Trade seems contemptible to Wilhelm Meister, but, in its larger aspect,
sublime to Werner, who sees it as an exploration and possession of
Nature with friendly interchange between man and man. Trade is
democracy. Authority is hateful to democrats; but Carlyle can justify
loyalty, and show how obedience to the hero may be fidelity to myself.
Every experience needs its interpreter, one who can show its derivation
from an absolute centre. The mob of the French Revolution is a crowd of
devils till their poet arrives and restores these maniacs to manhood.
They are misguided brothers, doing what we should do in their place.
Genius in every situation takes hold on reality, a tap-root going down
to the source. Equilibrium appears in a staggering as well as a standing
figure, and is perfectly restored in every fall. The landscape seen in
detail is broken and ragged,--here a raw sand-bank, there a crooked
butternut-tree, yonder a stiff black cedar: but look with a larger eye;
the straight is complement to the crooked tree, color balances color,
form corrects form, and the entire effect of every scene is
completeness. The artist restores this harmony broken by our microscopic
view. Music is a shattering and suspension of chords till we ache for
their resolution; and the music of life is desire, a diminished seventh
that melts the past and ruins the present to prepare a future in another
key.

Genius sees that many an exception is fruit of some larger law, is not
imperfection, but uncomprehended perfection. Is there, then, no
imperfection? We are haunted by such a thought. We see first a mixed
beauty in faces, partly life and partly organization; the body is never
symmetrical, deformity is the rule. But beauty will not be measured by
form; the body cannot long occupy good eyes; we begin to look through
that, and encounter some courage, generosity, or tenderness, a dawning
or dominant light in every countenance. This is our morning, and the