elves a sweeter sense of unity of heart. The child, with a
cunning which only Nature has taught, will sometimes put a little honey
of refusal into its kisses before giving them; the maiden adds to her
virgin blooms the further attraction of virgin coyness and reserve; the
civilizing dinner-table would lose all its dignity in losing its delays;
and so everywhere, delicate denial, withholding reserve have an inverse
force, and add a charm of emphasis to gift, assent, attraction, and
sympathy. How is the word Immortality emphasized to our hearts by the
perpetual spectacle of death! The joy and suggestion of it could,
indeed, never visit us, had not this momentary loud denial been uttered
in our ears. Such, therefore, as have learned to interpret these
oppositions in Nature, hear in the jarring note of Death only a jubilant
proclamation of life eternal; while all are thus taught the longing for
immortality, though only by their fear of the contrary. And so is the
pure universal nature of man affirmed by these provocations of contrast
and insulation on the surface. We feel the personality far more, and far
more sweetly, for its being thus divided from our own. From behind this
veil the pure nature comes to us with a kind of surprise, as out of
another heaven. The joy of truth and delight of beauty are born anew for
us from each pair of chanting lips and beholding eyes; and each new soul
that comes promises another gift of the universe. Whoever, in any time
or under any sky, sees the worth and wonder of existence, sees it for
me; whatever language he speak, whatever star he inhabit, we shall
one day meet, and through the confession of his heart all my ancient
possessions will become a new gain; he shall make for me a natal day of
creation, showing the producing breath, as it goes forth from the lips
of God, and spreads into the blue purity of sky, or rounds into the
luminance of suns; the hills and their pines, the vales and their
blooms, and heroic men and beauteous women, all that I have loved or
reverenced, shall come again, appearing and trooping out of skies never
visible before. Because of these dividing lines between souls, each new
soul is to all the others a possible factor of heaven.

Such uses does individuality subserve. Yet it is capable of these
ministries only as it does indeed _minister_. All its uses are lost with
the loss of its humility and subordinance. It is the porter at the
gate, furthering the access of