only to the
great silent law of Virtue (which has pervaded the universe since
it swung out of chaos), a man is of worth from what he is in
himself,--Newton was as worthy before the apple fell from the tree as
when all Europe applauded the discoverer of the Principle of Gravity.
But in the life artificial we are only of worth inasmuch as we affect
others; and, relative to that life, Newton rose in value more than a
million per cent when down fell the apple from which ultimately sprang
up his discovery. In order to keep civilization going and spread over
the world the light of human intellect, we have certain desires within
us, ever swelling beyond the ease and independence which belongs to us
as integrals. Cold man as Newton might be (he once took a lady's hand in
his own, Kitty, and used her forefinger for his tobacco-stopper,--great
philosopher!), cold as he might be, he was yet moved into giving his
discoveries to the world, and that from motives very little differing
in their quality from the motives that make Dr. Squills communicate
articles to the 'Phrenological Journal' upon the skulls of Bushmen and
wombats. For it is the property of light to travel. When a man has
light in him, forth it must go. But the first passage of genius from its
integral state (in which it has been reposing on its own wealth) into
the fractional is usually through a hard and vulgar pathway. It leaves
behind it the reveries of solitude,--that self-contemplating rest which
may be called the Visionary,--and enters suddenly into the state that
may be called the Positive and Actual. There it sees the operations
of money on the outer life; sees all the ruder and commoner springs
of action; sees ambition without nobleness, love without romance; is
bustled about and ordered and trampled and cowed,--in short, it passes
an apprenticeship with some Richard Avenel, and does not detect what
good and what grandeur, what addition even to the true poetry of the
social universe, fractional existences like Richard Avenel's bestow;
for the pillars that support society are like those of the Court of the
Hebrew Tabernacle,--they are of brass, it is true, but they are filleted
with silver. From such intermediate state Genius is expelled and driven
on its way, and would have been so in this case had Mrs. Fairfield (who
is but the representative of the homely natural affections, strongest
ever in true genius,--for light is warm) never crushed Mr. Avenel's moss
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