Culture is the suggestion from certain best thoughts, that a man has a range of affinities, through which he can modulate the violence of any master-tones that have a droning preponderance in his scale, and succor him against himself.  Culture redresses his balance, puts him among his equals and superiors, revives the delicious sense of sympathy, and warns him of the dangers of solitude and repulsion.

’Tis not a compliment, but a disparagement, to consult a man only on horses, or on steam, or on theatres, or on eating, or on books, and, whenever he appears, considerately to turn the conversation to the bantling he is known to fondle.  In the Norse heaven of our forefathers, Thor’s house had five hundred and forty floors:  and Man’s house has five hundred and forty floors.  His excellence is facility of adaptation, and of transition through many related points to wide contrasts and extremes.  Culture kills his exaggeration, his conceit of his village or his city.  We must leave our pets at home when we go into the street, and meet men on broad grounds of good meaning and good sense.  No performance is worth loss of geniality.  ’Tis a cruel price we pay for certain fancy goods called fine arts and philosophy.  In the Norse legend, Allfadir did not get a drink of Mimir’s spring, (the fountain of wisdom,) until he left his eye in pledge.  And here is a pedant that cannot unfold his wrinkles, nor conceal his wrath at interruption by the best, if their conversation do not fit his impertinency,—­here is he to afflict us with his personalities.  ’Tis incident to scholars, that each of them fancies he is pointedly odious in his community.  Draw him out of this limbo of irritability.  Cleanse with healthy blood his parchment skin.  You restore to him his eyes which he left in pledge at Mimir’s spring.  If you are the victim of your doing, who cares what you do?  We can spare your opera, your gazetteer, your chemic analysis, your history, your syllogisms.  Your man of genius pays dear for his distinction.  His head runs up into a spire, and, instead of a healthy man, merry and wise, he is some mad dominie.  Nature is reckless of the individual.  When she has points to carry, she carries them.  To wade in marshes and sea-margins is the destiny of certain birds; and they are so accurately made for this, that they are imprisoned in those places.  Each animal out of its habitat would starve.  To the physician, each man, each woman, is an amplification of one organ.  A soldier, a locksmith, a bank-clerk, and a dancer could not exchange functions.  And thus we are victims of adaptation.

The antidotes against this organic egotism are—­the range and variety of attractions, as gained by acquaintance with the world, with men of merit, with classes of society, with travel, with eminent persons, and with the high resources of philosophy, art, and religion:  books, travel, society, solitude.