for his back. But let the Saladin be given, and this marvel of nerve
and muscle will multiply his presence,--will, as it were, give two
selves. So, if the Teutonic man who comes to our shores were innately
empty or mean, this nervous intensity would only ripen his meanness, or
make his inanity obstreperous. But in so far as he has real depth of
nature, this radical organization will aid him, quickening by its heat
what is deepest within him; and when he turns his face toward
principles, this flying brain-steed will swiftly bring him to his goal.
Nay, it is best that even meanness should ripen. The slaveholder of
South Carolina must avouch a false principle to cover his false
practice,--must affirm that slavery is a Divine institution. It is
well. A Quaker, hearing a fellow blaspheme, said,--"That is right,
friend; get such bad stuff out of thee!" A lie is dangerous, till it is
told,--like scarlatina, before it is brought to the surface: when
either breaks out, it is more than half conquered. The only falsehoods
of appalling efficacy for evil are those which circulate subtly in the
vital unconsciousness of powerful but obscure or undemonstrative
natures,--deadly from the intimacy which also makes them secret and
secure, and silently perverting to their own purposes the normal vigors
of the system. A Mephistopheles is not dangerous; he is too
clear-headed; he knows his own deserts: some muddiness is required to
harbor self-deceptions, in order that badness may reach real working
power. To all perversion iron limits are, indeed, set; but obscure
falsehood works in the largest spaces and with the longest
tether.--Thus the expressive intensity which appertains to this
organization is serviceable every way, even in what might, at first
blush, seem wholly evil effects.

While thus the brain-hand of the American is formed for grasping
principles, for apprehending the simple, subtile, universal truths