Every thought which
dawns on the mind, in the moment of its emergency announces its own
rank,--whether it is some whimsy, or whether it is a power.
If he have his incitements, there is, on the other side, invitation
and need enough of his gift. Society has, at all times, the same want,
namely, of one sane man with adequate powers of expression to held up
each object of monomania in its right relation. The ambitious and
mercenary bring their last new mumbo-jumbo, whether tariff, Texas,
railroad, Romanism, mesmerism, or California; and, by detaching the
object from its relations, easily succeed in making it seen in a glare;
and a multitude go mad about it, and they are not to be reproved or
cured by the opposite multitude, who are kept from this particular
insanity by an equal frenzy on another crochet. But let one man have
the comprehensive eye that can replace this isolated prodigy in its
right neighborhood and bearings,--the illusion vanishes, and the
returning reason of the community thanks the reason of the monitor.
The scholar is the man of the ages, but he must also wish, with other
men, to stand well with his contemporaries.
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