No More Learning

When I was of your age, I also for a time mistook my desire to
write verses for an authentic call of my nature in that direction. But
one day as I was going forth for a walk, with my head full of an "Elegy
on the Death of Flirtilla," and vainly groping after a rhyme for _lily_
that should not be _silly_ or _chilly_, I saw my eldest boy Homer busy
over the rain-water hogshead, in that childish experiment at
parthenogenesis, the changing a horse-hair into a water-snake. All
immersion of six weeks showed no change in the obstinate filament. Here
was a stroke of unintended sarcasm. Had I not been doing in my study
precisely what my boy was doing out of doors? Had my thoughts any more
chance of coming to life by being submerged in rhyme than his hair by
soaking in water? I burned my elegy and took a course of Edwards on the
Will. People do not make poetry; it is made out of _them_ by a process
for which I do not find myself fitted. Nevertheless, the writing of
verses is a good rhetorical exercitation, as teaching us what to shun
most carefully in prose. For prose bewitched is like window-glass with
bubbles in it, distorting what it should show with pellucid veracity. '


It is unwise to insist on doctrinal points as vital to religion. The
Bread of Life is wholesome and sufficing in itself, but gulped down with
these kickshaws cooked up by theologians, it is apt to produce an
indigestion, nay, eyen at last an incurable dyspepsia of scepticism.


One of the most inexcusable weaknesses of Americans is in signing their
names to what are called credentials. But for my interposition, a person
who shall be nameless would have taken from this town a recommendation
for an office of trust subscribed by the selectmen and all the voters of
both parties, ascribing to him as many good qualities as if it had been
his tombstone. The excuse was that it would be well for the town to be
rid of him, as it would erelong be obliged to maintain him.
I would not
refuse my name to modest merit, but I would be as cautious as in signing
a bond. [I trust I shall be subjected to no imputation of unbecoming
vanity, if I mention the fact that Mr. W. indorsed my own qualifications
as teacher of the high-school at Pequash Junction. J. H. ] When I see a
certificate of character with everybody's name to it, I regard it as a
letter of introduction from the Devil. Never give a man your name unless
you are willing to trust him with your reputation.


There seem nowadays to be two sources of literary inspiration,--fulness
of mind and emptiness of pocket.


I am often struck, especially in reading Montaigne, with the obviousness
and familiarity of a great writer's thoughts, and the freshness they
gain because said by him. The truth is, we mix their greatness with all
they say and give it our best attention. Johannes Faber sic cogitavit
would be no enticing preface to a book, but an accredited name gives
credit like the signature to a note of hand. It is the advantage of fame
that it is always privileged to take the world by the button, and a
thing is weightier for Shakespeare's uttering it by the whole amount of
his personality.


It is singular how impatient men are with overpraise of others, how
patient with overpraise of themselves; and yet the one does them no
injury while the other may he their ruin.


People are apt to confound mere alertness of mind with attention. The
one is but the flying abroad of all the faculties to the open doors and
windows at every passing rumor; the other is the concentration of every
one of them in a single focus, as in the alchemist over his alembic at
the moment of expected projection.