May it be the herald of a bountiful
year,--not alone in harvests of seeds. Great impulses are moving
through man; swift as the steam-shot shuttle, weaving some mighty
pattern, goes the new birth of mind. As yet, hidden from eyes is the
design: whether it be poetry, or painting, or music, or architecture,
or whether it be a divine harmony of all, no manner of mind can tell;
but that it is mighty, all manners of minds, moved to involuntary
utterance, affirm. The intellect has at last again got to work upon
thought: too long fascinated by matter and prisoned to motive
geometry, genius--wisdom seem once more to have become human, to have
put on man, and to speak with divine simplicity. Kosmon, Sophon,
again welcome! your journey is well-timed; Christian, my young
friend, of whom I have often written to you, this morning tells me by
letter that to-day he will pay me his long-promised visit. You, I
know, must rejoice to meet him: this interchange of knowledge cannot
fail to improve us, both by knocking down and building up: what is
true we shall hold in common; what is false not less in common
detest. The debateable ground, if at last equally debateable as it
was at first, is yet ploughed; and some after-comer may sow it with
seed, and reap therefrom a plentiful harvest.
_Sophon._ Kalon, you speak wisely.
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