should we assume the faults of our friend, or wife, Self-
or father, or child, because they sit around our hearth, Reliance
or are said to have the same blood? All men have
my blood, and I have all men's. Not for that will I
adopt their petulance and folly, even to the extent
of being ashamed of it. But your isolation must
not be mechanical, but spiritual, that is, must be
elevation.

At times the whole world seems to be in conspiracy
to importune you with emphatic trifles. Friend, client,
child, sickness, fear, want, charity, all knock at once
at thy closet door and say, "Come out unto us."
Do not spill thy soul; do not all descend; keep thy
state; stay at home in thine own heaven; come not
for a moment into their facts, into their hubbub of
conflicting appearances, but let in the light of thy
law on their confusion. The power men possess to
annoy me, I give them by a weak curiosity. No man
can come near me but through my act. "What we
love that we have, but by desire we bereave ourselves
of the love."

If we cannot at once rise to the sanctities of obedi-
ence and faith, let us at least resist our temptations,

Self. let us enter into the state of war, and wake Thor Reliance and Woden, courage and constancy in our Saxon

breasts. This is to be done in our smooth times by speaking the truth. Check this lying hospitality and lying affection. Live no longer to the expectation of these deceived and deceiving people with whom we converse. Say to them, O father, O mother, O wife, 0 brother, O friend, I have lived with you after appearances hitherto. Henceforward I am the truth's. ¶ Be it known unto you that henceforward I obey no law less than the external law. I will have no covenants but proximities. I shall endeavor to nourish my parents, to support my family, to be the chaste husband of one wife, but these relations I must fill after a new and unprecedented way. I appeal from your customs. I must be myself.

I cannot break myself any longer for you, or you. If you can love me for what I am, we shall be happier. If you cannot, I will still to deserve that you should. I must be myself. I will not hide my tastes or aversions. I will so trust that what is deep is holy, that I will do strongly before the sun and moon whatever inly rejoices me, and the heart appoints.

If you are noble, I will love you; if you are not, I Selfwill not hurt you and myself by hypocritical atten- Reliance tions. If you are true, but not in the same truth with me, cleave to your companions; I will seek my own. I do this not selfishly, but humbly and truly. It is alike your interest and mine and all men's, however long we have dwelt in lies, to live in truth. Does this sound harsh to-day? You will soon love what is dictated by your nature as well as mine, and if we follow the truth, it will bring us out safe at last. -But so you may give these friends pain. Yes, but I cannot sell my liberty and my power, to save their sensibility. Besides, all persons have their moments of reason when they look out into the region of absolute truth; then will they justify me and do the same thing.

The populace think that your rejection of popular standards is a rejection of all standard, and mere antinomianism; and the bold sensualist will use the name of philosophy to gild his crimes. But the law of consciousness abides. There are two confessionals, in one or the other of which we must be shriven. You may fulfil your round of duties by clearing

Self- yourself in the direct, or, in the reflex way. Consider Reliance whether you have satisfied your relations to father, mother, cousin, neighbor, town, cat and dog; whether any of these can upbraid you.

But I may also neglect this reflex standard, and
absolve me to myself. I have my own stern claims
and perfect circle. It denies the name of duty to
many offices that are called duties. But if I can
discharge its debts, it enables me to dispense with
the popular code. If any one imagines that this law
is lax, let him keep its commandment one day.
And truly it demands something godlike in him who
has cast off the common motives of humanity, and
has ventured to trust himself for a task-master. High
be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he
may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law to
himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as
strong as iron necessity is to others.

If any may consider the present aspects of what is
called by distinction society, he will see the need of
these ethics. The sinew and heart of man seem to
be drawn out, and we are becoming timorous des-
ponding whimperers. We are afraid of truth, afraid

of fortune, afraid of death, and afraid of each other. SelfOur age yields no great and perfect persons.

We want men and women who shall renovate life
and our social state, but we see that most natures are
insolvent; cannot satisfy their own wants, have an
ambition out of all proportion to their practical force,
and so do lean and beg day and night continually.
Our housekeeper is mendicant, our arts, our occu-
pations, our marriages, our religion we have not
chosen, but society has chosen for us. We are parlor
soldiers. The rugged battle of fate, where strength is
born, we shun.

If our young men miscarry in their first enterprises,
they lose all heart. If the young merchant fails, men
say he is ruined. If the finest genius studies at one of
our colleges, and is installed in an office within one
afterwards in the cities or suburbs of Boston or
year
New York, it seems to his friends and to himself
that he is right in being disheartened and in com-
plaining the rest of his life.

A sturdy lad from New Hampshire or Vermont,
who in turn tries all the professions, who teams it,
farms it, peddles, keeps a school, preaches, edits a

Reliance