A man’s ignorance sometimes is not only useful, but beautiful,—­while his knowledge, so called, is oftentimes worse than useless, besides being ugly.  Which is the best man to deal with,—­he who knows nothing about a subject, and, what is extremely rare, knows that he knows nothing, or be who really knows something about it, but thinks that he knows all?

My desire for knowledge is intermittent; but my desire to bathe my head in atmospheres unknown to my feet is perennial and constant.  The highest that we can attain to is not Knowledge, but Sympathy with Intelligence.  I do not know that this higher knowledge amounts to anything more definite than a novel and grand surprise on a sudden revelation of the insufficiency of all that we called Knowledge before,—­a discovery that there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our philosophy.  It is the lighting up of the mist by the sun.  Man cannot know in any higher sense than this, any more than he can look serenely and with impunity in the face of the sun:  [Greek:  Os thi noon, on kehinon nohaeseis,]—­“You will not perceive that, as perceiving a particular thing,” say the Chaldean Oracles.

There is something servile in the habit of seeking after a law which we may obey.  We may study the laws of matter at and for our convenience, but a successful life knows no law.  It is an unfortunate discovery certainly, that of a law which binds us where we did not know before that we were bound.  Live free, child of the mist,—­and with respect to knowledge we are all children of the mist.  The man who takes the liberty to live is superior to all the laws, by virtue of his relation to the law-maker.  “That is active duty,” says the Vishnu Purana, “which is not for our bondage; that is knowledge which is for our liberation:  all other duty is good only unto weariness; all other knowledge is only the cleverness of an artist.”

It is remarkable how few events or crises there are in our histories; how little exercised we have been in our minds; how few experiences we have had.  I would fain be assured that I am growing apace and rankly, though my very growth disturb this dull equanimity,—­though it be with struggle through long, dark, muggy nights or seasons of gloom.  It would be well, if all our lives were a divine tragedy even, instead of this trivial comedy or farce.  Dante, Bunyan, and others, appear to have been exercised in their minds more than we:  they were subjected to a kind of culture such as our district schools and colleges do not contemplate.  Even Mahomet, though many may scream at his name, had a good deal more to live for, ay, and to die for, than they have commonly.

When, at rare intervals, some thought visits one, as perchance he is walking on a railroad, then indeed the cars go by without his hearing them.  But soon, by some inexorable law, our life goes by and the cars return.

  “Gentle breeze, that wanderest unseen,
  And bendest the thistles round Loira of storms,
  Traveller of the windy glens,
  Why hast thou left my ear so soon?”