ay be a mere echo, and believe yourself a voice. These
are among the delusions against which none of us are protected. But if
Sincerity is not necessarily a guarantee of power, it is a necessary
condition of power, and no genius or prophet can exist without it."

"The highest merit we ascribe to Moses, Plato, and Milton," says
Emerson, "is that they set at nought books and traditions, and spoke
not what men thought, but what they thought. A man should learn to
detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from
within; more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet
he dismisses without notice his thought because it is his. In every
work of genius we recognise our own rejected thoughts; they come back
to us with a certain alienated majesty." It is strange that any one who
has recognised the individuality of all works of lasting influence,
should not also recognise the fact that his own individuality ought to
be steadfastly preserved. As Emerson says in continuation, "Great works
of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to
abide by our spontaneous impressions with good-humoured inflexibility,
then most when the whole cry of voices is on the other side. Else
tomorrow a stranger will say with masterly good sense, precisely what
we have thought and felt all the time, and we shall be forced to take
with shame our opinion from another." Accepting the opinions of another
and the tastes of another is very different from agreement in opinion
and taste. Originality is independence, not rebellion; it is sincerity,
not antagonism. Whatever you believe to be true and false, that
proclaim to be true and false; whatever you think admirable and
beautiful, that should be your model, even if all your friends and all
the critics storm at you as a crochet-monger and an eccentric. Whether
the public will feel its truth and beauty at once, or after long years,
or never cease to regard it as paradox and ugliness, no man can
foresee; enough for you to know that you have done your best, have been
true to yourself, and that the utmost power inherent in your work has
been displayed.

An orator whose purpose is to persuade men must speak the things they
wish to hear; an orator, whose purpose is to move men, must also avoid
disturbing the emotional effect by any obtrusion of intellectual
antagonism; but an author whose purpose is to instruct men, who appeals
to the intellect, must be ca