Representative Men | Page 4

theologian, and every man, inasmuch as
he has any science, is a definer and map-maker of the latitudes and longitudes of our
condition. These road-makers on every hand enrich us. We must extend the area of life,
and multiply our relations. We are as much gainers by finding a new property in the old
earth, as by acquiring a new planet.
We are too passive in the reception of these material or semi-material aids. We must not
be sacks and stomachs. To ascend one step,--we are better served through our sympathy.
Activity is contagious. Looking where others look, and conversing with the same things,
we catch the charm which lured them. Napoleon said, "you must not fight too often with
one enemy, or you will teach him all your art of war." Talk much with any man of
vigorous mind, and we acquire very fast the habit of looking at things in the same light,
and, on each occurrence, we anticipate his thought.
Men are helpful through the intellect and the affections. Other help, I find a false
appearance. If you affect to give me bread and fire, I perceive that I pay for it the full
price, and at last it leaves me as it found me, neither better nor worse: but all mental and
moral force is a positive good. It goes out from you whether you will or not, and profits
me whom you never thought of. I cannot even hear of personal vigor of any kind, great
power of performance, without fresh resolution. We are emulous of all that man can do.
Cecil's saying of Sir Walter Raleigh, "I know that he can toil terribly," is an electric touch.
So are Clarendon's portraits,--of Hampden; "who was of an industry and vigilance not to
be tired out or wearied by the most laborious, and of parts not to be imposed on by the
most subtle and sharp, and of a personal courage equal to his best parts"--of Falkland;
"who was so severe an adorer of truth, that he could as easily have given himself leave to
steal, as to dissemble." We cannot read Plutarch, without a tingling of the blood; and I
accept the saying of the Chinese Mencius: "As age is the instructor of a hundred ages.
When the manners of Loo are heard of, the stupid become intelligent, and the wavering,
determined."
This is the moral of biography; yet it is hard for departed men to touch the quick like our
own companions, whose names may not last as long. What is he whom I never think of?

whilst in every solitude are those who succor our genius, and stimulate us in wonderful
manners. There is a power in love to divine another's destiny better than that other can,
and by heroic encouragements, hold him to his task. What has friendship so signaled as
its sublime attraction to whatever virtue is in us? We will never more think cheaply of
ourselves, or of life. We are piqued to some purpose, and the industry of the diggers on
the railroad will not again shame us.
Under this head, too, falls that homage, very pure, as I think, which all ranks pay to the
hero of the day, from Coriolanus and Gracchus, down to Pitt, Lafayette, Wellington,
Webster, Lamartine. Hear the shouts in the street! The people cannot see him enough.
They delight in a man. Here is a head and a trunk! What a front! What eyes! Atlantean
shoulders, and the whole carriage heroic, with equal inward force to guide the great
machine! This pleasure of full expression to that which, in their private experience, is
usually cramped and obstructed, runs, also, much higher, and is the secret of the reader's
joy in literary genius. Nothing is kept back. There is fire enough to fuse the mountain of
ore. Shakspeare's principal merit may be conveyed, in saying that he, of all men, best
understands the English language, and can say what he will. Yet these unchoked channels
and floodgates of expression are only health or fortunate constitution. Shakspeare's name
suggests other and purely intellectual benefits.
Senates and sovereigns have no compliment, with their medals, swords, and armorial
coats, like the addressing to a human being thoughts out of a certain height, and
presupposing his intelligence. This honor, which is possible in personal intercourse
scarcely twice in a lifetime, genius perpetually pays; contented, if now and then, in a
century, the proffer is accepted. The indicators of the values of matter are degraded to a
sort of cooks and confectioners, on the appearance of the indicators of ideas. Genius is
the naturalist or geographer of the supersensible regions, and draws on their map; and, by
acquainting us with new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old.