Genius declares the total or representative value of its own facts against the neglect or contempt of mankind.  Intelligence is centre of centres, and all things diminish as they recede from the eye.  Every natural law is some hint to us of our commanding position.  The good thought is never a toilsome going abroad, but some settling at home to new intimacy with the fortune which waits on all.  It is no putting out legs, but a putting down roots to take possession of the earth and the nether heavens, while we fill the upper sky with climbing shoots.  Intelligence is at one with the system, able to entertain it as a unit, to refer every particle, dark as a particle, to its shining place in the transparent whole.  How can I afford to drop my errand, to go wonder after the fore-world, after Plato, Washington, or Paul?  These are men who never dropped their errands to go wonder after the Maker himself.  They found God in the thing lying nearest to be done.  As right action in the remotest corner is a world-victory, so right thought applied to the lowest circumstance is cosmic thought.  In the fortune of the hour we have a home beyond the fortune of the hour.  The least circle of order now organized and established in our lives is not a poor house frozen to the ground, but a ship able to outride the currents of time, a charmed circle of security which will serve us still in every following world.  Our future is to be found, not in multiplication of examples, but in deeper sympathy with all we have superficially known.

We shall never rightly celebrate the stillness and sweetness of truth in an open mind.  Clear perception is refreshing as sleep.  It is a sleep from blunder, care, and sin.  In every thought we are lifted to sit with the serene rulers, and see how lightly, yet firmly, in their orbits the worlds are borne.  With insight we work freely, for every result is secure; we rest, for every stream will bear us to the sea.  Peace is joy beyond the perturbation of joy, is entertainment of Omnipotence in the breast.

A filial relation to the universe is well expressed, not in speech, but in the attitudes of her children, in their balance, tranquillity, directness, their firm and quiet grasp, look, step, tone.  Confidence and joy are the only moral agents.  Worship is immortal cheer.  The Greeks rebuke us with their sacred festivals and games:  why should we not hunt every evil as we follow gayly the buffalo and bear?  Virtue cannot be wrinkled and sad; Virtue is a joy of the Right added to our earliest joy,—­is refreshment and health, not fever.  The Etruscan are right religious sculptures:  the body will be more, not less, when the soul is most; for the body is created and perfected, not devoured by the soul.  In another Eden the curves of grace and power will reappear; every wrinkle will be counted sin; goodness will be sap and blood, a growth of grapes and roses, a sacrament of energy and content.