attempt to lay hold of the earth with one hand and heaven with the
other. But that is the peculiar feat for which the American is
born,--to bring together seeing and doing, principle and practice,
eternity and to-day. The American is given, they say, to extremes.
True, but to _both_ extremes; he belongs to the two antipodes. To the
one he appertains by intellectual emancipation and penetrative power;
to the other by his pungent element of sympathy with persons. Speaking
of the older Northern States, and of the people as a whole, we affirm
that their inhabitants are more speculative _and_ more practical, the
scholars know more of immediate common interests and speak more the
dialect of the people, while the mechanics know more of speculative
truth and understand better the necessary vocabulary of thought, than
any other people.

Lyell says, that the New World is really the Old World,--that there,
preëminently, the antique geological formations are found, and nearer
the surface than elsewhere. Thus the physical peculiarity of our
continent is, that here an elaborate and highly finished surface is
immediately superimposed upon the oldest rock, rock wrought in fire and
kneaded with earthquake knuckles. We discover in this a symbol of the
American Man. He likewise brings into near association the most ancient
and the most modern. By insight he dwells in the old thoughts, the
eternal truths, the meditations that rapt away the early seers into
trance and dream; but he brings these into sharp contact with life,
associates them with the newest work, the toil and interests of this
year and day.

We shall find space to mention but one peril which besets the New Man.
It is danger of physical exhaustion. Dr. Kane, the hero of two Arctic
nights, came forth to the day only to die. That which makes the