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SELF-RELIANCE

as good, bad, interesting, silly, eloquent, troublesome. He
cumbers himself never about consequences, about
interests: he gives an independent, genuine verdict. You
must court him: he does not court you. But the man is, as
it were, clapped into jail by his consciousness. As soon as
he has once acted or spoken with eclat, he is a committed
person, watched by the sympathy or the hatred of
hundreds, whose affections must now enter into his
account. There is no Lethe for this. Ah, that he could pass
again into his neutrality! Who can thus avoid all pledges,
and having observed, observe again from the same
unaffected, unbiased, unbribable, unaffrighted innocence,
must always be formidable. He would utter opinions on all
passing affairs, which being seen to be not private, but
necessary, would sink like darts into the ear of men, and
put them in fear.

These are the voices which we hear in solitude, but
they grow faint and inaudible as we enter into the world.
Society everywhere is in conspiracy against the manhood
of every one of its members. Society is a joint-stock
company, in which the members agree, for the better
securing of his bread to each shareholder, to surrender
the liberty and culture of the eater. The virtue in most
request is conformity. Self-reliance is its aversion. It loves
not realities and creators, but names and customs.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist. He
who would gather immortal palms must not be hindered
by the name of goodness, but must explore if it be
goodness. Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of
your own mind. Absolve you to yourself, and you shall
have the suffrage of the world. I remember an answer
which when quite young I was prompted to make to a
valued adviser, who was wont to importune me with the
dear old doctrines of the church. On my saying, What
have I to do with the sacredness of traditions, if I live
wholly from within? my friend suggested, — "But these
impulses may be from below, not from above." I replied,
"They do not seem to me to be such; but if I am the Devil's

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