HINDRANCE.

Much that is in itself undesirable occurs in obedience to a general law which is not only desirable, but of infinite necessity and benefit.  It is not desirable that Topper and Macaulay should be read by tens of thousands, and Wilkinson only by tens.  It is not desirable that a narrow, selfish, envious Cecil, who could never forgive his noblest contemporaries for failing to be hunchbacks like himself, should steer England all his life as it were with supreme hand, and himself sail on the topmost tide of fortune; while the royal head of Raleigh goes to the block, and while Bacon, with his broad and bountiful nature,—­Bacon, one of the two or three greatest and humanest statesmen ever born to England, and one of the friendliest men toward mankind ever born into the world,—­dies in privacy and poverty, bequeathing his memory “to foreign nations and the next ages.”  But it is wholly desirable that he who would consecrate himself to excellence in art or life should sometimes be compelled to make it very clear to himself whether it be indeed excellence that he covets, or only plaudits and pounds sterling.  So when we find our purest wishes perpetually hindered, not only in the world around us, but even in our own bosoms, many of the particular facts may indeed merit reproach, but the general fact merits, on the contrary, gratitude and gratulation.  For were our best wishes not, nor ever, hindered, sure it is that the still better wishes of destiny in our behalf would be hindered yet worse.  Sure it is, I say, that Hindrance, both outward and inward, comes to us not through any improvidence or defect of benignity in Nature, but in answer to our need, and as part of the best bounty which enriches our days.  And to make this indubitably clear, let us hasten to meditate that simple and central law which governs this matter and at the same time many others.

And the law is, that every definite action is conditioned upon a definite resistance, and is impossible without it.  We walk in virtue of the earth’s resistance to the foot, and are unable to tread the elements of air and water only because they are too complaisant, and deny the foot that opposition which it requires.  Precisely that, accordingly, which makes the difficulty of an action may at the same time make its possibility.  Why is flight difficult?  Because the weight of every creature draws it toward the earth.  But without this downward proclivity, the wing of the bird would have no power upon the air.  Why is it difficult for a solid body to make rapid progress in water?  Because the water presses powerfully upon it, and at every inch of progress must be overcome and displaced.  Yet the ship is able to float only in virtue of this same hindering pressure, and without it would not sail, but sink.  The bird and the steamer, moreover,—­the one with its wings and the other with its paddles,—­apply themselves to this hindrance to progression as their only means of making progress; so that, were not their motion obstructed, it would be impossible.