; nor by thy gibbets and
law-penalties restrain him. He eludes thee like a Spirit. Thou
canst not forward him, thou canst not hinder him. Thy penalties,
thy poverties, neglects, contumelies: behold, all these are good
for him. Come to him as an enemy; turn from him as an unfriend;
only do not this one thing,--infect him not with thy own
delusion: the benign Genius, were it by very death, shall guard
him against this!--What wilt thou do with him? He is above thee,
like a god. Thou, in thy stupendous three-inch pattens, art
under him. He is thy born king, thy conqueror and supreme
lawgiver: not all the guineas and cannons, and leather and
prunella, under the sky can save thee from him. Hardest
thickskinned Mammon-world, ruggedest Caliban shall obey him, or
become not Caliban but a cramp. Oh, if in this man, whose eyes
can flash Heaven's lightning, and make all Calibans into a cramp,
there dwelt not, as the essence of his very being, a God's
justice, human Nobleness, Veracity and Mercy,--I should tremble
for the world. But his strength, let us rejoice to understand,
is even this: The quantity of Justice, of Valour and Pity that
is in him. To hypocrites and tailored quacks in high places, his
eyes are lightning; but they melt in dewy pity softer than a
mother's to the downpressed, maltreated; in his heart, in his
great thought, is a sanctuary for all the wretched. This world's
improvement is forever sure.

'Man of Genius?' Thou hast small notion, meseems, O Mecaenas
Twiddledee, of what a Man of Genius is! Read in thy New
Testament and elsewhere,--if, with floods of mealymouthed
inanity, with miserable froth-vortices of Cant now several
centuries old, thy New Testament is not all bedimmed for thee.
_Canst_ thou read in thy New Testament at all? The Highest Man
of Genius, knowest thou him; Godlike and a God to this hour?
His crown a Crown of Thorns? Thou fool, with _thy_ empty
Godhoods, Apotheoses _edgegilt;_ the Crown of Thorns made into a
poor jewel-room crown, fit for the head of blockheads; the
bearing of the Cross changed to a riding in the Long-Acre Gig!
Pause in thy mass-chantings, in thy litanyings, and Calmuck
prayings by machinery; and pray, if noisily, at least in a
more human manner. How with thy rubrics and dalmatics, and
clothwebs and cobwebs, and with thy stupidities and grovelling
baseheartedness, hast thou hidden the Holiest into all
but invisibility!--

'Man of Genius:' O