not share
all one's intellectual tastes or pursuits, that is a small matter.
Intellectual companions can be found easily in men and books. After all,
if we think of it, most of the world's loves and friendships have been
between people that could not read nor spell.

But to radiate the heat of the affections into a clod, which absorbs all
that is poured into it, but never warms beneath the sunshine of smiles
or the pressure of hand or lip,--this is the great martyrdom of
sensitive beings,--most of all in that perpetual _auto da fe_ where
young womanhood is the sacrifice.

----You noticed, perhaps, what I just said about the loves and
friendships of illiterate persons,--that is, of the human race, with a
few exceptions here and there. I like books,--I was born and bred among
them, and have the easy feeling, when I get into their presence, that a
stable-boy has among horses. I don't think I undervalue them either as
companions or as instructors. But I can't help remembering that the
world's great men have not commonly been great scholars, nor its great
scholars great men. The Hebrew patriarchs had small libraries, I think,
if any; yet they represent to our imaginations a very complete idea of
manhood, and, I think, if we could ask in Abraham to dine with us men of
letters next Saturday, we should feel honored by his company.

What I wanted to say about books is this: that there are times in which
every active mind feels itself above any and all human books.

----I think a man must have a good opinion of himself, Sir,--said the
divinity-student,--who should feel himself above Shakspeare at any time.

My young fr