Nothing so broad, so subtle, or so dear,
but comes therefore commended to his pen,--and he will write. In his
eyes, a man is the faculty of reporting, and the universe is the
possibility of being reported. In conversation, in calamity, he finds
new materials; as our German poet said, "some god gave me the power
to paint what I suffer." He draws his rents from rage and pain. By
acting rashly, he buys the power of talking wisely. Vexations, and a
tempest of passion, only fill his sails; as the good Luther writes,
"When I am angry I can pray well, and preach well;" and if we knew the
genesis of fine-strokes of eloquence, they might recall the complaisance
of Sultan Amurath, who struck off some Persian heads, that his
physician, Vesalius, might see the spasms in the muscles of the neck.
His failures are the preparation of his victories. A new thought, or
a crisis of passion, apprises him that all that he has yet learned and
written is exoteric--is not the fact, but some rumor of the fact. What
then? Does he throw away the pen? No; he begins again to describe in
the new light which has shined on him,--if, by some means, he may yet
save some true word.
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