that one does not countervail another any more than one eyesight
countervails another--and that men can be good or grand only of the
consciousness of their supremacy within them. What do you think is the
grandeur of storms and dismemberments, and the deadliest battles and
wrecks, and the wildest fury of the elements, and the power of the sea, and
the motion of nature, and of the throes of human desires, and dignity and
hate and love? It is that something in the soul which says,--Rage on, whirl
on, I tread master here and everywhere; master of the spasms of the sky and
of the shatter of the sea, master of nature and passion and death, and of
all terror and all pain.

The American bards shall be marked for generosity and affection and for
encouraging competitors: they shall be kosmos--without monopoly or
secrecy--glad to pass anything to any one--hungry for equals night and day.
They shall not be careful of riches and privilege,--they shall be riches
and privilege: they shall perceive who the most affluent man is. The most
affluent man is he that confronts all the shows he sees by equivalents out
of the stronger wealth of himself. The American bard shall delineate no
class of persons, nor one or two out of the strata of interests, nor love
most nor truth most, nor the soul most nor the body most; and not be for
the eastern states more than the western, or the northern states more than
the southern.

Exact science and its practical movements are no checks on the greatest
poet, but always his encouragement and support. The outset and remembrance
are there--there the arms that lifted him first and brace him best--there
he returns after all his goings and comings. The sailor and traveller, the
anatomist, chemist, astronomer, geologist, phrenologist, spiritualist,
mathematician, historian, and lexicographer, are not poets; but they are
the lawgivers of poets, and their construction underlies the structure of