One thing is plain, that discontent and the luxury
of tears will bring nothing to pass. Regrets and Bohemian castles
and aesthetic villages are not a very self-helping class of
productions, but are the voices of debility. Especially to one
importunate correspondent we must say, that there is no chance for
the aesthetic village. Every one of the villagers has committed his
several blunder; his genius was good, his stars consenting, but he
was a marplot. And though the recuperative force in every man may be
relied on infinitely, it must be relied on, before it will exert
itself. As long as he sleeps in the shade of the present error, the
after-nature does not betray its resources. Whilst he dwells in the
old sin, he will pay the old fine.
More letters we have on the subject of the position of young
men, which accord well enough with what we see and hear. There is an
American disease, a paralysis of the active faculties, which falls on
young men in this country, as soon as they have finished their
college education, which strips them of all manly aims and bereaves
them of animal spirits, so that the noblest youths are in a few years
converted into pale Caryatides to uphold the temple of conventions.
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