From “Caxtoniana.”

TO moral excellence there are two rewards, neither of which is bestowed by the loud huzzas of the populace; one within the conscience—one far out of reach, beyond the stars.

  But for intellectual excellence, man asks first a test, and next a reward, in the praise of his fellowmen.

  Therefore the love of human approbation is at the root of all those sustained labors by which man works out his ideal of intellectual excellence; at least so generally that we need not care to count the exceptions. During the later stages of a great career, that love of approbation, in a mind well disciplined, often ceases to be perceptible, chiefly because it has become too habitually familiar to retain distinctness. We are, then, as little acutely sensible of the pervading force of the motive, as, while in health, we are sensible of the beats of our pulse and the circulation of our blood. But there it still is, no less—there, in the pulse, in the blood. A cynic or a misanthrope may disown it; but if he have genius, and the genius urge him to address men even in vindication of misanthropy and cynicism, he is inevitably courting the approbation which he pretends to scorn. As Cicero says with quiet irony, “The authors who affect contempt for a name in the world put their names to the books which they invite the world to read.” But to return to my starting point, the desire of approbation will be accompanied by that nervous susceptibility which, however well disguised, is inseparable from the vibrating oscillation between hope and fear. And this nervousness in things not made mechanically familiar by long practice will be in proportion to the height of a man’s own standard of excellence, and the care with which he measures the difficulties that interpose between a cherished conception and a worthy execution of design.

  Out of this nervousness comes the shyness common to all youth, where it aspires to excel and fears to fail.

  It follows from what I have said that those races are the most active, have accomplished the greatest marvels of energy, and, on the whole, exhibit the highest standard of public honesty in administrative departments, to which the national character of shyness is generally accorded, distinct from its false counterfeit-pride.

  For the best guarantee for honesty is a constant sense of responsibility, and that sense is rendered lively and acute by a certain anxious diffidence of self, which is—Shyness. And again, it is that diffidence which makes men take pains to win and deserve success—stimulates energy and sustains perseverance.

  The Turk is proud, not shy; he walks the world, or rather lets the world walk by him, serene in his self-esteem. The Red Indian is proud, not shy; his dignity admits of no dysopia—is never embarrassed nor taken by surprise. But the Turk and the Red Indian do not improve; and when civilization approaches them, it is rather to corrupt than to enlighten. The British race are shy to a proverb. And what shore does not bear the stamp of their footstep? What boundary in the regions of intellect has yet satisfied their ardor of progress? Ascham’s ideal of perfectness is in the mind of the whole nation.

  To desire to do something, not only as well as it can be done, but better than we can do it—to feel to exaggeration all our own natural deficiencies toward the doing of it—to resolve by redoubled energy and perseverance to extract from art whatever may supply those deficiencies in nature—this is the surest way to become great—this is the character of the English race—this should be the character of an English genius.

  But he who thus feels, thus desires, and thus resolves, will keep free from rust those mainsprings of action—the sensibility to shame, and the yearning toward perfection. It is the elasticity of the watchspring that renders it the essential principle to the mechanism of the watch; but elasticity is only the property of solid bodies to recover, after yielding to pressure, their former shape. The mind which retains to the last youth’s quick susceptibility to disgrace and to glory retains to the last the power to resume the shape that it wore in youth. Cynicism is old at twenty. Impudence has no elasticity. If you care no more than the grasshopper for the favor of gods and the reverence of men, your heart has the age of Tithonus, though your cheek have the bloom of Achilles. But if, even alone in your room or a desert, you could still blush or turn pale at the thought of a stain on your honor—if your crest still could rise, your pulse quicken, at the flash of some noble thought or brave deed—then you have the heart of Achilles, though at the age of Tithonus. There is certain august shamefacedness—the Romans called it Pudor—which, under hairs white as snow, preserves the aspect of youth to all personations of honor, of valor, of genius.