with thongs when they come, as was Proteus when Ulysses caught him
amidst his sea-calves,--as was done with some of the fairies of old, who
would, indeed, do their beneficent work, but only under compulsion. It
may be that your spirit should on an occasion be as obedient as Ariel;
but that will not be often. He will run backward,--as it were
downhill,--because it is so easy, instead of upward and onward. He will
turn to the right and to the left, making a show of doing fine work,
only not the work that is demanded of him that day. He will skip hither
and thither with pleasant, bright gambols, but will not put his shoulder
to the wheel, his neck to the collar, his hand to the plough. Has my
reader ever driven a pig to market? The pig will travel on freely, but
will always take the wrong turning; and then, when stopped for the tenth
time, will head backward and try to run between your legs So it is with
the tricksy Ariel,--that Ariel which every man owns, though so many of
us fail to use him for much purpose; which but few of us have subjected
to such discipline as Prospero had used before he had brought his
servant to do his bidding at the slightest word.

"But at last I feel that I have him, perhaps by the tail, as the
Irishman drives his pig. When I have got him I have to be careful that
he shall not escape me till that job of work be done. Gradually, as I
walk or stop, as I seat myself on a bank or lean against a tree, perhaps
as I hurry on waving my stick above my head, till, with my quick motion,
the sweatdrops come out upon my brow, the scene forms itself for me. I
see, or fancy that I see, what will be fitting, what will be true, how
far virtue may be made to go without walking upon stilts, what
wickedness may do without breaking the link which binds it to humanity,
how low ignorance may grovel, how high knowledge may soar, what the
writer may teach without repelling by severity, how he may amuse without
descending to buffoonery; and then the limits of pathos are searched and
words are weighed which shall suit, but do no more than suit, the
greatness or the smallness of the occasion. We, who are slight, may not
attempt lofty things, or make ridiculous with our little fables the
doings of the gods. But for that which we do there are appropriate terms
and boundaries which may be reached, but not surpassed. All this has to
be thought of and decided upon in reference to those little plottings of
which I have spoken, ea