Page:The Atlantic Monthly Volume 2.djvu/900

892 "set-tos" to which, this hypothesis led not uniformly confirming it, another limitation of my possibilities was the consequence. In this way I groped along into a knowledge of my physical relations to the organic and inorganic universe.

A man must be very stupid indeed, if, by the time he is fully ripened, he does not know tolerably well what his physical powers are. His weight, his height, his general development, his constitutional force, his good or ill looks, he has had time to find out; and he is a fool, if he does not carry a reasonable consciousness of these conditions with him always. It is a little harder with the mind; but some qualities are generally estimated fairly enough by their owners. Thus, a man may be trusted when he says he has a good or a bad memory. Not so of his opinion of his own judgment or imagination. It is only by a very slow process that he finds out how much or how little of those qualities he possesses. But it is one of the blessed privileges of growing older, that we come to have a much clearer sense of what we can do and what we cannot, and settle down to our work quietly, knowing what our tools are and what we have to do with them.

Therefore, my friends, if I should at any time put on any airs on the strength of your good-natured treatment, please to remember that these are only the growth of that thin upper stratum of character I was telling you of. I conceive that the fact of a man's coming out in a book or two, even supposing them to have a success such as I should never think of, is to the sum total of that man's life and character as the bed of tulips and hyacinths you may see in spring, at the feet of the "Great Elm," on our Boston Common, is to the solemn old tree itself. The serene, strong life, reaching deep underground and high overhead, robed itself in April and disrobed itself in October when the Common was a cow-pasture, and observes the same seasons now that the old tree is belted with an iron girdle and finds its feet covered with flowers. Alas! my friends, the fence and the tulips are painfully suggestive. Authorship is an iron girdle, and the blossoms of flattery that are scattered at its feet are useful to it only as their culture keeps the soil open to the sun and rain. No man can please the reading public ever so little without being too highly commended for it in the heat of the moment; and so, if he thinks of starting again for the prize of public approbation, he finds himself heavily handicapped, and perhaps weighted down, simply because he has made good running for some former stakes.

I don't like the position of my friend the Professor. I consider him fully as good a man as myself.—I have, you know, often referred to him and quoted him, and sometimes got so mixed up with him, that, like the Schildbürgers at their town-meeting, I was puzzled to disentangle my own legs from his, when I wanted to stand up by myself, they were got into such a snarl together.—But I don't like the position of my friend the Professor.

The first thing, of course, when he opens his mouth, will be to compare him with his predecessor. Now, if he has the least tact in the world, he will begin dull, so as to leave a wide margin for improvement. You may be perfectly certain that he can talk and write just as well as I can; but you don't think, surely, that he is going to begin where I left off. Not unless we are to have a wedding in the first number;—and you are not sure whether or not there is to be any wedding at all while the Professor holds my seat at the table.

But I will tell you one thing,—if you sit a year or so at a long table, you will see what life is. Christenings, weddings, funerals,—these are the three legs it stands on; and you have a chance to see them all in a twelvemonth, if the table is really a long one. I don't doubt the Professor will have something to tell besides his opinions and fancies; and if you like a book of thoughts with occasional incidents, as well as a book of incidents with occasional thoughts, why, I see no reason why you should not accept this talk of the Professor's as kindly as if it