"Essays 1st Series" - читать интересную книгу автора (Emerson Ralph Waldo )

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, 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: 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 and the Dark.

What pretty oracles nature yields us on this text, in the face
and behaviour 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 have
not. Their mind being whole, their eye is as yet unconquered, and
when we look in their faces, we are disconcerted. Infancy conforms
to nobody: all conform to it, so that one babe commonly makes four or
five out of the adults who prattle and play to it. So God has armed
youth and puberty and manhood no less with its own piquancy and
charm, and made it enviable and gracious and its claims not to be put
by, if it will stand by itself. Do not think the youth has no force,
because he cannot speak to you and me. Hark! in the next room his
voice is sufficiently clear and emphatic. It seems he knows how to
speak to his contemporaries. Bashful or bold, then, he will know how
to make us seniors very unnecessary.

The nonchalance of boys who are sure of a dinner, and would
disdain as much as a lord to do or say aught to conciliate one, is
the healthy attitude of human nature. A boy is in the parlour what
the pit is in the playhouse; independent, irresponsible, looking out
from his corner on such people and facts as pass by, he tries and