Mason, "I keep my chamber to read
law." "Read law!" replied the veteran, "'tis in the courtroom you
must read law." Nor is the rule otherwise for literature. If you would
learn to write, 'tis in the street you must learn it. Both for the
vehicle and for the aims of fine arts, you must frequent the public
square. The people, and not the college, is the writer's home. A
scholar is a candle, which the love and desire of all men will
light. Never his lands or his rents, but the power to charm the
disguised soul that sits veiled under this bearded and that rosy
visage is his rent and ration. His products are as needful as those of
the baker or the weaver. Society cannot do without cultivated men. As
soon as the first wants are satisfied, the higher wants become
imperative.
'Tis hard to mesmerize ourselves, to whip our own top; but through
sympathy we are capable of energy and endurance. Concert exasperates
people to a certain fury of performance they can rarely reach
alone. Here is the use of society: it is so easy with the great to be
great! so easy to come up to an existing standard!--as easy as it is
to the lover to swim to his maiden, through waves so grim before.
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