exploit. Yet there stands that
fact unrepeated, a high-water mark in military history. Many have
attempted it since, and not been equal to it. It is only on reality that
any power of action can be based. No institution will be better than the
institutor. I knew an amiable and accomplished person who undertook a
practical reform, yet I was never able to find in him the enterprise of
love he took in hand. He adopted it by ear and by the understanding from
the books he had been reading. All his action was tentative, a piece of
the city carried out into the fields, and was the city still, and no new
fact, and could not inspire enthusiasm. Had there been something latent
in the man, a terrible undemonstrated genius agitating and embarrassing
his demeanor, we had watched for its advent. It is not enough that the
intellect should see the evils and their remedy. We shall still postpone
our existence, nor take the ground to which we are entitled, whilst
it is only a thought and not a spirit that incites us. We have not yet
served up to it.

These are properties of life, and another trait is the notice of
incessant growth. Men should be intelligent and earnest. They must also
make us feel that they have a controlling happy future opening before
them, whose early twilights already kindle in the passing hour. The hero
is misconceived and misreported; he cannot therefore wait to unravel any
man's blunders; he is again on his road, adding new powers and honors to
his domain and new claims on your heart, which will bankrupt you if you
have loitered about the old things and have not kept your relation to
him by adding to your wealth. New actions are the only apologies
and explanations of old ones which the noble can bear to offer or to
receive. If your friend has displeased you, you shall not sit down to
consider it, for he has already lost all memory of the passage, and
has doubled his power to serve you, and ere you can rise up again will
burden you with blessings.

We have no pleasure in thinking of a benevolence that is only measured
by its works. Love is inexhaustible, and if its estate is wasted, its
granary emptied, still cheers and enriches, and the man, though he
sleep, seems to purify the air and his house to adorn the landscape and
strengthen the laws. People always recognize this difference. We know
who is benevolent, by quite other means than the amount of subscription
to soup-societies. It is only low merits that can be