One is
carpentry; the other is growth. To make a step into the world of
thought is now given to but few men; to make a second step beyond the
first, only one in a country can do; but to carry the thought on to
three steps, marks a great teacher. Aladdin's palace with its one
unfinished window, which all the gems in the royal treasury cannot
finish in the style of the meanest of the profusion of jewelled
windows that were built by the Genie in a night, is but too true an
image of the efforts of talent to add one verse to the copious text
which inspiration writes by one or another scribe from age to age.
It is not that the literary class or those for whom they write,
are not lovers of truth, and amenable to principles. All are so.
The hunger of men for truth is immense; but they are not erect on
their feet; the senses are too strong for the soul. Our senses
barbarize us. When the ideal world recedes before the senses, we are
on a retrograde march. The savage surrenders to his senses; he is
subject to paroxysms of joy and fear; he is lewd, and a drunkard.
The Esquimaux in the exhilaration of the morning sun, when he is
invigorated by sleep, will sell his bed.
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