rue," said Schiller, "to the dream
of thy youth." That dream was generous, not sordid. We must be
surrendered to the perfection which claims us, and suffer no narrow aim
to postpone that insatiable demand.

But the potency of life will bring back every wanderer, as he well
knows. Every sinner keeps his trunk packed, ready to return to the good.
The poor traders really mean to buy love with their gold. Feeling the
hold of a chain which binds us even when we do not cling to it, we grow
prodigal of time and power. The essence of life, as we enjoy it, is a
sense of the inextinguishable ascending tendency in life; and this gives
courage when there is yet no reverence or devotion.

In development of character is involved great change of circumstances.
We cannot grow or work in a corner. It is not for greed alone or mainly
that men make war and build cities and found governments, but to try
what they can do and become, to justify themselves to themselves and to
their fellows. We desire to please and help,--but still more, at first,
to be sure that we can please and help. If he hears any man speak
effectually in public, the ambitious boy will never rest till he can
also speak, or do some other deed as difficult and as well worth doing.
For the trial of faculty we must go out into the world of institutions,
range ourselves beside the workers, take up their tools and strike
stroke for stroke with them. Every new situation and employment dazzles
till we find out the trick of it. The boy longs to escape from a farm to
college, from college to the city and practical life. Then he looks up
from his desk, or from the pit in the theatre, to the gay world of
fashion,--harder to conquer than even the world of thought. At last he
makes his way upward into the sacred circle, and finds there a little
original power and a great deal of routine. These fine parts are like
those of players, learned by heart. The men who invented them, with whom
they were spontaneous, seem to have died out and left their manners with
their wardrobes to narrow-breasted children, whom neither clothes nor
courtesies will fit. So in every department we find the snail freezing
in an oyster-shell. The judges do not know the meaning of justice. The
preacher thinks religion is a spasm of desire and fear. A young man soon
loses all respect for titles, wigs, and gowns, and looks for a muscular
master-mind. Somebody wrote the laws, and set the example of noble
behavior, a