Come forth from the shade!
It is no longer a question of promising, thou must perform. The time of
apprenticeship is over. Servant, show us what thou hast done with thy
talent. Speak now, or be silent forever." This appeal of the conscience
is a solemn summons in the life of every man, solemn and awful as the
trumpet of the last judgment. It cries, "Art thou ready? Give an
account. Give an account of thy years, thy leisure, thy strength, thy
studies, thy talent, and thy works. Now and here is the hour of great
hearts, the hour of heroism and of genius."
April 6, 1851.--Was there ever any one so vulnerable as I? If I were a
father how many griefs and vexations, a child might cause me. As a
husband I should have a thousand ways of suffering because my happiness
demands a thousand conditions I have a heart too easily reached, a too
restless imagination; despair is easy to me, and every sensation
reverberates again and again within me. What might be, spoils for me
what is. What ought to be consumes me with sadness. So the reality, the
present, the irreparable, the necessary, repel and even terrify me. I
have too much imagination, conscience and penetration, and not enough
character. The life of thought alone seems to me to have enough
elasticity and immensity, to be free enough from the irreparable;
practical life makes me afraid.
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