232 Clear Skies and Cloudy. 



change to sweetness the bitterness of its fruit, 

 or, on the other hand, embitter its sweetness. 

 The unassuming man of the backwoods, whom 

 we hold as ignorant, may not be able to separate 

 paste from diamonds, but both are sources of 

 genuine pleasure, and an arbiter, even if such a 

 character had or could have other than earthly 

 authority, would only take away the paste and 

 lessen by a large fraction the delight or satis- 

 faction in life of the so-called ignorant man. 



But why forever drawing the distinction be- 

 tween the ignorant and the learned, between 

 wisdom and foolishness, the true and the un- 

 true? Do not the mightiest in the world of 

 scholars hug delusions ? It is ever a matter of 

 almost all-wise but never quite so. We say of 

 many, "If" and nothing further is necessary. 

 If, then, greatness hugs delusion, why may not 

 littleness cling to the self-taught "ignoramus" of 

 the woods and fields ? The unlettered learned 

 has his place in the world ; the untutored aristo- 

 crat does not lack in wholesome dignity. Ig- 

 norance has proved the guide to truth too often 

 to be spurned as useless. I have met with many 

 unschooled men, talked with them, listened to 



