If one listens to the faintest but constant suggestions
of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes,
or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more
resolute and faithful, his road lies. The faintest assured objection
which one healthy man feels will at length prevail over the arguments
and customs of mankind. No man ever followed his genius till it misled
him. Though the result were bodily weakness, yet perhaps no one can say
that the consequences were to be regretted, for these were a life in
conformity to higher principles. If the day and the night are such that
you greet them with joy, and life emits a fragrance like flowers and
sweet-scented herbs, is more elastic, more starry, more immortal — that
is your success. All nature is your congratulation, and you have cause
momentarily to bless yourself. The greatest gains and values are
farthest from being appreciated. We easily come to doubt if they exist.
We soon forget them. They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts
most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The
true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and
indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little
star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched.
Then, in nearing the conclusion:
I learned this, at least, by my experiment: that if one
advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to
live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success
unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an
invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to
establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws be
expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he
will live with the license of a higher order of beings. In proportion as
he simplifies his life, the laws of the universe will appear less
complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor
weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need
not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under
them.
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