nd felt all the
time, and we shall be forced to take with shame our own opinion from
another.

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the
conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide;[154]
that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that
though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn
can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground
which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new
in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor
does he know until he has tried. Not for nothing one face, one
character, one fact, makes much impression on him, and another none.
This sculpture in the memory is not without preestablished harmony.
The eye was placed where one ray should fall, that it might testify of
that particular ray. We but half express ourselves,[155] and are
ashamed of that divine idea which each of us represents. It may be
safely trusted as proportionate and of good issues, so it be
faithfully imparted, but God will not have his work made manifest by
cowards. A man is relieved and gay when he has put his heart into his
work and done his best; but what he has said or done otherwise shall
give him no peace. It is a deliverance which does not deliver. In the
attempt his genius deserts him; no muse befriends; no invention, no
hope.

Trust thyself:[156] every heart vibrates to that iron string. Accept
the place the divine providence has found for you, the society of your
contemporaries, the connection of events. Great men have always done
so, and confided themselves childlike to the genius of their age,
betraying their perception that the absolutely trustworthy was seated
at their heart, working through their hands, predominating in all
their being. And we are now men, and must accept in the highest mind
the same transcendent destiny; and not minors and invalids in a
protected corner, not cowards fleeing before a revolution, but guides,
redeemers, and benefactors, obeying the Almighty effort, and advancing
on Chaos[157] and the Dark.

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face and
behavior of children, babes, and even brutes! That divided and rebel
mind, that distrust of a sentiment because our arithmetic has computed
the strength and means opposed to our purpose, these[158] have not.
Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and when we
look in th