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SELF-RELIANCE

houses to the vain end to which many now stand; alms to
sots; and the thousandfold Relief Societies; — though I
confess with shame I sometimes succumb and give the
dollar, it is a wicked dollar which by and by I shall have
the manhood to withhold.

Virtues are, in the popular estimate, rather the
exception than the rule. There is the man and his virtues.
Men do what is called a good action, as some piece of
courage or charity, much as they would pay a fine in
expiation of daily non-appearance on parade. Their works
are done as an apology or extenuation of their living in the
world, — as invalids and the insane pay a high board.
Their virtues are penances. I do not wish to expiate, but to
live. My life is for itself and not for a spectacle. I much
prefer that it should be of a lower strain, so it be genuine
and equal, than that it should be glittering and unsteady.
I wish it to be sound and sweet, and not to need diet and
bleeding. I ask primary evidence that you are a man, and
refuse this appeal from the man to his actions. I know
that for myself it makes no difference whether I do or
forbear those actions which are reckoned excellent. I
cannot consent to pay for a privilege where I have intrinsic
right. Few and mean as my gifts may be, I actually am,
and do not need for my own assurance or the assurance of
my fellows any secondary testimony.

What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the
people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in
intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction
between greatness and meanness. It is the harder,
because you will always find those who think they know
what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the
world to live after the world's opinion; it is easy in solitude
to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the
midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the
independence of solitude.

The objection to conforming to usages that have
become dead to you is, that it scatters your force. It loses

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