Healthy thought is organic, grows by assimilation, vitalizes all it takes, and so like a plant puts forth knowledge from the old and from within.  The apple of to-morrow is earth, not apple, till it hangs on the tree.  Our knowing seems rather rejection than acceptance, so much is husk in bulk.  From eight thousand miles of geology the tree takes a few drops of water and distils from these its own again.  Vigor of mind is judgment, which divides the meat from the shell, that which cumbers from that which thrills.  The act is simple, inevitable; let it be energetic and final.  We say, “This is valuable, it quickens me; the rest is nonsense.”  A feeble mind needs now chiefly to be rid of rubbish, of cheap admirations, an awe before the hair-pins and shoe-ties of society, before the true church, the scholastic learning, dead languages, the Fathers and the fashion.  To set the savage of civilization free from his superstition, these idols must be insulted before his face.

A little energy of demand displaces them from regard.  The scholars are busy with punctuation, chronology, and the lives of the little great, so that their visit is a vastation, and I must turn them out of doors.  Genius will continue unable to spell, to read the German, to count the Egyptian kings.  There is royal ignorance, the preoccupation of gods.  For the wise, if no object is trifling, yet part of every object is foreign to its best intent.  Every nut is inwardly a man and a miracle, but outwardly a shell.  If it be a book, the thought is a shell, though God be in the thought.  The book is another thing, another world of power and form, and the power will consume the form as a sword eats its sheath, the soul the body, or fire the pan.  The letter drops, for the spirit must expand and be set free.  The positive and negative poles of Nature reappear in every creature, and the positive element must prevail.  When we have learned to live, we shall—­or shall not—­learn to spell.

The last refreshment is intercourse with a kingly mind, which has no need to shift its centre, but lies abroad hemispheric, and sleeps like sunshine, bathing silently the earth and sky.  Such a mind is at home, not in position, but in a vital relation to Nature, which leaves no spaces dark and cold for wandering, and knows no change that is worth the name of change.  It is rest to be with one who is at rest, who cannot go to or go from his happiness, for whom the meaning of Deity is here and now.  What stillness and depth of manner are communicated to all who sound the deeps of life! what a refuge is their society from wit, zeal, and gossip, from petty estimates and demands!  To these, now first encountered, we have been always known; in them we meet no private motive, no accomplishment, reputation, ability, immediate haunting purpose, but a Sabbath from personal fortunes.  We meet the great above all that can be mine or thine, above gifts and accidents in common manhood and prosperity.  Swedenborg reports no encounter on higher ground.  The seven heavens open to me in a mind which gives rank to its own facts, and wherever it is housed still finds the universe only a larger body around the soul.