We see the goal, and gird our loins anew for the race. Or,
speaking of things minor, there is fresh prospect of the game, there is
companionship in the hunt, and spirit for the winning. Such biography,
too, is a mirror in which we see ourselves; and we see that we may trim
or adorn, or that the plain signs of our deficient health or ill-ruled
temper may set us to look for, and to use the means of improvement. But
such a mirror is as a water one; in which first you may see your face,
and which then becomes for you a bath to wash away the stains you see,
and to offer its pure, cool stream as a restorative and cosmetic for
your wrinkles and pallors. And what a pleasure there will be sometimes
as we peruse a biography, in finding another who is so like ourself
--saying the same things, feeling the same dreads, and shames, and
flutterings; hampered and harassed much as poor self is. Then, the
escapes of such a friend give us hope of deliverance for ourself; and
his better, or if not better, yet rewarded, patience, freshens our eye
and sinews, and puts a staff into our hand. And certain seals of
impossibility that we had put on this stone, and on that, beneath which
our hopes lay buried, are by this biography, as by a visiting angel,
effectually broken, and our hopes arise again.
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