creeds, or antagonisms in parties: neither do I
fear that ultimately I shall offend any, by proving--or at least stating
as capable of positive proof--the connection of all that is best in the
crafts and arts of man, with the simplicity of his faith, and the
sincerity of his patriotism.

But I speak to you under another disadvantage, by which I am checked in
frankness of utterance, not here only, but everywhere: namely, that I am
never fully aware how far my audiences are disposed to give me credit for
real knowledge of my subject, or how far they grant me attention only
because I have been sometimes thought an ingenious or pleasant essayist
upon it. For I have had what, in many respects, I boldly call the
misfortune, to set my words sometimes prettily together; not without a
foolish vanity in the poor knack that I had of doing so: until I was
heavily punished for this pride, by finding that many people thought of
the words only, and cared nothing for their meaning. Happily, therefore,
the power of using such pleasant language--if, indeed, it ever were
mine--is passing away from me; and whatever I am now able to say at all, I
find myself forced to say with great plainness. For my thoughts have
changed also, as my words have; and whereas in earlier life, what little
influence I obtained was due perhaps chiefly to the enthusiasm with which
I was able to dwell on the beauty of the physical clouds, and of their
colors in the sky; so all the influence I now desire to retain must be due
to the earnestness with which I am endeavoring to trace the form and
beauty of another kind of cloud than those: the bright cloud of which it
is written, "What is your life? It is even as a vapor that appeareth for a
little time, and then vanisheth away."

I suppose few people reach the middle or latter period of their age,
without having, at some moment of change or disappointment, felt the truth
of those bitter words; and been startled by the fading of the sunshine
from the cloud of their life into the sudden agony of the knowledge that
the fabric of it was as fragile as a dream, and the endurance of it as
transient as the dew. But it is not always that, even at such times of
melancholy surprise, we can enter into any true perception that this human
life shares in the nature of it, not only the evanescence, but the mystery
of the cloud; that its avenues are wreathed in darkness, and its forms and
courses no less fantastic, than spectral and