The energetic action of the times develops individualism, and the religious appear isolated. I esteem this a step in the right direction. Heaven deals with us on no representative system. Souls are not saved in bundles.

I feel some unwillingness to quit the remembrance of the past. With all the hope of the new I feel that we are leaving the old.

Every act of the man inscribes itself in the memories of his fellows, and in his own manners and face. The air is full of sounds;the sky, of tokens; the ground is all memoranda and signatures; and every object covered over with hints, which speak to the intelligent.

What is the hardest task in the world? To think.

Every spirit builds itself a house; and beyond its house a world; and beyond its world, a heaven. Know then, that the world exists for you. For you is the phenomenon perfect. What we are, that only can we see. All that Adam had, all that Caesar could, you have and can do. Adam called his house, heaven and earth; Caesar called his house, Rome; you perhaps call yours, a cobler's trade; a hundred acres of ploughed land; or a scholar's garret. Yet line for line and point for point, your dominion is as great as theirs, though without fine names. Build, therefore, your own world.

To help the young soul, to add energy, inspire hope, and blow the coals into a useful flame; to redeem defeat by new thought and firm action, this, though not easy, is the work of divine men.

And yet--it is not beauty that inspires the deepest passion. Beauty without grace is the hook without the bait. Beauty, without expression, tires.