CONCORD, December 19, 1854.
MR. BLAKE,--I suppose you have heard of my truly providential meeting
with Mr. [T.] Brown; providential because it saved me from the
suspicion that my words had fallen altogether on stony ground, when it
turned out that there was some Worcester soil there. You will allow me
to consider that I correspond with him through you.
I confess that I am a very bad correspondent, so far as promptness of
reply is concerned; but then I am sure to answer sooner or later. The
longer I have forgotten you, the more I remember you. For the most
part I have not been idle since I saw you. How does the world go with
you? or rather, how do you get along without it? I have not yet
learned to live, that I can see, and I fear that I shall not very
soon. I find, however, that in the long run things correspond to my
original idea,--that they correspond to nothing else so much; and thus
a man may really be a true prophet without any great exertion. The day
is never so dark, nor the night even, but that the laws at least of
light still prevail, and so may make it light in our minds if they are
open to the truth. There is considerable danger that a man will be
crazy between dinner and supper; but it will not directly answer any
good purpose that I know of, and it is just as easy to be sane. We
have got to know what both life and death are, before we can begin to
live after our own fashion. Let us be learning our a-b-c's as soon as
possible. I never yet knew the sun to be knocked down and rolled
through a mud-puddle; he comes out honor-bright from behind every
storm. Let us then take sides with the sun, seeing we have so much
leisure. Let us not put all we prize into a football to be kicked,
when a bladder will do as well.
When an Indian is burned, his body may be broiled, it may be no more
than a beefsteak. What of that? They may broil his _heart_, but they
do not therefore broil his _courage_,--his principles. Be of good
courage! That is the main thing.
If a man were to place himself in an attitude to bear manfully the
greatest evil that can be inflicted on him, he would find suddenly
that there was no such evil to bear; his brave back would go
a-begging. When Atlas got his back made up, that was all that was
required. (In this case _a priv._, not _pleon._, and τλῆμι.)
The world rests on principles. The wise gods will never make
underpinning of a man. But as long as he crouches, and skulks, and
shirks his work, every creature that has weight will be treading on
his toes, and crushing him; he will himself tread with one foot on the
other foot.
The monster is never just there where we think he is. What is truly
monstrous is our cowardice and sloth.
Have no idle disciplines like the Catholic Church and others; have
only positive and fruitful ones. Do what you know you ought to do. Why
should we ever go abroad, even across the way, to ask a neighbor's
advice? There is a nearer neighbor within us incessantly telling us
how we should behave. But we wait for the neighbor without to tell us
of some false, easier way.
They have a census-table in which they put down the number of the
insane. Do you believe that they put them all down there? Why, in
every one of these houses there is at least one man fighting or
squabbling a good part of his time with a dozen pet demons of his own
breeding and cherishing, which are relentlessly gnawing at his vitals;
and if perchance he resolve at length that he will courageously combat
them, he says, "Ay! ay! I will attend to you after dinner!" And, when
that time comes, he concludes that he is good for another stage, and
reads a column or two about the _Eastern War_! Pray, to be in earnest,
where is Sevastopol? Who is Menchikoff? and Nicholas behind there? who
the Allies? Did not we fight a little (little enough to be sure, but
just enough to make it interesting) at Alma, at Balaclava, at
Inkermann? We love to fight far from home. Ah! the Minié musket is the
king of weapons. Well, let us get one then.
I just put another stick into my stove,--a pretty large mass of white
oak. How many men will do enough this cold winter to pay for the fuel
that will be required to warm them? I suppose I have burned up a
pretty good-sized tree to-night,--and for what? I settled with Mr.
Tarbell for it the other day; but that was n't the final settlement. I
got off cheaply from him. At last, one will say, "Let us see, how much
wood did you burn, sir?" And I shall shudder to think that the next
question will be, "What did you do while you were warm?" Do we think
the ashes will pay for it? that God is an ash-man? It is a fact that
we have got to render an account for the deeds done in the body.
Who knows but we shall be better the next year than we have been the
past? At any rate, I wish you a really _new_ year,--commencing from
the instant you read this,--and happy or unhappy, according to your
deserts.