truth and beauty, be bold, be firm, be true. When
you shall say, 'As others do, so will I: I renounce,
I am sorry for it, my early visions; I must eat the
good of the land and let learning and romantic ex-
pectations go, until a more convenient season;' --
then dies the man in you; then once more perish
the buds of art, and poetry, and science, as they
have died already in a thousand thousand men.
The hour of that choice is the crisis of your his-
tory, and see that you hold yourself fast by the in-
tellect. It is this domineering temper of the sen-
sual world that creates the extreme need of the
priests of science; and it is the office and right of
the intellect to make and not take its estimate.
Bend to the persuasion which is flowing to you
from every object in nature, to be its tongue to
the heart of man, and to show the besotted world
how passing fair is wisdom. Forewarned that the
vice of the times and the country is an excessive
pretension, let us seek the shade, and find wisdom
in neglect. Be content with a little light, so it be
your own. Explore, and explore. Be neither
chided nor flattered out of your position of per-
petual inquiry. Neither dogmatize, nor accept an-
other's dogmatism. Why should you renounce
your right to traverse the star-lit deserts of truth,
for the premature comforts of an acre, house, and
barn? Truth also has its roof, and bed, and board.

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