INNINGS.

What a singular shape of a Man, shape of a Time, have we in this Abbot
Samson and his history; how strangely do modes, creeds, formularies,
and the date and place of a man's birth, modify the figure of the man!

Formulas too, as we call them, have a _reality_ in Human Life. They
are real as the very _skin_ and _muscular tissue_ of a Man's Life; and
a most blessed indispensable thing, so long as they have _vitality_
withal, and are a _living_ skin and tissue to him! No man, or man's
life, can go abroad and do business in the world without skin and
tissues. No; first of all, these have to fashion themselves,--as
indeed they spontaneously and inevitably do. Foam itself, and this is
worth thinking of, can harden into oyster-shell; all living objects do
by necessity form to themselves a skin.

And yet, again, when a man's Formulas become _dead_; as all Formulas,
in the progress of living growth, are very sure to do! When the poor
man's integuments, no longer nourished from within, become dead skin,
mere adscititious leather and callosity, wearing thicker and thicker,
uglier and uglier; till no _heart_ any longer can be felt beating
through them, so thick, callous, calcified are they; and all over it
has now grown mere calcified oyster-shell, or were it polished
mother-of-pearl, inwards almost to the very heart of the poor
man:--yes then, you may say, his usefulness once more is quite
obstructed; once more, he cannot go abroad and do business in the
world; it is time that _he_ take to bed, and prepare for departure,
which cannot now be distant!

_Ubi homines sunt modi sunt._ Habit is the deepest law of human
nature. It is our supreme strength; if also, in certain circumstances,
our miserablest weakness.--From Stoke to Stowe is as yet a field, all
pathless, untrodden: from Stoke where I live, to Stowe where I have to
make my merchandises, perform my businesses, consult my heavenly
oracles, there is as yet no path or human footprint; and I, impelled
by such necessities, must nevertheless undertake the journey. Let me
go once, scanning my way with any earnestness of outlook, and
successfully arriving, my footprints are an invitation to me a second
time to go by the same way. It is easier than any other way: the
industry of 'scanning' lies already invested in it for me; I can go
this time with less of scanning, or without scanning at all. Nay the
very sight of my footprints, what a comfort for me; and in a degree,