of two and two. What is multiform and puzzling to us is simple to them,
as the universe lies rounded and is one thought in the Original Mind. We
seek in vain for the secret of this mastery. It is private,--as deeply
hidden from those who have as from those who have it not. They cannot
think otherwise than so, and to this exercise have been provoked by
every influence in life. The boy who is an organized arithmetic and
geometry will count all the hills of potatoes and reckon the kernels of
corn in a bushel, and his triangles soon begin to cover the barn-door.
He sees nothing but number and dimension; he feeds on these, another
fellow on apples and nuts. But his brother loves application of force,
builds wheels and mills; his head is full of cogs and levers and
eccentrics; and after he has gone out to his engineering in the great
machine-shop of a modern world, the old corn-chamber at home is lumbered
with his mysterious contrivances, studies for a self-impelling or
gravitating machine and perpetual motion. Another boy is fired with the
mystery of form. He will draw the cat and dog; his chalk and charcoal
are on all our elbows; he carves a ram's head on his bat, an eagle on a
walking-stick, perches a cock on top of the barn, puts an eye and a nose
to every triangle of the geometer, and paints faces on the wheels of his
mechanical brother. In all these boys there is something more than
ability; there is propensity, an attraction irresistible. Their minds
run, we say, in that direction, and they creep or lie still, if turned
in another. The young shepherd will toss eggs, spin platters, and
balance knives, year after year, in solitude, with a patient energy and
endurance able to command any fortune.

What philter is in these faculties? The boy who will be great is always
discontented with his work, ready to rub out and begin again. He follows
a bee, and never quite touches that which drew him on. Plainly, the mere
ability to do is a dry straw, but through it our seeker tastes an