TWENTY. I say, by labor must men gain the prize. See! I am
standing at this moment on an eminence, from which I overlook the whole
plain of life. On whatever side I turn my eyes, the landscape smiles,
and the thickly-scattered objects of human desire arrest my attention,
and invite my pursuit. All are fair and enticing; but my thoughts are
fixed on that fairest and most enticing of all; that verdant hill-top
before me. On it are the power of wealth and the respect of men; the
consciousness of great actions done, of worth, or nobility; domestic
affections throw their warm colors upon it; the power of making loved
ones happy; the calm, quiet, fresh, dewy summer evening of my earthly
pilgrimage; all that makes existence a blessing is there. Between it
and me there may be much hard journeying, and many obstacles difficult
to surmount. I cannot see them all from here, and do not care. But with
my eye steadfastly fixed on that point, I descend to the plain, and set
out on the way. What though it be toilsome? What though I stumble, or
am thrust from the path, or fogs envelope me, and clouds overwhelm me?
Can any thing turn me aside from the straight course? Can any mists
be so dense as to shut out that golden spot from my view? And so I
struggle on, through darkness and opposition, always keeping within me
a brave heart and a well-braced spirit, and never relaxing my nerves,
till I reach that predestined place of repose.
FORTY. _Disjecta membra_ of a boy's dream!
TWENTY. But is it not so? Are you not now there?
FORTY. My dear young friend, there is a slight optical
illusion in the case. That promised land of yours lies beyond the
boundaries of life: the Styx rolls between.
TWENTY. I do not understand you. Beyond? Have you not reached
it?
FORTY. Do I look like one that takes his rest? or these hands,
as though I had left off working?
TWENTY. But you cannot now be far from it?
FORTY. To say the truth, I have no such place of happiness
and repose in view as you have mentioned. I lost sight of it soon
after setting out. The darkness came down on me so thick that I could
scarcely see three paces before me, and the road was so rough that I
was forced to be content to pick my steps one by one, and had no time
to think of the distant future.
TWENTY. I cannot believe it. There is many a lesser prize,
many lower heights, in your path, to be gained, which should serve as
encouragements and way-marks. I cannot believe that you have lost sight
of the ultimate object of your life.
FORTY. You have odd views of things! The fact was, when with
much exertion and difficulty I had gained one of those lesser prizes,
a little social distinction, for example, I was so fatigued that I
was glad to sit down a moment, and enjoy my acquisition. Finding it,
however, not in every respect suited to my desire, I pushed on, and
attained the next of those luminous points, which to you are only
way-marks to a higher one beyond. From these I took a survey of the
path before me; and seeing that its length rather increased than
diminished as I obtained clearer views of the intervening country, and
feeling at the same time my strength diminishing, and that 'courageous
heart' of yours, (the hope and spirits of inexperienced youth,) growing
fainter in its pulsations, I gave up the chase, and suffered myself to
settle down into, and become one of, the million.
TWENTY. Oh! weak of faith and cowardly!
FORTY. Oh! ignorant and presumptuous!
TWENTY. Well; it does not become us to bandy names. So you are
content to live for nothing?
FORTY. I live for something; for my daily bread, and for the
pleasures that to-morrow, or at the farthest the next day, may bring
forth.
TWENTY. And is not that living for nought? You have become
an ant, whose thoughts are confined within its cell, and whose cares
are centered on its single little kernel of corn. You are a fixture, a
vegetable, a sensitive plant, a shell-fish. These are lying words of
yours; I will not believe them.
FORTY. If you do not credit my report, you can go forward as
you have proposed, and satisfy yourself by experience.
TWENTY. That will I! Go forth on wings, undeterred by timorous
and hesitating counsels. I _know_ it is not so. Can I not see with my
own eyes?
FORTY. I fancy you see stars that are not in the heavens, and
sights that are not on the earth.
TWENTY. I am not so pusilanimous and easily contented as
you appear to be. My belief in the omnipotence of will and labor is
firm. Yonder object have I set my eye on; and breaking through all
obstructions, and deaf to all way-side seductions, I will force myself
straight on, till I attain it.
FORTY. Valiantly resolved! Gallant Sir Knight! Will you take
the world by storm?
TWENTY. I have told you already that it is not a battle. No
passion or strife shall mingle with my motives. Good will to all
men, and success to my compeers, even though they triumph in my
disappointment, shall be the feeling of my heart.
FORTY. As I said before, a very good resolution.
TWENTY. Nor is it necessary to spend the intervening years
in monotonous, cheerless toil. There are a thousand social affections
which spring up spontaneously in the human heart, but which wither
unless fostered, cherished, and cultivated; there are social duties
to be performed; and the whole man is to be polished into the form
of grace and nobility. At the same time, from books and men, by the
midnight lamp and in the crowded market-place, will I draw treasures of
knowledge and skill; from history, poetry, philosophy, human nature;
till I can instruct the judge on his bench, and the artisan in his
shop; till I make myself such as men have in all ages delighted to
honor, and been compelled to esteem. I will fashion my mind by the
model of strength and beauty, and will enlarge the capacities of my
heart, and fill it with love. In all this, my labors are ordered with
principal reference to that ultimate point of which I never lose sight
an instant. Men are forced to acknowledge excellence; much more will
they acknowledge it when they see that it is amiable, and love it.
FORTY. It is with difficulty that I can refrain from laughter!
You have such strange notions!
TWENTY. Do you call the notion of excellence strange? You
will next say that virtue itself is an 'Idola!' But I tell you, there
is a reality in both; I know it, for I can feel it. Nobility, virtue,
respect, and happiness, are not empty names. The last, I am conscious
of this moment; and if the others did not exist, I should never have
had given to me this desire for them.
