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to gaze upon. Story saw that Greek Slave long before he took marble and chisel; but when the Idea possessed him It carved itself. A mental picture then; now it stands a marble dream, for the delight of man for ages.

Which is the real and which ideal Which is transitory and which is permanent Which is Truth and which illusion? Which is the thing, and which is the reflection Fire, flood, age, neglect, may destroy the picture and the statue, but the idea cannot be destroyed. The eternal thing is the Idea; the transitory is its reflection in the sense-material. That which eternally exists is the unseen and the permanent; is the Ideal, created by the Human Mind from Divine Ideas.

I wish you to memorize that most beautiful extract at beginning of this section from Lowell. It is scientific and better yet, it is Truth. And Oliver Wendell Holmes has something only a little less perfect which is also worth remembering:

Deal gently with us, ye who read!
Our largest hope is unfulfilled ---
The promise still outruns the deed ---
The tower but not the spire we build.
Our whitest pearls we 'never find;
Our ripest fruit we never reach;
The flowering moments of the mind
Drop half their petals in our speech.
These are my blossoms; if they wear
One streak of morn or evening's glow,
Accept them; but to me more fair,
The buds of song that never blow.

This is but repeating in Holmes' beautiful way, the adage, "Men preach better than they practice!" And this is the most important fact I have for you in this lesson in Concentration. No progress without this Idealism. No practice without preaching proceeds it.