ace you _fit yourself for_, I
must also say; because, observe, this court of the past differs from
all living aristocracy in this:--it is open to labor and to merit, but
to nothing else. No wealth will bribe, no name overawe, no artifice
deceive, the guardian of those Elysian gates. In the deep sense, no
vile or vulgar person ever enters there. At the portieres of that
silent Faubourg St. Germain, there is but brief question, Do you
deserve to enter? Pass. Do you ask to be the companion of nobles?
Make yourself noble, and you shall be. Do you long for the
conversation of the wise? Learn to understand it, and you shall hear
it. But on other terms?--no. If you will not rise to us, we cannot
stoop to you. The living lord may assume courtesy, the living
philosopher explain his thought to you with considerate pain; but here
we neither feign nor interpret; you must rise to the level of our
thoughts if you would be gladdened by them, and share our feelings, if
you would recognize our presence.

13. This, then, is what you have to do, and I admit that it is much.
You must, in a word, love these people, if you are to be among them.
No ambition is of any use. They scorn your ambition. You must love
them, and show your love in these two following ways:

I.--First, by a true desire to be taught by them, and to enter into
their thoughts. To enter into theirs, observe; not to find your own
expressed by them. If the person who wrote the book is not wiser than
you, you need not read it; if he be, he will think differently from you
in many respects.

Very ready we are to say of a book, "How good this is--that's exactly
what I think!" But the right feeling is, "How strange that is! I
never thought of that before, and yet I see it is true; or if I do not
now, I hope I shall, some day." But whether thus submissively or not,
at least be sure that you go to the author to get at _his_ meaning, not
to find yours. Judge it afterwards, if you think yourself qualified to
do so; but ascertain it first. And be sure also, if the author is
worth anything, that you will not get at his meaning all at once;--nay,
that at his whole meaning you will not for a long time arrive in any
wise. Not that he does not say what he means, and in strong words too;
but he cannot say it all; and what is more strange, _will_ not, but in
a hidden way and in parables, in order that he may be sure you want it.
I cannot quite see the reason of this,