True it is, that here as elsewhere, as
everywhere, last is first and first is last. That which is innermost,
and consequently primary, is last to appear on the surface; and
accordingly thoughts _per se_ follow things in the order of
manifestation. But how could the thing exist, but for a thought that
preceded and begot it? And now that the thought has passed _through_
the material symbol, has passed forward to a new and more consummate
expression, first in the soul, and afterwards by the voice, we should
be unwise indeed to deny or forget its antiquity. Thoughts are no
_parvenus_ or _novi homines_ in Nature, but came in with that Duke
William who first struck across the unnamed seas into this island of
time and material existence which we inhabit. Accordingly, it is using
extreme understatement, to say that every pure original thought has a
genesis equally ancient, earnest, vital with any product in Nature,--has
present relationships no less broad and cosmical, and an evolution
implying the like industries, veritable and precious beyond all scope of
affirmation. Even if we quite overlook its pre-personal ancestry, still
the roots it has in its immediate author will be of unmeasured depth,
and it will still proceed toward its consummate form by energies and
assiduities that beggar the estimation of all ordinary toil. With the
birth of the man himself was it first born, and to the time of its
perfect growth and birth into speech the burden of it was borne by every
ruddy drop of his heart's blood, by every vigor of his body,--nerve
and artery, eye and ear, and all the admirable servitors of the soul,
steadily bringing to that invisible matrix where it houses their
costly nutriments, their sacred offices; while every part and act of
experience, every gush of jubilance, every stifle of woe, all sweet
pangs of love and pity, all high breathings of faith and resolve,
contribute to the form and bloom it finally wears.
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