did and shallow frame of mind.
Sordid even when its projects are most daring, its outward luxuries most
refined; and shallow, even when most acute, when priding itself most on
its knowledge of human nature, and of the secret springs which, so it
dreams, move the actions and make the history of nations and of men. All
are tempted that way, even the noblest-hearted. _Adhaesit pavimento
venter_, says the old psalmist. I am growing like the snake, crawling in
the dust, and eating the dust in which I crawl. I try to lift up my eyes
to the heavens, to the true, the beautiful, the good, the eternal
nobleness which was before all time, and shall be still when time has
past away. But to lift up myself is what I cannot do. Who will help me?
Who will quicken me? as our old English tongue has it. Who will give me
life? The true, pure, lofty human life which I did _not_ inherit from
the primaeval ape, which the ape-nature in me is for ever trying to
stifle, and make me that which I know too well I could so easily
become--a cunninger and more dainty-featured brute? Death itself, which
seems at times so fair, is fair because even it may raise me up and
deliver me from the burden of this animal and mortal body--

'Tis life, not death, for which I pant;
'Tis life, whereof my nerves are scant;
More life, and fuller, that I want.

Man? I am a man not by reason of my bones and muscles, nerves and brain,
which I have in common with apes and dogs and horses. I am a man--thou
art a man or woman--not because we have a flesh--God forbid! but because
there is a spirit in us, a divine spark and ray, which nature did not
give, and which nature cannot take away. And therefore, while I live on
earth, I will live to the spirit, not to the flesh, that I may be,
indeed, a _man_; and this same gross flesh, this animal ape-nature in me,
shall be the very element in me which I will renounce, defy, despise; at
least, if I am minded to be, not a merely higher savage, but a truly
higher civilised man. Civilisation with me shall mean, not more wealth,
more finery, more self-indulgence--even more aesthetic and artistic
luxury; but more virtue, more knowledge, more self-control, even though I
earn scanty bread by heavy toil; and when I compare the Caesar of Rome or
the great king, whether of Egypt, Babylon, or Persia, with the hermit of
the _Thebaid_, starving in his frock of camel's hair, with his soul fixed
on the ineffable glories o