a good neighbor without the hint of a jail or a what is strange too there never was in any man sufficient faith in the power of to inspire him with the broad design of j the state on the principle of right n and love all those who have pretended this design have been partial and have admitted in some manner the of the bad state i do not call to mind a single human being who steadily denied the authority of the laws on the simple ground of his own moral nature such designs full of genius and full of fate as they are are not entertained except as air pictures if the individual who them dare to think them practicable he scholars and and men of talent and women of superior sentiments cannot hide their contempt not the less does nature continue to fill the heart of youth with suggestions of thi enthusiasm and there are now men � if i can speak in the number � exactly i will say i have just been conversing with one man to whom no weight of adverse experience will make it lis s e sat for a moment appear impossible that thousands of beings might exercise towards each other the and simplest sentiments as well as a knot of friends or a pair of lovers � v and in countless striving waves the moon drawn tide wave in thousand far the parent fruit so in the new bom millions the perfect adam lives not less are summer mornings dear to every child they wake and each with novel life his sphere fills for his proper sake � � k essay and i cannot often enough say that a man is only a relative and representative nature each is a hint of the truth but far enough from being that truth which yet he quite newly and inevitably suggests to us if i seek it in him i shall not find it any man conduct into me the pure stream of that which he to be long afterwards i find that quality elsewhere which he promised me the genius of the is to the student yet how few particulars of it can i firom all their books the man stands for the thought but will not bear examination and a society of men will represent well enough a certain quality and culture for example chivalry or beauty of manners but separate them and there is no gentleman and viii no lady in the group the least hint sets u on the pursuit of a character which no man we have such eyes that on seeing the smallest arc we complete the curve and when the curtain is lifted from the which it seemed to veil we are vexed to find that no more was drawn than just that fragment of an arc which we first beheld we are greatly too liberal in our construction of each other s faculty and promise exactly what the parties have already done they shall do again but that which we inferred from their nature and they will not do that is in nature but not in them that happens in the world which we often witness in a public debate each of the expresses himself imperfectly no one of them hears much that another says such is the of mind of each and the audience who have only to hear and not to speak judge very wisely and how and is each of the to his own great men or men of great gifts you shall easily find but men never when i meet a pure intellectual force or a and generosity of affection i believe here then is man and am presently by the discovery that this individual is no more available to his own or to the general ends than his companions because the power which drew my respect is not supported by the total of his talents all persons exist to society by some shining trait of beauty or utility which they have we borrow the proportions of the man from that one fine feature and finish the portrait which is false for the rest of his body is small or i observe a person who makes a good public appearance and conclude thence the perfection of his private character on which this is based but he has no private character he is a graceful cloak or lay figure for holidays all our poets heroes and saints fail utterly in some one or in many parts to satisfy our idea fail to draw our spontaneous interest and so leave us without any hope of but in our own future our exaggeration of all fine characters arises from the fact that we identify each in turn with the soul but there are no such men as we fable no nor nor caesar nor at till nor washington such as we have made we a great deal of nonsense because it was allowed by great men there is none without his i verily believe if an angel should come to the chorus of the moral law he would eat too much bread or take liberties with private letters or do some precious it is bad enough that our cannot do anything useful but it is worse that no man is fit for society who has fine traits he is admired at a distance but he cannot come near without appearing a the men of fine parts protect themselves by solitude or by courtesy or by satire or by an worldly manner each concealing as he best can his for useful association but they want either love or self reliance our native love of reality with this experience to teach us a little reserve and to a too sudden surrender to the brilliant qualities of persons young people admire talents or particular as we grow older we value total powers and effects as the 