ese constitute two different and often
antagonistic movements. The letter kills the spirit. But when this
occurs we are apt to mistake the slayer for the slain and impute to
the ardent spirit all the cold vices of its murderer. Hence, the taint
of insincerity that seems to hang about enthusiasm is, after all,
nothing but illusion. To be just we should discount this illusion in
advance as the wise man discounts discouragement. And the epithet for
the man whose lungs are large with the breath of life should cease to
be a term of reproach.

Enthusiasm is the prevailing characteristic of the child and of the
adult who does memorable things. The two are near of kin and bear a
family resemblance. Youth trails clouds of glory. Glory often trails
clouds of youth. Usually the eternal man is the eternal boy; and the
more of a boy he is, the more of a man. The most conventional-seeming
great men possess as a rule a secret vein of eternal-boyishness. Our
idea of Brahms, for example, is of a person hopelessly mature and
respectable. But we open Kalbeck's new biography and discover him
climbing a tree to conduct his chorus while swaying upon a branch; or,
in his fat forties, playing at frog-catching like a five-year-old.

The prominent American is no less youthful. Not long ago one of our
good gray men of letters was among his children, awaiting dinner and
his wife. Her footsteps sounded on the stairs. "Quick, children!" he
exclaimed. "Here's mother. Let's hide under the table and when she
comes in we'll rush out on all-fours and pretend we're bears." The
maneuver was executed with spirit. At the preconcerted signal, out
they all waddled and galumphed with horrid grunts--only to find
something unfamiliar about mother's skirt, and, glancing up, to
discover that it hung upon a strange and terrified guest.

The biographers have paid too little attention to the god-energy of
their heroes. I think that it should be one of the crowning
achievements of biography to communicate to the reader certain actual
vibrations of the enthusiasm that filled the scientist or philosopher
for truth; the patriot for his country; the artist for beauty and
self-expression; the altruist for humanity; the discoverer for
knowledge; the lover or friend for a kindred soul; the prophet,
martyr, or saint for his god.

Every lover, according to Emerson, is a poet. Not only is this true,
but every one of us, when in the sway of any enthusiasm, has in him
somethi