Yet beware of over great pleasure in
being popular, or even beloved. As far as an amiable disposition and
powers of entertainment make you so, it is a happiness; but if there
is one grain of plausibility, it is poison.
But I will not play Mentor too much, lest I make you averse to write
to your very affectionate sister,
M.
* * * * *
TO HER BROTHER, R.
I entirely agree in what you say of _tuition_ and
_intuition;_ the two must act and react upon one another, to make
a man, to form a mind. Drudgery is as necessary, to call out the
treasures of the mind, as harrowing and planting those of the earth.
And besides, the growths of literature and art are as much nature as
the trees in Concord woods; but nature idealized and perfected.
* * * * *
TO THE SAME.
1841.
I take great pleasure in that feeling of the living presence of beauty
in nature which your letters show. But you, who have now lived long
enough to see some of my prophecies fulfilled, will not deny, though
you may not yet believe the truth of my words when I say you go to an
extreme in your denunciations of cities and the social institutions.
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