FORTY. Ignorance and happiness!
TWENTY. Knowledge and happiness! Why should they not go
together? Will the innumerable gifts of nature ever be withdrawn? Or
will the capability of receiving pleasure from them ever be taken
away? Happiness does not necessarily accompany ignorance, but it
_does_ knowledge. And throughout the world, every man has within him a
well-toned harp, whose strings nature and society and he himself strike
together, making harmonious music. They are sometimes broken; but mine
shall be well guarded, and will never produce discord.
FORTY. Foolish and vain!
TWENTY. And have _you_ then become wise?
FORTY. I have become wise enough to know that you are foolish
and your thoughts vain; I have become a full grown man.
TWENTY. You have, indeed, attained a full growth in the wisdom
of those of sordid views and narrow foreheads! But can it be really so?
Are you what you seem to be? I have felt, more than once, a suspicion
creeping into my mind, that I might be, after all, mistaken. It must be
so; and 'how art thou cast down, O my soul!'
FORTY. Be not disconsolate, my young friend; your soul is not
so much cast down, as turned aside into another channel of thought and
mode of existence.
TWENTY. Do you mock me, with your 'be not disconsolate?'
If you speak the truth, there is nothing in life to live for. Had I
not calculated well? Had I not found the means to be used in order
to arrive at a certain position? I thought means and the result were
connected; but you have undeceived me. Or else, I am too weak and
cowardly to follow out my plans: in either case, I am of no worth in
the world, and had better quit it at the outset.
FORTY. To quit the field, you think less disgraceful than to
suffer defeat in a fair and manful fight?
TWENTY. The world's opinion is nothing to me, and I don't know
the meaning of disgrace. Fame, you say, is an empty breath, happiness
delusion, and knowledge vanity; these are the chief things that fill
the minds of men, and they are false appearances. Why, then, should I
value them?
FORTY. You cannot say that all life is not a dream.
TWENTY. Oh, I know it is; and therefore I will have nothing to
do with it.
FORTY. You are a wild colt as yet, and kick against your
traces. But the whip, the rein, and work, will soon break down that
proud spirit of yours, and you will trot along obediently and patiently.
TWENTY. That shall never be; sooner will I leave the world
altogether. To suffer this, you call courage! And to be a humble,
docile, broken brute, you call becoming wise!
FORTY. You use names without discretion.
TWENTY. Oh, you would give it a softer-sounding designation;
but the fact, though you may disguise it to yourself, cannot be
concealed. Do you labor or hope for any thing but the present, or
beyond the next hour? Do you not live with your eyes fixed on the
ground? Do you not thread your devious and obscure way through the
world, content to be unknown, and never casting a glance on the
millions that surround you? What is that wisdom of which you boast, but
to know that every man is a robber, and to bar your door against him;
that, friendship is an empty profession, and friends venial, therefore
to trust no one; that all love is a youthful folly, unbecoming the
'full grown man;' therefore to guard against its approaches? This, I
should say, is to live and think like the beast that perishes, and to
die as the fool dies.
FORTY. You were inflated with that exhilarating gas,
self-esteem; it is not very pleasant to have it escape, but you will
soon be reduced to your own proportions.
TWENTY. And you would really have me think that there is no
beauty or loveliness in the world? nothing worth hoping or striving
for? Because I believed there was, and was filled with enthusiasm in
viewing it, you say I was inflated with self-esteem. If I thought as
you do, I should contemn myself, and deserve to be despised by every
body like myself. You have lost sight of your high destiny, and defiled
your soul, which _was_ in the similitude of its MAKER, by
frequent contact with the earth.
FORTY. I was not conscious of that.
TWENTY. Tell me, if you please, what was man made for?
FORTY. I have told you already; to eat of the fruit of his
labors in sorrow, to write his name on the sea-sands, and to leave his
place to his successor after him.
TWENTY. Think you that you do not defile your soul by such
thoughts? To confine his aspirations to the snail-shell in which chance
has cast him; to find all his delight therein; to call the three or
four inches which his horizon bounds, the world; is _this_ the chief
end of man? I know not how it may be with others, but as for me, I was
made for something better. I hope, I expect, to have a higher destiny!
FORTY. The chase is after shadows.
TWENTY. My chase is after real, tangible substances. I see
them, and hope revives, strong and living, within me. Away! cold Doubt!
I must have knowledge, respect, and happiness. No obstacles shall
hinder me, and no allurements shall entice me, from my way. _My_ name
shall not be written on the sands: I will link it with lessons of
wisdom, and grave them on the eternal rock.
FORTY. Glorious dreams, young man! glorious dreams!
TWENTY. They are sober, waking realities.
FORTY. But since you will not be aroused, I would have no one
attempt to break them. Sleep on now, for the day cometh; the clear
light of morning will beam on your eyes, dispersing the mists, and then
you will see your duties and capabilities through a less distorting
medium.
TWENTY. Call it a distorting medium if you like; but if it is
the mists that make the world appear so much brighter to me than it
does to you, they shall always remain before my eyes.
FORTY. Sweet dreams; but alas! they cannot last! This
conversation with you has filled me, even me, with strange desires and
indefinite longings. But they are all vain. It is my lot to see and
deal with the world as it is, and I must be contented with my little
routine of daily toil. And to remain so contented, I must hold no more
communion with you.
TWENTY. You are a phantom, as of one in troubled slumber--a
lying spirit; and I will never again admit you to my thoughts.
FORTY. You shall be dead to me, and I will bury you out of my
sight!