The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 09, No. 53, March, 1862

Excerpt: ...Nonsense! replied Mr. Smith; why make a fuss about crossing a shallow stream like this? Why, the water is only four feet deep: that is nothing at all! Nothing to you, perhaps, was the response of Mr. Brown, but a serious matter for me. You observe, he went on, that water four feet deep is just six inches over my head. The river may be shallow to you, but it is deep to me. Mr. Smith, like many other individuals of great physical bulk and strength, had an intellect not much adapted for comprehending subtile and difficult thoughts. He took up the ground that things are what they are in themselves, and was incapable of grasping the idea that greatness and littleness, depth and shallowness, are relative things. An altercation ensued, which resulted in threats on the part of Smith that he would throw Brown into the river; and a coolness was occasioned between the friends which subsisted for several days. The acute mind of the reader of this page will perceive that Mr. Smith was in error; and that the principle asserted by Mr. Brown was a sound and true one. It is unquestionable that a thing which is little to one man may be great to another man. And it is just as really and certainly great in this latter case as anything ever can be. And yet, many people do a thing exactly analogous to what was done by Smith. They insist that the water which is shallow to them shall be held to be absolutely shallow; and that, if smaller men declare that it is deep to themselves, these smaller men shall be regarded as weak, fanciful, and mistaken. Many people, as they look back upon the sorrows of their own childhood, or as they look round upon the sorrows of existing childhood, think that these sorrows are or were very light and insignificant, and their causes very small. These people do this, because to them, as they are now, big people, (to use the expressive phrase of childhood, ) these sorrows would...