increase, they are increased[99] that use them. If the gatherer
gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his
chest, swells the estate, but kills the owner. Nature hates monopolies
and exceptions. The waves of the sea do not more speedily seek a level
from their loftiest tossing, than the varieties of condition tend to
equalize themselves. There is always some leveling circumstance that
puts down the overbearing, the strong, the rich, the fortunate,
substantially on the same ground with all others. Is a man too strong
and fierce for society, and by temper and position a bad citizen,--a
morose ruffian, with a dash of the pirate in him;--nature sends him a
troop of pretty sons and daughters, who are getting along in the
dame's classes at the village school, and love and fear for them
smooths his grim scowl to courtesy. Thus she contrives to
intenerate[100] the granite and felspar, takes the boar out and puts
the lamb in, and keeps her balance true.

The farmer imagines power and place are fine things. But the President
has paid dear for his White House.[101] It has commonly cost him all
his peace, and the best of his many attributes. To preserve for a
short time so conspicuous an appearance before the world, he is
content to eat dust[102] before the real masters who stand erect
behind the throne. Or, do men desire the more substantial and
permanent grandeur of genius? Neither has this an immunity. He who by
force of will or of thought, is great, and overlooks[103] thousands,
has the charges of that eminence. With every influx of light comes new
danger. Has he light? he must bear witness to the light, and always
outrun that sympathy which gives him such keen satisfaction, by his
fidelity to new revelations of the incessant soul. He must hate father
and mother, wife and child. Has he all that the world loves and
admires and covets?--he must cast behind him their admiration, and