entirely quiet and commonplace way, till the heat of his years was done.  He was forty before he talked of any mission from Heaven.  All his irregularities, real and supposed, date from after his fiftieth year, when the good Kadijah died.  All his “ambition,” seemingly, had been, hitherto, to live an honest life; his “fame,” the mere good opinion of neighbors that knew him, had been sufficient hitherto.  Not till he was already getting old, the prurient heat of his life all burnt out, and peace growing to be the chief thing this world could give him, did he start on the “career of ambition”; and, belying all his past character and existence, set-up as a wretched empty charlatan to acquire what he could now no longer enjoy!  For my share, I have no faith whatever in that.

Ah no:  this deep-hearted Son of the Wilderness, with his beaming black eyes and open social deep soul, had other thoughts in him than ambition.  A silent great soul; he was one of those who cannot but be in earnest; whom Nature herself has appointed to be sincere.  While others walk in formulas and hearsays, contented enough to dwell there, this man could not screen himself in formulas; he was alone with his own soul and the reality of things.  The great Mystery of Existence, as I said, glared-in upon him, with its terrors, with its splendors; no hearsays could hide that unspeakable fact, “Here am I!” Such sincerity, as we named it, has in very truth something of divine.  The word of such a man is a Voice direct from Nature’s own Heart.  Men do and must listen to that as to nothing else;—­all else is wind in comparison.  From of old, a thousand thoughts, in his pilgrimings and wanderings, had been in this man:  What am I?  What is this unfathomable Thing I live in, which men name Universe?  What is Life; what is Death?  What am I to believe?  What am I to do?  The grim rocks of Mount Hara, of Mount Sinai, the stern sandy solitudes answered not.  The great Heaven rolling silent overhead, with its blue-glancing stars, answered not.  There was no answer.  The man’s own soul, and what of God’s inspiration dwelt there, had to answer!

It is the thing which all men have to ask themselves; which we too have to ask, and answer.  This wild man felt it to be of infinite moment; all other things of no moment whatever in comparison.  The jargon of argumentative Greek Sects, vague traditions of Jews, the stupid routine of Arab Idolatry:  there was no answer in these.  A Hero, as I repeat, has this first distinction, which indeed we may call first and last, the Alpha and Omega of his whole Heroism, that he looks through the shows of things into things.  Use and wont, respectable hearsay, respectable formula:  all these are good, or are not good.  There is something behind and beyond all these, which all these must correspond with, be the image of, or they are—­Idolatries; “bits of black wood pretending to be God”; to the earnest soul a mockery and abomination.