Page:Early Spring in Massachusetts (1881).djvu/237

Rh It is seen in the old scripture how wisdom is older than the talent of composition. The story is as slender as the thread on which pearls are strung, it is a spiral line growing more and more perplexed till it winds itself up and dies like the silk-worm in its cocoon. It seems as if the old philosopher could not talk without moving, and each motion were made the apology or occasion for a sentence, but this being found inconvenient, the fictitious progress of the tale was invented.

The great thoughts of a wise man seem to the vulgar who do not generalize to stand far apart like isolated mounts, but science knows that the mountains which rise so solitary in our midst are parts of a great mountain chain, dividing the earth, and the eye that looks into the horizon toward the blue Sierra melting away in the distance may detect their flow of thought. These sentences which take up your common life so easily are not seen to run into ridges because they are the table land on which the spectator stands That they stand frowning upon one another or mutually reflecting the sun's rays, is proof enough of their common basis.

The book should be found where the sentence is, and its connection be as inartificial. It is the inspiration of a day and not of a moment.