Neither does the noble
natural man: he yields himself to your occasion and use; but his act
expresses a reference to universal good.
Another element of the modern poetry akin to this subjective
tendency, or rather the direction of that same on the question of
resources, is, the Feeling of the Infinite. Of the perception now
fast becoming a conscious fact, -- that there is One Mind, and that
all the powers and privileges which lie in any, lie in all; that I as
a man may claim and appropriate whatever of true or fair or good or
strong has anywhere been exhibited; that Moses and Confucius,
Montaigne and Leibnitz are not so much individuals as they are parts
of man and parts of me, and my intelligence proves them my own, --
literature is far the best expression. It is true, this is not the
only nor the obvious lesson it teaches. A selfish commerce and
government have caught the eye and usurped the hand of the masses.
It is not to be contested that selfishness and the senses write the
laws under which we live, and that the street seems to be built, and
the men and women in it moving not in reference to pure and grand
ends, but rather to very short and sordid ones.
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