how willing men are to lumber their minds with such rubbish- to permit
idle rumors and incidents of the most insignificant kind to intrude on
ground which should be sacred to thought. Shall the mind be a public
arena, where the affairs of the street and the gossip of the tea-table
chiefly are discussed? Or shall it be a quarter of heaven itself- an
hypaethral temple, consecrated to the service of the gods? I find it
so difficult to dispose of the few facts which to me are
significant, that I hesitate to burden my attention with those which
are insignificant, which only a divine mind could illustrate. Such is,
for the most part, the news in newspapers and conversation. It is
important to preserve the mind's chastity in this respect. Think of
admitting the details of a single case of the criminal court into
our thoughts, to stalk profanely through their very sanctum
sanctorum for an hour, ay, for many hours! to make a very bar-room
of the mind's inmost apartment, as if for so long the dust of the
street had occupied us- the very street itself, with all its travel,
its bustle, and filth, had passed through our thoughts' shrine!
Would it not be an intellectual and moral suicide? When I have been
compelled to sit spectator and auditor in a court-room for some hours,
and have seen my neighbors, who were not compelled, stealing in from
time to time, and tiptoeing about with washed hands and faces, it
has appeared to my mind's eye, that, when they took off their hats,
their ears suddenly expanded into vast hoppers for sound, between
which even their narrow heads were crowded. Like the vanes of
windmills, they caught the broad but shallow stream of sound, which,
after a few titillating gyrations in their coggy brains, passed out
the other side. I wondered if, when they got home, they were as
careful to wash their ears as before their hands and faces. It has
seemed to me, at such a time, that the auditors and the witnesses, the
jury and the counsel, the judge and the criminal at the bar- if I
may presume him guilty before he is convicted- were all equally
criminal, and a thunderbolt might be expected to descend and consume
them all together.

  By all kinds of traps and signboards, threatening the extreme
penalty of the divine law, exclude such trespassers from the only
ground which can be sacred to you. It is so hard to forget what it
is worse than useless to remember! If I am to be a thoroughfare, I
prefer that it be of the mountain brooks, the Parnassian streams,
and not the town sewers. There is inspiration, that gossip which comes
to the ear of the attentive mind from the courts of heaven. There is
the profane and stale revelation of the bar-room and the police court.
The same ear is fitted to receive both communications. Only the
character of the hearer determines to which it shall be open, and to
which closed. I believe that the mind can be permanently profaned by
the habit of attending to trivial things, so that all our thoughts
shall be tinged with triviality. Our very intellect shall be
macadamized, as it were- its foundation broken into fragments for
the wheels of travel to roll over; and if you would know what will
make the most durable pavement, surpassing rolled stones, spruce
blocks, and asphaltum, you have only to look into some of our minds
which have been subjected to this treatment so long.

  If we have thus desecrated ourselves- as who has not?- the remedy
will be by wariness and devotion to reconsecrate ourselves, and make
once more a fane of the mind. We should treat our minds, that is,
ourselves, as innocent and ingenuous children, whose guardians we are,
and be careful what objects and what subjects we thrust on their
attention. Read not the Times. Read the Eternities.
Conventionalities are at length as had as impurities. Even the facts
of science may dust the mind by their dryness, unless they are in a
sense effaced each morning, or rather rendered fertile by the dews
of fresh and living truth. Knowledge does not come to us by details,
but in flashes of light from heaven. Yes, every thought that passes
through the mind helps to wear and tear it, and to deepen the ruts,
which, as in the streets of Pompeii, evince how much it has been used.
How many things there are concerning which we might well deliberate
whether we had better know them- had better let their peddling-carts
be driven, even at the slowest trot or walk, over that bride of
glorious span by which we trust to pass at last from the farthest
brink of time to the nearest shore of eternity! Have we no culture, no
refinement- but skill only to live coarsely and serve the Devil?- to
acquire a little worldly wealth, or fame, or liberty, and make a false
show with it, as if we were all husk and shell, with no tender and
living kernel to us? Shall our institutions be like those chestnut
burs which contain abortive nuts, perfect only to prick the fingers?

  America is said to be the arena on which the battle of freedom is to
be fought; but surely it cannot be freedom in a merely political sense
that is meant. Even if we grant that the American has freed himself
from a political tyrant, he is still the slave of an economical and
moral tyrant. Now that the republic- the respublica- has been settled,
it is time to look after the res-privata- the private state- to see,
as the Roman senate charged its consuls, "ne quid res-PRIVATA
detrimenti caperet," that the private state receive no detriment.

  Do we call this the land of the free? What is it to be free from
King George and continue the slaves of King Prejudice? What is it to
be born free and not to live free? What is the value of any
political freedom, but as a means to moral freedom? Is it a freedom to
be slaves, or a freedom to be free, of which we boast? We are a nation
of politicians, concerned about the outmost defences only of
freedom. It is our children's children who may perchance be really
free. We tax ourselves unjustly. There is a part of us which is not
represented. It is taxation without representation. We quarter troops,
we quarter fools and cattle of all sorts upon ourselves. We quarter
our gross bodies on our poor souls, till the former eat up all the
latter's substance.

  With respect to a true culture and manhood, we are essentially