Everything noble is directed on life, and
this is. We do not wish to say pretty or curious things, or to
reiterate a few propositions in varied forms, but, if we can, to give
expression to that spirit which lifts men to a higher platform,
restores to them the religious sentiment, brings them worthy aims and
pure pleasures, purges the inward eye, makes life less desultory,
and, through raising man to the level of nature, takes away its
melancholy from the landscape, and reconciles the practical with the
speculative powers.
But perhaps we are telling our little story too gravely. There
are always great arguments at hand for a true action, even for the
writing of a few pages. There is nothing but seems near it and
prompts it, -- the sphere in the ecliptic, the sap in the apple tree,
-- every fact, every appearance seem to persuade to it.
Our means correspond with the ends we have indicated. As we
wish not to multiply books, but to report life, our resources are
therefore not so much the pens of practised writers, as the discourse
of the living, and the portfolios which friendship has opened to us.
Pages:
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42