error.

Whether this be the best way is of no consequence, if it be the one
individual character points out.

For one, like me, it would be vain
From glittering heights the eyes to strain;
I the truth can only know,
Tested by life's most fiery glow.
Seeds of thought will never thrive,
Till dews of love shall bid them live.

Let me stand in my age with all its waters flowing round me. If
they sometimes subdue, they must finally upbear me, for I seek the
universal,--and that must be the best.

The Spirit, no doubt, leads in every movement of my time: if I seek
the How, I shall find it, as well as if I busied myself more with the
Why.

Whatever is, is right, if only men are steadily bent to make it so, by
comprehending and fulfilling its design.

May not I have an office, too, in my hospitality and ready sympathy?
If I sometimes entertain guests who cannot pay with gold coin,
with "fair rose nobles," that is better than to lose the chance of
entertaining angels unawares.

You, my three friends, are held, in heart-honor, by me. You,
especially, Good Sense, because where you do not go yourself, you do
not object to another's going, if he will. You are really liberal.
You, Old Church, are of use, by keeping unforgot the effigies of old
religion, and reviving the tone of pure Spenserian sentiment, which
this time is apt to stifle in its childish haste. But you are very
faulty in censuring and wishing to limit others by your own
standard. You, Self-Poise, fill a priestly office. Could but a larger
intelligence of the vocations of others, and a tender sympathy with
their individual natures, be added, had you more of love, or more of
apprehensive genius, (for either would give you the needed expansion
and delicacy,) you would command my entire reverence. As it is, I must
at times deny and oppose you, and so must others, for you tend, by
your influence, to exclude us from our full, free life. We must
be content when you censure, and rejoiced when you approve; always
admonished to good by your whole being, and sometimes by your
judgment.

* * * * *

Do not blame me that I have written so much suggested by the German
seeress, while you were looking for news of the West. Here on the
pier, I see disembarking the Germans, the Norwegians, the Swedes, the
Swiss. Who knows how much of old legendary lore, of modern wonder,
they have already planted amid the Wisconsin forests? Soon,