l
are rounded in by the law of his being, as the inequalities of
Andes[192] and Himmaleh[193] are insignificant in the curve of the
sphere. Nor does it matter how you gauge and try him. A character is
like an acrostic or Alexandrian stanza;[194]--read it forward,
backward, or across, it still spells the same thing. In this pleasing,
contrite wood-life which God allows me, let me record day by day my
honest thought without prospect or retrospect, and, I cannot doubt, it
will be found symmetrical, though I mean it not, and see it not. My
book should smell of pines and resound with the hum of insects. The
swallow over my window should interweave that thread or straw he
carries in his bill into my web also. We pass for what we are.
Character teaches above our wills. Men imagine that they communicate
their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue
or vice emit a breath every moment.

There will be an agreement in whatever variety of actions, so they be
each honest and natural in their hour. For of one will, the actions
will be harmonious, however unlike they seem. These varieties are lost
sight of at a little distance, at a little height of thought. One
tendency unites them all. The voyage of the best ship is a zigzag line
of a hundred tacks.[195] See the line from a sufficient distance, and
it straightens itself to the average tendency. Your genuine action
will explain itself, and will explain your other genuine actions. Your
conformity explains nothing. Act singly, and what you have already
done singly will justify you now. Greatness appeals to the future. If
I can be firm enough to-day to do right, and scorn eyes,[196] I must
have done so much right before as to defend me now. Be it how it will,
do right now. Always scorn appearances, and you always may. The force
of character is cumulative. All the foregone days of virtue work their
health into this. What makes the majesty of the heroes of the senate
and the field, which so fills the imagination? The consciousness of a
train of great days and victories behind. They shed an united light on
the advancing actor. He is attended as by a visible escort of angels.
That is it which throws thunder into Chatham's[197] voice, and dignity
into Washington's port, and America into Adams's[198] eye. Honor is
venerable to us because it is no ephemeris. It is always ancient
virtue. We worship it to-day because it is not of to-day. We love it
and pay it homage, bec